Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Proving Christianity is False — Questions from M

Proving Christianity is False — Questions from M

Last updated on: July 15, 2017 at 6:17 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Proving Christianity is False — Questions from M 2017-07-15T18:17:30-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I once wished Christianity, particularly traditional Christianity, was false. Professionally, I was told that being a very traditional Christian in philosophy would make work, already hard to get, harder to get by the President of my secular university. He was being compassionate and, as a more left-of-center theist, giving me what he took to be good advice. He was right and I appreciated his candor and his writing me a job recommendation!

I love philosophy and this nagged at me. One should not pick a belief system to get a job, but, after all, if only one could be persuaded, and couldn’t one be persuaded . . . or so my mind worked! That wasn’t all of it. There were things I wanted to do contrary to traditional Christian ethics. Outside my family and a few others, the best Christians seemed to all be dead. CS Lewis died the year I was born. My church experience was at a low with a great deal of irrationalism being bandied about my world.

I had beloved non-Christian mentors and professors.

Safe to say, as a graduate philosophy student, I had some decent ideas about how to get out of the Faith! I share this episode because M* sent me fifty-five questions earlier this year and I have been trying to answer them when possible! Today’s question is not abstract to me. I lived it:

If Christianity and its claims were untrue, how would one go about finding that out?

I began by assuming Christianity was false and examining the implications. This is what I recommend to anyone wanting to understand anything: get inside it, assume it, see what follows. In this case, I wanted not-Christianity to be true and to test that hope, decided to assume it was true and see what followed.

If Christianity was not true, then Jesus was not the Son of God.

This is certainly possible. I knew the arguments, but I then with my non-Christian Greek professor read the Gospel of John. Jesus is amazing (as was the beauty of the Greek), insightful, smart, and, yes, divine. He claimed to be equal with God and that claim struck whoever wrote the text (within the lifetime of eyewitnesses) as true.

Maybe not, but when I examined the life of Jesus and the stories about Him, I was not satisfied with not-Christianity’s solutions ranging from the absurd (“He never existed!”) to the plausible, but not compelling (great teacher!).

If Christianity was not true, then I had radically misunderstood important life experiences.

This did not bother me the way people might think it did. Being wrong was awesome in our house. The person who could not admit she was wrong was the problem! Time and again I had experienced the freeing power of seeing that I had been seeing things badly. The first case was when I got glasses, lenses I swore I did not need, and suddenly could see! I was wrong! Wow! Hurrah for being wrong!

Mom taught me that truth from day one.

The problem was that my experiences were nothing like the alternative explanations said they should be. When someone said my “experience” of Jesus was like this or that, they did not begin to capture the experience. My experience of Jesus was like this: I heard my mom and dad talk to me using my mind. I heard Jesus talk to me using my mind. His voice was not like my voice. Sometimes I tricked myself into thinking Mom and Dad agreed with me, (I can stay up later), and was wrong. Sometimes I misheard, misunderstood, or ignored what God said.

That was what God was like . . . not all the stuff people were saying. Maybe there was another way of explaining my experiences of God, but most seemed more like “explaining away” so we could be not-Christians. That was cheating.

If Christianity was not true, then what of evidence that Christianity was true like the empty tomb?

Jesus rose from the dead. Maybe not, but the alternative explanations did not work for me. I could explain away Jesus being alive, but these explanations seemed forced. The simplest, most natural explanation, was that the tomb was empty and Jesus alive.

If Christianity was not true, then what is true? Is anything?

I did not need an alternative to Christianity to reject Christianity, but such an option would have helped. Was there another view of reality that would sustain all that Christianity was capable of sustaining? Christianity was capable of supporting a scientific understanding of the world and inspiring an artist. Christianity could encourage a peasant to rebuke a Pope, but also maintain social order. Atheism with various forms of secularism (as I experienced in graduate school) was intellectually appealing and could support science, but I saw no examples of secularism sustaining a culture. The places where atheism or agnosticism won were uniformly awful or in their twilight years (Western Europe) and I could not see it producing much more than the pop culture around me.

OK as far as it went, but not enough, not nearly enough.

As for other religions, Judaism is our mother and so deserved consideration, but as I have already said: Jesus. As for Islam, no philosopher can hate Islam, I could see no evidence Islam had peace with the world as it is as opposed to what it wished the world was. Islam was (at best) a work in progress. I could not go there. Eastern religions were very attractive, thanks to Plato, but again they seemed to do science on the side. I love science . . . and enough Isaac Asimov had soaked into my bones to get the shivers when people started down the postmodern road.

Christianity could sustain a republic, or a constitutional monarchy. It could inspire a scientist or an artist. This was something and against it I could not find anything else.

Having tried to show Christianity was false, I knew the honest thing to do was to embrace the opposite and see. I decided to assume Christianity was true and examine the implications. I did. That is why I am here.

——————

*M is a non-Christian that sent me 55 questions earlier this year. He has asked that I not reveal his or her name. I will write as if “he” is a male, but this is for convenience. I do not know if I will get to all his questions. I try to limit my answers to hundreds and not thousands of words. Here are questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, and 55.

Apologetics

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

July 13, 2017

Picking out the True God, Which God Is Real -- Questions from M

Next Post

July 15, 2017 Christianity: the Rumor that is True -- Questions from M

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: Romans teaches that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay.

Select your answer to see how you score.

TRUE FALSE

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »