My book It’s All About Jesus includes this great quote from Glen Scrivener, a British minister and evangelist: “Christians believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. Materialists believe in the virgin birth of the cosmos. Choose your miracle.”

Glen directs the evangelistic ministry Speak Life. He responded to an interview with atheist Richard Dawkins, and mentioned some similar things to the quote above:

Christians believe that Jesus emerged, alive again, from the tomb. But Richard Dawkins believes that *all* life emerged from non-life—and without a God of resurrection to work the wonder.

Choose your miracle.

Watch the full video: https://t.co/oer8Iq2uPc pic.twitter.com/GKygHJuTFk

— Speak Life (@SpeakLifeUK) April 2, 2024

Here’s the full video of Glen responding to Richard’s interview and declaration that he is a “cultural Christian”:

Dawkins makes some moral judgments about Islam and its treatment of certain people groups. He, like all atheists in the Western world, lives in a culture influenced by a historic belief in God and the morality revealed in Scripture. This provides a residual basis for believing that moral categories are important, while the atheist worldview doesn’t.

Dawkins, Hitchens, and other atheists have emphasized the evils done in religion’s name. But they say virtually nothing about how modern education, science, and health care all emerged out of Christianity.

Atheists who have thought through the implications of their worldview occasionally admit its utter moral emptiness. Unbeliever William Provine put it this way in a debate: “Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear.... There are no gods, no purposes.... There is no life after death.... There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans.”

Notice his admission that there is no ultimate foundation for ethics. The naturalistic worldview has no basis for declaring some things good and others evil.

But surely something within Dr. Provine can look at good and rejoice, then look at evil and cry out, “This is wrong!” What is it that cries out? The Bible calls it the conscience, God’s law written on our hearts (see Romans 2:15). We have a moral code, a natural law built into us. That’s what allows us to step outside of what we see around us and call it good or evil.

William Lane Craig says, “If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends that life has meaning.... In a universe without God, good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say that you are right and I am wrong.”

Even those who reject the claims of the Christian worldview should acknowledge that it does in fact offer a moral foundation upon which to discern good and evil. And they should ask themselves whether, without realizing it, they sometimes borrow from the Christian worldview because their own worldview cannot provide a foundation on which to judge good and evil.

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