Max Davis. The Insanity of Unbelief. Shippensburg PA: Destiny Image, 2012. E-book.The Insanity of Unbelief may be the book to turn the heads, if not the minds, of unbelievers who are readers. There are other books out there that have led many people to Jesus. McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict, especially the first edition, was very effective in ministering to the modern mindset. More recently, Lee Strobel has had a series of books that seem to be effective. Even the fictional Left Behind series has led people to a serious engagement with the God of the Bible.

The Insanity of Unbelief is a little different. The author, like Strobel, was a journalist. Journalists and policemen from my experience tend to be the most skeptical of anyone. They have heard it all. They often assume anyone they are interviewing is at least concealing some truth if not lying outright. So, yes, Davis tells a little about his own experience.

Still, what he emphasizes is the incredible effort it takes to not believe in God or the Bible. Yes, he does take some of the same arguments used by McDowell, Strobel, and others: the reliability of the Biblical sources, testimonies of believers, and statements of scientists.

But Davis includes documented testimonies of bona fide miracles complete with “before” and “after” medical reports. He also notes reasons why even some scientists believe in God and fairly shallow reasons why others do not. The Insanity of Unbelief is weighed a little in the direction of science because in the last two centuries, a common argument has been “religion is unscientific,” even though the scientific method emerged from people with a Christian and Biblical worldview.

His approach is not unlike that of Jesus Himself. Jesus would often first perform miracles or do something else to get people’s attention. Once he had their attention, then He would tell them about God. His opponents never denied that He had done miracles or believed certain things about God. They simply called Him a liar, a troublemaker, or a demoniac.

So the author presents documented miracles and other testimonies, including testimonies from the Bible. The reader is confronted with the reality of Jesus. Will the reader look into Jesus more or dismiss Him like Pilate or oppose Him like the High Priest?

The Insanity of Unbelief, then, focuses as much on why people do not believe. From observation and experience, unbelief is usually a matter of the will. People just simply do not want to believe.

Davis challenges that attitude. As a teacher, I sometimes attend conferences and teachers meetings where many of the attendees and participants are agnostic if not atheist. (I could go on a rant about how the public schools prohibit teachers from talking about religion—especially Christianity and Judaism—but it is perfectly permissible for atheistic teachers to promote their beliefs and even intimidate students who question them.) One morning at one such event, I carried a copy of the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. It was a lot of fun. Just the title got people’s attention. Some were hostile; some laughed. One person I recall said, “Just when I think I have it all figured out, some argument turns around and bites me in the head!”

This reviewer also personally resonated with this book because it just so happens that it mentioned three men whom I was acquainted with at one time. It quotes two astronomers that I knew. Owen Gingerich was a believer in Christianity and a devout Mennonite. He notes that:

If we regard God’s world as a site of purpose and intention and accept that we, as contemplative surveyors of the universe, are included in that intention, then the vision is incomplete without a role for divine communication, a place for God both as Creator-Sustainer and as Redeemer. (29)

The second astronomer I knew, Robert Kirshner, discovered what is called the Boötes Void, a region in the sky that is comparatively empty of stars and galaxies. This is in the vicinity of the North Star and the constellation Boötes. I have no idea whether Dr. Kirshner is a believer today, but Davis notes Job 26:7 which tells us that God “spreads the northern skies over empty space.” (153)

Even Werner Heisenberg, discoverer of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which I have heard used as an argument against order and purpose in the universe, wrote:

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you. (31)

…Or, instead of the bottom, perhaps at the extreme north?

The third scientist, one of the finest teachers I ever had, made a very interesting confession. It is typical of many of the “cultured despisers” of religion (to borrow Schliermacher’s phrase). Nobel Prize winner George Wald said:

I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution. (32)

Even from these examples, we begin to see the crux of one of Davis’s arguments:

IF ANYTHING EXISTS, SOMETHING MUST BE SELF EXISTENT. (37, author’s capitals)

He goes on to explain, quoting author Dean L. Overman:

To be rational the atheist must show how something comes from nothing. Otherwise the existence of something is not explained…One has to have a starting point, and if an atheist is not going to beg the question why her starting point exists, she must begin with really nothing—what Francis Schaeffer called nothing-nothing. (38, ellipsis in quotation)

There is much, much more, but in our postmodern and progressive culture, The Insanity of Unbelief may be the cure for the insanity suggested by the title of the book. It presents the challenge in such a way that if one does reject God’s gospel, it is for the reason Dr. Wald did above. Yet Jesus Himself tells us it is the truth that sets us free. (John 8:32) Look into it yourselves…