I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (2 page)

Yes, truth is a casualty of our popular culture. And when truth goes, the authority of the gospel is undermined, because the gospel tells us all about the Truth. We can see evidence of this everywhere today. The modern notions of “tolerance” and “pluralism” are a direct result of the culture’s assault on truth.

Liberal secularists insist that tolerance is the highest virtue. But they don’t tell you what they mean by “tolerance.” To them, tolerance doesn’t simply involve treating those with different ideas respectfully and civilly. It means affirming their ideas as valid, which Christians can’t do without renouncing their own beliefs. If, for example, you subscribe to the biblical prohibition on homosexual behavior as sinful, you cannot at the same time affirm that such behavior is not sinful.

The postmodern secularist doesn’t have to confront these questions because he rejects the idea of absolute truth and the Law of Noncontradiction. He can just go on his merry way moralizing to everyone about tolerance and never having to explain the intrinsic contradictions in his views.

The tolerance peddlers are further exposed as frauds when you consider that they simply will not practice what they preach—at least toward those annoyingly stubborn Christians. They are absolutely unwilling to “tolerate” the Christian premise that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For them to acknowledge this would necessarily refute their concept of tolerance, which holds that all ideas are of equal merit. In their infinite resourcefulness, they carve out an exception to their demand for universal tolerance when it comes to their treatment of Christians.

To them, Christianity’s exclusive truth claims are simply beyond the pale—so bad as to disqualify Christians from receiving tolerance from others. One secularist university administrator, for instance, disciplined a conservative professor for exposing her class to literature from a Christian viewpoint, which included an article about how teachers should approach homosexuality. The administrator exclaimed, “We cannot tolerate the intolerable.” You see, it’s fairly easy for these types to extricate themselves from their indefensible positions. They simply move the goalposts. Talk about defining truth through power!

But the Christians’ belief that theirs is the one true religion doesn’t make them intolerant of others or disrespectful of their right to believe and worship how they choose. Our modern culture is woefully confused about these distinctions, and they use the Christians’ confidence in their own belief system to paint Christians as intolerant of others with different belief systems. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Besides, for the record, Christianity isn’t the only religion with exclusive truth claims. All major religions have such claims. Many of the central ideas of the major religions cannot be reconciled, which gives the lie to the trendy tenet of pluralism that all religions at their core are the same.

We often hear or read that all people wherever located worship the same God through different languages and cultures. This idea, with all due respect, is absurd on its face. For example, Islam teaches that Christ was a mere prophet, not deity. As C. S. Lewis observed, if Christ is not God, then he could not have been an exemplary prophet or a great moral teacher, because he claimed to be God. If he was not who he said he was, then he was either a liar or a lunatic, hardly a great moral teacher or prophet.

As another obvious example, the claims of certain Eastern religions that God is in everything and that there is no discrete distinction between the Creator and creation is utterly irreconcilable with Christianity. The examples are endless, but the point is that while various religions may share some overlapping values, many of their fundamental beliefs cannot be squared. It may make people feel better to pretend that all religions are essentially the same, but this concept is demonstrably false.

But political correctness in our culture generally carries the day. Even many of our churches have become corrupted with these misguided notions of tolerance and pluralism. They have allowed their theology to be diluted and have permitted the authority of Scripture to be denigrated in favor of society’s “evolved” ideas about morality. Only a version of Christianity that preaches that all religions are the same is tolerant and loving. Traditional, Bible-based Christianity is intolerant, insensitive, exclusive, and unloving.

How loving, though, is it to become an accomplice to the destruction of truth itself—to the evisceration of the gospel? How sensitive is it to aid people away from the path of Life? As a Christian, how can you explain Christ’s decision voluntarily to subject himself to the indignities and humiliation of human form, to experience wholesale separation from the Father, to physically accept all of the real wrath of the Father for all of mankind’s past, present, and future sins, and to suffer the indescribable torment and death on the cross if all other paths to God are the same? What an immeasurable insult to the finished work of Christ on the cross! What an act of deliberate disobedience to Christ’s direction that we spread the gospel to the corners of the earth! For if all religions are the same, then we’ve made a liar out of Christ and rendered his Great Commission a useless farce because we have removed all incentive to evangelize.

I’m not suggesting that Christians should approach evangelism stridently or disrespectfully. We should certainly honor the principle that all people are equal in God’s sight and entitled to equal protection of the laws as well as fair, courteous, and respectful treatment. But there is no moral imperative that we adopt the notion that all belief systems are equally true. There is a moral imperative that we do not.

The above referenced scriptural passage instructing us to be prepared to give the reasons for our faith is immediately followed by the caution: “But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (vv. 15b-16).

We must be mindful of the next sentence as well. “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (vv. 17-18). We must preach the truth, even if it makes us unpopular, even if it leads to the charge that we are intolerant or insensitive, even if it leads to our suffering or persecution. Yes, we must evangelize with gentleness and respect, but above all, we must evangelize. We must not be silenced by the tolerance police.

I frequently come into contact with people who either don’t believe in Christianity or who do but have serious problems with parts of the Bible or elements of Christian doctrine. I’m certainly no expert in theology. So what do I tell these people? Beyond suggesting the daunting task of reading the Bible from start to finish, how do I help them to discover the truths that I belatedly discovered?

There are so many wonderful books available that will help, but there seem to be drawbacks with each one. They are too scholarly or too incomplete or too difficult to read. To get the complete package I usually have to recommend more than one book, which significantly decreases the chances that any of them will be read.

Not long ago a friend asked me for resources on apologetics that he could share with his nonbelieving sibling. I knew that we’d probably only have one shot at this in the immediate future; so I had to come up with just the perfect book. Frankly, I put off the decision because I couldn’t decide among three or four of my favorite sources, none of which, by itself, would have been sufficient, in my opinion.

Just as I was preparing to cop out and make a recommendation of multiple books instead of just one, I received a note from Frank Turek, asking me to review
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
After reading the first few chapters of the book I was convinced my receipt of the book was providential.

Finally, I thought, there is one book that covers the gamut in a highly readable format. After reading it I told Frank that this is the one book I’ve been waiting for as an evangelical tool—to explain the ideas and unveil the truth in a way that is far above my pay grade. As of the printing of this book there will now be one source I can recommend to skeptics, doubters, or Christians who need some reinforcing evidence. I already know ten people to whom I will give this book. It’s truly a godsend.

Frank Turek, whom I’ve now come to know as a tremendous gentleman and Christian scholar, coauthored this book with the giant among giants in the field of Christian apologetics—Dr. Norman Geisler. I have a number of Dr. Geisler’s other works, including
Christian
Apologetics, When Critics Ask,
and
When Skeptics Ask.
Interestingly, I was first exposed to Dr. Geisler through my friend and former neighbor Dr. Steve Johnson, a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and one of my spiritual mentors. Steve loaned me (I can’t remember if I ever returned it!) a videotape in which Dr. Geisler was explaining the truths of Christianity in a most entertaining and captivating way. It was at that point that I decided to purchase and consume a number of his incredible books on apologetics.

I would recommend any and all of Dr. Geisler’s books. But
I Don’t
Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist
is just what the doctor ordered for a one-stop source for those who might not be willing to wade through a number of books. I have to admit, the title particularly intrigued me since I have long believed that it does take more faith to be an atheist. It certainly takes more faith to believe that human beings evolved from the random interaction of molecules (which somehow had to come into existence themselves) than to believe in a Creator.

This book also appealed to me because before tackling the issue of the truth of Christianity, it addresses the issue of truth itself, conclusively proving the existence of absolute truth. It demolishes the follies of moral relativism and postmodernism, then proceeds systematically to march toward the inescapable truths of the Christian religion. This is a book that had to be written and even more has to be published. So I’ll stop the gushing now and let this book go to press. Many a hungry soul awaits the truths that are brilliantly set out in this work.

—DAVID LIMBAUGH

Preface

How Much Faith Do You Need
to Believe This Book?

RELIGIOUS SKEPTICS BELIEVE that books like this one can’t be trusted for objective information because such books are written by religious people who have an agenda. In fact, that’s the way skeptics view the Bible—it’s a biased book written by biased people. Their assessment may be true for some books about religion, but it’s not true for them all. If it were, you couldn’t trust anything you read concerning religion—including books written by atheists or skeptics—because every writer has a viewpoint on religion.

So what does this mean to you, the reader? Should you disbelieve what an atheist writes about Christianity just because he’s an atheist? Not necessarily, because he could be telling the truth. Should you disbelieve what a Christian writes about atheism just because he’s a Christian? Again, not necessarily—he too could be telling the truth.

But what about an author’s agenda? Does an agenda fatally taint his objectivity? If so, no book is objective, including those by atheists and skeptics. Why? Because
all
books are written for a reason, all authors have an agenda, and all (or at least most) authors believe what they write! However, that doesn’t mean what they write is false or not objective. While authors are almost never neutral about their topics (personal interest is what drives them), they nevertheless can present their topics objectively.

For example, survivors of the Holocaust who wrote of their experiences certainly were not neutral bystanders. They believed passionately that the Nazis were wrong, and they were driven to record their experiences so the world would never forget the Holocaust and, hopefully, never repeat it. Did their passion or their agenda cause them to bend the facts? Not necessarily. In fact, their passion may have produced the opposite effect. While passion may induce some people to exaggerate, it may drive others to be all the more meticulous and accurate so as not to compromise the credibility of the message they wish to communicate.

As you’ll see, we think the authors of the Bible took this meticulous and accurate road. It’s also the road we’re trying to take in this book. (And when you’re done reading, we hope you’ll let us know if you think we’ve actually taken that road.)

In the meantime, if you’re a skeptic, please keep in mind that you should believe or disbelieve what we say because of the evidence we present, not because we have a certain set of religious beliefs. We are both Christians, but we were not always Christians. We came to believe through evidence. So, the fact
that
we are Christians is not the issue:
why
we are Christians is the important point. And that’s the focus of this book.

—NORM GEISLER AND FRANK TUREK

January 2004

Acknowledgments

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF fine people who had enough faith to see this book through. Our wives, Barbara Geisler and Stephanie Turek, are at the top of the list. Without their love and support this book would not exist.

Several scholars and friends reviewed portions of the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. Wayne Frair graciously took several hours to critique the two chapters dealing with evolution. Fred Heeren did the same on the chapter dealing with the Big Bang. J. Budziszewski provided valuable insights on the Moral Law chapter (nobody understands that topic better than he). Barry Leventhal offered his personal recollections and expertise on the chapter about his conversion experience and messianic prophecies. Other important suggestions came from Bill Dembski, Mark Pustaver, Stephanie Turek, and Randy and Luci Hough. Of course, the full and final responsibility for the contents of this book rests with us.

Thanks to Wes Yoder of the Ambassador Speaker Bureau for his encouragement and for introducing us to Marvin Padgett of Crossway Books. Marvin had enough faith to take on this project and to stick with the unusual title. Bill Deckard of Crossway also deserves thanks for his skillful editing job. And thanks to Josh Dennis, who created the stunning cover.