Faith and Science, Sight and Reason

There is a verse in the Bible that has often brought a deeper faith to many people but has led to widespread scrutinization to followers of Christianity as well: “For we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7, NIV). While this verse brings a more thorough understanding of our faith to those of us who trust in Jesus, it has been a point of incomprehension, delving even into insult and mockery at times, from the voice of some atheists. “See, religion is not based on science and facts, but on BLIND FAITH!” they say. In fact, I believed exactly this point for the first 30-plus years of my life. However, I now am a Christian. I believe in God and His Son, Jesus the Christ, and the gift of eternal life. What changed? Scientific facts and information? Eyesight to physically see God and Jesus? Logic and Reasoning? Let’s explore these questions for a few moments.

Has the scientific information and facts changed for me? I just finished reading a book, “There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind”, where the author, philosopher Anthony Flew, discusses his conversion from atheism to believing in God. In the book, he states “My departure from atheism was not by any new phenomenon or argument…this was a consequence of my continuing assessment of the evidence of nature.” This statement struck me, for I realized during my years as a nonbeliever I had failed, as he remarks, to continue to assess the evidence. For me, the superficial answers to the Universe and Life was as simple as The Big Bang and the “simple” cell. But as Immanuel Kant said during his lifetime of scholarship, my studies “awakened me from my dogmatic slumbers.” The Big Bang seemed scientifically sound, but left a bigger question, how did The Big Bang happen? The living cell seemed simple until the electronic microscope was invented around 1940, which then left a bigger gap in the question and answer to just how Life formed from inorganic particles. The more I read and studied, the more I realized the only conclusion the natural sciences could impart regarding these bigger questions of How the Universe and Life began was none. In fact, the answers to these questions from atheist scientists and philosophers are so shallow that they invented a hypothesis known as the Multiverse. Guess how much evidence there is of such a possibility. Zero. Have we seen anything to suggest a Multiverse? No. Zero empirical evidence and yet many atheist scientists would say they believe in it. That sure sounds like faith, and more so, blind faith at that. So to answer my question, Has the scientific information and facts changed for me, the answer is No. I just had to look a bit deeper and think more for myself rather than rely on the superficial answers I had been given in my youth.

Has my eyesight changed and allocated me the ability to physically see God and Jesus? The answer here is, of course, No. I have not seen with my own two eyes the Creator God of the Universe or His Son, Jesus the Christ. So is my faith in God and Jesus blind, as the verse in 2 Corinthians seems to suggest? An interesting point regarding this verse was made by pastor and scholar Timothy Keller. He made the keen observation that the verse says “not by sight” but it does not state “not by reason.” When Saint Paul was inspired to write these words of Scripture, I believe he was completely in tune to the fact that no one will be able to see and empirically prove the final answer to whether God does or does not exist. Empiricists deny God because they cannot physically see Him, but in doing so their answers often deny the logic they claim to represent and desire. Moreover, just as we cannot physically see God or Jesus, we also cannot see many things sciences have demonstrated to be real through logic and reason, including atoms and quantum particles, infrared and UV light, dark matter/energy, and many others. Is there a proven empirical reason to deny the possibility of a metaphysical or supernatural aspect to our Universe that is invisible to us? Again, the answer is No. When we look and cannot empirically see the evidence, whether it is an atom or our consciousness, then we must use logic and reason to find the answers.

J. Warner Wallace, another atheist converted to belief in God and Jesus, states there are 3 reason people claim why they deny faith in God: intellectual, emotional, and volitional; however, he believes (from his experience) most people will claim its intellectual while truthfully, it’s usually an emotional or volitional reason. Blaise Pascal seemed to agree with this when he famously said “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof, but on the basis of what they find attractive.” My testimony lines up well with their thoughts. Does yours? The reason I have written this has nothing to do with me announcing my faith but has everything to do with hoping, if you question or struggle with faith, that you will seek logical understanding. Many atheists claim Christians just fill unanswered questions with the “God of the Gaps”, and I would agree that sometimes this seems to be the case. However, just like when atheists stated there was no evidence to support that the Universe ever had a beginning (they claimed it was itself an infinite, eternal state) and that God was not needed to create it at all, scientific evidence came along to fully support the Universe in fact had a beginning. Science can provide some answers but has no comprehensive understanding beyond that. In Genesis, it simply states “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Is this merely blind faith, or is it reasonable based on knowledge? There are logical and reasonable explanations to faith in God and in His Son Jesus, and I hope you come to find Him in your search for answers.

“The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deut 29:29, CSB).

“For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known” (1 Cor 13:12, HCSB).