Many Christians think it right to provide evidence to nonbelievers of the existence of their god. If a person believes based on good evidence, though, is that praiseworthy? Demons have 'good evidence' of God's existence - would Christians praise them for this? Of course not. Belief based upon evidence is not valued in orthodox Christianity.

In Why Atheism?, George Smith explains the argument advanced by Thomas Aquinas that demons may believe in God, but they should not be praised for this:

Belief, which is caused not by a command of the intellect but by an act of will, may arise from two different motives. The Christian believes because his will is directed to the good (i.e., God), so his faith is based on his love of God. The belief of demons, in contrast, is based not on the love of God, but on “many evident signs, by which they recognize that the teaching of the Church is from God...” Hence “demons are, in a way, compelled to believe, by the evidence of signs, and so their will deserves no praise for their belief.”

Demons have witnessed more signs (miracles, prophecies. etc,) than humans, so their faith is supported by evidence that is more compelling than the faith of Christians, who must depend on their love of God. Demons, having witnessed many miraculous signs, have no choice but to believe in God and his teachings, and where there is no choice there can be no virtue.

Demons — and this would include Satan, of course — have very good reasons to believe not only in the existence of God, but in the identity and mission of Jesus Christ, at least according to Christian mythology. Demons arguably have stronger reasons to believe than humans do. The problem is, they don’t have faith — which, according to Aquinas, means that they don’t believe for irrational reasons. Rational belief is not praiseworthy; irrational belief is:

Although this example may appear silly by modem standards, its message is deadly serious, and is as relevant today as it was in the thirteenth century. As incredible as it may seem, Aquinas is arguing that the faith of demons, because it is based on the evidence of “signs, “ is more rational than the faith of Christians.

Thus the evidence available to demons is so strong as to leave them no choice but to believe, and it precisely because of their rationality that demons should not be praised as virtuous. The belief of Christians, in contrast, is morally superior because their faith is not based on evidence that is sufficient to compel their assent. Christians, motivated by their love of God, choose to believe without sufficient evidence, and it is this voluntary assent that renders them praiseworthy.

In this way, Thomas Aquinas made a moral virtue out of irrationality and irrational belief — through his writings, Christianity has come to praise the idea of believing in spite of poor evidence and contrary evidence. There is nothing about Aquinas' arguments which contradict current Christian doctrine or which have been abandoned as outdated.

Most Christians outside the Catholic Church may not pay much attention to Aquinas, but his influence remains and he has not been discredited within any denomination. This means that every Christians can be expected to answer for Aquinas' claims. Every Christian can and should be asked which they consider more intellectually and morally praiseworthy: belief based upon strong empirical evidence or belief in the absence of any good evidence.

Christians who opt for the former are coming out in favor of rationality, which is good, but in doing so they contradict a basic fact of Christian tradition and they'll have to deal with it. Christians who opt for the latter are proclaiming their allegiance to irrationality and cannot be trusted to engage in anything like a reasonable conversation.

Note: things like dreams or mystical experience don't actually qualify as "evidence." They may be reasons why a person believes in something, and they are certainly poor reasons for believing something, but they aren't evidence for the truth of some particular proposition. Christians - or anyone else - who believe something because of such reasons are believing in the absence of any good evidence. That it is indeed Christian tradition to base belief on an irrational basis is evident from the absence of any valuation of reason, rationality, intellect, and philosophy in the gospels or the New Testament generally. Christianity is not presented as a rational belief system, or is rational belief praised among believers.

If Christianity could be based upon rational evidence, there would be no room for "faith" as described by Paul.

 

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