Atheist, Mark D, stated: I was talking to a Christian yesterday, and I asked him how he knew what he believed? He equated belief with knowledge. “To believe is knowledge”, he said. This is, of course, a cognitive error, but it is a difficult one to overcome. When you deny the veracity of your beliefs, you reject yourself, and human beings are not constructed to reject themselves. It takes a great deal of mental effort to examine what you believe and to discard it due to a lack of evidence. Christians don’t search for evidence for their beliefs, but they should, because believing is not knowing. Thoughts? (Atheists v. Christians Debate Central 101)

Christian response…

Christian faith/belief is predicated upon wisdom, discernment, empiricism, knowledge; unfortunately, these attributes are sorely lacking in the cognition of many Atheists by choice. If one desires Truth concerning our Creator they must first believe that He exists and that our God rewards those who diligently seek Him with an honest, contrite and sincere heart (Hebrews 11:6). If one is dishonest and does not desire the Truth, God will remain an enigma and that person will ultimately die in their sin and lose their soul in Hell because they did not desire God’s Truth but desired the lust of the flesh, the pursuit of sensuality in this fallen World. God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7-8).

The man, woman or child who seeks Truth concerning our Creator finds extant, empirical, evidence through what has been made by God and placed before us in Nature. Even an immature child can stare at a clear night sky and internalize the overwhelming majesty of this supernatural act of creation and determine that design is at play and therefore a Designer is mandated. This is the most fundamental and foundational act of wisdom, discernment and commonsense relevant to knowledge concerning our Creator (Psalm 8:3-6). Acknowledging our Creator through what has been made in Nature is the first-step in developing a relationship with God the Father by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, the Holy Spirit has clearly articulated that the Atheist, in their façade of unbelief, is “without excuse” when they stand in the Judgment of the Condemned because our Creator has validated His reality, introduced Himself, through His creation (Romans 1:18-32).

When one acknowledges design and therefore the necessity for a Designer, a person seeking Truth and knowledge will pursue this evidence and allow said evidence to direct his/her path with integrity (2 Timothy 2:15). An individual possessing but a modicum of intelligence and discernment will immediately disregard the insanity of Darwin, abiogenesis, descent with modification, as possible explanations for the supernatural Universe and the complexity of the human genome. Darwin and his absurdity are obviously the constructs of deceived and immoral men seeking to justify their sin, sexual immorality and antisocial conduct by rejecting the necessity for a Designer; a Designer possessing authority and dominion over His creation as well as our personal lives (Colossians 2:8).

When a man or woman seeks Spiritual Truth they will find the Vedas, the Egyptian gods, the Quran, the religions of men, to be utterly ridiculous and the honest seeker will find that Christianity is the only coherent worldview with corresponding truth that defines origin-meaning-morality-destiny and directly answers with logical consistency, empirical adequacy, experiential relevance. There is ONE God and ONE Mediator for sin, Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).

“There are honest doubters and dishonest doubters. An honest doubter is willing to search out the truth and live by the results; a dishonest doubter doesn’t want to know the truth. He can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman.” Adrian Rogers

Rickey D. Holtsclaw