Module 4.2 APOLOGETICS by Tim Keller The Relationship

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by  Melanie Penn

Module 4.2 APOLOGETICS by Tim Keller

The Relationship of Apologetics to Evangelism

1. Little need for apologetics under ‘Christendom’

a. In “Christendom” almost all cultural institutions instilled in people a vaguely Christian
worldview.

b. On the ‘mission’ field, however, ‘apologetics’ was always interwoven into evangelism. Every
culture hostile to Christianity holds to a set of ‘common-sense’ consensus beliefs that
automatically make Christianity seem implausible to people. These are what philosophers
call “defeater beliefs”. A defeater belief is Belief-A that, if true, means Belief-B can’t be true.1

c. Christianity is disbelieved in one culture for totally opposite reasons it is disbelieved in
another. For example, in the West (as we will explore below) it is widely assumed that
Christianity can’t be true because of the cultural belief that there can’t be just one “true”
religion. But in the Middle East, people have absolutely no problem with the idea that there
is just one true religion. That doesn’t seem implausible at all. Rather there it is widely
assumed that Christianity can’t be true because of the reality that American culture, based
on Christianity, is unjust and corrupt. (Skeptics ought to realize, then, that the objections
they have to the Christian faith are culturally relative!)

d. A combination of many, widely held ‘defeater beliefs’ becomes a cultural ‘implausibility-
structure.’ In these societies, most people don’t feel they have to give Christianity a good
hearing—they don’t feel that kind of energy is warranted. They know it just can’t be true.
That is what makes evangelism in hostile cultures so much more difficult and complex than
it was under ‘Christendom.’ In our western culture (and in places like Japan, India, and
Muslim countries) the reigning implausibility-structure against Christianity is very strong.
Christianity simply looks ludicrous. In places like Africa, Latin America, and China,
however, the implausibility structures are eroding fast. The widely held assumptions in the
culture make Christianity look credible there.

e. Many books on reaching post-moderns today give the impression that people now need
virtually no arguments at all. The ‘apologetic’ is a loving community, or the embodiment of
social concern. I couldn’t agree more that post-modern people come to Christ through
process, through relationships, though mini-decisions, through ‘trying Christianity on’. But
the books that are against any arguments at all seem to miss the fact that the extreme
pragmatism of non-Christians today is part of a non-Christian worldview. Our post-
enlightenment culture believes what has been called expressive individualism. That is—‘it is
true if it works for me.’ This obviously is based on the view that truth and right-or-wrong is
something I discover within my own self and consciousness.

f. What, then, of the claim that ‘post-modern people don’t want arguments—they just want to
see if it works for them”? All right—as with any form of contextualization, let us as
evangelists enter—adapt partially—to the culture of expressive individualism. Let us show

1 I came across an example in the New York Times on Sunday. A historian was trying to research the
story that the owner of the New York Yankees (his name escapes me!) in the 1920s and 30s used to
invite Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth to his island home on South Brother Island (just off the Bronx coast.)
Then he discovered that the home burned down when Gehrig was one year old. That meant he didn’t
have to research the story any more. Once he knew the date the house burned down it served as a
defeater for the story. It couldn’t be true.
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them the reality of changed lives. Let us use narratives rather than long strings of logic. But at
some point you must also challenge the sovereignty of individual consciousness. Jesus is
Lord, not my personal consciousness. At some point, the idea that “it is true if and only if it
works for me” must be challenged. We have to say: “Ultimately that is correct—in the very,
very long run, obeying the truth will ‘work’ and bring you to glory and disobeying the truth
will ‘not work’ and bring you to ruin. But in the short run (like—even throughout all the rest
of your life!) obeying the truth might lead to ostracism, persecution, or other suffering.

g. There have been many times in New York City that I have seen people make professions of
faith that seemed quite heart-felt, but when faced with serious consequences if they
maintained their identification with Christ (e.g. missing the opportunity for a new sexual
partner or some major professional setback) they bailed on their Christian commitment. The
probable reason was that they had not undergone deeper ‘worldview change’. They had
adjusted Christ to fit their worldview rather than fitting their worldview to Christ. They
professed faith simply because Christianity worked for them, and not because they grasped it
as true whether it is ‘working’ for them this year or not! They had not experienced a power-
encounter between the gospel and their individualistic worldview. I think apologetics does
need to be ‘post-modern.’ It does need to adapt to post-modern sensibilities. But it must
challenge those sensibilities too. There do need to be ‘arguments.’ Christianity must be
perceived to be true, even though less rationalistic cultures will not demand watertight
proofs like the older high-modern western society did.

2. Two aspects of evangelism. What this means is that there are two parts to sharing the
gospel in a particular culture—a more ‘negative’ and a more ‘positive’ aspect.

a. The more negative aspect has to do with ‘apologetics’—it consists in dismantling the
culture’s implausibility structure. In short, this means you have to show on the culture’s
own terms (that is, by its own definitions of justice, rationality, meaning) that its objections
to Christianity don’t hold up.

b. The more positive aspect of sharing the gospel is to connect the story of Jesus to the base-
line cultural narratives. In short, you have to show in line with the culture’s own (best)
aspirations, hopes, and convictions that its own cultural story won’t be resolved or have ‘a
happy ending’ outside of Christ.

c. The ‘sandwich’ approach. I think the overall best way to ‘present the gospel’ is a kind of
‘sandwich’ approach. The following assumes there is a process and a series of conversations
between you and the person who doesn’t believe.

Brief gospel summary
First, the gospel must be presented briefly but so vividly and attractively (and so hooked
into the culture’s base-line cultural narratives) that the listener is virtually compelled to
say “It would be wonderful if that were true, but it can’t be!” Until he or she comes to
that position, you can’t work on the implausibility structure! The listener must have
motivation to hear you out. That is what defeaters do—they make people super-
impatient with any case for Christianity. Unless they find a presentation of Christ
surprisingly attractive and compelling (and stereo-type breaking) their eyes will simply
glaze over when you try to talk to them.

Dismantle plausibility structure
Alvin Plantinga wisely asserts that people avoid Christianity not because they have really
examined its teachings and found them wanting, but because their culture give huge
plausibility (by the media, through art, through the expertise and impressive credentials
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of its spokespersons) to believe a series of defeater beliefs that they know are true, and
since they are true, Christianity can’t be. The leading defeaters must be dealt with
clearly and quickly but convincingly. Defeaters are dealt with when the person feels you
have presented the objection to Christianity in a clearer and stronger way than they
could have done it.

Longer explanation of the person and work of Christ
Now, if people find you have at least undermined the defeaters in a listener’s mind, you
can now return to talking at greater length about creation, fall, redemption, and
restoration. If you try to do apologetics before you pull off a quick, attractive
presentation of Christ, people’s eyes will glaze over and they will become bored. But if
you try to do a very lengthy explanation of the meaning of Christ’s cross and
resurrection before you convincingly deal with the defeaters, they won’t listen to you
either.

Practical ‘pre-suppositional’ apologetics

Case study
From Becky Pippert’s Out of the Salt-Shaker. Becky meets LS on the bus and introduces the subject of
heroes.

LS: "I guess Karl Marx is my hero." [Remember, this was 1979!]
BP: "What makes him your hero?"
LS: "I think his ideas were great—they haven't always been carried out rightly."
BP: "But what exactly is so great about his ideas?"
LS: "He's my hero because of his passionate regard for the oppressed"
BP: "I agree with that concern, but...I know Marx holds no belief in God."
LS: "Yes...he sees the universe as godless, and we have meaning only in a corporate sense of
class. We are not significant as individuals."
BP: "Yet you admire his regard for the oppressed even though they are ultimately insignificant. It
seems strange to value people so highly when they are random products of a universe. Why not
manipulate them as you please?"
LS: "I couldn't do that....I guess if my natural response is to feel [individuals] are significant then I
need a philosophic system that says the same things....But I believe we are basically good. If we
could just live in a classless society, we would be free of the things that weigh us down....
BP: "Listen, I know a guy who is one of the worst racists...if he lived with you for fifty years in
your classless society, he would still think 'nigger'. How can Marx wipe out the ugliness and
hatred of a bigot?"
LS: [Eyes glaring] "We've been trying to change that for centuries....And all the rules and laws in
the world can't...make you love me."
BP: "Look, you tell me you know individuals are significant, and you need a system that says so.
Now you're saying that the real evil comes from within us. For external rules or laws can curb
but cannot transform behavior. So you need a system that regards evil as internal and a solution
that transforms radically not curbs superficially. Right?....Well, that's the very kind of system I've
found."
LS: "Hey, what kind of revolution are you into?"
(Pippert) "When I told her I followed Jesus, I think I had better not quote her exact words of
response! But after she recovered from her shock she asked me how I knew it was true. For the
rest of our trip she asked me to defend Christianity. She listened intently, and when we arrived
she said, 'I'd like to get together again....When I went home this weekend my younger sister
came to see me, too. Then she told me she'd become a Christian. I told her it was anti-
intellectual and unsubstantiated. In a furor I packed my bags, walked out saying I never wanted
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to discuss it again. And here I got on a bus and sat down next to you.' We do indeed worship the
Hound of Heaven."

Analysis
All of life has a religious character. Everyone has implicit religious/faith commitments. Their ways of
decision-making, their making moral choices, setting priorities, solving problems—all are based on
values which are embraced by faith. An important part of sharing our faith in Christ is the ability to reveal
these assumptions for what they are—religious beliefs and doctrines.

In the above excerpt, Becky Pippert does a great job of showing the law student her tacit ‘belief
positions.’ First, she draws out the student’s main ‘theme of relevance’—her main hope and motivation in
life, a passion for justice for the oppressed. Second, she brings out that the law student is also secular—
skeptical about the existence of God. Then, with the question: “if we are just products of chance cosmic
forces and therefore insignificant—why not exploit people?” Becky reveals that the student’s naturalistic
beliefs about the universe really can’t support her passion for justice. The student falls back on a very
general belief that individual human beings basically have a good nature, but Becky questions that by
reference to how deep-seated racism is in the human heart. Finally, Becky presents Jesus as a victim of
injustice who came to do something about it.

We learn here three basic steps in sharing our faith:

First, uncover “belief positions” and “themes of relevance”
We can do this by asking the questions: What is really wrong with the world? with people? with
society? What will put it right?

Second, show tension between their theme and their belief
The fundamental way to arouse interest in the gospel is to show a person a tension between their
themes of relevance (which reveals their primal understanding that there is a God) and their
belief position (which expresses their conscious denial of the Biblical God).

Third, relate a brief presentation of the gospel to their theme
Once you have pointed out some tension between the person’s concern or conviction and his or
her belief position, make a brief presentation of the gospel in such a way that shows how it
addresses the person’s “theme”.

Reflection Questions:
Q1: Think of a person you are sharing Christ with. Apply these three points to your
communication with that person:
1. What are some ‘belief positions’ and ‘themes of relevance’ that they have?

2. How would you state the ‘tension’ between their theme and their belief?

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3. How would you present the gospel to this person in such a way that it addresses their
‘theme’?

The Defeaters
A defeater belief is: “I hold Belief A, which means, if it is true, then Belief B can’t be true”. What are the
dominant defeaters in contemporary western civilization? These are the dominant defeaters discovered in
a recent survey I did of young, under 25 year olds in NYC who are not Christian. Below are each
‘defeater’ stated and answered in a nutshell. Why Christianity can’t be true:

1. The other religions

Christians seem to greatly over-play the differences between their faith and all the others. It appears
self-evident that millions of people in other religions have encountered God, have built marvelous
civilizations and cultures, and have had their lives and characters changed by their experience of
faith. Despite all of this, Christians insist that only people who believe in Christ go to heaven—that
their religion is the only one that is ‘right’ and true. The exclusivity of this is breath-taking. It also
seems to be a threat to international peace.

Brief response: It is common to hear people say: “No one should insist their view of God better
than all the rest. Every religion is equally valid.” But what you just said could only be true if: a)
there is no God at all, or b) God is an impersonal force that doesn’t care what your doctrinal
beliefs about him are. So as you speak you are assuming a very particular view of God and you
are pushing it as better than the rest! That is at best inconsistent and at worst hypocritical, since
you are doing the very thing you are forbidding. To say “all religions are equally valid” is itself a
very white, western view based in the European Enlightenment’s idea of knowledge and values.
Why should that view be privileged over anyone else’s?

2. Evil and suffering

Christianity teaches the existence of an all-powerful, all-good and loving God. But how can that
belief be reconciled with the horrors that occur daily? Either he’s all-powerful and not good enough
to want an end to evil and suffering, or he’s all-good and not powerful enough to bring an end to evil
and suffering. Either way, the God of the Bible couldn’t exist. For many people, this is not only an
“intellectual” conundrum but also an intensely personal problem. Their own personal lives are
marred by tragedy, abuse, and injustice.

Brief response: First, if you have a God who is great and transcendent enough to be mad at
because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have to (at the same
moment) have a God who is great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it
to continue that you can’t know. (You can’t have it both ways.) Second, though we don’t know
the reasons why he allows it to continue, he can’t be indifferent or uncaring, because the
Christian God (unlike the gods of all the other religions) takes our misery and suffering so
seriously that he is willing to get involved with it himself. On the cross, Jesus suffered with us.

3. The unreliable Bible

Almost everyone agrees that the Bible is filled with teaching that spiritually and morally enriches. But
it seems impossible any longer to take it as entirely authoritative in the light of modern science,
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history, and culture. The scientific evidence is overwhelming that the world was not made as the
Bible says it was. (And if we can’t take Genesis 1 literally, why do we need to take any of the Bible
literally?) It is also very, very hard to believe in all the fantastic miracles. Also, historians have
revealed many contradictions in the Bible’s accounts of events, so we also can’t be sure what in the
Bible is legendary and what really happened. And finally, much of the Bible’s social teaching (for
example, about women) is socially regressive.

Brief response: The Biblical gospels are not legends but historically reliable accounts about
Jesus’ life. Why?

1) Their timing is far too early for them to be legends. Legends are written down centuries after
all living eyewitnesses are gone who could correct them. The gospels however were written
30-60 years after Jesus’ death—and Paul’s letters, which support all the accounts, came just
20 years after the events.

2) Their content is far too counter-productive to be legends. The early church leaders would
not have made up the stories that are there, such as the crucifixion (where their leader Jesus
cries out that God had abandoned him), or the resurrection (where all the witnesses were
women who were considered unreliable), or the numerous places where the apostles look
so foolish. The only historically plausible reason that these incidents are recorded is that
they happened.

3) Their literary form is too detailed to be legend. Ancient legends never included details such
as the disciples catching 153 fish or Jesus doodling with his finger in the dust (John 8).
Modern realistic narrative fiction had not been invented. The only possible reason an
ancient writer would include such details was that some eyewitness remembered it. This is
historical writing.

4. The record of Christians

Every religion will have its hypocrites—those who say they believe but fail to live according to their
profession. But it is the most assured and fervent Christians who seem to be the most condemning,
exclusive, and intolerant. Meanwhile, those who express more doubts about the Christian faith (or
who have abandoned it altogether) are often more loving and open to those who have been
traditionally marginalized by the church. If Christianity is the true religion—then why would its most
passionate adherents be the most difficult people to live with? Why would so much oppression have
been carried out over the centuries in the name of Christ and with the support of the church?

Brief response:

1. European Christianity was tied to nation-states and so there were more abuses. Officially
Christian governments oppressed non-Christian minorities. But African, Latin American, and
Asian Christianity (now the majority of Christians) has little of that in their history, which
belies the idea that oppression is intrinsic to Christianity. (See Lamin Sanneh, Whose
Religion is Christianity?)

2. The core teachings of Christianity were the soil in which modern science, the abolition of
slavery, and the U.S. Civil rights movement grew. None of these movements could have (or
did) grow out of other religions or out of secularism. See Rodney Starke, To God be the
Glory and David L. Chappell A Stone of Hope. Chappell points out that the Civil Rights
movement was not the fruit of political liberalism but of the commitment of African-
Americans to Biblical teaching about human sin and God’s liberating grace.
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3. The very idea of oppression and injustice requires the existence of a God. If there is no God,
Nietzsche proved, ‘human rights’ are just constructed fiction. Nature is the strong eating the
weak. Whose to say what justice is?

5. The ethical straitjacket

In Christianity, the Bible and the church seem to dictate everything that a Christian must believe,
feel, and do. There is no room or encouragement for people to make their own moral decisions, or to
think out their beliefs or patterns of life for themselves. Christians seem to become sheep who do
what they are told, who are always dependent on authorities, who are always feeling guilty and
doing repentance. In a fiercely pluralistic society there are too many options, too many cultures, too
many personality differences for this approach. Individuals must ‘stand on their own feet’ spiritually
and determine their own spiritual values.

Brief response: An automobile is built to move along a road—not over water. If you try to take a
boat onto a road or a car onto water it will be a disaster—you are violating its design. In a sense,
the car is only ‘free’ and liberated to move along when you put it into an element and an
environment it was designed for. If human beings were not created—if we are an accident—then
our lives are meaningless. If rather we were created by God, then we must have been created for
some things and not other things. To disobey God’s design is to violate our own nature. To obey
God will be to experience ‘freedom.’

6. The confusing cross

Christianity teaches that the murder of one man (Jesus) leads to the forgiveness of others. How could
that be? Why can’t God just forgive us? What kind of wrathful God kills his son in order to be freed
to love us? That either makes no sense at all or it means the God of the Bible is a judgmental and
cruel father. And it is not just this doctrine that is confusing. The Christian church is deeply divided
among innumerable branches which teach dramatically different things. Who’s to say what
Christianity even is?

Brief response: There is no way to deal with deep wrong and injustice without suffering. If
someone knocks over your $100 lamp and says, “I’m so sorry” and you say “forget it!” you have
forgiven them. But the $100 debt does not vanish into thin air. Either you make them pay it or
you absorb it yourself (by buying a new lamp or going without light in that corner.) In the same
way if someone truly wrongs you, you can either make the perpetrator pay down the debt you
feel (as you take it out of his hide in vengeance!) in which case evil wins—or you will absorb the
debt yourself. You can forgive—but forgiveness is enormously difficult. So we see this
principle—that when a serious wrong is committed, there is a “debt” that cannot be ignored or
dismissed but must be dealt with, and that it must be dealt with through suffering. On the cross
we see objectively and visibly God forgiving us.

It is critical to state these defeaters in the strongest possible way. If a non-Christian hears you express
them and says, “that’s better than I could have put it” then they will feel that they are being respected
and will take your answer more seriously. You will need to have good answers to these defeaters woven
in redundantly to everything you say and teach in the church.

A Plan for a series of Apologetic talks based on the defeaters

1. The religions (End with the deconstruction of doubt-the inevitability of belief)
2. Evil suffering (End with the moral argument for God)
3. Unreliable bible (End with the resurrection)
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4. Record of Christians (End with the difference between religion and the gospel)
5. Straitjacket (End with how everyone is enslaved to something [idols])
6. Confusing Cross (End with the gospel basics)

Q: In your own words, write out three arguments against belief in Christianity (Defeater Beliefs).
1.

2.

3.

Q: In your own words, dismantle these three Defeater Beliefs.
1.

2.

3.

AFTER THE DEFEATERS

The Deconstruction Of Doubt
The older (20th century) defeater-under-all the other defeaters was the modern-rationalist defeater. It went
like this: “I don’t have to believe in something unless it can be empirically proven. The existence of God
or of the soul can’t be proven, so there is no reason I should believe it at all.” But there is no empirical
proof for the very principle that you must have empirical proof to believe in something. The ‘empirical-
verification’ principle is itself a faith-proposition. But unlike other faith propositions it disproves itself. It
carries out the very thing it says no one should be carrying out.

The newer (21st century so far) defeater-under-the defeaters is the post-modern-relativist defeater. This
view says that everyone must determine truth for him or her-self. That is considered a completely self-
evident truth. All people who deny it are seen as intolerant. Therefore this view must be undermined.
You can do so like this.

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1) To say, “I think everyone ought to be free to determine what is truth or what is moral or
immoral for them” sounds quite tolerant, as if it is open to all sorts of philosophies and
worldviews, but it is not.
2) Most other cultures in history believed that right and wrong were determined outside the
self—by God, or natural law, or the community or something else. The self was then called
to bring itself into harmony with that.
3) But contemporary western culture is marked by “expressive individualism” and teaches that
each individual determines what is right or wrong within one’s own self-consciousness. So
to say, “everyone ought to be free to determine what truth is for them” is really to adopt just
one particular way of thinking about truth. It is a very western, white, almost tribal way of
thinking based on the European movements of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. That
way of thinking certainly has many merits, but is not at all ‘open.’ It is pressing a highly
individualistic way of thinking (an ‘epistemology’) that is filled with assumptions about God
(namely, that he doesn’t exist or doesn’t care about truth,) human nature and ultimate
reality. It is, therefore, an exclusive thing to say. It is saying: “my liberal, western,
Enlightenment way of knowing should be privileged over yours.”

Another way to deconstruct doubt is to use Pascal’s point. No one can prove there is a God or prove that
there is not God. So whatever you believe about God is just that—an act of faith. And everyone is betting
his or her eternal destiny on that belief! (If your belief is that there is no God—or your belief that God
doesn’t really care about true doctrine—is wrong—you are in trouble!) So everyone is performing radical
acts of faith, staking everything in their lives on their belief in God!

You cannot go on explaining away forever, or you will find that you have explained explanation
itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things forever. The whole point of seeing through
something is to see something [else] through it. It is good that you can see through a window,
because the garden beyond is opaque. But if you see through everything, then everything is
transparent, and a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. So to 'see through' all things is
the same as not to see. — C.S.Lewis, The Abolition of Man

The alternative to religion can never be universal cynicism and skepticism—there is no such thing.
Hiding in the heart of the average cynical doubter is a deep faith in your own competence to determine
all truth. The hypocrisy of 'committing to nothing' is revealed if you think out the implications of your
claims.

• If, as Nietzsche says, all truth claims are really just power grabs, then so is his, so why listen to
him at all?
• If, as Freud says, all views of God are really just psychological projections to deal with our guilt
and insecurity, then so is his, so why listen to him at all?
• If, as the evolutionary psychologists say, what my brain tells me about morality, love, and beauty
is not real—chemical reactions designed to pass on my genetic code—then so is what their
brains tell them about the world, so why listen to them at all?
• In the end, to see through everything is not to see. Cynicism lives only by refusing to apply the
same razor edge to itself as it does to all else. Hiding deep inside its cover of non-commitment is
a powerful faith in one’s own ability to judge right from wrong, to de-construct all phoniness.

The Deconstruction Of Indifference
There are plenty of people who would reply that they aren’t so much skeptical and doubtful about
Christianity as simply uninterested and indifferent. They don’t even see the need to get started with such
an examination. Three reasons are often given:

1. It’s not possible to know anything about religion for sure, or about which religion is more
valid. It would be much better if we suspended judgment.
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The first problem with this view is that you can’t live life without faith, without commitments
to certain positions on major religious issues. Practically speaking, no one is religiously
neutral. If you live in a way that would make the traditional God angry, then you are
committed to (and depending on) the proposition that there is no God. You haven’t
suspended judgment. Or you may commit your life to work against bigotry and oppression,
but that assumes all kinds of things about moral values and human rights that aren’t
“scientific facts” but faith assumptions. Whatever answers anyone gives to the question,
“why live this kind of life over that kind of life?” will be some faith-view about the nature of
God or humanity or truth. So we can’t avoid faith positions. You have them—the only
question is: have you reflected on them or just “caught them” like a cold? What warrant do
you have for what you believe?

The second problem with this statement is even more severe. In order to say “no one can
claim to have superior religious knowledge over anyone else” is to actually claim the very
superior knowledge that you are forbidding to others. To illustrate this, consider a popular
parable:

“Six blind men examined an elephant. One at the trunk said ‘an elephant is flexible like a
snake’; one at the leg said, ‘an elephant is inflexible like a tree’; one felt the body and
said, ‘an elephant is impossible to get your arms around’. They were all correct—and
incorrect. None could see the whole. So all religions are partly right, but none see the
whole picture.”

Philosophers point out that you can only tell this story if you assume that you see the whole
elephant! It seems humble to claim that “no one can know” truth about God, but where do
you get a vantage point so superior to that of every religion in the world that you are able to
be certain that they are all partial?” To say, “I don’t know” is humble; to add “and no one
can know” is to assume an impossible amount of knowledge for a finite human being.
Muslims claim their superior knowledge from the Qu’ran and Christians from the Bible.
Total skeptics about religious truth insist that there is no such source, but they then operate
as if they have it! They are doing the very thing they forbid others to do.

So to say, “no one can know” is really just a way to avoid testing your own faith position
against others. How do you justify your conviction that we cannot know God? Therefore, I
hope you’ll continue to look at the Christian faith, now that the idea of “total skepticism” is
somewhat unmasked.

2. People who are religious have a personal need for it; it may be right for them, but I don’t
feel any particular need.

We should admit that many people certainly do adhere to religion, not for rational reasons,
but simply because they have an emotional need to believe that there is a heavenly Father
that cares for us. On the other hand, we should also admit that many people reject religion,
not for rational reasons, but simply because they have an emotional need to not believe that
there is a heavenly King we have to obey. Aldous Huxley freely admitted this:

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently I was able
without much difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher
who finds no meaning in this world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure
metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he
personally should not do as he wants to do....for myself, the philosophy of
meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political."
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