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Is it still reasonable to believe in God?

Recently, the popular media frenzied, due to the popularity of newly published books by the “brights”.  A “bright” is an intellectual who promotes the advancement of the sciences and brings to light the unintelligibility of religion.  ABC News even featured a low quality debate between two popular TV evangelists and two atheists on God’s existence.  Rick Warren, a popular American pastor, even had a debate with Sam Harris, a popular “bright”, which was featured in Newsweek.  Harris appeared to be the bastion of reason, while Warren appeared to be a laughingstock for Freud.  The Colbert Report even featured an Oxford don, Richard Dawkins, the most popular among the “brights”, who claimed that belief in God is delusional.  So, unsurprisingly, highly educated Americans of the 21st century are probably wondering whether it is still reasonable to believe in God.

Of course, it is still reasonable to believe in God.  But, just a reminder, the reasonability of a belief in God should not be considered as a sufficient factor for forming a belief in the biblical God.  A belief in the biblical God must be a product of our encounter with God through the biblical story that is inspired by God’s own Spirit, who bears witness to the truth that was ultimately revealed in and through Jesus.  At least based on my understanding, a belief is at least reasonable, when it does not obviously conflict with the basic demands of reasonability.  For example, when a belief is consistent with widely accepted and highly attested scientific theories, consistent with our personal observations, or considered plausible by some contemporary and sophisticated intellectuals, it can at least be considered as reasonable.  The fact that the belief in God’s existence is reconcilable with widely accepted and highly attested scientific theories and considered as plausible by some contemporary and sophisticated intellectuals makes it a reasonable belief.  There is nothing obviously unreasonable in the assumption that God designed the complex laws or regularities that govern the operations of the natural world.  There are contemporary and sophisticated intellectuals who believe in the existence of God: John Polkinghorne (formerly a Cambridge mathematical physicist), Arthur Peacocke (formerly an Oxford biochemist), Russell Stannard (a British physicist), Owen Gingerich (a Harvard astronomer), Joan Roughgarden (a Stanford biologist), Francis Collins (a well-known researcher for the Human Genome Project), Michael Behe (a Lehigh biochemist), etc.

Of course, the belief that God exists is probably not a serious scientific hypothesis yet, but it is at least a reasonable philosophical hypothesis.  A reasonable philosophical hypothesis must at least be considered as a legitimate object of intellectual inquiries.  If it is a legitimate object of intellectual inquiries, then intellectuals must responsibly consider, analyze, or assess it with care.

The “brights” have no good reasons to claim that a belief in God’s existence is obviously unreasonable or unintelligible. So, do not be easily intimidated by the criticisms from the “brights”, even though such criticisms will eventually be popularized by the popular media.

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