Atheist debates: Always misunderstanding Scripture?

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A lot of Christian debaters seem to fall into the trap of talking about the Bible in debates with Atheists.

Catholics Answers’ own Trent Horn recently debated the prominent pop atheist Dan Barker.

Unfortunately, the debate didn’t get into the real substance about arguments for God or Jesus. Instead, mostly thanks to Barker, the Bible was of primary focus. Atheists like Barker talk about the Bible’s contradictions, God’s character, God commanding evil in the Bible like genocide or human sacrifice, etc.

But are these atheists seriously misunderstanding the Bible, in the first place? And why do Christians have to defend God in certain passages? I thought Catholics accept that the Bible is fully the work of men — all the while being inspired by God. Doesn’t this mean that there could very well be unpleasant things attributed to God?

It’s not that hard to note that Scripture is certainly flavored and conditioned by human cultures and personalities. Why do Christians feel the need to defend the Bible in a way they don’t even have to?

Atheists seem to misunderstand Scripture. But do Christians even get it right? Are we granting the atheist too much in these kinds of debates?
 
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Seeing William Lane Craig (or whoever) try to defend God against genocide is not very… pleasant. Can’t the Christian believe in the Bible’s authority and Inspiration while not having to consider every detail as truly reflecting the nature of God?
 
A lot of Christians DO get scripture wrong. That’s what lead to the Protestant reformation. There are two extremes with the Bible, on the one side, you have people treating it like an idol, on the other, you have people treating it with contempt, but when it comes right down to it, those people are not that different. Let’s see what the apostle of common sense has to say about it.the Bible - GK Chesterton
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
A lot of Christian debaters seem to fall into the trap of talking about the Bible in debates with Atheists.

Catholics Answers’ own Trent Horn recently debated the prominent pop atheist Dan Barker.

Unfortunately, the debate didn’t get into the real substance about arguments for God or Jesus. Instead, mostly thanks to Barker, the Bible was of primary focus. Atheists like Barker talk about the Bible’s contradictions, God’s character, God commanding evil in the Bible like genocide or human sacrifice, etc.

But are these atheists seriously misunderstanding the Bible, in the first place? And why do Christians have to defend God in certain passages? I thought Catholics accept that the Bible is fully the work of men — all the while being inspired by God. Doesn’t this mean that there could very well be unpleasant things attributed to God?

It’s not that hard to note that Scripture is certainly flavored and conditioned by human cultures and personalities. Why do Christians feel the need to defend the Bible in a way they don’t even have to?

Atheists seem to misunderstand Scripture. But do Christians even get it right? Are we granting the atheist too much in these kinds of debates?
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Atheism and fundamentalism are two faces of the same coin.
Fundamentalists make debate easy for atheists. (not saying Trent is a fundamentalist, just addressing the topic)
The issues that apologists fall prey to is debating false senses of scripture…on those very terms. It is a fearful approach that does not understand what Inspiration is. These types of apologists feel the need to defend the bible’s literal integrity on false premises. That’s a trap. They are debating straw men.

It’s like rejecting hematology because
“you guys believe in blood letting!”
“Ummm no we don’t”
“Yea says so right here in the middle ages edition of your medical practice”.
It’s just a really stupid argument. Sorry.

Also, much of American “progressive Christianity” is a response to fundamentalism. I have a good progressive Christian friend who thought he had a problem with Catholicism, but came to realize he knew next to nothing about Catholic scripture interpretation, philosophy, moral theology.
What he knew was fundamentalism, and conflated it with the Catholic Church.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
Seeing William Lane Craig (or whoever) try to defend God against genocide is not very… pleasant.
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God can’t commit genocide. I think this is a problem of people not understanding the nature of God and applying human standards to the divine. It doesn’t work that way.
 
I think talking about the Bible or even talking about Jesus is the wrong path to take with atheists. Their claim is that the do not believe in GOD. That is where the initial discussion should be. It is only AFTER someone accepts God that one can go further and accept the Bible and accept Jesus.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Atheists seem to misunderstand Scripture. But do Christians even get it right? Are we granting the atheist too much in these kinds of debates?
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Ultimately the Church is the only entity that can reliably know and convey truths regarding the nature and will of God, whether based on Tradition or Scripture. That’s her purpose. Obviously that doesn’t impress or convince an atheist- but it does serve to address the deficiency of using Scripture for knowing God’s nature and will with accuracy. The atheist must question Church teachings, not Scripture, where Catholicism is involved. From the catechism:

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."74

113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church” . According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).
 
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The Catholic understanding is one with Christ.
Scripture must be read through Incarnational lenses. What does that mean?
It means reading the Scriptures with the eyes of Christ.
Who is Christ?
Christ is SPBT (divine), and fully human. And.

So it is with the scriptures. And this is where much of our reformed brothers and sisters have a an inappropriate view of scripture: it denies the fully human element of scripture and makes it almost God itself.
Scripture is full of contradictions, confusion, and rootedness in history, because human beings are contradictory and rooted in history. And scripture is also inspired.

both/and, just like the Incarnated Christ.

And to the topic, I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read an atheist that even remotely understands Catholic Scripture sense. It’s simplistic straw man.
 
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goout said:
The issues that apologists fall prey to is debating false senses of scripture…on those very terms. It is a fearful approach that does not understand what Inspiration is. These types of apologists feel the need to defend the bible’s literal integrity on false premises. That’s a trap. They are debating straw men.
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Yes. This seems to be it right here.

Again, I’m not going after Trent either. He was cornered into it by Dan Barker, who sought to make his debate all about slinging out Bible verses.

But I feel as though Trent could have done a little better than trying to defend God presented by Dan Barker, on his own terms. Like, why try to defend “genocide” in the first place? Why not take a step back and say that the Bible is NOT to be understood as a word-by-word account of God’s actions.
 
Well, in the debates, it’s always kind of awkward to listen to this kind of reasoning as well.

“It’s wrong for humans to take human life in such and such a case, but for God it’s just fine.”

The issue is that the atheist or atheistic audience will just roll their eyes. It just seems like trying to wiggle out of passages without actually getting at the true issue at hand.
 
Definitely. But sometimes, the atheists are the ones who do not actually engage the arguments. Like in the debate with Trent Horn and Dan Barker above, Dan just dismisses the arguments for God and Jesus without really getting into them.
 
Scripture is full of contradictions, confusion, and rootedness in history, because human beings are contradictory and rooted in history. And scripture is also inspired.

both/and, just like the Incarnated Christ.
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That this is Catholic orthodoxy is soooo refreshing.

And common sense. Anyone can pick up the Bible and tell right away that humans wrote it. God is not a competitor, but works with and through his creatures. That is how the Bible can seem just as well to be just another human document (collection of documents).

So some Christians are wrong when they allege you can discern Scripture as God’s Word just by “reading it for yourself”!!
And to the topic, I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read an atheist that even remotely understands Catholic Scripture sense. It’s simplistic straw man.
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Which is kinda why I wish Trent Horn just stood up and stated the Catholic/traditional approach to Scripture right away. He suggested it when he said Dan Barker was coming from a fundamentalist approach. But still, it would have been helpful to clarify what it means for the Bible to be the Word of God, anyway.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
The issue is that the atheist or atheistic audience will just roll their eyes. It just seems like trying to wiggle out of passages without actually getting at the true issue at hand.
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But the nature of God is the true issue at hand. How can you understand scripture if you have no understanding of the nature of God? Even an atheist can’t argue from a point of no information.
 
Right, but the thing here is this: Are we really saying that the nature of God is such that He really commanded the Israelites to really kill “every living creature” of a certain tribe?

Now, I do not know how such passages are meant to be interpreted. And there are many ways of interpreting them, even going back to the Church Fathers, some of whom saw these “genocide” passages as really having a spiritual meaning (e.g., make NO room for sin whatsoever).

I don’t want this thread to argue over the meaning of these kinds of passages. The point is that I think these debates miss the forest for the trees.

And P.S. Some people may be fine with even a historical reading of these texts. Now for me personally, a literal reading (in the sense that God commanded it) is at least unpleasant for me. And I can imagine why an atheistic audience would just dismiss it outright. What makes this kind of story any different from just another petty pagan deity looking after his own clan? etc.
 
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fhansen said:
107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72
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So inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that which God wanted us to hear.

Does this mean that it’s infallable and correct and not to be questioned?
 
vsedriver said:
But the nature of God is the true issue at hand. How can you understand scripture if you have no understanding of the nature of God? Even an atheist can’t argue from a point of no information.
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An atheist wouldn’t regard scripture as information.
 
There are Catholic apologists who defend “the God who condones genocide”. They boil down to “God is God and God can do as God pleases, and it’s all literally good in the end.”
This is not a very convincing defense of Christianity. I happen to believe this line of thinking is scandalous to the faith of others. (which could be a sin depending…)

This attempt to fit God in a fundamentalist box runs counter to God’s own self revelation in Jesus Christ. If an action of God in Scripture runs counter to Christ, it should be viewed with the right sense.
 
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Lee1 said:
So inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that which God wanted us to hear. Does this mean that it’s infallable and correct and not to be questioned?
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Yes, insofar as it’s properly understood, which cannot be done apart from the Church’s understanding. Now we can, and should if we’re unconvinced, question all we want. But as Catholics we need to give the Church’s teachings the benefit of the doubt and continue to seek understanding on any given matter. And from experience I’ll tell you that we simply cannot be certain of accurate interpretation of Scripture on many truths as lone rangers; we simply need the lived experience of the Church, dating to the beginnings of our faith, in order to understand.
 
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