Apologetics 4: Addressing Common Objections to Christianity

This article is a part of a series on sharing Christianity with atheists and agnostics. For other articles please see:
1. General Guidelines for Evangelism and Apologetics
2. Three Arguments for Theism in General
3. Four Arguments for Christianity as the Correct/True Religion
4. Addressing Common Objections to Christianity (this article)
5. Suggested Further Resources

As you share your faith with those who aren’t yet following Jesus, you will hear a number of reasons why people think Christianity isn’t true or appealing. Many people I’ve spoken with bring up similar points. In this article, I will address some of the most common objections and misunderstandings that secular Westerners often bring up.

**More sections will be added to this article over time. Please let me know if there is a specific topic or argument you’d like me to address.**

A. Christian Immorality and Hypocrisy

A very common complaint against Christianity is the immorality of Christians. This is tragic, and can produce real emotional pain and contempt towards Christianity.

There are a number of responses a Christian can offer in response.

First, empathize. Those who have been wounded by the Church need to see the goodness and kindness of God more than just being presented counter-argumentation.

Second, acknowledge that they are right to point out that such behavior is not compatible with Christianity. There are a number of Scriptures you could share with them, including:

– James 2: “Faith without works is dead.” (The concept is strongly present throughout James 2, but might need a bit of unpacking.)

– Titus 1:16: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.“

– Luke 6:46: “Why do you call Me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say?”

– 2 Timothy 3:1-5: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.“

– 1 John 4:20: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

Third, point out that a claim to an identity is not proof of that identity. This is a common sense argument, but one that people often don’t apply to Christians. Apply this for them, if needed.

An example that I have often given is this: If I show up to an Atheist Alliance club meeting at UGA, and I introduce myself by saying, “My name is Thomas, and I’m an atheist, and I love Jesus and want to spend my life serving Him. Can I talk with you about how He’s changed my life?”, then the atheists at that meeting would be correct to say that regardless of how I label myself an atheist, my other words and actions prove that label false.

Similarly, if someone calls themselves “Christian”…

Fourth, you can gently explain that the moral authority and truthfulness of Christianity is entirely dependent on the moral character and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and Him alone. All other people, including people who sincerely are trying to follow Jesus’ commands, will at times fail to live up to the lofty moral standards of the New Testament. You can point them to 1 John 1:8-10: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Fifth, you can gently share about how Jesus commanded His people to be forgiving people. (IE, Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Matthew 18:21-35). Unforgiveness isn’t an option that Jesus allows His followers. When people have “church hurt”, they often think that not forgiving the Christians that sinned against them is justified… Jesus would disagree with that. In light of God’s infinite forgiveness of us, we never can justify holding grudges against other people.

Sixth, you can respond in one of two ways with pain: You can either take your pain and hurt and run from God, or you can take that pain and hurt and run towards God. It can be helpful, if you’re talking to someone who has suffered spiritual abuse to gently ask them why they would run away from God, the only Person who can bring healing to their soul and redemption to their suffering?

B. Science as the Only Means of Discerning and Discovering Truth

There is much that can be said and written on how Science and Christianity actually give support to, rather than conflict with, one another.

However, there are many people who try to appeal to a view called scientism, which claims that only through the scientific method can truth be ascertained. This is a necessarily false claim… The claim, that all truth comes from science, is a truth-claim that doesn’t arrive from scientific study! There can be no experiment or scientific inquiry, following the scientific method, that would prove that truth alone comes from science. Thus, if scientism (science alone gives truth) is true, it is necessarily untrue. This view is self-contradictory and logically impossible.

A better way to understand science is a way to apply logic and observation to the natural world, in a way that lets people better understand and predict the natural world. But it is, of course, not the only way that people learn truth.

History is not provable by science. The study of history doesn’t seek to replicate the Civil War in a laboratory to prove that the Civil War happened. Certainly, history and science can and often do coincide, but they remain separate fields of human understanding and inquiry.

Morality is not determined by science. Science could give evidence for what is likely to happen if one moral agent acts in a certain way towards another moral agent. (To make up an example: “in 97% of cases where a spouse discovered their partner was committing adultery, that spouse reported a decrease in their marital satisfaction.”) This is a large part of the social sciences. But this just points out what behaviors most commonly lead to human prospering or suffering, not why human prospering or suffering is inherently good or bad.

The scientific method is necessarily constrained to the physical universe, to the natural order. It cannot prove or disprove the supernatural order.

A helpful way to phrase this interplay between science and other fields of human knowledge and understanding is to point out the different ways of communicating truth.

“There are many sorts of questions that simply do not fall under the domain of science. Borrowing an example from the Rev. John Polkinghorne, there is more than one answer to the question of “Why is the water boiling in the tea kettle?” The scientific answer might be “the water is boiling because at this temperature it undergoes a phase transition from liquid to vapor.” Another acceptable, though nonscientific, answer is “the water is boiling because I put the kettle on the stove.” A third answer might be “the water is boiling because my prayer partner is coming over for tea.” None of the answers is wrong; rather, each gives a different perspective on the question. The scientific answer does not tell the whole story. Science cannot answer questions like “Is my friend trustworthy?” or “Is this poem well-written?” Science is tremendously successful in understanding the physical world, but we should not let that tempt us to think it can be used to understand everything in life.”

(Quote taken from excellent article: https://biologos.org/common-questions/are-science-and-christianity-at-war)

C. Multiverse Theory as a Solution to the Fine Tuning Argument/Theistic Creation

Multiverse Theory is a theory that has gained significant traction in the past 50 years. Briefly put, multiverse theory hypothesizes the existence of many (generally an infinite number) other universes, and our universe is simply one of the universes in existence, not the totality of existence. Thus, the precise mathematics needed to produce a livable universe are not seen as necessitating a Creator.

There is actually mathematical theory and physics that support this view. But, I want to be quick to point out that this doesn’t counter a Christian understanding of God’s role as Creator. “Ex nihilo nihilo fit”: Out of nothing, nothing comes. If there is a plethora of universes, or only one, the question remains, why? What caused that universe to exist? Why does the universe, or multiverse, exist? Why something, rather than nothing?

I would gently and lovingly point out that, given the other rationales and arguments for Christianity discussed here, it is significantly more “blind faith” to believe in atheistic multiverse theory as a solution to the problem of existence than to believe in an intelligent Creator.

D. Total Skepticism, the View that You Necessarily Cannot Know Anything, is Useless

If there is no foundation for any knowledge to be built from, then there is no way to proceed. IE, if you doubt that even simple logic can and should be trusted to be necessarily true, then you have no way to proceed into any functional knowledge or understanding. Moreso, it should be immediately apparent that using logic to prove that logic is unreliable is self-defeating.

Moreover, nobody functionally believes this. Nobody would question stepping out of the way of an oncoming car, because you are unable to truly be certain if the car exists or not, nor would anyone refuse to walk because gravity cannot be absolutely certain to be true. We CANNOT live out a belief that total skepticism is justified. If someone appeals to total skepticism, challenge this belief, ask them what they mean by that, ask them how they apply that worldview, what things do they think of as more or less trustworthy, etc, and proceed from there. Note, since NOBODY lives this out in their daily life, ask them why they demand a more steep burden of proof (needing completely conclusive evidence, etc) to faith than to other complex beliefs in their life (moral beliefs, beliefs about how to spend money, or where to work, or how we can trust science, etc.)

E. Christianity as a Means to Power/Control?

This view is simply ignorant of world (and church) history. The Church did eventually acquire vast geopolitical power and influence, and it did use and misuse that power throughout world history. But before any of that happened, Christianity spent centuries being despised and persecuted. To be Christian was to sign up for worldly difficulty and insignificance, not the opposite.

So, that clearly wasn’t the starting goal or reason to perpetuate Christian belief and doctrine. That doesn’t explain how Christianity gained so much traction over the first 400 years of its existence.

F. Concerning Hell

Along with the Problem of Evil, this is one of the most common and persuasive arguments against Christianity, at least in the minds of many people. This could either be concerning the goodness of God towards people with no Gospel witness (“Why is your God only historically kind to white Europeans?”, etc) or towards moral people who were not Christians (“My grandma was the best person I’ve ever known and she was non-religious, how could God be just giving her and Hitler the same treatment?”, etc).

There are a lot of different responses to this question. Significantly, I would urge seeking gentleness and empathy in the midst of truth here. While yes, we could provide argumentation that Hell is ultimately just, and that any sinner escaping what their sin merits is an undeserved mercy, that can (and generally does) come off as somewhat heartless.

Instead, I would point out a key truth: The New and Old Testament make it clear that judgment isn’t the same for everyone.

Scripture teaches there are two primary judgments everyone will go through. First, to determine whether or not you are “in or out”, a sheep or a goat, whether or not your name is in the Lamb’s Book of Life. That is the first judgment.

The second judgment is to determine what will be your “reward”. For those who are to receive the just judgment of their lives and sins, their lives are judged to determine the extent to which they will be punished. For those who have grace through faith in Jesus, their lives are judged to determine the extent to which they will be rewarded.

This concept is underemphasized in some presentations of Christianity. For Scriptures on this, please consider (my emphasis added):

Revelations 20:11-15: “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from His presence, and there was no place for them. ¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.“

Matthew 16:27: “For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done.”

Matthew 25:21: ““His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’“

1 Corinthians 3:8, 10-15: “The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.” … 10 “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹²If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”

2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.“

Romans 14:10: “You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”

Luke 10:10-12: “But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ¹¹‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ ¹²I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.”

Luke 12:46-48: “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. ⁴⁷“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

Revelation 22:12: ““Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.“

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And we can rightly point out that the person who judges everyone’s life is the kindest, most loving, and most just being in existence. Jesus is the judge. We can trust Him to do the most right and most just and most good thing.

The doctrines of Hell and divine judgment are offensive. It is offensive to be told that you are not “good enough”, regardless of how good you try to be. And to rightly represent the Gospel, Christians need to lean into making sure to communicate this uncomfortable truth.

At the same time, we ought to make sure that we are communicating that all of the judgments of God are just.

Conclusion

There are many objections that people can bring to oppose Christianity as true. In this article, I hope to have provided a Christian response to some of the most common objections.

Additionally, pastorally let me say: I hope your goal isn’t to win an argument. I hope your goal is be with people as they truly wrestle with the “big questions” of life. Because Christianity is true, Christianity gives the correct answer to those “big questions”. But more than just needing questions answered, many people need to “taste and see” that God is good.

TR Hartley

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Apologetics 5: Suggested Further Resources for Apologetics