Is a life in Christ real? Is what Christianity teaches true?
Ever since his resurrection, Christian apologists have used every bit of evidence and philosophical positioning to prove why we should believe in the reality of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior; however, the question of one’s belief remains a kind of Kierkegaardian crisis point where a decision must be made. Believing in Jesus Christ is a step into the supra-rational, which many people are hesitant to make despite a plethora of evidence to support their move.
In fact, to be a believing follower of Jesus is more than an intellectual assent. By its very nature it means to be someone who stands upon faith.
Trust and Belief
When it comes to believing the gospels, nothing beats a good understanding of what the Bible is and what it says, along with experiencing a supernatural event that supports one’s readings – something has been seen or touched. In such a case, one can testify as a personal witness to the incomprehensible spiritual reality of existence as presented in the biblical texts. But when Jesus told Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29), he wasn’t just talking to Thomas. He was speaking to every person who would come after. He seems to hint at the difficulty we might face to believe so we are blessed for our believing, and his statement is a reminder that faith doesn’t always come from what we can see or touch, but from trust in something greater.
In day-to-day life, we often place our trust in things we don’t fully understand. Imagine, for example, a Ms. Jones, who trusts that her hot water will be there for her morning shower; or a Mr. Smith, who believes his car will start at the end of his workday. When the hot water turns cold and the car breaks down, they don’t stop believing in those things altogether. They maintain a trust that these everyday conveniences can be fixed and continue working. The evidence—the history of these things working—still holds strong even if they don’t understand how the things work. They trust the data from their past experiences, even when something occasionally goes wrong.
But what about trust in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What can we rely on to believe in Jesus when we can’t see him face to face and the evidence of his time on earth, approaching 2,000 years old, appears to us as a distant legend or myth? Is it still rational to believe the gospels, or is Christian faith always a blind, perhaps even unreasonable, leap into an unknown land?
The Role of Evidence in Faith
When the apostles preached about Jesus, they were working with what we might call “hard evidence.” People had seen Jesus, heard him speak, witnessed his miracles or heard about them firsthand. In a sense, it was like presenting facts that were still fresh. But even then, many people didn’t believe.
As time passed, thinkers like Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), a Christian philosopher, struggled with faith. Even though the son of a Christian mother, he couldn’t fully accept the Christian faith until he had his own personal, almost supernatural experience. It was only then that he could no longer ignore the evidence in front of him and took that final step into believing.
So is this kind of experience like Augustine’s necessary for everyone?
Augustine would say, no. He believed that we could reason our way into faith, even if the evidence wasn’t all clear-cut. Yet, he also knew that reason alone couldn’t carry us all the way. At some point, we have to make a decision of trust—the “leap of faith.”
Reason and Faith: Two Approaches
In the Middle Ages, Christian thinkers explored different ways to blend reason and faith. Anselm (1033 – 1109), for instance, believed that faith came first, and reason followed. He famously said, “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but rather believe in order to understand.” For him, reason was a tool to deepen his faith, not to prove it.
On the other hand, Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) took a slightly different approach. He believed that reason could help prove certain truths about God. Yet, although Aquinas felt philosophy and science could support faith, he knew they could never replace it. Faith was still necessary for the full picture of salvation.
The challenge with either approach is that faith, or trust, remains deeply personal. Faith, by nature, is subjective. What convinces one person may not convince another.
The Limits of Reason and Science
The sciences have helped us make incredible advancements in understanding the workings of life and the world around us on a material level. Yet, science itself cannot answer all our deepest questions—especially our metaphysical ones. Physics, for example, tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it doesn’t tell us how that energy came into existence in the first place.
Similarly, scientific theories like the Big Bang help us understand the origins of the universe, but they don’t explain the “why” behind it. Many Christians use the Big Bang as evidence in support of their belief that creation was initiated by an intelligent creator as described in the Bible. If tomorrow, scientists were to discover that the Big Bang never happened, would that shake the foundation of many Christians’ faith? Perhaps. But for those who, like Anselm, base their faith on something personally deeper—on their understanding of Scripture and the revelation of God—their belief should remain strong.
The Importance of Scripture
Christians today must be careful not to stray from Scripture. It is the curriculum for the believer. While reason and philosophy can offer valuable insights and support, they cannot replace digging into the core message of the Bible.
Jesus didn’t ask us to understand all the details about how the world in time or eternity works; he asked us to believe in him, to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to pray.
This does not, of course, mean we stop thinking or questioning. But the heart of faith is trust—a willingness to believe even when we don’t have all the answers.
No matter what type of evidence or how much we collect, believing in Jesus still requires trust.
Faith and Reason in Harmony
In the end, faith and reason are not enemies. They are two sides of the same coin of discernment. Faith doesn’t demand that we toss logic aside, and reason doesn’t require that we reject faith. Instead, they work together, each helping us to acknowledge, and to grow a little closer to understanding, the mysteries of our life and God’s place in it.
As we consider the evidence for faith – from the gospels and letters in the Bible to the writings of other chroniclers of the times to the witness of saints to items like the Shroud of Turin to personal experience – we find that belief in Jesus is not irrational. It may not be based on clearly objective evidence alone, but it is grounded in something just as real: trust in a God who has shown himself to us in countless ways, if only we are willing to keep open minds and hearts.
In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” There is a need to keep your own balance when other powers of the world want you to use their unbalanced scales.
Faith in Jesus may seem impossible to some, but there is reason enough to believe that Christianity is true. And it becomes clear that this faith is indeed more rational than we might, at first, have believed.
Ultimately, faith is a decision. Nobody else can “prove” to you Christianity is true. It’s a choice to step forward into something of the unknown, trusting that God is there to meet you on the other side. And while reason can guide you to the threshold of belief, it is still faith that carries you across.
I leave you with this…
“What is the profit, my brothers, if anyone says to have faith but has no works? Is the faith able to save him? Now, if a brother or sister is without clothes and lacking of daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; be warmed and be filled,’ but does not, however, give to them the needful things for the body, what is the good of it? So also faith, if it has not works, is dead by itself” (James 2:14-17).
Do not, dear reader, get lost in the minutiae of philosophical and theological debates, do not expect to have every question or doubt addressed before making your decision. You will learn more along your way. Decide now in faith, act now in faith.