Welcome back to the 20 Tough Questions series! In the last post, we showed that faith is not blind belief but a combination of (i) belief, based on evidence, experience, and reason, and (ii) trust, based on God’s inherent qualities.
A skeptic might say, as I used to, “Fair enough. Faith is not just blind belief. But it’s on you as the proponent of faith to prove it. Until you prove that God exists, the default is that God does not exist, or at least that we do not know whether God exists.” The skeptic might ask Tough Question No. 2: Shouldn’t agnosticism be the default?
Before we go any further, let me explain what I mean by the term agnosticism. The essential quality of agnosticism is a lack of commitment to either the existence or non-existence of God. In other words, when it comes to God, the agnostic is undecided. People may have different reasons for being agnostic. Some may assert that we do not and cannot know whether God exists; others may just be indifferent to the question. But no matter their reasons, all agnostics are, by definition, undecided on God’s existence.
When I was an atheist, I thought of agnosticism as the starting point and buffer against belief in God. Atheism was my preferred philosophy, but if I could not convince someone that God did not exist, I could always resort to agnosticism as the status quo or default position. It was a sort of worst-case scenario for me as an atheist.
Now, I confidently say the answer to Tough Question No. 2 is: No, agnosticism is not the default position. In fact, it isn’t a viable option at all. To explain this, I will cover two points in this post and will preface two other points for future posts:
- All disputes have two burdens: proof and persuasion.
- Like a jury, we cannot choose agnosticism.
- The burden of proof should be on the atheist.
- The burden of persuasion should be preponderance of evidence.
All disputes have two burdens: proof and persuasion.
If you are analyzing the question of whether God exists, you are evaluating competing claims in a dispute. And any time you are deciding a dispute, you are—whether you know it or not—applying burdens to the competing claims. These burdens dictate the default position. The best way I know to show this is by providing a very short summary of how burdens work in law.
In the practice of law, the default is defined in every dispute by the burdens of proof and persuasion. The burden of proof states which side bears the burden of convincing the jury, and the burden of persuasion states what level of proof the jury should require from that party.
This is not as complicated as it sounds. Almost all of us already know the burdens for criminal cases because they have become common phrases.
“Innocent until proven guilty” describes the burden of proof in criminal cases. It means that the state (i.e. the prosecutor) has the burden to prove that the defendant is guilty. If the state fails to meet its burden, the jury must find the defendant innocent because that is the default.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” describes the burden of persuasion in criminal cases. It means that the state can meet its burden only if the state proves the defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. If the jury weighs the evidence and believes the defendant is probably guilty, but there is at least some reasonable doubt about the matter, then the jury must find the defendant innocent.
We use different burdens in civil cases (disputes about money and property). In civil cases, the burden is on the plaintiff (the party who is seeking to recover money), but the burden of persuasion is “preponderance of the evidence.” To satisfy this burden, the plaintiff need only show that his version of the facts is more likely true than not. The presence of a reasonable doubt does not prevent the plaintiff from satisfying his burden and winning the case.
Like a jury, we cannot choose agnosticism.
This naturally raises two questions (1) Why do we have burdens at all? and (2) Why do we have different burdens for different types of disputes?
First, we have burdens to guide juries because they must decide cases. In criminal cases, the jury must issue a verdict of innocent or guilty. In civil cases, the jury must issue a verdict in favor of the plaintiff or defendant. The jury does not have the option to choose “undecided” or “not sure.” Juries are not think tanks or academic discussion groups. We form juries to decide real disputes with real consequences, and we need their decisions because we do not have the luxury to sit idly by undecided.
Second, we tailor the burden of persuasion to the nature of the dispute. Convicting a person of a crime and sentencing that person to punishment is a weighty exercise of state power that has lasting and severe consequences. To guard against the potential evils of unjust imprisonment and abuse of state power, we place a high burden on the state. We place a lesser burden on the plaintiff in a civil case because, when there is a dispute between two parties, there are no strong policy reasons for favoring one party over the other, and we want to adjudicate the dispute fairly.
When it comes to the question of faith, each of us is like a jury. There is no sense in trying to get out of jury duty. The jury is already empaneled, and we are on it. Here we are—existing, breathing, eating, and, I am sorry to say, drawing closer to death one day at a time. We do not have the luxury to sit idly by undecided; our bodies will go on aging and decaying whether we like it or not. As with all things in life, the reality of our position informs our decisions. If you are standing on dry ground and someone asks you which of two lifeboats you would rather use, you may rightly refuse to decide because of uncertainty, but that same refusal would be insanity if you were lost at sea and treading water. We must decide: Does God exist or not? We must issue our verdict, “yes” or “no.”
I want to quickly address two possible objections here.
First, someone may point out that matters of faith are often uncertain. This is true, but there is a difference between things being uncertain and us being undecided. In deciding cases, juries hear evidence and arguments from both sides, the plaintiff and the defendant. A lawyer might point out that there are uncertainties in the case, but she would do this only if emphasizing those uncertainties would lead to a verdict in favor of her client. No lawyer in any case would point out uncertainties to advocate for an undecided verdict. Why not? Because an undecided verdict would not benefit anyone or achieve anything.
Second, someone may object that a jury can fail to reach a verdict due to irreconcilable conflict among the jurors (i.e. a hung jury). But in this event, the jury is not issuing a verdict of “undecided” or “unsure;” it is failing to issue a verdict altogether. It is failing to perform the very purpose for which it exists: to issue a verdict. Moreover—and this is where my analogy breaks down—a hung jury results from disagreement among the several persons in the jury, each of which has, as an individual, decided one way or the other. A hung jury is a sign of conflicting “yes” and “no” answers, but each of us is a jury of one and cannot have such disagreement.
The burden of proof should be on the atheist.
So, we are the jury in the case of faith in God and must issue a verdict of “yes” or “no.” Far from being the default position, agnosticism is not an option open to us at all. The next thing we must determine is who, between the Christian and atheist, bears the burden of proof?
I am more concerned with the burden of persuasion than the burden of proof when it comes to faith, but I suggest that the burden of proof should be on the atheist. I will cover this topic in greater detail in a future post when I ask and answer the tough question, Isn’t faith just wishful thinking? But for now, let me ask you this: If there were two equally likely alternatives to choose from, and if the first offered meaning, beauty, love, the triumph of good over evil, and eternal life, whereas the second offered nothing beyond whatever you could cobble together from randomness and chaos, would you not choose the first?
The burden of persuasion should be preponderance of the evidence.
Whether the burden of proof is on the Christian or atheist, the burden of persuasion should be low, like the preponderance-of-the-evidence burden in civil cases. One of the chief errors we commit is to hold questions of faith to an unreasonably high burden, far beyond other subjects and areas of life, as I will explain in a future post when I ask and answer the tough question, With all of our knowledge, why do we need faith?
There is another, practical reason for a low burden of persuasion that I want to cover here. Everything I have said in this post regards a person operating from a close-to-neutral position and making a good faith effort to decide whether God exists. In most but not all cases, it would be that person’s first time to carefully study the evidence, deliberate, and issue a verdict. For that person, I believe a low burden of persuasion is the best thing, even if it means he chooses atheism, because the person who deliberates and issues an atheist verdict is closer to reuniting with God than the agnostic who dismisses the question as irrelevant or annoying.
This is because, unlike ordinary juries, we are not convened to decide the question of faith one time. We must decide it every single day. And if we continue to examine the evidence and issue verdicts, then we invite God into more opportunities to enlighten us. We may hear new evidence, or the same evidence may look different to us. And if we do our daily work as a jury—rather than refusing in agnosticism—the burdens may appear different to us as our own positions shift. For a college student trying to decide whether God exists, the burdens of proof and persuasion may dominate his thoughts; for a tenured Christian who has worked hard to follow Christ for decades and has experienced the peace of God, they may never cross her mind.
Respectfully,
Kyle Zunker
