On this particular occasion, April Fool’s Day, the proposition
before them was the proposition: “There is no God”—which became the Christian’s position. The Atheist, of course, contended just the opposite, that God is there.
Going first, the Atheist laid out the Case for Faith, or Reasons
for God, masterfully. He argued with evidence from history, from philosophy and logic, from Nature and the testimony of others whose lives had changed because of their experience of God.
Not to be out done—after all this was a debate he wanted to
win—the Christian then built his case against God with infallible logic. He wanted to trap the Atheist at his own game. He first laid down the gauntlet: “Whatever the Bible says, goes--right?”
“If the Bible says it, that settles it,” said the Atheist, not in a mock tone, but remembering which side of the debate he was on. He was quite confident that if the Christian wanted to use the Bible to stake out his counterclaim that there is no God, let him try. What a fool! No one had successfully used the Bible to say that there is no God; just the opposite has been tried, and the circular reasoning was found wanting by Atheists.
“So if the Bible says there is no God,” the Christian argued, “and since your position believes the Bible, that would end the debate fair and square. You’d have to admit there is no God.”
The Atheist could hardly believe those words were coming out of Christian’s mouth. He’d been wanting to hear that concession speech for some time, and now was the time. So, for argument’s sake and because he’s arguing as a Christian might, the Atheist conceded the premise that if the Bible makes the case against God, so be it. “Okay, tell me, where in the Bible does it say, ‘there is no God.’?” He was still confident, that on this point at least, the Bible was on his side. So he bit and took the bait.
Our Christian, debating as if he were an Atheist and with Scriptures as his weapon of choice, went on to cite the chapter and verse (Psalm 14:1 and 53:1), which says: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.”
Sensing a trick or that he had been played for a fool, our Atheist friend cried foul. “I object. No fair. That doesn’t count. That’s not
the Bible saying it, rather that’s the fool saying it, only quoted in the Bible.”
Wanting to both win the argument and keep the friendship, Christian mercifully conceded the Atheist’s point of objection, and countered with another point that upped the ante. “Okay then, what if we could find someone in higher authority. What if I could show you the prophet Isaiah saying, ‘There is no God’? Would that count?”
“That’s more like it, tell me more,” said the Atheist, sensing this might help his own case. After all, he was arguing for the existence of God, but if he could get Christian’s own top authorities to make the case for him—that ‘there is no God’—so much the better, he figured.
“Furthermore,” said the Christian add fuel to the fire, “this prophet Isaiah is not quoting some fool as saying ‘there is no God,’ but he quotes God himself as saying, ‘there is no God’!”
“Game on. Show me if you can. If God speaks in your Bible, saying ‘there is no God,’ then that settles it. Game over,” our Atheist friend concluded, confident of the outcome. He would win either way, he figured: Either Christian could not prove his case, and the Atheist would win as the better debater, albeit while arguing reasons for God; or, Christian would somehow show God denying his own existence, and somehow our Atheist friend liked the sound of that argument.
At which point, the Christian opens his Bible to Isaiah 44:6, where it says, “This is what the LORD says—I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.” Then, to press the point, he continues, or rather Isaiah continues (in chapter 45:5, 21, 22): “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God…. And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me…. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other [God].”
Badaboom. The Atheist had lost the argument but won a relationship with Christian and with the God who is there. Congratulating his friend, “No objection this time. What do you take me for, an April’s fool?”