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The State of the Doubter’s Knowledge

Be Slow to Speak and Quick to Listen

The email from Bill started out with what seemed to me to be some thinly veiled mockery: “I was a Christian until my mid-twenties, when, for the first time in my life, I started actually using my head and realized that it was all baloney.” Perhaps I was tired and irritable that day, and maybe I read too much into the email, but my first response was to start typing up a quick reply that went something like this: “Really? Really!? You finally started thinking and of course that led you to abandon Christianity? So I guess everyone who has ever actually ‘used their head’ has come to the same conclusion as you and become an atheist? I suppose that every Christian in the history of the world who hasn’t abandoned their faith has been an unthinking idiot? Is that it? Augustine, Aquinas, Lewis: All numskulls? Is that what you are saying? Give me a break.”

Let me assure you that this is not the way to react to an opening salvo from a skeptic. I explained in the last chapter that we need to be very careful about not starting a conversation by defending a particular objection to Christianity. In this chapter I am going to expand on that notion a bit by arguing that we should not start a conversation by defending Christianity at all, especially with the attitude that I displayed. Rather, we should humbly and gently listen and ask questions in an attempt to learn as much as we can about what the skeptic believes and where he is coming from.

The thesis of this chapter is that the first step to having a fruitful worldview discussion is to find out what the skeptic believes. Specifically, you want to find out first what is his own worldview, and second, what he understands to be the Christian worldview. In other words, you want to know how he answers those questions we talked about in chapter 1 and how he thinks Christianity answers them.

For example, I should have written something like this to Bill: “That’s very interesting. I’d love to hear about your intellectual journey. Could you tell me a bit about that?” I could then have followed up with, “I’m particularly interested in what you found to be a more reasonable worldview than Christianity. I understand that you don’t think Christianity correctly answers the big questions of life, but what answers did you conclude were right? What do you think is true about the world? Where do you think we came from? According to your worldview, what is the purpose of life and how should we then live? And what happens after we die?” Then, after interacting about that for a while, I would keep the questions coming, but switch to inquiries about the skeptic’s view of Christianity. For example: “You told me that you used to be a Christian but now have rejected Christianity. Could you tell me about the Christianity you abandoned? According to your understanding, how does the Christian worldview answer the big questions of life? What is the story of the world according to the Bible as you read it?”

One of the keys to this stage is not to do a lot of talking. There is no need to preach or present an argument or even rebut what the skeptic is saying. Your goal here is simply to ask questions, listen, and learn. You will have your chance to talk later on. At the beginning, the focus should be on allowing the unbeliever to share. This is very important for several reasons.

Build Relationship, Not Animosity

First, the act of sincerely asking questions, in and of itself, generally defuses any animosity that might be present and avoids creating any new ill feelings. As Hugh Hewitt writes, “When you ask a question, you are displaying interest in the person asked. . . . Most people are not queried on many, if any, subjects. Their opinions are not solicited. To ask them is to be remembered fondly as a very interesting and gracious person in your own right.”22 Greg Koukl adds “[Questions] invite genial interaction on something the other person cares a lot about: her own ideas.”23

Getting into a heated argument is not going to do anyone any good. In fact, it will usually just turn the skeptic against Christianity even more than she already is. Jumping into an emotionally charged adversarial discussion will only make things worse. On the other hand, showing interest in the other person by asking questions will generally calm any passions that might be aroused and open up a door for a fruitful conversation. As Proverbs tells us, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (15:1). This is one reason Paul tells Timothy: “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone . . .” (2 Timothy 2:23–24). Randy Newman points out, “Many an evangelizing Christian has won the battle but lost the war by not avoiding an ugly argument.”24 Asking questions is a great response to an initial outburst by a skeptic in that it shows you genuinely care about the other person and are willing to let her have the first say. This will go a long way toward making your conversation pleasant and productive.

Listen and Learn

A second reason not to go into a conversation with guns blazing is that it is often counterproductive; you end up shooting at and destroying the wrong target. In other words, Christians who start a conversation by doing a lot of talking often address a person who does not exist and a position he does not hold. If we start preaching and making arguments before learning what the other person is all about, there is very little chance that we will address the proper concerns. It is ridiculous to assume that just because a person self-identifies with a label such as atheist or agnostic that we know what he actually believes or what his attitude will be toward us. The better tactic is to ask questions first in order to learn who and what we are actually dealing with.

In regard to the other person’s attitude, we must avoid being cynical about his motives or heart condition and give him the benefit of the doubt. If my experience with Bill (and far too many others, unfortunately, especially early in my ministry) is any indication, it is very easy to enter a conversation with a cynical perspective of the other person’s attitude and motives: “He probably thinks I am a jerk for being a Christian, and therefore he is obviously a jerk, so I’m going to go into this thing armed for battle. At the first sign of sarcasm or condescension, I’m going to let him have a double-barrel dose of his own medicine!” This is simply anti-Christian and actually a sin. We are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and consider others higher than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Attacking them violates both of these commands and will not advance the kingdom.

If I had asked questions instead of jumping all over Bill, I would have learned (as I did later in our interaction) that he was actually a decent guy who had some legitimate concerns with Christianity as he understood it. In this he was like many atheists who reject the faith not because of their personal hatred of Christians or of Jesus, but because they have a view of Christianity that deserves to be rejected. C. S. Lewis wrote that “Very little of the opposition we meet is inspired by malice or suspicion. It is based on genuine doubt, and often on doubt that is reasonable in the state of the doubter’s knowledge.”25 Lewis realized that personal issues are often not the things keeping people from Jesus. The real problem is ignorance. Unbelievers have false notions of what Christianity teaches and don’t realize how much strong evidence there is to support orthodox doctrines. We will talk about some of those false notions in part 2, but for now I want to emphasize that you will never get to the point of being able to address them if you don’t start by asking questions.

Questioning also helps to clarify those beliefs. Too many religious conversations involve people talking past each other because they haven’t taken the time to find out what the other person actually believes. The result is that each side tries to knock down a straw-man version of the other’s position. The skeptic argues against a version of Christianity that the believer does not hold, and the Christian attacks an atheistic worldview that the unbeliever does not hold. Then they wonder why the conversation never gets anywhere.

For example, I once debated Dr. Robert Price about the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Even though I went first in the debate, in his opening statement Dr. Price debunked a series of arguments I had not presented and exposed the foolishness of a bunch of doctrines that I did not even accept. In my response, I mentioned that I was not sure whom Dr. Price was debating during his presentation, but it didn’t seem to be me. He was rejecting a Christianity that I reject as well.

In Christian Apologetics, Douglas Groothuis devotes a chapter to “Distortions of the Christian Worldview—Or the God I Don’t Believe In.” He notes that Christianity is falsely accused of being racist, sexist, anti-intellectual, and imperialistic, among many other defects. Unfortunately, “due to their popularity and the passion with which they are promoted, distorted accounts of Christianity keep many from pondering the genuine Christian message.”26 When people hear you are a Christian they will often have a picture of Christianity in their minds that you wouldn’t come close to recognizing. You want to make sure that you are not defending a god that you don’t believe in, and the first step in doing this is to find out what the other person thinks about God.

You also want to make sure you are not attacking a worldview that they don’t believe in. In the same way that atheists usually will have a distorted view of what you believe, you will have a distorted view of what they believe. To start debating the two positions without clarifying what it is that each person actually means by Christian and atheist (or agnostic or skeptic or whatever) is the height of folly and will only lead to frustration. Therefore, the first step must be to ask questions and learn what it is the unbeliever actually believes.