"Faith" and "Evidence" are not contradictory terms.

I have heard countless times over the course of debating with skeptics that I cannot have faith if there is evidence because evidence would negate the need for faith. There tend to be a miscommunication as to what "faith" means. Even believers sometimes get the meaning of "faith" wrong by the biblical definition.

Mr. Russel is actually wrong. We do speak of evidence when we speak of faith. If anyone has ever asked about having faith in their spouse, they immediately respond with several pieces of evidence, like "she has never lied to me," or "she has never even looked at another man" or "she just gives me this look and I know she loves me." Those things are evidence and because of those pieces of evidence we have faith or trust in someone.

While skeptics would like to use the term to accuse believers of ignoring evidence, that is actually blind faith. Blind faith is faith without evidence. Faith however, almost always requires evidence in order to have it. No where in the bible is anyone ever expected to have blind faith in God.

The word "faith" in Greek (the language of the New Testament) is interchangeable with the English word "trust." The ironic thing is, "faith" by a biblical definition almost demands evidence. You would use the word when saying "I have faith the sun will come up tomorrow." While there is no proof the sun will rise tomorrow, there are certainly substantial reasons to believe it will.

In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man is told that people should believe because of Moses and the other prophets. The evidence of God's power was seen by so many. Today, we live in an age of archaeology and history that generations were without. With books like Evidence for Christianity by Josh McDowell and other apologetic works, it is not hard to find evidence. Aside from that, science has only scratched the surface of God's amazing creation which gets more complex with each passing discovery. The evidence for God can be overwhelming.

So how can we have faith with so much evidence? Faith, in the bible, has always been in God's promises, not in His existence. His existence is hard to question with the surmounting evidence we find, but faith on our part has always been in God fulfilling His promises. While we know what all God has done, we do not know what He will do. And because of what we know He has done, we can have faith in what He will do.

That is the kind of faith the Bible speaks of. Specifically in Hebrews 11, we find a list of those who had faith that God would fulfill his promise and each one mentioned in that chapter had plenty of reasons and evidence previously that strengthened their faith in what God would do.

So if you ask someone why they believe and all they can say is "I just have faith." They do not understand what the term means. As both Peter and Paul encourage us to be ready with an answer when asked for the reasons of our faith, we too should no why we believe.

We should not have faith that contradicts the evidence any more than we would trust a person who has betrayed us several times. I trust God exists because every where I can test the evidence, it has come through. So now I have faith in the things I cannot test. That is how biblical faith works.

Faith is a gift from God. He has never had to do anything to give us evidence. He could have left us after the garden and given us no reason to believe. Instead He has provided more evidence than we can ever know the extent of.

If you would like some resources to some of these evidences, I recommend the following:
Evidence for Christianity by Josh McDowell
Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Cold-Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace