Former agnostic exposes deficiencies of unbelief

ARLINGTON—Atheism and secularism provide ultimately unsatisfying “God-substitutes”—idols too small to give human life dignity and value, a former-agnostic-turned-Christian-apologist told a pastors’ conference in Arlington.

Atheism and secularism offer insufficient “God-substitutes,” said Nancy Pearcey, author of Finding Truth and professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University.“Your view of humanity always will be in the image of what you define as divine,” said Nancy Pearcey, author of Finding Truth and professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University. “Because an idol is less than God, it always leads to a lower view of humanity.”

Pearcey, scholar-in-residence and director of the Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture at HBU, spoke at “Engage Gospel Truth in Culture,” a conference sponsored by the John Newport Foundation and the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.

In the first chapter of the New Testament book of Romans, the Apostle Paul provided the framework for a training manual in Christian apologetics, Pearcey said. 

On the basis of general revelation, Paul asserted all people have access to evidence of God’s existence, but they suppress that evidence and create God-substitutes, Pearcey said. These counterfeit gods not only include idols of wood and stone, but also ideas that present alternative explanations for life and its purpose, she insisted.

“Humanity is recast in the image of the idol. … Idols lead to a debased mind—a dehumanizing worldview,” she said. 

Pearcey offered five principles Christians can use in conversations with atheists, agnostics and secularists:

• Identify the idol. An idol “exchanges the glory of God for something in creation,” she explained. Some nontheists exalt reason to the level of an idol, failing to recognize humans’ capacity for rational thought actually points to the reality of a rational Creator, she observed.

• Identify the idol’s reductionism. Idolatrous philosophies reduce human beings to biochemical machines—the sum of their parts, programmed by evolution, she observed. Nontheistic belief systems create a diminished view of human dignity.

• Test the worldview externally. Idolatrous worldviews invariably prove too small to fit the evidence of the general revelation—the observable truth of the universe, she said.

• Test the worldview internally. “It will always contradict itself,” Pearcey said. “Because it undermines reason, it is self-defeating.”

• Replace the idol. Make a positive and winsome case for Christianity. Invariably, the only attractive aspects of secular worldview—equality, freedom, human rights—are principles borrowed from Christianity, she noted.

“Your starting assumptions limit the categories available to you,” Pearcey said. “If you begin with a transcendent Personal Agent, then the fact we are personal agents makes perfect sense.

“The things that are so problematic for scientific materialism—free will, moral responsibility, genuine love—are accounted for quite logically within a Christian worldview.”

Robert Stewart, professor of philosophy and theology and director of the Apologetics Center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, insisted the real conflict is not between science and religion but scientism and religion. (PHOTO / Jim Spivey)Militant atheists create a false dichotomy between the disciplines of science and religion, a Southern Baptist philosophy professor told the conference.

“Are religion and science at war? That makes about as much sense as saying mathematics and English are at war,” said Robert Stewart, professor of philosophy and theology and director of the Apologetics Center at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. 

The real conflict is not between science and religion but scientism and religion. Scientism views the scientific method as applicable universally and sees the inductive methods of natural science as the only legitimate way of understanding truth in any realm, he explained.

“Scientism is using the wrong tool to answer a metaphysical truth: Does God exist? But when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” Stewart said.

In contrast, the biblical worldview offers a comprehensive way of understanding reality to “a world that has lost its story,” said David Naugle, distinguished professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University.

The biblical worldview offers a comprehensive way of understanding reality to “a world that has lost its story,” said David Naugle, distinguished professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University. (PHOTO / Jim Spivey)“The Bible doesn’t speak about everything, but it does speak to everything,” Naugle said.

Some Christians understand “bits and pieces” of the biblical narrative of creation, fall and redemption, but a biblical worldview requires seeing the big picture, he asserted.

“The solution is to look at the whole book. Begin at the beginning—not with Jesus and salvation, but with God and creation,” he said.

Examined in its totality, the biblical narrative provides “a system of thought that supplies answers to life’s biggest questions,” Naugle said.