Hey Andy, if evidence is required for truth, could you prove to a blind man a rainbow is real? Would this mean that it doesn’t exist to the blind man, other than having faith in people telling him it existed? Why or why not?
Hi, I don’t think evidence is always required for Truth. For instance, if you tell a blind man that it’s night, he doesn’t know what that means, or what it looks like, though it does exist, right? Of if you explain to him about a beautiful rainbow, he won’t know what the colors look like, nor be able to experience it with you, but it’s still there, right?
As a child, I once asked a blind fellow what color he saw — was the blindness all black? But he couldn’t answer because he didn’t know what color black was. And only he can know what color he sees because he’s the one who sees it (or doesn’t see it), yet he doesn’t know what color it is because he can’t compare it to anything else that we’ve ever experienced ourselves.
Sometimes, belief of something’s existence needs to be based on faith — like a blind man walking down a set of stairs for the first time. He has faith that there’s another step below his falling foot, but he doesn’t know, and won’t know until either his foot touches it, or he falls. And somebody could tell him that there’s a step there, but he has the choice as to whether or not he wants to believe them or not.
Now on this same topic, even if somebody has the truth, and they have the evidence, but choose not to believe either of them, then can it still exist as truth? For example: in the Bible (1 Corinthians 1:17-25), the Apostle Paul tells about his ministry to the people of Corinth. The Gentiles CHOSE not to listen to the Truth — not because of the lack of evidence, but the lack of eloquence in the communication of it. The Jews had the scriptures (truth), prophets (evidence), and many of them even lived at the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection, or knew somebody who did (more evidence), but yet, because their pre-misunderstanding of the Messiah didn’t match Jesus, they CHOSE not to believe.
So the question comes to, even though they had the evidence, and they had the Truth, yet CHOSE not to believe, does that mean it’s not the Truth after all, or just in the eyes of the beholders?
And Atheists today have the Truth (they’re fighting against something that they continue to hear), and they have the evidence (even science continues to prove God’s existence), yet they CHOOSE not to believe that God exists. They have all that’s needed to believe, yet by CHOICE, they push it away.
So to take it back to the blind man…if he has the evidence of even the POSSIBILITY of the existence of a rainbow, and he has the truth (maybe a trusted friend confirms its existence to him), then wouldn’t whether or not he believes it really does exist, depend on his choice to believe it?
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