3 Ways Evil Can Be Evidence FOR God 

Average internet atheist ☕

Did you listen to the interview or read his paper?

Premise 1- …? Premise 2- …? Conclusion- Therefore, “if you need evidence before you believe, your faith isn’t strong enough.” Can you fill in the rest of the argument please?

@@TheAnalyticChristian I guess one could make the argument like that P1) One ought not doubt the existence of a being which is perfect. P2) God is a being which is perfect. P3) Looking for evidence in order to believe in the existence of a being which is perfect implies doubting the existence of that being. C) Therefore, one ought not look for evidence in order to believe in the existence of God. P1) is probably false, but that's probably the idea

This implies a definition of “faith” which is foreign to Christian scripture. You may be from a different tradition? In the Old and New testaments, Yahweh and His representatives are constantly encouraging people the trust Him based on the evidence He has provided. The Biblical teaching is that our faith (“pistis” in NT greek- more like “trust” with a sense of allegiance in some usages) must not waver based on changing *circumstances*, bc the evidence has not changed. “John 10:37-38 (NET 2nd ed.): 37 If I do not perform the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Here we see Jesus demanding that the Religious teachers give ultimate weight to the evidence He provided them, in His miraculous “signs”. Indeed, he ends up condemning them bc they rejected Him in spite of the evidence (He points them both to Moses’ writings and His own miracles). At no point will you find Jesus saying to someone anything like “just believe”, unless that person already has sufficient evidence to justify such belief. In the case of Jairus, Jesus encourages him to volitionally assert control over his quite natural fear and doubt, and stay in what He knows about Jesus, which is (at least) based on what Jairus has seen with his own eyes. Jn 5:36 BTW, if you have had certain religious experiences on which your faith is based, then those experiences are evidence to you. This is fine, as far as it goes, but life has a way of dampening our memories of such experiences, so that it’s much better to have external evidence to rely on in those times where God seems distant, imo.

@@dominiks5068you could, but p1 seems spurious if it implies the utter lack of any evidence. Unless, we think that such a being imparts an initial positive belief in his creatures, like a basic warrant, or makes his creatures with an initial awareness of Him, which they must volitionally ignore or deny. Otherwise, since ought implies can, how can we move from initial ignorance of God to correct belief with no evidence at all?