Faith as responsible choice: An objection

Roadster raises the following relevent objection to my account of faith as a responsible choice, namely that it does not square with the paradigm cases of faith we see exhibited in the Bible.

On the ABC forum, R says, "The only question this raises in my mind is; in noting that Scripture doesn't seem to endorse the idea that one's decision to believe in Christ is a complex one drawn from multiple considerations.

Now as far as the strength of conviction of the original proponents of Christianity is concerned, I think we can allow them their radical certainty, because their certainty is part of what we're considering buying into when we consider whether Christianity is credible. But their converts, as recorded in Scripture, we should expect to resemble more your formula, yet they don't seem to lend themselves to such an interpretation.

Or are we merely acknowledging that one's reasons for believing that Christianity is true today are necessarily going to be both more complex and less coercive in any particular than were those for even the first few generations of believers?"

My response:

"The only question this raises in my mind is; in noting that Scripture doesn't seem to endorse the idea that one's decision to believe in Christ is a complex one drawn from multiple considerations."

I think the reason for this is that the Scriptures presuppose an extensive background of common presuppositions which vastly pre-narrows the field of interpretations. Of course this reply has to be re-described at each period of biblical history under discussion but in general I think the Bible takes an uncritical view of the natural assumptions of common sense which have come into question. This does not mean that I think that the Scriptures are not sufficient to deal with modern reasons for criticism but I rather think that this fact about the Scriptures (if it is a fact) is diclosed whenthe decision is treated as based on a balance of considerations.

"Now as far as the strength of conviction of the original proponents of Christianity is concerned, I think we can allow them their radical certainty, because their certainty is part of what we're considering buying into when we consider whether Christianity is credible. But their converts, as recorded in Scripture, we should expect to resemble more your formula, yet they don't seem to lend themselves to such an interpretation."

I agree with you that 'certainty is part of what we're considering buying into when we consider whether Christianity is credible'. I am planning a post some time based on the notion that one can only be reasonably sceptical, not about whether you know but only about whether you know that you know. (And I would argue that it is not necessarily true that if you know something then you know that you know it, in the sesne of knowledge that the sceptic requires.) By embracing Christianity we embrace the real possibility that we can be convinced that it is true and we may experince through our active reasoning that conviction of it being true. I also tend to think that when the Bible appeals to reason, such as Luke's documentation of the facts for the benefit of Theophilus or John's display of Jesus' signs in his Gospel, they are going after such a conviction or firm persuasion of the mind. But the Bible seems also to be aware that such a process can be short circuited through being wrongly disposed, such as the fool saying in his heart that there is no God or the Pharisees refusing to acknowledge Jesus' works because of their unbelief in the Old Testament or the Greeks rejection of Paul because of their attraction to disputing and love of novel ideas. In these sorts of cases its clear that the Bible holds the client responsible for their unbelief and their rejection of the evidence presented as something other than God's glory revealed (as a coincidence or whatever) but that the only thing that can be done here is to present the OT/NT story side be side with their own account of things and force them to make a choice and this seems to be where the responsible choice account is supported by Scripture, because in these cases no explict evidence is there to decide the matter (evidence played down) but people fail on the grounds of morally based failure to judge properly (ethics played up).

"Or are we merely acknowledging that one's reasons for believing that Christianity is true today are necessarily going to be both more complex and less coercive in any particular than were those for even the first few generations of believers?"

Maybe, if "we" means you and me because another objection to my view is that it may not seem to be standard among average Christians who rely simply but not inappropriately on their basic conviction of the truth of Christianity from their own experience, their reading of the text of Scripture and the many odd apologetics writings they have encountered. But I think it is possible to argue that it is not the case that the church ever in its history -- one you look among the works of the significant figures -- ever thought that they could compel Christian faith as a rational necessity produced by sufficiently available evidence. I am including even Eusibius, Origen, Augustine, Anslem, and Aquinas here. The more I read of these authors, the more I am convinced that to be well versed in philsophy in the west meant in part to be well versed with the problems of scepticism and the necessarily circular character of dialectic and analysis and of the ability of pagans to use this as an avenue of justification for their unbelief. It seems that Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas in particular were aware that their attempts at demonstration were successful only if one grant's with either Plato, Plotinus, or Aristotle certain assumptions of the argument so as to argue that if you were a good Platonist or Neoplatonist or Aristotelian, you should also be a theist. So in one sense these theologians were arguing in a legitimate ad hominem way. But they also seem to be aware that one has to be careful to argue with a sceptic with whom they share no common assumptions and that the best that can be done dialectically is to show that Christianity is not inconsistent and not false to any known fact.

But we also see this awareness among contemporary apologists no matter what the stripe of them. We see it especially among presuppositionalists like Van Til, Schaeffer, and Clark. We certainly see it in liberal apologists. We see it in cummulative case evidentialists and transcendental arguments used by classical apologists. We certainly see it in the apologetic moonlighting done by Christians in the academy. When modern as well as classical apologists cry out so hard against the blight of scepticism not by refuting it but by asserting the adequacy of available approaches. (One of the reasons I like Ravi Zacharias so much is that he is such a popular apologist but he is also one who is keenly aware of these issues and makes this plain in his writings.)

It would be difficult to say that the greats among the earliest church had no awareness of this issue and as I suggest they may be well aware of it while at the same time being appropriately impatient with it, especially Paul on Mars' Hill and the first four chapters of First Corinthians.

Which is not to say that there has been no changes in history or that there are not substantial disagreements among various apologists throughout history. But there may be more in common between them and between them and non-Christian philosophers than one would expect from the public screeds. I think the real sense of why things seem to have changed is not based on changes in time as it is on our personal experience of changes in stages of cognative development. Sceptical issues do not play the same role in the various stages of intellectual developement and not all the stages are reached by all people. Early stages of development are more accepting of the common sense assumptions that encourage belief in God. Sceptical concerns are much more fascinating and appealing at an adolescent period of development which some never grow out of. But eventually the observations that motivate scepticism become successfully intergrated into a persons overall perspective and no longer dominate and overcome the regular cognitive activies of the mind. Unfortunately, academic philosophers are professionally committed to remaining in a sceptical adolescent frame of mind the way the discipline is currently set up and this is a historically contingent fact about the way things are now, but this was not always true. We need to approach our understanding of the phenomenology of Scripture with a sensativity to this.

I should add that I do take your question seriously and agree that an important desiderata of an account of religious persuasion is that it should be consistent with the positive teachings and paradigm examples of Scripture. My account may not be but it's not clear that it isn't.