Refuting the Friendly Atheist - Chosen People

Well, good day to you. This is Michael Coughlin with the Be a Berean podcast on the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. I'm here again to refute the objections of the friendly atheist. I do want to thank you for being a listener and I want to encourage you to reach out to me through my email michael at thingsabove.us or facebook messenger and let me know what you think of the podcast if you have any specific questions you'd like me to answer I could dedicate a show or part of a show to those kinds of things and if you have any feedback, positive or negative I gain great encouragement from people who listen who want to encourage me and I also am open to learning and to correction from people who find something I've done wrong sometimes we just misspeak, I don't edit so when you are listening to my podcast you are usually getting the first draft of me winging it.

And so that's part of the fun of this is I don't spend a lot of time preparing. In the case of the Friendly Atheist, I've prepared and, you know, when I teach scripture, I've obviously studied it already. But in some cases, I'm just sitting down and talking as if I'm speaking to a friend who's just listening in this case. And so I certainly could misspeak or I could say something because I haven't thought something through as much as I ought to have.

And so I appreciate you being a part of this process with me. So let's jump into the Friendly Atheists post, 40 Problems with Christianity from Pythios.com, FriendlyAtheists.Pythios.com. Number 27, chosen people. So this is one of the objections to Christianity. Christianity. Christians are obligated to accept the fact that God first chose to minister and support only the Jews, and to ignore all others, and even to assist the Jews in plundering the neighboring Gentile populations.

At the time, there were large civilizations in Asia, Europe, North and South America, Africa and Australia. I find it phenomenal that he said there's a large civilization in North America at that time. I guess I don't know how he defines large civilization, and I don't know how he defines civilization. But nevertheless, I'm not denying there may have been people in the North American continent, but the idea of a large civilization at the time of Jesus or at the time of the Jews, a thousand years before Jesus, is interesting.

So back to the text from the post. People living in these areas did not learn anything about Jesus until centuries later, some even until around 1500 years later. To consider this fact is sobering. Why would God do this, ignore humans for tens of thousands of years, only to present himself solely to a desert tribe on a tiny spot of land? A more reasonable explanation is that the Jewish people invented a God that favored them, just like nearly every other culture that has ever existed.

So a few comments. First of all, it is true. we are obligated to accept the fact that God first chose to minister only to the Jews God revealed himself to the Jews in a particular way and especially and that is something that was it was an advantage to them and you know we see in you know in Ephesians 2 therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands. Ephesians 2.11, that was 11, now here's 12.

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God in the world I think Romans 3 says some of the same things Romans 2 and 3 about the advantages the Jews had But it is, although that's true, God has now opened up the door to more peoples, but there were people for the history of time who never heard about God. They never heard about the true God, and that is why we have missionaries. So it is not an argument against the existence of God or the truth of the God of Scripture that he happens to deal with people the way he has chosen.

So in the atheist perspective, if there was a God, he would have somehow equally revealed himself to all people. And so his argument that he's making is, because he has not equally revealed himself to all people, or even in some sufficiently rational way that this guy won't objectively define, therefore God must not exist, or God cannot be the God that Christians think is God. So this is fallacious thinking because his premise is wrong.

He assumes something about God that is not true of God. Then when God doesn't meet his expectation of what he's assumed about God, he then says, well, God must not be true. And so in a way, it's the no true Scotsman fallacy. No true God would do things the way that the real God has done them. therefore the real God cannot be the real God. That's essentially the logic he's employing, and it's fallacious.

Fallacious just means it has a fallacy behind it. It's not sound reasoning. It's not a cogent logical argument. And so what we see, though, is he adds some more text that I actually, I like the way this guy writes a lot. He says, to consider this fact is sobering? Absolutely.

He is understanding something that Christians don't understand, and that's the fact that people everywhere are dying without being told of God's grace. They have the knowledge of God revealed to them. The heavens declare the glory of God. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness by creation itself, and it's sobering that billions of people are headed toward hell and nobody is reaching out to them.

Nobody is dying to go find them. I shouldn't say nobody, but there's a small group of Christians out of the big group of people that call themselves Christians who are actually working to reach people. And that is sobering. And it's sobering that there are people in areas of the world right now who don't have anyone who can even communicate with them as a result of the curse of Babel.

And so yes, this should motivate us. Instead of being a reason to say, well, God must not exist because this is harsh and drastic. It should motivate us to do the work he's told us to do and promised we'll be successful, and that's the work of missions. He says, why would God do this? Ignore humans for tens of thousands of years only to present himself solely to a desert tribe on a tiny spot of land.

There could be any number of reasons, but I don't have to know why God would do it. The fact of the matter is this is what God did, so I know that it was right. I know it was the only way, and it's the way that exalts God and gives him the most glory. I think that it should sober us. I mean, the previous statement answers this question. Why would God do it?

Maybe to sober us, to make us clear-minded, so that instead of being intoxicated with our sin, we think clearly in a self-controlled way so that we can take action. Peter says, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ so so it should so for us there's one reason God did it I mean I don't know how many reasons we need it just a rhetorical question his rhetorical question is meant to say there no good reason and that fun in poetry and that cool if you a pontificator of sorts but when you're trying to make a reasoned argument, it becomes functionally useless because there's no standard that he set of how we could answer that question where he would say, okay, well, there's sufficient reason. And I would submit to you that if somebody asks you a question like that, There is no sufficient reason.

They will do what people call moving the goalposts, where as soon as you answer the question, they'll just ask another one, or they'll say that's not enough. And so we have a belief issue. People do not believe God, and so therefore they do all they can to suppress the truth of their sin and their unrighteousness by denying his existence. the atheist adds a more reasonable explanation so he he thinks he's appealing to reason and this is why i i deal with him in a reasoned fashion and i make cogent rational responses to what he says because he's trying to act like he's the reasonable one and if you read this and you're convinced by this this rhetorical question why would god do this it sounds so horrible and if you feel moved by that emotionally, then he follows it up with a more reasonable explanation.

So he's got your emotions moved and then he appeals to the fact that he's got the reasonable answer and then his reasonable answer will seem to make sense to the one with the moved emotions and then that's it. He says the more reasonable explanation is that the Jewish people invented a God that favored them, just like nearly every other culture that has ever existed. It's actually an interesting point because it is a reasonable explanation for every single culture except biblical Christianity.

Every single culture has invented a God that tends to favor them. I mean, look at the gay community, if you'll allow me to call it a community. It's a group of people that have some shared unity. The gay community has a God that favors them. I mean, they believe in the God of love or the God of atheism who isn't really caring about morality. They agree on a God that favors them.

And it's true of Muslims, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, all the people who believe in a false God have invented a God that favors them. And the Bible actually tells us that people will do that, that people will be idolaters. And very few people actually function like true atheists. Atheism is a very rare disease in the human condition.

Professing, or I wouldn't say professing, like true atheism. I realize people might argue everyone's either an atheist or a Christian. But my point is this, is that most people actually subscribe to some religion because it's embedded in us so much that God exists. To deny it is almost impossible. It takes an amazing amount of just denial of obvious reality for people to buy into true atheism.

That's why there's thousands of religions out there. But atheism is also a religion. It's a set of beliefs that explains, for the most part, how we came to be, where we're going, how we ought to live, right and wrong, how we should think about the world. And so the atheist has also invented his own God. He doesn't understand that. He thinks he's following some higher concept like logic or reason.

But when he appeals to logic and reason, he's appealing to something outside himself that he's treating as an authority like a god. And so when we think of the reasonable explanation of why God would ignore humans for tens of thousands of years, whatever that you know I would I I'm not gonna quibble about the tens of thousands we understand he believes in an older earth than I do but when we answer that question we can appeal to reason this is where the logical experiential classical apologetics fails miserably all add you have to presuppose that God exists and he has spoken you have to trust that God has said something and you are obligated to believe it if you do not believe that, then you will not be able to work your way back to God. You will always get a question like, why would God do this?

And you won't be able to answer it without appealing to scripture, at which point you're calling scripture the authority. And so start with scripture. Teach people what the Bible says about God, how he started the world, his goodness and his grace, how he placed Adam and Eve in Eden and lovingly told them they could eat from every tree except one. I mean, this was not a situation where they're sitting there starving and God gave them a tree to tempt them.

It was the only place to get any fruit. I mean, you may eat of every tree of the Garden of Eden accept the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So God abundantly gives to people. He abundantly provides. And although we knew God, we did not honor him as God, nor give thanks to him. So we, in our ingratitude for what he's done, we have fallen, we have chosen to do the opposite of what he's commanded. we've fallen into sin and then this good God has sent his son Jesus Christ into the world and everyone who hears the good news of what Jesus was going to do if they heard the news before he came or if they've heard the news after he came that he has suffered and died and raised again on the third day and ascended into heaven people who believe these things, who hear these things people who believe them and after hearing them have the right to become children of God who are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God these are the people who become Christians and these are the people who are obligated to accept the fact that God's going to send a lot of people to hell and it is our obligation to understand that it's for his glory and to know that he always does right.

So the fact that there happens to be a chosen people in the Old Testament, and I'll add this, the fact that there's a chosen people in the New Testament, and I'll share that. I think it's one people, ultimately, one bride of Christ, one called out ecclesia, we'll say. but the fact that he has a chosen people that's spread throughout the world but still there's unreached people is no argument against his existence and it's certainly not an argument against Christianity it actually supports Christianity that this is happening this way the Bible predicts that this is the type of situation we'll have where many will fall away the road is wide that leads to destruction and there are many who enter by it the road is narrow that leads to life and those who find it are few so what we're seeing actually confirms what the Bible says which we'll always see if we look at things honestly thank you for listening to be a Berean with your host Michael Coughlin I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website michaelcoughlin.net you can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us. I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.