Special revelation and natural revelation

[cmaried]

How do you deal with the apparent rationality of atheists? Consider the following little dialogue:

Christian: Why don't you believe in God?

Atheist: Why don't you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

My personal reasoning is to point to the prophecies of Christ. The Prophets told the truth, and the Messiah came, was crucified for our sin, and

Comments

[elainastone]

I would point to the stories of the missionaries who go out into far, far back, isolated regions -- Some of them go and work and toil, work and toil and hardly have anything to show for it. Some of them go and there are people there eager and waiting, because they have seen what we have all seen and known there wasn't just a god, or a chain of gods or whatever, but there had to be THE God. God is just and merciful to call people to witness to those who genuinely believe He is there, but just don't know Who He is.

Think about children... Children, without being prompted, will have these sorts of conversations.. "Where does it come from? Maybe someone made it. Who made that guy? Maybe someone made him...and on and on and on forever!!!" I think most people can relate to this conversation, or a version of it, from their youth. The question then is: What do they DO with it? Do they search it out, honestly, or do they turn from it and reject it? God has given all of us an innate understanding that He exists, He has given us nature to point to Him. It is up to us to decide what to do with it.

I think atheists, in your definition, are most often adults that have already decided to turn back. I don't suppose you're talking about a child anyway. =)

[cmaried]

Yes, I agree. My thought is, If God didn't exist, we wouldn't even be debating his existence. There wouldn't even be any question of "who created the Earth?" and "where did we come from?". It just wouldn't exist in our thinking. Originally, the Trinity had no physical essence, and therefore there would be no good reason for us to anthropomorphize it into created objects that had beginnings.(although I think man took the innate concept of God and anthropomorphized it into all sorts of creatures and different personalities) The Incarnation makes this reasoning a bit complicated, admittedly, but at least we know that Christ was begotten and not made.

Many hard-nosed atheists were raised in very strict religious homes.They were brought up in a sort of anti-intellectual, legalistic environment that told them to never question why they believe what they believe. Then they were hit with secular, higher education and their world fell apart.