Can Reason Produce Faith?

By Amy Sayers

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling.”

Ephesians 1:18a

I was a mall-walker, back in my middle school days. My friends and I had parents who took turns dropping off a flock of us to “go shopping,” even though few of us ever bought anything besides a fast food lunch. One of our stops in a standard round through the mall was the 3D store, as we called it. This place sold the Magic View computer-generated colored patterns that, when stared at a certain way, revealed a three-dimensional scene. With at least twenty prints out for view, it was a good place to kill a chunk of time as we stood staring, eyes glazing, then pointing and saying, “Awesome!” or “Totally rad!” We jostled together in a clump, moving from one to the next, eyes glued to the print as we sucked at our soda straws. These were the days before the Internet was part of our world. When Nintendo was the best graphic accomplishment in our middle class homes. These 3D prints, somehow imagined by some mathematician and a computer somewhere—we figured—were just one step shy of miraculous.

Our friend, Sarah, resented this regular stop. She could not see the 3D scene within the pattern. We tried coaching her through it. There was the passive method: “Just stare and, kind of like, let your eyes get crossed, but not really.” Or the kinesthetic method: “Stand close, almost like touching your nose to it and then just keep staring and slowly step back but keep staring and it will totally, like, change as you’re looking.” Or the zen method: “Just look, and let it, like. . .happen.” I believe Sarah tried her best. It just didn’t work for her.

After enough stops and enough trying, she concluded that this emperor was naked and that none of us wanted to be the one who “couldn’t see.” 

“Why would we lie about this?” I asked her. We were 14 years old. Hence, nearly everything in the world was stupid and lame, and we were quick to point it out. There was no reason to pretend that something stupid and lame was actually cool.

Her answer: “Maybe you think you are seeing something. Or maybe you want to see something and so your brain is tricking you.”

So we set up a test. The subjects looked at the picture and then Sarah took us aside and quizzed us individually about its contents. I was certain this would be enough to convince her.

“See!” she exploded, upon completing her interviews. “I knew you were faking it!” This conclusion was confounding, and the enthusiasm she voiced it with made clear that we were no longer discussing the existence of a 3D scene. We were in a full-on debate and the sides had been chosen.

“Faking it,” she suggested, because while all 4 test subjects had reported that the scene featured dolphins, our stories varied as to how many dolphins were jumping, where they were jumping, and what the surrounding details looked like. “If there were really a scene, you would have all agreed on all the details.”

By this point, the others in our group had grown weary of the debate. They were not the kind of girls to sink their teeth into idle questions of intellectual process or pursuit. And they certainly were not game for re-conducting the experiment. (These were the same girls who were popular with the boys a few years later, I don’t mind pointing out.)

But Sarah and I were just warming up. I tried to explain the experience of seeing the 3D scene. “The details are different because it’s not like a painting, where everything’s clear. It’s a little bit hard to keep focus and let your eyes move all over the frame.”

“Well that’s pretty ad hoc!”

“Look,” I insisted, “Maybe Alissa missed seeing something in the left corner, or maybe Mary Beth caught a small detail that seemed important to her. The important thing is that we all knew it had dolphins in it.”

Sarah countered, “But you could have agreed to say it was dolphins without me hearing you.”

“You have no proof that we tried to trick you.”

“You have no proof that you didn’t.”

“Well you are arguing from silence!”

“You both,” Alissa cut in, “are the two biggest dorks I’ve ever met.” We turned to stare at her. How dare she blow our cover? Alissa smiled, said, “J/K!”[1] and ran ahead of us to catch up with the flock, which was well on its way to the Swatch store. 

Sarah and I shrugged. I figured, “Too bad for her. She’s really missing out on something.” She figured, “It’s not that I won’t see it, or that I can’t. It’s that there’s no scene there for me to see. This is what I have to live with until someone can prove otherwise.” 

We caught up to the others and marveled that Swatch was now making Swatch rings.

Not until 4 years later, when Sarah described her Driver’s license screening, did we find resolution to the 3D question. The DMV lady told Sarah to look into the viewer and identify the letters there. Sarah looked, then had to tell her, “Can you wait a minute?” Her lazy eye had to yolk up before she could read them.

Lazy eye??? I didn’t know Sarah had a lazy eye! It is a slight one, and a teenage girl is so animated in her speech, it’s easy to miss. But there it was, a left eye, slightly rolling around in her head, looking for nothing in particular.

For Sarah, “Letting her eyes get crossed a little” to see a 3D scene wasn’t possible. I told her, four years later that, in fact, she really couldn’t see the scene. She didn’t have the eyes for it.

“Oh! So you weren’t lying!” she said, and laughed. “I’ll have to take your word for it, then.” Glad we had that settled.

But in tribute to our dorky selves, let’s think now for a bit on what would have to be done for Sarah to believe those scenes exist. Let’s suppose that it were actually important to be right about 3D pictures, too important to let “my word” bear the burden of her decision.

She could study the math and programming necessary to make these pictures possible, thereby seeing on paper and by virtue of mathematical or logical proofs that these scenes exist. But this would bring her only to a place of intellectual acknowledgement.

For Sarah to see the scenes, to experience them, to know of what we speak when we ooh and ahh, she would have to get an operation to fix her lazy eye. 

To date, the only shortcoming of this eye problem is that she can’t enjoy 3D pictures. I’m fairly certain that such surgery would be elective. I am also fairly certain that she and her husband would not want to spend thousands of dollars investing in such a surgery. 

But it is the only way.

And this brings me to the comparison—you knew this was coming—to faith and the role of proof required for it. Sarah represents the skeptic in this story. At first, it seemed that she wasn’t a believer because the case I summoned to convince her was not strong enough. This was her claim, and she, I’m certain, believed it to be the case as well. 

But it turns out that there was something about her very self that kept her from seeing the scene. She will not be able to see the scene until she volunteers to subject herself to a physician, who can heal her. The case for 3D pictures, however it is made, can only bring Sarah to the point of wanting to see the scene. Once she gets to this point, it is up to the physician to give her the eyes to see it.

And so it is with Christianity.  There is something about the very condition of the skeptic (indeed, of us all) that keeps him from seeing God, and seeing things God’s way. A case cannot be made for Christianity that will produce faith in a person. An argument for the existence of God, or the Resurrection of Jesus, or the saving power of His sacrifice on the cross can only bring a person to the place of wanting to believe. Once there, he humbles himself and asks the Physician to give him eyes to see. A request, let’s keep in mind, that God has promised to honor.

Seekers[2] are on a misguided quest if they are looking for an argument to make them believe. What they will find are arguments that will bring them to a place of wanting to believe. Just as Sarah could review the math and conclude, “There probably are scenes in those pictures,” so the seeker could consider the evidence for Christianity and conclude, “Jesus is probably Who He said He is.” At this point, if they want to have eyes that see, they will have to ask the physician to operate. 

Those of us who can already see in 3D can also learn something from this parable. It was nothing I said back in that mall that made Sarah even care whether there was something to be seen in those prints. It was the sheer enjoyment and enthusiasm her friends experienced as we looked that made her wonder, “Is there anything there?” Our excitement peaked Sarah’s interest. As Christians, let us keep the “eyes of our hearts enlightened, so that we may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Let us exude excitement over the seen. 

[1] “Just Kidding”—we were speaking in short hand long before the youth of our country took to instant messaging in it.

[2] I define “seekers” as those who are asking honest questions about the possibility of God, and who want honest answers, regardless of how well they match up to their own expectations.