In a conversation on the Unbelievable? Podcast, Coming to faith through Dawkins – Part 2: Is there a new New Atheism?, Alex O’Connor (a/k/a the Cosmic Skeptic) commented about the book, Coming to Faith through Dawkins. He agreed that the most interesting aspect of the book is the prominence of story and experience, but he finds it unconvincing for the same reasons.
In case you don’t know, the book is a compilation of the stories of twelve people who were influenced by Richard Dawkins in their journeys from atheism to belief in the God of the Bible. Dawkins, of course, is one of the original (and most vocal) of the “new atheists. Thus, the title and subject matter of the book is ironic, intriguing, and not a little controversial.
O’Connor’s critique of the people whose stories are recounted in the book is that they seem to focus on their personal experiences. He says he is not convinced by the personal stories because they focus too much on personal experience and too little on syllogisms, rational arguments, and logical processes in their coming to faith.
This statement, as we shall see, is not a little ironic. O’Connor, though, expresses the modern western sensibility about personal experiences that are discounted and dismissed in favor of more objective evidence.
To be fair, many of the stories in the book recount the intellectual paths people trod on their way to faith, though the stories do not rigorously lay out the arguments, logic, and proofs. We shouldn’t be surprised by that, as the book focuses on peoples’ stories, and people’s stories are personal experiences.
Each of these journeyers from atheism to faith found problems, errors, bad philosophy, and nonsensical statements in Dawkins’s positions that led them to question his underlying assumptions (which were their underlying assumptions also). This, itself, was a rational process. The intellectual problems they saw in Dawkins’s positions made them skeptical of his skepticism.
O’Connor’s critique of the experiential nature of the stories might be discounted on that basis, but I want to focus on something else. This critique came up in the second of two segments. I want to go back to the first segment and contrast his critique with another statement O’Connor made to get to my point today. (See Coming to Faith through Richard Dawkins Part 1)
When asked what might convince him of the existence of God in the first segment, O’Connor said (without hesitation) that personal experience would be the most likely thing. Therefore, the critique O’Connor made in the second segment (complaining of the overly experiential nature of the stories) is ironic in light of O’Connor’s own admission that personal experience might be the one thing that could convince him that God exists (if he had such an experience).
This incongruity in O’Connor’s criticism about personal experience, and the value of personal experience in what we believe, is the thing I want to explore today. Atheists are not alone in being skeptical of personal experience. And with good reason. But personal experience is, nevertheless, vital to our human understanding of anything.
If I am understanding O’Connor accurately, I think O’Connor would say that his lack of personal experience is proof (for him) of the lack of existence of God. This isn’t just an absence of truth is truth fallacy argument. I think he is being more nuanced than that.
I believe he bases this critique, and his positive statement that personal experience would make all the difference for him, on the idea that the God of the Bible is believed to be a loving God who desires all people to be “saved” from hell (to use a popular understanding of what belief in God means). If God loves everyone and wants everyone to be saved, then certainly He would reveal Himself to everyone and give everyone a personal experience. Right?
For O’Connor, the fact that he has not had such a personal experience, and many other people have not had such a personal experience, suggests that the God described in the Bible does not exist. for O’Connor, the fact that the loving God described in the Bible is “hidden” to so many people means that such a God doesn’t actually exist.
I am giving O’Connor the benefit of the doubt here and expanding on his biggest area of critique – divine hiddenness. In the second segment of the conversation, however, O’Connor goes on to take a more popular and accessible position – that one person’s experience is not convincing evidence for another person who didn’t have the same experience.
This criticism is not nearly as nuanced or substantive as the other, though I think they are linked. O’Connor’s admission that personal experience would be the one thing that might convince to him to believe raises the question whether his skepticism is motivated by experience also. We might wonder whether his doubt is based more on his personal experience (or the lack thereof) than on any rational deficit in the faith position.
The personal experience critique cuts both ways. It ‘s always fair, also, to be skeptical of the skeptics and (perhaps mas important) to be skeptical of our own skepticism sometimes. (People can be too gullible, also, so healthy skepticism all around is not a bad thing.)
Atheists, also, are not alone in discounting personal experience. Though personal testimonies have long been popular in some circles, Christians have discount personal experience because of sin.
The argument is that we can’t trust our personal experiences because of our sinful natures. As Jeremiah says, the human heart is deceitfully wicked. Thus, we should not trust our own, subjective experiences. Thus, atheists haven’t cornered the market on the principal of being skeptical of personal experiences.
As an aside, I note that one of the hallmarks of testimonies of coming to faith is the commonality of the experience that includes awareness of the presence of God in the act of repenting, confessing, and turning away from sin. This commonality and other shared characteristics in the personal testimonies of people who come to faith in God takes on the ring of objective truth in the volume and consistency of shared experience.
Regardless, O’Connor isn’t the only person to question the reliability or evidentiality of personal experience. J. Warner Wallace, the atheist turned Christian apologist, very vocally discounts personal experience as a tool for defending the faith and convincing others.
O’Connor and Wallace make similar points. They say that personal experience is subjective, and, therefore, it is compelling only to the person who has the experience. They question whether one person’s experience is helpful at all to another person who did not share the experience.
The critique, however, doesn’t ring true with our collective experience. If I have never been to France and have never experienced France, I do not personally know what it’s like to be in France, to see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and other things. Â Yet, I can imagine it. I can picture it in my head.
We would not, typically, question that a person who claims to have been to France has actually been there or experienced it. Descriptions that are intimate, detailed, and consistent with what we know of France are consistent with the experience of actually being in France.
A person might feel differently, though, if she never heard of France and knew nothing of France. Similarly, one person’s experience with God may seem unbelievable to another person who has never heard of God and knows nothing about God.
The fact that a person has not heard of France and has never been to France, however, does not mean that France doesn’t exist or that the person telling the story has not been there. The same is true of an experience with the transcendent being we call God.
A person who does not have the experience is naturally going to discount the story of the person who has the experience. A person who hasn’t had the experience may not even be able to imagine what the experience is like. This would be even more true of an experience with a transcendent God than it would be of a physical location in the world like France.
We can see France on a map. Many people have been there. Many people have stories about France, We can see photos of France in travel brochures and magazines. We can read books about France, and we can learned much about France from various sources.
We can see that those sources are many and are consistent with each other. Therefore, no one seriously questions whether France exists – even with no personal experience with France.
Ahhh, but we can say the same thing about God. We have a collection of writings created by dozens of people over a period of approximately 1500 years that include stories of personal experiences with a transcendent being they call Yahweh/God. These stories are intimate, detailed, and hold together with consistency as a whole. This collection of writings is what we call the Bible.
We have the stories of hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people from the 1st Century on, from all over the world, and from diverse countries, cultures, and societies around the world who have claim to have had experience with the same God revealed in the Bible. People have written volumes of books about it, and the stories are remarkably consistent.
A person could, no doubt, make up stories about encounters with God without ever having a personal experience. Such a person could very likely fool people into thinking they have had a personal experience with God when they have not. The same is true of a trip to France of course, but that doesn’t mean that France does not exist or that no one has actually been there. Â
God may not be a physical location on a map. God may not be physically accessible like taking a plane to visit France. On the other hand, the people who have written about their experience with God say that God is everywhere and He is accessible to everyone. God is even more accessible to us than France is.
France does not move. France is always located in the same place. God, however, is not a thing like France, but a Person (like us). An experience with God is necessarily going to be different in kind than an experience with a thing like France. Indeed, the characteristics of the stories people tell about personal experiences with God are personal, intimate, and relational – like our experiences with other people.
We do need to be careful and have a healthy skepticism about personal experiences. Not just other peoples’ experiences, but our own experiences. We are easily fooled. Our hearts are easily deceived.
Experiences also do not insure that we will accurately understand (even our experiences). An experience with God doesn’t necessarily give us an accurate view of God, or of truth, or even of objective reality. We have to engage our minds for that.
This is where the importance of reading the Bible comes in and being in close, personal contact with other people who can hold us accountable. We should respect and understand science, and logic, and rational thinking, but we should not be so reluctant to devalue personal experience.
The Bible does not discount the value of being objective, and even skeptical. Paul urges us to “test everything!” (1 Thess. 5:21) At the same time, God invites us throughout His inspired Word to seek Him and to know Him, which (in Hebrew culture) means to experience Him.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Psalm 34:8 ESV
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7 NIV
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20 KJV
Navigating by Faith 