My pastor said something earlier this spring that has stuck with me. He said (possibly quoting someone): "Faith is not believing despite the evidence, but believing that we are part of something bigger than what we see before us". I've encountered this concept in different forms over the years and have always found it to be powerful. I'm totally comfortable with the idea that there could be more to life than what is readily apparent, and I'm okay with not having concrete evidence for every detail. But I'm not sure that it makes sense to believe with no evidence. So as I start on this journey it seems important to me to reflect on ways that we know things. If I want to evaluate the evidence, what kind of evidence is out there?
Lots of philosophers have reasoned against the existence of God based on a priori principles. I think it's reasonable to accept that God can not be proven by logic alone, in a vacuum. Christians often argue for the existence of God using the historical record - primarily based on the scriptures. This seems to me another legitimate, but insufficient, type of evidence. (In addition, the origin of scripture is often not carefully examined - I'll take that up in another post.) In addition to digging into logical and historical evidence, I will also consider biological, chemical, and psychological evidence about the nature of our world, the nature of humankind, and what that says about God and religion.
Once I've weighed the evidence, I'll be ready to face the question I really struggle with - where does faith fit in?
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