Hebrews 11:1, 1 Peter 3:15, Romans 12:2
The Caricature
Richard Dawkins' definition of faith has become the popular one: "belief without evidence." By this definition, faith is not merely non-rational — it is deliberately anti-rational, a willful closing of the mind to evidence.
This definition has one fatal flaw: it does not describe the faith commended in the Bible.
What the Bible Means by Faith
The Greek word pistis — faith, trust, belief — describes a trust that is grounded in knowledge and evidence, not a leap into the dark. In every New Testament context, faith is a response to something: to the testimony of witnesses, to the evidence of the resurrection, to the word of God heard and understood.
The "faith chapter" — Hebrews 11 — defines faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (11:1). Note: assurance (hypostasis — substance, reality) and conviction (elegchos — evidence, proof). Faith is not wishful thinking — it is confidence based on reliable grounds, directed toward what is not yet visible.
The examples that follow in Hebrews 11 all involve people acting on the basis of what God had said and done — Noah building an ark because God warned him; Abraham leaving Ur because God called him; Moses choosing the reproach of Christ over the treasures of Egypt because "he was looking to the reward." In every case, faith is a reasoned response to divine revelation.
Faith and Reason Are Not Opposites
The Christian tradition has consistently held that faith and reason are complementary, not competing. Augustine: "our heart is restless until it repose in Thee." Anselm: fides quaerens intellectum — "faith seeking understanding." Aquinas built the most comprehensive rational theology of the medieval period. Calvin insisted that the "seeds of religion" are implanted in every human mind.
Faith may go beyond what reason can prove — but it does not contradict what reason establishes. The evidence for the resurrection, the fine-tuning of the universe, the reliability of the Gospels — these are the rational grounds on which Christian faith rests.
The Irrationality of Atheism
The common assumption that atheism is the "rational default" and theism requires a leap of faith has it backward. The existence of the universe, the fine-tuning of its constants, the existence of consciousness and objective morality — all of these require explanation. Atheism's explanations (the multiverse, the emergence of consciousness from matter, the social construction of morality) are speculative and contested. Christian theism provides a coherent, unified explanation for all of them.