Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes

by Nancy R. Pearcey

Christianity agrees with the postmodernist critique of the Enlightenment’s notion of the disembodied consciousness. The Bible teaches that God created humans as embodied beings, biologically connected to families, living in particular nations at particular periods in history. We are rooted in the physical, material world—and that is not a negative limitation that must be transcended. On the contrary, Genesis states repeatedly that the material creation is intrinsically good: “And God saw that it was good.” In the book of Acts, Paul even teaches that our physical, social, and historical situatedness is intended by God as a means to draw us to him. Speaking about the nations (from

the Greek ethnos, the root of ethnic group), Paul says God “determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live, … so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (Acts 17:26–27 NIV 48). Our biological and social identity is intended to be a blessing, to inspire us to search for God.

At the same time, Christianity refuses to reduce individuals to their communities, as postmodernism does. Christians are reborn into a redeemed community that transcends all natural communities. Even the family, the most basic biological community, does not determine our primary identity. All who become Christians are “children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will [to have a child], but born of God” (John 1:12–13 NIV). The Bible’s liberating message is the pr...

This trinitarian view produces a wonderful balance in practice...

diversity based on physical origins—birth, family, gender, ethnicity, nationality—can be celebrated with gratitude as gifts from God. At the same time, these things do not ultimately define us: “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbar...

As we topple idols, it is imperative that we replace it with something better. If the core

flaw is reductionism, then the way to build a positive case for Christianity is to show that it is not reductionistic. Because it does not deify any part of creation, it does not have to cram everything into a single set of categories. The result is that Christianity has a very rich ontology (theory of what exists). It offers a greater respect for creation than any of competing worldview. Consider how positive it is by comparison:

To counter materialism, we can show that a biblical worldview teaches an even greater respect for the material world. The physical universe is not just a product of chance. The earth is not a rock spinning through empty space, with no higher purpose or meaning. Instead, the physical universe was brought into being by a God of love and beauty. It is a product of plan and design.

Finally, what will happen at the end of time, according to Scripture? God is not going to scrap the idea of a physical universe and replace it with a purely ethereal plane of being, as though he made a mistake the first time. Instead he is going to replace it with “a new earth” (Rev. 21:1). And you and I will live on that new earth in new physical bodies. In the Apostles’ Creed, Christians affirm “the resurrection of the body.” This is an astonishingly high view of the physical world. Christianity imparts greater value to the material realm than any version of materialism. 52

To counter empiricism, Christians can show that a biblical worldview offers a better basis for trusting our senses. As we saw earlier, the flaw in empiricism is that it cannot give any guarantee that what we perceive through the senses is true. We cannot stand outside our heads to gain an independent vantage point from which

The only adequate basis for confidence in sensory knowledge is the biblical teaching that a Creator designed our sensory apparatus to function reliably in the world he created.

To counter rationalism, we can show that Christianity honors human rationality as part of the image of God. It is no historical accident that the Middle Ages, when Christianity flourished, was the age of great rational system builders like Anselm and Thomas Aquinas. Their confidence in reason was unsurpassed because they regarded it as a gift from God. They were certain that the world is the creation of a reasonable God, and therefore it has an intelligible structure knowable by reason. Even today, as we have seen, Christianity stands for a unified, logically coherent truth against the upper-lower story divide that fragments modern worldviews.

together” (Isa. 1:18). Sanctification comes through “the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2), and the goal is to learn to love God “with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). The word logic comes from Logos, the word used to describe Jesus in John 1:1. The implication is that logic reflects the nature of God’s own mind and character.

To counter postmodernism, Christianity offers an even more radical insight into the contingency of human knowledge. Postmodernism reduces knowledge claims to expressions of interest and power based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexual identity. But the biblical teaching on idols cuts much deeper—to the ultimate spiritual commitments at the core of human motivation. The Bible teaches that the overriding factor in the choices we make is our commitment to a concept of the divine. Our lives are shaped by the god we worship—whether the God of the Bible or some substitute deity.

A worldview applies theological truths to fields such as philosophy, science, education, entertainment, and politics.

Moral relativism may claim to be about tolerance and humility, but in reality it often fosters a highly judgmental, condemning attitude.

Instead it is the Christian worldview that fits who they are. Because humans are made in the image of God, they are hardwired with an intrinsic moral sense. Romans 2 says those who do not have God’s law in written form have the moral law “written on their hearts” (Rom. 2:15). They cannot help making moral claims—claims that have no basis in their own relativistic worldview, claims that make sense only on the basis of the biblical worldview they reject.

You might say there are no skeptics in the foxholes of real life. When they have to function in the ordinary world, their skepticism “vanishes like smoke.” They are compelled to act as if they have access to genuine knowledge in a way that their own worldview denies is possible. In short, they must act as if a Christian epistemology is true. Christianity teaches that humans are made in God’s image. Our minds and senses are designed to function in God’s world. Even those who hold to extreme skepticism are forced by the sheer circumstances of life to act as if the biblical view of human cognition is true.

As psychologists tell us, suppressed knowledge

eventually works its way to the surface. At those times, Thomas Johnson says, “people act and talk according to their repressed knowledge, which they receive from God’s general revelation, instead of acting according to the beliefs they claim to accept.” 3 The fact that everyone has to function as though Christianity is true opens a creative opportunity for addressing the secular world. Christianity provides the basis for the way humans can’t help behaving anyway. In making the case for a biblical worldview, a strategic place to start is by showing that it alone gives a basis for the ways we all have to function, no matter which worldview we hold.

One challenge to building a case for Christianity is that its principles underlie so much of our shared culture that we no longer recognize them as distinctively biblical. For example, Westerners often pride themselves on holding noble ideals such as equality and universal

human rights. Yet ironically, as we saw in earlier chapters, the dominant worldviews of our day deny the reality of human freedom and give no basis for moral ideals such as human rights.

At the birth of our nation, the American founders deemed it self-evident that human rights must be grounded in God. The Declaration of Independence leads off with those bright, blazing words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Another element of Western culture so widespread that we no longer recognize it as distinctively Christian is the scientific enterprise itself. The common stereotype is that religion and science are at war with one another. But historians have turned that stereotype on its head.

In short, every atheist has to adopt a biblical worldview to pursue science at all. 12 Christians should confidently reclaim the biblical principles that made science possible in the first place—and that continue to provide its philosophical underpinnings today.

• “Isn’t there a problem in explaining how the blind forces of physics brought about (cognitively) sighted humans who are able to see, and identify, and comment on, the ‘blind’ forces of physics?” How did the forces of physics create beings who transcend those forces? • Isn’t there a problem in explaining how natural forces created humans who are able to turn around and use those forces “to engage with nature as if from

the outside”? Why are humans able to rise above the forces that supposedly created them? Can a puppet gain control over the puppeteer? • Isn’t there a problem in explaining how the universe “brought us into being by mindless processes that are entirely without purpose”? How did a mindless process create beings with minds? How did a purposeless process create beings with purposes? • Isn’t there a problem in explaining how an undesigned process could produce “one species that is indeed a designer? How did we humans get to be so different?” How is it possible for humans to be “so different” from the forces that supposedly produced them? How can water rise above its source? 19

No wonder Paul says he is “not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16). Recall that in

Scripture, to be put to shame means to be disappointed or let down. Paul is saying that a Christian worldview will not let you down. It fulfills humanity’s highest hopes and ideals. This is the good news that will attract people to the gospel who are jaded by the failure and inhumanity of reductionism.

Recognizing the religious nature of secular worldviews creates a level playing field. It undermines the pretensions of secularists to religious neutrality, which they use to claim superiority over religion. That is, they claim to be objective and fact-based, while discrediting religions as biased and “faith-based.” Yet no worldview is neutral—not even atheism or secularism.

One way to highlight Christianity’s attractive features is to show where secularists borrow from it. Another way is to ask what you lose when you give it up. I first started to appreciate Christianity only after I had left it behind. As a young person growing up in a Christian home, I was like the proverbial fish that does not know what water is. Sometimes losing faith is the path to finding God.

The decision struck me as a matter of intellectual honesty: In principle, if you do not have good reasons for holding something, then how can you really say you believe it—whether Christianity or anything else?

asked former Christians why they de-converted.

the reason given most frequently by former Christians was that they could not get answers to their doubts and questions. In fact, they could not even get the church to treat their questions

Churches have an obligation to equip their congregations to answer the questions that inevitably arise from living in a post-Christian society. Both young people and adults are subject to a constant barrage of secular and pagan ideas. Churches, schools, and families must take the responsibility for providing cogent and compelling answers.

The stakes are high. What God said to the ancient Hebrews is just as true today: “I have

set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deut. 30:19). Christianity is either true or false, but it cannot be dismissed as inconsequential.

Scripture itself encourages humans to use their minds to examine truth claims: “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). It turns out that you have to practice the first part of the verse—testing everything—in order to develop the wisdom to recognize and hold on to the good.

Christians must become independent thinkers with the tools to think critically about diverse points of view—weighing the evidence and judging the validity of arguments. “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17). Christians must learn to examine both sides in order to develop “sales resistance” to the many dubious ideas hawked in the media, politics, education, entertainment, and yes, churches.

token, we must all train ourselves to discern the difference between worldviews, which are the currency of

thought.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” 11

Allan Bloom, author of the bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind, says that through much of American history, the concept of a unified truth came from the Bible. It created a “common culture, one that united the simple and the sophisticated, rich and

poor, young and old … as the very model for a vision of the order of the whole of things.”

But as the Bible loses influence, the West is losing its sense of any unified truth. “The very idea of such a total book is disappearing,” Bloom laments—and with it, the idea of total truth. Parents send their children to school to learn specialized skills so they can get a job. But they have lost the ideal of becoming a whole person living out an integrated vision of lif...