Yesterday,
John Loftus posted a few article attempting to attack what
Christians mean by "faith". He issues the following challenge:
Christian theists make two claims about faith: 1) That atheists define
the concept of faith wrong, and 2) That atheists have faith just like
Christian theists do. So here's my challenge: Define faith in such a way that it fulfills both requirements!
An Open Challenge to Christians About Faith
I think that John Loftus has no idea how Christians understand faith. His first premise is easy to prove, but the second is silly. The Christian argument is not that atheists have the same kind of faith that Christians do because atheists don't know how to understand what Biblical faith is. Loftus has written several times akin to the following mis-definition of Biblical faith.
I've been writing about faith lately, claiming it is an irrational leap over the probabilities. Faith is Irrational
In short, Loftus keeps arguing that if something is improbable then there isn't any reason to believe it. This is flawed for many reasons but two of the major ones are just because something is improbable does not mean it is also false. And no where in the
Bible is believing something that is not true condoned or commanded. The ancients were commended for believing things that were improbable and impossible on the basis of what
God said to them and on the evidence of their relationship with God. Not wishful thinking or a shot in the dark. The second premise is flawed because Christians are not arguing that
Atheists operate on
blind faith but on evidence of past experience and inferences that seem reasonable to them although they may not be able to empirically prove those assumptions and conclusions correct. This is not the definition of Biblical faith.but it is faith such as the world has come to define it. The premiss fail and so does Loftus' arguments.
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