If you’re questioning or investigating the claims of Christianity to try to determine if they’re true,  I applaud you.  Regardless of whether you’re a Christian who is wondering whether you can really believe what you have professed to be true, a skeptic wondering if your doubts about Christianity will hold up to scrutiny, or simply a curious agnostic considering the evidence, I commend you for conducting this search.

I was once a professing Christian who had serious doubts about Christianity, and then later, I was an admitted skeptic who was never quite able to shake off the belief that some of the claims of Christianity could not easily be dismissed.  By the grace of God, I’m now a convinced believer.  But having gone through a long journey of skepticism for several years, I can identify, to some extent, with others who are still on that journey.

I’d like to share a few observations and resources that helped me on my journey, and that you may also find useful.

First, I would encourage you to make sure that when considering Christianity, you’re really considering the core aspects of the gospel message.  It’s important to distinguish between the gospel message and the Bible, and not to dismiss Christianity based on discrepancies or supposed errors that you find in biblical accounts.  Why is this important?  I think that too often, skeptics think that they have disproved Christianity if they can demonstrate the presence of errors in the Bible.  And too often, Christians who come from a fundamentalistic background decide to abandon Christianity if they encounter errors or discrepancies in the Bible that they cannot explain away.  But this is the wrong way to proceed, because the truth of Christianity does not ultimately depend on the inerrancy of the Bible; it depends on the character of God and the revelation of Jesus Christ.  At some point in your search, it will be important to come to terms with the Bible and its authority, but at the outset of your search, I would encourage you to begin at a different starting point by considering the person and claims of Jesus.  Even if you prove to your satisfaction that the Bible does contain errors and discrepancies, that doesn’t necessarily disprove the claims of Jesus; you have to come to terms with these claims if you are going to give Christianity a fair examination.

Second, I would encourage you to try to make sure that you read the best defenses of the Christian point of view, along with the best skeptical arguments against the Bible and Christianity.  Don’t dismiss Christian truth claims based on shallow arguments; make sure that you’re reading the most intelligent defenses of whatever positions you’re examining.

Third, I would encourage you to adopt a position of humility as you continue your search.  Be honest about your own presuppositions and motivations, as well as the sources of your questions or doubts.  If you are a Christian, pray to God throughout your process of searching for answers to your questions.  And if you’re not a Christian, you should still pray for guidance in your search as soon as you become convinced that there might be a God.  After all, if the Bible is correct, you will not be able to find God on your own; God will have to open your heart and break through the barrier of sin that has kept you from seeing God.

Fourth, I would give you the same encouragement that Tim Keller gives to seekers: continue your search in the context of community.  When I was disconnected from Christian community, and seeking God primarily on my own, many of the Christian truth claims seemed difficult to accept.  It was only in the context of a Christian community that some of the Bible’s statements about God that had seemed offensive took on a new shape.  It was only through dialogue with other Christians that I began to develop longings for God and a sorrow for sin that I had not had before.  If you are largely disconnected from a Christian community, the chances are very high that Christian truth claims will not seem plausible to you, because many of these claims seem to be at odds with our sense of justice and fairness.  If you consider these claims as abstract arguments, you will likely find no reason to accept them.  However, through dialogue with thoughtful Christians, you may find that you begin to look at these arguments in a new way.

Finally, I would encourage you to read the Bible, not simply to decide whether or not it’s true, but in order to find out what the Bible tells us about God.  Each time you read a chapter of the Bible, ask yourself the question: What does this passage tell me about God?  And what does it tell me about myself and the world I live in?  If you regularly read the Bible with those questions in mind, I think that God may use his word to remove your doubts and open your eyes to a real knowledge of him.  In my own case, I read the Bible regularly for years, but I read with the wrong questions in mind.  When I finally started reading the Bible in order to get to know God, I soon acquired a much greater respect for the Bible than I had had before.  It certainly helped to study the Bible in dialogue with thoughtful Christians; without their help, I may never have come to a new respect for the Bible’s message and authority.  But it was also helpful to simply read the Bible devotionally, with a new sincere desire to know God.

 

Books for the Journey

I found these books especially helpful as I was searching to figure out whether Christianity was true:

Timothy Keller, The Reason for God – This is now my favorite work of Christian apologetics.  It’s an introductory text, so it doesn’t answer every possible skeptical objection, but it does a great job of giving sympathetic, thoughtful responses to the questions that skeptics most commonly ask.  I highly recommend it.

Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God – This is not an apologetic work per se, but I found it very useful in helping me to understand the heart of the gospel and my need for grace.  If you’ve grown up in a Christian church and have a lot of doubts about Christianity, there is a good chance that you also feel a lack of conviction of personal sin and a lack of longing for God’s grace.  This book may be useful for you.

Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering – Yet another Tim Keller book!  This book addresses a question that I think is close to the heart of most skeptical objections to Christianity – the question of how we can believe in God in a world of so much evil, pain, and suffering.  I read this book after I had come to a saving faith in Christ, but I still found it faith-building.

N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense – This is a thoughtful overview of the Christian message. It’s not a work of apologetics per se, but it may offer skeptics a reason to believe.

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God – Perhaps the most scholarly treatment of the resurrection in existence, this book is not for the faint of heart, but if you want to be persuaded that Jesus really did rise from the dead, you probably couldn’t ask for a better source.

N. T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God – What is God doing about evil in the world? This short book offers an encouraging, biblically grounded response to that question.

N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope – Wright continues his examination of themes that he developed in Evil and the Justice of God in this insightful examination of God’s plan for the renewal of creation.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity – One of the classic defenses of the faith from one of the most popular Christian apologists of the twentieth century.

C. S. Lewis, Miracles – During my foray into skepticism, the idea of miracles was never a philosophical problem for me, probably partly because of the arguments presented in this book.  If you’re struggling with this issue, you may find some useful insight from Lewis.

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain – Lewis’s answer to the problem of evil and suffering.

William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics – A comprehensive overview of some classic arguments of Christian apologetics, from the thoughtful perspective of a Christian philosopher.

Philip Yancey – Rumors of Another World – Yancey’s unconventional apologetic points to our deepest longings as signs that maybe we are the creation of a God who has designed us for something better than life in our current sinful world.