Absolute proof of the existence of God is impossible. If we mere humans could put Him in a test-tube He’d be smaller than us and that is not the God of the Bible.
Cornelius van Til was correct when he argued that Christian apologetics has to start by taking God at His word. For as soon as you start with any sort of presumption that a human system of thinking can establish the existence and identity of the infinite Lord God you have presumed Him out of existence. And your system will fall apart and leave you with no proof of anything, because only the existence of the God of the Bible gives meaning to anything.
As for the issue of faith being blind or not, what do people make of the following?
1) Faith is contrasted with seeing in 2 Corinthians 5:7. We walk by faith and not by sight.
2) Also, in the Hebrews 11:1 verse that’s been quoted against the idea of faith being blind it says that faith is being certain of ‘what we do not see’.
3) And Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
Sounds to me like the Bible is in fact saying that faith is “blind”. It’s not saying that it’s stupid, ill-founded, irrational, without evidence, etc - but it is definitely ‘blind’.
And rightly so, because once again, the God in whom we have faith is larger than us and thus we cannot grasp Him, we cannot ‘see’ Him. We can know Him, for He is personal as well as infinite, and He has met us in the Person of Christ, but the only one’s whose faith was by sight in any sense were the apostles who’ve passed their testimony onto us. As John said,
[quote author="1 John 1:1-4"]1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched–this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our joy complete.
I suspect that in our deep desire to win modernist thinkers over to the Christian viewpoint we sometimes allow apologetic confidence to override the plain teaching of Scripture. We so want to pursuade people that we try too hard to represent faith to them as something that they can fit into their current intellectual processes. In doing so, I wonder if we aren’t selling them something that isn’t exactly the Biblical perspective? (Maybe I’m being too harsh - interested in the thoughts of others.)
Ray has also asked the question about why God allows our faith to be tested. I see at least two reasons for this:
1) we don’t get taken out of the world when we become Christians. We are left here to be Christ’s ambassadors, so that more people can hear the message and come to the same ‘blind faith’ that we have. Being left here automatically means that we still face the consequences of sin in the world, with the cursed ground to till and the whole creation groaning in travail around us (see Romans 8). The only alternative is the end of the world. That will happen, but God wants more people to join the heavenly dance party first;
2) while we are being His people in this world, we grow in our faith. The testing that we undergo is intended to convince us more and more that God is real and is at work in our lives. As Paul says in Romans 5:
[quote author="Romans 5:1-5"]1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
The Parable of the Sower is relevant here, too, because Jesus speaks of people who wither once the testing comes, revealing that their faith wasn’t blind enough - ie they were wanting more immediacy, more instant results, more things to see in their lives straight away rather than their reliance being in the sufficiency of God alone. Tough times throw such people, but for people who hang on to God the tought times are rich times of blessing. (See our discussion on the depression thread!)
And in the end that’s what it’s all about. Growing in faith is growing more and more in the knowledge that it’s all about Jesus. That I can do nothing, that I need to do nothing, but simply to trust Him. I am born with a natural desire to climb the ladder to heaven myself. Becoming a Christian is just the first step in a life long process of unlearning that habit.
Which gets us back to the original question, how does God overrule the demons to achieve His purposes? He does it firstly be defeating them utterly in the death and resurrection of Christ; then He does it in our lives by growing Christ in us as our faith is strengthened. Satan wants us to want to ‘see’, to rely on the material world and the things that we can ‘prove’, the things that we can do for ourselves. God wants us to exercise ‘blind faith’ in Him and cast ourselves on Him utterly. As we do this more and more, the realm of Satan is overthrown in our lives. As we humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand, Satan flees from us. (cf James 4:7)
Thus, it is by His word - the word of the cross, the living and active word of God that is the sword of the Spirit - that the demons are overruled.
This is foolishness to most people, but to those of us who have blind faith, it is the message of eternal life.
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