A Falsifiable Faith

Instead of hurtling toward the ultimate questions, we should take them in a leisurely stride, building upon common ground and the common pursuit of truth with non-Christians.

A year ago, the staff of the Babylon Bee concluded their interview with Elon Musk with this question: “We’re wondering if you could do us a quick solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”

“Real quick?”

“… on the show…”

Elon: “Um…”

“Personal words…a quick prayer…”

Elon: “Uh…”

Laughter all around.

While some evangelicals took offense at the Babylon Bee’s levity, I found the Bee’s irony to be hitting the target, namely, the kind of evangelical who took offense to that interaction. The Bee was mocking the model of Christian engagement of much of the American evangelical subculture: Emphasizing the contradiction of non-Christian worldviews to a Christian worldview and hurtling precipitously toward ultimate questions.

By contrast, in several of my essays, I have urged a model of Christian engagement with the world that builds upon common ground with unbelievers and does not rush toward the ultimate questions but takes them in a leisurely stride. Last week in particular, I criticized evangelicals for failing to engage in good-faith discussions in which the evangelical might have something to learn and gain and discover that he or she is wrong.

Many Christians will see my emphasis as mistaken. It suggests that we should allow our faith to be challenged and shaken, rather than having complete confidence in its truth. To quote the musical, The Book of Mormon, “I allowed my faith to be shaken. Oh, what’s the matter with me?”

Rather, I am arguing that a faith that cannot be falsified by education and experience cannot be confirmed and bolstered by it either. A faith that is 100% confident apart from continued examination is a house built on sand or a seed planted in skin-deep soil.

Failing to do this indicates to non-Christians that Christian faith requires us to stop thinking and just start believing. And it fails to give them enough time to think and consider and decide for themselves whom they will serve.

Popping the Question

Now, some people seem to think that having these discussions is like wasting time. We need to get to the question of whether Christianity, as a whole, is true.

But this is like insisting that we rush to popping the question: “Will you marry me?” We shouldn’t rush to asking the question, because no one should rush to answering that question.

What thought and time should go into an adult deciding to become a Christian? There is some serious “due diligence” that has to be taken care of. Consider the timeline of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recent conversion. It was really a decades-long process, which included her decade or so as an atheist.

Consider Paul Kingsnorth’s conversion. Formerly a climate activist, Kingsnorth became disillusioned with the movement in 2007, believing that the problem was deeper than one that policy alone could fix. His spiritual searching led him through Buddhism and Wicca; but in 2020, after seeing Christ in a dream, Kingsnorth discovered that he was a Christian.

Consider David Perell’s conversion. I mentioned him last week, but his conversion is, like Ali’s, only months-old. It was preceded by a decade-long period of examining Christianity as a purely cultural question, including attending Tim Keller’s lectures in New York.

Perell would visit church Bible studies in order to learn more about the Bible as a cultural icon. His lack of interest in conversion frustrated the evangelical Christians, who probably saw a non-Christian attendee as ripe fruit for a speedy harvest.

Instead, I want Christians to engage in patient, “good faith” conversations with people of different kinds of belief, with earnest truth-seeking and interest to learn, the same kind of interest we want to see in our non-Christian dialogue partner. Who knows? Perhaps such a kind of conversation would have hastened Perell’s, Kingsnorth’s, or Ali’s conversion.

The Pursuit of Truth Over Its Possession

The philosopher G. E. Lessing once said:

The worth of man lies not in the truth which he possesses, or believes that he possesses, but in the honest endeavor which he puts forth to secure that truth; for not by the possession of, but by the search after, truth, are his powers enlarged, wherein, alone, consists his ever-increasing perfection. Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride.

One way to get at what I am saying is that Christians should prefer the common pursuit of truth to the common profession of truth.

By searching among Christians, I could find an almost endless list of people who agree with me that the sexual revolution was negative on the whole. We could rally together and encourage people do live pure lives. (Hmm, that sounds like something that’s been done before.)

But when it comes to cultural impact, I would take one Louise Perry over all of them. Louise Perry’s The Case Against the Sexual Revolution presents the evidence that everyone can acknowledge that the sexual revolution has negative effects, especially for women, but also for men. It is incredible confirmation of the Christian ethic, even as Perry herself remains outside the fold.

After fifty years of sexual revolution, there are grounds for an immense amount of social science detailing its effects. We can come not merely to believe, but to see with our own eyes that departing from a Christian sexual ethic is not good.

Some Christians would view this as like taking a really circuitous route to some place if there is a short-cut available. But this is just the problem: Too many Christians think of the Bible as a cheat-sheet to the truth; they forget that cheating is wrong. Cheaters don’t know the knowledge they are being tested on. They just can reproduce the answer.

But I’ll take earnest seekers after truth and goodness over those who merely have the correct answers.

There’s a false security on offer; you get to feel like you know that Christianity is true without ever having to check. It’s a kind of belief that makes you stop thinking.

The Christian scientific mindset used to be quite different. Scientists like Galileo, Newton, and Faraday took Christianity as a foundation for empirical inquiry, not a reason to give up bothering.

Think of the Christian faith as a big, conjunctive hypothesis: It has a lot of predictions about what the world is like, and you can’t have tested every element of it, at any age. But you can certainly be in a place to reasonably believe that this hypothesis is correct; but this should interest you in further investigation, not stop thought.

The Father’s Left Hand

G. E. Lessing continued, with the most famous part of his quotation:

If God should hold enclosed in His right hand all truth, and in His left hand only the ever-active impulse after truth, although with the condition that I must always and forever err, I would, with humility, turn to His left hand, and say, ‘Father, give me this; pure truth is for Thee alone.’

This kind of sentiment makes many evangelicals uncomfortable. Don’t we already have the pure truth? Why continue to pursue?

But in adopting that attitude, Christian faith becomes something that stops people thinking and growing. It’s a finish-line, and you’ve already passed it.

We should be unsurprised if non-Christians don’t like to have discussions with us as a result. People can detect if you’re not entering a discussion in good faith but are there only to plug a particular point-of-view.

Fortunately, Christianity doesn’t have to be that. Did we become Christians by not thinking? For many of us, the answer is a clear “no.” Our conversion or confirmation in faith required thought; all I am advocating is that we continue to think.

After all, we haven’t considered all the evidence; we haven’t searched for God in every nook and cranny of the universe yet. Why should we fear to explore alongside those who don’t yet believe?

Some say that people can pursue truth over God and end up an atheist. But if you think the pursuit of truth leads to the truth of atheism, how can you maintain that we should continue to love and serve God?

In the insistence that we can already by 100% certain that Christianity is true, there lies a deep fear that it might not be. Here’s what I have to say to that:

Do not be afraid.