“The God-idea met human needs, not vice versa.”
Have you ever come across an argument denying the existence of God that you’ve never heard before? First Peter 3:15 tells us to always be ready to give an answer, but new attacks against God’s Word bombard us all the time! How do we respond to arguments that seem brand-new?
Well, we learn to think presuppositionally. That just means we dismantle arguments by starting the way God does: with the authority of his Word. With this apologetics technique, you don’t need to know the answer to every question (who can?), but you still aren’t left without an answer.
The Argument Refutes Itself!
Here’s an example, using the quote above: “The God-idea met human needs, not vice versa.” This statement comes from a journal article arguing that God “is a cultural construct,” just an “evolved cognitive byproduct” that humans in deep evolutionary time crafted to fulfill “survival functions.”
How do Christians even begin to respond to such a lofty-sounding argument?
Tackling an argument like this might seem complicated. But it’s actually simple because the argument refutes itself.
This argument is based in atheism, naturalism, and materialism. In this worldview, everything must be material, the product of naturalistic processes over millions of years. And yet, the authors are applying logic and reason to make their arguments. But logic and reason are not material. They are immaterial . . . yet the immaterial can’t exist in these atheists’ own worldview!
It gets worse for the atheist! In a chance, random universe, laws of logic that apply to everyone everywhere don’t make sense. Why would randomness produce immaterial laws that don’t change?
In order to make their argument, these atheists have to borrow from a biblical worldview because it is only the eternal God of the Bible, who is logically consistent and never changes, who can account for laws of logic. They are borrowing from the very worldview they are arguing against!
The very fact that they can argue at all shows they are wrong.
Get Equipped with a Brand-New Resource
If you’d like to be equipped to refute atheistic arguments with the approach I just used, I encourage you to check out the brand-new book I served as general editor for: Defending God’s Existence.
It’s a powerful handbook for every Christian to refute skeptical arguments the way God does—by starting with his Word as the authority.
(From Ken Ham)
