Barker Case Study: Moral Neutrality & Rejection of God

When the Christian engage in evangelism and apologetics, the Christian must not forget that the nonbeliever is neither intellectually nor morally neutral towards God and Christianity. In fact, he is in moral and spiritual rebellion towards God. In Cornelius Van Til's words, he is not a covenant keeper but a covenant breaker (Endnote 1). This rebellion also has a direct influence in the nonbeliever's rejection and being against Christianity. According to the Bible, his mind has actually become hostile towards God because of his evil deeds. The Apostle Paul explained that even believers were once hostile before they knew God:

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[a] your evil behavior." (Colossians 1:21)

In light of what God reveals in this verse, it is amazing how some Christians can assume that the nonbelievers can be neutral towards God in any fashion. Note how the verse claim that prior to knowing Christ in the natural non-Christian state,

1. The nonbeliever is alienated from God
2. He/she is an enemy of God
3. A nonbeliever's mind is against God
4. All the above claims (1-3) are so, because of the nonbeliever's evil behavior

Yet there are those who insist on doing apologetics by assuming and accepting the myth of the "open minded" skeptic (Endnote 2). That is clearly unbiblical and must be pointed out to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, yet in a manner that lives up to Christian love (Endnote 3).

Given the above four conditions concerning the non-Christian from Colossians 1:21, the purpose of this writing is to drive the point home that the nonbeliever's inability to be morally neutral toward God (or to be more frank, his spiritual and moral rebellion) has a direct bearing and influence in what he can and can not accept about Christianity. There is more than just the intellectual aspect involved. This holds true whether the nonbeliever or the witnessing believer acknowledges it or not.

To summarize this in a sentence: Just because a Christian can logically demonstrate in an intellectual way the truthfulness of Christianity, it does not necessarily follow that the nonbeliever will then accept Christianity.

As a case study, we can review a debate between the popular atheist Dan Barker and Christian apologist Dr. Robert A. Morey. During the radio debate, the atheist Dan Barker stated that,

"If the God of the Bible exist, and I would be forced to accept it, and I would accept it rationally, I still might choose not to spend eternality with that blood thirsty tyrant (Endnote 4)"

Note that given the hypothetical possibility that Christianity is true, Dan Barker is still in a state of rebellion against God. To put it in his own words, God is not someone who should be revered and respected but is labeled nonchalantly by him as a “blood thirsty tyrant?who Barker somehow have the right and moral ground to choose not to spend eternality with.

Barker's rebelliousness gets more overt when he calls God a 'bully' a few seconds later:

"There is no God, but if there is a God, and He is the God of the Bible, then I would feel rationally justified, I would still be obligated not to worship, not to respect that bully..."

Note the rebellious attitude of Barker from the Biblical perspective, where instead of God being the ultimate final judge with man "in the dock" so to speak, the role is reversed. Barker somehow thinks that he has the right to appoint himself as the ultimate judge of God (deciding whether God is worth being worship) instead. This is similar to the sin of Eve that was committed during the Garden of Eden, as Cornelius Van Til describes it,

"Eve was compelled to assume the equal ultimacy of the minds of God, of the devil, and of herself. And this surely excluded the exclusive ultimacy of God. This therefore was a denial of God's absoluteness epistemologically. Thus neutrality was based upon negation. Neutrality is negation (Endnote 5)"

As Colossians 1:21 has shown earlier, the mind of the nonbeliever is hostile and an enemy against God. Yet, it is not only the mind that is against God because the Word of God also reveals that his will and the desire are affected by sin. Consequently, an unbeliever's will and desire are also against God:

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." (John 3:19-20)

If one understands the verse above, one should not be surprised when Barker gives the following statement about his will, which affirms what the Scripture predicts:

"Well, if I am going to be sent to hell then I would go willingly."

What it boils down to is not intellect or rationality, but Barker's sin and the nonbeliever's spiritual rebellion against God. Nonbelievers such as Barker simply do not want Christ as their Lord and Savior, or God's presence in Heaven as he goes on to state:

"I would not want to go up to heaven."

It is thus important for believers in any apologetics dialogue or evangelism conversation to inform the non-Christian of the nonbeliever's transgression against God. The sinner needs to be told of how he is a lawbreaker and deserves the wrath of God. They are not morally neutral but spiritually and morally in rebellion against God, which leads them to suppress the truth about God. Unless one surrenders their life to Jesus as Lord and Savior, one's soul would perish and all their intellectual effort becomes meaningless as well. Only Jesus is the answer that can save men's soul and rationality.

--Jimmy Li

Endnotes

1. Van Til, Cornelius. The Protestant Docrine of Scripture, In Defense of the Fath, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967), 4, 37.
2. Young, Ed. "An Appeal to an Open-Minded Skeptic" CRI JOURNAL. October-December 1998. Christian Research Institute.
3. Wait, Erik. "The Myth of the Open-Minded Skeptic." Erik Wait personal website. http://www.erikwait.com/index.cgi?location=2&action=display_one&story_id=183 (accessed August 2, 2007)
4. Audio for the debate is available for purchase at http://shop.faithdefenders.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=389
5. As quoted from Bahnsen, Greg. Van Til's Apologetics, ((Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1967), 152.