Book Review of Nancy Pearcey’s Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes

Nancy Pearcey is one of those authors the breadth and depth of whose research is simply astounding. It would take me five lifetimes to read the books and authors she cites in Finding Truth.

The modern evangelical church (in general—there are exceptions) has not done well in dealing with the honest skepticism of young adults. Rather than being eager to field tough questions and face intellectual challenges, it seems we have become fearful of them—perhaps even intolerant of hearing them. Nancy Pearcey shows us how to recover the honest intellectual punch that Christianity actually possesses to interact fruitfully with non-Christian worldviews and belief systems.

Pearcey assembles a methodology in five principles by which alternate worldviews can be examined and then respectfully but firmly repudiated. The first principle is Identify the Idol. All non-biblical worldviews have some sort of starting point—some faith-based assumption on which the rest of their worldview is built. Some God-substitute (inevitably, a limited part of creation) is elevated to ultimate or divine status.

The second principle is Identify the Idol’s Reductionism, and it is based on the fact that “when an idol absolutizes some part of creation, everything else must be explained in terms of that one limited part” [98]. The result dehumanizes people. “When we define God as a something instead of a Someone, we will tend to treat humans as somethings too” [98, emphasis original]

Principle three is to Test the Idol: Does It Contradict What We Know about the World? I once heard Dr. Bill Edgar (Westminster Seminary) describe a similar approach as climbing inside someone else’s worldview and taking it out for a spin, to see if it works. News Flash: it won’t. No one can live consistently with an idolatrous worldview—at some point their life will contradict their professed belief.

The next principle is more philosophical: Test the Idol: Does It Contradict Itself. Pearcey walks through a number of worldviews and unmasks the fact that they are internally inconsistent and self-refuting. For instance, she takes aim at logical positivism:

What happened, though, when the test of logical positivism was applied to itself? Its central claim was that statements are meaningful only if they are empirically testable. But is that statement empirically testable? Of course not. It is not an empirical observation. It is a metaphysical rule—an arbitrary definition of what qualifies as knowledge. Thus when the criterion of logical positivism was applied to itself, it was discredited. It stood self-condemned. [185]

The final step is Replace the Idol: Make the Case for Christianity. One of the ways she makes the case is to help people understand that other worldviews are free-loading on Christian principles, most frequently Christian morals. They are assuming Christian principles, but have no logical support from their own worldview to do so. In her words, “You might say they function as if Christianity is true” [220, emphasis original]. Her point is to gently confront the individual by showing them their ethics cannot arise out of their worldview, but only out of a Christian one.

The clarity of Pearcey’s writing, the extensive use she makes of the books and statements of non-Christian thinkers, and the comprehensive documentation of all her points and citations makes this book an invaluable resource. Highly recommended—five stars.