Michael Novak, author of No One Sees God, gets right to the heart of the debate between atheists and Christians, whether atheists are fact-based and Christians are mere belief-based. It's hard to even start a product dialog when one side of the argument is presumed to be mere wishing and the other holding superior ground as rational:
It appears that they [atheists] get their idea of what a “fact” is from the following sequence: They observe data discernible to the five senses, and then formulate an insight that unifies these observations in an intelligible way, and then, third, verify the insight against further evidence from the senses. They come to “facts” — real, solid, existential things, not fantasies — through this “verification principle.”
But philosophers have shown that this “verification principle” is not itself empirically verifiable. It needs to be argued for, not merely asserted. Each operation in the process — observe, gain insight, verify — is subject to many meanings, and understood in different ways by different philosophies. My atheist correspondents too easily pass over the epistemological and metaphysical difficulties in their choice of method (or at least in their descriptions of that method)....
[W]hat some atheists present as “fact” is actually a “belief,” a commitment to a certain way of viewing the world. Sometimes (not always) that way is a simple-minded materialism. They will accept as evidence only material things, as detected through the five senses. For them, beyond material things nothing else is real. However, this affirmation of theirs is not a statement subject to empirical test. It is a choice of one procedural rule rather than others
Thus, some atheists seem to be evading the complexities behind their own narrow beliefs — and don’t want to think about them. They are more comfortable in a world of touch, sight, hearing, taste, scent. To stay solely in that world may be to understand themselves much too narrowly....
That is why to make a mistake in understanding oneself is almost certain to lead to mistakes in coming to an understanding of God. A materialist will be looking where no evidence of God can possibly be found. His choice of method predetermines his failure.
Just as it helps believers to understand that atheists can be irritated by condescension from believers, it may help atheists to see that insisting that their own convictions are unquestionable “facts,” while those of others may be airily dismissed, undermines their claim to being fair-minded. If we are to have a dialogue based on mutual respect, we will all have to change our ways.
