Everyone believes in something. Whether we are a skeptic, a naturalist, an atheist, an agnostic, or an Evangelical Christian, we are basing our worldview on what we believe is true. That is the definition of faith; it is a belief, trust, or confidence in something. So the question that we all must face is not do we have faith, we all do, but is our belief true? Do we have a defendable faith?

Subjective or Objective Truth

Some people say that all beliefs are equally valid; you have your truth, I have mine, and that’s O.K. This statement, and beliefs based on it, are incoherent and demonstrably self-contradictory. It makes the assertion that there is no objective truth, but expects us believe that it is itself objectively true.

Any truth-claim, and thus belief, can be tested in two important ways to determine its veracity. Is it coherent? And does it correlate accurately to the available evidence? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then our faith may be quite sincere, but it is sincerely wrong. We have confidence in something false. An indefensible faith. Alternatively, if our beliefs are coherent and consistent with available evidence, we have confidence in something true. We then have a defendable faith.

The Faith of Atheism

It has become popular in some academic and scientific circles to hold the belief that God does not exist. Those who do often claim that the essence of Theism is belief in God’s existence in spite of the evidence. They also claim that their position, by contrast, is based on evidence and therefore is not faith. Each of these claims is false.

While belief in the existence of God, as all beliefs by definition are, is faith, it is not blind faith. The scientific evidence available for our examination points clearly and inescapably to God.

Scientific evidence has now clearly demonstrated that the universe, that is space-time and mass-energy, came in to being in a blinding moment about 14 billion years ago. In order for that to happen, no fewer than 30 cosmological constants, such as gravity, the rate of expansion, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, had to be exquisitely fine-tuned to produce the life-permitting universe that we observe today.

Please note that the Bible has always stated that the universe was created, that is to say brought into being, whereas scientists from the time of Aristotle have claimed that it just always existed and have only recently caught up with the Bible, admitting that it came into being.

What science demonstrates is that everything that comes into being, has a cause. Things don’t just pop into existence from nothing for no reason. So, since the universe came into being, it must have a cause. But what are the necessary attributes of a cause sufficient to produce an effect such as the cosmos?

It must be personal. If the cause of the universe existed without the effect, and then brought the effect into existence a finite time ago, then it must be able to choose whether or not to produce the effect; otherwise the effect and the cause would always exist simultaneously. That means that, like a person, the cause of the universe must have the power to choose.

It must be eternal. Science tells us that time is a function of matter. That means that the cause of the universe must necessarily exist independently of time.

It must be immaterial. The universe is comprised of matter, and as we have already seen, came into being. The cause of the universe therefore, in order to produce all matter, must be immaterial.

It must be intelligent. The fine tuning of the initial constants necessary to produce our universe is so staggeringly precise, if any one of them were different by only a hair’s breadth, it could not exist. The probability of their simultaneously occurring by chance rather than intelligent design is effectively nihil.

If, for example, the force of gravity were slightly weaker, elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen would not exist. If it were slightly stronger, the stars would burn out in about a year. As it is, the chemistry required to permit life is just right and stars burn for an average of 80 billion years.

The mathematic probability of this constant alone being set precisely where it is, is one in 14 billion, billion, billion. Add to that the many other constants, such as the expansion rate, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and many others which are equally fine-tuned, and the likelihood that the universe came to exist without intelligent design falls to one in 10 to the 50th, or statistically zero.

It must be immensely powerful. Consider the amount of energy in just a single atom as evidenced in the atomic bomb and we begin to understand the vast power packed in to that tiny bit of the cosmos. Scientists estimate the number of atoms in the universe at 4 times 10 to the 80th power. So how powerful must the cause of all of that be? Truly, it beggars the imagination.

So, based on the available scientific evidence, the universe was overwhelmingly likely to have been caused by a personal, extremely intelligent, unimaginably powerful, timeless, immaterial being. Of course that is exactly what the Bible says, and what Christians mean when they talk about God.

To hold the belief that the universe came from nowhere for no reason in spite of the overwhelming evidence of such a designer is, on examination, not just faith, but blind faith.

In the end, atheism, is a belief held in spite of the available evidence, whereas belief in God is strongly supported by evidence. The New Atheists such as Dawkins and Harris are quick ask -"if there is a Creator then who created the Creator?" But they argue that the universe created everything-so then, who created the universe-their "creator?"

There are numerous other discoveries of science that atheists must ignore to maintain their faith. Among them the irreducible complexity of living cells, the exquisite quaternary life-code contained in the approximately three billion letters of the human genome, the rational intelligibility of the universe, and the universal apprehension of moral duties.

The Bible teaches that the whole of creation reveals God’s existence, His nature, and His glory. If we are to maintain our denial of Him in spite of literally a whole universe of evidence, we should at least be honest and quit calling it science. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Blind faith, certainly. But science, not even close.