Blogsnark: Should Christians Abandon Apologetics?
Circenses writes:
If we cannot prove the existence of God by reason then reasoning with atheists is pointless. If reason can prove the existence of God, then the atheist is unreasonable and reason won’t work. Why do we always believe that if we have the right argument that people will understand the truth and will convert? Jesus was the God-Man and had great arguments but the people didn’t listen to him. What chance then have we?
This is an interesting perspective that has some value. If theism, and specifically Christian theism, is a matter of faith rather than simple reasoning (like demonstrating the truth that the Earth orbits the sun rather than the other way around), then constructing arguments on behalf of theism and against atheism is indeed pointless. If a Christian could “prove” that their god exists and that their religion is true, then there’s no room for the “faith” they keep propounding.
Circenses’ question, “Why do we always believe that if we have the right argument that people will understand the truth and will convert,” is especially interesting given the fact that the above post almost immediately proceeds to engage in apologetics and an effort to construct an argument against atheism — and a typically bad one, at that:
The problem with atheism is not that they demand proof of God’s existence. Rather, the problem with atheism is that they refuse to do what is necessary to get the proof which they say they require.
As opposed to Christians, who fail to do what is necessary to get the same “proof” for other religions...
Atheists require objective proof or, more precisely, scientific proof. By this I mean that atheists require proof that can be tested, repeated by many individuals so that the many individuals always independently get the same results from the test and a general consensus from the learned community is reached as to the certainty of that repeated test. This sort of proof is objective and impersonal. ... The method by which God proves His existence to a fallen world is not by objective proofs but by subjective ones. God’s proof is very personal and not separate from the individual seeking that proof.
I doubt that Circenses or any other Christian would accept such an argument as a legitimate defense of some other religion and some other god. So why use it in defense of Christianity and the Christian god? Because Christians like this don’t operate on the basis of reason, logic, and principle — it’s all just a random collection of rationalizations designed to give the impression that one’s belief is vaguely reasonable.
Despite the efforts of modern atheists to urge for cautious skepticism and for a secular society divorced from the religious practices of that society (whether Christian or Buddhist, etc.) and despite the doomsday scenarios preached from fundamentalist pulpits about the incipient atheism that was resulting from evolutionary theory, the percentage of the population that believes in God is still within the ninetieth percentile rage and usually that above 95%. Atheism is a vastly unpopular opinion and has always been the minutest minority of any human culture.
Isn’t it interesting how narrow this cultural perspective is? Circenses acts as though the American experience of religion and theism is somehow the natural, human experience of religion — an experience that isn’t culturally conditioned. If Circenses bothered to do even a little research, it would become obvious that atheism isn’t a “vastly unpopular opinion” everywhere in the world or even everywhere in the West and, therefore, atheists are not the minutest minority in every human culture.
Rates of atheism may be as high as 85% in Sweden, 65% in Japan, 54% in France, and 44% in Britain. Why doesn’t Circenses even try to take such facts into account? Because they would undermine the entire argument that s/he claims not to be making. The main argument being made is that atheists aren’t doing what is necessary to discover god, placing atheists in a position of inferiority and theists in the position of being “normal.”
If it were acknowledged that it weren’t just possible for a majority of people to be atheist, but may in fact be happening in the West today, then the premise that Circenses’ sort of theism is natural and necessary simply falls apart. We’d be right back to where we should have been all along: with the fact that it’s the obligation of theists to support and defend their claims, not with atheists to apply some vaguely defined and insufficiently justified “method” which not even Christians themselves apply once the move beyond their own religion.
I submit that we should abandon apologetics as a tool of effective evangelism and focus our efforts and resources toward a relational methodology.
Circenses is proposing that Christians abandon the use of reason and logic and instead focus on irrational mumbo-jumbo that is hypocritically employed when convenient, but ignored when not convenient. This is what Christians already tend to do, it’s just that Circenses is admitting it.
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Comments
first off, I’d like to say, that I am Christian. lol, what must I be doing in this atheism agnostic section! Anyways, I loved your article. Very well written. I always felt that there was just something fundamentally wrong with the idea behind Christian apologetics. The very last part your writing was a bit harsh on Christians like myself :_^( but, I must confess that your statement was not really that far off the mark. Hypocrisy is an unfortunate truth these days, as I find that many of my fellow believers are rather ignorant of faith they profess.