Desire & Rational Christian Belief

“‘. . . And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. . . It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket.’

‘That’s rebellion,’ murmured Alyosha, looking down.

‘Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that,’ said Ivan earnestly. ‘One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live.’” (From Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Book Five, Chapter 4)

To Ivan, the troubled academic atheist from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, the Christian God represents injustice rather than hope. The core question for him is not whether God exists or if Jesus rose from the dead. The question is whether the idea of God is something we should accept in principle.

Ivan serves as an example of the fact that when it comes to beliefs that bear on our deepest desires and values, there is more to the question of what we should believe than a perfectly objective and unfeeling weighing of the evidence. This article serves as a first step for people who want to learn more about how the desirability of Christianity might lead a rational inquirer to be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence for Christianity.

As a note to the reader, I should mention that I do believe the correct view of Christianity is that it is good and desirable. Having said that, the purpose of this post is more abstract in that it considers whether the desirability of Christianity should play a role in a reasonable attempt to decide whether someone should believe Christianity or not. For that reason, this post may lack the conviction in asserting the truth and goodness of Christianity than some would desire to see. Such assertions are argued for at length in the works mentioned under “Further Reading” at the end of this post.

It would be a mistake to think this means that we can rationally think the evidence points wherever we want it to. It is only to say that a person would be within their rights to ask themselves what difference it would make if the evidence appeared one way or another. This question will involve our most basic values and desires, and it will rightly inform our opinion about whether there is sufficiently conclusive evidence.

What Makes for a Good Bet?

There is a lot to be said about choice, belief, and rationality in the abstract, but to keep it simple let’s use a simple illustration from everyday life. Imagine a person buying a 50/50 raffle ticket. If the only thing that could lead a person to rationally purchase a ticket was the belief that they would probably win the jackpot, then nobody would ever buy a raffle ticket because it is always improbable that any given person will win (and it would be mistaken to think otherwise under normal conditions). So why do otherwise rational people still buy them?

The answer lies in the fact that when desires and values are at play, there is more to a rational deliberation process than an analysis of what is most likely the case. It might be the case that a person buying a raffle ticket will never miss the few dollars they spent on the ticket, but the large cash prize would be very significant to them. The fee is of little value to them, but the potential prize would be of great value which means there is little risk and great potential reward if they buy the ticket. Similarly, someone might choose not to buy a raffle ticket because they would rather use their few dollars elsewhere. Some people could not care less about a few dollars while some people find a few dollars to be very significant.

Believing or rejecting Christianity is, of course, very different from purchasing a raffle ticket, but the principle underlying the deliberative process is the same. In general, we ask:

1. What is the risk, and how likely is a worst-case scenario?

2. What is the potential reward, and how likely is it that my decision will pay off?

3. How much more do I value the potential reward than whatever it is that I am risking?

If the answer to question 3 is that we do not care about the potential reward at all and that we care about the thing we would be risking a great deal, then it would be foolish to ever take the risk. Applied to deliberation about religious commitments, if someone values the ability to live in whatever way they see fit on this earth far more than they value heaven or fear hell, then it would make sense for them to live however they like and just take what comes in the afterlife. For this sort of person, the evidence for or against Christianity does not matter in the slightest.

Of course, foregoing an eternity in Heaven (or worse, spending an eternity in Hell) would be a hefty price to pay for a sense of full autonomy on Earth. If we do value the potential reward more than the thing we are risking, then we must consider how confident we are that we will actually get the reward. This brings us to questions 1 and 2.

Someone might decide that while the present life is valuable, going to Heaven and avoiding Hell in the afterlife would be even more desirable. So should they be a Christian?

Maybe.

It depends on how confident they are that such things are real. Is Christianity any different from Norse mythology or the thousands of other religions that all have something to say about the afterlife and how best to get there?

The Ideal Combination: Desirable and Plausible

While some people are content with their belief that Christianity is too good to pass up or too bad to ever consider, many fall somewhere in the middle. We do not want to believe a pleasant supernatural fairy tale and we also do not want to believe a pleasant secular fairy tale. While a careful analysis of the evidence gives us some assurance that we are doing more than telling fairy tales, thoughtful consideration of what really matters and what ought to matter to us can help calibrate how much evidence we require.

Again, we should not let our desires and values shape our understanding of which way the evidence points. If the evidence points to naturalism, then we should believe the evidence points to naturalism. If the evidence points to Christianity, then we should believe the evidence points to Christianity. But once we see that the evidence points a certain direction, whether it is a desirable direction should shape our view of whether there is enough evidence pointing in that direction for us to commit to the belief that it is really true.

The Goodness of Christianity Matters

For this reason, it is rational to consider the moral coherence and desirability of Christianity when deciding whether one should believe that it is true or not. If Christianity offers only a story about a spiteful and fickle deity who subjects its creation to torment and abuse, then it would be no wonder if skeptics never came to be persuaded by a body of evidence favoring Christianity.

Alternatively, if Christianity offers hope for a way out of despair, then skepticism despite a robust preponderance of the evidence in favor of Christianity would be wholly irrational. If we desire that something is true, and we also learn (upon careful consideration) that there is a satisfying amount of evidence in its favor, then it would be foolish to avoid the conclusion that Christianity is true.

Whether there is such a preponderance of the evidence has received much attention, and it is time for serious inquirers to turn their attention to the question of whether Christianity really does offer that hope or not. Rigorously answering that question is more than I can do here, so I will end with the following passage written by the 20th century philosopher C.E.M. Joad (an agnostic turned Christian late in his life):

“Presently the facts of sin and evil came to present themselves with such overwhelming strength that unless one were able to seek assistance, if not for the overcoming of them, at least for the not succumbing to them, one would give way to despair. The more I knew of it, the more Christianity seemed to offer just that strengthening and assistance. And with that the rationalist-optimist philosophy, by the light of which I had hitherto done my best to live, came to seem intolerably trivial and superficial-a shallow-rooted plant which, growing to maturity amid the lush and leisured optimism of the nineteenth century, was quite unfitted to withstand the bleaker winds that blow through ours. I abandoned it, and in abandoning it found myself a Christian.” (From Joad’s The Recovery of Belief, Chapter 3, pg. 82)

Further Reading

While this topic has received insufficient attention in our current times, past Christian thinkers have treated the issue at great length. Here are some whose arguments are still worth consideration today:

Bogue, David. An Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament. Section IV. 1806.

Burnap, George. Christianity, Its Essence and Evidence. Discourse VIII. 1855.

Thomas, David. The Philosophy of Happiness. 1869.

Fuller, Andrew. The Gospel Its Own Witness. Chapter II.

Janeway, J.J. The Internal Evidence of the Holy Bible.

MacDill, David. The Bible a Miracle. Part III. 1872.

Spurgeon, C.H. According to Promise. 1887.

Sumner, J.B. The Evidence of Christianity. Chapter VIII. 1824.

Tyrwhitt, St. John. Christian Ideals and Hopes. 1883.

Wardlaw, Gilbert. Experimental Evidence. Sections I & II.