In the experiment, several people were seated around a table and shown a pair of cards with vertical lines on them. One card had a single line on it. The other had three lines of different lengths. While showing the cards, the experimenter asked each person around the table, one after another, to identify which of the three lines on the second card was the same length as the line on the first.

Unknown to the participant who sat in the next-to-last seat, all the other participants were shills — they had been instructed ahead of time to unanimously give the wrong answer. Each time a pair of cards was shown, they all picked the same wrong line.

Although the correct answer was obvious every time, the average subject gave the same answer as the rest of the group 32 percent of the time, while 74 percent of the subjects went along with the group at least once. What’s more, even when they didn’t conform, subjects were obviously anguished about their decision. Photos taken during the experiment document how hard it was to go against the group.

As a Christian who has spent many years at a secular university, I can empathize with Asch’s subjects. While at the university, I was religiously, intellectually and morally at odds with almost all my peers. Though my relationships were friendly, I was tempted more than once to stuff my views and “go along” with the crowd.

In fact, being a Christian at a secular school is much tougher than anything Asch’s subjects faced. In Asch’s study, at least the answers were clear. But at secular universities, the pressure to conform is magnified by relentless intellectual attacks.

So how do you stand up against this kind of pressure? How do you handle the double-whammy of social intimidation and intellectual aggression? Here are a few suggestions.

Prepare Your Mind
Obviously, one of the most important things to do is prepare your mind. Intellectual attacks require an intellectual response.

Perhaps our best role model here is the apostle Paul, who was deeply schooled not only in his own religion, Judaism, but in the pagan philosophy of his own day. He was so well prepared that he had no problem taking on the intellectual “eagles” of his day — even in the city of Athens.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that Christians are to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and ... take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Fortunately, demolishing arguments isn’t as hard as most people think. But rather than talking in generalities, let’s see how this works out in a specific area.

Although Christians are attacked for many things, one of the most important areas of conflict is their belief in miracles. Miracles are the life-blood of traditional Christianity. If miracles are impossible, then the major doctrines of Christianity are false. There could be no virgin birth, no Son of God, no resurrection, no ascended Savior, no salvation and no life after death. In short, the major creeds of the church would be in shambles.

At secular universities, on the other hand, most professors and students vigorously oppose any belief in miracles. From their point of view, not only are miracles impossible, but believing in them is a sign of weak-mindedness — an inablilty to face life without a supernatural crutch.

Perhaps the most important argument against miracles was formulated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher, David Hume. Most scholars believe that Hume’s essay, “Of Miracles,” dealt a fatal blow to belief in miracles. Contemporary arguments against miracles are often variants of Hume’s ideas.

Hume’s argument against miracles can be summarized as follows:

1. “A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence.”
2. The laws of nature are supported by uniform experience.
3. Miracles violate the laws of nature.
4. Therefore, miracles are disproven.

If this argument seems a bit flimsy, it is. For one thing, Hume’s argument depends heavily on the second claim. Once we grant that the “laws of nature” are supported by “uniform experience” — that there are no exceptions to such laws — then of course there can be no miracles. Problem is, that second claim tacitly assumes the very point Hume is trying to prove: namely, that miracles don’t happen.

In fact, the second claim is very suspicious. Throughout history, many people have reported witnessing miracles, i.e., violations of the laws of nature. From the plagues of Egypt to Elijah’s duel with the prophets of Baal to the resurrection of Jesus, the Bible alone is replete with miracles. Even if we leave out the Bible, Christians and non-Christians throughout the centuries have reported miraculous healings, exorcisms, spells made and broken, supernatural protection by angelic beings and so on. Even in our “enlightened” age, reports of such things continue.¹

Given such reports, how can Hume claim that such laws are supported by uniform experience? The only legitimate way to sustain his claim would be to investigate every account and refute it. But there is no record that Hume ever did that, nor is it likely that he would have succeeded, given the sheer magnitude of the task. Rather, Hume’s claim is based more on his conviction that miracles cannot occur than a fair reading of any evidence. In his book, Miracles, C.S. Lewis observed,

Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle.²

So Hume’s argument has some serious problems. But let’s cut him a little slack. Theologian Norman Geisler has noted that Hume’s arguments can be given a softer interpretation than the one above. In particular, says Geisler, the argument can be restated as follows:

1. A miracle is by definition a rare occurrence.
2. Natural law is by definition a description of regular occurrence.
3. The evidence for the regular is always greater than the evidence for the rare.
4. A wise man always bases his beliefs on the greater evidence.
5. Therefore, a wise man should never believe in miracles.³

At first glance, this appears a bit more reasonable. Hume is not saying that miracles can’t occur, only that they’re rare. But now we have a different problem. If we follow this line of reasoning, we would have to reject miracles even if they really happened. Moreover, if we apply this line of reasoning consistently, we would have to reject all rare or unique occurrences—including such scientific icons as the Cosmological Big Bang and every scientific theory of the origin of life.

Contrary to Hume’s argument, the proper way to handle reports of unusual occurrences is not to simply accept or reject them, but to investigate them. Unusual events warrant a higher level of scrutiny than more ordinary happenings. But that’s an entirely different matter than rejecting them out of hand.

So we see that Hume’s argument is by no means a death-blow to the belief in miracles.

Many other arguments fare no better. Time won’t permit a thorough critique of every argument against miracles. But let’s take a look at one more argument — an argument that pops up most often in the origins debate.

During Darwin’s time, a common objection raised against special creation is that it turned God into a tinkerer. God had created a magnificent, orderly universe, regulated by the laws of nature. Darwin and many of his sympathizers thought it repugnant that the Law-giver of the universe would stoop to break His own laws.⁴

This is essentially a theological argument against miracles. It’s one of many arguments that try to refute miracles by making claims about what God would or would not do. In the above case, it is claimed that God would never break the laws of nature — and thus would never have directly created plants or animals or humans.

A more recent version of this kind of argument can be found in an essay titled “The Panda’s Thumb,” by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. In the essay, Gould essentially argues that a good engineer would never create the kind of “clumsy” apparatus that serves as a “thumb” for giant pandas — therefore God did not create the giant panda (or anything else, for that matter).

As philosopher of science Paul Nelson has pointed out, however, a key problem with this argument is that it “claims knowledge of the actions and intentions of God.”⁵ How do we know what God would do? How do we know what is “beneath” Him? The answer is, we don’t.⁶ As Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us:

“‘[M]y thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

Indeed, when it comes right down to it, such an argument is often just another way of saying, “If I had been God, I would have done it differently.”⁷ Not very compelling.

Don’t Go It Alone
In addition to preparing yourself intellectually, you must also prepare yourself socially and emotionally. One way to do that is to build close relationships with Christian students who share your outlook.

As a follow-up to the study I mentioned in this article, Solomon Asch ran a very similar experiment. Only this time he had some of his “shills” give the same answer as the subject. He discovered that if even one participant agreed with the subject, the subject was far less likely to conform to the group.

When you band together, big things can happen.

Back in the mid-1970s, a group of science and engineering students at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) were dissatisfied with the dogmatic way that evolution was taught in the classroom. When their professors refused to give them any kind of forum, they organized a group called Students for Origins Research and began networking with other university students across the country. Before long they were publishing their own national journal.

Over twenty years later, as Access Research Network, the organization is now run by former students who have Ph.D.s from U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Santa Barbara, Cambridge, the University of Chicago, Princeton and Yale. The organization is the cutting edge of the intelligent design movement.

Make Friends with the Past
If you’ve ever been in a smoke-filled room, you know how good it feels to step outside and breathe some fresh air. It’s equally good sometimes to escape our own smoke-filled century and breathe the fresh air of the past by reading old books and studying a bit of history. When you do this, you begin to realize that, historically speaking, our own culture is quite an anomaly. You learn that throughout the ages most cultures have been distinctly religious — and that in their eyes we’re the oddballs.

In his book, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis underscores the value of learning about the past:

Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune to the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.⁸

Of course, humans in the past were no smarter than they are now. But spending time in the “presence” of authors from the past helps us gain a healthy perspective on our own age.

Heads Up
Finally, in addition to spending time with authors from the past, be sure to spend time with the Author of your salvation. The apostle Paul reminds us, in Ephesians 6:12, “that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil.” That is no less true in a secular university than a Hindu holy city.

This means that there’s more to defending your faith than persuading others through good arguments. Although the apostle Paul contended for the faith wherever he went, he knew that ultimately, “the Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Corinthians 4:20).

If you want to stand up for your beliefs, then, you must take them seriously enough to live by them. You must not only prepare yourself intellectually and socially, but spiritually as well.

How do you do that? Mostly by setting aside a daily time for prayer and serious reflection on God’s Word. This is where all the great believers of the past found the power to live out their faith. This is where you’ll find it too.

Above all, don’t get discouraged if your professors and classmates refuse to listen to you. At the very least, you’re challenging beliefs on which people have staked their lives—not to mention their lifestyles.

You don’t have to save the world. All you really have to do is be faithful.

¹e.g., Musk, Bill A. The Unseen Face of Islam. London: Monarch Publications Ltd., 1989.

²Lewis, C.S. Miracles: A Preliminary Study. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1947, p. 102.

³Geisler, Norman L. “Miracles & the Modern Mind.” In In Defence of Miracles. Edited by R. Douglas Geivett & Gary R. Habermas. Leicester: Apollos, 1997.

⁴Desmond, Adrian & James Moore. Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: Warner Books, 1992.

⁵Nelson, Paul. “The Pandas Thumb Revisited: An Analysis of Two Arguments against Darwinism.” Origins Research, 7(1):12, 1984.

⁶The claim that God wouldn’t break His own laws has an additional problem to the ones mentioned in the text. The argument tacitly assumes that the universe is much like a clock that God could wind up and let run. This “clockwork image” was widespread in the years following Newton’s discoveries. But I’m unaware of any reason why we couldn’t just as easily view the universe as, say, a workshop or studio, in which intelligent beings can create anything within their power. Humans create. Why can’t God?

⁷Nelson, 1984.