Common Arguments

All religions are the same. They just present different ways to get to God.

Many world religions do have similarities in their moral laws, but morality is a means to an end. It isn’t the end game. Ask more important questions about who God is, how you satisfy God, the purpose of life, or why morality is important in the first place, and Christianity has completely different answers. Saying that Christianity is the same as, say, Islam due to similarities in their morals law is about like saying that a zebra and a skunk are the same species because they share the same colors. Click here for more.

Christianity is one way among many ways to God.”

Jesus begs to differ: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father but by me” (John 14:6). People travel many roads, but according to the Bible the road to heaven is always through Christ. No exceptions. Accept or reject Christianity, but accept or reject it as it is. It’s pointless to pretend otherwise. If you have a beef with Christianity’s claim to be the exclusive path to heaven, then your beef isn’t with Christians, it’s with Jesus. He claimed exclusivity.

Jesus was a great teacher, but not God.

C.S. Lewis of Oxford famously and definitively answers this with his “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic” argument: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” Christ specifically claimed to be God numerous times (e.g. John 8:58: “…before Abraham was, I AM”, John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”) He accepted worship from others, or when he specifically forgave sins. His hearers knew what he was claiming, which is why they often picked up stones to kill him as a blasphemer. D. James Kennedy distills more about Christ as He is revealed in the Bible: “Christ never withdrew or modified a statement. He never apologized. He never sought advice from anyone. He never asked for prayer for Himself.”

You should not judge.

Christ’s words are often used to say that one person cannot judge the morality of others (e.g. a homosexual). However, if a person judges behavior by the Bible, he is simply restating God’s judgement. Deep down, I think people realize this. A desire to furiously denounce “judgement” indicates a conscience pricked by the specter of an ultimate judge.

I’ll take heaven if I can get it, but if not I’ll hang out in Hell with my buddies.

Think Hell isn’t bad? If what Jesus says is true, Hell is worse than bad. A lot worse. Hell is horrendous, eternal suffering apart from the hand of the person you were created to serve- God. Looking at just one example, the image presented by Christ in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Hell is symbolically described as unquenchable thirst and eternal regret. Not much in the way of “buddy time” there. Hell is serious business.

Hell was a corruption from Paul / the church / monks / etc. Christ is all about peace and love.

Christ certainly is about peace and love, but he’s also about holiness. Jesus Christ is the major source of the church’s doctrines about Hell. He spoke of Hell more than anyone else in the Bible, calling it a place where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”

God helps those who help themselves.

When it comes to salvation, God helps those who cannot help themselves. He helps those who depend on Him for all things. The self-sufficient need not apply. There is a germ of truth in the statement in the sense that God rewards those who are obedient to Him, but even in that case our obedience is that of a helpless patient who does what the Great Physician says in order to get well and stay well.

There are a bunch of mysterious “lost books” of the Bible that were obscured by monks in the Middle Ages.

There are many sub-Biblical books that were rejected for inclusion in the Bible during the early church councils. Most of these were not being used in the churches as authoritative texts anyway. Most were considered helpful, just not inspired. Only a small number of Biblical books were ever seriously debated in the early church before the canon (the current Bible) was settled. In any event, these rejected texts such as the Didache, the epistles of Clement, and Barnabus aren’t “lost.” Ask a church historian.

Jesus’s primary message was helping the poor and loving others.

Jesus’s primary purpose was to glorify his Father (John 17).

Who are you to say what’s true?

I am not the source of truth. Truth is revealed in the Bible. The argument is that Christ, as presented in the Bible, is worth trusting.

How can a loving God send people to eternal hell?

Put simply, the severity of the punishment matches the enormity of the crime! God is loving and holy. For God to be loving (inviting others to enjoy his glory or excellence), he must maintain the integrity of his glory by punishing those who scorn it. God loves his glory with all his power and opposes with all his power those who do not. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but His righteousness demands that every sin receive its just penalty. We do great evil in countless thoughts and deeds every day. Imagine a kindly mother on her child’s graduation day. The mother thinks back to the countless, loving hours spent teaching, correcting, and dealing with all the things mothers do. And finally, the mother is alone with her child that graduation day and says “here we are.” And the response of the child is rear back and slap the mother’s face as hard as possible. “I don’t trust you, hag. Get away from me!” That’s a weak example of the offense we give daily to God, and God is more worthy of trust than every trustworthy person on earth put together. He continually pours His love upon us even though we are unlovable. We breathe His air, eat His food, use His resources, and live the life He has given us. He sent his only Son to die for us unlovable sinners, and He promises us eternal life in His presence, in indescribable glory, if we only believe and trust in Christ. And yet we repay him with unbelief. We don’t live our lives constantly in thanks and gratefulness, ever mindful of his love. We seek things (relationships, money, etc) to find happiness instead of trusting the Source of everything. So do you see? The greater the benefit promised (eternal life and fellowship with God!) and the more revered the maker of the promise, the more outrageous becomes the insult in not believing that promise. To distrust God, to say in effect that what God offers is inferior to our sinful desires, is the greatest possible crime and deserves the greatest possible punishment. The greatest insult that can be paid a person is not to trust that person. c.f. Heb. 10:26-31.