Is faith a pathway to truth?

Is faith a pathway to truth?

A quick answer is no. You might be scratching your head right now thinking about things we know, like gravity. For instance, if you held a pen up in the air over a table, and let go of the pen, it would fall to the table. In fact, most anything will fall when let go in mid-air. You might think that having “faith” in something that we know is true provides a case for faith being a viable method to discern fact from fiction.

But, do you really need to have “faith” to know that the pen will fall? Not really. Faith is believing in something that you can’t see. It’s believing in something that can’t be confirmed, but one chooses to believe anyway for various reasons. Faith in God is the obvious example here. There is no evidence or proof for a God, yet 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christians who believe in God. (Source: religioustolerance.org) They are using faith as their mechanism for believing the God story. They can’t see it, or prove it, but yet they’re still compelled to believe. If I haven’t convinced you yet, consider this: if you have faith in something that is totally untrue, and not accepted at all, has it led you to truth? Are Flat-earthers sitting on the threshold of truth because they have faith that the earth is flat?

Obviously if you have a commitment to religious beliefs, you acknowledge that there are others throughout the world that have faith in other beliefs. If you believe that your beliefs are the only beliefs that are true, then you also must acknowledge that others are not being led to truth despite the fact that they have faith.

When you have a reasonable amount of evidence to accept something as true, it doesn’t really take any faith. If you drop a pen 1,000,000 times over a table, it would take a large amount of faith to believe that in one of those instances it will float up the sky, never to be seen again. But it wouldn’t take any faith to believe that it will fall to the table. Faith can’t be considered a pathway to truth, because it provides a reason for someone to believe in something that may never be proven as true.

Why would you want to have faith anyway? Isn’t knowing something (to a very high degree of certainty) better? Isn’t it better to not have to question what you believe on any level? I know the earth is round. This is not a conclusion that I need to arrive at through faith – science, logic, and reason have demonstrated this to be the case.

When a Christian tells you in a debate that it requires faith to understand God and accept God, you should reflexively ask them why they think faith is a pathway to truth. I can’t imagine what sort of answer they will give, but it will most likely fail the test of reason and/or logic. Consider this hypothetical debate:

Christian: Well, God is real. I know He is real!

Atheist: How do you know? Can you prove God exists?

Christian: Well, I have faith. You just have to have faith and He will reveal himself to you.

Atheist: What makes you think that having faith is a pathway to truth?

Christian: Uh… well, because the Bible says that you have to have faith.

You’ve successfully boxed them into a corner, and most likely will be able to refute their next argument, since they can’t really justify why faith is so important. Now, I’m not saying that every argument will follow this route, but it’s a great way to derail a silly theist argument such as “needing to have faith.”

You have to remind the theist or Christian that faith is not a reasonable way to discern fact from fiction.

We can’t always draw clear lines between fact and fiction, but in most cases, the logic filter that humans have so keenly developed (or not…) should give us a good idea how reality relates to a claim. In the case of the Bible, there is outstanding evidence that it’s entirely contradictory (see: multiple authors), and the very fact that it claims inerrancy is in and of itself, quite silly. You wouldn’t take a person very seriously if they claimed to be without error, so why would the Bible be any different? Especially since we know that men wrote it, and not a God.

It should also be noted that if Christians consider faith a pathway to truth, that this takes the (hot) air out of their argument when they accuse atheists of having as much or more faith to not believe. It’s not entirely uncommon for a Christian to shoot himself or herself in the foot when arguing, because with no evidence to back up what they claim, they structure arguments a certain way. Like the argument from ignorance, or the argument from authority. Any skilled atheist debater (or any debater, for that matter) can point out logical fallacies and already-disproven arguments in their sleep. It’s no surprise that theists can’t move their arguments past step one.

Christians: I challenge you to make a case for faith being a pathway to truth.