Why Doesn’t Everybody Believe?
Asks Theodore M. Drange in constructing his “argument from nonbelief.” (The Improbability of God, 341) My answer to that is that we are saved by Christ not by Christianity. It is OK if you do not know. But it is ironic that Drange, who presumably knows enough about Christianity to work with its doctrines, himself refuses to believe, because other people don’t believe. Shouldn’t our distinguished doctor of philosophy come up with his own opinions rather than follow the herd? And there is a simple way of making the number of unbelievers smaller, and the argument, less persuasive, and that is for our author to convert.
As for the alleged inefficiency of letting humans spread the Gospel rather than through “performance of spectacular miracles” or through “sending out millions of angels, disguised as humans, to preach to people in all nations in such a persuasive manner as to get them to believe,” (343) etc., once again, God will not do for any created nature what that nature can do for itself. The stunning success of Christianity cannot be denied. And now glory is due to those men and women who advanced the faith which would not be the case if the angels did it.