Why Should I Believe It?

Why Should I Believe It?

1 John 1:1-4[1]

We live in a time when skepticism is a virtue. The continual explosion of information technology and the almost exponential rise of new platforms to share information has, I think, played a role in this. Instead of making information easier to process, it’s much harder, if only because of the sheer volume of information that is available to anyone using a smartphone on any given day. You just can’t process it all. You can’t even scroll through it all! So instead of taking the time to ask whether the information we’re using is from a reliable source, or whether it results from sound research, or whether it even makes any sense, we just “browse” our so-called “news feeds” on various media for what holds our interest, or what reinforces our opinions, without taking the time to even think about the question, “Why should I believe this?”

This is actually not a “modern” problem. It’s a logical fallacy that’s been around for a long time. It’s called “Confirmation bias.” What that means is that people only pay attention to information that confirms what they already believe, and they dismiss as false whatever challenges it, simply because it challenges it. We’re not open to information that contradicts what we already believe. That’s not the only logical fallacy going around. There are a lot of them. Calling something “fake news” just because we don’t like it is a kind of logical fallacy that skirts the issue by simply attacking the source. In fact, it’s considered to be one of the weakest logical arguments. Ironically, some of those who complain the loudest about “fake news” are the ones who are out there pushing information that can be demonstrated as false based on actual facts.

But then part of the problem is that we don’t even agree on what constitutes facts. And that leads us deeper into this whole question by raising the issue of how we know what we know. There are some things we know based on intuition, like whether or not someone loves you. You just know “in your heart” that’s true. There are other things we know based on some kind of demonstration. Most of our scientific knowledge falls into that category. If someone can come up with an experiment that generates the same results every time, it’s considered to be fact. But then there is a lot of “knowledge” that falls somewhere in between, relying on a combination of objective facts and a subjective, more personal point of view. A lot of what we “know” falls into that category.

I think one of the reasons why faith can be so difficult is because it falls into that “in between” category of what we know. There are certain criteria that most faith traditions in the world rely on, but it’s a matter of how you balance them. One basis for faith is an accepted canon of Scriptures, or a collection of authoritative writings, like the Bible. That can be helpful, because an authoritative text is a fairly fixed source. But any text is always subject to interpretation. And there is plenty of evidence for the wide variety of interpretations of the Bible. Another basis for faith is the authority of a certain tradition of teaching. This takes faith and puts it into a practical framework that can help us translate what we believe into a way of living. But a tradition is a living thing, always developing in dialogue with changing times. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. We know people who belong to faith traditions that have not changed, perhaps for centuries. A final basis for faith is the authority of personal experience. It’s hard to dispute someone’s personal experience. But then personal experience can be (and has been) used to justify just about anything.

Because all these criteria for faith have their strengths and weaknesses, it’s important to find a balance that makes sense. I would say that a healthy approach to faith is going to combine all three: a sound use of Scripture, combined with a time-tested tradition of interpreting and putting into practice the truths of faith, combined with personal experience of the value of faith in our own lives. To some extent, my sermon today is a brief summation of what I taught for years in my biblical interpretation class at Seminary. You might wonder whether a sermon is the time and the place for going into that. But I also think that our Scripture lesson from 1 John for today raises the issue of why we believe.

During the season of Easter, we celebrate the message that that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and rose from the dead. But there are many these days who would ask the question why they should believe it. It speaks of things that most of us have never actually seen for ourselves. We weren’t there to see him die on the cross. We weren’t there when he appeared after his death and resurrection to his disciples. And even though our Scripture lessons throughout the Easter season give us their testimony of what they saw and experienced, many question whether we should accept it.

That’s also not a new problem. It was a challenge for the first generation of believers, as our Scripture lesson from 1 John shows us. The message of the Gospel included the claim that those who were with Jesus were eyewitnesses to his full humanity, to his very real suffering, and to his bodily resurrection. Our Scripture lesson puts it this way: “We declare to you … what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 John 1:1). Jesus was the “word” they had heard with their own ears and seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands. There’s a kind of dual reference going on here: it’s a claim that they heard Jesus teaching during the time of his ministry and they saw the amazing things he did. At the same time, however, it’s also a claim that their encounters with the risen Christ as eyewitnesses of his resurrection were very real.[2]

For some of us that’s enough to support our faith. The testimony of the original eyewitnesses in Scripture is enough to satisfy the question why I should believe Jesus is alive now. Of course, there have been all kinds of efforts to explain away what the disciples claimed about Jesus’ resurrection. But it’s one thing to say that they only thought they saw and heard him; it’s hard to explain away the claim that they actually touched the risen Christ.[3] Again, however, a balanced approach to faith must move beyond the testimony of the eyewitnesses in the Bible. And so it’s important for us to remember that we have our own very real encounters with the risen Christ in our lives. It may be hard for us to put them into words, but they are very real nevertheless. We may not be able to see him with our eyes, or hear him with our ears, or touch him with our hands, but that doesn’t make our encounters any less real. Perhaps more importantly, we can answer the question of why we should believe the story of Jesus because we are not standing alone before the witness of Scripture. There have been generations of believers who have embraced the Easter faith before us and who passed it on to us. That living tradition has not only taught us faith but also modeled it for us. In a sense we have “seen with our own eyes” the effect of faith in their lives.

From my perspective, the answer to the question “Why should I believe” that Jesus rose from the dead and lives among us now is going to be as individual as each person. For some of us, it’s enough that the “Bible tells me so.” “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” That’s enough. For others, “he lives within my heart” may be what convinces us. “You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart.” For still others, the fact that we continue the “ancient church’s story” of “the faith of our fathers” and mothers. Or perhaps even more importantly that “we walk with each other” and “we walk hand in hand” is the key to faith. For some of us, in an age in which many people get along just fine without giving second thought to God or faith or the risen Christ, we need all of it: the witness of the Bible, the experience of our own personal encounters with Christ, and the support of those who have gone before us and those who walk the path with us. We need all of that to maintain Easter faith.

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[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/7/2024 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman NE.

[2] Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John, 174-75, where he says the primary effect of this text has been to secure the authority of eyewitness testimony for the Johannine writings. He insists that this still holds true even if the author of this letter was not John the Apostle but an unidentified leader of the Johannine community because the statement still reflects the reality of the manifestation of the word, but through the means of preserving the eyewitness testimony of the Beloved disciple to the life and ministry of Jesus (cf. similarly Jn. 20:29–31; 21:24–25).

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth, 47-48: “The women and the disciples didn’t ‘see in their hearts’ or ‘with their spiritual eyes’. They didn’t have intuitions, while they were ‘caught up out of this world’, nor did they receive enlightenment in trances. The accounts tell us that it was with their normal five senses that they perceived the risen Christ.”