Evangelism & Intellecutal Idols

In this interesting passage from Confessions, Augustine compares the false teachings of the philosophers of his day to idols:

"...so that Your first-born people worshiped the head of a four-footed beast instead of You, turning back in their hearts toward Egypt and prostrating Your image (their own soul) before the image of an ox that eats grass. These things I found there [in the philosophers], but I fed not on them. ... I had sought strenuously after that gold which You didst allow Your people to take from Egypt, since wherever it was it was Yours. And You said unto the Athenians by the mouth of Your apostle that in You "we live and move and have our being," as one of their own poets had said. And truly these books came from there. But I did not set my mind on the idols of Egypt which they fashioned of gold, "changing the truth of God into a lie and worshiping and serving the creature more than the Creator" (IX.15).

It is an apt comparison. Philosophy often becomes what the philosopher puts his faith in instead of God. He either bases his life on the philosophy or on God. He either trusts in the philosophy or in God.

And, whatever you have faith in, trust and/or base your life on other than the only God who is there is an idol.

So, when doing evangelism it is imperative that we pray for God to help us see these intellectual idols and that we force unbelievers to see these idols as idols they're worshipping instead of God so that they can repent and believe the gospel.