Why do you even bother with Christianity? You like the good bits \u2013 and good for you because there are some good things there. But by declaring yourself a Christian you get all the bad bits too. The misogyny, the bigotry \u2013 all the baggage Christian history carries with it. You sound like a humanist to me \u2013 so why add the supernatural trappings? What is it about Christianity that compels you? Inquiring minds want to know!<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nI expressed to the commenter on a couple of occasions my appreciation of the opportunity to discuss sanely and at length important matters that often lead directly to snarky comments and disdain. This conversation was far more fruitful than any I can recall having with anyone who significantly disagrees with me from the other end of the spectrum. And it provided me with a new opportunity to think carefully about why exactly I am a person of Christian faith and am not an atheist.<\/p>\n
Fortuitously, a noted thinker from more than four centuries years ago showed up on the syllabus in one of my courses recently; his thought provided me with new ideas about my own situation. Blaise Pascal was one of the great mathematicians of the Scientific Revolution who, on November 23, 1654, had a powerful encounter with something greater than himself that changed his life. Pascal\u2019s encounter has come to be known as his \u201cNight of Fire.\u201d He wrote a description of his experience down on a piece of parchment and sewed into his coat, where it was found after his death eight years later.<\/p>\n
Pascal became a committed apologist for the Christian faith; because he died at age 38, he never was able to finish his reflections on how he\u2014a person of remarkable intelligence\u2014wove his reason and his new-found faith together. His scattered writings were collected into a volume we know as the\u00a0Pens\u00e9es\u00a0<\/em>after his death.<\/p>\nPerhaps the best known sentence from the\u00a0Pens\u00e9es\u00a0<\/em>is Pascal\u2019s observation that \u201cthe heart has reasons that reason does not know\u201d (Le c\u0153ur a ses raisons que la raison ne conna\u00eet\u00a0pas<\/em>). Pascal expands on this on several occasions, writing for instance that<\/p>\nWe know the truth, not only through reason, but also through the heart. It is through the latter that we know first principles, and reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to challenge them. Reason must use this knowledge from the heart and instinct, and base all its arguments on it.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe persistent complaint of the atheist is that the person of faith bases her or his faith on principles or experiences for which they can provide no rational supporting evidence. The person of faith often responds defensively by trying to provide such supporting evidence, knowing all along that the atheist is right. The core of faith cannot be expressed, nor can it be supported, in an exclusively rational manner.<\/p>\n
Pascal\u2019s insight is that the problem here is not with the person of faith\u2019s irrationality. Rather, the problem is the atheist\u2019s refusal to accept that there are more kinds of evidence than rational and more sources of belief than reason. The source of the conviction of faith is what Pascal calls the heart, as legitimate a source of belief and evidence as are reason and logic. Pascal writes that<\/p>\n
Principles are felt, propositions are proved; all with certainty, though in different ways. And it is as useless and absurd for reason to demand from the heart proofs of its first principles before accepting them, as it would be for the heart to demand from reason an intuition of all demonstrated propositions before receiving them.<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is why I have often said that the best \u201cproof\u201d of faith is a changed life. Only the person who inhabits that life can tell the story of how she or he came to embrace as the centerpiece of their life principles that are felt rather than proved. The atheist owes such a person a hearing; this requires admitting, at least for the sake of argument that, as Hamlet tells Horatio, \u201cthere are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m quite sure that this will not satisfy my new atheist friend, who believes that he has heard all of this before. But he sounds not only like a smart guy, but a guy with a heart. For the time being, my best case for why I am a Christian is what I told him in response to his question about why I bother:<\/p>\n
\n- There are many reasons that I am a Christian, beginning with that it is my heritage, my tradition, and my home in the sense that I can inhabit it while also knowing that there are crazy people in the house as well, just as there are anywhere else. It provides the best cognitive framework for understanding myself and the world around me than I have ever encountered. I have never been able to escape the strong suspicion that maybe, just maybe, there is more going on than our limited capacities are able to directly engage with. Most importantly, the best evidence in support of faith (or whatever you choose to call it) is a changed life. That\u2019s my own story.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite my consistent self-description as a \u201cperson of faith,\u201d I have been accused occasionally over the years, usually by various Christian colleagues, of actually being an atheist. I do take atheism very seriously, and have often written about how this has helped me understand and express my faith more effectively and clearly. I have regularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2938,"featured_media":14478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,14,19,21,27,35,40,61,68,73,91,94,104],"tags":[130,149,169,201,221,242,383,434,463,501],"class_list":["post-14457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-belief","category-books","category-certainty","category-christianity","category-doubt","category-faith","category-god","category-literature","category-mystery","category-philosophy","category-stories","category-teaching","category-writing","tag-atheism","tag-blaise-pascal","tag-christianity","tag-doubt","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-philosophy","tag-shakespeare","tag-teaching","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n