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Rich the Atheist Hates God

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Meet Rich. He’s an atheist. After a conversation with him on the campus of El Camino College last week, he left with these choice words thrown in our direction: “When I see God I will tell him that he’s a nut job. F— God!”

Question: Why would he utter such blasphemous words?

Answer: Presuppositional apologetics.

rich atheist

Christians do not need to know about every scientific theory or secular doctrine that comes down the pike; they do not have to be well-versed in Quantum Physics or evolutionary biology even. No! That’s the unbeliever’s game. All a Christian needs to know is the Word of God.

Theologian John Frame defines presuppositional apologetics in this way:

a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition…. This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing. 

Here’s my explanation: Atheists suppose that there is no God. The Bible presupposes that they do.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
(Romans 1:21)

The Word of God is always correct. There is no need to apologize or offer excuses. Stand on the Word of God.

The atheist may ask: How do you know that it’s the Word of God?

You simply say, “Because the Bible says that it is.”

For the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword,

piercing to the division of soul and of spirit,
of joints and of marrow, and discerning the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.

(Hebrews 4:12)

But that’s circular reasoning!” the atheist protests.

You simply respond: “So be it.”

How did everything get here? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

This is why Rich was so angry. The evangelist, Bob Johnson, was undeterred. He stood his ground. He stood on the Rock. A few weeks prior, another atheist stormed away because of Bob’s insistence that the Word of God was the answer.

To everything.

So simple. It’s almost too simple.

Get used to feeling like an idiot.

(John Frame quote from “The Gospel and Contemporary Perspectives” by Douglas Moo, page 143)

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