Part Twelve:  Examples of questions that challenge atheists to refute evidences for God’s existence.

Atheists rightly claim they do not have to prove God doesn’t exist. In other words, they are under no obligation to prove God doesn’t exist because, logically, you can’t prove a negative; you can’t prove the nonexistence of anything! Atheists insist, therefore, that the burden of proof is on theists to demonstrate that God does exist. This tactic breaks down, however, because theists have ample objective—as well as philosophical—evidence that demonstrates God does exist. So although atheists are right to say it is irrational for theist to expect them to prove God doesn’t exist, they are obligated to demonstrate that the evidences theists muster for God’s existence are spurious.

In this and the following blog article, I will provide examples of questions that challenge atheists to refute evidences for God’s existence. The purpose of these questions is to stimulate conversations that lead to opportunities for Christians to share why they believe God does exist.

1. “I don’t believe that God exists!”

• “If I give you evidence that demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that God exists, would there be any reason for you to reject God’s existence? If so, I’d like to know why?”

(Note: The idea here is to get atheists to see that if they are unwilling to examine evidence for God’s existence, their denial of His existence is actually moral or philosophical, not intellectual.)

• Draw a circle and ask the person you are speaking with to think of the circle as representing all knowledge in the universe. Ask him or her to fill in the amount of the circle that represents their total personal knowledge. (They will probably put in a small dot.) Then ask, “How do you know that God does not exist in the vast area of knowledge beyond the scope of your personal comprehension or experience?”

2. “There is no proof that God exists!”

• “Big bang cosmology and the second law of thermodynamics reveal that the universe is not eternal, it had a beginning. If God did not create the universe, how did it come into existence? As I see it, there are only three possible ways: It created itself, it always existed, or God did created it. Since the laws of physics and logic demonstrate that the universe is not eternal and could not have caused itself to come into existence, what other option is there other than that the universe was created by God?”

3. “If everything that exists has a cause, God must have a cause!”

• “Only things that have a beginning have a cause. The God of the Bible is self-existing and eternal. Why would God need a cause?”

• “If God is the First Cause, what came before ‘first’?”

4. “Atheists can be just as morally upright as Christians. We don’t
need a God to tell us how to behave!”

• “It’s true that atheists can be just as morally upright as Christians, but why should they?”

• “If there is no God to communicate eternal truths that set universal standards for moral behavior—and hold people accountable if they violate those standards—why shouldn’t atheists do as they please?”

• “If people or entire societies disagree on what’s moral and immoral, and if God doesn’t exist to set universal moral standards, on what basis do we condemn genocide, pedophilia, or infanticide in societies that practice them?”

• “In Western civilization, traditional moral standards have their source in the Judeo/Christian religions. Doesn’t this mean that the same moral standards atheists accept come from God? If not, where do they come from?” ©

In next week’s blog article, I will give more examples of Socratic questions that challenge atheists to refute evidences for God’s existence.

This series of blog articles is adapted from my book The Christian Combat Manual: Helps for Defending Your Faith; A Handbook for Practical Apologetics, which can be purchased at most outlets. The Combat Manual gives the Christian position on this issue and evidence to support it.