Introduction
Eleven years ago my first attempt to evangelize an atheist did not go as I expected.
They were receptive to what I had to say but with a condition.
They would put forth just as much effort to consider Christianity as I would put into considering atheism.
This challenge haunted me.
I had felt God burdening my heart for atheists, so I had already spent some years diving into biblical studies, theology, and apologetics, but to actually consider atheism felt dangerous and so I was hesitant.
Eventually, after what felt like a series of affirmations that this was something God wanted me to do, I concluded that God wouldn’t permit atheists to exist if there were not a spiritual path they could traverse to get from where they are to where I am in my Christianity.
So I set out determined to forage that path so that I could guide others along it.
For the following eleven years I would converse with thousands of atheists and theists of varying calipers including several hundred pastors, missionaries, and Christian academics.
I compiled a list of fifty reasons people tend to give for becoming an atheist and I categorized, considered, and addressed every one of them in a series of earlier blog posts.
Eventually, I managed to forage that path and the following is the product of that.
Establishing what is and is not intellectually compromising
First, let us establish what is and is not intellectually compromising.
It is not compromising to question a claim.
It is not compromising to come up with and consider possibilities with no present grounding in sound replicable research.
It is not compromising to hope for a given possibility.
It is not compromising to be and remain uncertain so long as there are many possible explanations for something.
It is not compromising to not care to know some information. You are not obligated to learn as much as you can about everything.
It is compromising to start making claims about or using the information you do not care to know about.
It is compromising to just believe a claim without question.
It is compromising to refuse to question a claim.
It is compromising to hope for an impossibility.
It is compromising to treat or speak of a given possibility as though it were more supported than it actually is.
It is compromising to reject conclusions based on sound replicable research.
It is compromising to equate proof of one thing with proof of another.
It is compromising to suggest a given position is the correct position for everyone when the position is rooted in logical fallacy.
Having established this list, and please add to or challenge the list in the comments, let’s see if it is even possible to become a Christian without intellectual compromise.
In order to accomplish this we are going to follow a hypothetical person, let's name them Sam, on their quest to go from the outside of Christianity to the inside of Christianity.
As far as motivation is concerned, remember Sam is not intellectually obligated to learn about Christianity. So let's say that Sam is looking for something to bring them some hope where life otherwise feels hopeless, and they have heard that Christianity has some hope to offer. So they have chosen to look into it.
Apart from motivating factors, since we are starting on the outside of Christianity, we are assuming Sam does not have any other starting knowledge or experiences that would make them view Christianity as anything special.
So far, Sam has not compromised because there is nothing intellectually compromising about holding out hope for a given possibility.
Sam starts to read the Bible
So, our hypothetical person, Sam, is looking to go from outside of Christianity to the inside of Christianity without intellectual compromise.
What better place to start than to read the Bible?
Remember, for Sam, who is outside of Christianity looking in, the Bible is nothing more than a book that makes claims about God, the human condition, and history. Sam is under no obligation to think of the Bible as anything more than that.
Sam is not obligated to revere the text in any way.
Sam can consider all of the possibilities pertaining to the nature of the book.
Sam can consider that the book may be full of lies.
Sam can consider that the book may be full of truths.
Sam can consider that the book may be a mix of truths and lies.
Sam can consider that the book may be filled with errors or misunderstandings on behalf of the authors.
There is nothing obligating Sam to believe that the authors are anything more than humans making observations, assumptions, or reading meaning into situations where there may be none.
There is nothing obligating Sam to only consider or assume any one set of possibilities.
As Sam reads, it would be intellectually compromising to simply assume everything they are reading is true, so they don’t assume any of it is true.
Additionally, it would be intellectually compromising to simply assume everything they are reading is false.
However, they would be intellectually compromised to deem anything which is impossible as anything other than false.
This is a bit tricky because at first glance the Bible seems to be quite full of impossibilities. However, Sam recognizes that this book is positing the possibility that there is an almighty creator God at work in history.
If you recall the list of things we deemed “not compromising”, There is nothing intellectually compromising about considering a possibility even if it has no groundings in research. That is called hypothesizing.
With the limited knowledge Sam has, they cannot necessarily determine if an almighty creator God would be an impossibility.
Within the context of an almighty God, the otherwise impossible claims of the Bible may be possible.
However, this does not mean the claims are true nor does it mean that the claims of the Bible make sense in the context of such a God.
How Sam processes Bible stories
Sam is reading the Bible in search of a God worth hoping for.
Remember, at this point, Sam is under no obligation to believe the Bible is actually Holy in any way; Sam is not obligated to revere the Bible in any way.
Sam has no reason to assume a God even exists at this point.
Additionally, Sam is under no obligation to bend over backward to support the assumption that each being claiming to be God from one story to the next is actually God or even the same being.
So, there is nothing wrong with Sam coming to the conclusion that the being claiming to be God in Genesis 19 is not the almighty benevolent God they are looking for.
Sam reaches this conclusion for the following reasons.
The angels going to the city saved Lot for supposedly being a righteous man despite being willing to sacrifice the lives of his daughters before being willing to sacrifice his own life, and in an effort to save two strangers nonetheless.
Also, the being claiming to be God chooses to destroy the city in a way that unnecessarily kills Lot’s wife and leads to incest.
On behalf of the being claiming to be God in this instance, this suggests both a lack of control over destructive power and a lack of foresight.
These things, among others, indicate to Sam that the being claiming to be God in this story is actually a different higher power claiming to be God.
Sam is also under no obligation to assume the story is true.
So there is also nothing wrong with Sam assuming this story is purely fictional.
This does not mean Sam is closing themselves off from new information which might shed new light on this story.
However, it would be intellectually compromising for Sam to proceed under the assumption that such information exists lest Sam ignores every potential indication of falsehood in the stories of the Bible or any other claimed holy book.
This is the way Sam processes this story and others like it.
How Sam processes the Bible as a whole
Sam continues to read the rest of the Bible and ends up with mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, the macro narrative of the Bible being the tail of a creator god trying to reconcile a broken relationship with his creation, on the surface, looks appealing.
On the other hand, though some of the authors claim the god is almighty, the micro details seem to imply a god lacking in knowledge, as demonstrated by the being’s need to ask questions, test, and send angels to check cities.
Lacking in control, as demonstrated by the unnecessary collateral when god destroys cities or floods the earth instead of just offing select people.
Lacking in foresight, as demonstrated by a seeming disregard for the consequences of not moving the rock that caused the arc to almost fall only to be saved by a man who immediately dies as a result, Sara turning to salt and the incest that follows, and the consequences of permitting angelic beings the ability to interbreed with humans.
Lacking benevolence, as demonstrated by ways God treats humans which would be considered abusive by Sam’s standards.
And lacking presence, as demonstrated by God's need to send messenger angels across time and space in order to deliver information when God could have just materialized a parchment with the information on it in front of the person, gifting them with literacy so they could read it if they otherwise could not.
Remember, Sam is not required to assume the being in the Bible is God and therefore they are not required to bend over backward to try to justify its actions or apparent flaws.
Sam is free to use the context clues to determine if they really think the Bible is describing the almighty benevolent God it claims to be describing.
And after reading the Bible, Sam is skeptical, to say the least.
Regardless, Sam is not obligated to expect the Bible to be perfect and recognizes that there could be many different beings claiming to be God throughout the stories.
It might just be that the authors thought all of the beings were the same God or that the authors themselves were playing God.
Sam is free to consider all of these possibilities and more.
So as broken as the text appears to be to Sam at this present moment, there may still be a God that is actually worth hoping for somewhere within the text. So Sam cherry-picks the seemingly good from the seemingly bad as Sam is totally free to do so.
Future information may prove it is not as broken as it appears, but that information is not relevant until it comes up. Again, lest Sam simply believes any claimed holy text is perfect and true under the assumption that there is an explanation for any indication of the contrary.
Sam considers the qualifications of Christianity
Of the things Sam cherry-picks, they are privy to many of the teachings of Jesus. Sam recognizes that Jesus quotes stories they find problematic, but Sam is not required to assume Jesus fully endorses those stories.
After all, Sam may very well quote the Bible in the future, but that does not mean Sam fully accepts and endorses the Bible.
Sam is also not required to believe the Bible when it makes claims about what Jesus said and did.
In terms of qualifications to be a Christian as laid out in the Bible. Sam can only find two that seem definitive, but they seem initially problematic.
In Mark 16: 16, Jesus says to believe in Him and be Baptized to be saved, later he seems to imply that he will handle the baptism part, thus Sam is only expected to believe. This seems problematic because Sam cannot claim to know if any of the claims about Jesus are true.
However, Sam decides to dig a bit deeper here and looks up the word “Believe” in Strong’s concordance, an authority on word studies in biblical literature. Here Sam learns that, biblically speaking, belief has nothing to do with knowledge or absolute certainty. Belief is a matter of putting trust or confidence in something or someone.
With this knowledge, Sam realizes that if Jesus truly is this almighty benevolent God, Sam may be able to trust that Jesus would establish whatever sort of relationship he wants with them, so long as Sam remains open and receptive to such a relationship.
If trust in Jesus is all that is required to qualify as a Christian, then Sam believes they could qualify if they wanted to.
So Sam is able to conclude that they could become a Christian without intellectual compromise.
The difference between Sam and I
I never managed to get that path to the destination I intended. There came a point where I thought the only major difference between Sam and me was my experiences with God throughout my life. I felt those experiences warranted my fundamentalism and level of confidence.
Though the following reality would soon dawn on me.
Apart from perhaps Jesus, I believe humanity is limited in our capacity to comprehend things; either by limited memory space in our brains, or the limits of time such that we are likely to die before we learn all that we can. Additionally, I believe all of humanity, apart from Jesus, is morally flawed.
If presented with a claim that a being or given text is morally perfect, the most I could do to verify this claim is compare its morality with my potentially flawed morality. If its morality deviates from mine, given my limits and flaws, it may be difficult for me to determine if it's an indicator that this being or text is not morally perfect or an indicator that my morals are flawed.
In order to determine if a higher power trying to enlighten me is the good God, in order to determine if any spirit trying to guide me is the good Holy Spirit, and in order for me to determine if the Bible is inspired by the good God, I will need to depend upon my inability to determine what is good and bad.
Therefore, I cannot simply lean upon the moral guidance of any text or being claiming to be or be from the good God. Because I would need to lean upon my inability to know what is good and bad to determine if these things are or are from the good God.
Similarly, my ability to verify a being's claim that they are almighty. If I were to ask for them to demonstrate their almighty nature the most they could do is perform some extreme feat of power that is still limited enough for me to perceive and comprehend. Thus, though I can conclude the being is incredibly powerful, I cannot, due to my limits, verify if a being is almighty.
I cannot get away from leaning upon my limits and flaws. Therefore, the most I can do is exercise my flawed ability to determine what is or is from God, improving it and regularly reevaluating any conclusions I arrive at or positions I take. To fail to regularly reevaluate my conclusions and positions is to ignore the reality of my limits and flaws, making an idol of my own ability to determine what is or is from God.
When the full weight of this realization fell upon me it became clear that despite all of my studies, all of my knowledge, and all of my experiences with the supernatural, I was Sam. I am Sam. Sam, I am.
Being a Christian of intellectual integrity (recap and conclusion)
As a limited human, I don’t think I am equipped to know if another being is unlimited, I can only verify up to the limits of my ability to comprehend.
Thus I don’t think I am equipped to know if an almighty God exists seeing that I would struggle to tell the difference between God and a limited yet still powerful reality-warping, mind-reading, future seer.
However, I recognize the possibility that a God may exist and hope that possibility is true under certain circumstances.
I do not revere the Bible in the way most people think a Christian should.
I recognize the Bible as a book that makes fascinating and oftentimes valuable claims about God, the human condition, and history.
I also recognize that the Bible is not immune to being used to create widespread suffering and hate even if that suffering and hate is disingenuous towards the actual text.
I recognize that I cannot know to what extent God endorses the Bible.
However, I know that the Bible identifies God as being the essence of goodness and truth. While I cannot know if that is the case, it is an idea I can get behind.
I can not know if the God the Bible describes is the same God in every story, or if there are some stories describing a limited yet still powerful reality warping, mind reading, future seer who isn’t God, or if the authors are just playing God and taking creative liberties. Nor can I know if any claimed encounter with God is an encounter with the God who is the essence of Goodness and truth.
I have no perfect way to seek God.
So the only thing it seems I can do is to imperfectly seek after truth and goodness while at the same time sharpening my ability to do so. If there is a God and God really is the essence of goodness and truth, then in seeking goodness and truth, I seek God. If God is not the essence of truth and goodness, perhaps they aren't worth seeking.
In addition to this, while I cannot know the actual mechanics of salvation and judgment, it is claimed that Jesus said we need only believe in Him and be baptized to be saved.
Where this would be an intellectually compromising thing to do given a modern understanding of the phrase “to believe” to be synonymous with the word “to know”, a word study shows that in the context of the Bible, the word “believe” means to place trust or confidence in.
So I can say that I am open and receptive to a relationship with Jesus, and if Jesus is God, I trust Jesus will make of my receptiveness whatever relationship He should choose to have with me.
This is the most I can do without intellectual compromise. I think I qualify as a Christian and I choose to identify as a Christian because otherwise, Christianity seems to be a standard that can only be achieved by lying to myself or making an idol of my abilities to discern what is or is from a benevolent almighty God in so far as I can tell.
In the end, I feel this journey has contributed greatly to my spiritual growth. My Christianity and relationship with God have never felt more authentic and mature. My Christian practice is not as easy as it once was as now it requires a lot more effort on my part to grow ethically and intellectually given that I now recognize that I am not equipped to blindly trust. My choices to trust must be well-informed and regularly tested and reevaluated. As taxing as this journey can be, I have never felt more secure in my spirituality and free from the chains of fear.
I have run this past several people, atheists and theists. Most feedback has been positive. However, I am always looking for additional feedback. So if you have any, please reach out. I look forward to the conversations.
