The Many Faces, and Causes, of Unbelief - Apologetics Press

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Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, warned that “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14). Guy N. Woods observed that this injunction ...was designed to guard the Lord’s people from the corrupting influences of an evil environment, as well as from the powerful appeals of mob psychology to which so many in every generation succumb.... Man, by nature, is a social and gregarious being, tending to flock or gather together with others of his kind.... Man may, and often does, imbibe the evil characteristics of those about him as readily, and often more so, than the good ones (1982, 124[1]:2). When the apostle Paul penned his first epistle to the Christians in Corinth, he warned: For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning will I bring to naught. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (1 Corinthians 1:19-21). It should not surprise us that many “intelligent” people view belief in God as the fool’s way out. Paul also commented that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong (1 Corinthians 1:26-27). The most intelligent often are the least spiritual because “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4) has blinded their minds. We must not fall prey to mob psychology which suggests because “everyone is doing it” that somehow makes it right. The graduate student said, “I do not want to be a fool.” It was -93
a joy to tell him that he does not have to bear that stigma because “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 14:1). We need not be intimidated by the pseudo-intellectualism of those who esteem themselves with higher regard than they do their Creator. Lucy, the character in the Peanuts cartoon, was correct when she told Charlie Brown, “You’re not right; you just sound right!” EVIL, PAIN, AND SUFFERING Surely it can be said without fear of contradiction that one of the most frequent, and thus one of the most important, causes of unbelief is the existence of evil, pain, and suffering in the world. But before we explore this concept, let us take a momentary diversion to separate the genuine problem from the counterfeit. When an individual claims not to believe in God because of the problem of evil, pain, and suffering, the person making such a claim may mean something entirely different than what the person hearing the claim thinks he means. Allow me to explain. Admittedly, some people have difficulty believing in God because of what they consider to be real intellectual obstacles to such a belief. Ex nihilo creation, a virgin birth, or the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead cause some to consider belief in God on par with belief in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Such concepts represent insurmountable barriers to the ultimate acceptance of God’s existence. Other people, however, face no such intellectual obstacles. Instead, they simply do not want to have to deal with the issue of the ultimate existence of a transcendent God. Their refusal to believe is not based necessarily on “this” barrier or “that” barrier. Rather, belief in God simply is inconvenient at best, or bothersome at worst. In a chapter titled “What Keeps People from Becoming Christians?” in his timely book, Intellectuals Don’t Need God, Alister McGrath exerted considerable effort in an attempt to separate the claims of these two types of individuals when he wrote: -94
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APOLOGETICS PRESS
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CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPT
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For example, when Joshua—who had
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the truth, but they will not. The s
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obliged to acknowledge that it was
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2 THE MANY FACES OF UNBELIEF Throug
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Impossible task, that—since one w
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Neither of these tasks is simple (n
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foundation, not in divine guidance,
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are monkeys” (see Leonard Huxley,
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Such a premise is flawed internally
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The development, over the past four
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Thus, in the end the skeptic does n
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le plethora of men and women who ma
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include “Hell” and “Some Mist
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In fact, in the late 1970s, while I
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future state of rewards and punishm
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tion to function on its own; some b
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Deism...refers to what can be calle
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a God strong enough to create the w
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ecomes indistinguishable from evil.
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Ryerson who allegedly was able to
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Page 50 and 51: tes 12:7). The writer of the book o
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Page 56 and 57: at ease. Yes, it is! Therefore, in
Page 58 and 59: What should be the response of Chri
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Page 89 and 90: As this section on immorality as a
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Page 93 and 94: But science is no synonym for spiri
Page 95 and 96: ate student asked: “Hundreds of t
Page 97: ather bluntly: “In contrast to th
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Page 103 and 104: At Noel’s funeral, the minister b
Page 105 and 106: Again, time and space would fail me
Page 107 and 108: sin? No, they were no worse sinners
Page 109 and 110: Just as suffering is real, so are t
Page 111 and 112: The corruptions, or shortcomings, o
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Page 121 and 122: of unbelief. I suppose that some wo
Page 124 and 125: 4 CONCLUSION Every person familiar
Page 126 and 127: This latter observation needs a lit
Page 128 and 129: REFERENCES Abelson, Phillip (1964),
Page 130 and 131: Durant, Will (1980), “We Are in t
Page 132 and 133: Huxley, Thomas Henry (1896), Darwin
Page 134 and 135: Raymo, Chet (1998), Skeptics and Tr
Page 136: Watkin, Edward I. (1936), Theism, A
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The Many Faces, and Causes, of Unbelief - Apologetics Press

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