Skepticism as Snobbery

Skepticism about religious belief, and indeed about the existence of truth itself, is often dressed up as being highly “rational” and “intellectual.” Logic and reason drive the skeptic, not feelings and wishful thinking, right? Well, maybe sometimes. However, skepticism is often based quite firmly in emotional reactions. In fact, skepticism is often a form of snobbery.

Take an ordinary Christian, not a pastor or teacher, but just someone who goes to church on Sunday, and who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, and that the Bible is God’s Word. Now ask that person to explain why those beliefs are true. There’s a good chance that this ordinary person can’t defend his or her belief, can’t provide a compelling argument for why it is so.

On this ground – on the basis that Average Joe and Average Jane can’t explain why they believe as they do – the skeptic rejects their belief.

However, Average Joe believes a lot of other things without understanding them, in the same way that he believes that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on the cross for our sins. For instance, the average person waiting to board a plane does not understand even a fraction of why enormously heavy aircraft can lift off and soar into the air. It has something to do with the jet engines, and something to do with a mysterious thing called “aerodynamics,” and the pilots and mechanics know what to do, and that’s that.

If skeptics treated air travel the way they do Christianity, they would never set foot on a plane. Because, after all, if the people who get on the planes can’t explain why or how they work, and simply have faith in a few select people who do know the whys and wherefores, then air travel cannot possibly be true. The skeptic would point at the enormous bulk of the 747 and say “Look at that! Isn’t it obvious that such a huge machine can’t fly through the air? You’re all a bunch of foolish, naïve people if you believe a fairy-tale like that! What’s next, the idea that buildings can float up in midair? Or maybe that I can personally teleport myself to my destination?”

And everyone else would say, “I don’t know how it works, but it does,” and get on board, and a few hours later get off at their destination, shaking their heads at that crazy person who refused to get on the plane.

Radical skepticism faults Christian truth on both ends: It is too simple, because a child can grasp the basic elements, and it is too complex, because it recognizes profound mysteries beyond the grasp of ordinary people’s ability or interest. (Imagine someone rejecting addition and subtraction, or the balancing of a checkbook, because most people can’t understand calculus!)

In contrast, falsehood is shallow and circular. It feeds on itself and rejects answers. The modern-day skeptic, who embraces various forms of gnosticism and conspiracy theories, wants something more complex, more “sophisticated,” than the simple faith of a child who knows Jesus. But the skeptic does not want, or does not understand, that this simple faith leads endlessly deeper into the richness of truth, the heights of complexity. The skeptic does not like to be told that there are things that do not have simple, easy, comfortable answers (and indeed Christianity does not pretend to offer easy or comfortable answers.) So the skeptic reaches for a middle ground, something that is complex enough to make him feel smart, but without the sting in the tail of pushing toward real truth.

It’s better to affirm the truth, and not know why, than to have sophisticated arguments for rejecting the truth – and be wrong.

It’s even better to know the truth and have reasons to back up what you believe. What’s even better than that is that searching for truth, and living it out when you find it, and developing an ever-fuller understanding of the truth, is a lifetime journey of incredible excitement.

Related posts:

1. Fire and Ice: The Consequences of Radical Skepticism