What Would You Say to the Fighting Atheist?

If you are reading this article, then it is likely that you believe in Jesus Christ. I hope that your belief is not simply a mental assent to some doctrinal statements about him (he is God; he died for my sins; etc.) but an actual commitment to trust in him and follow him as your life’s primary directive.

But what about those people who do not believe? Why don’t they accept what we have accepted? What’s wrong with them?

Perhaps nothing is wrong with them. A relativist would say that, although their frame of mind is different from mine, it is no better or worse, no closer to or farther from reality. If so, then I should just them alone.

Perhaps they have never heard anyone present the gospel. (In the United States, this is possible but unlikely.) If so, then I should try to evangelize them and present the gospel to them.

Perhaps they have not been given enough evidence to convince them that the gospel accounts are true, that Jesus rose from the dead, etc. If so, then I should give them a book by Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell.

Perhaps they were abused by unloving, judgmental or hypocritical Christians who misrepresented Christ to them. If so, then I should love them and show them that not all Christians are bad, and that Jesus is far better than the church.

Perhaps they are fools. That is a distinct possibility. After all, the fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:10). If so, then I am not sure what to do, because the Bible gives conflicting advice. Proverbs 26:4 says, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly…” And the next verse, Proverbs 26:5, says, “Answer a fool according to his folly…”

Perhaps they are simply rebelling against God, refusing to accept his Lordship because they want to glorify themselves, enjoy sinful human freedom, whatever. If so, then I should do whatever I can to expose their sinfulness and awake their consciences.

Or perhaps, for some mysterious reason known only to God, they have not yet been gifted as I have. At the end of Angels and Demons (which, by the way, is not such a bad movie), the character played by Tom Hanks says, “Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive.”

That last answer raises all sorts of difficult theological questions that in this present life we may never be able to resolve. Yet in many cases, this is the only answer that seems to make sense. There are plenty of good people who are better, more sincere, and smarter than I, who have grown up in the presence of Christians and do not hate what they have seen, who have read plenty of books by C.S. Lewis, who see the goodness and beauty of Christianity, and still have not put their faith in Jesus. Not because they don’t want to, but because they feel that they cannot, and if they did it would be a false conversion.

It’s a strange thing to be evangelizing people and encouraging them to believe if we don’t really know what faith is. And the Bible does not tell us. The closest thing to a definition of faith appears in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is inherently paradoxical. A kind of certainty in the midst of uncertainty. A knowledge of something that is otherwise unknowable. It is an ex nihilo creation, making something out of nothing, which God can do but we cannot.

For those who believe, faith is a sixth sense. It picks up things that we cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste. A reality may be detected by multiple senses, or by just one, or not at all. If my house is on fire, I might not be aware of it. Or I might smell the smoke before I feel the heat, see the flames, etc.  Each of our five senses is a wonderful gift. If there is a spiritual/heavenly realm beyond the material/earthly, then there must be realities that cannot be picked up by any of our five senses. We would need another sensory system to detect those realities, and that too would be an unmerited gift.

Last night, my wife stumbled upon this Youtube video on “How to convert an atheist.” The maker of this video, a man who calls himself “the Fighting Atheist,” is obviously familiar with Christian apologetics in the Josh McDowell/Lee Strobel vein and remains thoroughly unconvinced. In this video, he explains to Christians the kind of historical and experiential evidence that he would need to accept a religion as true, and he says that is he were presented with this evidence, he would convert on the spot.

I think that the whole premise of this video is wrong. Yet this premise could be as widespread among modern Christians as it is among atheists.

Suppose that Mr. Fighting Atheist is telling the truth. Suppose that he really would convert and self-identify as Christian if presented with the right evidence. If so, would he then have faith? Would he be a child of God?

I don’t think so. The kind of knowledge that he would have — evidentiary knowledge accumulated through the material senses – is not faith at all. Changing one’s mind about whether a particular religion is correct is not the same thing as coming to faith. Biblical faith is a knowledge of reality that goes beyond what can be seen. It’s as if the Fighting Atheist were saying, “I will accept that blue is different from yellow when I can clearly taste the difference with my own ears.” 

One of my sons is colorblind. If his vision had never been tested by a professional, we would never have known it. And even though we know it, it doesn’t make any difference; he still cannot distinguish certain colors.

Certainly there are many nonbelievers who are ignorant, misinformed, rebellious, foolish, abused, unloved, desiring to sin, etc. (Plenty of Christians fall into those categories as well.) Are those things ”the reasons” why they do not believe? Or are they simply handicapped, lacking the God-given ability to discern spiritual reality?

Meeting a handicapped person evokes a wide range of conflicting emotions among those of us who are supposedly “normal.” We experience discomfort. Curiosity. Pity. Respect. Awe. We desire to help them without being condescending. We want to put aside the disability and recognize them “for who they truly are,” yet the disability is a large part of who they truly are. We want to put a positive spin on the situation and see the handicap as a gift. Indeed, a disability in one area of life does often bring out good things in other areas of life. But that does not mean that the disability is good.

The Bible doesn’t just claim that nonbelievers are handicapped. It claims that they are dead. More accurately, it claims that they are not yet born. This is the key idea in John chapter 3 where Jesus talks to Nicodemus. Nicodemus is not a bad guy. He is not proud, ignorant, morally deficient, insincere, or holding on to any false doctrines. In fact, Nicodemus is exemplary in every way. His “spirtual problem” is that he cannot see the kingdom of God. He has no God-given ability to perceive spiritual reality because his soul has not yet come alive. And there is nothing that he can do to come alive, because regeneration (new birth) is the work of the Holy Spirit.

If you could have a five-minute conversation with the Fighting Atheist, what would you say to him? I have a rough idea of what I would say. But I would like to hear from you.