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3 This book targets the intellectual. By using the term intellectual, I am
not referring to a person's level of intelligence, but to an intelligent
person with a particular personality type. Many intelligent people are not
"intellectuals" in the respect that I mean. Intellectuals, as I will use the
term, want everything proven and explained; they often feel foolish for
accepting as fact something unproven. Such an attitude is contrary to
scripture. When He was on Earth, Jesus said to have the faith of a child.
Children have the ability to accept the facts before them without having to
understand. Intellectuals generally do not afford themselves that luxury. To
them, faith seems foolish. Such a person can never believe something that
cannot be proven… unless the Holy Spirit intervenes. Therefore, while a
believer cannot prove the Christian faith to an intellectual non-believer,
he can show his faith to be consistent. This book will not help you prove
the Gospel; it will help you create opportunities to explain it. As for
proof, we leave that to the Holy Spirit.
God has proven His existence to me over and over. If you are a Christian,
then surely He has proven His existence to you as well. What can be so
frustrating to a Christian is when the truth seems so clear and obvious that
we believe our testimony to be enough to convert any non-believer. With all
other things being equal, I believe it would be enough. However, not all
factors are equal. We have a God who gives each person a measure of faith,
but leaves it for us to decide what we will do with it. Satan on the other
hand is always waiting to snatch away belief in whatever truth is revealed.
The question is which way each person will be swayed.
Intellectual types tend to be swayed away from God and feel very strongly
about their choice because such people do not make their choices lightly.
They believe they have good reason for their choice, and tend to remain
steadfast in their conclusion, unless they are proven wrong. Similarly,
intellectual Christians often have the strongest faith. Having allowed God's
spirit to sway their beliefs toward Him, they can explain the world in terms
of their faith. Like the intellectual atheist, the intellectual Christian
remains steadfast, and is rarely convinced by others' attempts to prove them
wrong or foolish. The impetus for this book is the collection of experiences
between intellectual believers, unbelievers, and myself.
By my experience, conversations between intellectual Christians and
intellectual Atheists typically reduce to a discussion of faith. The
Christian has faith while the Atheist does not. Usually, the conversation
ends there. In my opinion, that is where the conversation needs to begin!
Arguments can only convince someone they are wrong when the
conversationalists agree on their premises. Because the Christian has faith
that God exists, the premises assumed by a Christian are different than
those of an Atheist. If you do not acknowledge this at the outset of an
argument about God or religion, then your discussion will only continue
until your friend realizes that your premises are different. How can you
break this pattern? If you know from the beginning that your premises are
different, then you have the chance for a truly constructive discussion. The
idea is to focus the interchange on your faith in God and Jesus.
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