If There's a God, Why Are There Atheists? Why Atheists Believe in Unbelief

by R.C. Sproul

Book Overview

A common charge levelled against people with religious beliefs in general, and with Christian convictions in particular, is that their beliefs are motivated not by reasonable evidence but by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0842315659
• ISBN13: 9780842315654
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Does God believe in atheists?

This powerful, yet succinct book, offers an assessment of the faith that isn't really a faith at all, atheism. Sproul looks at the psychology of atheism and its various rationales. He tackles the atheist screeds of various intelletuals from Freud to Marx. Ultimately while athiests contend science and philosophy is on their side, they objections to belief are really not so much rooted in metaphysical arguments but rather in their psychology and mode of thinking. The roots of atheism are rooted in a deep-seated desire to be a free autonomous man and not under the thumb of a personal God who judges. Overall, it's a nifty way of understanding those who believe in no God or disavow the feasibility of a personal relationship with God as deists do.

Very Compelling, despite inadequate book title

R.C. Sproul has written a powerful book that presents a multifaceted case for why people reject God. This book initially came out in 1978, but in many ways, its analysis is still quite pertinent and compelling today. This is a book that has stood the test of time.Before commenting on the book's many positive qualities, I'd like to comment on why I noted a concern about the book title in my review title above. A reasonable person, I think, would look at the title of the book and possibly conclude that the contents would represent a sweeping commentary on the existence of atheists, why God allows it, why God doesn't supposedly make Himself crystal clear, etc. This book does not address these kind of issues. After reading this book, I found the book's subtitle to be much more in line with what the book addresses, "The Surprising Look at the Psychology of Atheism". Therefore, anyone wishing to read this book should understand that it's the subtitle, rather than the title, that really explains what the book will be addressing.Having said all that, once it's made clear that this book is an attempt to focus almost exclusively on the psychology of atheism, I felt that Sproul did an outstanding job of doing this. One of the main purposes of the book, first of all, is to refute the notion that Christians believe in a God of wishful thinking as a crutch-like mechanism, and then to show how atheism's rejection of the Christian God is based much more on wishful thinking and bias than the Christian's position. Within this context, I felt that Sproul's multifaceted examination of the "God question" was simply outstanding. Whether it's the equating of freedom with autonomy, to a fear of God's holiness, to an examination of the thoughts of prominent atheist psychologists and atheologians, Sproul mounts a formidable case against many of the fundamental benchmarks upon which atheism derives. Sproul likewise offers outstanding exegesis of relevant Biblical passages that speak to the very issues that atheists have long opined about. I found much of Sproul's analysis to be even handed and fresh, offering a very unique perspective on the ongoing debate over the existence of God and what motivates human beings either to accept or reject Christianity.In addition to my critique of the title of the book, the one other mini-concern I had about the book was that Sproul could have done a better job in his conclusion of summing up the major arguments he made throughout the book. This book had the potential to produce a very dramatic conclusion, but I found this to be lacking by what I thought was a conclusion that didn't do a good job of wrapping things up and tying the major tenets of the book together. As a result, the reader will have to work harder than they probably should have to in order to draw a comprehensive summary from this book.But in the end, I felt that the material and analysis was simply too good to demote the book below a 5 star rating. His anal

Keep Your Focus

The reason why there are atheists, from the Christian perspective, is that men hate God and what to live a life as their own masters. There is nothing worse than being faced with the real God. Therefore, if we are to have God, natural man will try to dress him up in our image. The book is not meant to address alternative theories and it is not designed to prove that God exists. It exists to turn the tables on the most common objection to Christianity by atheists: it is a crutch. Well, the crutch is on the other side as well. Before evolution, the atheists jumped on spontaneous generation. It was joyous because they no longer had to explain the world without a Creator. Spontaneous generation has long since passed, but the lesson should be learned. Men will leap on anything if they can avoid God.So if we want to debate the existance of God, let's do so...but with the knowledge that bias exists on the atheist side as well.