In a recent online discussion, I was asked the question “What difference is there between a Christian brain and an atheist brain?“

Some background would probably be in order to fully understand the source of the questions. The claim was made by someone, who has rejected God, that the universe is a vast, cold, sparse place. I pushed back a little with a paraphrase of a quote from Richard Dawkins: if the universe is amoral, purposeless, blind, pitiless and indifferent – what is the source of morality, purpose, sight, pity and love?

The discussion continued to include a quote from CS Lewis which exposed the absurdity of naturalism

Another claim was made that humans are the source of morality, purpose, sight, pity and love. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get my group of interlocutors to understand that humanity’s ability to discern truth was the focus of Lewis’s quote – IF NATURALISM IS TRUE as all of them were claiming. So, if naturalism were true, and humans were the source, they could not trust their discernment of this knowledge, and they persisted with the conjecture that since there is morality, purpose, sight, pity and love today that nature must have done it (via humans) although no evidence or demonstrations were forthcoming…just wild assertions. Leaving alone the fact that they still just assumed the universe formerly had no morality, purpose, sight, pity and love but with the accidental emergence of humans, suddenly morality, purpose, sight, pity and love unexpectedly sprang into existence.

And then the question from the beginning of the article: “What difference is there between a Christian brain and an atheist brain?”

While incredibly friendly and incredibly tall, the Tall Friendly Atheist Dad does not understand the process of worldview analysis. Eli Ayala from Revealed Apologetics does a great job explaining the process in this debate although Eli’s interlocutor never does get it either. To properly critique another person’s worldview, you must assume their worldview to point out the internal contradictions. In this case there are two internal contradictions for those who reject God:

• The universe is amoral, purposeless, blind, pitiless, & indifferent BUT part of the universe inexplicably exhibits morality, purpose, sight, pity and love
• If the human brain is simply a product of chemical forces acting on accidentally accumulated particles, there’s no reason to trust thoughts, BUT thoughts are trusted

So, when the Tall Friendly Atheist Dad asks his question, we must ask that question from the Christian presupposition to see if there are contradictions, and then we must ask the question from the naturalist presupposition to see if naturalist presuppositions can rationally support the question. The following table is with Christian presuppositions:

Christian Brain	(Professing) Atheist Brain
Knowledge of God is innate (Romans 1). Because God has revealed some of His knowledge, the Christian has a pathway to certainty	Knowledge of God is innate (Romans 1). While the atheist can know things (even though they reject the Source), they cannot justify knowledge
Brains created by God for his glory (Gen 1:27, Ps 100:1). Brains would be expected to generally function as intended.	Brains created by God for his glory (Gen 1:27, Ps 100:1). Those who suppress the knowledge of God seek their own glory & are subject to futile thinking
Brains, while designed for knowledge of God & discovering the universe, have been affected by the fall & are in a suboptimal state until the restoration (Isa 11)	Brains that suppress God’s truth are subject to futile and darkened thinking. If damaged, one could recognize it as broken since no objective standard exists by which to compare
Brains that begin with the fear of the Lord have a foundation for wisdom and knowledge	Brains that reject God have no sufficient justification for knowledge

You can see from the above table, that there is no internal contradiction for those who presuppose God. Rational thought is viable, and those who reject God will have no pathway to justified true beliefs. The following table takes into account the assumptions of the professing atheist and/or naturalist in attempting to answer the question from above:

Christian Brain	Naturalist Brain
Over time particles coalesced & came alive. As selection pressures increased & complexity of neurons increased, brains formed. Brains developed the ability to reason, love, & comprehend	Over time particles coalesced & came alive. As selection pressures increased & complexity of neurons increased, brains formed. Brains developed the ability to reason, love, & comprehend
Chemical reactions in the brain determined the belief that there is a God	Chemical reactions in the brain determined the belief that there is no God
At BEST, only provisional knowledge possible since some future discovery could overturn current foundation of knowledge	At BEST, only provisional knowledge possible since some future discovery could overturn current foundation of knowledge

The argument that Lewis made has been misconstrued as “Atheists can’t do things like know things, drive a car, do math, or love people because they believe their brain is just a collection of particles. But this is ridiculous because we atheists do all of that.” It’s not that Christians are smart and atheists are dumb. Lewis wasn’t saying that.

This is NOT the substance of the argument. The argument rather is that since we can know things, drive cars, do math, and love people – that it is incongruent to believe that minds are just a collection of particles. Rather than questioning their assumptions about the unobserved past or the inability to recreate/observe consciousness emerging from particles, they instead just wildly assert that rationality MUST have simply appeared because we observe rationality today.

The key to remember in these discussions is: which worldview (collection of presuppositions) provides sufficient justification for knowledge, love, information, reasoning…everything? As shown above, the presuppositions that deny God are woefully deficient in justification. The only worldview that can sufficiently (and exclusively) do this is Christianity since the Creator, who knows everything and is eternally faithful, revealed Himself through what He made, through the Bible, and through his incarnation.