Evidence · Case 09 · Atheism
Hebrews 11:1 and the meaning of the Greek word “pistis”
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
The New Testament word for faith, pistis, means first of all trust or confidence, and such trust can rest on evidence, the way trust in a reliable friend rests on experience of that friend. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” where the word for conviction carries the sense of being convinced or having proof, not guessing blindly. Honest limit: skeptics sometimes cite John 20:29, where Jesus blesses those who believe without seeing, as if it praised evidence-free belief. In context it commends people who trust reliable testimony rather than demanding to see for themselves, not people who believe at random.
Sources
Objections & responses
- The Greek word elenchos in Hebrews 11:1 is rendered conviction, evidence, or proof by different versions, and the verse is famously hard to translate. And Hebrews 11 praises people for believing promises with no evidence but God’s word.
The translation difficulty is real: the KJV has evidence, the ESV and NRSV have conviction. What the word does not mean is blind guess; every rendering involves being convinced of something. The examples in Hebrews 11 involve trusting a God who had already shown himself trustworthy to Abraham and to Moses, which is the grounded part. Luke 1:1 to 4 and Acts 17:11 show the New Testament commending people who check claims, and the standard lexicons give pistis a range centered on trust and reliability rather than on belief without grounds.
- John 20:29 says “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Isn’t that a blessing on believing without evidence, whatever is said about testimony?
The contrast in John 20 is between seeing for oneself and believing on the testimony of witnesses who saw, which is how nearly all historical knowledge works. Believing reliable testimony is not believing without evidence; testimony is evidence. Thomas is not rebuked for wanting evidence but for refusing the evidence the other disciples’ testimony already provided. The blessing is on those who will weigh that testimony without demanding to put their own hands in the wounds.
- Even grounded trust goes beyond the evidence; that’s what makes it trust rather than knowledge. So isn’t the disagreement with Dawkins smaller than it sounds?
Fair, and worth saying. Trust extends beyond what is strictly proven, which is why it is trust; but it is proportioned to evidence, the way trusting a friend rests on their track record. Dawkins’s definition, belief in the absence of or against evidence, describes something different from proportioned trust, and that difference is the point. Faith goes beyond proof but not beyond reason is the short form.