I listened to the Unbelievable? Podcast this week; and to my surprise the atheist guest claimed the status of belief in God is equal to belief in unicorns (or Santa, and Pixies).
Presuppositions
What are we to reply to atheists with such a claim? First, any reasonable atheist would not conclude belief in God is the same as the belief in unicorns. Since such a claim entails the absurd conclusion that the most brilliant Christian philosophers (e.g. Alvin Plantinga) are deluded. Second, for an atheist to claim that two beliefs are equal requires justification. Anything short of justification for a claim is mere arbitrariness. Third, why think belief in God is like the belief in unicorns? Why not think of belief in God is like belief in other minds, the law of contradiction, or the external world?
In fact, to the Christian, belief in God presupposes the creator/creature distinction. God is necessarily: triune, infinite, perfect, omnipotent, omnicient, and omnibenevolent. God created man in His image to be personal, relational, rational, moral, and administerial. Thus man is contingent, finite, limited and dependent upon God for everything. God extends some of His attributes to man. In such a way that God is necessary for knowledge, truth, goodness, and beauty. In other words, man must presuppose God (and borrow from Christianity) to make sense of knowledge, truth, goodness, and beauty.
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