“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you…” 1 Peter 3:15
“Whoever is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30a)
Because God is our Creator, because Christ is our Savior, and because as Christians we are new creations by the Holy Spirit, our worldview is dominated by God. There is no reason to budge even an inch from this.
If we were to do so, not only would we be betraying God but we would also be destroying the foundation for rationality, ethics, and science.
We dare never take a neutralist position or think, “Well, he has his beliefs and I have mine.” The Christian worldview dominates and will depose all others. Many have tried to stand up to God and do it their own way, but such a position will always lead to ruin.
A fierce antithesis exists between those who follow God and those that have rebelled.
The antithesis appeared in the Garden of Eden. Everything God had created was very good, but Adam and Eve wanted to be like God and rebelled. Ever since that fall into sin the natural inclination of man is to stop up his ears and run away from the voice of the Lord.
Although God promised to send His Son, there would always be an antithesis between the devil and Christ, the Seed of the woman (see Genesis, chapter 3).
In the first family, we see Cain’s hatred leading to the murder of his brother Abel. We see it again when the great wickedness of the world brought such sorrow to God that only one righteous man and his family were spared from the great flood.
Years later as the children of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, God warned them not to intermarry with the heathen because to do so would surely lead them away from the true God and to their own destruction (Deuteronomy 7:4,6).
When the time had fully come, God sent His Son to repair the gap between God and men. Throughout Jesus’ life we see the antithesis intensify. Herod tried to have Jesus killed. There were many cases of demonic possession. The Jewish leaders’ hatred of Jesus culminated with His crucifixion.
The final antithesis will be on Judgment Day. Those who have called upon the true God will be ushered into paradise. All who have rejected God—even though they knew God and were blessed by His care—will finally get the separation for which they asked—namely, Hell.
As we are called to defend God’s Word, we must always be aware of this antithesis. Even though the unbeliever will deny God with his mouth, he cannot help being God’s creature and living in His creation. In his heart-of-hearts he knows that God exists, yet he will try to suppress this knowledge (Romans 1:18).
God has made His existence clearly known (Romans 1:19-20), and when God gets the point across, HE GETS THE POINT ACROSS. There is no valid excuse for unbelief.
So in our Christian witnessing we will not only be aware of the antithesis, but we must capitalize on it as well.
Confront the unbeliever with his inconsistencies. Show him that if he were true to his worldview, he would destroy rationality, ethics, and science. The point must be made that if a person has any success in any area of study, it can be possible only in the Christian worldview.
The proof of the Christian worldview is that without it, you couldn’t prove anything.
(The apologetic method and organization for these articles is taken from the book Pushing the Antithesis: The Apologetic Methodology of Greg L. Bahnsen, American Vision, Powder Springs, Georgia, 2007.)