The Existential Case for Faith

Some Christians argue that life without God would be meaningless. Even if they’re right, the question is, So what?

After all, this wouldn’t by itself show that God exists. Maybe life is just meaningless. So how could this appeal to the meaning of life be relevant? Is it mere rhetoric, a lowly bid for emotions?

I think not. If life were meaningless without God, this would be deeply relevant to whether faith is rational. And this has a huge impact on how we should think about Christian apologetics. Let me explain.

Faith involves desire

What does a Christian apologist do? Typically, he offers arguments for God’s existence, say, the fine-tuning argument, or the cosmological argument. I think these arguments are extremely valuable. However, if successful, they only show that we should believe God exists. And belief is not the same thing as faith.

In the philosopher’s sense, to believe p just means regarding p as true. It needn’t be an especially heartfelt conviction. One can believe—regard as true—boring things like “I have two nostrils” or “all dogs are mammals.”

Clearly, then, many beliefs are not instances of faith. I do not have faith that I have two nostrils, or that all dogs are mammals, even though I believe these things.

Here is something else I believe. Probably, by the year 2100, polar bears will be extinct in the wild. Now, imagine if I had faith that by the year 2100, polar bears will be extinct in the wild. Wouldn’t that be odd? Indeed, it would be monstrous. What did the polar bears ever do to me?

We have this reaction, I think, because faith involves desire. If I have faith that-p, then I desire that-p. If I have faith that polar bears will go extinct, then I desire that polar bears go extinct. And that’s a screwed-up desire. That’s why the same faith is also screwed-up. The lesson: Desire is one of faith’s ingredients.

What this means

This has a huge implication: To show that faith is rational, we must show that desire is as well.

I am assuming here that some desires can be rational. Not all desires are brute urges. If you desire to be slowly tortured to death, this is an irrational desire. To put it another way, there can be reasons for and against desires. So, that someone has wronged you is a reason to desire revenge; that someone has helped you is not. That someone is a sterling wit is a reason to desire his conversation; that someone is a mumbling bore is not.

Since desires can be rational, and since faith involves desire, whether faith is rational depends on whether desire is. It isn’t enough to show that God exists. We must also show that we should want Him to.

You might respond, But truth doesn’t depend on what we want. Rest assured that no one is denying this. Whether God exists does not depend on whether we want Him to. But we are not talking about what it takes for God to exist. We are talking about what it takes for faith to be rational. God’s existence is a feature of the world. Our faith is a feature of our psychology. And it is faith we are discussing.

In a famous remark—and one of disarming candor—the philosopher Thomas Nagel speaks of “the fear of religion itself,” a fear that that grips him, he admits, adding:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. (The Last Word, p. 130-131)

Now imagine we could produce a breath-taking proof for God’s existence, the Ultimate Argument. Anyone who hears the Ultimate Argument will be instantly and eternally convinced that God exists. Nagel hears it, and is convinced. Still he would lack faith. He would lack faith because he would be disappointed to find out God exists. The Ultimate Argument would not have shown Nagel that faith is rational, only that belief is rational. In other words, we must go on to give Nagel reasons for desiring God. Traditional apologetics only does half the job.

The same would apply to other claims of Christianity, not just the existence of God. Should we want God’s grace to be an unearned gift? Should want Jesus to have conquered death? How does God being trinitarian improve the lives of believers? The question, I mean, is whether the whole Christian package is something we should desire to be true.

Going existential

I started this essay by mentioning the meaning of life. Some Christians hold that God makes life more meaningful, and even that life without Him is meaningless. And we can now see this is entirely relevant to whether faith in God is rational. The meaning of life doesn't show we should believe God exists. It shows we should want Him to (or rather, it gives us one reason for wanting Him to).

Indeed, this means that Christian apologists—actually, all curious people—should ask: What reasons are there for wanting God to exist? for wanting Christianity to be true? or Islam? or secular humanism? Which of these should I most prefer? Which would give me the best life? This may sound like a self-serving or merely pragmatic approach to life’s ultimate questions. But my point is that it needn’t be. If faith involves desire, and desire can be rational, then the rationality of faith partly depends on the rationality of desire.

My own view is that, above all other worldviews, we should want Christianity to be true. We should yearn for this. Christianity gives us the best resources for meeting our deepest needs, our needs for meaning, identity, forgiveness, worth, belonging, and much else besides. That needs to be argued for, of course. But that is exactly my point. These “existential” considerations, which seem at first irrelevant to the rationality of faith, are in fact of great importance.

What Christian apologists need, then, are existential arguments. On Faith Considered, I have offered a few of my own. I have claimed the following:

• Christianity enhances the meaningfulness of life.

• Christianity helps us understand our lives as stories.

• Christianity empowers us to deal with disappointment and heartache.

In the future, I hope to add to the existential case for faith—this is an ongoing project—and I hope to see other Christian thinkers join the fray. Christians, why does Christianity make your life better? What an alluring question to try and articulate. And now you have a rationale for doing so. Pascal put it perfectly:

Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true. (Pensees #188)

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Further reading

I have argued for the existential approach to apologetics in my academic work. I would also recommend Clifford Williams’ Existential Reasons for Belief in God, as well as, of course, Pascal's Pensees, and a less appreciated work, John Donne's Devotions upon an Emergent Occasion. This is Donne's reflection on faith and death while suffering from a near-fatal illness. It is gritty, searching, and full of insight about how Christian faith helps us approach death and confront our finitude.