THERE IS NOTHING BLIND ABOUT FAITH

By Alister McGrath ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS | 14 FEB 2011

THE SIMPLE TRUTH IS THAT BELIEF IS JUST A NORMAL HUMAN WAY OF MAKING SENSE OF A COMPLEX
WORLD. IT IS NOT BLIND - IT JUST TRIES TO MAKE THE BEST SENSE OF THINGS ON THE BASIS OF THE
AVAILABLE EVIDENCE.CREDIT: BANANASTOCK (THINKSTOCK).

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/02/14/3138299.htm?topic1=home&topic2=
The great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero had plenty of advice for those who wanted to win arguments.
Cicero was far too skilled in matters of rhetoric to limit himself to evidence-based argument. Nothing
convinces like conviction, he remarked. An orator's passionate conviction in his beliefs was essential to
winning others to the cause.
I often reflect on Cicero's insight here when reading Christopher Hitchens's God is not Great, one of the core texts of
the New Atheism. God is Not Great is written with such conviction and confidence that, if self-assurance and
conviction were indications of truth, Hitchens would win his arguments hands down.
Furthermore, his assertions seem accepted as oracles of truth by his devotees. Perhaps this helps us understand
how the New Atheist notion of faith has achieved such prominence, despite its obvious inaccuracy.
One of the core New Atheist assertions, endlessly and uncritically repeated on New Atheist websites, is Richard
Dawkins's dogmatic statement that faith is "blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence."
For Dawkins, this means that faith counts as a "form of mental illness." This nasty intellectual perversion is limited to
religious people. "Faith, being belief that isn't based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion."
Where science and reason prove their convictions, religious people run away from facts and evidence, and live in a
fantasy world that is totally disconnected with reality. As Dawkins puts it, "faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse
to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence."
It's a familiar slogan. Yet familiarity is not an indicator of truth or reliability. For a start, no Christian theologian I know
would accept this notion of faith. It is Dawkins's own invention, designed with his own polemical agendas in mind.
Furthermore, the simple reality of life is that all of us, irrespective of our views about God, base our lives on beliefs -
on things that we cannot prove to be true, but believe to be trustworthy and reliable.
The New Atheism seems to have some kind of aversion to using the word "faith," believing it denotes some kind of
intellectual perversity reserved for deluded religious fools. Faith, we are told, is invariably blind faith.
I have no doubt that some religious people do have blind faith. Having explored lots of New Atheist websites, I find
precisely the same phenomenon exists there as well. It's depressing how a guru-mentality seems to have descended
on the movement.
For some New Atheists, the deliverances of superstars such as Dawkins and Hitchens are to be trusted on account of
their intergalactic fame. Worried atheists outside the New Atheist bubble are alarmed that personality cults are
overtaking this new movement, and that followers are being encouraged simply to echo the views and actions of their
gurus.
For example, the secularist group, "Freethinkers" - which is "guided by reason and logic" - has on sale a T-shirt
printed with advice on how to tackle life's great ethical questions. Just ask: "What would Dawkins do?" Neat, eh?
So what is faith? Why is belief such a normal and important way of life, whatever the New Atheist establishment says
about the matter (and no matter how confidently it says it)?
The simple truth is that belief is just a normal human way of making sense of a complex world. It is not blind - it just
tries to make the best sense of things on the basis of the limited evidence available.
As the philosopher Julia Kristeva observed, "whether I belong to a religion, whether I be agnostic or atheist, when I
say 'I believe', I mean 'I hold as true'."
Dawkins clearly believes otherwise. He set out his characteristic views on this matter in The Selfish Gene back in
1976.
"[Faith] is a state of mind that leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of
supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence, then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would
compel us to believe it anyway."
This is an unsustainable view of the relation of evidence and belief in the natural sciences, or anywhere else. For a
start, it fails to make the critical distinction between the "total absence of supporting evidence" and the "absence of
totally supporting evidence." Think about it.
For example, consider the current debate within cosmology over whether the "big bang" gave rise to a single
universe, or a series of universes (the so-called "multiverse").
I have many distinguished scientific colleagues who support the former approach, and equally distinguished scientific
colleagues who support the latter. Both are real options for thinking and informed scientists, who make their decisions
on the basis of their judgements of how best to interpret the evidence.
They believe - but cannot prove - that their interpretation is correct. And nobody thinks they are deluded, mentally ill,
or immoral for believing such things.
This doesn't fit at all with Dawkins's bold declaration that "if there were good supporting evidence, then faith would be
superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway."
To judge by his comments in The God Delusion, Dawkins himself clearly believes in the "multiverse" theory. But the
evidence for it just isn't good enough to compel him - or anyone else - to accept it (or its alternatives).
The great British philosopher and intellectual historian Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) pointed out years ago that human
convictions can be grouped together under three categories:
1. Those that can be established by empirical observation;
2. Those that can be established by logical deduction;
3. Those that cannot be proved in either of these ways.
The first two categories concern what can be known reliably through the natural sciences on the one hand, and what
can be proved through logic and mathematics on the other.
The third category concerns the values and ideas that have shaped human culture and given human existence
direction and purpose - but which cannot be proved by reason or science.
Some examples? It is immoral to rape people. Democracy is better than fascism. World poverty is morally
unacceptable. I can't prove any of these beliefs to be true, and neither can anyone else. Happily, that has not stopped
moral and social visionaries from acting on their basis, and trying to make the world a better place.
Christopher Hitchens declares boldly that New Atheists such as himself do not hold any beliefs. "Our belief is not a
belief." This astonishing statement is one of the best examples of blind faith I have come across - a delusion that
makes his whole approach vulnerable.
To give one obvious example: Hitchens's anti-theism rests on certain moral values (such as "religion is evil" or "God
is not good") which he is unable to demonstrate by reason.
Hitchens simply assumes that his moral values are shared by his sympathetic readers, who are unlikely to ask
inconvenient questions about their origins, foundations or reliability.
When he is called upon to prove them - as he regularly is in debates - he seems unable to do so. His beliefs are
indeed beliefs, even if he prefers not to concede this decisive point.
Welcome to the human race, Mr Hitchens. That's the position we're all in - including you.
But what of a specifically religious faith? Christians believe that certain things are true, that they may be relied upon,
and that they illuminate our perceptions, decisions and actions. Faith enables us to see things in different ways, and
thus leads us to act in ways consistent with this.
As William James pointed out many years ago, religious faith is basically "faith in the existence of an unseen order of
some kind in which the riddles of the natural order may be found and explained." Faith is based on reason, yet not
limited to the somewhat meagre truths that reason can actually prove.
So is this irrational, as the New Atheist orthodoxy declares? Christianity holds that faith is basically warranted belief.
Faith goes beyond what is logically demonstrable, yet is nevertheless capable of rational motivation and foundation.
 It is not a blind leap into the dark, but a joyful discovery of a bigger picture of things, of which we are part. It is
complex and rich idea, which goes far beyond simply asserting or holding that certain things are true.
It is a relational idea, pointing to the capacity of God to captivate our imaginations, and to accompany us on the
journey of life.
Such statements will raise questions for readers, not least concerning the realms of reason and science, so highly
cherished by the New Atheism. I cherish them too, as do most Christians. But they don't take us where the New
Atheism seems to think they do, as we shall see in my next article.
Alister McGrath, a former atheist, is Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College, London. His
book "Why God won't go away" will be published by SPCK in February 2011, and by Thomas Nelson in May 2011.

SCIENCE, BELIEF AND THE QUESTION OF PROOF

By Alister McGrath
ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS | 15 SEP 2010
SEE ALSO
 Related Story: Stephen Hawking, God and the role of science, ABC Religion and Ethics,  14/09/2010
11:51
 Related Story: Giving atheism a bad name, ABC Religion and Ethics,  10/08/2010 17:11
 Related Story: Would the world really be better without religion?, ABC Religion and Ethics,
13/08/2010 10:54

Science remains an important cultural authority. So what might it say about God, or the meaning of life, for
that matter? This is an issue that has been rekindled by the publication of Stephen Hawking's new book, The
Grand Design, which takes the curious view that God is somehow made redundant by the laws of physics.
But for many people, the real issue about science and faith is whether you can prove your beliefs.
The views of the militant atheist and scientific-popularizer Richard Dawkins have achieved a degree of cultural
traction, especially in Australia. For Dawkins, atheism is rational and scientific, while religion is irrational and
superstitious.
Dawkins argues that there is no room for faith in science, in that the evidence for a correct conviction is good enough
in itself to compel us to accept its truth. It's a neat view. But how reliable is it?
Dawkins first set out his views on this matter in The Selfish Gene in 1976. He wrote that faith "is a state of mind that
leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were
good supporting evidence, then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us believe it anyway."
Dawkins here sets out a wonderfully clear yet deeply problematic view of the relation of evidence and belief in the
natural sciences. It was unsustainable back in 1976, and it is even more unsustainable now.
So what is the problem? It fails to make the critical distinction between the "total absence of supporting evidence" and
the "absence of totally supporting evidence." This kind of stuff is just Philosophy of Science 101. But it clearly has not
been taken on board by some recent atheist writers.
Let me give a simple example. At present, there is a significant debate within cosmology over whether the "big bang"
gave rise to a single universe, or a series of universes (the so-called "multiverse").
The scientific evidence is capable of being interpreted in support of each approach. I have many distinguished
colleagues in Oxford and London who support the former, and equally distinguished colleagues who support the
latter.
The evidence is not sufficient to compel acceptance of either. Both are real options for thinking and informed
scientists, who make their decisions on the basis of their judgements of how best to interpret the evidence. They
believe - but cannot prove - that their interpretation of the theoretical and evidential issues is correct.
This doesn't fit in at all with Dawkins's simplistic view that "if there were good supporting evidence, then faith would
be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us believe it anyway". Science just isn't like that in the real world.
In its rigorous sense, "proof" applies only to logic and mathematics. We can prove that 2 + 2 = 4, just as we can prove
that "the whole is greater than the part." And yet science proceeds by inference, rather than by the deduction so
characteristic of mathematical proof.
A series of observations is accumulated, forcing the deeper questions: What must be true if we are to explain what is
observed? What "big picture" of reality offers the best fit to what is actually observed? What is the best explanation of
these observations?
A classic example of this scientific approach can be found in Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), now widely
seen as a landmark in scientific history. New Atheist websites often assert that Darwin proved his theories,
contrasting this unfavourably with the "blind faith" of religion. Darwin himself knew otherwise.
Darwin believed that his theory of "natural selection" provided the most elegant and persuasive explanation of
biological life forms. But he knew he could not prove it. The problems were obvious.
To begin with, there was no "smoking gun" - no knock-down, unambiguous evidence which would conclusively and
incontrovertibly compel people to accept his theory. Everything that was known about the natural world could be
accommodated by rival theories, such as transformism.
Furthermore, there were serious scientific objections to and difficulties with his theory, which caused many believe it
was unacceptable - such as the problem of genetic dilution.
Yet despite some formidable difficulties, Darwin believed that his theory was right, and would one day be shown to be
right. Yes, there were loose ends everywhere, and a large number of problems. But his core idea seemed to him to
be right - despite the fact it could not be proved.
As he remarked towards the end of his Origin of Species, "A crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the reader.
Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered; but, to the best of my
judgment, the greater number are only apparent, and those that are real are not, I think, fatal to my theory."
It is interesting to note that these words of Darwin could apply with equal force to Christian faith. Yes, it makes a lot of
sense of things. Yes, there are some problems and difficulties. Yet the theory makes so much sense that Christians
believe that they are justified in holding on to it.
And it does more than make sense of things - it confers meaning upon things, supplementing rational explanation
with existential satisfaction.
So does science prove its theories? There are certainly some things that science can prove, and has proven - for
example, that the chemical formula for water is H2O, or that the average distance of the moon from the earth is about
384,500 km. But these are basically facts about our world.
The big scientific questions concern theories about the origins of the universe, the nature of force and matter, and
perhaps the biggest question of them all: Is there a "Grand Unified Theory" that can explain everything?
We can give good answers to these questions, which we believe can be justified from the best evidence we have at
our disposal. But we can't give a final answer.
After all, science changes its mind about things. Although New Atheist propagandists regularly declare that scientific
advance and progress has eroded the case for belief in God in the last century, the facts are otherwise.
The first decades of the twentieth century were dominated by a scientific belief in the eternity of the universe. It had
always existed. Religious language about "creation" was seen as mythological nonsense, incompatible with cutting-
edge scientific knowledge.
But everything has changed since then. The scientific consensus now is that the universe had an origin - the so-
called "Big Bang". This idea was met with fierce resistance by some atheist scientists of the day, such as the
astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who was worried that it sounded "religious."
Happily, this prejudice was overwhelmed by the evidence in its favour. But the fact remains, the new understanding of
the origins of the universe resonate strongly with the Christian doctrine of creation. Nobody says that this "proves"
God's existence. But nobody can ignore the obvious consistency between the Christian way of looking at things, and
the way science now sees things.
There's another important point here. Despite Dawkins's rather brash statements on the matter, most working
scientists know that their theories are provisional, likely to be replaced or discarded in the future.
That's why Stephen Hawking's recent comments about God have been so negatively received by scientists. It
suggests that they already know all the answers. But they don't. String theory is highly speculative, and it is open to
multiple interpretations.
Hawking may believe in this theory, and his specific interpretation of it. But that is light years away from the simplistic
slogan "science has disproved God."
At least Hawking's recent pronouncements have focused attention on the place of belief in science. As the
philosopher Julia Kristeva recently observed, "whether I belong to a religion, whether I be agnostic or atheist, when I
say 'I believe', I mean 'I hold as true'."
Scientists believe that certain things are true today, but know that some of them will be shown to be simply wrong or
inadequate in the future.
Science is a never-ending journey. It hasn't reached its destination yet. It can only report on how things seem at the
moment, knowing that they may be seen differently in a generation.
So what is the relevance of this for religion? For Christians, belief in God is the "best explanation" of the way things
are. As C.S. Lewis once put it, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen - not just because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else."
We can't prove that God is there, any more than an atheist can prove that there is no God. But all of us, whether
Christians or atheists, base our lives on at least some fundamental beliefs that we know we cannot prove. That's just
the way things are. And it's not a problem.
Alister McGrath, a former atheist, is Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King's College, London. He is
an author of the standard textbook  Science and Religion: A New Introduction  (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).