“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” —Romans 1:22
Skeptical questions of the Christian faith such as, “If it turned out that Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin, would it destroy your faith?” are completely ridiculous questions. They are questions that don’t need to be asked, so why ask them? The purpose of such questions is not for an honest answer, but to isolate a particular detail of the Christian faith in hopes that it can lead the answerer to doubt other details of the Christian faith. In other words, if a skeptic can lead you to doubt a part of Christianity, then, in time, he can possibly lead you to doubt the whole of Christianity (i.e. divide and conquer). It is no different than what the higher critics do with the Bible.
For example, someone could ask “If it turned out that the color of an orange really wasn’t orange, would it cause you to no longer call that fruit an orange? An orange, by definition is orange, so by replacing what it is with what it is not is an absurd proposition. For an orange not be orange would mean that it ceases to be an orange, but then it was never an orange to begin with—but they think because it can change that they have made some progress in causing you to doubt.
Another example could be if someone asked, “If Australia turned out to be a figment of cartographers’ imagination through the centuries, would you no longer believe that Australia exists?” Correct. Because what I had been believing all these years would have been a lie. But, if it was a lie, than I have no business believing it. But, because I changed my mind from believing a lie to believing a truth, they think that they can put Christianity into the same category, but that is erroneous because Christianity is absolutely true regardless of what we believe.
A third example is if someone asked, “If God turned out to be semi-powerful as opposed to all-powerful, would you lose your faith in God?” My answer would be “the semi-powerful god is not God, because God, by definition, is all-powerful according to the Bible. I would never lose faith in the God of the Bible and would never have faith in a semi-powerful god. To call God anything but all-powerful is to redefine reality and that is a reality that doesn’t exist in my mind.” When a skeptic asks a question like that, reality and their reason part company inside their brain.
A fourth example would be if someone asked, “If it turned out that two plus two equaled five, would it cause you to lose your faith in mathematics?” My answer would be, “I would never believe in a mathematics that didn’t have two plus two equaled four.” Mathematics, by definition, is a logical system of reasoning that works in the real world. Any “mathematics” that didn’t work in the real world I would never believe in. How could I believe in something that doesn’t exist? The skeptic is trying to make you, as a Christian, to doubt your Christian faith that is based on reality, but he is doing it by making himself look like a fool because he wants to redefine terms and recreate a world that doesn’t exist. The skeptic, at that point, would do well to consult his elves, tooth fairies and hobgoblins for advice. I don’t have patience for such nonsense.
All of these examples are ridiculous questions that cause a Christian to doubt the whole of Christianity by using as a starting point a particular tenant of Christianity. They try to separate a detail from the whole, but reality doesn’t work like that. Faith—real faith— isn’t put into something that doesn’t make sense. Faith is put into something that makes sense enough and trusting God for the rest that you don’t understand. Faith believes the whole because of the specifics. They aren’t two separate realities; specifics and “the big picture” are only one reality. An orange is an orange because it is orange. Australia exists because it is there. Two plus two equals four because it does! It could never equal anything else! God is all powerful because that is who God is.
To ask these questions is to “beg the question”. In other words, skeptics assume that God could be semi-powerful (not all-powerful) or Jesus was conceived as any other child is (not born of a virgin). However, Jesus, by definition, is virgin-born. If he wasn’t, then he is not Jesus! Can someone draw a triangle with only two sides? How many right angles does a circle have? Questions like that are ridiculous.
Anyone who asks those kinds of skeptical and feigned-intellectual questions shows their naked arrogance and foolishness to the world. Faith isn’t based on a world of make-believe. It really is grounded in reality, unlike these skeptical questions. What the skeptic should understand is that he can’t just pour any definition into any word, concept or truth. He does have the right line of attack, though. He knows that if he can make people doubt the specifics, the whole will come crashing down. What he doesn’t realize is that Christianity is strong—impenetrable—because of the details that are just as strong.
It’s funny that skeptics/philosophers/university professors are looked up to by regular people on the street. Why? Because they ask a bunch of stupid questions that make no sense in the real world? They pretend to uphold reality, but by asking questions like these, they are out to create their own reality. How is that to be considered “smart” “intellectual” or worthy of admiration? Skeptics who ask these questions should be locked away in a padded cell so they won’t hurt themselves or others with their non-logic.
“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.” —1 Corinthians 3:18-20
“For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”— 1 Corinthians 1:19
