Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)

2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Byl, John: Világnézetek háborúja: a keresztyénség és kihívói.

Byl, John

War of the Worldviews: Christianity and its

CHALLENGERS'

R

ecently there has been much vocal opposition to Christianity. I would like to briefly describe two main worldview challengers to Christianity, examine their underlying worldview presuppositions, and make a case for defending the Christian worldview.

The prime current challenge comes from naturalism. Naturalism claims that the only valid knowledge comes from science, which supposedly can explain everything in terms of purely natural causes. Religious belief in the supernatural is thus dismissed as irrational. A prominent spokesman for this is the British biologist Richard Dawkins, who has recendy written The God Delusion (2006). Earlier, Dawkins had asserted:

(religious) faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.1 2

A recent opinion poll in Great Britain indicated that 43% of the public agreed with this assertion. Both the US and the European Union have banned the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. This means that what may be taught regarding origins is limited not just to evolution but to purposeless evolution, without any reference to God.

A second important challenge comes from post-modernity, with its belief that there are no absolute truths but only human constructions. This is described by Steve Bruce in his book God Is Dead: Secularisation in the West (2002). I lere, too, God has been deemed to have no place in society.

As a result of these two challengers, Christianity has been marginalized. Many people act as if God is dead. The notion that God is dead or a delusion, as the above books suggest, is not new. More than a century ago the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) wrote:

1 Lecture delivered on September 17, 2009 at the Reformed Theological Seminary, Sárospatak, Hungary.

2 Dawkins, Richard: “Is science a religion?”, The Humanist 57, 1997/1.

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