Why do the self-professed atheists I encounter rail against Christianity only? They must understand Christ is true. So they imitate the devil in their opposition: religion doesn’t bother him, or them: it’s the person of Jesus they oppose. “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you,” Jesus said.1
Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion unsuccessfully argues that my belief in a personal and supernatural God proves that I am deluded. He knows nothing about it. Saul of Tarsus, the ultimate Jesus-hater, had one of those supernatural encounters 2 just like I had. After meeting Jesus in a frightening fashion, he wrote about Mr. Dawkins and others: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 3
I’m like a couple billion others who walk daily with a supernatural Jesus, to varying degrees. We get to turn the tables and say the so-called rationalists themselves, in Dawkins’ words, have “a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.” 4
The evidence is right in front of you all; you just don’t see it. The devil has blinded you.5 Oh wait – he’s supernatural so it’s impossible in your view to believe in him either. Too bad; he wins this round, and may God help you snap out of it before the end.
But then, discounting everything but rationalist arguments leaves no room in the heart for a loving, compassionate Creator. The universe is heartless, clockwork, mechanical, you say. God’s love does not exist. In such a world, the populace must then be people who themselves have god-like delusions. How sad to fall so short of what exists.
A spot of good news: I’m only accused of being deluded; at least I’m not being deceived in this; deceit comes from the devil. Deceit is much harder to overcome than delusion. How does the deceived ever come to know the truth? Only by God’s intervention: again, a supernatural event.
The world isn’t suffering from an epidemic of misinformation, but a burden of myth-information. What the devil would have us suppose always obscures what God would propose. Satan’s voice is louder, but it doesn’t have to be clearer. Listen past his yammer.
All this confusion is heart-breaking. When I weep over it, my tears must be sanctified. They bless the earth on which the saints have trod and make holy the sinners’ ground. I pray that God brings his Super into the Natural these folks fruitlessly toil in.
As for my fellow believers, the greatest lie Christians fall for is that they are not good enough. The greatest truth they must know is that they are not good enough. The truth points toward Jesus, for salvation. The lie points to the devil, for confusion and blindness.
People who blame God for their troubles are also wrong in their belief. There is good news there as well
In blaming God, they unwittingly acknowledge that He is all-powerful. And so, there is hope for them, because God is love.6
Atheists, agnostics, lukewarm believers, doubters, the unsure: God has a place for you. My prayer is for all of you who have yet to come into Christ’s kingdom. May your arrival precede His return.
1. John 15:18
2. Acts 9:1-6 – “Saul, still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and requested letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any there of the Way, either men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he went he drew near Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’ He said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’. The Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Trembling and astonished, he said ‘Lord, what will You have me do’ The Lord said to him, ‘Rise up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’”
3. 1 Corinthians 2:14
4. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, © 2008, Mariner Books, US (Reprint Edition)
5. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 – “But if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are lost. The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”
6. 1 John 4:8 – “Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
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