Atheist: “God cannot do miracles because it would be a contradiction of the laws God set in motion.”

Christian: “I once read an interesting explanation of that, although I do not recall the writer’s name. It said that if I drop a ball with my right hand, and catch it with my left hand before it hits the ground, I have not contradicted the laws of gravity, but merely I have done something else that stopped the ball.”

“I do not know how God does miracles, if He sets about other laws in motion only He can do, that we do not know about. Or whether God wishes to suspend the effect of laws he put in motion, in order to do a miracle. But I am certain that if God contradicts the laws of nature, it is precisely because He is limitless in power. The idea that God can suspend laws He himself made does not in any way question my faith, but increases it. After all, we cannot break the laws of nature because we are subject to them. But God is not subject but creator.”

“He can do anything or he would not be God. For example, if I decide I will lend you $100 if you have a job to pay me back with, I can also decide on a particular occasion to lend to someone unemployed. This is so because if I make the rule, I also have the power to break it.”

Atheist: “There are too many evil things in the world, for God to be real.”

Christian: “I think that you are saying two things. One point is that if you were God, you would not allow any bad things to happen. Two, that God is imperfect.”

Rebuttal to argument one, if I were God, I would not allow bad things to happen:

“First, if I were God, I am sure that I would mess up everything there is in the universe and also do a few evil things I would not be willing to admit. As a human being, I am incapable of the wisdom of God to make a judgment on what God does. This brings me to the second statement, that you think God is imperfect.”

Rebuttal to argument two, God is imperfect:

“Certainly if God could be understood with human reason it would be a very small god indeed. According to your description of God as an imperfect being, I also would be called an atheist. I do not believe in an imperfect God. I believe God does things in His wisdom I do not understand. ”

“I believe that for every bad thing that happens God does a greater good thing according to his plan for humanity. For example, an innocent child may die in a war or in an earthquake, but all children who die go to Heaven because they are not old enough while they lived to understand decide to believe. In Heaven, there is no death, no pain or sickness.”

“In fact, as the Bible says, God did make a perfect world in the Garden of Eden, but humans were given free will and we chose to mess up the world. Fortunately, God gives us a second chance instead of destroying us sinners and send us all to hell which is what we really deserve. If we believe that His Son Jesus died for our sins and resuscitated, to give us eternal life, we will go to Heaven and live forever in joyful bliss. If God were to make this world perfect right now, none of us would be in it.”

Atheist: “You cannot prove there is a God.”

Christian: \”That is true, the existence of God is beyond human comprehension, but nothing makes sense if there is no creator. The Big Bang cannot come out of nothing. The mutations of DNA are very small. The stages of mutation of DNA necessary for an animal to evolve would cause death to the animal in its embryo stage and it would not live to reproduce.\”

\”If you walked through the woods and found a computer, you would know that it was made by humans and not evolved. Yet the simplest cell contains technology more complex than the most advanced computers in the world;therefore this points to an intelligent design.\”

\”The existence of human conscience points to God’s existence. The motivation of atheists to do ethics “is either that of hedonism, utilitarianism, perfectionism, or a combination of these, as in humanism; but in Christian ethics the motive is that of affection for and willing submission to God” (Henry Clarence Thiessen. Lectures in Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2006, p 2). Conscience reveals to us there is right and wrong, not just survival of the strongest. The God of the Bible cares about the weak. In gratitude to Him, we should care also.\”

Atheist: \”There is illogical contradiction in God. “Perhaps the best known of these is the paradox of the stone: Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it? Either he can or he can’t. If he can’t, the argument goes, then there is something that he cannot do, namely create the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent. If he can, it continues, then there is also something that he cannot do, namely lift the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent.” (http://www.existence-of-god.com/arguments-for-atheism.html)

Christian: \”First of all, God do anything, even sin. When Jesus walked on this earth, he was tempted by the devil in everything, but Jesus did not sin. Therefore God can sin, since God is Jesus, but He never sins even though He could because He is holy and perfect.\”

“When Jesus walked on this earth, he was tempted by Satan to turn a stone into bread, for Jesus had been fasting and He was hungry. Jesus could have turned the stone into bread but he did not. It was not his purpose to do it, even though, later on, Jesus did the miracle of multiplying the fishes and the loaves for people to eat. Jesus told Satan, ‘Man does not live on bread alone.” God can do anything, but He does not obey Satan.”

“Satan even tempted Jesus to commit suicide. Satan said, “If you are God, throw yourself from the top of this temple” knowing that suicide is a sin and he would cease to exist. That is like taunting God and saying, ‘if you can do anything, make yourself disappear.’ Jesus did die, but not on that occasion. He did not commit suicide or throw himself from the Temple. But Jesus was crucified on the cross, killed by men. God allowed that to happen to pay for our sins and God resuscitated Jesus. Jesus is the greatest contradiction; God did to save all those who believe in Him from hell. God can do anything although he chooses not to do whatever we want. He only does His purposes.”

Atheist: “If God is real, why are Christians such bad people?”

Christian: “As one pastor put it, God is so good; He blesses even those who do not deserve it. God is so humble He is willing to reveal Himself by way of imperfect people. Christians are not perfect people, they are forgiven people.”

Atheist: “Christianity is so exclusive; they claim only Christians can be saved.”

Christian: “Christians can be male or female, rich or poor, and of any race. What distinguishes Christians is their belief (Ben Quash. Heresies and How to Avoid them.) It makes sense to tell people the way to get to Heaven is by belief in Jesus and repentance to God, because if we do not tell them, they will not be saved.”

“When Jesus was praying before the night He was crucified, He prayed to God, ‘If there is any other way, let this cup pass from me. But not my will be done but Yours.’ If there was another way God would have done it and we would tell people. But God did such a great sacrifice to let His own Son be crucified, that we must tell people so they can go to Heaven.”

“All you have to do to go to Heaven is to believe and repent. It is really very simple to do. The Christian God does not require good deeds. If we had to do good to be saved like many other religions say, none of us would be saved. So we bring good news to people that they can be forgiven by believing in Jesus.”
Atheist: All religions lead one to God.

Christian: Religions contradict each other. For example, Christianity says that only Christianity is right, while Islam teaches that only Islam is right, and many Hindus preach that only Hinduism is right. Therefore they cannot be all right.

Atheist: \”God cannot tell me right and wrong. Right and wrong is relative. Nothing is absolute. You cannot really know anything.\”

Christian: \”You really have to take a stand on what you believe. It has been said that if the only absolute you believe in is “that nothing is absolute”, and you do not believe in anything, you would not even be able to get out of bed in the morning because you do not know for sure if the floor is still going to be there when you wake up.\”

\”There are few absolutes. But the laws of nature are absolute and they are made by an absolute God. Just like countries have laws defining legal and illegal so that living in society can work, God also has spiritual laws. Breaking His laws is called sin, but His laws are for our benefit. When we break God’s laws we suffer spiritually and physically. It is a blessing to have God’s laws and we have those laws revealed through the Bible.\”

Author Bio: Wilma is an evangelical seminary student. Wilma\’s Page

Category: Religion
Keywords: Atheist, Atheism, arguments for belief in God