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Why Believe

Tough Questions

What if Christianity isn't true and I've built my life around it?

Then you should want to know.

The amount of time, identity or emotion you have invested in Christianity cannot make it true. But neither does the fear of having "wasted" years make it false.

That is why sunk-cost reasoning works both ways. Staying only because leaving would be painful is a bad reason to believe; abandoning Christianity simply because discovering you were mistaken would feel embarrassing is not a good reason either.

Christianity makes claims about reality, including a striking historical claim: Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul himself says that if Christ was not raised, Christian faith is empty.

That gives you permission to investigate rather than protect Christianity from questions.

You may not reach mathematical certainty. Historical questions rarely offer that. But you can ask the more useful question: which explanation best fits the evidence we actually have?

Bible quotations in these answers are generally taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Some biblical wording may be paraphrased or follow other translations.

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This answer is one of 250 questions in Why Believe — an app for taking an honest look at Christianity's hardest questions. It covers the evidence, the strongest objections and what Christians actually believe, with Deep Dives that go further into the reasoning, Scripture and sources behind each answer.

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