Evidence for Faith

This was the third article published for the Oakland Independent, and the second in my series on faith and evidence. It follows the post, "Don't Just Have Faith."

In last weeks article, I wrote that Christian faith is not just a leap in the dark, but rather learning to trust Jesus because He has proven Himself trustworthy. In this article I will list the three types of evidence that anyone can examine and that can help them learn to trust Jesus.

The first evidence, the natural world, convinces most people that a god of some sort exists. King David in Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." The Apostle Paul in Romans 1 says, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made."

That fact that the universe exists at all, and the exquisite detail in nature is enough to convince most people that God exists. From the youngest child looking up in awe at the stars to the molecular biologist examining the information of life found in DNA most people become convinced that something beyond ourselves must have created the universe.

A second piece of evidence that brings us closer to having faith in Jesus is the Bible. Taken as a historical document, it is filled with many pieces of verifiable history, such as the locations of a number of archeological sites, which can give us confidence in its message. Furthermore, when you study its transmission and consistent story from over 40 authors writing over a period of 1500 years, its uniqueness as a collection of books where God reveals Himself becomes clear.  Finally, it is unique in the story it tells of God reaching out to bring us to Himself rather than expecting humans to make themselves good enough to deserve to be with Him.

This leads to the third and most important evidence, namely the person of Jesus himself. His life, death and particularly His resurrection are unique in history and the writers of the Gospels along with the Apostle Paul encourage us to examine the evidence of His life to see if He is really who He claimed to be. Paul writing within 30 year of the event told the Corinthians to examine the evidence of the resurrection. He even encouraged them to go talk to some of the over 500 people who had seen Jesus alive after the crucifixion. 

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all wrote to convince others of what they believed, namely that Jesus was the unique son of God. The more we examine evidence in the world and the scriptures the more confidence we will have that Jesus is God and Savior, and that He is worthy of our trust.