Are Christians Justified in Claiming to Know that Christianity is True?

I've been too busy to blog lately, so with apologies I'm taking the lazy way out and posting something I wrote during my first semester here at seminary. I paid enough for this experience...might as well try and share some of it with anyone who'll take the time to read!

(written for Jerry Walls' Philosophy of Christian Religion class, Fall 2005)

Modernity would claim that in order for someone to say that he “knows” something he must be able to prove it. Theists cannot, in my opinion, offer empirical proof that God exists, but this limitation does not defeat their contentions. The very claim of the evidentialist that “to know something is to be able to prove it” is self-referentially incoherent. This statement cannot be proven to be true and thus, by its own standards, cannot be “known.” Beyond this difficulty, however, is the absurdity of human attempts to weigh, test, and judge God as if He were the object of a science experiment. If God does exist, is it not brazen of the created to set up their own terms for accepting the Creator?! Anyone who attempts to measure God by human, scientific methods will complain that He is not verifiable in the way other objects are. This is only to be expected (Peterson et al., Reason & Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 3rd ed., 119). We should not be surprised when we sense and experience God in different ways than we sense other objects. A purely spiritual subject does not submit to physical measures.

While we cannot offer empirical proof for God’s existence, by no means should this suggest a dearth of evidence. There is ample evidence for God’s existence: the ontological, teleological, moral, cosmological, kalam and other arguments, religious experience, God’s past and present self-revelation, and more. All of these combine to form a powerful cumulative case for God. The question, however, is whether such evidence is even necessary for faith. If God exists, the fact that we believe in Him may simply be appropriate and natural. If He created us for relationship with Him, as Christianity claims, the fact that we have a sense of the divine is perfectly understandable. This “sensus divinatus” is to be expected, according to Alvin Plantinga, and our belief in God may be seen as properly “basic” as it is the rightly functioning awareness of God (Peterson et al. 122). That many do not experience such an awareness of God points to the improper conditions (motives, attitude, setting, providence of God) that accompany one’s orientation toward God. Regardless of whether a belief in God is basic (and needs no supporting facts) or is built upon accumulated evidences, faith can be seen as reasonable.

While faith in God can be shown to be entirely reasonable, one who relies on reason and proof alone to lead him to God may never get there. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli recount Justin Martyr’s process of discovering God in the second century. First he “seeks the truth by the unaided effort of reason, and is disappointed.” Next, “it is offered to him by faith and he accepts. And, having accepted, he finds that it satisfies his reason” (Handbook of Christian Apologetics 40). A later saint, Anselm of Canterbury, said something similar in his work “Proslogion: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.” He stated, “I am not trying, O Lord, to penetrate thy loftiness, for I cannot begin to match my understanding with it, but I desire in some measure to understand thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand” (Hugh Kerr, ed. Readings in Christian Thought 83). Rational inquiry helps us better understand what we believe by faith.

Now that the reasonable step of faith has been taken, the question becomes “Is my faith rational?” The belief in God based on available evidence is every bit as rational as the atheist’s refusal to believe. After pondering the supports for faith, Ravi Zacharias states incredulously, “ In short, both David Hume’s own test and Bertrand Russell’s plea for evidence force one to wonder who has to have more faith. Is it the Christian who uses his mind to trust in God, or is it the one who, without any attempt to explain how his mind came to be, nevertheless uses that mind to demand a sign and disbelieves in God?” (Jesus Among Other Gods 65-66) God confirms the step of faith through experience. Through various means of grace, He reveals Himself in a more personal way. These experiences (whether they be a sense of communion with Christ, of the living Word, of the Holy Spirit’s power, or of the conviction, love or forgiveness of the Father) supply a certainty to one’s faith. Knowledge becomes more than factual certainty but relational reality. We know God intimately rather than merely knowing about God. Kreeft and Tacelli (elaborating on Aquinas’ thoughts) put it thus: “It is not our faith but its object, God, that justifies our certainty” (38).

At this point, many will say, “But what about the experiential claims of other religions? Your appeal to knowing God can be made by many other groups that claim to know Him exclusively.” The single greatest piece of evidence in the Christian’s arsenal is the person of Jesus Christ Himself. His life is without parallel. The claims He made, His teachings, His prophecies, His fulfillment of prophecy, the miracles He performed, His sinless life, His love and authority, the lives that were transformed after encountering Him, the Resurrection, His appearances to many over a forty day period, the witness and martyrdom of the apostles, the spread of the early Church in the face of persecution—these all provide powerful testimony to the truth of Christianity. Just as Christianity has to answer the challenges of other religions, so they have to answer the challenges of Christianity.

Christianity is rooted in history. It explains the nature of God, the meaning of existence, and the future of human destiny in very satisfying ways. Christians revel in God’s love and mercy and rejoice in the doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection. We have an incredible hope. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5, NIV).

Even if one refuses to accept Christianity due to a perceived lack of evidence, the question of faith presents a “genuine option” in which belief is justified (Peterson et al. Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings 2nd ed. 86). William James asserts that if a decision is forced, living and momentous it constitutes a “genuine option.” The conclusion one comes to about who Jesus is constitutes such a decision. In the end, it comes down to a choice. Will one make the effort to investigate the claims of Christianity or will he prefer to conveniently disbelieve? If he will trust in the Light, he will find that Christianity is reasonable, rational, experiential, historical, transformational, basic (sensus divinatus), spiritual, fulfilling, communal…in a word—true. While it cannot be proven in the modern sense, too much is at stake to leave it untried. Pascal’s Wager does not make a case for Christianity as much as it points out what is at stake. If eternity is on the line, no one can afford to ignore the claims of Christ.

In summary, I believe a Christian is justified in saying that he knows Christianity to be true. In sensing the reality of God, he is led to faith. His faith is fostered and supported by the cumulative case for Christianity. Personal experience and knowledge of the Trinitarian God confirms his decision to trust God. He continues to use reason to understand his faith and engage disbelievers. The Christian worldview makes sense of the world, even with all of its problems and shortcomings. A Christian is transformed as he lives in communion with God’s Spirit and God’s people. He is renewed and forgiven. His faith, hope and love grow. He is not lost in dead-end wishful thinking. “No, the Christian’s faith is not a leap into the dark; it is a well-placed trust in the light—the Light of the World, who is Jesus” (Zacharias 63-64).

Works Cited
Anselm. “Proslogion: Fides Quaerens Intellectum.” Readings in Christian Thought. 2nd ed. Ed. Hugh T. Kerr. Nashville: Abingdon, 1990.
Kreeft, Peter and Ronald K. Tacelli. Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions. Downers Grove. InterVarsity, 1994.
Peterson, Michael, et al. Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.
Peterson, Michael, et al. Reason & Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.
Zacharias, Ravi. Jesus Among Other Gods. W. Publishing: Nashville, 2000.