John Lennox, a professor of mathematics at Oxford University, argues that everyone has "faith" in something—even atheists. Lennox notes that the word faith isn't just a religious word. It comes from the Latin word fides, which means "trust" or "reliance. Lennox writes, "The irony is that atheism is a 'faith position,' and science itself cannot do without faith."

Lennox backs up his case by quoting the famous 20th century scientist Albert Einstein who once said, "I cannot imagine a scientist without that profound faith [that the universe is comprehensible to our reason]." The contemporary atheist Richard Dawkins once wrote, "An atheist … is someone who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe …" Notice that the atheist believes there is nothing beyond the natural world because he or she can't actually prove it. The physicist Paul Davies, who is not a Christian, says, "Even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith the existence of law-like order in nature that is at least in part comprehensible to us." The physicist John Polkinghorne agrees, arguing that the entire study of physics depends on "its faith in the mathematical intelligibility of the universe."