Apologetics for the Masses #528 - An Atheist Wants to Know: Why Try?

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Topic

An atheist presents what he sees as a justifiable reason for not seeking truth.

General Comments

Have not heard back from the guy in South Africa whose questions about Catholicism I had featured in last week's newsletter. I emailed him my response to his questions last Friday, not too long before I sent out the newsletter. Not having heard from him, I sent him another email on Wednesday to see if my answers to his questions had given him what he was looking for. He replied back and said he needed more time to look over my answers more carefully before he gave me any kind of response. Perfectly reasonable. It's also perfectly reasonable to assume that he's taking it to someone else and that they need time to respond. So, hopefully, he'll get back to me in the next week or two. When he does, I'll put it in the newsletter. In the meantime, we'll be crossing into atheist territory this week...

Introduction

Okay, there's this guy named Barry. He's an atheist. Somehow he got on my subscriber list for this newsletter. First heard from him back in March when he wrote me an email after receiving a newsletter where I was taking Dave Armstrong to task over the supposed "dogma" of Papal Indefectibility. Barry accused me of "word wrangling" the type of which had been forbidden by St. Paul in 2nd Timothy 2:14. Said that he had done intensive study on the subject and that I was, for all intents and purposes, definitely guilty of it. So, we went back and forth a couple of rounds and then I don't know if I just got tired of word wrangling over word wrangling or if the dialogue just sort of slipped off of my radar screen - which happens a good bit with dialogues since I get involved in so many of them - either way, the dialogue fizzled out.

Anyway, after the latest newsletter last week, Barry sent me another email. In it, he makes an argument for why it isn't reasonable, for him, to search out the gospel "truth". I'm going to present it to you, as I do every so often, as "homework". What would you say in response to Barry's argument? Some things for you to look for: Are there any fundamental flaws in his assumptions? Any contradictions in his logic? Anything from Catholic theology that he is apparently ignorant of and/or does not take account of in his argument? And, just so you know, there is one big glaring assumption he is making that is quite flawed...can you see it?

I'll give you a week to mull it over and then I'll give you how I would, and will, respond to Barry in next week's newsletter.

Challenge/Response/Strategy

From Barry, the Atheist
Protestant apologists tell me to avoid evangelism from Catholics, for evangelism by heretics is often how an unbeliever becomes a heretic.

Catholic apologists tell me to avoid evangelism from Protestants, for evangelism by heretics is often how an unbeliever becomes a heretic.

If spiritually alive Catholics and Protestants have strenuously disagreed about gospel "truth" for centuries, despite both sides constantly quoting the bible, appealing to the original Greek, appealing to the "immediate context" and using bible inerrancy as a check on the accuracy of interpretation (your interpretation cannot be correct unless it harmonizes with everything else the bible says), then wouldn't both groups have to be fools to seriously expect spiritually dead people to manifest more accurate discernment?

If so, then they wouldn't act like fools, thus, they wouldn't expect spiritually dead me to manifest more accurate discernment, and at that point, I have the perfect excuse to ignore Christianity: If spiritually alive people cannot even come to agreement on gospel truth, I would have to be foolish to deem my spiritually dead self as having any chance of discerning such "truth", and I have no more rational reason to even try, than I have any rational reason to attempt any other feat that is equally certain to fail, such as jumping over the moon.

Thus, when I fail to even try, this is the most reasonable reaction in the circumstances. Thus, failing to consider gospel "truth" is reasonable in the circumstances.

Closing Comments

I hope all of you have a great week! Please keep the Bible Christian Society in your prayers...

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