Why do Christians fight atheists on their terms? Evangelicalism certainly has a long pedigree, with her “Fundamentalist heritage” in trying to engage atheists on their terms. In other words, the Fundamentalist method is to “react” to the questions that the atheist poses about God; and get sucked into “their” game, answering questions that don’t even apply to the Christian God — who is Trinity. If you listen to the atheist’s points, in general, they most certainly follow the via negativa (the negative way) in their prodding of God. They presume to know God, and how “he should be,” before they ever get to God in Christ who should be allowed to impose who He is on His own terms. They, the atheist, simply assumes that God resembles characteristics reflected by humanity (when God says He is not “man,” per se; the Incarnation not withstanding); but this is the “Greek/Stoic” method, projecting features of man upon God, and then using that as the standard for the questions they are asking about God (like on God’s being and thus acts in creation).

For Christians to try and engage atheists on these terms is just wrong-headed; the Christian, in the tradition of folks like Karl Barth and TF Torrance, need to reframe the questions; so that we end up starting with Christ, allowing Him to impose the logic of His life upon us, instead of vice-versa. The obverse of this is only to assume a rationalist stance, which really is to assume the 1st Adamic stance which is to believe that “we can be like God.”

My challenge is to Christians who engage atheists, to do so in a way that indeed reframes the questions in a way that allows God to be God in Christ.

P.S. This post was prompted by this post: here