Objection Eight: I Still Have Doubts, So I Can't Be A Christian; Lynn Anderson, D.Min.

Calm yourselves.  Strobel isn't talking to a woman, in contradiction to 1 Tim 2:12; Lynn is all man under his feminine pseudonym. 

Strobel is clearly on the home straight now.  If he can sell this one, he pretty much has his audience hooked; he's essentially saying that even if everything he has claimed so far in this whole book is unconvincing, it's still rational to be a Christian.  Since that's pretty much the position he's in, the stakes are high for him here. 

So what we're presented with isn't really an argument for Christianity at all; instead, it's a list of ex-atheists (Ron Browski, described at some length; Lee Strobel of course; Lynn Anderson himself, and in the Conclusion, Billy Moore again at length) along with continuous repetition that the only reason to be an atheist is because you want to be immoral: 'I knew that my hard-drinking, immoral and self-obsessed lifestyle would have to change if I ever became a follower of Jesus, and I wasn't sure I wanted to let go of that.' 

And so it is that Anderson gets straight down to his main theme, how to deal with doubt: 'Many spiritual seekers have legitimate questions [...] some seekers get to the point where they are subconsciously raising smoke screens to mask their deep-seated motivations for rejecting the faith.'  Got that?  Even if you have intellectual problems with Christianity - and let's face it, after reading Strobel's book that's pretty likely - you subconsciously know it's true.  Even to disagree with Strobel is itself evidence of your moral depravity, and if you think otherwise you are simply subconsciously fooling yourself. 

Of course, this is a slight tangent.  Strobel's title for this chapter is about dealing with doubts, not explaining why there are atheists in the face of (so he says) overwhelming evidence of God's existence. 

So, moving on from the tangent, we get to the question in the title.  Perhaps you are one of 'those whose melancholy personality draws them toward uncertainty [...] the confusion, the guilt, the maddening ambiguity of uncertainty [...] corrosive, eroding, negative doubt.' 

Or perhaps your doubt is 'rebellious', 'arrogant', due to 'disappointment', the result of abuse, or (just possibly), 'intellectual'. 

Or - and by now perhaps it is becoming clear that this is to be quite a lengthy aside - perhaps you're too busy to think things through.  Or you are worried by a lack of contact, or a lack of miracles (because of your 'misguided and unexamined' theology that leads you to expect them), or perhaps you fear commitment, or have 'professional pride'. 

Or perhaps your atheism is due to the absence of a father figure (an allegation that could certainly never be levelled against the Abrahamic religions). 

This repetition goes on for quite some time.  Surely now Anderson and Strobel will come to the point? 

Doubt is a 'smokescreen'.  Despite having grudgingly conceded the theoretical possibility that Christianity just might not be convincing to some people, Anderson nevertheless claims that 'all unbelief ultimately has some other underlying reason'.  He even goes so far as to quote the Gospel of John saying that 'If a man chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own' - which would seem to deny the possibility of doubt among believers, and thus undermine Anderson's whole thesis. 

OK, so they didn't come straight to the point, but surely they will get to it now?  Sadly, no.  They have more to say first.  We get the usual throwaway explanation for why God doesn't just make His existence obvious, if he's so keen for us to believe: otherwise, 'what we would have is knowledge, not faith.'  (Exactly what's so terrible about knowledge is, as ever, not explained, other than that we need to make a 'step of faith' and that we must choose to ignore our doubts - though presumably we are not permitted to doubt that last statement.) 

So, about those who want to believe but still have doubts...  ah no, we're not there yet.  There are some truly hilarious reports from Anderson about how atheists are not only dishonestly denying that they know deep down that God exist, but that they will blurt this out with the slightest provocation whenever Anderson is in the room:

'I said to her, 'What's the reason you don't want to believe?  Is it because you don't want the responsibility faith brings with it?  Is it because of despair over your own incorrigibility?  Or is it because you don't want to give up parties?'   

''She was startled.  She said, 'Who told you that?  It's a little bit of all three.'' 

Or this:

''I don't think your problem is that you can't believe; I think it's that you won't believe because you're afraid to give up the things that help get you through the night.'   

'He thought for a while and then said, 'Yeah, I guess that's true.  I can't imagine sleeping with just one woman.  I can't imagine going with less money than I make - which I'd have to do, because I lie to get it' [...] That man would argue and argue for hours about his cerebral doubts.  He would convince people that he couldn't believe because he had too many intellectual objections.  But they were just a smokescreen.' 

And so on; there are more examples of people who suddenly blurt out their deeply-held secrets to Anderson (though he doesn't go as far as to claim they actually changed their minds; too implausible even for Anderson, or has he genuinely convinced himself that half-remembered conversations were something they were not?) 

Finally, we do turn to the chapter title: so what should those with doubts do?  Why, they should avoid American Atheists and instead purchase fine apologetic material, such as the works of Mr Lee Strobel (available from all non-infidel bookstores).  Because, you see, you should look at the 'pro and con', but only from a 'faith-building' perspective. 

Strobel is on the home straight now, and there is no point in sticking to logical discourse.  Any of his audience that are still with him - and despite what I have been saying, a fair few fundies will be - will only want to hear how certain their existing beliefs are.  The truth is that this book is about seeking justification for existing beliefs, not about genuine exploration of areas of controversy.  So now we get bizarre assertions such as: 'The only object of faith that is firmly supported by the evidence of history and archaeology and literature and experience is Jesus', or 'Do what Jesus says and you'll experience the validity of it' (so again, no apparent room for doubt among believers). 

Since this is essentially a chapter about why you should believe even if - contrary to the whole argument of the book so far - there is no convincing reason to do so, Anderson can afford to be a little blatant here: 'You could probably come up with a hundred questions about God that I wouldn't know how to answer. But do you know what? It doesn't matter, because I've discovered that this is true.'  So there you have it, the 'case for faith' in a nutshell: actually, intellectual objections don't matter if you have True Faith(tm). 

Even Strobel can hardly fail to notice that 'it's true because I believe it' is not much of an argument - not leastly because it is used by every religion in the world: 

'If faith is experiential, then you could get into Buddhism and find that meditation lowers your blood pressure and makes you feel good,' I pointed out.  'But that doesn't necessarily mean Buddhism is true.'   

'But remember that experience is just one avenue of evidence,' he cautioned.  'You also have to clarify the object of your faith, to determine if there are reasons for believing it's true.  But the ultimate test of the pudding is in the eating.  Buddhism does work for some things; atheism works for some things.  But if you pursue the whole Jesus journey, you find that his teachings work consistently because they are true.  Christianity isn't true because it works; it works because it's true.' 

Uh, translation anyone?  So is evidence important or not?  Based on the above, it would seem that it's important when it supports Christianity, but not when it doesn't.  'Clarifying the object of faith' is adopted by Strobel as a mantra for the rest of the book, but this is the closest he comes to explaining what it means - and it appears to contradict the whole message of this chapter, saying that actually if 'following Jesus' doesn't work and doesn't give all the answers, Christianity is wrong. 

Anderson then says that as long as some questions have answers, we needn't struggle with those that don't: 'I struggle with the horrible things happening in Kosovo and Indonesia and parts of Africa, where whole races are being annihilated - some of it in the name of religion.  Why doesn't a loving God deal with this?  [...] I'm saying I don't have the complete and final answer to that question.'  (Should have spoken to John Woodbridge, then.)  'I feel less equipped to answer all the objections that come from brilliant skeptics.  But do you know what?  That doesn't matter to me like it used to.  Because I know this is true.  I see it.'  So there you have it once again - if there is a rock-solid objection based on evidence and rational thought that undermines your faith - it doesn't matter!  Just ignore it! 

Conclusion: The Power Of Faith

That is the end of the book proper, but Strobel has felt the need to include a Conclusion.  Usually, such a section would simply repeat and condense the arguments that have gone before.  Strobel, however, seems to feel the need to patch up some of the preceding chapters by introducing new arguments.  It is possible that he does this for some reason other than that he thinks they are weak, though I struggle to see what that reason would be. 

Moreland gives a reason to think Hell is a good thing, even if all the evidence points the other way - namely that we shouldn't just deliberate the 'pros and cons of Hell by itself'.  In other words, if all the other evidence points to the truth of Christianity, we should give God the benefit of the doubt when it comes to Hell.  This may be true, but it does rather rely on other aspects of the faith not being taken on faith.  And, it has to be said, that Moreland would make a claim like this hardly speaks volumes for the confidence he has in his own arguments. 

And it would seem that Strobel is not prepared to rely on the evidence for his other objections, either.  No sooner has he dealt with Moreland's embarrasing volte face, he lets slip that apparently Kreeft 'conceded in our interview, the suffering in this world does constitute some evidence against the existence of God.'  This, apparently, 'emphasizes the magnitude of the overall case for Christ and the availability of solid responses to the toughest questions', so that's all right then. 

To undermine two of his eight points - fully a quarter of his own book - is, it has to be said, an... unusual authorial decision by Strobel. 

And what overwhelming evidence does Strobel have to refute this clear evidence of the falsehood of his beliefs?  Faith healing.  He thinks that the fact his daughter recovered in hospital from an undiagnosed illness is so convincing that anyone who is still a freethinker after hearing of it would also be unconvinced if 'all of us in this one world [are] knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap [...] The sky is ablaze [...] the clouds pull apart, revealing an unbelievably radiant and immense Zeus-like figure [who] explains for every man, woman, and child to hear, "I've had enough of your too-clever logic chopping and word-watching in matters of theology.  Be assured, Norwood Russell Hanson, that I most certainly do exist!".'  In this case, he thinks, Hanson 'would explain it away.' 

It seems that Strobel needs to believe that atheists are immune to evidence, because the alternative is that his evidence simply is not convincing, and that simply is not an acceptable conclusion to him.   

After recapping his rather trite dictum that 'God ordained that people should be governed in the end by what they want' (in which that case, run the argument for Hell past me again - people actually want to be in Hell?  It's 'divine rape' not to be?  So why do Christians become Ex-tians?), Strobel concludes by quoting Craig - who I am given to understand is held up by other apologists as something of the acme of intellectual thelogians - quoting nothing more than Pascal's Wager! 

It's an ironically appropriate place to conclude - a man often touted as the foremost apologist of his generation unthinkingly spouting one of the weakest theistic arguments of the last 300 years.  A sad reflection on the 'progress' of Christian apologetics.