Polemics

Is the Bible’s definition of faith opposed to logic and evidence?

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Probably the biggest misconception that I encounter when defending the faith is the mistaken notion of what faith is. Today we are going to get to the bottom of what the Bible says faith is, once and for all. This post will be useful to Christians and atheists, alike.

What is faith according to the Bible?

I am going to reference this article from apologist Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason in my explanation.

Koukl cites three Biblical examples to support the idea that faith is not blind leap-of-faith wishing, but is based on evidence.

  1. Moses went out into the wilderness and he had that first encounter with the burning bush, and God gave him the directive to go back to Egypt and let his people go. Moses said, Yeah, right. What’s going to happen when they say, why should we believe you, Moses? God said, See that staff? Throw it down. Moses threw it down and it turned into a serpent. God said, See that serpent? Pick it up. And he picked it up and it turned back into a staff. God said, Now you take that and do that before the Jewish people and you do that before Pharaoh. And you do this number with the hail, and the frogs, and turning the Nile River into blood. You put the sun out. You do a bunch of other tricks to get their attention. And then comes this phrase: “So that they might know that there is a God in Israel.”
  2. [I]n Mark 2 you see Jesus preaching in a house, and you know the story where they take the roof off and let the paralytic down through the roof. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” And people get bugged because how can anyone forgive sins but God alone? Jesus understood what they were thinking and He said this: What’s harder to say, your sins are forgiven, or to rise, take up your pallet and go home? Now, I’ll tell you what would be harder for me to say : Arise, take up your pallet and go home. I can walk into any Bible study and say your sins are forgiven and nobody is going to know if I know what I am talking about or not. But if I lay hands on somebody in a wheelchair and I say, Take up your wheelchair and go home, and they sit there, I look pretty dumb because everyone knows nothing happened. But Jesus adds this. He says, “In order that you may know that the Son of Man has the power and authority to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and he got out. Notice the phrase “In order that you may know”. Same message, right?
  3. Move over to the Book of Acts. First sermon after Pentecost. Peter was up in front of this massive crowd. He was talking about the resurrection to which he was an eyewitness. He talked about fulfilled prophecy. He talked about the miraculous tongues and the miraculous manifestation of being able to speak in a language you don’t know. Do you think this is physical evidence to those people? I think so. Pretty powerful. Peter tells them, These men are not drunk as it seems, but rather this is a fulfillment of prophecy. David spoke of this. Jesus got out of the grave, and we saw him, and we proclaim this to you. Do you know how he ends his sermon? It’s really great. Acts 2:36. I’ve been a Christian 20 years and I didn’t see this until about a year ago. This is for all of those who think that if you can know it for sure, you can’t exercise faith in it. Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” There it is again. “Know for certain.”

What is faith according to Bible-based theologians?

I am going to reference this article from theologian C. Michael Patton of Parchment and Pen in my explanation.

Patton explains that according to Reformation (conservative, Bible-based) theologians, faith has 3 parts:

  1. notitia – This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word content. Faith, according to the Reformers must have content. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave,” for example, is a necessary information base that Christians must have.
  2. assensus – This is the assent or confidence that we have that the notitia is correct… This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition… This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon critical thought… assensus… says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
  3. fiducia – This is the “resting” in the information based upon a conviction of its truthfulness. Fiducia is best expressed by the English word “trust.”… Fiducia is the personal subjective act of the will to take the final step. It is important to note that while fiducia goes beyond or transcends the intellect, it is built upon its foundation.

So, Biblical faith is really trust. Trust(3) can only occur after intellectual assent(2), based on evidence and thought. Intellectual assent(2) can only occur after the propositional information(1) is known.

The church today accepts 1 and 3, but denies 2. I call this “fideism” or “blind faith”. Ironically, activist atheists, (the New Atheists), also believe that faith is blind. The postmodern “emergent church” denies 1 and 2. A person could accept 1 and 2 but deny 3 by not re-prioritizing their life based on what they know to be true.

How do beliefs form, according to Christian philosophers?

I am going to reference a portion of chapter 3 of J.P. Moreland’s “Love Your God With All Your Mind” (i.e. – LYGWYM).

J.P. Moreland explains how beliefs form and how you can change them.

  1. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content… Nothing could be further from the truth… As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act.
  2. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain ,evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you… The more certain you are of a belief… the more you rely on it as a basis for action.

But the most important point of the article is that your beliefs are not under the control of your will.

…Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort.

For example, if someone offered you $10,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this… If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question.

…by choosing to undertake a course of study… I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in… my beliefs… And… my character and behavior… will be transformed by these belief changes.

I think definition of faith is important, because atheists seemed to want to substitute their own definition of faith as blind belief for this Biblical definition, but there is no evidence for their view that faith is belief without evidence. I think this might be another case of projection by atheists. Blind faith is how they arrive at their views, so they are trying to push it onto us. But the Bible is clearly opposed to it.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

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Trump ends taxpayer funding of far-left propagandists NPR and PBS

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Something very exciting happened last week, so I wanted to talk about it today instead of on the weekend. Trump signed an executive order to cut funding for National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, two far-left organizations. In this post, we’ll take a look at some reasons why NPR and PBS needed to be defunded. Are they really as far left as conservatives say?

First, let’s see a news article from Daily Signal:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday night axing taxpayer funding for “biased” news outlets NPR and PBS.

[…]Trump ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors and all executive departments and agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.

Brianna Lyman had a really good article at The Federalist with more reasons why NPR and PBS are just too far to the left to receive funding from taxpayers – especially since taxpayers just voted for Republicans in the 2024 elections.

Here is the full list:

  1. NPR Refused To Cover Hunter Biden’s Laptop
  2. 100% Of NPR’s ‘Editorial Positions’ Are Held By Registered Democrats
  3. NPR Spread Tear Gas Hoax
  4. NPR Editor Promoted Defense Of Looting
  5. NPR Pushed Skin Color Emoji Conundrums
  6. PBS Promoted Reparations
  7. PBS Claimed Trump Lied About America’s Greatness
  8. PBS Accused GOP Of Pushing ‘White Supremacy’
  9. PBS Ran Anti-Republican Hit Piece
  10. NPR Claimed No Evidence For Biden Family Corruption
  11. NPR Buried Biden’s Declining Mental Acuity
  12. NPR Accused GOP Of ‘Voter Suppression’ While Ignoring Democrat Schemes

Looking over that list, it just looks like NPR and PBS are propaganda outlets for the Democrat party. I don’t know what else to think about such obviously biased (and often flat-out false) news reporting.

Let’s look at a few. Here’s #1:

Perhaps the most egregious example of why NPR should be defunded — and should have been five years ago — is their refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the lead up to the 2020 election.

“We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” NPR Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel said in a statement back in October 2020. A newsletter published by NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride claimed “there are many, many red flags in that New York Post investigation.”

As we all know know, the laptop was genuine. Even left-wing sources agree. The FBI had laptop since December 2019. They confirmed its authenticity in November 2019 by matching its device number to Hunter Biden’s iCloud ID. The Justice Department, in 2024, used laptop data as “self-authenticating” evidence in court, dismissing manipulation claims.

But NPR didn’t think it was a true story. Or maybe they didn’t want their political allies – the Democrat party – to look bad, before an election.

But are they really just Democrat party operatives? Look at #2:

NPR editor Uri Berliner previously reported that voting records showed “87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans.”

NPR’s Katherine Maher admitted it was a “concern” during a March Congressional hearing that all 87 positions are held by registered Democrats.

The evidence shows a strong connection to the Democrat party, so why are they getting taxpayer money right after the majority of the country voted Republican?

When it comes to monitoring media bias, the best source is the Media Research Center. And #12 talks about them:

According to NewsBusters’ Clay Waters, “PBS treated the RNC to 72% negative and 28% positive commentary” while the “DNC received far friendlier reception: 12% negative, 88% positive.”

So, if you look at the evidence, there’s no reasons for taxpayer dollars to go to organizations that are clearly biased towards the Democrat party. Next, we should remove all grants for universities, which have similar numbers of Democrats. They can operate, but why do they need taxpayer funding? Let them sink or swim in the free market by pleasing customers, like the rest of us have to.

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Learn evidence for the beginning of the universe to show your work to atheists

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Atheists are committed to an eternally existing, static universe. They cannot accept that the natural, material universe has a supernatural, spiritual cause. So it’s very important for Christians to have a stack of evidence ready to show that the universe – matter, space, energy and time itself – all have a beginning. So in this post, we’ll review a list of a half-dozen evidence, and look at one in detail.

First, let’s review what atheists think about the universe.

Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.

So for today’s post, I’ll start with my fun conversation where I play a game with Grok, to see who has the best list of evidences for a beginning of the universe. Initially, Grok had a mix of assertions  and evidence, instead of all evidence. But I kept pushing for specific observable evidences. Finally, I shared a 6th evidence, and challenged Grok to get a 6th of its own, and it did! Let’s see what we each came up with.

Here were my six evidences:

  1. Redshift of distant galaxies: Shows expansion, implying a starting point.
  2. Cosmic microwave background radiation: Remnant of the early universe’s hot origin.
  3. Second law of thermodynamics: Increasing entropy requires a low-entropy beginning.
  4. Abundance of light elements: Hydrogen/helium ratios match early nucleosynthesis.
  5. Finite age of stars and galaxies: Stellar evolution points to a definite start.
  6. Half-lives of radioactive elements (from Robert Jastrow’s “God and the Astronomers”): Presence of uranium-238 etc. suggests a finite-age universe.

Here are Grok’s six – the first 5 from my list, and the 1 he came up with to try to tie my list:

  1. Redshift of distant galaxies: Observed expansion implies a singular start.
  2. Cosmic microwave background radiation: Remnant of the early universe.
  3. Second law of thermodynamics: Entropy indicates a low-entropy origin.
  4. Abundance of light elements: Matches early universe nucleosynthesis.
  5. Finite age of stars and galaxies: Stellar evolution shows a finite start.
  6. Cosmic homogeneity and isotropy: The universe’s large-scale uniformity suggests a single origin event.

And Grok had references for his 6th one, just like I did for my 6th one.

So, you should at least know the core 5 that we agree on. And these are normal and natural for Christians to talk about. I wish we learned about them in church, from the pulpit, when studying different accounts of Creation in the Bible. Why not? I’m so wild, that I also think that the church should be teaching embryology, natural marriage, and basic economics from the pulpit. Not politics, but evidence related to how we navigate the world.

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Anyway, here’s an article about one of the core 5 evidences from the J. Warner Wallace, writing at Cold Case Christianity.

He says:

In 1964, two American physicists and radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, made an important discovery. They were unable to eliminate the radio signal “noise” from their large antenna at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, regardless of where in the universe they tried to point their instrument. They consulted with colleagues to determine the cause of this noise. Another physicist suggested the noise might not be coming from the antenna at all. Instead they might be detecting the residual background radiation caused when the universe first came into being. Penzias and Wilson proved this to be correct, winning a Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1978.

Numerous additional experiments and observations have since established the existence of cosmic background radiation, including data from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launched in 1989, and the Planck space observatory launched in 2009. For many scientists, this discovery solidified their belief the universe had a beginning.

And of course, Wallace knows all the evidences, and he even has more.

When You’re Ahead, Get More Ahead

Here’s an illustration from his book “God’s Crime Scene”. Have you read it?

God's Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace
Illustration from God’s Crime Scene by J. Warner Wallace (used with his permission)

So, I hope this is helpful for all of you.

When you are talking to an atheist like a Bart Ehrman or a Bill Nye about evidence for a Creator and Designer, then it’s important that the score be 5-0. You need to win 5-0.

  • origin of the universe (list the 5 core evidences)
  • fine-tuning (list several examples from different areas)
  • habitability (list examples for sun, solar system, earth-moon)
  • fossil record (list some of the biological Big Bangs)
  • origin of life (explain the building block and information)
  • molecular machines (explain machines in the cell)

I guess that’s 6-0, but you get the idea. It needs to be a shut-out. Boys get along better after they have had a good fight, and you need to win that fight. You can be “gentle” and “reverent”, but you need to win that fight, so everyone understands what the truth is. Don’t make a big deal out of changing the person, just make sure that the scoreboard says what the scoreboard should say.