Brandon is a Rock Climber, General Manager of Reading Rocks Climbing & Fitness, and an aspiring Apologist/Evangelist. He has been an intern of Dr. Mark Farnham with Apologetics for the Church since 2024. He is a public speaker, podcaster, and musician, and currently serves in his Adult Bible Fellowship at Calvary Church Lancaster.
In history, unbelief has taken multiple forms. Many people grapple with questions about faith, spirituality, and the existence of God. In this blog, we will explore the top three reasons for unbelief, drawing insights from a compelling conversation between Pastor Jeff Durbin and an atheist at an anti-abortion rally. This discussion delves into the intellectual, volitional, and emotional barriers that prevent individuals from embracing Christianity. By understanding these reasons, we can better engage with skeptics and offer meaningful responses to their doubts and concerns.
One of my mentors, Jeff Mindler, recently shared a YouTube video with me. It was a video of Pastor Jeff Durbin witnessing to an atheist at an anti-abortion rally. The video begins with a conversation focused on ectopic pregnancies and the decision on which person to save, the mother or the baby. The doctors, of course, want to save as many lives as they can. But there are times when it is impossible to save the baby’s life.
The atheist in this conversation shows a heart for the mother as he wants to preserve her life in this instance. But this position of life preservation only makes sense in the Christian worldview. Jeff begins probing into the atheist’s worldview. He mentions that all biological science testifies that from the moment of fertilization, what we have is a human. Not a partial human, the entirety of who you were then is who you are now in terms of DNA.
The atheist mentions he believes it’s bad to kill humans in any case. But because of the level of formation, the immorality of killing the baby lessens because it’s not fully formed. Jeff begins to seek justification for the atheist’s moral stance that it’s bad to kill humans. The conversation continues and then begins to take an interesting turn as they begin to investigate the naturalistic worldview. Within the conversation, the atheist mentions at least 3 times his previous Christian upbringing. He said that he grew up Christian but is no longer a Christian. Jeff notices the inconsistencies in his worldview as the atheist appeals to laws of logic, natural laws, uniformity of nature, and moral and ethical obligations. In the naturalistic worldview, the atheist must borrow from the Christian worldview to make their case. But if we are just the product of matter in motion and random chemical processes, then there is no justification for these immaterial laws.
Jeff prods into the atheist’s inconsistencies and tells him, “You haven’t been able to shake your Christianity loose,” meaning he is appealing to some sort of moral standard that is not present in the naturalistic atheistic worldview. The conversation is incredibly interesting, and there are loads of amazing points to take away from it. But the statements that stood out to me the most that the atheist made were, “I’ve never had a spiritual experience in my life.” And “He is a mystical being. Why don’t I see him or hear him?” Nearing the end of the video, at an hour and two minutes into the conversation, the atheist says, “I was praying every day and trying to believe in God, and I heard nothing and saw nothing.”
This leads to the main point of this blog. There are 3 reasons why the unbeliever refuses to believe in Christianity. There are intellectual reasons, volitional reasons, and emotional reasons.
Intellectual reasons are typically what we first see when engaging with a skeptic. They may throw the argument of suffering at us. “How can there be a God, or a good God, if there is so much evil and suffering in this world?” Or they could argue that God has not revealed Himself; “Where is the proof for God? I don’t see him or hear him. I need scientific proof.”
The volitional reasons typically come next. Because they have friends who are part of the LGBTQ community, they don’t see how God can condemn people who just want to express love the way they want to. They simply don’t believe there should be a religion that governs how people ought to live when it clearly contradicts their own version of morality. When it comes to the volitional reasons, the underlying snag they have with Christianity is that they want to do what they want to do, and they don’t believe that they need to submit to some moral authority outside of themselves. Morality is of their own making, and it should be determined by each person individually. But of course, we as Christians know that this is an unlivable worldview when you reduce it to its absurdity. For example, based on this idea of moral relativism, we cannot say to someone who has just dismembered an infant that what they did was inherently wrong. Because in their worldview, the one who did the dismembering is the moral authority of their own life and no one has the right to encroach on what brings them joy and satisfaction, or whatever reason they may have to commit such an act. In other words, nobody has the right to “yuck” someone else’s “yum”.
The skeptic may say in response to this, “Well, obviously if it’s hurting someone else, then it’s not good to do.” Do you see how, in this response, the skeptic is still the arbiter of what is right and wrong? They seem to be the ones to write the rules on morality. But this is ultimately inconsistent with their worldview because they are determining how someone else ought to live with no basis of objective morality.
Emotional reasons are the deepest layer of the unbelieving skeptic. And we see this in the interview with the atheist. We see that he has been wounded because he claimed to have called out to God and “heard nothing, saw nothing.” This is heartbreaking and should always cause us to sympathize with the unbeliever. How broken would we be if we called out to a distant father and were met with silence? We, too, would walk away thinking it was all in vain. That there was no way there truly was a loving God out there.
Theologically, there are many reasons why this person never “heard” or ”saw” God in their distress. Maybe he asked with the wrong motives. Maybe there was still pride and selfishness in what he was asking for and therefore did not receive what he requested (James 4:3). Maybe he is asking for things that are contrary to Gods will and he is still seeking to live in a manner that is not consistent with the way God has designed him to live, for which he then is deemed an “enemy of God.” (James 4:4) For when you ask and you do not receive; it could be because you are asking with the wrong motives in order to satisfy your pleasures. (James 4:3). But if he called out to God with a heart of contrition and asked Him to reveal Himself on His own terms, as the unbeliever cries out to God humbly, then the Lord will hear Him and answer him in the way He sees fit.
Although at times we may feel God is hidden, He has revealed Himself in creation and in His word. We must always look to His word to learn what God has promised. Only then can we find peace that surpasses understanding, even when our emotions are waxing and waning.
We as Christians need to make sure that as we witness, we show the attractive nature of the gospel by displaying to the unbeliever the protective, overwhelming, beautiful love of God, which is revealed in His sacrificial love through Christ’s work on the cross. We can show the unbeliever how God’s law is actually a boundary, not to imprison us, but instead to set us free from sin. How that boundary line keeps us from the guard rail near the edge of our destruction. We must speak in truth and love, setting apart Christ as Lord in our hearts, and remember that we too used to walk in darkness. Our hearts were callous and immovable. But the Spirit of God removed our heart of stone from our flesh and gave us a heart of flesh that can now hear Gods law and is delighted by it (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Let us pray for the unbeliever and acknowledge the heavy weight of their intellectual, volitional, and emotional walls that keep them from belief and ask that the Lord would soften their hearts to make way for the Gospel seed to take root. Because no argument, intellectual, volitional, or emotional, will win the unbeliever on its own.
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