Two moves can deal with skeptics

Christian apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate has a quick, memorable way to deal with skeptics.

Whether they are atheists, agnostics, or merely sour cynics, his “Two Move Checkmate” can go a long way toward shifting the argument in favor of the simple believer.

Your first move is this. You’re in a conversation with an unbeliever who is seeking to put you on the defensive. When he says something contrary to the teaching of the Bible, you simply say, “That’s not what the Bible says.”

You’re done with the first move. It doesn’t sound terribly profound. That’s part of the beauty of it.

He’s going to smirk and say something like, “Well, I don’t believe the Bible.”

Now he has placed his king in jeopardy, falling into your trap like a novice chess player. It’s time for your second move.

You say, “You don’t think the Bible is true? Where do you get truth without God?”

You probably shouldn’t blurt out the word, “Checkmate!” But now you’ve got him, if you understand that apart from God revealing himself in the Scriptures, there can be no certainty about any truth claim at all.

However, the erstwhile skeptic may try to squirm away by proposing methods of knowing truth. Here are a few:

1. “Truth is found through rational thought.” Can you be certain you are thinking rationally? Our mental hospitals are filled with people who are convinced of the rationality of their own thought processes. How do you know you don’t belong with them? You try to think logically. But, wait. Are the laws of logic real things? Or are they just the preferences of people we have called intelligent? How can you know the laws of logic exist?

2. “Truth can be found through testing.” What tests were done to establish the truth of that statement? Leading atheist Richard Dawkins spilled a lot of ink in his book, “The God Delusion,” to prove that our senses are often deceived. In order to test something, you have to be able to reliably perceive the results. Can you be certain about the reliability of your senses? Dawkins says you can’t.

3. “Truth is that which corresponds with reality.” How can you know what reality is? Leading agnostic Neil deGrasse Tyson put the chances at 50-50 that our existence is all an advanced computer simulation … seriously. At the same event, another smart guy claimed it’s impossible to prove that our existence is real. If truth corresponds to reality, and the unbeliever can’t know what reality is, how can he know what’s true and what isn’t?

In conclusion, the reason the Two Move Checkmate works is that all truth is God’s truth. The trouble with skeptics is not they don’t know the truth. It’s that they hate what they know.

Paul wrote in Romans 1:19-20, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

Everyone knows. Some folks just haven’t stopped fighting yet.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]