Is Faith Provable?
It depends on how you define faith. Some people define it as something you believe in but cannot prove. One way Webster’s defines it is as a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion rather than being able to prove it as real.
If you can’t prove something is true, then it doesn’t correspond to reality. I may have faith that I can fly, but if I can’t prove it, it’s not real. It doesn’t correspond to reality. It may even give me comfort, but I’m believing in someone or something that isn’t true. This is blind faith.
The bible has a different definition of faith. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 1, it says faith is “…the assurance about what we do not see.” The word “assurance” means evidence or trust. Evidence are things that we know to be true, beyond a reasonable doubt. In a courtroom, evidence are facts that point the way to something that we decide is true. Since we cannot see that something, like a murder, the evidence of it will point the way for us to make a decision that’s beyond a reasonable doubt.
The “…of things not seen” refers to things that we cannot directly observe anymore. What things can we not observe anymore? Hebrews 11:3 says things like the creation of the universe, Abel bringing an offering to God, Enoch being taken up alive to heaven, Noah and the flood, etc. We cannot observe anything in history. We also cannot observe things like love and trust. We can observe their effects but we cannot observe these things. For example, what does love look like, how much does it weigh, what are its dimensions?
In our present time, we have proof of Jesus being raised from the dead (https://bsssb-llc.com/video-courses-overview/the-real-easter-story/ weeks 2 thru 4) and the accuracy of the bible (https://bsssb-llc.com/video-courses-overview/how-we-got-the-bible/).
We didn’t observe these things but we have proof that they happened. When Jesus says that He will come back again to set up His eternal kingdom, we have proof that He can be trusted based on the evidence of His prior claims. We can trust what the bible says based on it being a trustworthy source.
So, Christians don’t have blind faith in Jesus. We have evidence that corresponds to reality. That is real faith.
Faithfully Yours,
Dave Maynard