In my 2008 book Faith Lacking Understanding I identify three types of objection to Christianity:
- Logical objections
- Plausibility objections
- Moral objections
Next, as I work through the Apostles’ Creed I identify examples of each type of objection. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is subject to logical objections. Meanwhile, the doctrine of particular divine action within creation is subject to plausibility objections.
But of the different types of objection to Christianity, I suspect the moral objections are the most powerful. This intuition is borne out on the following survey that I recently ran on Twitter:
Which of these Christian doctrines is the most difficult to defend?
— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) November 5, 2017
As you can see, the clear “winner” for being the most difficult doctrine to defend — at least among those selected — is the doctrine of hell. And by “hell” one can assume most survey respondents are envisioning the traditional understanding of hell as eternal conscious torment.
Unfortunately, my survey was only limited to four doctrines. But this blog has no such limitations. So which Christian doctrine do you believe is most difficult to defend and why?
