Atheists often ask Evangelicals for evidence for the existence of God. Some Evangelicals will quote prooftexts from the Bible, as if this proves the existence of God. Of course, these quotes do no such thing. The Bible is a book of claims. It claims Jesus is God. It claims Jesus was born of a virgin. It claims Jesus worked miracles, including raising the dead. It claims Jesus resurrected from the dead. It claims Jesus ascended to Heaven. What evidence is provided for these claims? None. Unbelievers are just supposed to take Evangelicals at their word. The Bible says . . . end of discussion. If the Bible is the gold standard for evidence, Evangelicals shouldn’t expect many atheists to become Christians.
Many Evangelicals think personal testimonies are evidence for the existence of God. Again, much like the Bible, personal testimonies are claims, not evidence. Claims of healing and deliverance are just that — claims. How do we know God healed or delivered someone? We can’t. Evangelicals are free to believe that a cosmic being of some sort miraculously healed them or delivered them from adversity, but they shouldn’t expect skeptics to believe them.
What is evidence? Evidence is “the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.” By all means, Evangelicals, please use the comment section to provide facts or information that justify your faith claims. Telling us a personal story or quoting prooftexts will not suffice.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
On the day after Easter, my 25-year-old daughter who was raised nonreligious but now living in the Bible Belt (Nashville) wanted to share with me her take as an outsider on hearing the resurrection story. For context, this is a young woman raised in a household that promoted reading, questioning, and discussing. She was educated at an elite university and is currently working in law with the goal of attending law school in the next couple of years.
Her friend recounted the general overview of the resurrection story. My daughter first seized on Doubting Thomas as a potential hero of the story. She said it resonated with her that Thomas asked for evidence from his mentor/friend regarding the alleged death and resurrection. However, she was disappointed that Thomas rolled over so easily by seeing hand and foot wounds – as my daughter said, holes in your hands and feet are evidence of injury, not death or resurrection. Her friend said that Thomas had witnessed many miracles – Jesus walking on water, converting fish and bread loves into enough to feed thousands, healing people, even raising a friend from death. My daughter responded that those things are all quite different from dying and raising oneself from death. Being awake, aware, and manipulating objects or others’ physical bodies is quite different from raising one’s own body after one’s own death. Plus, there are many instances of people being pronounced dead because technology didn’t exist to detect low heart rate or breathing – that’s certainly a possibility in this case. For my daughter, believing someone just because they’re your friend or teacher is not sufficient proof of a fantastical claim. Exfoliating someone for doubting and requiring proof is unfair and unacceptable.
It also gave her pause to realize that the majority of people she knows believe this story and other fantastical stories.
I don’t see my daughter becoming a Christian any time soon.
“Book of claims”. Well said Bruce. Your definition of evidence is poignant. As I recall, Black’s law dictionary defines evidence as that which tends to prove or disprove material fact. Facts that prove something not at issue are irrelevant and not material. Therein lurks a sneaky misleader. A fact that doesn’t tend to prove or disprove the issue is misdirection.