Trust That and Trust In

If you decided to buy a new car, and wanted to get the best car for your money, how might you proceed? Well, you might go to magazines that test various cars and report on how they performed and compared. You could talk to mechanics about their experiences repairing various makes and models. You could go to friends in person and go on social media to learn of people's personal experiences with their particular cars. Through this process, you could gain a strong trust that a particular car would reasonably meet your desires. That's a valuable trust to have, but it won't transport you to work or on vacation. For your conviction that a car would be a good car to own to do any practical good, you have to put your trust in that car by going to the dealer, buying the car, and driving it off the lot.

The same trust that and trust in distinction is important for considering Christian truth claims. We can trust in all kinds of spiritual claims for all kinds of reasons, including tradition, family culture, personal experience, even reason and evidence. So, can we know how to sort them out and be confident about what to place our trust in? I think we can, testing truth claims objectively to verify that they are true. The areas of testing are science, philosophy, and history. 

Here's a brief summary of the objective evidence for Christian truth claims. Through science we can find that the universe came into existence a finite time ago and is extremely fine-tuned. Life came to exist on earth with information in DNA, and information comes from minds. From philosophy, we learn that objective moral values require a transcendent moral law giver. These evidences reveal a Creator who is personal, intellegent, powerful, pursoseful, and moral. History gives us evidence that Jesus of Nazareth came into the world, performed miracles, claimed to be God, and proved He was God and Savior by predicting and accomplishing  His resurrection from the dead. You can read more at my website: http://www.reasoningfaith.com/index.html , where there are articles and resources listed for follow-up.

One might ask, what role does objective trust that Chriatian claims are true fulfill in becoming a Christian? Should we trust that Christian claims are true before or after we trust in them? The answer is, either way. God can use objective evidence to prepare the heart for conversion. God can also use objective evidence to confirm trust that has been established through personal witnessing, preaching, or baptism. Of course trust in Christian truth claims and in Christ Himself is more important, but we are not given the requirement or necessity of trusting in Christian truth claims without trusting that they are objectively true. Scripture teaches that we can have both.