We can dance around the numerous reasons people
give for claiming not to believe in God, and rejecting Christianity for reasons
x, y, and z. But I have a more compelling claim - one that 25+ years of
discussing faith with sceptics has taught me: it's that the primary reason
people reject Christianity is much simpler at its base. It's because they don't
want to believe.
When you observe people, you can begin to identify algorithmic heuristics, which are a deep kind of pattern recognition around belief systems - especially the hidden motivations or psychological undercurrents beneath surface-level reasons. Once you've established this framework for a particular trait or pattern, you can apply it more broadly across a spectrum of claims, especially in empirically intractable subjects like religion, politics, economics and social commentary.
For Christians, I'd say the most useful heuristic that reveals a core resistance is this. I believe that if we could drill down right into the heart of why unbelievers are not Christian - the real reasons apart from what people claim on the surface - we would find that they are driven by what I think is the fundamental resistance to Christianity; that those who do not believe do not want to believe, but either can't admit this is the case, or can't recognise why it's the case.
When you hear the reasons why people say they don’t believe, they are mostly disguised intellectual or emotional coverings for a deeper unwillingness to believe. To truly engage with their resistance, you must discern why they don’t want to believe, and what lies beneath that reluctance.
I believe that is one of the primary insights that can equip both the Christian who wants to be a faithful and insightful witness, and the unbeliever who is honest enough to ask themselves why they currently might not want to believe. This is because one of the most profound insights of self-reflection in this matter involves attempting to recognise in ourselves; firstly, why we don't want to believe; secondly, how we determine what we want; and thirdly, what that lack of want is really disguising, or what concern or anxiety is it safeguarding, or what inconvenient need for change it is prolonging, or what short-term need it is fulfilling, or what particular superficial freedom it is shielding, and so forth. Get to the root of why an individual doesn't want to believe, and the rest is extraneous to the argument.
