Letter to Atheists who Demand Proof

You ask for proof of God’s existence. I’ve answered that the proof is all around us – in the stars, the trees, the laws of nature, our bodies and feelings - available for the seeing. However, I prefer contextualized proof – the proof that arises by itself in the very midst of our conversation. Let me take an example.

You vilify Christians. I’m not talking about you specifically but about the treatment that Christians uniformly receive in the blog-Facebook world. How do we understand such behavior among people who strenuously insist that they are good without God? These are also people who boast of being tolerant and open-minded – people who pride themselves on being open to all forms of lifestyles! Why then the disconnect? The hypocrisy?

Let’s add to this another observation – the need to prove or justify ourselves, often by putting others down. Is there a simple and parsimonious way to explain these observations? Our awareness of our guilt, shame, and sense that we deserve judgment – the very things that the Bible claims we know! These are our underlying motivators – the causes of our inconsistencies – and also those things that serve to justify the biblical worldview.

We Christians serve as reminders of this reality. You project your guilt and shame on us as if we are the cause of them.  This is what happened to our Lord Jesus. He explained that He was hated because He revealed the truth to people about themselves, and He was crucified for this. Jesus warned that this would also become our fate.

But I say this, not to condemn you, but to shed some light upon your plight and the remedy we all have through our Savior who died for us, paying the price for our sins.