Apologetics / Christian Worldview
Refuting Atheism
A Six-Week Examination of the Christian Worldview
Dr. David V. Lott
Atheism raises serious questions that deserve serious answers. This six-week study does not approach those questions by caricaturing atheists, dismissing scientific explanations, or pretending that every Christian apologetic argument provides an unquestionable proof of God. Instead, it asks a larger comparative question: Which worldview provides the most coherent explanation of reality as we actually experience it?
Beginning with the existence of the universe itself, the study moves through causality, biological information, morality, suffering, and the intelligibility of nature. Each lesson considers both the Christian argument and the strongest reasonable objections to it, allowing the case for Christian theism to develop cumulatively rather than depending upon a single argument. The goal is not merely to defend belief in God, but to show how existence, reason, science, morality, and human experience can be understood within a coherent Christian worldview ultimately centered upon the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
The Six-Week Study
Reality: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
The series begins with the most fundamental question possible: Why does anything exist at all? This lesson examines the distinction between contingent and necessary existence and asks whether the universe can provide the ultimate explanation for its own existence or whether contingent reality points beyond itself toward a necessary foundation.
Download Week 1 — Reality→Causality: Did the Universe Have a Beginning?
Week 2 turns from the existence of reality to the history of the cosmos. The lesson examines the Kalam cosmological argument, modern cosmology, the significance and limitations of Big Bang theory, philosophical questions concerning an infinite past, and what might reasonably be inferred if the universe truly began to exist.
Download Week 2 — Causality→Information and Intentionality: The Signature of a Mind
Living systems contain extraordinary levels of functional organization, with DNA participating in complex systems of information storage, replication, regulation, and biological function. This lesson carefully distinguishes biological information from human language, evolution from abiogenesis, and natural mechanisms from ultimate explanation before asking whether the informational character of life fits naturally within a reality grounded in Mind.
Download Week 3 — Information and Intentionality→Morality: What Makes Good and Evil Real?
The Christian moral argument does not claim that atheists cannot recognize moral truth or live morally admirable lives. Instead, this lesson asks a deeper question: If some things are objectively right or wrong regardless of personal preference or social approval, what grounds that moral reality? The study considers moral realism, evolutionary explanations of moral behavior, the Euthyphro dilemma, human dignity, and the biblical doctrine of the image of God.
Download Week 4 — Morality→Evil: Does Suffering Disprove God?
The existence of suffering presents one of the most serious challenges to Christian theism. Rather than minimizing that challenge, this lesson examines the logical, evidential, and existential problems of evil; distinguishes moral evil from natural suffering; considers human freedom, Romans 8, Job, biblical lament, and the limits of human understanding; and ultimately asks how the Cross, resurrection, and promised restoration shape the Christian response to suffering.
Download Week 5 — Evil and Suffering→Science: Why Is the Universe Intelligible?
The final lesson asks a question beneath the scientific enterprise itself: Why is science possible? Why does nature exhibit stable regularities, why does mathematics describe physical reality so effectively, and why can human minds understand a universe extending far beyond the circumstances necessary for ordinary survival? The lesson considers natural law, mathematics, fine-tuning, the history of science and Christianity, and the distinction between methodological and metaphysical naturalism before bringing the entire cumulative argument together.
Download Week 6 — Science and Intelligibility→The Cumulative Case
Which Worldview Makes Better Sense of Reality?
No single argument in this series is presented as an irresistible proof that eliminates every alternative explanation. The strength of the case emerges as the evidence accumulates. The existence of contingent reality raises the question of a necessary foundation; the history of the cosmos raises questions of causality and origin; life raises questions concerning information and functional organization; moral experience raises questions about objective value and obligation; suffering challenges every worldview to account for evil and meaning; and the success of science reveals an ordered universe that rational minds can investigate and understand.
Christianity brings these features together within a unified account of reality. God is not placed into the gaps of scientific knowledge but understood as the foundation of the natural order itself. The universe is creation rather than Creator, human rationality reflects the rationality of the One who made us, moral value is grounded in the character of God, and suffering occurs within an unfinished story moving toward judgment, resurrection, and restoration.
The Christian claim ultimately reaches beyond generic theism. The Creator has made Himself known. The Word through whom all things came into being became flesh, entered the suffering of His creation, died, rose from the dead, and will bring God's redemptive purpose to completion. The cumulative case therefore leads not merely toward an abstract First Cause, but toward the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
About This Study
Refuting Atheism is designed for adult Sunday school classes, discipleship groups, apologetics studies, and individual study. The material intentionally combines biblical theology, philosophy, science, and Christian apologetics while representing competing viewpoints fairly. Its purpose is not simply to provide arguments to win debates, but to equip Christians to think carefully about why they believe and to engage thoughtful questions with intellectual confidence, humility, and respect.
Author
Dr. David V. Lott
“My goal is simple: to take serious biblical study and make it understandable without making it shallow.”
“Respect the words. Understand their world. Establish what the text meant there. Then ask how its truth speaks here.”