Is There Value in Debating Atheists?

KEVIN HARRIS: One of our chapter directors wrote “Why Debating Atheists Can Yield a Return Which Would Justify the Effort.” This is a response to Dr. Ryan Burge of the Gospel Coalition that Jeremy takes issue with. It is a March article, “Should We Bother Debating Atheists?” on the Gospel Coalition’s website.^[1] Dr. Burge argues that the answer to this is “no.” He thinks that doing so does not result in a good return on the time that we invest in it, especially when we are trying to fulfill the Great Commision and get some things done. He starts the article talking about some of the debates on Internet message boards and some of the stats that show 9-in-10 atheists claim to never darken the door of a church and 95% of them say that religion is not important in their lives at all. That drops down a little bit with agnostics; they are a little more interested – they attend church a little more often (not too much more often). But then it gets to the nones, which are identified as “nones” – nothing in particular. And he says they seem to be a little more open to the Gospel and we ought to really be concentrating our efforts on them.

DR. CRAIG: Well, I think it's really important to understand Dr. Burge's definition of what a debate is. When I first saw the headline I thought, “Wow, he must think that these public debates that I engage in are not worth the effort” which I am absolutely convinced would be mistaken. The debates have a profound effect upon people in making them more open to the Gospel. All you have to do is read the testimonial page of our Reasonable Faith website to see example after example of this. But it's pretty clear that that's not what Dr. Burge is talking about. He's not talking about public debates. He's talking about debates on Internet message boards. Now, these aren't proper debates in my mind, but these are the sort of tit-for-tat back and forth kinds of interactions that you might have, say, on a Facebook page with an unbeliever. And he's claiming that these people are so closed-minded that it's not worth the effort to interact with them. Now, I want to talk about that with you today but at least I think it is important to see that he's not writing off the importance of public debates such as the ones that I have engaged in over the years.

KEVIN HARRIS: Yes. He says that Dr. Burge, while affirming that we should always be ready to offer defense for the hope within us (and the article did say that), that while affirming the importance of fulfilling the Great Commission, Dr. Burge says it

also makes sense to devote attention to an audience that is more receptive to the message. While debating an atheist might be an intellectually stimulating exercise, there’s little evidence that atheists are receptive to changing their views of God.

Another thing, as I went to the original article there, he really doesn't cite a study that shows that; it's more anecdotal. He may be right, but again the thoughts on just that as far as fulfilling the Great Commission and fishing where there are fish rather than fishing where there are no fish in the pond.

DR. CRAIG: I do agree that we ought to try to focus on people who are open and searching and therefore apt to respond to the Gospel. I think that Burge is making a good point in that respect. But the Great Commission and Christ's love for all persons requires us to go to the atheists and agnostics who are closed-minded and unresponsive. If we love them we cannot ignore them. We have to go to them and share the Gospel with them and try to explain to them that their reasons for rejecting the Gospel just aren't very good. Notice that what Burge says in the comment you just read: “While debating an atheist might be an intellectually stimulating exercise,” he begins. Now, I don't think Dr. Burge should play down the importance or the value of that kind of intellectual stimulation. The fact is that there can be great personal benefits to engaging in this kind of interaction with unbelievers regardless of whether they're responsive or not. It helps you to learn to articulate and defend your faith more cogently, more effectively, and more clearly. So there are great personal benefits in the intellectually stimulating exercise of interacting with unbelievers on these sorts of issues.

KEVIN HARRIS: Sure. And I know that you were probably thinking this (and Jeremy points it out as well, and again I've noticed) – in the same way in your public debates, there are those listeners who will see it from now on on YouTube and so on. Whenever some of these debates with atheists occur on websites and Reddit and things like that, there are lurkers, there are people who are on the fence, there are “nones” who are looking in on these things.

DR. CRAIG: Absolutely. Jeremy is spot on when he says, “I see no reason at all to think that the only goal one has in debating atheists is to see them change their views of God.” When you think of all of the people who will read that Facebook post or that message board, the one person with whom you're interacting is a tiny minority compared to the hundreds and thousands of people that will watch that interaction. That's why it's so important that in interacting with these non-believers that we are gracious and loving and civil and not get defensive, not get angry, or resort to name calling or things of that sort. Because, as you say, there are people who are silently watching this, and many of them will include these “nones” that can be won over when they see the impotence of the atheist to refute the arguments and evidence we give and they see our loving and charitable attitude toward an unbeliever. That’s an oversight on Dr. Burge's part.

KEVIN HARRIS: And as you mentioned earlier, most atheists are a lot more theologically and philosophically sophisticated than a lot of the “nones” who are out there who don't know the arguments and things. And so these interactions can engage the best of the arguments against a theistic or Christian position, and so there's so much value to it. But as long as we keep in mind what's going on and what you just said. I mean sometimes you want to throw something through the computer screen, but you have to be patient.

DR. CRAIG: Oh, I know it. I tell you, sometimes I read these insulting things that people say to me, and I want to respond in a caustic way but I can't because this is the very person that I'm trying to reach! You would like to just blow him off, but that would defeat the purpose of trying to reach this person for whom Christ died. So we have to control ourselves when we interact with them. That's another benefit of engaging in this exercise. It's not just intellectually stimulating, but it's also character-building, I think, in us. I want to read Jeremy's last paragraph of his blog because I think it's so good. He says,

Ironically, Dr. Burge in depreciating the value of debating atheists may be undermining one of the most effective means by which we can reach those who he thinks we should be trying to reach – that is the person watching in the audience or on the message boards and forums who we personally may never engage directly but who through the providence of God may come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by hearing a robust defense of the faith in the context of a debate with an atheist..

Amen, Jeremy.

KEVIN HARRIS: Wow. That's great. In conclusion, another thing occurs to me, and I don't think we've mentioned this in a long time – I think we've addressed it in the podcast in the past – but Dr. Burge, charitably, is distinguishing between what individuals do and what the church does perhaps. If he is talking about tailoring your church programming to reach the “nones,” then that would be a better enterprise rather than tailoring events at church that just go after the few atheists in town. I've asked you before if you think churches should host these Christian and atheist debates in the church. Some people say “no” on this. They say keep that on the campuses because what you're going to do is you're going to bring someone in who's going to say some really harsh things in the church. Yet I do know a lot of churches that do invite atheists to come in and dialogue or debate in their church auditorium. Thoughts?

DR. CRAIG: I followed my teacher Norman Geisler's advice in this respect. Dr. Geisler said that he would never advise churches to hold these kinds of public debates because in these debates there is no guarantee at all that the Christian is going to win. I've seen so many debates where the Christian just gets demolished by the non-Christian. I saw one like this with Peter Singer out at Biola University some years ago where it was just an embarrassment how Singer handed his lunch to the Christian debater. So I think that these sorts of events are best held on secular university campuses where you have a neutral playing field and where, if the Christian should not do well, you will not be creating undue crises or doubts in the minds of naive laymen who might be attending such an event if it were held in a local church.

KEVIN HARRIS: We can conclude with this paragraph from Jeremy. He says,

However, I see no reason at all to think that the only goal one has in debating atheists is to see them change their views of God. Christians like Dr. William Lane Craig have often pointed out the debates with atheists especially those which take place on university campuses are undertaken not to change the views of the atheist interlocutor but to evangelize those in the audience who are there to watch the debate [and certainly on YouTube later and Vimeo and everywhere]. Certainly one hopes the atheist will change their view, but debating an atheist can be done for other reasons, and this is what Dr. Burge seems to not fully appreciate.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I think Jeremy is quite right about that. And that goes not only for these public debates that we’ve been talking about but also for these individual interactions on message boards and Facebook and things like that as we’ve explained.^[2]