Last week, Larry Sanger, the man who started Wikipedia in 2001, published a lengthy essay laying out his journey from skepticism to Christianity. For most of his adult life, Sanger was a committed skeptic, trained in analytic philosophy—a field dominated by atheists and agnostics. Though he spent 35 years as a nonbeliever, he never saw himself as hostile to faith, only unconvinced, and his testimony is geared toward those who share that rational, open-minded skepticism.
Reading through Sanger’s story, I was struck by a few features.
1. Failure to engage well with good-faith questions can be a catalyst for disbelief.
Sanger grew up in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but by his mid-teens, his belief in God was dissipating, and his departure from the faith was clinched by the unfortunate response of a pastor to his questions:
At some point in my late teens, I remember calling up a pastor—I forget which—to ask skeptical questions. It felt bold for a teenager to do, but I was not merely being rebellious. I really needed help thinking these things through. But the pastor had no clear or strong answers. He seemed to be brushing me off and even to treat me with contempt. It seemed to me he did not care, and if anything, I had the impression that he felt threatened by me. This was a surprise. The damage was quickly done: being met with hostile unconcern by a person I expected to be, well, pastoral confirmed me in my disbelief . . .
In retrospect, I believe it hurt my belief very much to have been told that I should not ask so many questions. This is a terrible thing to say to a child, because he will infer (as I did) that only dogmatic people, who lack curiosity and are unable to answer hard questions, believe in God. Therefore, such a belief must be irrational. That is what I thought. How wrong I was, and how long it took me to discover my mistake.
This story should rekindle a passion in every minister’s heart to be familiar enough with the field of apologetics to know where to seek out and find answers to questions and objections people may have to Christianity. It should also encourage a spirit of compassion and pastoral care, not annoyance or contempt, toward people with questions.
2. The cumulative force of multiple arguments for God’s existence can be more persuasive than any single one.
Although Sanger found the Fine-Tuning Argument, a version of the Argument from Design, emotionally moving as the most compelling case for God’s existence, he found neither it nor the other traditional arguments fully convincing.
My experience studying and teaching the classic arguments had given me a modicum of respect for them. It seemed trivial, to me, to poke holes in such arguments, holes sufficiently large enough to justify my stance of withholding the conclusion. Perhaps the biggest complaint I had about the arguments was that none of them came even close to establishing that God, especially the God of the Bible, exists. They made partial headway, perhaps.
That partial headway had more influence the more he studied, as the cumulative effect of the arguments’ force became stronger than he realized at first.
What I dwelled upon more than anything is the fact that the arguments taken together are far more persuasive than I had understood. Individually, the arguments might seem relatively weak. As I said, the Argument from Contingency only shows that a necessary being exists. The Argument from Causality shows only that the universe had a cause outside of itself. The Argument from Design shows only that the universe has some sort of designer or other. An Argument from Morality might add that the designer is benevolent, to some degree, in some way, but not even necessarily personal. But what happens when we combine all the arguments to make a unified case for the existence of God? I’m not sure the idea had ever dawned on me, certainly not with its present vividness . . .
Here was his conclusion:
What if these arguments could be developed with some rigor? I asked myself. The result would be an Argument to the Best Explanation: consider all of the premises of all of these arguments as data to explain. Might “God exists” be the best explanation? It might, I conceded.
(This is similar to Gavin Ortlund’s approach in Why God Makes Sense in a World That Doesn’t, where he offers a cumulative case for God’s existence, showing how multiple lines of evidence—philosophical reasoning, the beauty of the universe, and humanity’s deep existential longings—converge to make belief in God not just plausible but the most compelling explanation of reality.)
3. The character of Christians—especially online—can either draw people in or push them away.
Sanger points out the way Christians carried themselves both in person and also online, showing themselves and their views worthy of respect. He contrasted the Christian’s demeanor with the obnoxious manner of the New Atheists, with whom he shared at least some affinity in terms of skepticism. Because the Christians he observed online were serious and kind in their manner of engagement, their perspectives gained credence.
The New Atheism became, if anything, even more obnoxious, to the point where I was asking myself if I had ever been like that. I rarely was, anyway; I had too much respect for Christian family and friends. Similarly, I observed Christians on social media often (though not always) behaving with maturity and grace, while their critics often acted like obnoxious trolls. Some of my favorite people were Christian, too. And some of them were extremely intelligent. Strange. The obnoxiousness of the growing anti-Christian sentiment actually made me defend them . . .
Perhaps we do well to reflect on the other side of this takeaway—the damage done to Christianity’s credibility when believers online act in obnoxious and trollish ways.
4. The Bible is the best resource for someone warming up to Christianity, and good tools make a difference.
Sanger’s growing warmth toward Christianity was fanned into flame by deeper study of the Bible. Curious and determined, he turned to every tool at his disposal—study plans, commentaries, Bible apps, and maps—approaching Scripture with the same meticulous analysis he once applied to philosophy.
When I really sought to understand it, I found the Bible far more interesting and—to my shock and consternation—coherent than I was expecting. I looked up answers to all my critical questions, thinking that perhaps others had not thought of issues I saw. I was wrong. Not only had they thought of all the issues, and more that I had not thought of, they had well-worked-out positions about them. I did not believe their answers, which sometimes struck me as contrived or unlikely. But often, they were shockingly plausible. The Bible could sustain interrogation; who knew?
It slowly dawned on me that I was acquainting myself with the two-thousand-year-old tradition of theology. I found myself positively ashamed to realize that, despite having a Ph.D. in philosophy, I had never really understood what theology even is. Theology is, I found, an attempt to systematize, harmonize, explicate, and to a certain extent justify the many, many ideas contained in the Bible. It is what rational people do when they try to come to grips with the Bible in all its richness. The notion that the Bible might actually be able to interestingly and plausibly sustain such treatment is a proposition that had never entered my head.
Considering how many people are curious about the Bible these days, the increase in Bible sales, the interest in various philosophers and commentators providing their takes on the Scriptures, we should never look at the Scriptures as a source of embarrassment but as an endless trove of treasures. The Bible is the best thing we’ve got going for us. God has given us his Word!
Pray for Larry Sanger
Larry Sanger’s story is unfinished. He continues to read, write, and think. Right now, he’s examining the claims of different denominations. It’s clear he sees his need for a local church and the fellowship of other believers.
We can and should pray for him in the days ahead as he continues to grow in his newfound faith. And we can learn from his story how to better engage people considering Christ’s claims.
If you would like my future articles sent to your email, as well as a curated list of books, podcasts, and helpful links I find online, enter your address.
