As Christians, we love people and desire for them to be saved. We pray for their salvation, we share the Gospel with them, and we urge them to repent of sin and trust in Christ. And we try to remove intellectual stumbling blocks. But many Christians often make a critical mistake: they assume that what the unbeliever says about himself and his beliefs is true. They assume that the unbeliever has correctly evaluated his own beliefs and has truthfully stated them. After all, who could know a person’s beliefs better than the person himself? The answer is God. The Lord knows the hearts of men better than they know themselves; this would have to be the case since God is all-knowing (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Furthermore, God has stated in His Word that unbelievers are self-deceived and do not truthfully report what is in their hearts. A failure to recognize this lies at the heart of many unbiblical approaches in defending the faith.
The Atheist
For example, consider a self-professing atheist. Many atheists declare that they would happily believe in God if only they were aware of any good evidence of God. If their claim is true, then the solution is simple: show them evidence of God. And indeed, many Christians often oblige by presenting evidence of design in nature or any of the classical proofs of God. Unfortunately, this approach often fails[1] because it is based on two false, antibiblical assumptions: (1) that the atheist genuinely does not believe in God, and (2) that the atheist would believe in God if evidence for God existed. However, the Bible declares that both of these assumptions are false.
In Romans 1:18-20, we find that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against the wickedness of men. All men do know God, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Romans 1:19). God has hardwired all people to know that He exists and is the Creator. Thus, when we look at the world, we instantly recognize it as the creation of God which illustrates His mighty power. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
If everyone knows God, then why are there people who claim that they do not even believe in God? Romans 1:18 explains that such people “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” To suppress means to hold down or to prohibit the revelation of something – to exclude from consciousness. The atheist works very hard to conceal his knowledge of God from others and even from himself. The Bible speaks of such self-deception in James 1:22. Namely, all those who hear God’s Word but do not act on it are self-deceived. Thus, the atheist does know God but tries to convince himself and others that he does not know God. The atheist knows the law of God (Romans 1:32, 2:14-15) but does not want to live by it. His rejection of God is driven by his own wickedness, not due to any alleged lack of evidence.
We use the term atheist to refer to a person who professes that he or she does not believe in God. But we have seen from Scripture that all people do know God in their heart of hearts. The problem is that they do not want to know God because they hate Him. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21). Atheists will deny that they hate God, but it remains the truth nonetheless.
Self-Deception
How can a person know God exists and simultaneously deny that he knows God exists? The answer can be found in an iterated belief. An iterated belief is a belief about a belief. In this case, the atheist does believe in God but also believes that he does not believe in God. In formal logic, the two statements would be represented as follows:
S believes P.
S believes that S does not believe P.
Here S is the subject under consideration – the professing atheist. And P is the proposition that God exists. It is indeed possible for S to believe P and simultaneously for S to believe that S does not believe P. It is not logical for the person to be so inconsistent, but students of logic will recognize that this conundrum does not actually violate the law of non-contradiction and, therefore, this state can occur in reality.[2]
People often believe something for illogical reasons. One such error is when a person believes in something because he desperately wants it to be true or disbelieves something because he wants it to be false. This is called the fallacy of appeal to consequences. Jesus indicates that the reason people reject Him has nothing to do with logic, but rather it is because they desire to live in sin. He says, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (John 3:19-20). Notice that the text says, “Everyone who does evil hates the Light.” So, there is no such thing as a neutral atheist – one who is neither for nor against God. No, atheists hate the Light, as do all unbelievers.
So when an atheist says, “I would like to believe in God, if only there were evidence of His existence,” he is lying. The Bible teaches that such a person already inescapably knows God but hates Him. The atheist does believe in God. Yet, he has convinced himself that he does not believe in God (S believes that S does not believe P). So, now that we correctly understand the situation, what is the solution?
We do not accept the atheist’s false statements about his alleged lack of knowledge of God. Nor do we accept his false claim that he would happily embrace God if only sufficient evidence were presented. The Bible teaches that both claims are false. Rather, we expose the atheist’s self-deception. We bring to the surface his deeply suppressed knowledge of God showing that he, in fact, does know God and hates Him. The unbeliever loves his own sin and therefore hates the God who calls him to repentance. We show that the atheist’s behavior and other beliefs are inconsistent with his professed atheism.
There are any number of specific ways in which we can expose the unbeliever’s suppressed knowledge of the truth about God. We could show that he is offended by certain behaviors that he assumes to be morally wrong. But how would morality make any sense in an atheistic universe? After all, what one chemical accident does to another is morally irrelevant. Or we could show that the unbeliever’s confidence in science would be misplaced if atheism were true. After all, if God were not constantly upholding the universe by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3), why would we expect nature to exhibit logical patterns? Even the laws of logic by which the unbeliever reasons cannot be justified apart from the biblical God. In any event, we refuse to go along with the atheist’s delusion by, for example, presenting evidence on his erroneous terms. Rather, we expose his suppressed knowledge of God and call him to repent. Of course, only God can grant such repentance (2 Timothy 2:25; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26). But He may use our words as part of the means to do this (Romans 10:14).
Unbelievers Do Believe
If everyone knows God, then why are some people called unbelievers? The Bible uses the term unbeliever to refer to those people who lack faith in Jesus to save them (e.g. Matthew 17:17; Mark 9:41; 1 Corinthians 7:13). Conversely, a believer is someone who has saving faith in Christ (John 3:18). Saving faith is not merely an academic assent that God exists. Everyone has that type of “faith” – even the demons (James 2:19). Rather, the believer trusts in God to save him from his sins. It is this trusting confidence that unbelievers lack. But make no mistake, all unbelievers do know God even if they profess otherwise.
Furthermore, it’s not enough to say that unbelievers merely know that a god exists. Romans 1:18-20 teaches that men know God – the God. This is not because they have deduced the existence of God by their own autonomous and neutral reasoning. Rather, it is because God has revealed it to them (Romans 1:18-19). This innate knowledge of God is God’s gift imparted to the hearts of everyone. It includes the knowledge that God is the Creator of the world. Thus, when we observe creation, we instantly know that it is God’s creation. Yes, God’s “eternal power and divine nature” are clearly seen in what He has made (Romans 1:20). Furthermore, God has also revealed his moral standard to the hearts of all people – even those who have never read the Bible (Romans 2:14-15).
Therefore, all people, regardless of their religious profession, know in their heart of hearts the biblical God. And they know that they fall short of His moral standard since this too has been written on their hearts. But they do not want to know God. Therefore, they work very hard to convince themselves and others that they do not know God. This is foolish (Romans 1:22; Psalm 14:1) because the solution is not suppression of the knowledge of God, but confession of sin and repentance (Romans 10:9-10). God is most willing to forgive the wicked person who abandons sin and turns to Him (Isaiah 55:7).
We were created to worship and serve the God we all know in our hearts (Deuteronomy 6:5, 11:13). So, when people reject that God, their need to worship will manifest in sinful ways. That is, they will worship something else. The Bible describes those who “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (Romans 1:23). Although this verse was not specifically written to address neo-Darwinian evolution, it certainly applies. We think of idols as physical statues, and they can be. But they can also be anything that people reverence in place of God.
People are very happy to make up and serve a god that appeals to their wishes – a god that doesn’t require repentance and who allows everyone into heaven. This is a common idol of our culture. On the other hand, many people want to accomplish their own salvation. So, they invent a god that will grant them heaven if they do a sufficient number of good works or endure sufficient penance. Works-based religions abound. And yet, all the while, the knowledge of the true God rests in the core of all people reminding them of the truth.
The fact that all people of all religions already know the biblical God should be an important part of our defense of the faith. We must recognize that no one rejects the biblical God due to lack of evidence or for any logical reasons. Rather, they do not want to serve God. They don’t like the way He is, or what He does. And so, they give absurd reasons for their rejection of God. They won’t accept a God who allows children to starve.[3] Of course, this is not a logical objection. Imagine someone saying, “Joe doesn’t do what I would do in that situation. Therefore, Joe does not exist.” That would be preposterous.
But all such objections merely mask the unbeliever’s suppressed knowledge of God. Our job as Christians is to graciously but truthfully expose the unbeliever’s suppressed knowledge of God. It makes no difference what religion the unbeliever professes; he does know the Living God. And although he works hard to suppress that knowledge of God, it inevitably leaks out in his behavior and in his other beliefs. We point this out in love and encourage him to repent and trust in Christ for salvation.
Paul in Athens
A spectacular example of this biblical approach to apologetics can be found in the Apostle Paul’s defense of the faith in Athens. The Greeks were a polytheistic culture, worshipping multiple gods of their own making. When they heard Paul preaching about Jesus and the Resurrection, they thought he was introducing new gods into their pantheon, and they brought him before a scholarly council called the Areopagus (Acts 17:18-19).[4] However, Paul masterfully exposed the Greeks’ knowledge of the true God in several ways.
First, he pointed out that they had erected an altar to “an unknown god” (Acts 17:23). This shows that they were aware of a god (the God) who is not part of their pantheon of idols. It shows that they know the true God in their heart of hearts. Second, he pointed out that their false gods cannot truly be gods at all since they exist as statues in temples and need humans to serve them. The biblical God needs nothing because He gives life and breath to all creatures since He made the world. This exposes their suppressed knowledge that God is the Creator.
Third, Paul points out the sovereignty of God in determining the boundaries of human habitation, something statues cannot possibly do. Fourth, Paul quotes Greek poets making statements that would only make sense of the biblical God and not the Greek idols. For example, “we are his offspring” in the sense that God created us. But how could we be the offspring of a gold, silver, or stone statue? Paul showed how the inconsistencies in their thinking reflected the fact that they all knew about the true God in their heart of hearts.
Conclusions
We can use this same approach today. No matter what religion a person professes, he or she does know with certainty the biblical God but rejects Him. We can graciously expose that suppressed knowledge and ask the Lord to grant the person repentance. Saving faith is something only God can give (Hebrews 12:2; Ephesians 2:8). Finally, we recognize that it is not God’s plan to save each and every person, nor has He any obligation to do so. Our part is to give the message (1 Corinthians 9:16). We leave the resurrection of the unbeliever’s dead spirit in the hands of the only God who can raise the dead to life.
[1] Of course, God can save someone even if our apologetic approach is fallacious and unbiblical. God is gracious even when we are foolish and sinful.
[2] This is an important distinction. A genuine contradiction cannot occur in reality. Thus, a person cannot believe something and also not believe it at the same time and in the same sense. But it is indeed possible, however ill-advised and nonsensical, for a person to believe a proposition and also believe that he does not believe the proposition. Iterated beliefs are how humans get away with certain types of inconsistency.
[3] God always has a morally commendable reason for the wickedness that He allows in this world. But He is not required to tell us that reason – even assuming we have the intellectual capacity to understand it. He gave and explained a spectacular example: the crucifixion of Christ. This was the worst act of wickedness against the only person who didn’t deserve it. And God allowed it and used it to accomplish the salvation of all His people.
[4] Areopagus means “Mars hill” and refers to the location where the council originally met. The council retained the name even though they were likely no longer meeting at that location during Paul’s visit. Mars is the Roman name for the god of war, and Ares is the Greek equivalent.