Fred Butler #fundie fredsbibletalk.com

With these two thoughts in mind, when the believer engages the unbelieving skeptic/atheist/agnostic, he will note an unusual fact about his opponent. He will begin to notice that the skeptic/atheist/agnostic lives contrary to his supposed belief systems. In other words, the unbeliever’s lifestyle is perpetually inconsistent with his core values and overall worldview.

For example, there are skeptics who will claim no absolute truth exists, so it is inappropriate, according to their philosophy of life, to place value judgments upon other people groups who do not conduct themselves according to our particular morals. However, at the same time, these skeptics do not live consistently with their beliefs about absolutes, because if any one of them had, say for instance, a stereo stolen by an individual from one of these other “people groups,” the skeptic who was robbed will all of the sudden have a high sense of personal property rights and protest against such an injustice caused by this person.

Another example is an atheist I once encountered who was an avid environmentalist. She spent much of her spare time involved in environmental causes. But, if she were consistent with her philosophy of evolutionary naturalism, the environmental causes she advocated are really a waste of time. According to evolutionary biology, species are only a product of environment, time, chance, and survival of the fittest. If survival turns only to the fittest, then why help lesser species that cannot improve the survival of their population without any outside intervention? Are not the forces driving evolution only weeding out those lesser species? An evolutionary atheist who is an environmentalist working to prevent the extinction of a species is truly a contradiction of the worldview to which he subscribes.

This perpetual inconsistency between the beliefs of the unbeliever and the way he actually lives out his life needs to be exploited by the Christian in a witnessing encounter. It is important that the Christian press the unbeliever living in contradiction to his worldview to give an account for such an inconsistency; to make him justify the presuppositions that under gird his beliefs. And, in addition to forcing him to justify his core presuppositions, the Christian must also drive the skeptic to the throne of his creator. The Christian must show the skeptic what he truly knows about God; that He exists and holds His creatures accountable. Then, the Christian must show from scripture how trying to earn God’s favor and pardon for sin is impossible and bring the skeptic to the foot of the cross; the only means by which man can be made right before God.

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