I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Frank Turek & Norman Geisler | Book Review

I review & discuss the Christian apologetics book 'I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist' written by Frank Turek & Norman Geisler, first published in 2004.

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[frankhujsa]

I recently read this book as well and am still considering its points. Thank you for a thoughtful and sincere review. I have three thoughts.

First, you have argued that extraordinary claims (specifically the resurrection of Jesus) ought to be supported by extraordinary evidence and that historical evidence is insufficient. What kind of extraordinary evidence would meet this standard? I’m not disagreeing with your point, just curious as to what you have in mind.

Second, you have brought up the authors characterization of the Big Bang as the beginning of everything, from nothing. You argued that this was incorrect on their part, and that the Big Bang should be more correctly regarded as the earliest knowable time. I regard this point as one of the strongest in the book. The Big Bang is currently regarded as a gravitational singularity, a point of infinite density and temperature at a finite point in time. No matter how one reduces it, the point is that there is a beginning: if the singularity was not the beginning then something happened prior to the singularity so on and so on until we get to the beginning. This point is ultimately insoluble. Either the universe as we know it came from nothing or it came from something. Arguing that it came from nothing is, well, tough. And requires quite a lot of faith.

This leads to my third thought, stemming from the “God of the Gaps” problem. I am glad that you mentioned this, because this is the couch of intellectually lazy theists. In the case of the arguments presented in this book, I do not think it is as easily dismissed.

The authors are not primarily asserting that God must exist as an explanation for that which lacks explanation (although they veer in this direction many times). Instead, the authors are arguing that Atheists often apply an inverse God of the Gaps logic, proceeding from an a-theistic bias. Where a natural cause is not known, the authors argue that atheists often manufacture one that conforms to their biases.

I think that this is an excellent point. The authors main objective is to show that atheism is a faith-based religion. Where knowledge is incomplete, it might be wrong to posit “God” as the answer, but it is equally difficult to posit “Not God”. Theists solve the gap with God; atheists solve the gap with science or something else. But moving from that gap to “Not God” requires a leap of faith.

Somewhere in the text, the authors ask this question: “If there is no God, why is there anything instead of nothing?” This is a maddeningly interesting question.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book but agree with many of your points. In addition, I think that the section about the anthropic principle is essentially a waste of ink and that the anthropic argument in general is a waste of time. I agree that the arguments set forth in the book about the historicity of the Bible are good. There are definitely strong arguments and weak ones in this book.

However, the strong points are really strong. Maybe even stronger than they were treated in the book. The implications of a universe with a finite past and applying the same God of the Gaps test to atheists as atheists apply to theists are thought-provoking.

Cheers.

[pash_]

I got this book from my father after I “gently shared my doubts of Jesus as a God” (because I am not going to get into an argument on this).

The first TWO pages was all it took for me to realize Frank was a waste of my time. My passion is etymology.

The “unity” and “diversity” equals “university” is so bad a cursory Google can disprove it.

(If you’re curious: university comes from universe. Which in turn comes from “universum” which is a combination of “Uni” and “vertere.” A simplification, but it’s the basic through-line).

[beethbachmoz]

Please tell me the back of that shirt reads “Hitchslap!”

[orthodoxchristianchants]

Hitchens was terrible, well as a philosopher, however, he was a good rhetorican. But c'mon bro lol.

Please could you review any book by Paul Tyson, Conor Cunningham, John Milbank or David Bentley Hart? Frank has some decent stuff, but he's limited due to him being an American Evangelical, low-hanging fruit, honestly.

Thanks.

[patrickburns]

The Bible says in the beginning that there was God...nothing was before Him and creation came after him...the atheistic and or scientific theories cannot start before God...it's impossible because something cannot come from nothing.