Does God Believe in Atheists

by John Blanchard, Sinclair B. Ferguson (Foreword by)

Does God Believe in Atheists [hardcover] John Blanchard [Jul 01, 2000]

Genres: Theology, Christian, Religion, Philosophy, Atheism, Nonfiction, Christian Non Fiction

655 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Dr. John Blanchard is an internationally known Christian preacher, teacher, apologist and author. He has written 30 books, including two of Britain's most widely used evangelistic presentations, Right With God and the booklet Ultimate Questions. The latter has over fourteen million copies in print in about 60 languages.

Reviews

[Michael K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very impressive work and very much worth it to read! Showing numerous flaws of the Atheist. Many, if not all, discount any thought of an Intelligent Designer with respect to the universe, the earth, or the creation of man. Which, sadly, is the worldview that they hold; however, if, which many of them are, as scientists will reach for the stars (so-to-say) in order to prove their point in order to skirt around any kind of intelligent thoughtfulness to create anything such as the universe, man's genetic make-up, etc. Which, of course, flies in the face of "Occham's Razor." "Ockham's Razor" was the posited problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. (Or more succinctly, to make the fewest possible assumptions.) This should be a reference book in every Christian home in order to aid in the teaching of apologetics of why we believe what we believe, based upon the evidence that is available to us.

[Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is without doubt the best treatment of world views, philosophies, religions, scientific claims on origins and reality and Christian apologetics that I have ever read! I wish I had had such a book when I was reading Scholastic Philosophy as part of my theological degree over 36 years ago ... I may have done a wee bit better in the year-end examinations!

John Blanchard is one of my favourite Christian authors. He is an excellent apologist for the Christian faith and writes in a very clear, intelligent and well-reasoned style.

I commend this book to everyone ... sceptic, agnostic, atheist, believer, non-believer and Christian ... I will be strangely surprised if you are violently opposed to the reasoned argumentation herein.

A truly 5-star read! Planning to read the update version next year!

[Eric Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Blanchard gives us a masterful, thorough, detailed analysis of atheistic and agnostic thinking from the Greeks to moderns. Analyzed the various philosophies. Evolution and Darwin. Determinism, existentialism, secular humanism.
World religions, cults. Why science and religion are not enemies. Issue of suffering and a God of love. An absolutely astounding reference work.

[Tucker]

In 2011, I found a 1-hour audio tape with this title. It appeared to be the author's summary of the book, delivered as a lecture in a church at which he was selling his book. I considered it a super-abridged audiobook version, and thus I logged it here as part of my 2011 reading, especially as I spent a few hours considering its arguments. On the other hand, because the brief lecture was clearly not equivalent to the full 650-page print version, I didn't leave a starred rating here so as not to affect the book's average starred rating either positively or negatively. I knew enough about the book's arguments (via the author's own recorded lecture with the same title) to write some sentences picking arguments with it, but on the other hand, I did not think it would be meaningful or fair for me to assign the book a numerical value on a scale of 1 to 5. My thoughts didn't reduce to a numerical value, especially if that rating would be understood to refer to a longer version I hadn't read.

My written response to the audio summary was here for ten years. It seemed a reasonable place for me to house it, since I was writing about the book (albeit an abridged audio version). However, ten years later, people are still commenting here with their disagreement about that choice. Arguing in 2022 about whether I should have argued with a cassette tape in 2011 is an argument that drives me bananas. (Speaking of the banana argument, that reminds me of Ray Comfort, which reminds me that Comfort wrote a book with a similar title, God Doesn't Believe in Atheists, which I read in 2009.)

To avoid the meta-argument about whether I should argue with a cassette tape, as I feel the need neither to participate in nor win the meta-argument, I have moved my essay to my blog. If it interests you, you may read my comments about the audiocassette of Does God Believe in Atheists? on Dead Men Blogging, and you may also leave comments on that blog.

[Gavin Felgate · Rating 5 out of 5]

While Christianity is a major world religion, there have been many atheistic forms of thinking that go back many centuries (even more so than I thought), from the thinkings of ancient philosophers to Friederich Nietzche.

This book provides a history of these views, as well as explaining the differences between different religions (both major ones and cults) from traditional Christianity. Not surprisingly, the works of Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins are mentioned a lot in the book (particularly the latter).

In the second half of the book, writer John Blanchard examines all of the problems with these alternate views of thinking, effectively using his own Biblical, scientific and historical knowledge to debunk all other theories. For example, he mentions how Dawkins sees people as just a random collection of atoms and molecules, but Blanchard sets out what the probability of this even happening is, and shows how unlikely and absurd this is, as well as explaining one of the problems with not believing in a creator is that the universe could not have appeared from nothing, so there must have been something before it existed.

This book is very long, and feels quite difficult to begin with, but as a Christian I found it immensely enjoyable; it feels painstakingly researched, and I found it to be a good way to reinforce my own beliefs by explaining why the author believes the clains of the Bible to be true.

This is definitely worth reading for anyone religious or interested in the subject of theology.

[Julian Onions · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full of half-truths and well poisoning. Some really bad arguments about some of the science. Some parts are not too bad, but judging on the bits I know about I'm not even sure about those.
I'm not usually someone who gives bad reviews to anything, but this book just made me crosser and crosser as I read it. To pick out the evolution of humans based on Nebraska man, Piltdown man and misquotes about Peking man is really dishonest. There are 20 or more other hominids that could be looked at that are ignored, and instead the couple of well publicised mistakes are cherry picked and claimed as the sole evidence.

Grrr!

[Glyn Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

What more can I say than, it's John Blanchard.

In his classic style, John dispels all arguments that anybody could have against Christianity. From dealing with the life to the deepest truth found only in Scripture, John's arguments in this book should quieten the mouth of any self-claimed Atheist.

Every Christian should read this book at least once in their life, if not a few times. And anyone who is wanting to go into any kind of apologetics ministry, this is a must go-to resource.

[Bart Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a light read but it's an excellent book of Christian apologetics.

[Richard Amery · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book when it was first published, as the late author, John Blachard was a member of my church and selling it on special offer. It has taken me a long time to pluck up the courage to read it, and at nearly 600 pages plus notes it's probably not for the faint hearted! I'm glad I did, however, as there's much helpful and thought provoking information contained within its covers. Topics range from Greek philosophy, modern cults, Evolution, Cosmopology, Existentialism, DNA and fosils to name but a few. And with its handy indexes of subject matter and names, it doubles as a useful reference book as well. Some chapters are inevitably easier for the layman to read than others. Blanchard was not an expert on everything covered here, of course, but he gives credit to a number of those who are, and who have helped him to present the subject matter as accurately as possible.
After this books publication the author brought out a number of slimmer and more accessible books covering many of the same themes. For those daunted by the size and scope of this volume, I would suggest one or two of the following: 'Evolution: Fact or Fiction?', 'Has Science got rid of God?' and 'Does Atheism Make Sense?'

[MKO · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t even say how many years it took me to read this. Many. Fits and starts and small doses. In the bathtub and on quiet Sunday mornings. There were parts I liked and parts that irked as I looked to rebuild from the rubble. And a million post-its.

(pg. 211) “Nothing so tends to mask the face of God as religion. It can be a substitute for God himself.”
(pg. 262) “there will always be mystery at the end of the universe.”

(pg. 265) Voltaire: “I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that a universe proves a God.”

(pg. 557) My favorite lines of the whole book (it could have started and stopped there):
“His name is Jesus…He presents an enormous problem for the atheist.”

[Frank Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book provides an extensive argument against atheism. The majority of the book is well researched and there are numerous excellent arguments for theism, as well as for Christianity. But, in spite of the good points, I cannot say that I like the book. This is because the book is also filled with a number of very poor arguments as well as inconsistencies. Even though the proportion of bad arguments is small, since the book is long these inconsistencies add up.

The books introduction implies that the book is written to a wide audience including atheists. However, this is really not the case. Rather the book is written to a small proportion of evangelical Christians. None of the arguments (even the good ones) will be convincing to any atheist, because the way they are written they will only irritate those who disagree. I found myself (as a follower of Jesus) arguing at times for the atheist position, since I could see where they were being falsely represented.

The book also isolates numerous evangelical Christians by creating some demarcation lines that I do not believe are useful or valuable. For example, early on the in book after doing a masterful philosophical argument for theism, Blanchard writes off any Christian who believes that God created through any form of evolution (or progressive creation). The case against this view was made so superficially and quickly that I thought I had turned two pages. I actually went back a page to make sure that I had not done so. Then, near the end of the book Blanchard writes off any Christian who believes the universe is ancient. In both cases he does this with no argument, but simply implies that these other views are wrong, stupid and unbiblical. I am not impressed.

As a result, I cannot really recommend the book to very many people. Atheists will be angry if they try to read it. Young Earth Creationists will likely love it, but it will only make them think their view is stronger than it is. Other Christians will (like me) end up being irritated. Even then, I would recommend the book to thoughtful Christians who would be able to distinguish between good and bad arguments. There is so much excellent material in the book, that it would be a shame to throw away the 90%+ due to the other weaknesses of the book.

[Greg Collver · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is not written in a way that will convince any critical thinkers. It has just enough lies, dishonesty, distortion and half truths to keep the faithful from experiencing any of the joys of critical thinking. Read real science books instead.

[Matthew Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too long and repetitive but one of the most thoroughly-researched looks at the various arguments for the truth of Christianity. The thing I did feel was missing, though, was a good coverage of the creation / earth-age issue, which is a fairly important ongoing debate.

[Wes Bredenhof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stuff in this book, but not a consistently presuppositiona/Reformed approach to apologetics. Moreover, there are a lot of facts/details in this book and some of them are wrong. Readers need to check Blanchard's facts before quoting them.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great volume that covers the age of the skeptics up to now. What a read!

[Josiah Geddert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book showed great promise, but boiled down to anti-atheist propaganda. Many of his arguments can be picked apart with a bit of critical thinking, and I was left feeling wholly unsatisfied.

[Jeff]

A very in depth look at Christianity and at the main objections against it.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview of the hisotical philosophical debate between atheism and theism

[Kingsley Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book for any apologetist.