Are your beliefs in harmony with reality? Christianity and atheism offer radically different perspectives on life. They are mutually exclusive views, delivering opposite conclusions about the meaning of life and our existence as humans.

Several years ago there was a debate held at Arizona State University. Its participants were philosopher William Lane Craig and Douglas Jesseph, a professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University. The debate’s topic was “Does God Exist?” The two men argued back and forth for almost ninety minutes. The crowd seemed to be evenly divided, and neither of the debaters held an upper hand until one of the final questions was posed. A student stepped up to a microphone and asked, “Can each of you tell us what difference your worldview makes to you in your own personal lives?”

Does God Exist?

Dr. Craig said that as a philosopher (with two Ph.D.s), he had searched in vain for meaning, for hope, and found it only when he finally came to believe in Jesus Christ. He said that Jesus changed his mind, his heart, and his marriage. “I came to know joy for the first time,” he said. “I can’t help but want to share the wonder of Jesus Christ whenever I am welcomed to give reason for the hope within me. I just can’t keep him to myself.”

All eyes were on Professor Jesseph after Bill Craig’s compelling response. He said, thoughtfully, that if he had to share his hope with someone, he wouldn’t have much to say. “I’d probably just go home, put on the Grateful Dead, and play chess with my computer.”

Author Kelly Kullberg was attending the debate, and she said that after Professor Jesseph made his remarks, there was dead silence. Then several students gasped, as they understood, perhaps for the first time, that there is a connection between what one believes and the actual living of life.

These students had never thought through their worldview and how it leads to certain conclusions about life. They realized that their atheistic beliefs could neither account for what they saw in the world nor what they saw in themselves.

The connection between beliefs and living life

I think it’s worth repeating: “Christianity and atheism offer radically different perspectives on life.” The one that is true will be the one that is consistent with what you see in the real world. The one which is false will simply not be in harmony with reality.

This is what C. S. Lewis observed. As an atheist he was greatly bothered by the contradictions that he saw in life. He said, “My life is full of contradictions…I was at this time living like so many atheists, in a world of contradictions.”

Lewis realized that, as an atheist, he did not believe in a moral law. He could not believe in one because it did not exist. Yet he was appalled by what he saw in the world and what he saw in himself. He saw that the world seemed to be so cruel and unjust, yet he could not understand from where his idea of justice and injustice came.

You see, once Lewis became a theist and later a Christian, he quickly became aware of an absolute moral law which had been handed down to us by the God of the Bible, and in the process, he realized that evil was no longer a meaningless word, but it was a stark reality in life.