Personal Persuasion

How do you answer the following question: “If there are strong arguments in support of Christianity’s actually being true, then why aren’t more people, particularly intelligent, well-educated people, persuaded as to its truth?”
Here is my answer.
It is true that some highly educated people are not persuaded of the truth of historic Christianity. However, many leading intellectuals in the world from various academic and professional fields do embrace historic Christianity as a rational and viable world-and-life view.
Early twentieth century Christian writer G. K. Chesterton makes this comment about those who reject Christianity: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
When it comes to the “ultimate issues of life,” persuasion involves more than exposure to rational arguments typically presented via the public educational system, even higher education. It is important to distinguish between arguments on one hand and personal persuasion on the other.
People come to their beliefs about reality and truth based upon various factors, some rational and some nonrational. A good argument provides reasonable and truthful support for its claim. Just because a person is not persuaded by a given argument doesn’t necessarily mean that the argument is somehow logically defective. Nonrational factors such as ignorance, bias, self-interest, fear, or pride may stand in the way of a person genuinely understanding and feeling the full force of a powerful argument and this being persuaded by it.
A person’s belief-forming faculties are seldom as neutral, detached, and coolly objective as many people – including especially “intellectuals” – would like to think. This predicament of self-interest or egocentricity is shared by all people, regardless of educational level.
The apostle Paul knew about this and shared it with the Romans in his epistle to them:
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”
(Rom.1:18-22 NIV)
“But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat Him like God, refusing to worship Him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.” (Same verses in the Message Bible.)
Persuasion, then, seems to be “person-relative,” and no single argument will likely persuade everyone – especially when it comes to the big issues. And simply because some questions are hotly contested does not mean that all positions on them are equally valid and none superior; so the importance of the biblical argument to put beliefs to the test (1 Thes. 5:21; 1 John 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:16).
It would be fair to say that few people accept or reject Christianity based purely upon rational factors. After all, human beings are far from purely rational creatures. Scripture indicates that a person’s coming to (or conversion to) faith in Christ is never a solely intellectual decision (Acts 13:48; 1 Cor. 12:3). God’s saving grace works in remarkable ways to draw people to Himself (John 6:44, 65).
So in conversation with unbelievers, one might ask why they reject specific Christian truth-claims. Is their unbelief based upon rational or nonrational factors? Instead of a reasonable faith, it may be that unbelievers have, in effect, AN UNREASONABLE LACK OF FAITH.

[Back to Home]