A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (3/4) - The Evidence is Inadequate

This is the third post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

The third reason Carrier says he is not a Christian is that the evidence for Christianity is inadequate. A scientist through and through, Carrier uses the scientific method (or a form of it) to investigate the claims of Christianity. The basic argument takes the following form:

Christianity claims A.
If A is true, we would expect to observe B.
We do not observe B, we observe C.
Over and over again, Christianity's claims fail this test.
Therefore, Christianity is false.

He doesn't stop there; he also presents a parallel argument:

Naturalism claims X.

If X is true, we would expect to observe Y.

We do observe Y.
Over and over again, Naturalism's clams pass this test.

Therefore, Naturalism is true.

It's important to note that this approach is exactly how science studies something that is not directly observable: If the theory is true, each piece of evidence checks and supports the theory. The data is cumulative; no single piece proves the theory, but as each piece is added, predictions can be made about what further evidence should show… Every time the theory makes a correct prediction, (and does not make incorrect predictions) the more confident we are that the theory is correct.

In my previous posts on this essay, I have quoted snippets of his essay to present his argument in his own words. I'm not going to do that this time, for one simple reason: I think he is right.

Let me make myself clear; I think there is very little evidence for the existence of God from a scientific perspective. Anyone who seeks to determine the existence of God by looking for "evidence" will probably come up empty, over and over and over again.

The problem is, a large portion of Christians insist on subjecting their religions beliefs to this type of scientific scrutiny. This is most striking in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. I'll save discussion of ID for a future post, but the topic at hand brings an important issue to the surface:

Science and religion are separate ways of knowing; they address issues in separate domains. Therefore they can only provide answers to questions from within their prospective domains. In other words, science and religion provide answers to different types of questions.

The insistence that we must use science to address the claims of religion (and vice versa) is an overstepping of the boundaries of both ways of knowing. The late biologist Stephen J. Gould was a strong proponent of this separation, saying in his paper Nonoverlapping Magisteria:

"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."

Although Gould was an agnostic, he understood the limits of his science. Unfortunately, it seems that people outside Christianity understand the proper roles of these two ways of acquiring knowledge better than Christians themselves. Don't get me wrong; science and religion will always provide clarity and inspiration across the border in both directions. In reality, the border is not easily defined, and there is a portion of inquiry which requires input from both science and religion. The majority of questions, however, lie squarely within one of these two domains.

Do Christians really need science to legitimize their faith? Do you really want to hand over your cherished beliefs to the authority and scrutiny of science?

The reality is that the nature of science is intrinsically atheistic. It operates under the assumption that the physical is all that exists, regardless of whether or not the scientists involved believe in the supernatural. This is by necessity because science can only study reproducible phenomena. God's will and action are inherently unpredictable, and therefore inaccessible by scientific inquiry.

Robert T. Pennock in a great paper on the subject, says it another way:

[A] characteristic of the supernatural... is that it is inherently mysterious to us. As natural beings our knowledge all comes via natural laws and processes. If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural. The lawful regularities of our experience do not apply to the supernatural world... The same point holds about divine beings--we cannot know what it is that they would or would not do in any given case. God works, they say, in mysterious ways.

If science shouldn't be used to defend the existence of God, what are we to do? How do we convince the world that they are in need of a savior? How do we convince them that Jesus is truly the Son of God?

I think Jesus gave us the answer in John while he was praying with his disciples:

"My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." John 17:20-21

Here Jesus prays for unity in his church, a church consisting of true believers; true followers of Him. Francis Schaeffer, in his book The Mark of the Christian, calls this "the final apologetic", explaining that according to John 13, to be one with God (and therefore show the world that Jesus is God) means to show love to other believers and also to non-believers:

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. [But in John 17] Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

I have already written this post three different times, each ultimately ending up in my virtual trashcan. I just couldn't make sense of why, if there really is very little evidence of God's existence, do I still believe He exists? This morning in Sunday School, our teacher read the quote above from Schaeffer's book. It cut deep into my heart, and I remembered something I wrote in my journal several years ago, when I first wrestled with atheism. I was just coming out of the lowest point of my life, and I wrote these words:

"The love of these people [my Christian friends] is the only reason I still have any faith left at all."

The love I felt from the people close to me was the only thing I had left; it was the rope that kept me from falling headlong down that cliff. It really is the final apologetic.

Should we have answers for the issues Carrier brings up in his essay? Of course. But this should not be our primary defense. Instead, our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ will show the world that there really is something different, something real about our faith. It will show that Jesus really is the Son of God.

Schaeffer, in another one of his books, summarizes this entire post:

“[W]ithout true Christians loving one another, Christ says the world cannot be expected to listen, even when we give proper answers. Let us be careful, indeed, to spend a lifetime studying to give honest answers. For years the orthodox, evangelical church has done this very poorly. So it is well to spend time learning to answer the questions of men who are about us. But after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.” Francis Schaffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, pp. 164-165