April 24, 2007

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‘But Faith Is Like a Pickpocket’

A blogalogue (ack!) between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan is wrapping up over on the terrific Beliefnet. Here’s a bit of Harris:

You want to have things both ways: your faith is reasonable but not in the least bound by reason; it is a matter of utter certainty, yet leavened by humility and doubt; you are still searching for the truth, but your belief in God is immune to any conceivable challenge from the world of evidence. I trust you will ascribe these antinomies to the paradox of faith; but, to my eye, they remain mere contradictions, dressed up in velvet.

If God loves the world, he has a terribly noncommittal way of showing it.

Sullivan’s reply is yet to come. Suspense!