EVIDENCE vs. OUR PHILOSOPHICAL COMMITMENTS

 

I have presented the evidence for Jesus’ miracles and His resurrection to many thousands of skeptics. Not a single one has ever responded, “That’s interesting. I’d like to examine this evidence further.”

Why the resistance to this all-important question: “Does God exist, and who is he?” It is apparent that the evidence cannot compete against our commitments to our beliefs or presuppositions. C.S. Lewis correctly observed:

·       …our historical inquiries thus depend on the philosophical views which we have been holding before we even began to look at the evidence. The philosophical question must therefore come first. (The Joyful Christian, 9)

However, even before the philosophical question, the question of what we want to believe must first be considered. Jesus claimed that it is always a matter of what we love and hate:

·       “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:19-20 ESV)

Because of our love of the darkness, we must first be born from above (Ezekiel 36:25-27). Until this happens, we will remain impervious to the evidence, even to the miraculous. No evidence by itself will avail. Lewis, therefore, wrote:

·       If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we shall always say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. (8)

Israel’s religious leadership had witnessed many of Jesus’ miracles. They had even been present when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after four days. While some believed, others plotted to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (John 11)

However, we must not abandon the use of reason and evidence. It is clear that God often uses the evidences as He regenerates dead hearts. We find many examples of this in the Scriptures, for instance:

·       And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. (Acts 17:2-4)