When defending the Christian faith, believers would at times say something like, “I do not have enough faith to be an atheist.” This includes some proponents of presuppositional apologetics, who would 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 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 do not 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 the 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?