I have followed in great detail the Hitchens/Wilson debate on Christianity Today. Thus far, they have posted the first five installments.
Pastor Douglas Wilson continues the tradition of presuppositional apologetics defended by the great minds of the Reformed faith. In my opinion, Hitchens is as unprepared to deal with Wilson’s arguments as Gordon Stein was when he debated the late Greg Bahnsen. What Hitchens cannot see is the place of presuppositions in developing a world view. What Wilson does see is that atheism cannot account for anything, not even the notion of exchanging words in a debate format.
Hitchens appears to expect some form of evidential data that will give him the perfect opportunity to teach Wilson of the great historical tragedies of Christian history. Even if Wilson fell for such traps, the Christian errors throughout history can be defended only in a Christian worldview where the fall affects significantly human activity via Adam’s sin. Atheism is not able to explain the atrocities of a Hitler or Stalin. On what basis? On what basis can atheism even call evil “evil”?
I have just recently heard portions of the Dawkins/McGrath debate on atheism. It appeared to be a rather informal discussion concerning Dawkin’s book: The God Delusion. My level of frustration grew more and more as Alister McGrath (a respected scholar) proceeded to defend the Christian faith on the basis of “intellectual stimulation.” The argument according to McGrath was that Christianity is a valid religion because it is intellectually simulating. a Dawkins, of course, ceased the moment by denying that Christianity has anything stimulating to offer. This continued back and forth without any real exchange concerning the epistemology of our faith, that is, why do we believe what we believe. Dawkins would be surprised to know that I would affirm that atheism is as stimulating intellectually as Christianity. The atheist strives intellectually to deny God just as hard as the Christian finds intellectual stimulation in learning about God. The point however, is that atheism stimulates intellectualism that poisons and hardens the unbelieving heart; it is what some have called: “deadly intellectualism.” Christianity, on the other hand, stimulates a intellectualism that leads to life eternal. What the atheist does not understand is that the world, which stimulates intellectual discourse is the God-cosmos. The world belongs to God and as such functions to reveal Himself in all of creation. b The atheist finds intellectual stimulation on what Van Til called “borrowed capital.” The atheist is dependent on a Christian view of the world in order to make sense of his stimulation for intellect or any such thing.
If you would like another example of “Christians” embarrassing their worldview against the vile of atheism, you may wish to hear this absurd exchange between Christopher Hitchens and the ridiculous Al Sharpton.
- You may wish to hear Pastor Gene Cook answer this defense of Christianity from a presuppositional perspective (back)
- Romans 1 (back)
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