Atheism is a belief in disbelief
Truth is truth, whether one believes it or not, truth remains what it is – TRUE. Truth doesn’t require belief for it to be true. Whether one believes it or not, it remains solid.
If it is true that the world struggled with Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) between 2019 and 2020, it doesn’t matter who believes it or not, it remains true that COVID-19 happened. Whether others think or believe that there was no COVID-19 and engaged in all kinds of conspiracy theories, it will have no effect to the fact that what is true, remains true.
Truth needs no belief to be true. You believe truth to your own benefit and you reject it to your own detriment.
Apologetics
In Christian Apologetics we attempt to share truth on the basis that truth is true. Apologetics from the Greek word “apologia” literary means a defense. Christian apologetics engages into the defense of the Biblical Truth. According to Kreeft and Tacelli (1994:25) Apologetics defends orthodox Christianity. Dissenters of the Christian Faith have no faith in orthodox Christianity. “They believe in apologizing for it, not apologetics for it” (Kreeft and Taceli, 1994). In apologetics we defend the Truth of the Gospel.
Polemics
Another component of Christian Apologetics is Polemics. Polemics has more to do with contending for the truth. One cannot do apologetics without doing polemics. Both Apologetics and Polemics achieve the same thing – propagating Biblical Truth. We must understand that we cannot talk about Biblical Truth if the Bible itself was not reliable. For Christianity to be true, the Bible must be true. For the Bible to be true, the God that the Bible talks about must be true. The foundation of Christian Truth is based on the trueness of God, especially the God that Scripture talks about.
In Powell (2006: 21) Douglas Groothius writes that “The Christian worldview is not proven in one or two strokes but is rather verified by appealing to a wide and compelling variety of converging arguments. Christianity is shown to be the best explanation for the origin and nature of the universe as well as the human condition and the facts of history.”
The goal of apologetics according to Grothius is deep care and love for the lost (Powell, 2006). As Apologists our aim is not to win arguments. Our goal is not to defeat the arguments of the unbelieving, and expose the folly of those engaging in deception. We aim to bring the truth to lost world so that we win the lost, to bring them to faith.
While to do apologetics one must be able to argue, the goal of apologetics is not merely arguing, it is to uphold the Truth and expose error.
Apologetics must be inspired by a genuine care and love for the lost. In Apologetics we engage in discussions with the atheists, the agnostics, the skeptics and people of other faiths in order to bring them to the knowledge of the truth about God. In apologetics we also confront ourselves as Christians reminding ourselves of the need to remain true to the Gospel.
Atheists are those who reject any belief in the existence of God/any god/\gods. According to Atheism, God does not exist, and if he exists we cannot know anything about him (Powell 2006:98).
In Christian Apologetics we don’t just address the question of whether God exists, we also respond to the question of which God exists.
According to Scripture, the God who exists is a necessary, powerful, transcendent, non-contingent, intelligent, personal, moral, immanent and unique. Therefore, this God is knowable and relatable. The God of the Bible is the all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful and ever present holy God. The holiness of God does not only explain his moral purity but also reveals his uniqueness. The major challenge with atheism is that it denies the existence of God based on its failure to know. Atheism insists that the physical is all that exists, because it is all that science is able to know. Yet science itself admits profoundly that it doesn’t know all things. It is folly therefore, to deny the existence of God when you actually don’t know all things.
Atheism rejects all the findings of the cosmological, ontological or the moral arguments. Atheism has failed to provide adequate explanations for design, origin of the universe and for morality. Going by its own criteria, atheism becomes self-defeating. To make a claim that God exists is simply to say that God is among the things that exist. And to make a claim that God does not exist is to claim that God is not among the things that exist.
In order for one to know that God does not exist, they must know all things that exist.
Powell (2006) correctly observes that, to honestly make a claim that God does not exist one must possess complete and exhaustive knowledge of everything that exists. Atheists do not have the authority to deny the existence of God because they do not know all things that exist. Therefore, atheism is a belief in disbelief. While atheists themselves are in denial that atheism is a belief system, it is clear that they are exactly just what they attempt to deny.
Atheism is not based on adequate scientific knowledge, therefore it is basically a belief. There is no adequate scientific evidence that negates the existence of God. One has to know all things that exist and establish that God is not among them for them to scientifically and precisely negate the existence of God. Basically atheists lack active belief in God/gods on the basis of their belief that there are no gods. They have no factual or empirical evidence that there is no God, they just lack belief in God on the basis that they don’t know whether he exists or not. Atheism is a belief in disbelief.
By JPC Ntuntu
References
Kreeft, P and Tacelli, R.K. (1994) Handbook of Christian Apologetics. Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press.
Powell, D. (2006) Holman Quick Source Guide to Christian Apologetics. Nashveille, Tennesse: Holman Reference.
