Belief and evidence

Do you need evidence or arguments for everything you believe? Is it possible to be rational and hold to a belief without some independent verification for that belief – even in principle? And what about belief in God and religious beliefs concerning Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? Are you irrational for holding to a belief in, for example, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior if you cannot produce a single shred of evidence for that belief? These questions have captivated the minds of theologians and philosophers for centuries. Much has been written, but not many are aware of the wealth of information available for those who seek more clarity on this topic. Philosophers from ancient times, through the Enlightenment, and down to the present day have thought and written comprehensively on how we know what we know – the great field of epistemology.

The role that evidence and arguments play varies in Christian apologetics, or the defense of the Christian faith. Christian believers and non-believers alike often assume that providing a rational defense of a Christian worldview means providing sound arguments and evidence for their beliefs. But does a rational faith in God rest upon arguments and evidence, or at least solely on them? The truth is the vast majority of people come to believe in God, or something like God, not through arguments and evidence, but in a much more basic way. This of course is not to say that evidence is not available – or that it cannot even be compelling – for our beliefs, only that evidence is not the primary means by which people are convinced or persuaded toward belief in God.

So how does one believe without evidence? What is this more basic way in which people come to believe? In his book Knowledge and Christian Belief, American Christian Philosopher Alvin Plantinga says, “Every train of arguments will have to start somewhere,” and these “ultimate premises” will be believed in a basic way, meaning not on the basis of other beliefs backed by evidence (p. 14). Basic beliefs can therefore be thought of as the very beliefs one starts with. Some examples here will help bring this to light. Consider the reality of the external world of objects around us. We believe objects in the world to be real such as trees, mountains, chairs, laptops, iPhones, and people, but yet there is no argument to showthat these are real. We trust our sense perception of sight that there is really grass outside, that we see our neighbors, and see our dog peeing in our house (again!), but yet at the very sense of our sight, our train of arguments must stop. Any way we try to show that the world is real presupposes the world is real. How about the reality of the past? We all think we have lived for so long and have had certain experiences, but it could logically be the case that we and the universe were all created 20 minutes ago with our memories (the full backstory) still intact. Consider the reliability of our cognitive faculties. We all trust that our sense perception, for example, is giving us reliable information about the world, but we cannot show this to be true, there is no evidence to support this. We cannot, as it were, show our cognitive faculties to be reliable without presuming this very thing.

I think you are starting to get the point, or I hope. Now belief in God, Plantinga says, is in the same situation as our beliefs of the reality of the external world, the reality of the past, and belief in other minds. He says a natural knowledge of God may be arrived at immediately through a properly functioning cognitive faculty, referred to what John Calvin called the sensus divinitatis, which means sense of the divine. It is not through inference this knowledge is obtained. These beliefs just come about, arising within us in an immediate way. Plantinga offers examples such as gazing up into the sky and forming the belief that God is Creator. Given all of this, here is the important point Plantinga makes. Given none of us are any less rational for holding to beliefs in the reality of the external world, our memories, and in the reliability of our cognitive faculties, in the absence of a defeater (something that would be override or undercut) for our beliefs in these things, we are perfectly rational for continuing to believe in God.