Rant: "Enough Faith"

Since attending an Easter Sunday service at WCC I've had this quote stuck in my head, "I don't have enough faith to say that it all just happened...that we're just here." This isn't the exact quote but this is the sentiment of what Denny Wilson said during that Easter Service; that he doesn't have enough faith to say that we are just here. That, in effect, it takes less faith to make the claim "there is a God" than it takes to not make that claim. There exists a book cleverly titled, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist written by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek which, presumably, devotes many pages to supporting the title of the book.

Now, I don't know what is wrong with these people. And it could be the case that a sensible explanation of what is wrong with them will fail to fully explain their bizarre claims. But I would like to know what they think they are saying. So, let us attempt to puzzle our way through it.

First, empirically verifiable claims do not require faith. To see a cat on a mat and state, "The cat is on the mat." in no way involves faith. Now, if one reads Descartes' Meditations incorrectly one could arrive at the conclusion that all claims are faith claims, that one can know only cogito. But even if one has incorrectly read the Meditations and acts on the assumption that all claims are faith claims this still does not explain the situation, as all claims would be faith claims and, surely, all faith claims would require equal faith under the world view of the misread Descartes. If everything is in doubt, surely no thing is in more doubt than any other. So this does not explain the absurd notion.

What of this idea of "enough"? This seems to suggest that belief in God requires X faith and not having belief requires some quantity of faith > X

Let me make an aside at this point. It is impossible to prove a universal negative. So, it cannot be the case that their argument is that a universal negative claim requires more faith than their particular positive claim, as no one in their right mind would make a universal negative claim and suppose it to be true.

What we seem to have, at this point, is the following set of thoughts:

X faith is required to make the claim, “There exists a God.”
Y faith is required to make the claim, “You have supplied insufficient proof in your attempt to support your claim.”

And Y > X.

Now, as was already said, empirical observations do not require faith. So it cannot be the case that any faith is required to make the Y faith claim. So, somehow, these people seem to maintain the world view that 0 is greater than a positive number.

But perhaps we have misunderstood their argument. What if they have not misread Descartes but do maintain that the claim of a non-believer requires faith. But then, faith in what? Faith is maintained for something, for some end or some belief. So, would it be faith in a non-claim? This cannot be the case if the non-claim is supported by empirical observation, as empirical observation requires no faith. So, then, in what does the non-believer have faith?

Why, in their non-belief, of course. While empirical observations in and of themselves require no faith, one must have faith when basing one’s judgment on empirical observations. Except, again, that is the misread Descartes’ argument, the notion that faith is required to get to any sort of concept or idea.

I think, probably, that their argument is the misunderstood Descartes’ argument in miniature, that in saying, “There is no proof for this, therefore it is either not true or cannot be known to be true” one somehow invokes faith and utilizes faith.

Which, again, doesn’t make any sense.