I messaged various atheists, asking them what kind of evidence it would take for them to believe in God. Of course they all come back with the same kind of answers. They all want direct evidence!
What can I respond to this man here? This is what he sent me as a response to my question,
*'Some kind of direct evidence, for example some kind of interaction involving multiple people all of whome saw / heard the same thing, and there was no reasonable alternative natural explanation.
Failing that, I would like to hear a convincing argument that a god (of the sort most people seem to believe in) could even theoretically exist. The most fundamental problem I have is that the amazing complexity of the universe is explained by postulating an even more complex and amazing god. And they never seem to recognise that this god then needs an explanation.’*
On the first critera we already have the testimony of the gospels and their witnesses and the sustaining history of belief itself that is proclaimed about Christ risen. The issue here is that they are of the “show me personally” mentality and will not hold any indirect witness as admissible. This is precisely why God does not often use “signs and wonders” outside of the natural sign and wonder of the natural universe. They simply would say its an illusion or mass hysteria or some such nonsence. The Fatima miracles of the “sun dance” was witnessed by 70,000 eye witnesses including news reporters. But still the skeptics called it “mass hysteria”.
On the second criteria the person is at least saying that good reason will be just as “convincing” as a physical witness. But of course then he projects a subjective criteria when using the word “convincing”. But someone obstinate in their skepticism and not wanting to believe will always remain unconvinced unless they have some sort of inner epiphany or life altering personal experience (e.g. and encounter with supernatural grace).
What we need to do is bridge two domains - the temporal domain with the spiritual domain. That is exactly what The Church is - start of The Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Metaphysically one can not perceive in anyway God if they are existing outside of the Kingdom context. You need to bring them inside the kingdom and that means you need to pray for them and see if God will give you the grace necessary to get them there.
I think it would also be helpful to psychologically soften them up so to speak probing them about their attitudes on morality. Get into their heads and find out why they obey laws and don’t kill or rape. Ask them if they love and try to be good to their friends and neighbor. Ask them why they do this. Then get them to account for “where” does this seemingly universal sense of morality come from if not from God? How can it be conveyed through simple cellular regeneration and division? Who or what “wires” this into the human essence and programs us to have an inner sense of right and wrong? If they say its a genetic survival instinct meant to propagate the species have them account for why propagation of the species or survival is necessary outside of the individual concern and how it becomes a universal need.
The atheist can not account for how or why he is moral and this is the weakness of the atheist philosophy. Ask him why it is so important to him to not believe in God and to have him consider why it should matter to him either way and why he is compelled to convert others to his way of thinking. Ask him to account for why every primitive culture known to man has always proposed a spiritual being greater than himself and why atheism was virtually unknown until contemporary times?
The idea here is to cast doubt on the rationality of arbitrarily choosing to be obstinate in his own assumption of infallability and certitude of the matter. Make him see that this is just trying to internalize himself as god in that certitude but that it presents an irrational contradiction that is impossible to resolve. That contradiction is the simultaneous projection that he is himself infallable in his certitude at the same time he is fallable in other things in life. If he can’t admit that he is fallable in other areas of life then you are identifying the core problem of hubris and arrogance and can point out that this is not a conventionally “reasonable” posture for anyone to be in. You must drive him to admit that he himself is either making himself god or that he is unreasonable and self-contradictory and therefor has no basis for making absolute statements without himself giving proof.
Atheism at its core is just an arbitrary choice with a preference for pessimism. The atheist must be convinced to see in the positive light and that can only happen if you can compel an atheist to admit that he is fallable and to be reasonable can not be an atheist and must extend the benefit of the doubt to at least become an agnostic. Migrating an atheist up the hierarchy of belief to an agnostic at least removes the barrier of pride and you then have a real chance of letting reason do its work and start to shed light in areas of his reason that have never before seen the need to extend a reasonable doubt.
Eventually, if the atheist is a thinking man he will come to realize that God exists in every person in that fuzzy region we call “reasonable doubt” and this is even in our justice system. His problem is that his region of reasonable doubt is ZERO in his certitude that he is infallable (which is the super ID or supreme state of hubris). Open this area of the psyche up and then God can come in.
Good luck,
James
