"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord."
Isaiah 55:8
What would you say if I told you that Abraham Lincoln was a beardless, Black man? If I said that Joan of Arc was an 80-year-old Protestant woman killed during the Crusades would you believe me? If I said that George Washington was the King of England would you take my word for it? If you knew anything about history you would easily be able to rebuke me as ill-informed at best or an outright liar at worst. It is a lot like this when it comes to the existence of God and the debate between Christians and atheists. When it comes to the problem of evil, atheists will say things like, "Because evil exists, God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing and loving and good at the same time." On the subject of pain the argument made is "Because God allows pain, disease, and natural disasters to exist, he cannot be all-powerful and also loving and good in the human sense of these words." Regarding the existence of different religions the argument is "Since the Gods of various religions differ widely in their characteristics, only one of these religions, or none can be right about God." There are those that will say "Since God is invisible, and the universe is no different than if he did not exist, it is simpler to assume he does not exist." Christians will look at these statements and then try to formulate answers to refute them. There is nothing wrong with doing that, however, one thing to remember is to never automatically accept the premise of an argument. When you do, you instantly give credibility to it. While these objections to the existence of God are a bit more complicated to refute than my examples above about Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, and George Washington, you get my point. Christian apologist, Frank Turek, said, "Many atheists don't specifically have arguments for a universe without God. What they have are complaints about the way God is running the universe." Think about this for a moment, how easy would it to be to allow the atheist to have their beliefs? I am not saying to concede that what they are saying is true, but to let them know that what they believe about God is not necessarily what you believe or are proclaiming about Him.
The prophet Isaiah confessed that the way he, or mankind, thinks is not the way God thinks. Atheists often think in ways that are not validated by what God states in His word. Where is it written that God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, and good at the same time because evil exists? You cannot know what evil is apart from their being good to measure it against. In fact, Psalm 34:14 says, "Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." Similar to the existence of evil, "Have Christians struggled to explain their belief in God because of the existence of pain in the world?" Pain is the consequence of the Fall and sin entering the world. God told Eve “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor, you will give birth to children (Genesis 3:16)." God is very aware of pain and suffering in this world and told us to expect it. When it comes to the varying beliefs about God held by different religions, the Bible tells us "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints (1 Corinthians 14:33)." God is aware of all the different "characteristics" about Him held by each Christian denomination and religion of the world. Otherwise, the Bible would not have taken the time to affirm that God is not the author of confusion. Regarding Jesus Christ, Colossians 1:15 states quite clearly that, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." God has clearly revealed Himself to all the world to see when He stepped out of Heaven and into His creation as Jesus Christ. For an atheist to say He is invisible is to admit that they have never seen Him. All the complaints about God that atheists use to deny His existence are not rebuttals of the truth about Him but are things they make up in their own mind based on their own experience or what others have said about their unbelief in God. Therefore, they should be atheists because the God they say doesn't exist does not exist. That is a problem they must solve not a Christian. We don't believe in that God either. Remember one thing, if you are in a relationship with somebody others say does not exist is it true they don't exist? Of course not. An atheist would need to have complete and total knowledge to say something does not exist. And if they had total knowledge they would be God and we know that is not the case. Oddly enough, they would be denying themselves.
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