REASONS WE BELIEVE: CHAPTER ONE
Giving Reasons For Our Beliefs
do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, 15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
I Peter 3:14-
When we come to consider reasons why we believe, I have been amazed at the overwhelming support there is to believe in God, the Bible and Jesus Christ. I have seen many arguments when first presented seemed threatening, but when the facts and reasons are openly looked at it becomes overwhelming the weight of evidence and reason which supports belief; more so than supports doubt.
If we are sincere in our search for truth we must be open. Now some people think
that anyone holding to strong views, especially religious views, must be narrow-
A scientist who carefully studies all possibilities is not considered narrow-
Indeed the Bible speaks of God’s wisdom: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable… James 3:17.
What I have found is that Christianity has the High Ground of Reason and Evidences. I found that often the challenges, at first, sounded weighty, but when fully studied and reasoned they are found to be very weak. Usually what I find is that when critics deny what we believe they usually substitute some other idea, but when you ask to see their reasons and evidences, there isn’t any, or no logical reason for support. Indeed, we have the High Ground. Instead, I have been overwhelmed with the strong amount of weighty evidence for our faith in God, the Bible, and Jesus Christ.
So don’t be intimidated, but stand strong in the challenges, for we do follow truth and God will reveal His truth, wisdom, and evidences. In fact, one fun thing to do is to ask critics what their faith is and what their support is. To openly summarize their standards of reason often shows the great lack of reason and facts that support an ungodly stance. As Josh McDowell has said, “The shallowness of critics speaks louder than the voice of believers.”
Another thing I found, to my surprise, is that many, even theologians take the approach that faith is what we have when we have no reason to believe; I strongly disagree with that view, rather, our faith is based on the facts of what we know and who we know. It is foolish to say we believe in something when we do not have any reasonable proof of it.
That fallacy follows along a prevalent common notion that people just choose what to believe, not based on fact and reason, but based on what they simply choose to believe. There is a misunderstanding among many that there is no real evidence as to what to believe, therefore we just pick and chose randomly as we desire – that would be very foolhardy. As Paul Little said, “Believing something doesn’t make it true; refusing to believe it doesn’t make it false.”
That leads us to a major point, Christianity is a “Revealed Religion,” meaning, it is not a philosophy of men, but God Himself has made Himself and His will known; that is a very strong point of the Gospels:
II Peter 1:16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
God has revealed Himself in our history, openly, for the record. Jesus and His Miracles
are a fact in our history. These facts were “not done in a corner” and were addressed
by “eye-
There is no reality, which I can just choose to create. I just do not have the brainpower
to create the world and reality. If it is only a made-
In fact, in the search for God’s truth we must rather be, even more, careful to, objectively, keep our own thoughts and intentions out of the way of truth. As someone has pointed out, Christianity has stood the extreme tests over 2000 years of its existence, so no question is going to bring it crashing down. I trust by now you understand that to be a Christian does not mean we do not use academics, science, or reason; in fact, we should be better at these things than anyone should be.
Sometimes we may not know an answer; it is all right to say, “You know that’s a good question, we will have to think and pray about that.” It is OK to think, investigate, pray, and seek an answer for God can give you an answer that will be an amazing answer of fact and wisdom. Questions are good because they will help us recognize the answer when we come across it.