Should Candidates Question One Another's Faith?

Recently Republican primary candidate Rick Santorum (a conservative Catholic) has come under fire for making critical remarks concerning President Obama's (liberal Protestant) Christian faith--saying he has "phony theology." [1] I'm not the least bit interested in skipping through a minefield of evaluating whether Obama is or is not a saved Christian. But, I would like to examine what lies behind the criticisms of Santorum for having made such remarks. Should questions of religious faith be off-limits? If so, why?

Rick Santorum (R)

It seems that the broader American culture and especially the mainstream media are offended by even remotely challenging another person's faith. Is it a sin to question one's faith in any respect--no matter what? If so, our Lord Jesus is the chief sinner, having called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" for their phony, hypocritical religion. (Matt. 12:34) John the Baptist said exactly the same thing. (Matt. 3:7)
 
Why many believe religious criticism is off limits

At some point in the modern period (the Enlightenment), due to the works of thinkers like John Locke (a professing Christian), the West accepted the idea that all knowledge comes from the five senses. This has become known philosophically as empiricism and is the basis of the scientific method, which requires sense observation. The law of gravity is a "law", because we have observed its force over and over and over with absolute consistency. From a Christian perspective, empirical knowledge is a gift from God. The scientific method is a great use of the senses God has given us, and it has done incalculable good for humanity. The problem is not the empirical, but the addition of the suffix -ism. The addition of -ism creates an ideology that claims that knowledge is obtained exclusively through the senses. Therein lies the problem: God is not known by the senses. By definition God stands outside of the realm of the senses; therefore, according to empricism, belief in God does not constitute knowledge.

Barak Obama (D)

If faith is not (and cannot be) knowledge of true facts, what is it? All that remains is opinion. Empiricism pushed religious faith out of the realm of true, hard facts into the realm of opinion. Now, saying "I believe in God" is little more than saying "I like chocolate". One does not believe in God due to any conviction of truth but rather it is a matter of taste or pragmatism. Analogously, Suzy can eat chocolate because she finds it tasty, or she can eat chocolate because it serves some good purpose--good health, maybe. It is either personal preference or pragmatism--neither of which has any claim on truth.

To those who honestly (even if subconsciously) believe that religious faith is simply opinion, criticizing another person's faith is plain old self-righteousness. Rick Santorum might as well have said that Americans should not re-elect President Obama due to his aversion to sweater vests, which Santorum clearly loves. Consequently, if religious faith is merely a matter of personal taste, then the media is perfectly legitimate in its abhorrence of religious criticism. However, if faith is a reasonable truth claim, then the media is wrong to condemn it.

Faith is not opinion

The media is wrong, because faith is not merely an opinion. That is a faulty epistemological assumption. Christians shouldn't believe in the Lord simply because they find it agreeable or useful (like chocolate). Even further, Christians should not believe in God because it will save them. Christians ought to believe in God and the lordship of Jesus Christ, because they believe it to be true. They believe the truth that they are sinners. They believe the truth that Jesus takes away the sins of the Church. They believe that they deserve to go to Hell but are truly amazed by the kind forgiveness of God.

Christian apologists do make good use of empirical knowledge. For instance, there are very strong empirical reasons to believe that Jesus is the Christ, such as the remarkable eye-witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels. (See the works of Mike Lacona, Gary Habermas, N.T. Wright, or Craig Blomberg) However, most of the impetus for Christian faith comes from non-empirical sources, namely the internal witness of the Holy Spirit and the revelatory power of the words of the Bible and the preached word. (see Alvin Plantinga's Warrant series) Also Christianity, with all of its associated claims, provides answers to the most basic human questions--a task, which other faiths and secularism fail to accomplish adequately. (See C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Nancy Pearcy, or my post on The Flying Spaghetti Strawman)

If faith is a claim as to what is or is not true, it is a perfectly valid campaign question. Reasonable voters want to know what a candidate believes is true about the world.

Christian faith as a worldview

In the media backlash, Santorum has back-tracked a bit, claiming that he was not questioning the President's faith, but rather his "worldview".  Secular culture doesn't understand this distinction, because worldview studies is a recent phenomenon in the Christian church and intelligentsia. To the uninitiated it comes across as a bit of doublespeak. In reality, it is a valid distinction.

If a candidate believes that Christianity is more than just opinion, then that candidate is implying a whole host of other truth claims about the world: God created the universe. Humans bear the image of God. Jesus is divine. Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. Humans have a sinful nature. Humans are higher order beings than animals. Satan exists. Christianity, though open to a variety of orthodox interpretations is a whole package, which is not meant to be parted out like an old Chevy. It is all-or-none. The political question is this: Does Christian Candidate X believe faith to be a whole package of truth claims about reality (a full worldview) or merely a religious personal preference (isolated opinion)?

This question matters, because worldview analysis has predictive power. People vote for someone when they are reasonably sure that their candidate will act the same way that they would in a situation. If a voter cannot reasonably predict what a candidate will do in office under situation x, he will not vote for that candidate. If one candidate can illustrate that the other's Christian faith is pragmatic, rather than a commitment to the whole package, it tells the voters something important about the candidate--his "faith" gives them no sense of what that person might do.

So, Santorum's challenge to the religious faith of President Obama is legitimate, I think. It's a two-way street, though; if Santorum is going to dish it out, he better be willing to take it himself. 

-----------------------

Below is an interesting and uncomfortable interview of Franklin Graham on MSNBC, regarding faith and the election process.  (15 min.)

[1] For the fuller context of the "phony theology" comment, look here.