Do Protestant Trinitarians believe that Christianity can be 'proved' without faith?

Faith and Reason in Trinitarian Christianity In any research, debate, or discussion, there is usually a definition of terms. And most questions about faith and reason fail in this vital preliminary exercise.

Reason is a God-given essential to humanity, and it flows from the attributes of a Logical, Orderly God. God expects his creatures to exercise in it (Reread Proverbs where wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are exalted.) God admonished us "to come and let us reason together." (We're not referring to man-originated, rebellious philosophies. 1 Cor. 1:20-21) God is not the Author of confusion, but expects order in His creation: thinking, decision-making...and church services.

Faith must be defined in order to discuss it relation to reason. So many misconstrue it to mean "faith in faith." It is often contrasted with "facts" by modern professors and the cultural media. Many define faith as "a hope so" "by gosh-by golly" "could be" "wishful thinking" idea. And many Christians get sucked into this as well.

But, as Hebrews 11 stated, faith involves substance and evidence. God does not want disciples who merely "take a jump into the dark" or "a leap of faith" not knowing what they are getting into...nor why they should! Rather, to understand real faith, it is mandatory to realize that "Faith always has an object." So what is important is the object of one's faith, not the amount; even a mustard seed size is sufficient, according to Jesus.

So how can a person know it is wise/necessary to have faith in God? By hearing about the God who gives proofs...the God who is not adverse to being searched out...the God who is there and who is not silent...the God who manifests His evidence in creation.

The Metaphysical arguments are not the end (telos) but the precursors to faith (trust in ) in God. They are the removal of weeds so seeds can take root. Proofs are the grease on the hinges of the closed mind so that it will open easily when Christ comes knocking. Proofs remove obstacles so that the Holy Spirit can lead the soul on the path to God without stumbling into doubt!

Proofs merely remind the Atheist of the indisputable facts about our Father's world. The Bible said they already know, it's just that they don't yet want to serve Him.(Romans 1) The proofs leave them with no excuse.

God never made man to be robots to serve Him without a mind (or dedicated heart), but desires man to worship Him according to the first commandment: with all...the mind...as well as the soul, heart, etc. Thus "he that cometh to God, must believe (with his mind)...and that He such an awesome God who rewards His disciples. Factual reasons, evidence, proofs, all help the honest inquirer to believe that He is.

Christianity can be proven with facts and reason but that is a precursor to faith, not a substitute for faith. Once confronted with with the evidence (through dialogue or preaching from a pulpit) the will of man must decide. Trust in God (faith defined) must be activated. (See Romans 10:14-15)

(The posted question, as is poorly written, does not differentiate accurately between the act of proving, and the act of putting faith in God. The phrase "proving without faith" muddies the waters concerning Conversion.) Does the Trinitarian Christian believe Christianity can be proven by factual evidence, but still needs faith to become a dedicated disciple? is a better wording.

All major decisions in life are based on relevant facts before committing: what car to buy, who to marry, whether to have surgery, etc. A "hope so faith" just doesn't work in real life...neither does a hope so (just take it by faith) deision work in choosing a religion. If it did, one could put faith in any religion...but that would be disastrous.

Notice that the Apostle Paul did not hesitate to appeal to the cosmological proof in Romans 1:20. And when speaking to the Athenian scholars, Paul did not hesitate to appeal to several metaphysical arguments. And recall that Jesus Himself gave 5 proofs for belief in John 5, and Peter referred to these same five in his attempt to make disciples on Pentecost! (1) Pure teaching of Jesus backed up by a sinless life, (2) healings and miracles, (3) Fulfilled prophecy, (4) Resurrection from dead, (5) charismatic gifts. (Acts 2)

Of course, to the hard-hearted, no amount of proofs or evidence would suffice, as Jesus noted. But to the honest inquirer God is willing to sit down with him and reason with him. After all, He created the mind for thinking, and even requires worship "with the mind" in the first commandment. Remember again, that anyone coming into fellowship with God must first believe He exists (is). Any evidence that fosters this, is a blessing, a wonderful aid on the way to eternal life with a good God! An entrance to a life of trusting in a benevolent Father.

• Evidences are the cobblestones on the path to the doorstep of the house of God.
• Evidences are the streetlights illuminating the way to belief in the existence of God.
• Evidences are the jigsaw pieces when put together portray the face of Jesus as Author and Finisher of the Faith.
• Evidences are the tools in the hands of the Holy Spirit to construct a temple of faith in the existence of God.
• Evidences are delicious cookie crumbs on the dark forest path of life leading the hungry soul to the existing God.
• Evidences are the criteria by which the stubborn atheist will be judged on J-Day (Romans 1:18-20).
• Evidences are the facts which stare a person in the face which he must deal with in deciding to believe in the existence of God.
• Evidence is the taxi that transports the honest inquirer to life's "fork in the road" with the Broadway on one side and the narrow path on the other.

Without faith it is impossible to 'please' Him, for he who cometh to God must believe that He is... The following statement is given by the questioner: The writer to the Hebrews makes it clear that one must first have faith before coming to God...

However, confusion arises because this statement is false! Hebrews did not say "one must have faith before coming to God. He said that "it is impossible to please God without faith". And then the writer of Hebrews explained how to "please God": Believe that He is.

The pathway to pleasing God begins with the process of "acknowledging the 'existence of God'" and then coming to the understanding that Jehovah is an awesome God who 'rewards diligent disciples.'

Unbelievers must first be given evidence, reasons and answers (1 Peter 3:15), infallible proofs (Acts 1:3), supernatural evidence (John 5:36), eye-witness testimony (1 John 1:1-3), etc. Because an uninformed faith is simply "blind credulity." True faith is trust based on adequate evidence: evidence that fosters sensible confidence, reasonable reliance, informed dependence upon God. Someone who is not truly convinced, nor does not really believe in the God of creation, can in no way 'please God'. God is pleased with worship from those who do it with "all their heart, soul, and mind.

Confusion may also be cleared up by recognizing the modes of the Christian experience, and the triumph of a living faith over unbelief by stages:

1. Modus venendi - Method of coming (proof) [credibility] {pre- evangelism}

2. Modus operandi - Method of operating (persuasion) [conversion] {evangelism}

3. Modus vivendi - Method of living (pilgrimage) [conduct] {post- evangelism, discipleship}

A. The Mode, Method, or way that a person comes to belief (faith) is by information that is convincing, through a sermon, evangelistic encounter, or enlightening evidence that cannot be denied. We see this throughout the N.T. Some became followers because of healings, some through seeing fulfilled prophecy, some thru hearing Jesus teach with authority, etc. But as Paul wrote in Romans 1, everyone has the Cosmological Argument to deal with (Natural theology, General revelation). The evidence of the God of creation is overwhelming, and inescapable. Paul also mentioned the Moral Argument dealing with the Conscience.

B. The Mode in aid of convincing one to come to "believe in the existence of God" and be converted is three-fold: (1) concurrent ministry of the Holy Spirit drawing the soul, (2) the revelatory wisdom of God that convinces the reasonableness of coming, and (3) the prevenient amazing grace of Jesus, that makes conversion available.

C. The Mode or Manner of living is the telos, the purposeful result which is thelife of faith. For the righteous shall live by his faith! (Habakkuk 2:3, Romans 1:17) And this end-result is what pleases God. Without this kind of faith (daily trust, reliance upon, confidence in) it is impossible to please God.

Protestant Trinitarians who believe and teach this are abundant, and a sampling of their literature is herein listed, for further research:

Colin Brown - Miracles and the Critical Mind... Russ Bush - The handbook for Christian Philosophy... Wm Lane Craig - Reasonable Faith... Norman Geisler - When Skeptics Ask... Os Guiness - God in the Dark, Dust of Death... Stuart Hackett - The Reconstruction of the Christian Revelation Claim... Josh McDowell - Evidence that Demand a Verdict... John W. Montgomery - Evidence for Faith... J.P. Moreland - The Creation Hypothesis... Robert Morey - Introduction to Defending the Faith... Frank Morrison - Who Moved the Stone?... Ronald Nash - Faith and Reason... Robert Newman - The Evidence of Prophecy... J.I. Packer - Knowing Christianity... Clark Pinnock - Set Forth Your Case.. Bernard Ramm - Protestant Christian Evidences... James Sire - The universe Next Door... Wilbur Smith - Therefore Stand. R.C. Sproul - Defending Your Faith Robert Boyd - Handbook of Practical Apologetics Richard Purtill - Reason to Believe Arlie Hoover - Dear Agnos. a Defense of Christianity

(To these may be added some who may not be Protestant, but are beneficial: Stanley Jaki - God and the Cosmologists... Robert Jastrow - God and the Astronomers... Peter Kreeft - Handbook of Christian Apologetics.)

All these Protestant Trinitarians do believe in faith but with the right definition, and as part of the believer's daily life after he comes to believe in God, which pleases God: an informed, trusting faith that is an attribute of a mature Christian (1 Cor. 14:20)

Paraphrasing your question

I think it is instructive to clarify the meaning of "proof". Your question already distinguished two meanings related to two different faculties of the human soul, which if I may rephrase:

• faculty of the mind: the proof of God's existence, which I assume you meant something like Aquinas's Cosmological argument or St. Anselm's Ontological argument
• faculty of the new life: proof (obtained through the virtue of faith) of the fullness of God mediated by Jesus Christ (testified by the Holy Spirit)

Are there proofs of other kinds of truths that the human soul can arrive at without being born again? I think that's another way of asking your question.

My short answer is: Yes there are, but not enough for conversion. Protestantism (especially the Anglican variety) welcomes proofs but still requires faith to convince a person to become a Christian. Once converted, Christians can then re-enlist their grace-repaired reason to give additional proof from within the spiritual life and to grow stronger in faith. @Anne's answer beautifully contrasts the "proof from outside" versus the "proof from within".

Introduction: faith and reason versus faith or reason

The preeminent modern Protestant apologist who places a high value on rationality is of course C.S. Lewis, who famously said:

"I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of the evidence is against it." (from his book Mere Christianity, Book 3 Chapter 11 - Faith Paragraph 4).

What could he mean by that? Did he mean reasoning with or without faith? On the other hand, the famous existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard believes that God's Existence Cannot Be Proved. How do we reconcile this with C.S. Lewis? With St. Aquinas and St. Anselm?

Once again, we need to be careful what exactly we want to prove, which we need to associate with a particular discipline (such as history, science, philosophy, psychology, mythology, literature, etc.), each with its own canon of method. For example, historical proof will look very different than philosophical proof, different not only by the method but by the kind of truths that can be produced.

We also need to be careful to distinguish which faculty of our soul is involved and to NOT disregard the stamp of God's image that is still there despite of the Fall, such as our conscience which according to Romans 1:18-32 is still operating, even though it is impaired.

Cumulative proofs as preparatory to and supportive of faith

To answer your question about "the possibility of 'proving' anything about Christianity without repentance, first, and genuine faith", I would answer that by combining different disciplines we will obtain cumulatively more "proofs" that will satisfy our reason, but not enough to make it a life-saving proof because the Protestant doctrine of sola fide teaches that we still need faith given through grace, although faith does NOT contradict reason. All these cumulative and variegated proofs are preparatory. Different kinds of preparatory proofs will suit different temperaments. The one that works for C.S. Lewis himself is what is now famously called the argument from desire.

These proofs are also useful post conversion to provide a safety net from our falling back into unbelief. So I believe reason and faith reinforces one another instead of competing. Professor Alister McGrath's 2015 lecture Faith, Proof and Evidence: What's right to think? (transcript here) makes the same point.

First two paragraphs of the lecture:

The whole issue of making sense of reality is deeply embedded within both the natural sciences and the Christian faith. In my own case, one factor that led me decisively away from my youthful atheism to Christianity was my growing realization that the Christian faith made far more sense of what I saw around me and experienced within me than its atheist alternatives. I gladly endorse C. S. Lewis's statement, now inscribed on his memorial stone in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey:

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

Yet there is more to Christianity than making sense of things. We can hardly overlook its emphasis on the existentially transformative nature of salvation, nor the rich experience of beauty and awe which is so often evoked in Christian worship. Yet the fact remains the intellectual capaciousness of faith cannot be overlooked. As the Harvard psychologist William James suggested many years ago, religious faith is basically 'faith in the existence of an unseen order of some kind in which the riddles of the natural order may be found and explained.

The lecture then describes the following arguments that affirm how "part of its rich heritage Christians have always held that their faith makes sense in itself, and makes sense of the enigmas and riddles of our experience. The gospel is like an illuminating radiance that lights up the landscape of reality, allowing us to see things as they really are.":

• C.S. Lewis & G.K. Chesterton: "I am an empirical theist. I arrived at God by induction." and then discusses how their view counters Richard Dawkins who argues that inductive evidence from science has nothing to do with faith
• Michael Polanyi's view to counter Darwin
• Cosmological Argument
• Kalam Argument: William Lane Craig vs. Hume
• Teleological Argument: Aquinas and William Paley
• C.S. Lewis's argument from desire

The lecture ends with a note that those arguments

actually proves nothing. It affirms the consistency of the ideas, but does not compel assent.

Conclusion

Thus, if what you are trying to prove is the experienced reality of Christ's coming down from heaven to meet us in our impotent sinfulness and then giving us an empowering new life to start our ascent in union with Him back to what our life should have been, then those arguments are not sufficient. But our reason can at least help us to be more disposed to allow Christ to come to our living room (but not yet to the entire house) when He knocks on our heart's door. Then once Christ explains to us that we can be the adopted sons and daughters of God but that on earth we need to accept the way of the cross and the cost of discipleship, reason (healed with the grace of regeneration or if you're an Arminian, with prevenient grace) can also assist faith to battle the immediate violence and the unrelenting power of our old life which try to create doubts and to make us enslaved back to our former lord, the devil.

I believe in this way we can reconcile C.S. Lewis's defense of rational faith and Kierkegaard's insistence (along with the Protestant tradition) that reason is not enough. But both faith and reason are necessary if we see reason as preparatory to and supportive of faith. Christians should welcome all legitimate proofs to aid our faith and to clear the obstacles to the gospel that the lord of the world has erected to muddy the clear water through false philosophies, scientism, culture of death, false messiahs (such as Marxist socialism like in China), New Age movements, prosperity gospel, etc.