Live by Faith: See with Faith (Part 1)

Stubbornness is usually not meritorious. We’re more likely to praise the person who changes his mind, especially when weighing evidence. But this highlighted difference between initial faith and ongoing belief is the key to why the Christian is justified in stubbornly living in faith even if the evidence seems to mount against him—as strange and wrong as that sort of behavior might seem to the scientist.

After dispelling some errant assumptions regarding the nature of belief, Lewis continues:

So much, then, for the way in which Christians come to assent to certain propositions. But we have now to consider something quite different; [the Christians’] adherence to their belief after it has once been formed. It is here that the charge of irrationality and resistance to evidence becomes really important. For it must be admitted at once that Christians do praise such an adherence as if it were meritorious; and even, in a sense, more meritorious the stronger the apparent evidence against their faith becomes. They even warn one another that such apparent contrary evidence—such “trials to faith” or “temptations to doubt”—may be expected to occur, and determine in advance to resist them. And this is certainly shockingly unlike the behaviour we all demand of the scientist or the historian in their own disciplines. There, to slur over or ignore the faintest evidence against a favorite hypothesis, is admittedly foolish and shameful. It must be exposed to every test; every doubt must be invited. But then I do not admit that a hypothesis is a belief. And if we consider the scientist not among his hypotheses in the laboratory but among the beliefs in his ordinary life, I think the contrast between him and the Christian would be weakened. If, for the first time, a doubt of his wife’s fidelity crosses the scientist’s mind, does he consider it his duty at once to entertain this doubt with complete impartiality, at once to evolve a series of experiments by which it can be tested, and to await the result with pure neutrality of mind? No doubt it may come to that in the end. There are unfaithful wives; there are experimental husbands. But is such a course what his [fellow] scientists would recommend to him … as the first step he should take and the only one consistent with his honour as a scientist? Or would they, like us, blame him for a moral flaw rather than praise him for an intellectual virtue if he did so?⁴Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief.”

Lewis anticipates your next thought. What if the evidence against the wife starts to stack up? He writes:

… of course evidence of the wife’s infidelity might accumulate, and presently reach a point in which the scientist would be pitiably foolish to disbelieve it. But the Christians seem to praise an adherence to the original belief which holds out against any evidence whatsoever.⁵Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief.”

Let’s return our focus to 2 Timothy 1. It provides a good example of holding out against the evidence. Put yourself in the position of Timothy, Paul’s partner in the faith—and we might even say Paul’s pupil or disciple. Paul writes:

Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (2 Timothy 1:2)

In other words, Timothy, you are loved; you can expect grace, mercy, and peace from God. Just like me, Timothy! The grace and mercy and peace from God that will … land you in prison and be the cause of your ridicule and abandonment… God loves you, Timothy, and has a wonderful plan for your life.

A few verses later, Paul tells Timothy, “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Timothy 1:8).

Talk about the oxymoron: the proud prisoner; the strong sufferer. Yet these are the objects of Christian praise. We praise the obstinate believer.

Consider carefully what Lewis writes next:

I must now try to show why such praise is in fact a logical conclusion from the original belief itself.⁶Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief.”

Here’s Lewis’s logic of holding out against the evidence:

This can be done best by thinking for a moment of situations in which the thing is reversed. In Christianity such faith is demanded of us; but there are situations in which we demand it of others. There are times when we can do all that a fellow creature needs if only he will trust us. In getting a dog out of a trap, in extracting a thorn from a child’s finger, in teaching a boy to swim or rescuing one who can’t, in getting a frightened beginner over a nasty place on a mountain, the one fatal obstacle may be their distrust. We are asking them to trust us in the teeth of their senses, their imagination, and their intelligence. We ask them to believe that what is painful will relieve their pain and that what looks dangerous is their only safety. We ask them to accept apparent impossibilities: that moving the paw farther back into the trap is the way to get it out—that hurting the finger very much more will stop the finger hurting—that water which is obviously permeable will resist and support the body—that holding onto the only support within reach is not the way to avoid sinking—that to go higher and onto a more exposed ledge is the way not to fall. To support all these incredibilia we can rely only on the other party’s confidence in us—a confidence certainly not based on demonstration, admittedly shot through with emotion, and perhaps, if we are strangers, resting on nothing but such assurance as the look of our face and the tone of our voice can supply, or even, for the dog, on our smell. Sometimes, because of their unbelief, we can do no mighty works. But if we succeed, we do so because they have maintained their faith in us against apparently contrary evidence. No one blames us for demanding such faith. No one blames them for giving it. No one says afterwards what an unintelligent dog or child or boy that must have been to trust us.⁷Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief.”

Imagine you are in the situation described by Lewis. Whether you’re stuck on the mountain or trying to save the one in danger, there is a gap between the rescuer and the one in need of rescue. There is an overwhelming fear of the unknown for the one in need of rescue.

Have you ever tried to help a child with a splinter?

You’ve been pierced by a sharp object, child, and that is now the source of all your pain. I can help you, you assure them. I’m going to help you with this sharp object, which I am going to stick you with. See, the rescuer is the expert with all the knowledge, experience, and the right to issue commands on how to remedy the situation. Whatever gap exists between the rescuer and the one in danger, Lewis argues, the gap is even more extreme between God and us.

If human life is in fact ordered by a beneficent being whose knowledge of our real needs and of the way in which they can be satisfied infinitely exceeds our own, we must expect a priori that His operations will often appear to us far from beneficent and far from wise, and that it will be our highest prudence to give Him our confidence in spite of this. This expectation is increased by the fact that when we accept Christianity we are warned that apparent evidence against it will occur—evidence strong enough “to deceive if possible the very elect.”⁸Lewis, “On Obstinacy in Belief.” The end of the quote references Matthew 24:24.

Some will find this sort of demand intolerable—this demand to stand firm when the evidence or your gut says to give way. Lewis writes that obstinacy in belief (choosing to see with faith) is, however, “rendered tolerable by two facts.”