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[Toni]

So as a longtime atheist recently trying to explore Christianity, one of the greatest difficulties I've faced in becoming a believer is... well, believing.

One the one hand, it's incredibly easy to arbitrarily say "I believe in Jesus". But to say it with conviction, to actually feel it, to desire to change my entire life around for it, to be willing to give up everything for it, now that's a bit more difficult.

A part of me really wants to take the Bible as truth, but to do so requires a lot of faith - a willingness to ignore a lot of my unanswered questions about the nature of God and creation, to accept that those answers probably won't ever be forthcoming in this lifetime, and a willingness to accept hard truths (e.g. most of my friends and family, as nonbelievers, will according to Christian doctrine suffer eternally, and given my doubts my own salvation is in question). I see a great many Christians at peace with these things, and so I legitimately do wonder: Where do you find your faith? Where does it come from? How do you maintain it in the midst of so much (apparent) uncertainty?

[jimwalton]

A lot of Christians, I'm told, just believe. They believe faith is blind, and they ignore evidences, and just choose to believe. I'm not like that at all. I find that faith in the Bible is evidentiary: you're only expected to believe when the evidence warrants it. So I'm partially a presuppositionalist (there are some things you just have to take for granted, like (1) I exist, (2) there is such a thing as truth, (3) truth is knowable—stuff like that), but mostly an evidentialist: I want to see the evidence for what I believe.

I believe in Jesus because of the evidences—the evidences of the Bible, of the biblical writers, of the resurrection, and of what I've seen Jesus do in my life and the lives of others.

I've examined the Bible in great detail and to great depth, and have found it to be true. I've studied it a lot and am convinced by the evidence about what I believe about it. I don't feel I have to ignore my unanswered questions. I pursue the answers until I'm satisfied. I've thought through and investigated creation, hell, faith, salvation, and I'm convinced by the logic and evidence of Christianity over other belief systems. That's where I find my faith, and actually I don't have a lot of uncertainty about it. I've come to the place where I feel like I'm standing on the solid ground of truth and knowledge, with evidences to back it up. That's where I find my faith. I'm certainly willing to talk to you more, as you wish.

Let me copy something for you I wrote to someone else, and see how this rings with you (though it's a little long). Jesus never said faith is blind (anti-science, anti-evidence), and the Bible doesn't imply that faith is blind. In the Bible, faith is evidentiary. Faith isn't my evidence; I have faith because of the evidence. I define Biblical faith as "making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable." In my opinion, belief is always a choice, and is always based on evidence. When you sit down in a chair, you didn’t think twice about sitting down. You believe that the chair will hold you. Faith? Yes. You’ve sat in chairs hundreds of times, but you can't be absolutely sure it will hold you this time. Things do break on occasion. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you sit down. That’s faith, and it was a conscious choice based in evidence (science, if you will).

Almost all of life works this way because we can never know what lies ahead. Every time you turn a door knob you are expressing faith. Because 10,000 times you’ve turned a door knob, and it opened the door. So you turn the knob and move forward. Does it always work that way? No. Sometimes you turn the knob and the door doesn’t open. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption.

We know chairs hold people. That's past experience and learning. We know turning door knobs open doors. We know that when we turn a key a car starts. But every time we turn a car key, we do it because we believe it will start. The evidence is compelling, and it was a conscious choice. We don't know for sure that the car will start, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't. Then we use our knowledge to try to figure out what to do about it. We dial our phone (as an act of faith, assuming it will work and help us reach another person), and try to get help.

You'll notice in the Bible that evidence precedes faith. There is no fairy tale aspect to it. God appears to Moses in a burning bush before he expects him to believe. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence to go on. The whole Bible is God revealing himself to us all—and I mean actually, not through some exercise of faith. Evidence first, then faith based on the evidence.

My faith in God is a conscious choice because I find the evidence compelling. It's an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for me to make that assumption. When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. See how it works? My belief in God is based on my knowledge of the credibility of those writings, the logic of the teaching, and the historical evidence behind it all. The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it. My faith in the resurrection is an assumption of truth based on enough evidence that makes it reasonable to hold that assumption. The same is true for my belief in the existence of God, my belief that the Bible is God's word, and my understanding of how life works.

I would contend that faith is never blind. Faith is not evidence; faith is making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make that assumption reasonable.