(The following is taken from an email correspondence.)

In the context of defending Christianity, believers sometimes would say something like, "I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist." Even some presuppositionalists abuse the word by saying that every worldview must begin by taking its first principles on "faith."

However, this is both biblically false and strategically unwise.

When non-Christians make the accusation that we affirm Christianity based only on "faith," they are not using the biblical definition of the word, but by it they mean something like, "belief by pure assumption without any rational justification." Some Christians then make a rational case for Christianity, and conclude, "It takes even more faith to be an atheist, and I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist."

When used this way, faith means mere credulity, and this implies that Christianity is affirmed by credulity, only that it takes even more credulity to be an atheist. This unbiblical use of the word encourages our audience to have a little credulity, so that he will become a Christian, but not too much, lest he becomes an atheist. But if this is what "faith" means, then why not renounce all credulity and have no faith at all?

The problem is further aggravated when Christians assert in the same context that faith is not mere credulity, but that it is rational. But if we plug this back into the statement, "I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist," then it becomes an admission that atheism is more rational, which is exactly what we denied when we first said, "I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist."

In the biblical context, faith is always a good thing, and it is always good to have more of it. But suddenly, in the very context of defending "faith," we assert that atheism must also begin with "faith," and that atheists in fact have more of it, since it takes even more "faith" to be an atheist.

Then, in the same discussion or debate, we also say that "faith" is rational, and that the atheists don’t have it at all because it is a gift of God. Or are we saying that a little of this divine gift would make us Christians, but a lot of it would make us atheists?

If we are using the biblical definition — if we are talking about the kind of faith that we have and want our hearers to have — then, the truth is that if I have any faith at all, even as small as a mustard seed, I would not be an atheist. The atheist has no faith, not more faith. If we are using the biblical definition of the word, then if you have any faith at all, you are already a Christian.

So, this use of the word "faith" may seem clever to some, but it is in fact unbiblical, foolish, confusing, and self-defeating. At least in the context of a biblical discussion, we should never use the word this way, that is, to denote credulity.

Rather than saying, "I don’t have enough of a good thing to be an atheist," we should say, "I don’t have enough of a bad thing to be an atheist." Thus, it is much more appropriate to say, "I am not stupid enough to be an atheist."

It also follows that we should never say, "We all have to begin from faith." No, we don’t. We all begin from some first principles as the logical starting point of all our thinking. Christians affirm Scripture as their starting point by faith-reason (a divine gift of assenting to truth that is eminently rational), but non-Christians affirm their various false and irrational first principles by their wickedness and credulity.

Recommended:

Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations

Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions

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