Christians need never to be on the back foot in answering the attacks of atheists and secularists.
The bankruptcy of their position is readily revealed when one examines their empty explanations given to life’s four biggest questions.
What I appreciate most about being a Christian is the Faith’s realistic assessment of the human condition, and its sure diagnosis and assured prescription for humankind’s ills.
Here are life’s four biggest questions:
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
Why am I here?
How do I live?
The atheist says, I came into being as a random result of a long series of mutations in which the fittest survived. Where am I going? Back to the dirt, they say, to add chemical richness to future organisms. Why am I here? Who knows, you work out your own destiny, do try and be kind and a good citizen. How am I to live? You determine the answer to that question. Remember there are no absolutes, so don’t let anyone impose their standards on you. P.S. There are no absolutes, except of course, the absolute that there are no absolutes.
We are seeing the dominance of this outlook in Australia today, the widespread “I get what I want” attitude, is as good an expression of the above answers as any.
Here is what the Bible says in answer to the four big questions:
Where did I come from? I came as a definite act, from the hand of an intelligent creator God.
Where am I going? He has created me to be eternal and He has created me to be in fellowship with Him eternally. I must remember that there is more to me than meets the eye. C.S Lewis, the Christian writer, put it like this: “You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” My soul will go back to God, recognising and trusting the Creator God who made me, loves me and sent his Son to earth to provide the way to heaven, He is the means by which I will spend eternity with God and not apart from Him.
Why am I here? The Bible says I am here to live for the honour and glory of my Creator, not for my self interest, and to enjoy His friendship.
How do I live? The Bible says that through trust in Jesus, I have received the Holy Spirit who keeps reminding me of the way Jesus lived and of the wisdom of His teaching, and the Holy Spirit will give me strength to live like Jesus. This lifestyle is the model of true humanity, it involves being loving to friend and foe, it involves living less like the greedy instinct driven animal world and more as God my Creator intended me to be.
Sometimes the best apologetic for Christian truth is to show the bankruptcy of alternative explanations.
Take the problem of suffering. How can a good God allow suffering? Let’s assume there is no God, as the atheist asserts. The problem of suffering does not vanish. What explanation does the atheist have for the existence and randomness of suffering? There is no explanation, says the atheist, mindless randomness rules. Good luck!
That seems a flippant summary, yet I had no trouble in finding references to support that summary:
“In a universe of blind physical forces and replication, some people are going to get hurt and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, not any justice…. in the universe we find nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is and we dance to its music!” Richard Dawkins, Out of Eden, page 133. An elegant way of saying, “good luck because mindless randomness rules”!
What a contrast to knowing an all loving Sovereign God who allows in our lives things which we would choose and not choose and will work in these things for our good and His glory.
The true God of the Bible knows suffering and is involved in the suffering work of his beloved Son to bring about for us the opportunity of reconciliation between people and Himself.
In the words of my old cricket coach, “get on the front foot!”
David Cook