Faith… What’s the Point?
September 22nd, 2009 | 
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Does faith actually give us information that we cannot get with our senses? Can we gain knowledge by faith? Or is it an assumption that we make about what someone told us that God has said? Or is it something that we throw up like a white flag of surrender when we realize that we don’t have enough information but we still feel like we have to defend our belief?
In the Bible we are told:
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
How exactly are we supposed to be SURE about what we hope for and what we cannot see? If we can’t see something or we cannot find clear evidence for it, what is the point in pretending that we are sure about it? And if the evidence is clear and leads any logical person to believe it, then it seems like there is no need for faith since you can then “see”. So faith is only used when we are dealing with things that we do not know and apparently cannot know, but we which we WANT to know.
Faith is not a way to gain knowledge, it is used in place of knowledge. Faith is necessary where there is no knowledge or not enough knowledge. But in the Bible, faith is said to be a way of actually knowing something. In the same chapter in the Bible, it talks about people knowing things by faith. We are told
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3
I gather that the way that we KNOW that God created the universe is because we are told that he did in Genesis. But this is not God speaking directly to us so that we can take his word for it. We have to take many many other people’s word for it first, that this was indeed God speaking in the first place. We unfortunately do not have the luxury of God speaking directly to each of us to tell us these things (or at least I don’t). And what makes matters worse, we have many different people who tell us about what “God” has said and done supposedly and we have learned that we cannot just take someone’s word for it (i.e. take them on faith). We have to test and examine their claims and we can only accept their claims if there is good evidence to suggest that what they are saying is true. But again, if there is good evidence to suggest that what someone tells us is true, then what need is their for faith? The faith that we have does not itself tell us anything. The evidence and testing is what tells us things and gives us knowledge that corresponds to reality. Faith, it seems, has very little point.
Faith would better be described as an assumption that is not based on clear evidence. As the bible verse says, faith is used when we do not see and when we do not have evidence that can speak for itself. There may be times when we have to assume things because we either do not have evidence or we do not have the ability to evaluate the evidence, but we should call it what it is, an assumption. And an unsubstantiated assumption at that.
It would seem to be wise to limit the amount of things that we are forced to assume are true which are not based on clear evidence. If we do not know whether there is a God or not or whether there is life after death, what is the point of assuming that there is and saying that we have faith? Where does assuming get us? Why not just say,
There MAY be a god who created the universe and there MAY be life after death, but until there is clear evidence for any of these things, I am just not sure and do not see a point in assuming.
The 11th chapter of Hebrews is called the hall of faith. Based on how people live out their faith we might re-write the chapter like this:
Faith is being SURE of what a primitive, uneducated group of largely anonymous ancient writings tell us, which very often contradict known history and science and which even contradict themselves on major points. Faith is being CERTAIN about these teachings and histories which are written at best decades and at worst centuries after the events themselves happened by people who appear to not be eye witnesses and who do not appear to have critically examined the supposed witnesses of the said events. Faith is about staking your whole entire life and beliefs on these vague assumptions and trying to convince as many other people to do so as well.
By faith we prohibit two loving and monogamous people from getting married who are of the same sex. By faith we prohibit the giving out of condoms in an aids ravaged Africa which we know for a fact would save potentially millions of lives. By faith, we suppress scientific teachings about the evolutionary history of life on our planet because it seems to contradict the beliefs of our ancient patriarchs. By faith we prohibit women from teaching and exercising authority over men. By faith, we prohibit the use of embryonic stem cell research which could help create cures for many known diseases. By faith we fly airplanes into buildings, shoot abortion doctors, engage in global conflicts and let children die of treatable diseases while we pray and wait for God to heal.
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about the burning of witches, the burning of books, the stoning of women and children, of belief in talking donkeys and snakes, of the slaughter of the Canaanites, the drowning of phaoroh’s army, the slaughter of the first born son of every family in Egypt. These were all done in faith, on the unproven assumption that God has spoken.
While I certainly believe that it is everyone’s right to believe what they want to believe, it seems that we should take a step back to consider the things that we believe by faith and to examine exactly how much warrant we have for those beliefs. We need to examine the many assumptions that we are making in order to keep our faith going strong and ask ourselves, “whats the point?”.
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