The Great Debate: Does God Exist? Bahnsen v. Stein

The Bible tells us, " the fool has said in his heart: there is no God." Don't misunderstand that. When the Bible uses the word fool it is not engaging in name calling. It's trying to describe somebody who is dense in the sense that they will not use their reason as God has given him. (someone who is rebellious and hard hearted) It's the fool who says in his heart there is no God.

Paul tells us in I Corinthians the first chapter, that God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. He calls rhetorically, " Where are the wise? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" In a sense I think what Paul is telling us, if I can amplify or read between the lines, is that the whole history of Philosophy is an argument for the existence of God. The whole history of Philosophy is an argument for the existence of God because of the impossibility of the contrary.

Someone who wants to say [something that is] contrary to what the Bible says about God, let him stand up and answer these questions. Let him show that in his heart he may say there is no God, but he can't live that way. He can't reason that way.

In Romans the first chapter Paul says God is making himself known continually and persuasively to all men, so that men do not have an excuse for their rejection of the existence of the Christian God. That isn't to say that all men confess this God. Not all will own up to Him as their heavenly Father. Not all will submit to Him. Some continue to rebel. Some continue to devise their fools' errands and rationalizations of why they don't have to believe in Him.

That's what the Bible teaches. I didn't just come here and make this up. I didn't come here to say, "If you don't agree you're just being rebellious." That is what the Bible says. What I want you to do tonight is to go home and consider whether there isn't something to that: Why is it that some people continue to use laws of logic, morality, science, and yet they have a world view that just clashes with that; and [yet] they just won't do anything to resolve that contradiction.

Dr. Stein tonight made reference to my doctoral dissertation on self deception. He wondered how relevant it might be. Well, it's very relevant, because what I do in that doctoral dissertation is to show that there are some people who know the truth and yet work very hard to convince themselves that it's not true.

Now, of course, atheists think that's what Christians are doing. I recognize that and that we'd have to argue about the evidence for and against the self-deception. All I want to leave with you tonight is the fact that self-deception is a real phenomenon. It does happen to people. People can know the truth and yet work very hard to rationalize the evidence, as Paul says, "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" in order to convince themselves that there is no God.

Well, you may want to cam[sic] choose tonight between the Christian world view and the atheist world view. We haven't touched all the issues that you may want to look into. However, in broad strokes we have touched on a very important issue. If you're going to be a rational man, a moral man, a man of science, can you do so in an atheist universe. I say you can't.

- The Great Debate: Does God Exist?
Bahnsen v. Stein, Page 37