Doubting your Doubts Part 2

Last week we talked about encouraging the skeptic to look at his own worldview with the same amount of questioning vigor as one would for Christianity.

Today I would like to explore this topic further with you. In the last post, most of the information was taken from Tim Keller’s book titled Reason for God, Belief in an age of Skepticism. I will continue quoting him heavily in this session as well.

I think it is helpful to realize that all doubts, whether skeptical only or cynical in nature are more than just doubts. They are actually an alternate belief system involving some level of faith at its core. You may not like the word “faith”; however, there is an unmistakable ring that all different world-viewpoints inherently possess an action of faith or belief.  Keller states “you cannot doubt belief A except for a position of faith in belief B. For example, if you doubt Christianity because “there can’t be just one true religion,” you must recognize that this statement in itself is also an act of faith. No one can prove this empirically, and it is not a truth claim that everyone accepts. The reason you doubt Christianity’s belief A is because you hold to unprovable belief B. Every doubt is based on a leap of faith.”

Not all religions are the same. They are also mutually exclusive to a very serious degree.  To say that all religious pathways lead to the same place may sound tolerant and inclusive on the surface. However, there is a profound lack of understanding and even an element of smugness and superiority that is not based on factual or educational research or understanding.

Another significant area of belief is the relationship between Science and "faith". Many people believe that Science has the answer to all of life’s big questions. Therefore, there is no need for any form of faith. The more we know about science, the less we need to know about God. Therefore, Science gets bigger and bigger while God gets smaller and smaller to the point where eventually, he just disappears and goes away.  Again, this is a huge leap of faith to hold this position, God is not going away, the statistics show that there is no historical evidence that religion is dying out at all.

My contention here is that this view is not actual science. It is a religious belief in Scientism. This is quite distinct from actual Science itself. I truly love Science. It is fascinating to the max. However, there are definite limits on how far Science can go to explain things. Anything outside of this boundary requires a huge amount of unproven faith to accept. There is no adequate explanation for the origin of the Universe or how life began by depending on science alone. It can never reach that point, ever.