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APOLOGETICS |
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Is Christianity
Alone Fully True and is Jesus Christ
Really the Only Way To God? -- Part 4
by Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr.
John Weldon |
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The Innate Knowledge of God in Atheists, Skeptics and
Other Opponents of Christianity (con’t)
The Bible is clear that all men know of God and that all men are
"close" to God. In reference to the incarnation of Jesus Christ it
says, "The true light that gives light to every man was coming
into the world" (John 1:9, emphasis added). In Romans 1 we read,
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their
wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to
them, because GOD has made it plain to them. For since the
creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power
and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood
from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave
thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish
hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:18-21, emphasis added)
The term "since the creation of the world" covers all men and women
who have ever lived. So Romans 1 must also be true for all atheists
and skeptics. God doesn’t say He has placed a knowledge of Himself in
every one except atheists and skeptics. To illustrate, even the most
famous atheist of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre, confessed the
following in an interview published in Harper’s magazine for
February 1984: "Even if one does not believe in God, there are
elements of the idea of God that remain in us…."25 Sartre goes on to
state, even though he had supposedly been a convinced atheist from the
age of 8 or 9, that the structure of consciousness26
and his own intuitive awareness and experience in life almost
compelled him to accept the existence of God:
As for me, I don’t see myself as so much dust that has appeared
in the world but as a being that was expected, prefigured, called
forth. In short, as a being that could, it seems, come only from a
creator; and this idea of a creating hand that created me refers me
back to God. Naturally this is not a clear, exact idea that I set in
motion every time I think of myself. It contradicts many of my other
ideas; but it is there, floating vaguely. And when I think of myself
I often think rather in this way, for wont of being able
to think otherwise.27
Even as a leading atheist, Sartre could never escape
God because he had not only been created, he had been created
"in God’s image" (Gen. 1:26-27). God had placed the knowledge of
Himself directly into the being of Sartre. So, even though Sartre
further stated, "This life owes nothing to God," he knew that his
atheism was a personal choice to ignore God, not proof that God didn’t
exist.
And whether or not a person admits it, virtually
everyone, at some point in life, searches for God or some
concept beyond themselves that will give meaning to life. Again,
Sartre himself noted, "God is silent and that I cannot deny;
everything in myself calls for God and that I cannot forget." 28
Thus, "in his philosophical writings, in his biographies, and in his
plays, Sartre is definitely concerned with man’s relationship to God
and to the realm of the holy."29
Sartre thought God was "silent," but of course, God
isn’t silent at all. Paul told the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers at
the Areopagus in Athens, Greece:
[God] "himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit
the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and
the exact places where they should live. God did this
so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find
him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him
we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets
have said, ‘We are his offspring.’" (Acts 17:25-28, emphasis added)
If everyone is the offspring of God, if God is not
far from us, if we have our being in Him, if everyone is made in His
image, and if God has "enlightened," "clearly revealed" and "made
Himself known" to every person who ever lived, then God has hardly
been "silent," even apart from His personal revelation in the Bible.
In Eternity in Their Hearts, Don Richardson
provides many examples showing how the concept of one true supreme God
has existed throughout history in hundreds of cultures around the
world. For example, concerning the "Sky-god" he writes:
In hundreds of instances attested to by literally millions of
folk religionists worldwide, the Sky-god does exactly what El Elyon
[the biblical God] did through Melchizedek [to Abraham, Gen. 14]. He
cheerfully acknowledges the approaching messengers of Yahweh as
His messengers! He takes pains to make it very clear—He Himself
is none other than the very God those particular foreigners
proclaim!… This is surely a powerful extra-biblical evidence for the
authenticity of the Bible as revelation from the one true and
universal God! It is also, as we shall see later, the prime reason
on the human level for the phenomenal acceptance Christianity has
found among people of so many folk religions on this planet. In
addition, Scripture after Scripture has testified down through the
centuries that our God has not left Himself without witness—even
apart from the preaching of the gospel (see Acts 14:16, 17). That
witness—though different in kind and quality from the biblical
witness itself—is still a witness to Him!... If you belong to a
tradition which has been teaching Christians for centuries that the
rest of the world sits in total darkness and knows zilch about God,
it becomes a little embarrassing to have to say, "We have been
wrong. In actual fact, more than 90 percent of this world’s folk
religions acknowledge at least the existence of God. Some even
anticipate His redeeming concern for mankind."
The Apostle John’s statement that the world lies in spiritual
wickedness (see 1 John 5:19) needs to be coupled with the Apostle
Paul’s acknowledgment that God has not left Himself without witness.
For that witness has penetrated the wickedness to some degree almost
everywhere!
As the Apostle John put it, "The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not overpowered it" (John 1:5, footnote). John
further specified the "light" he describes is the "true light that
gives light to every man" (1:9).29a
If all this is true, then everyone does know
there is a God and they also know certain things about Him. Since God
Himself has been their teacher, there is no possibility of failure.
There are no atheists finally, in foxholes, operating rooms, or
anywhere else.
Indeed, to suppress the truth that God has placed
within each man only leads to varying degrees of neurosis. As the
noted psychologist Rollo May wrote in The Art of Counseling, "I
have been startled by the fact that practically every genuine atheist
with whom I have dealt has exhibited unmistakable neurotic tendencies.
How [do we] account for this curious fact?" 30
And, perhaps even more suggestive, according to Senior Pastor Jess
Moody of the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, California, "Lie
detector tests were administered to more than 25,000 people. One of
the questions was, ‘Do you believe in God?’ In every case, when a
person answered no, the lie detector said he was lying." 31
Man’s biggest folly is to ignore the God who is
there, the God who we all know is there and to live our life as if He
were irrelevant. It is folly because it is a kind of intuitive and
intellectual madness, not to mention something dangerous. It’s like a
man in a boat in the middle of the ocean saying, "there are no sharks"
when he sees fins all around him. Because he is lost at sea, he has
radioed for help and he sees a rescue boat on the horizon. His
salvation is only a few hours away and yet he decides to go swimming.
Terrance Sweeney concluded his book with the
following comment, "The overwhelming conclusion from the sum of the
interviews is that God, or the One people refer to as God, is very
much a part of human experience and consciousness." 32
So, everyone believes in God. But if God exists and there is only one
true God, then how do we find Him? We will begin to answer that
question next time.
Notes:
25. Simone de Beauvoir, "A Conversation About
Death and God," Harper’s magazine, February 1984, p. 39.
26. Ibid., p. 38.
27. Ibid., p. 39. emphasis added
28. Clark H. Pinnock, "Cultural Apologetics: An
Evangelical Standpoint," Bibliotheca Sacra, January-March,
1970, 61, citing Charles L. Glicksberg, Literature and Religion,
p. 221.
29. Haim Gordon, "Sartre’s Struggle Against the
Holy," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (NY:
Abingdon 1967) Vol. 19 (1986), p. 95.
29a. Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts
(Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1981), pp. 53-54.
30. Rollo May, The Art of Counseling, (NY
Abingdon 1967), p. 215.
31. Cited in Los Angeles Times, June 28,
1986. We could not confirm this research. Convinced philosophical
atheists clearly could pass lie detector tests since these measure
conviction of belief. But such results, if valid, clearly show that
the more garden-variety practical, as opposed to philosophical,
atheists really aren’t so sure of their views.
32. Terrance A. Sweeney, God And…
(Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press 1985), p. 203.
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Apologetics
Authors
Dr.
James Bjornstad
Mrs. Lorri MacGregor
Mr. Marvin Cowan
Dr. John Ankerberg
Dr. John Weldon |
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ANKERBERG SHOW |
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DR. JOHN ANKERBERG'S RESPONSE TO CREATION QUESTIONS
Dr. John Ankerberg answers your
questions on creation in the following article available both as
a downloadable PDF and broken down into individual questions for
online reading. Click the link below to read:
Does Scientific Evidence Today Show
that God Created the Heavens and the Earth? And What Does the Bible Say
About When He Created?
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute
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