Sometimes, asking for evidence is a red herring

When I discuss the existence of God or creation with unbelievers or evolutionists, I'm often confronted with demands for evidence. I understand. Some things are harder to believe than others. If I were talking with someone I'd just met, and he told me he has a dog, I would tend to believe him. In my 5+ decades of living, I've known lots of people who own dogs. Based on my experience, owning dogs is usual and a claim to own a dog is reasonable.

If, on the other hand, a stranger told me he owned a sloth, I might be more suspicious. I know sloths exist but it's not usual that people own them as pets. I might ask him where he got a sloth and where does he keep it? If he says he found it as a stray and took it home, I would likely conclude he's lying. If he said, instead, that he operates an animal rescue, the sloth was recovered from a smuggler of exotic animals, he lives on a large piece of land outside of town, and now he keeps the sloth there in a secure enclosure, I would not be as quick to dismiss his claim. Now what he is saying is plausible. I could ask him more questions like, what does he feed the sloth and what does he do with it during the cold months? How reasonable his answers are will lend credibility to his claim to own a sloth.

My point is this: we make judgments about the truthfulness of claims all the time. Sometimes we have evidence that helps us make a judgment but often we don't. In fact, usually we don't. An employee is late because, “There was an accident.” Your son says, “I'm spending the night at Johnny's.” A student tells the teacher, “My dog ate my homework.” As soon as we hear claims like these, before we have a shred of evidence, we already begin to form opinions about whether they are true. We're not “blank slates” who approach every question with complete objectivity. We all have biases, experiences, and prejudices that influence our judgment. What is my history with this person? What do I think of his character? How plausible is what he says?

Over my years of studying apologetics, I constantly encounter skeptics who demand “evidence.” They will ask me what evidence do I have for a recent creation? What evidence do I have that the Bible is true? What is the evidence for God? I understand why someone would ask questions like these. It's like me asking questions to the person claiming to own a sloth – he's trying to decide how likely it is that what I'm saying is true. I welcome sincere questions. However, it's my opinion that most of the time, people who demand “evidence” before believing anything about God or the Bible, are using their demand for evidence as a red herring to derail the conversation.

Following are some statements I often hear from skeptics about evidence. I'm sure you've probably heard most of these too. I'm going to use them to illustrate my point.

“I don't believe anything without evidence.”

When I hear people say this, my first response usually is to ask them, “What evidence led you to believe that you must have evidence to believe something?” I ask this to try to get them to see that they really do believe some things without any evidence. Of course, I can't recall a time anyone conceded that point. They usually respond with a lot of bluff and bluster but I've never had anyone actually show me evidence to support this belief.

Here's the case: most people aren't scientists. They don't conduct experiments. They don't have laboratories. They don't do research. They haven't seen any evidence for evolution. Instead, they've heard the secular theories and explanations of the evidence and have chosen to believe them. So they do, indeed, believe some things without evidence. Their demand to creationists to provide evidence is essentially special pleading aimed at forcing creationists to play by the arbitrary rules of the evolutionist.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Carl Sagan made this famous quote but, just like the quote above, it doesn't stand up to its own standard. Some might say Sagan's statement is an extraordinary claim; where is the extraordinary evidence that proves it's true?

The fact of the matter is that even extraordinary claims often require only ordinary evidence. Take a resurrection, for example. To prove someone has risen from the dead, you need only to show he was once alive, that he died, and that he was later alive again. When we discuss the resurrection of Christ, we talk about the written accounts made by people who knew Him intimately during His ministry, who were witnesses to His death, and who later saw Him alive again. They talked with Him, touched Him, even ate with Him after they saw Him die. Yet, instead of trying to impeach this compelling evidence, many critics simply dismiss it saying the Resurrection requires “extraordinary” evidence. So you can see that the demand for extraordinary evidence is a gimmick that allows skeptics to dismiss much of the evidence for God, the Bible, and Christianity without really having to rebut any of it.

Some people have said my example of someone owning a dog versus someone owning a sloth demonstrates how we seek more evidence to support extraordinary claims. I intend to talk about that more in my next post but for now I'll say this: the evidence to prove I own a dog is really no different than the evidence that would prove I own a sloth. The only difference is the subjective term, extraordinary. If I'm willing to believe something, I might have a low standard for the evidence I'd accept. If I don't believe, I will set a much higher threshold. So it's not really about the claim; it's about my level of skepticism.

“Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

By now, you can probably already see the flaw in this statement. Saying, “claims made without evidence cane be dismissed without evidence,” is itself a claim and, so, must have evidence to support it. The critic who makes this claim is basically admitting it would be reasonable if I ignore him!

Even though the statement contradicts itself, critics still employ it as a way to excuse themselves from having to answer logical arguments. Let me give you an example: nothing can create itself. Are we agreed? So for nature to exist, it had to be created by something outside of nature – something “super” natural. Logically speaking, this is a valid argument for the existence of a supernatural Creator. It's so simple, yet so obvious that many critics have difficulty refuting it. Instead, they say, “Well,... do you have evidence for a supernatural Creator?”

Something can be true even with no “scientific” evidence. Where is the evidence for Washington's crossing of the Delaware, for example? No amount of scientific inquiry would discover it. The only reason we know it happened is because people who lived at that time wrote about it. Likewise, much of what we know about God is what has been written down by the apostles and the prophets.

But besides the historical evidence, we do have compelling logical arguments for God. If we know scientifically, that matter/energy cannot be created naturally, then it must have been created supernaturally. We know that complexity and purpose are the characteristics of created things and so point to a Creator. We know that objectivity morality can only exist if there is a transcendent Lawgiver. I'm not asking for anyone to believe in God with a blind faith. I'm asking them to confront the many arguments that have already been made and quit hiding behind a flimsy demand for more evidence.