When I was an undergraduate student at Liberty University, I remember distinctly sitting in class with Gary Habermas (his course on Miracles, I think), and we were discussing the Resurrection (for which Dr Habermas is famous). In the midst of this conversation, one of the students told the class, with a note of frustration in his voice, that he didn't care about evidence or arguments about the Resurrection. I don't remember the entire conversation that ensued, but I do remember Dr. Habermas being very considerate. And I definitely remember someone asking whether that student was a fideist.

It was the first time I heard that word, and I had no idea what it meant. Over the years, I've had many opportunities to look more carefully at the world of fideism, and it's a complicated subject, mostly because people rarely self-identify as fideists. Philosophers, as I understand them, claim that fideism at its most basic is a claim that knowledge begins first with faith in Go…