What is the evidence for the existence of God? (2/3)

Please read Part 1 here

So, as we saw in part 1, there is no such thing as neutrality – everyone has a bias, everyone has a worldview.

The question now becomes what we do next? Do we simply say to an unbeliever, I don’t like your worldview and how you are interpreting the evidence, and you don’t like mine and how I interpret the evidence, so we will never be able to be in agreement about the facts, so lets just go home and leave this all behind us?

Definitely not.

What does scripture say?
5Answer a fool as his folly [deserves], That he not be wise in his own eyes.

First, we do not answer a fool according to his folly, or we will be like him and we are to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts before we make a defense.

What this means, is that we are not reason from an unbelievers assumptions and starting points in looking at evidences and evaluating information, you are not to try to ditch your Christian presuppositions in some bid of neutrality to try to convince an unbeliever to reject his ideas. If you start where an unbeliever starts in their worldview, you will end up at their conclusions. If you start on their express train from point A, you will be going to their point B. Any objection to Christianity is coming from their worldview, not some neutral point. They may claim it is neutral, but it is far from it.

Secondly, we are to do an internal critique of an unbelievers worldview. What this can look like is as different as the worldview that is being presented to you! There are some general questions that can be examined, but essentially you are looking to see what an unbeliever is saying and looking for a few things:

1: Arbitrariness. Are there any unjustifiable claims being made?
2: Inconsistency. Does that belief contradict itself with another belief within that worldview?
3: What are the consequences of that in reality? Does it reduce to absurdity then taken to its logical conclusions?
4: What presuppositions would need to be true for us to make sense of a particular aspect of our experience, and does that worldview provide those presuppositions?

If we were to take an atheists view for instance, consider this summary of teaching from Greg Bahnsen:
“Doing a debate requires the laws of logic, but what must be true in order for there to be laws of logic? We have to define the laws of logic. A law of logic is abstract and immaterial and absolute. Given the non believers worldview, could there be anything that is abstract, immaterial and absolute? Being an atheist there can’t, because only material things that are perceivable through the senses exist. You can’t touch, taste or see the laws of logic. Can you see a number? No! If I write the number 1 on the board, it is a transcription, not the actual number. If I were to erase it, then the number 1 would be gone. Their worldview debates the possibility of logic, therefore destroying the possibility of debate. Since you came to the debate you must have been assuming a Christian worldview. ”

Roughly what this is saying is, that in a materialistic atheistic worldview (only matter in motion, no God exists), if it were true, they wouldn’t have a way of accounting for logic. Why is this? Because logic isn’t material. If you consider all the things that rely on that aspect of reality being in operation (language, science, math, etc) the results of not having an accounting of logic would destroy that worldview. It isn’t workable, so no matter what else an atheist may say in objection to Christianity, they have no worldview to state it from, because they have no basis for logic, therefore no basis for language, therefore the more that they are talking, the more they are demonstrating that they are borrowing from the Christian worldview to try to attack it – that they do in fact know God as states, but are indeed suppressing that knowledge.

In practice an atheist does operate, in many ways, the same as a Christian would – they both communicate, eat, sleep have jobs etc. The question is, given their worldview could they do those things? Then compare that with the Christian worldview and show how our worldview is totally compatible with what we do in practice. We have reasons for doing those things, given all that the Bible says, the atheist does not.

So in answer to the question ‘What is the evidence for the existence of God?’

That question is evidence for the existence of God, because if God didn’t exist, you couldn’t ask that question. In order to ask that question, the materialistic atheist would have to have a view of logic that cannot work within their system, thus demonstrating that they are using our worldview, and not their own to attack the Christian worldview.

For further clarification on some of these concepts, see PART 3 here!

For a few more flaws on materialistic atheism : http://pureantithesis.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/greg-bahnsens-critique-of-materialistic-atheism/

If you want to hear this apologetical methodology in practice, have a listen to this audio:



What is the evidence for the existence of God? (3/3) | Choosing Hats

[…] In part 2, we had a look at a practical example, and briefly went over the “in practice/ in principle” distinction, as well as some criteria for evaluating worldview’s, however, it may be worth expanding these ideas themselves into another post to look a bit more in-depth at them, as well as some others. […]

What is the evidence for the existence of God? (1/3) | Choosing Hats

[…] In part 2, we will look at the results of what we have just discussed, and an example in practice! […]

Leave a Comment