When I
discuss the existence of God or creation with unbelievers or
evolutionists, I'm often confronted with demands for evidence. I
understand. Some things are harder to believe than others. If I
were talking with someone I'd just met, and he told me he has a dog,
I would tend to believe him. In my 50+ years of this life, I've
known lots of people who own dogs. Based on my experience, owning
dogs is usual and a claim to own a dog is reasonable.
If, on the
other hand, a stranger told me he owned a sloth, I might be more
suspicious. I know sloths exist but it's not usual that people own
them as pets. I might ask him where he got a sloth and where does he
keep it? If he says he found it as a stray and took it home, I would
likely conclude he's lying. If he said, instead, that he operates an
animal rescue, the sloth was recovered from a smuggler of exotic
animals, he lives on a large piece of land outside of town, and now
he keeps the sloth there in a secure enclosure, I would not be as
quick to dismiss his claim. Now what he is saying is plausible. I
could ask him more questions like, what does he feed the sloth and
what does he do with it during the cold months? How reasonable his
answers are will lend credibility to his claim to own a sloth.
My point is
this: we make judgments about the truthfulness of claims all the
time. Sometimes we have evidence that helps us make a judgment but
often we don't. In fact, usually we don't. An employee is late
because, “There was an accident.” Your son says, “I'm spending
the night at Johnny's.” A student tells the teacher, “My dog ate
my homework.” As soon as we hear claims like these, before we have
a shred of evidence, we already begin to form opinions about whether
they are true. We're not “blank slates” who approach every
question with complete objectivity. We all have biases, experiences,
and prejudices that influence our judgment. What is my history with
this person? What do I think of his character? How plausible is
what he says?
Over my
years of studying apologetics, I constantly encounter skeptics who
demand “evidence.” They will ask me what evidence do I have for
a recent creation? What evidence do I have that the Bible is true?
What is the evidence for God? I understand why someone would ask
questions like these. It's like me asking questions to the person
claiming to own a sloth – he's trying to decide how likely it is
that what I'm saying is true. I welcome sincere questions. However,
it's my opinion that most of the time, people who demand “evidence”
before believing anything about God or the Bible, are using their
demand for evidence as a red herring to derail the conversation.
Following
are some statements I often hear from skeptics about evidence. I'm
sure you've probably heard most of these too. I'm going to use them
to illustrate my point.
“I
don't believe anything without evidence.”
When I hear
people say this, my first response usually is to ask them, “What
evidence led you to believe that you must have evidence to believe
anything?” I ask this to try to get them to see that they
really do believe some things without any evidence. Of course, I
can't recall a time anyone conceded that point. They usually respond
with a lot of bluff and bluster but I've never
had anyone actually show me evidence to support this belief.
Here's the
case: most people aren't scientists. They don't conduct experiments.
They don't have laboratories. They don't do research. They haven't
seen any evidence for evolution. Instead, they've heard the
secular theories and explanations of the evidence and have chosen to
believe them. So they do, indeed, believe some things without
evidence. Their demand to creationists to provide evidence is
essentially special pleading aimed at forcing creationists to play by
the arbitrary rules of the evolutionist.
“Extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Carl Sagan
made this famous quote but, just like the quote above, it doesn't
stand up to its own standard. Some might say Sagan's statement is an
extraordinary claim; where is the extraordinary evidence that proves
it's true?
The fact of
the matter is that even extraordinary claims often require only
ordinary evidence. Take a resurrection, for example. To prove
someone has risen from the dead, you need only to show he was once
alive, that he died, and that he was later alive again. When we
discuss the resurrection of Christ, we talk about the written
accounts made by people who knew Him intimately during His ministry,
who were witnesses to His death, and who later saw Him alive again.
They talked with Him, touched Him, even ate with Him after
they saw Him die. Yet, instead of trying to impeach this compelling
evidence, many critics simply dismiss it saying the Resurrection
requires “extraordinary” evidence. So you can see that the
demand for extraordinary evidence is a gimmick that allows
skeptics to dismiss much of the evidence for God, the Bible, and
Christianity without really having to rebut any of it.
“Claims
made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
By now, you
can probably already see the flaw in this statement. Saying, “claims
made without evidence cane be dismissed without evidence,” is
itself a claim and, so, must have evidence to support it. The critic
who makes this claim is basically giving me a free pass to ignore it!
Even though
the statement contradicts itself, critics still employ it as a way to
excuse themselves from having to answer logical arguments. Let me
give you an example: nothing can create itself. Are we agreed? So
for nature to exist, it had to be created by something outside of
nature – something “super”
natural. Logically
speaking, this is a valid argument for the existence of a
supernatural Creator. It's so simple, yet so obvious that many
critics have difficulty refuting it. Instead, they say, “Well,...
do you have evidence for a supernatural
Creator?”
Something
can be true and have no evidence. Where is the evidence for
Washington's crossing of the Delaware? No amount of scientific
inquiry will discover it. The only reason we know it happened is
because people who lived at that time wrote about it. Much of what
we know about God is also what has been written down by the apostles
and the prophets.
But
besides the historical evidence, we do have compelling logical
arguments for God. If we know scientifically, that matter/energy
cannot be created naturally, then it must have been created
supernaturally. We know that complexity and purpose are the
characteristics of created things and so point to a Creator. We know
that objectivity morality can only exist if there is a transcendent
Lawgiver. I'm not asking for anyone to believe in God with a blind
faith. I'm asking them to confront the many arguments that have
already been made and quit hiding behind a flimsy demand for more
evidence.
Further
reading:
