>In my interview with Jim West posted on July 1, 2007, Jim asked me a question about biblical interpretation. In my reply, I said that believers are better interpreters of the biblical text than atheists because atheists approach the Bible with false assumptions. Some of these false assumptions are that there is no God, that the Bible is only myth, that there is no revelation, and others.
In reply to my statement in that interview, Chris Hallquist published a blog in which he addresses my statement and also criticizes a response I wrote to Duane Smith, who had written his own post responding to my interview with Jim West. Hallquist’s post was also published in God is for Suckers, a blog dedicated to “making fun of believers everywhere.”
Hallquist believes that atheists can interpret the Bible as well as believers because anyone can examine an ancient text such as the Illiad [sic] “without believing everything it says.” The problem is that Hallquist already begins with the false assumption that the Iliad and the Bible are identical in purpose and message. They are not! The intent and message of the two books are completely different. The only similarity between both books is that they are literary works of individuals who lived hundreds of years ago.
Atheists and Christians have two different world-views and this alone influences the way they approach the Bible. Atheists can read and interpret the Bible from a historical, sociological, linguistic, or mythological perspective. Christians, on the other hand, read the Bible from a historical, sociological, linguistic perspective, but also from the perspective of faith and religion. For instance,
1. Atheists can study the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, but they cannot love God with all their heart, soul and strength.
2. Atheists can study the word hesed from a philological perspective, but they cannot experience divine hesed.
3. Atheists can write many books and articles about Christ, but they cannot say: “Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
4. Atheists can write about Christians and Christianity, but they cannot understand fully what it means to be saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8).
These are facts that atheists fail to understand. Atheists deny the existence of God and the claims of Christianity. Believers approach the Bible from the perspective of faith, thus, there must be a difference in the way believers and atheists interpret the Bible, since atheists do not have faith in the God of the Bible. Because atheists deny the possibility of faith, they are not willing to accept any view espoused by Christians. Because Christians believe in God, they are not willing to accept the claims of atheism. This, then, leaves both group at an impasse.
In his post, Hallquist uses “the outsider test” to evaluate my comments. According to Hallquist, “the outsider test” is “a phrase coined by John Loftus for the idea that religious believers ought to be willing to examine their beliefs from the point of view of an outsider.”
Hallquist applies the outsider test to Christianity; I would like to apply the outsider test to atheism.
1. The Test of History. Judaism and Christianity claim a historical basis for their faith. Judaism says there is a God because of the work of God in the history of ancient Israel. Christianity says there is a God because of the existence of a historical Jesus. Atheism does not have any historical claim to prove that there is no God. Atheists only have their own statement that says there is no God. Since atheists do not have history on their side, they deny the historicity of events in Judaism and Christianity.
2. The Test of Witnesses. Judaism and Christianity believe there is a God because they believe the words of witnesses who saw God at work. The people in Israel claimed they heard the voice of God. Christianity claims that after the resurrection, Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred people at the same time” (1 Corinthians 15:6). It is possible to say that these people were delusional or that they were unreliable witnesses but atheism does not have one witness who was there to say that there was no God. Since atheism does not have one single witness who has seen the evidence that there is no God, they reject the reliability of the biblical witnesses and deny the validity of their testimony.
3. The Test of Written Records. Judaism and Christianity claim that God exists because they have ancient written records that report the work of God in their history. Atheism has no written records that can prove that God does not exist, therefore they deny the claims of the written records of Judaism and Christianity.
The fact is, atheism cannot prove anything. Atheism cannot prove that God does not exist. Even Richard Dawkins acknowledged this truth. In his book, The God Delusion, Dawkins developed a spectrum of probabilities about the existence of God. He said that there are seven levels of probability concerning the issue whether God exists. At one extreme is Level 1, where strong theists are. Those who are on Level 1 believe 100% that God exists. On the other extreme, Level 7 is where the strong atheists are. A strong atheist is the one who says for a fact that there is no God.
Dawkins says there are very few people at level 7. Dawkins places himself at Level 6. Those who are on Level 6 say that there is a very low probability that God exists. Those on Level 6 are the people who say they cannot know for sure but think that maybe God does not exist.
Since atheists cannot prove that there is no God, they place the burden of proof on Christians; it is the responsibility of Christians to prove that God exists. Since atheism cannot prove their claim that there is no God, they deny the existence of God, they deny the claims of the Bible, they deny the possibility of revelation, they deny divine intervention, they deny the reality of faith. Atheism is based on a culture of denial. In order for atheism to exist, atheists must deny anything and everything Christianity stands for. The truth is, atheism stands on the shoulders of Christianity to tell the world “there is no God.”
When asked to prove that there is no God, atheists point to errors and contradictions in the Bible, as if the faith of Christianity is based on who wrote Genesis, or how many days it took to create the universe, or how many officers Solomon had, or even how old Jehoiachin was when he began to reign.
Atheists also mention suffering, evil, wars, violence, diseases, hunger, poverty, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters to prove that there is no God. But these tragedies are not evidence that there is no God. These tragedies do exist. There are many reasons that cause some of these tragedies to afflict human beings; many of these tragedies are hard for us to fully understand. When Christians try to offer an explanation for these events, no explanation is good enough because atheists have already convinced themselves that these events are evidence that God does not exist or if he does, that God is not good or that God is powerless.
Atheists advance their cause by ridiculing others. “God is for Suckers” is their motto. Their writings are only “rants on the evils and stupidity of belief.” Their purpose is “making fun of believers everywhere.” Their goal is to discredit “the big invisible daddy in the sky.”
The ridicule present in the writings of atheists shows that there is no dignity in their argument. Atheism is a cause infused with a culture of denial. Atheism does not have anything positive to say; they only advance their cause by denying the claims of others. The day atheism can show me better proof that there is no God, I may be willing to listen.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
Other posts of this topic:
The Answer Atheists Can’t Provide
Tags: Atheism, Atheists, Christianity, Faith, Religion
Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>I said that believers are better interpreters of the biblical text than atheists because atheists approach the Bible with false assumptions. Some of these false assumptions are that there is no God, that the Bible is only myth, that there is no revelation, and others.That’s just silly. We could just as easily say that believers approach the Bible with false assumptions — that there is a God, revelation, etc.
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>Jewish Atheist beat me to the punch. “Dr.” Claude makes a ridiculous statement that non-theists approach with false assumptions. Claude approaches with the false assumption that that it is intellectually sound to believe things on no evidence.
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>Dr Mariottini,Your views on atheism are as uninformed as those you accuse atheists of holding with respect to Christianity. It is true that some make fun of Christian beliefs. It is true that people like Richard Dawkins have made unsupported claims about the role of religion in history. However, your harangue about atheism being a philosophy of denial is either grossly misleading or willfully spiteful. Atheists do “deny” the probability that God exists. Some even claim that the properties that God is traditionally assigned are incompatible and that an entity so defined cannot exist. But you have presented a picture of a group of childish nay-sayers. A serious atheist has invested as much thought and soul-searching as the most committed Christian. Alas, both groups are small and under-represented in the general discourse. That said, Atheism is not a even religion or philosophy but merely a position held with regard a particular truth claim: God exists. That position accepted, atheists can hold world views informed by skepticism, humanism or even mysticism. I assume that you yourself are an denier of the claims of Buddhism. Welcome to the Fellowship of Deniers. That makes you no less a Christian.I am afraid that your tirade has robbed you of some of your own dignity. I pray that you will be more circumspect and, yes, humble in the future.P.S.: When you choose your arguments for the historicity of Christianity in the future, be careful not to conflate the claim that the risen Christ “appeared to more than five hundred people at the same time” with witness accounts. This is at best a second hand account as we can assume that Paul was not present. I used to be fearful of challenging apologetic claims such as this because I assumed that the writers were so much better educated than I, “Surely they must know what they are talking about.” I have since come to the opposite conclusion.
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>To the Jewish Atheist:Thank you for your comment. I agree that the statement may be silly, but that comes out of our different world-views. It is because we have different world-views that atheists and Christians many never agree with basic presuppositions.Claude Mariottini
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>FVThinker,Thank you for your comment. What I said to the Jewish Atheist, I also say to you. Since we begin with different assumptions, it becomes evident that we will never agree.Claude Mariottini
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>Scott,Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I have to disagree with you on the intent of my post. The primary intent of my post was to declare that atheists and Christians will never agree on several issues because they begin their discussion of the Bible with different presuppositions. Christians approach the Bible from the perspective of faith; atheists deny the possibility of faith.There is no doubt that atheists have done a lot of study and soul-searching regarding the matters of faith, religion, and God. However, it is a fact that they deny most things Christians affirm. It is hard to present the views of atheists without emphasizing the way they defend their cause. It may be true that Paul’s argument about the witnesses was secondhand information, but this does not make it less true. Since he said that many of them were still alive when he wrote his letter, then this information was probably well known among the believers.In the argument between Christians and atheists there are no winners. Nothing that one group writes about the other group satisfies people. Claude Mariottini
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>I found what I wanted to say was far too long for a comment, so have posted it here
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>I am quite troubled by some of your statements, particularly that atheists cannot experience hesed or know fully what grace is. Are we not all made in God’s image? Doesn’t Christian faith claim that the atonement achieved by Jesus’ death and resurrection was available for everyone?You seem to imply that one’s life is utterly vacuous of these things until one has accepted Christ. But, any theological issues aside, this simply runs counter to experience. Why be moved to accept Christ if you haven’t experienced some hesed? What’s more, can one ever claim to fully experience grace? The world and us as individuals in it are, according to both experience and Christian doctrine, imperfect and sinful. There is always more grace to be experienced, by all of us alike, wherever we are. Thank God.I don’t mean to push you into a corner. Clearly you are responding defensively to a rather thoughtless provocation. But, in your response, you are limiting God. If you haven’t seen the move “The Apostle,” with Robert Duvall, I highly recommend it. God works in ways beyond our comprehension and outside of the boundaries we create.
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>You identify a number of differences between an atheist’s and a Christian’s worldview. The examples you gave all seem to share the characteristic of experience: loving God, experiencing divine hesed, knowing Christ lives within, understanding “fully” what it means to be saved. The examples all seem to distinguish a “knowledge of” that a Christian possesses, while an atheist is limited to a “knowledge that”. However, I don’t think you made the point in your post as to just how this difference results in any advantage to the Christian biblical interpreter. Could you please explain what specific advantages the Christian biblical has from having a different worldview. Thanks in advance.
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>I have been an atheist. I have been, and continue to be, a Christian. I have read widely the works of many apologists of atheism: Russell, Dawkins, Dennett, Mackie, Nielsen, Shermer (sorry, “agnostic” in his case) Flew (still an atheist?), etc. I continue to read the works of atheists because they sharpen my understanding of God by defining so clearly the limitations of “God belief” within the constraints of logic and reason prescribed for us by Western, post-Enlightenment secularism. Like it or not, this is the arena within which dialog takes place between “religion” and “science” or, more broadly, “faith” and “reason.”As ridiculous as this may sound coming from a Christian, I think I can agree with the simple sentence, “God does not exist.” Setting aside the philosophical issue of whether or not “existence” can even be a meaningful predicate, our concept of existence is finite, that is our concept is incomplete because we ourselves are finite and everything we have ever known is finite. Even current cosmological consensus says that the entire universe, all that “exists,” is finite. So, in this context, to say that “God exists” attributes to God a constraint, a quality, that contradicts the very idea of God as being “uncreated,” “eternal,” “transcendent.” Perhaps this is why from the very earliest traditions of monotheism in the Hebrew faith God’s name was and is, simply, “I am.” This is not the same as saying, “I exist.” Many things “exist,” but only a conscious being can say, “I am.” In the end, if you believe in God you must, I believe, constantly challenge yourself to look beyond the God of philosophers and theologians to the God experienced by real people in the events of history. And, of course, as a Christian I believe “God” is to be experienced most presently in the person and work of Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.”For atheists there is no “a-Immanuel.” There is only throwing pebbles at the problems of constructing the “historical” Jesus with the predominant framework of Western rationalism.
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>Your position that the Bible must be believed to be understood reminds me of an invitation I got to join a radical Christian anti-government militia. I asked “what would I be joining?” They replied, “When you join, you’ll find out!” I said “No thanks. That ain’t the way it works!”Believe first, then understand?But, yes, I do get that. I used to be a believer. In order to *experience* Jesus one must suspend any unbelief. IF you believe that a song of someone loving you is true, then sure… you’ll get the goose bumps and the tears… but once you have examined the text and found that it is a pre-scientific myth of manlike gods in the sky, just beyond the clouds, you can’t really get all lost in it. I’ve joined the “Do I really need to turn off my mind to meet God?” crowd.Bill Rosshttp://woundedego.comhttp://bibleshockers.blogspot.comhttp://bibleshockers.com
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