Atheists and cessationists are those who hold two very different belief systems. One says that there is no God, the other believes in God and Christ as Lord, so what could they have in common?
Definitions
First, let’s define our terms:
Atheist: An atheist is one that believes that there is no God. Buddhism is one of the few religions that believes that there is no God. It is atheistic.
Theist: A theist believes that there is a God or multiple gods. Most religions of the world are theistic. They believe in some sort of Supreme Being even if they disagree on who that being is.
Deist: A deist is a form of a theist, one who believes there is a God. This is usually explained as being a Creator God but one who is not concerned with His creation. In fact, the idea that this God interacts with His creation is strongly rejected.
Agnostic: An agnostic is one who just comes out and says that they have no idea. There are two main forms of agnostics. Some say that they personally do not know if there is a God. Others will say that it cannot be known that there is a God, he may be there but we will just never be sure.
Cessationism: Cessationists are Christians, normally in the Protestant tradition, who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the New Testament have ceased and that miracles are not possible today.
Continuationism: In opposition to cessationists, continuationism is the label for those who believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit did not cease, that they have continued since Pentecost, and that miracles are possible today.
What Does Cessationism have in Common with Atheism
With our definitions in place, how could there be anything in common between atheists and cessationists when one believes that there is no God, the other professes Christ as Lord?
Worldviews in a Nutshell:
Atheists: There is no God. There is nothing outside of the natural world. It is a closed system
Deists: There is a Creator, but he doesn’t bother with us. He went away. It is a closed system not because God is not there, but because He chooses it to be.
Cessationists: There is a God and he came to save us, but he doesn’t bother with us anymore. He doesn’t speak to us. There is no prophecy today, and any claim to spiritual gifts is false and from a deceiving source. Christ is Lord, but until we get to heaven, we are living in a closed system.
While cessationists do believe in God and specifically in Christ, like atheists, the most strident cessationists argue very strongly against miracles and the possibility of God actually speaking to a person. The cessationist believes in a modified form of a closed system, not because there is no God, but because God chooses it to be so.
I recently read a polemic against a popular Bible teacher in which the author comes just short of calling the teacher a heretic. What was the teacher’s transgression? The teacher claims God speaks to them. There is another dynamic going on that inflames the invective against this particular teacher, but the argument was essentially that God doesn’t spearmint anymore and therefore this teacher is either being deliberately deceptive or seriously deluded. It would be hard to differentiate between the commentary within the article and the comments that followed on this Christian site from those that are found on any number of atheist blogs in the discussion on the possibility of God speaking.
At least atheists have the excuse that they don’t believe in any God. My question to the cessationist is . . . Who exactly is the God that you believe in?
Who is God?
The God of the Bible and the Savior in which Christians believe is not part of creation or one with the universe. The God we believe in is Creator, uncreated, and Jesus, the Logos or Word of God, through which all things are made. His essence is apart from the universe.
The God of the Bible is not disinterested, like some absent minded professor with a laboratory of discarded inventions.
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