The incoherent arguments against Christianity

When a doctrine is false, its opponents naturally focus their attacks on its identified weaknesses. It is interesting to note that criticisms of Christianity are often inconsistent, and bring forth many contradictory arguments.

For example, some say that religion was invented to reassure men in their mortality, but at the same time the Church is criticized for having invented hell to frighten the faithful, which is contradictory. Similarly, Christians beliefs are criticised on the one hand for having an irrational vision and on the other for having too much confidence in reason; for being too reassuring while being too frightening; for being both moralising and immoral; for being too permissive and also too rigorous; of being fundamentalist, but too far removed from Scripture; of being nationalist and the enemy of nations; of distracting people from reality while interfering in public life; of being both too credulous and too critical; and so on.

Paradoxically, such inconsistencies in all the criticisms levelled at the Church, might be a proof of its credibility. If there were a major weakness in the Christian worldview, it would have given rise to strong and consistent criticism, but this is clearly not the case.

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Reasons to believe:

Jesus himself described this phenomenon, which was present in his own time: "For John the Baptist came, neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came, eating and drinking, and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" (Lk 7:33-34).

In the 2,000 years of being subjected to contradictory criticism, the Church has always stood firm, while the political regimes and philosophical systems that opposed it collapsed one after the other.

Christianity embraces all knowledge of the natural order (science, philosophy, sociology, etc.), and no true knowledge is excluded from Christian reason; whereas materialistic reason, by rejecting outright the hypothesis of the supernatural, deprives itself of any possibility of understanding the religious dimension and spiritual life.

Many converts can testify that the Christian faith, when lived out authentically, bears no resemblance whatsoever to what they imagined from the outside.

Summary:

When several theories clash, reason naturally judges the most coherent to be the most credible, in three respects: the most coherent in itself (having no logical contradiction); the most coherent with reality (effectively explaining reality); and the most coherent in its demonstration (in its methodology). In all three respects, the Christian religion is often more coherent than the criticisms levelled at it!

Here are a few examples of logical contradictions in the criticisms levelled at Christianity:

Irrational / over-reliance on reason. The most frequent criticism of religion is that it is irrational, a matter of subjective feeling. Except when we talk about first causes (creation) or last ends (the meaning of life): critics argues that these questions cannot be answered by reason - yet the Church, against the prevailing opinion, trusts in the capacity of reason to hold a true discourse even in the metaphysical order.

Too reassuring / too frightening. It is often said that religion was devised by man to reassure himself about death. At the same time, the Church is criticised for manipulating the masses through fear of hell.

Moralising / immoral. The Church is criticised for being guilt-ridden because it reminds people of sin and teaches an objective moral truth. At the same time, people are quick to denounce the evil committed by Catholics, especially priests. Wait, is there an objective evil then?

Too permissive / too rigorous. The Church is criticised for preaching a doctrine that is too difficult and for being too rigorist by not evolving on what is permitted and forbidden, while at the same time she is criticised for her unlimited application of mercy, notably through confession and indulgences.

Fundamentalist / too far removed from Scripture. Because the Church considers certain things based on the authority of Scripture to be unchangeable (marriage, the priesthood, the Eucharist, etc.), the modern world accuses her of fundamentalism. Yet some Protestants accuse her of the opposite: that the Catholic Church has strayed from Scripture because of her attachment to Tradition.

Nationalist / enemy of the nations. Because the Church's social doctrine recognises the existence of nations and their right to endure, some accuse the Church of nationalism; but, historically, the Church has also been persecuted as the "party of the foreigner" when Catholics refused to leave communion with the Pope to join a national Church (England, China, etc.).

Turning people away from reality / meddling in what is none of its business. When the Church invites people to turn towards Heaven, she is accused to distract them from their temporal responsibilities; but when the Church takes a stand on a political or social issue, she is sent back to the "private sphere" and denied the right to act in the public world.

Too credulous / too critical. This is nothing new, when we remember that Christians, now considered gullible, were persecuted in the beginning for being atheists, because they regarded mythologies as mere inventions.

Such criticism often stems from ignorance of what the Christian faith really is. Very often, those who criticise the Christian faithdo not have sufficient knowledge of it. For example, some say that the doctrine of creation is incompatible with science, because "everybody knows" that the world did not come into being in six days as the Bible says. The problem is that most Christians don't actually believe that the world was literally created in six days either. Similarly, some claim that belief in God is simply a stopgap of scientific ignorance; but in reality, for most believers, faith is based not just on reasoning about the origin of the world, but on a whole range of different causes. Similarly, how many of those who criticise the Church's sexual morality have actually studied it? In many respects, the criticisms levelled at the Church simply do not correspond to the Christian way of life; they are not consistent with reality.

Finally, some criticisms of religion (and of Christianity in particular) are inconsistent in their use, because they could be reversed. When we hear people say, "You believe in God because you were brought up that way", or "You believe in God for such and such a psychological reason (notably the fear of death)," do the same people ever wonder whether they themselves are unbelievers because they were brought up that way, or whether they abandoned the faith for some psychological reason (fear of judgement, for example)?

The incoherence of all these faulty criticisms contrasts with the remarkable coherence of Christian doctrine.

Tristan Rivière

Beyond reasons to believe:

Of course, we should not confuse criticism of Christianity and criticism of Christians: like everyone else, Christians have their sins and contradictions. The ecclesial institution and Church leader themselves can make bad decisions and elicit justified criticism. But the Christian doctrine in itself, and its authentic illustration in the lives of the saints, is remarkably coherent.

Going further:

Evidence for Our Faith- Catholic Answers Classics Edition by Joseph Cavanaugh, Catholic Answers Press; Catholic Answers Classics Edition (February 26, 2015)

More information:

Orthodoxy by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 1909 (many recent editions)
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, 1952 (many modern editions)
Faith, Science, and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge by Christopher Baglow, Midwest Theological Forum; 2nd edition (January 1, 2019)
The Case for Catholicism by Trent Horn