Do You Believe in Atheism? Why Unbelief Requires Faith
The following article is written by Max Jeganathan, author and speaker at OCCA, The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.
Do you have enough faith to be an atheist?
You’d be forgiven for finding the question a little confusing. It is commonly assumed that belief in God requires faith, but believing that God does not exist – atheism – is merely the absence of faith. Perhaps surprisingly, there is much more to the story.
In a recent appearance on Steven Bartlett’s globally renowned podcast, Diary of a CEO, Christian Apologist Professor John Lennox (President of OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics) recounted a debate with atheist Peter Singer on the existence of God. During that debate, Lennox remarked that Singer’s atheism was the ‘faith’ that he grew up with. The exchange continued:
“Oh, I said, then you remained in the faith in which you were brought up? Oh, but he said, it isn’t a faith. And I said, Peter, I was convinced that you believed it, and…Of course cyberspace went mad, and the point was made repeatedly all over the internet. Here’s one of the world’s top philosophers. He doesn’t understand that his atheism is a belief system.”[1]
Professor Lennox’s point is a powerful and important one. When it comes to God’s existence, our beliefs – even the belief that God does not exist – requires faith.
Does every belief require faith?
Unpacking this truth warrants a closer look at the concept of faith itself. More than we often realise, we are engaging in, as the logicians put it, making ‘inferences to the best explanation.’ That is, we are choosing to believe something without complete deductive and incontrovertible evidence for it.
Whether our loved ones continue to love us. Whether our car will start when we turn the key. Whether vegetables are good for us. Whether brushing our teeth is the right thing to do. As trivial as some of these may sound, we believe them reasonably because of evidence, yet still in faith, either because of proven experience or because trustworthy people have told us so. I don’t know deductively whether a chair will hold my weight before we sit on it, but I may infer that it will because that very same chair held my weight yesterday. There are no visible structural defects that have come upon it since, and I haven’t put on weight in the past twenty-four hours. We have faith in most of the things we believe.
How do we approach life’s big questions?
When we come to the bigger questions of life – such as the God’s existence – the stakes are higher, but the same logical principles apply. The Christian message makes propositional claims – for example, that Jesus Christ is God incarnate and stepped into human history as a person. These claims are supported by various strands of evidence – historical, textual, archeological etc. However, believing them requires a step of faith. Similarly, to consider all of the evidence pointing to the truth of the Christian message and to disbelieve – that requires a step of faith too.
Either way, we must make an inference – a step of faith – based on the evidence and what we think of it. The question for all of us is this: Based on the available evidence that speaks to the claims of the Christian message – archeological, cosmological, biological, psychological, anecdotal, experiential, historical (and the list goes on…), what is the most reasonable explanation?
Can your faith handle questions?
However, thankfully there is more to the Christian message than evidence that supports its truth-claims, and that is because Christianity is not only a set of beliefs that claim to be true. It is also an invitation into relationship with someone – God Himself, through Jesus Christ. This adds a layer of relational evidence to the various other categories of evidence on offer. Some people find Jesus by examining the evidence. Others step right into a relationship with Jesus and that living relationship forms part of their evidence base as they explore further and ask questions.
Either way, The Bible welcomes and encourages questioning. In fact, it calls all followers of Jesus to always be ready to give a reason, and answer, for the hope that they have in Jesus (1 Peter 3:15). This implies that faith in Jesus is entirely reasonable. There is both propositional and relational evidence for it. And that’s exactly why OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics exists, to come alongside people and offer meaningful answers to their questions.
Where does the evidence lead you?
In his interview with Steven Bartlett, Professor Lennox identifies the decline of New Atheism as a belief system, and contrasts it with the evidence-base for Christianity:
“So I say, you’ve got a problem, haven’t you? Your atheism goes too far. It undermines the very rationality we need to do science, let alone to believe in atheism. And that’s my main beef with people like Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists. But I see they’re fading. They’re fading. So here’s the irony. Atheism claiming rationality, destroys it. Whereas I believe the Christian faith also claims rationality… We shout about that a lot in science and medicine, and rightly so. What we trust in ought to be evidence based. I claim exactly the same thing for Christianity, and that’s why I’m a Christian, because I believe the evidence supports it, otherwise I wouldn’t.”[2]
Like Professor Lennox, when I explored the evidence for Christianity alongside the evidence for atheism, the answer was clear. I simply did not have enough faith to be an atheist. What about you?
References and Resources
- Full Diary of a CEO John Lennox Podcast Episode
- The Best of John Lennox Series
- Peter Singer vs. John Lennox: Is There a God? Debate
Max Jeganathan