Sam Harris Doesn’t Understand

"Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its very incredible claims about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever." Sam Harris

For the Christian who is reading this blog I must ask if whether Sam Harris' statement about Christian faith is accurate. Of course it is not. He wrote that in his book The End of Faith and it is a fine example of misrepresentation. The informed Christian should understand that his belief is not a blind leap of faith. The fact is that the Christian does believe the Bible on the basis of evidence. The problem is not whether there is evidence for the existence of God and the accuracy and validity of the Bible, but the issue is whether the existing evidence is acceptable and sufficient. The Christian says yes, but the atheist says no. It is a debate about the sufficiency of evidence not whether evidence exists.

But what has caused Sam Harris to look at Christianity and come up with such an erroneous definition of faith? Sure he thinks that he has read Hebrews 11 correctly, but he has not and I will demonstrate his faulty interpretation. I agree with him when he says that any kind of belief/faith that is unsubstantiated by evidence is no faith at all. I would say we have a duty to disbelief anything that cannot be substantiated by evidence. In the Bible we do not have a God who has left himself without witness. The Bible does not ask us to accept its testimony blindly rather it offers arguments for its own case. These arguments are not accepted by the atheist, but the arguments are there nonetheless. I am simply pointing out that the very fact that the Bible argues should be sufficient to establish that it does expect us to think through and understand before we believe. The Bible takes great pains to provide us with reasons to believe.

Therefore let me first correct the misrepresentation and define faith correctly, but before I do that I want to provide this other quote from Sam Harris so that you may see how he misunderstands faith. He truly misses the point of Hebrews 11. He writes,

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as the "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Read in the right way, this passage seems to render faith entirely self-justifying: perhaps the very fact that one believes in something which has not yet come to pass ("things hoped for") or for which one has no evidence ("things not seen") constitutes evidence for its actuality ("assurance").

That was Sam Harris' faulty interpretation of Hebrews 11. His misinterpretation consequently leads to a misapplication. Here is the misapplication. He writes,

Let's see how this works: I feel a rather thrilling "conviction" that Nicole Kidman is in love with me. As we have never met, my feeling is my only evidence of her infatuation. I reason thus: my feelings suggest that Nicole and I must have a special, even metaphysical, connection-otherwise, how could I have this feeling in the first place? I decide to set up camp outside her house to make the necessary introductions; clearly, this sort of faith is tricky business.

Absolutely this kind of faith is "tricky business!" I would say that kind of faith is stupid. A reasonable friend would intervene on Sam Harris' behalf out of concern and probe for rational reasons as to why he feels such conviction. We would ask, "Sam, on what basis do you believe that Nicole Kidman is in love with you? Did you meet her? Did she do or say anything to convince you that she is in love with you? If therefore there is no reason to believe she is in love with you then you should abandon your conviction lest you be arrested for stalking!" This is the latter part of the same quote.

Throughout this book, I am criticizing faith in its ordinary, scriptural sense-as belief in, and life orientation toward, certain historical and metaphysical propositions. The meaning of the term, both in the Bible and upon the lips of the faithful, seems to be entirely unambiguous. Pages 64-65

The faith that he is criticizing sounds like the kind of faith that is espoused daily on TBN. The faith teachers on TBN sounds more like cultic teachers than sound Bible teachers and preachers. The kind of faith that is espoused on TBN is alarmingly similar to the teachings of The Secret rather than scripture. I certainly do not have the space to cover that here so I'll just move on to defining faith according to scripture. You can visit this link too.

Faith certainly includes belief in a set of propositions, but to state it more accurately I would say that our faith is belief in a set of propositions about a person. That is to say our faith is reposed in the spotless character of Christ Jesus. It is Him that we trust. The Christian faith is historical. Jesus was a Jewish man. He was crucified under the Roman government. If the Bible cannot be trusted on these historical matters then we ought to rightly question its credibility on matters of theology. How can we trust the Bible to speak accurately about God if it cannot speak accurately about history? We do not accept the false dichotomy that is often made between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. The Jesus of history is the Jesus of faith. Disprove the Jesus of history and I will abandon my faith in the Jesus of faith. So then our faith rests in what the Bible says about God and his Christ. We believe Jesus because we believe God.

You see, not seeing a thing ('things not seen" Hebrews 11:1) is no argument that there exists no evidence for it. If this were truly the case then how does our judicial system convict criminals on a daily basis? It is because existing evidence is discovered and interpreted. For example; how could Joe be charged for murdering sally when there were no witnesses? No one "saw" him do it. He may still be charged nonetheless if there is good reason to "believe" (faith) he did it. It may be because his fingerprints were on the murder weapon. His shoe print was at the scene of the crime. It may be because Joe has one prior conviction of murder. Joe's character testifies that he at least would be more likely to have done it rather than suspect number two. You see, we can argue all we want about the absence of "eye witnesses" in Joe's case, but eye witnesses are not the only evidence accepted in a court of law. The Bible however does present eyewitness testimony. Their names are Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah etc. Sure the atheist doesn't accept the testimony, but it is there nonetheless. A testimony is not deemed true or false based on someone else's belief or disbelief. It is either true or it is not. One should have good reason for believing or disbelieving. The intellect and all of its reason must be engaged. In the case of the testimony of the Bible Sam Harris judges it and "believes" it is not true hence he practices the very kind of faith he ridicules. He has no good reason to dismiss the Bible as fairy tales. I'll follow this up on my second post.