Everyone Lives by Faith

"I guess I just don't get the whole 'belief' thing," my father-in-law said as we drove to the brewery. We had been discussing the legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriage, the new pope, and the question of suffering (not all at once, thankfully). Before I could respond thoughtfully, I realized that we had missed our turn. Yet another philosophical conversation cut short by alcohol.

On the one hand, he had a point. If you don't believe something, you probably find it difficult to understand why others do. But at the same time, he actually committed a logical fallacy (which is understandable when you are slightly lost and very hungry).

Secularists like to claim that they live by reason alone. There is one problem with such an approach to life: it is logically impossible.

In 1931, as the field of mathematics was undergoing a crisis of confidence, Kurt Godel published his Incompleteness Theorem. Widely regarded as the most important contribution to fundamental logic since Aristotle, Godel's theorem proved what mathematicians and philosophers had begun to secretly fear: you can't build any system of thought by logic alone. Specifically, he demonstrated that within any set of statements or claims, it is impossible to prove them all logically from each other - you have to start by assuming (believing) some things to be true, and only then can you use logic to prove anything else. In rigorous and irrefutable logic, he proved that man cannot live by logic alone.

Logic is, of course, only one type of reasoning. But Godel's conclusions are just as dire for reason in general. Reason can get you from point A to point B, maybe even all the way to point Z - but how do you get to point A?

The fact is, we all live by faith - in someone or something. You can't function in daily life without some level of trust. You can't have any meaningful thoughts about anything without first taking at least a few things on faith.

Secularists and atheists in fact have some very strong beliefs, which they often do not appreciate being questioned. Just look at what happened to Mark Regnerus when he published strong evidence that children raised by same-sex couples suffer negative outcomes in multiple areas (as compared to their peers). Try asking an honest critical question about Darwinism and watch a formerly objective scientist get emotional. Consider how resistant physicists were to the Big Bang Theory, with its implication of a universe created by someone outside of space and time, until the evidence was finally overwhelming. Read the vehement statements of atheist "evangelists" such as Richard Dawkins, and ask yourself if they are speaking from cool reason or the raw emotion of someone whose cherished beliefs are threatened. The same people who boast of their self-sufficiency apart from the "crutch of religion" also place an extraordinary level of faith in human political leaders (or aliens from outer space, in the case of Carl Sagan).

We all believe things we can't prove. But we can test any system to belief in two ways. We can check it for logical consistency, searching for clear contradictions and incoherence. And we can ask whether it concurs with those few things we can clearly observe about the world around us.

The belief that the natural world was governed by a rational but contingent order, grounded in the Christian faith, gave rise to science. As a precocious young scientist, Hugh Ross was astonished to discover that Genesis 1 correctly ordered all of the key events in the history of the Earth, leading him to place his faith in Jesus and ultimately obtaining a doctorate in astrophysics. Francis Collins placed his belief in Jesus while earning his second doctorate and ultimately came to regard DNA as "the language of God," which caused angry atheists such as Sam Harris (to whom the natural world is simply a "mystery") to question his appointment as head of the National Institutes of Health. From the fine-tuning of an extraordinary number of fundamental constants and physical attributes of the universe, to the intricately interlocking design of biochemical pathways and complex physiological control loops, the world we study is astonishingly consistent with the Biblical description of the creator.

Similarly, many thinkers have marveled at how only the gospel of Jesus holds in tension both the innate dignity of human beings and their actual depravity. We are "glorious ruins," in the words of John Calvin: made in the image of God, yet often behaving like monsters. No one was more compassionate to "the least of these" or merciful to sinners than Jesus - yet the nicest thing he said about human nature (that parents like to give nice things to their kids) was preceded by the qualifier, "though you are evil." Only the Bible describes a perfect and good initial creation, with human beings endowed with nobility and freedom, followed by a chosen descent into self-destruction. Only Christianity gives a basis for the nobility of every human being without flinching from the reality of human nature.

I believe what I believe because it corresponds best to what we can observe about the natural world, human nature, and the stubborn idea that there are such things as objective right and wrong. And I believe what I believe because of the overwhelming historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus - evidence which is not so much disputed, as avoided.

One might argue that the resurrection contradicts what we know, because people don't rise from the dead. But the Christian claim is only that one person rose from the dead at one time. (Yes, the Bible records the raising of a few individuals, but these other events are not essential to our faith). The resurrection of Jesus was a singularity in history - just like the Big Bang, the origin of life, the appearance of human beings, and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

Everyone chooses to believe in something, even the most ardent skeptic or vociferous atheist. Everyone lives by faith, even the most committed rationalist. Our entire lives are grounded on assumptions. Any good engineer knows that you can't proceed without assumptions - but there is a world of difference between good ones and poor ones.

My fundamental assumptions are internally coherent, externally consistent, and grounded in public history. But as Godel proved, you can start with any assumptions you wish. Just don't be surprised if you wake up one day to find yourself trying to prove that 1+1=5.

You are reading this for a reason

"You know, I don't get the whole 'belief' thing, but you've got to think that things like that happen for a reason. Maybe you can't really understand until later, looking back, but there's gotta be a reason for something like that. I don't know..."

It was late in the evening, the day after Christmas, and my agnostic father-in-law and I were discussing - over eggnog and rum - the extraordinary circumstances surrounding my son's adoption. I was careful not to use the word "miracle" in the first announcement I sent out. But in our Christmas letter, I resorted to the hyperbolic term "miraculous" to describe the totally unexpected and wonderful turn of events.

"I would describe it more accurately as providence. It wasn't literally a miracle, at least I don't think so, " I said. I stood up and felt the effect of the rum more strongly, telling me it was time to shut my mouth for both drink and talk, and soon my wife and mother-in-law returned from a long hard day of thrift-store shopping on Long Island. The rum soon wore off, but his comments stuck in my mind.

You cannot say that God doesn't exist, or exists but remains utterly uninvolved, and simultaneously claim that anything happens for a "reason" - i.e. a purpose. Everything has a cause, but that is not the same as a purpose. Only the actions of persons - God, human beings, and to some degree higher animals - have purpose.

Reason, also, is a personal characteristic. Inanimate objects are never reasonable or unreasonable, they simply are. If we say that a product is ridiculous or nonsensical, we are actually making a judgment about the designers of that product. If we say a law is irrational or unjust, we are in fact making a statement about the actions of those who wrote and implemented it.

To claim that something happened for a reason, is to claim that a person allowed it, enabled it, or brought it about - in order to achieve a particular end. It is almost always implied that the particular end is good (hence the encouragement to found in such a claim). And normally, we're not talking about a human being, or else we would say that, "So-and-So did this because..." In claiming a reason - i.e. a purpose - behind anything, we are in fact acknowledging God's involvement in our world. Only a good, personal, all-powerful God orchestrates events to bring about an intended and beneficial conclusion.

Which brings me to the title of this post. You are reading this, primarily, because I (a human person) wrote it, and because you (another human person) chose to read it. I wrote it because it has been on my mind for several days, and because I enjoy writing. You, dear reader, are probably reading this because you are very bored (although other motivations could be imagined). But what if - and it's a big IF - there is some grander design behind this intersection of reading and writing? Just Who would be responsible for that?

The Real Conspiracy

Recently a close friend, whom I greatly admire, told me that he had a hard time believing that the World Trade Center towers fell as a result of the planes that were crashed into them. Usually, I don't take comments like that seriously; they tend to come from people who are slightly unhinged and to be followed by incredibly bizarre explanations, such as when a Kuwaiti told me "the Jews" were behind it all. (The Lady, who is half-Jewish, was surprised to learn of her role in the September 11th attacks.) But this friend is level-headed, intelligent, studying for the ministry, and solidly patriotic (as evidenced by 8 1/2 years enlisted in the Air Force, and now a commission as a Second Lieutenant).

His own qualifications don't cause me to believe that theory for a second, and I would challenge anyone to find a structural engineer who actually believes the towers fell for some other reason. But it does go to show we all can be drawn to any explanation which posits that something bigger is going on.

These days, there are conspiracy theories for everything: the JFK assassination, September 11th, the Iraq War, aliens, the economic crisis, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, health care, immigration, AIDS, gun control, the Roman Catholic Church, and Christianity as a whole. A 1997 movie even capitalized on the trend. Virtually none of them have been proven, all are perpetuated with the scantest of evidence and most far-fetched of reasoning, and many have in fact been disproven. But they persist. As soon as one is debunked, another pops up in its place.

Maintaining a genuine conspiracy is incredibly difficult. Charles Colson, infamous for his role and Watergate and now famous as the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, often recounts the pitiful attempt to hold together the Nixon White House in the face of increasing probes into wrongdoing. Only a few of the most powerful men in the United States of America were involved, and the worst punishment they expected to face was disgrace, or possibly a light prison sentence; Colson's 1-year sentence came as a surprise. They held their conspiracy together for all of... 2 weeks. That's how long it took before one of them defected.

The probability that a secret will be leaked increases exponentially with the number of people who know. All it takes is slight pressure, or a slight mistake, for someone to slip up. For instance, if 50 people know a secret, and each has only a 1 in 1000 chance of spilling the beans in a certain time period, then the probability of the secret getting out is:

1- (1-0.001)^50 = 5%

Not bad, although still risky. But what if the heat is on, ever so slightly, and now the probability of someone breaking is even 1 in 100?

1- (1-0.01)^50 = 39%

Or what if 100 people know?

 1- (1-0.01)^100 = 63%

The odds are looking poor. But this analysis fails to take into account the fact that the first one to talk will probably have a better chance of saving his or her skin.

The idea that our lumbering and often-inept American federal government could manage to maintain a vast conspiracy is simply laughable. The idea that a massive corporation, employing tens of thousands of people and interacting with the public continually, could be secretly running the world is equally farcical.

What makes us so susceptible to conspiracy theories? Why do we want to believe that there is some secret cabal controlling everything, some sinister individual pulling the strings? In science, theories that poorly explain things or lack confirmation are usually thrown out. Why do these theories persist, when time and again things can be better explained by the ordinary temptations of greed, power, sex, or just plain incompetence?

In the Modern Era, we would like to believe that science has exorcised all of the demons from our world. There is a perfectly rational explanation for everything. Human beings do things, even bad things, for simple and comprehensible motives... and that's it. The world works according to certain laws. And beyond that, there is nothing but personal subjective opinion. There is no grand story, no big picture. The world simply is what it is, and anything we can't explain will be explained soon enough by physics or evolution. (This is, by the way, the worldview of The Economist).

But these explanations, now matter how well they work on the immediate level, are strangely unsatisfying. The pieces are all there, but somehow they don't add up. And the theories ultimately lead to dead ends.

Deep down, we know that there is something else at work. We don't just "want to believe," we actually sense that there is something truly nefarious behind it all, working the invisible strings for malevolent ends. We have lost the capability to describe who or what this is. So we turn to conspiracy theories - or we settle for our modern explanations.

C.S. Lewis once remarked that a man who will not believe in God will believe in anything. We are born with an innate drive to worship, and something will ultimately be on the altar of our heart.

The corollary to this, is that whoever does not believe in The Devil, will believe in conspiracy theories. A recent poll shows that only 68% of Americans believe in a personal devil, and in my experience far fewer actually take that Being seriously. But having rejected as old-fashioned nonsense the real Conspirator, the true Enemy - with all his accomplices - we chase one human conspiracy after another for the slightest of reasons. We know there is something bigger - and far more evil - behind all that we see, but we are suppressing this knowledge.

Instead of concocting our own silly theories, we ought to take Jesus at his word: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18). Yes, there is a Devil, Satan, the Enemy, or whoever you wish to call him. There is a personal being behind it all, seeking to destroy us, to pervert all that is good, and to hijack all of Creation. And although his notoriety may at times compel fear, he has discovered that in most societies, anonymity is far more effective. As the thief "Verbal" Kint says in The Usual Suspects, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist." The Biblical explanation is in fact the best fit with reality, the best explanation for the world in which we live, and the most useful knowledge for living a truly meaningful life.

But if you don't like that, there's always The X-Files.