Many Christians face times in their lives in which they find themselves seriously questioning some aspect of their faith, if not the whole epistemological foundation of Christianity itself: How do I know God exists? How do I know a man named Jesus ever existed?  How do I know Jesus rose from the dead?  How do I know my moral values are the correct ones?  How do I know the Bible is the Word of God?  How do I know that I can even know anything? Many experience this cognitive dissonance while in college—when their faith comes under assault by a host of anti-Christian philosophies at the helm of leftist professors.  While some are able to recover, others are not.  Those who do make it through this process without losing their faith often do so at the expense of giving up their quest to find the answers they sought.  They simply determined by sheer will to continue to believe in Christ even if they have insufficient reasons to do so, and good reasons to abandon that belief in favor of some contrary belief.  When these same people encounter other Christians engaged in the same struggle they found themselves in they encourage them to “just believe” on experiential and existential grounds, simply dismissing their unresolved questions about the faith.

Needless to say this response/advice is not healthy, nor is it necessary.  While I rejoice in the fact that their faith in Christ was not abandoned for error, I bemoan how they were forced to maintain their faith.  We should not feel it necessary to turn off our minds to believe in Christ.  We need not check our brains in at the door when we come to church.  Faith is not the absence of reason, nor is faith incompatible with reason.  Good reasons exist to reject non-Christian philosophies, and good reasons exist in support of the Christian worldview.  Interestingly enough there are Christians who are fully aware of the existence of such answers, and yet they feel no need to inoculate their fellow brethren with this knowledge.  But if there are answers out there for our deepest questions about truth, why not provide them to those who are asking questions? Why not help them resolve their questions rather than encourage them to simply dismiss them?  Why not provide the answers even to those who aren’t yet asking the questions so that they will never find themselves experiencing cognitive dissonance to begin with?  Sure, many people come to faith, and even maintain their faith in spite of large intellectual obstacles without knowledge of those answers, but not everyone.  The “rest” are who I am concerned about.  There is no reason to let even one sheep perish when it is within our means to protect and/or save them from error.  Again, if there are answers why aren’t we providing them?