Convergence

With so many different viewpoints and sources of information today, how can we best tell when something is true? That’s a big question, but one helpful thing is to notice when separate lines of evidence converge to a consistent answer.

One of the problems with interpreting sources is avoiding confirmation bias. This is when we look for sources that say what we already think. It’s a very common human trait and is largely amplified by social media and today’s biased news sources.

One way to avoid this is to deliberately gather information from different sources. With scientific experiments, this might look like having different experimental techniques. With historical questions, it might look like a diversity of records.

With metaphysical questions, it might look like different intellectual approaches – science, philosophy, art and human experience, morality and ethics, history, and so on. It seems that although we can’t be certain about metaphysical questions, we can still find independent threads that, like the different threads in this picture all lead to the same leaf, point to the same place, same key idea.

When different sources all give the same story, point to the same conclusion, etc, then that strengthens the conclusion.

This is one reason I find Christianity to be a rational and robust view. Even if we can’t consider it proven, the fact that very different lines of evidence support it provides strong support.

For example, things like fine tuning, the hard problem of consciousness, the usefulness of mathematics in nature, all seem to need some explanation. Strictly material solutions have been proposed for these, often with no evidence. Similarly, the nature of Biblical texts, alignment with other records like Josephus and the Babylonian Talmud, and other historical arguments also beg some explanation. Other lines of reasoning from philosophy and human experience, such as religious experiences and ethics and morality, provide other types of arguments.

These all have proposed solutions that draw from many different lines of thought. Interestingly, they can all be satisfied by just Christianity. While it may be true that this still doesn’t constitute an ironclad proof, when taken together they all converge on the person of Jesus.