DEALING WITH MILITANT ATHEISTS

For more great blogs as this one go to Daniel’s blog site at:  www.Mannsword.blogspot.com

Dealing with Militant Atheists

Many atheists challenge me, “Prove your god exists!” I’ve been through this so often! No proof or evidence is ever enough. This coincides with the Bible’s teaching that they already have the evidence but reject it:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,  since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

The evidence is right under their nose and in their eyes. Whatever they see points back to its Creator! Therefore, the battle for men’s hearts is primarily spiritual not evidential. Nevertheless, I continue to ask God to use our presentations of evidence and reason, and sometimes He does, as reflected in many testimonies.

One militant atheist kept pressing me for proof. I responded:

• I’ll prove that God exists after you prove that you exist. After all, I do not talk to mere machines.

There is absolutely no way that he can prove that he exists and isn’t just a machine. If this is so, how can the atheist demand that I prove there is a God! However, he accused me of obfuscating and playing with words. I responded that this isn’t a word game but an illustration that absolute proofs do not exist and that it is pointless to try to prove something to someone who has no ears (or willingness) to hear. It’s like trying to prove to the color-blind that the color red exists. However, the problem is more acute with the atheist. While the color-blind can’t see red, the atheist refuses to see red.

However, if you want to go with evidence and proof, there is a better way. Let me lay it out in dialogue form:

Christian: Okay, let me attempt to give you just a bit of proof, but first tell me – How do you intend to evaluate my proof?

Atheist: With reason and logic, of course!

Christian: Evidently, you believe that reason and logic provide you with reliable tools to evaluate. Do you believe that they have to be unchanging and universal – that they work reliably in Shanghai as well as in NYC, today as well as next year?

Atheist: Well, in order to be reliable and useful tools, they must be universal and unchanging!

Christian: True, but how then do you account for the fact that these tools are universal and unchanging? What makes them this way in our universe of change and expansion – molecules-in-motion?

Atheist: Our laws of nature are also universal and unchanging. There’s nothing unusual about reason and logic being this way!

Christian: True, but this just magnifies your problem. How can you account for any of these laws being universal and unchanging?

Atheist: I don’t have to account for these qualities. It’s enough that they are useful.

Christian: I think that you do have to account for them. The viability of your naturalistic worldview depends on this accounting, and I don’t think you can. Meanwhile, I can!

Atheist: Ha, you mean with your imaginary sky friend!

Christian: Your worldview can only account for molecules-in-motion; God can account for the stability, operation, and origin of the laws. Meanwhile, you cannot account for how natural laws were created before there was even a “natural” to create them. Nor can you account for their elegance or usefulness. Only a Transcendent and intelligent Creator can!

Perhaps we can call this a “contextualized proof!”