American Thinker | Alan Roebuck | Jan. 26, 2008
Not all atheists are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that religion (which, in America, basically means Christianity) does some good. But atheism as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, with their aggressive stance against God and their bestselling books attempting to debunk religion.
So, assuming you are a theist, what do you say to the atheist who asks, “You don’t (chuckle) actually believe in God, do you (snicker)?”
The natural response would be to start giving evidence for God: the origin of the universe in the Big Bang requires a cause that is beyond matter, energy, space and time, the design of life requires an intelligence to account for the information that it contains, the many accounts of miracles and the supernatural cannot all be fabrications, and so on. Entire libraries have been written on the evidence and arguments for God.
But before you start showing them the evidence, consider: Most aggressive atheists say “I would be willing to believe in God if there were any evidence that He exists, but no such evidence exists, so I don’t believe.” No matter what evidence you give, the supercilious atheist finds a way to dismiss it. To him, it is not the case that your evidence for God is valid but nevertheless is cancelled out by his superior evidence against God. No, in the atheist’s mind your evidence does not even count as evidence. And therefore your reasoning has no effect on his thinking, other than to confirm to him that you are irrational.
What’s going on here? Does the atheist have superior insight that allows him to see the errors that invalidate the arguments for God that seem valid to us theists? Or is it the atheist who is missing something?
I would argue that it’s the latter. Consider: the theist believes in the real existence of everything that the atheist believes in: matter, energy, space, time. The theist believes that the physical world really exists, just as the atheist does. And the theist believes that the scientific description of nature is fundamentally correct, as far as it goes.
But the atheist refuses to expand his mental universe by also believing in the transcendent things that the theist believes in: God, souls, angels and demons, for example. The atheist restricts himself to a sort of tunnel vision.
And this is where atheism becomes vulnerable. The atheist does not disbelieve in God because he has neutrally examined all the evidence, and drawn the proper conclusion that there is no God. On the contrary, the atheist radically misconstrues the plentiful evidence for God, and he does this because of his false worldview, which tells him that only the physical really exists. Before he has examined the evidence, the atheist thinks he knows that nothing non-physical actually exists, and this assumption governs how he responds to the evidence.
About that word “worldview:” It means a comprehensive system of thought that describes the nature of reality, answers the big questions of life, and provides man with a code of conduct. Most Western atheists have a worldview that the philosophers call “naturalism,” the basic elements of which include atheism, empiricism (the doctrine that all knowledge is obtained inductively, based on our sense perceptions), and materialism (the doctrine that only matter and its properties exist).
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There are two major problems with the author’s approach: 1. His assumptions about the Christian worldview are not in accord with the truth revealed to the Church. He is partking of the essential dualism of modernity that puts God “out there somewhere” who “intervenes” from time to time in the affairs of us poor mortals. Such a view denies the fundamental reality of the Incarnation and destroys the power of the faith. With such an assumption the atheist’s argument is a valid one because we have a fundamentally material universe without the Incarnation. The reality of Christianity is that God is with us, right now, right here. For a more complete explication of the traditional approach see: http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/christianity-in-a-one-storey-universe/
2. The author is assuming that atheists do not believe in God. Dr. Alexander Kalomiros in is increasinly famous essay The River of Fire argues persuasively it is rather that they hate God. They hate God in part because so much of supposedly Christian theology (at least in its popular understanding) posits a God who is a sadistic controler, not a loving creator. See http://www.philthompson.net/pages/library/riveroffire.html for the complete essay.
The assumptions which the author believes the atheist has are not, IMO, the ones the atheist actually. If I am right, the author’s approach will fail. In addition it is extraodinarily difficult to engage someone on the level of first principals as the author rightly suggests. Most people simply refuse to go there (at least if the conversations on this blog are any evidence).
It is a waste of time to engage atheists in dialog unless they are wanting to leave the atheist ranks. These kind come out only through prayer and fasting.
In other words we must actively engage in our own spiritual warfare so that God may use our lives as the evidence if He so chooses. Anything less is pure arrogance and sophistry. In the mean time let the wheat and the tares grow up together.
Michael, don’t let people like Dawkins and Hitchens fool you. The reasons people have for describing themselves as “nonbelievers” are almost as numerous as the theologies and doctrines within Christianity. In my experience, the majority, however can be lumped into several main categories:
a) those who are potentially willing to accept the notion of a divinity but doubt the historicity and authenticity of Scripture (among which are many Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman who used to consider himself a conservative evangelical and who had graduated from Moody Bible Institute).
b) those who might accept the notion of a divinity but reject Scripture on moral principles. I’ve read many testimonies of people who reject Christianity because they find the notion of eternal damnation repugnant to reason or they find the narratives of atrocities within the Old and New Testaments as contrary to what they believe would be the qualities of a Supremely Good Being, were He to exist. (Of course, you can then inquire as to how they come to define “good”, but that is debate you might take up with them.)
c) those who are simply disinterested or are too encumbered with the difficulties of surviving day-to-day to think much of the nature behind things. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you won’t find believers in Darfur who have survived the most unimagineable things, but I would suggest that when one is busy trying to not starve to death or being murdered by roving bands of wicked men, one will probably have less time to ponder the nature of God or the mysteries of the Virgin Birth.
My point is that there are many, many people who have not simply rejected the whole notion of God out of principle and prejudice but have instead come to an area of non-belief out of the same painstaking thought and inquiry as that which led you into belief.
I agree with Michael. I would add that even at the level of discussing “first principles,” it is not likely someone would be argued out of athiesm. During my years of calling myself an agnostic (i.e., a wimpy atheist), discussion and arguing did not do anything to change me.
I do not believe faith is a matter of logic, even though we need to be logical. I believe the beginning of faith is inseperable from the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and it is not something we can take “credit” for.
James, my main point with regard to atheists was that some have simply followed the dualistic path laid out by the Christian Humanists such as Erasmus replacing the dual Man here/God there falsity with the monad, Man here.
There are others who hate God. It is difficult to hate someone you don’t think exisits. God-haters are not confined to the atheist ranks however. Some of the twisted and tortured Christian theology that is professed by some who call themselves Christians can only be explained to my be an underlying hatred of God and themselves.
If God will not force open the doors of people’s hearts, who are we to think we can or should? Our obedience is what God asks of us. Our repentance. That is the witness we are called to make. If we don’t do it, why should anyone believe?
I think the author needs to make an important distinction. The burden of proof rests on the person making the positive assertion. The atheist does not have to “prove” anything. He does not have to have “evidence” for his position. He does not have to “argue” against the existence of God. He can simply say that he does not find the theist’s argument compelling.
Most of the people I know who don’t believe in God are not even “atheists.” In other words, they do not identify with that label. For example, there are no labels for people who are not alchemists or astrologers, nor are there labels for people who don’t believe in UFOs or ESP.
Most of these people who don’t believe in God do not spend their days devising clever anti-theistic arguments nor do they “argue” against theists. They don’t read Dawkins, Harris, or Hitchens. It’s just that the Christian god means nothing to them, no more than Zeus or Odin.
God cannot be approached forensically or empirically. He must be approached from the point of being. As Jim points out there are people who simply do not recognize that within themselves. Only the Holy Spirit can awaken that awareness. Debating atheists or non-Christians only leads to doubtful disputation.
Those who want to know the truth and are not satisfied with accepting anything less, who refuse to allow themselves to be distracted by anyone’s theology no matter how good an approximation it may be, will find the truth. Most people stop short. The saints persist.
I think that gets at one of the points Michael Bauman was making; Roebuck writes in support of the abstract notion of transcendence, but certainly does not support the specific claims made by a particular religion.
He does not, therefore, support the claims made in revealed Scripture.
This is where the essay really becomes fallacious. (If we’re going to name the fallacy, some might call it deck-stacking, but I think it’s really a form of “Loki’s Wager.”) There is no mechanism to agree on what “evidence” is actually relevant, but Roebuck contends that an atheist must consider all the evidence before arriving at a decision. This includes, according to Roebuck, every account of miracles and the supernatural, as well as, presumably, every holy text. A person could spend her entire life methodically reading and evaluating each one.
One might just as easily tell a Christian that she cannot reject Quetzalcoatl or Hinduism until she has considered every possible piece of existing evidence.
The central thrust of Roebuck’s essay is actually a strong argument for agnosticisim:
If we don’t acknowledge some kind of limitations to our reality, then disproving anything is impossible. One cannot disprove the existence of God, but one also cannot disprove the existence of Santa Claus, unicorns, flying saucers, Sasquatch, etc.
The gods that modern religions believe in are particularly difficult to “disprove,” because any trait or quality that may have been attributed to them in the past has been weeded out if it was in any way disprovable. In fact, if any ancient religion had a belief that could be tested, it was, and was eventually rejected.
For example, the Catholic Church once held it as fact that God created the Earth as the center of the Universe, and that, therefore, the sun revolved around the earth. This belief was easy to defend when the only evidence to the contrary was complicated math based on the astronomical observations of a few geniuses. Now that we’ve added a few centuries’ worth of data, as well as sent spacecraft to land on the planets which do, indeed, orbit the sun, the Catholic Church has abandoned this belief.
Obviously, that example is news to no one, but it illustrates my point: the Catholic Church (along with pretty much every ancient religion) has jettisoned all disprovable beliefs.
None of this explains why some people believe the claims that the Church of Scientology is sellin’ them, but perhaps it’s fair to say that most people really don’t think that hard about what they believe.
If you read the rest of the article, Roebuck provides a definition of omnipotence: basically, he says, “God can do anything that can be done.” He contrasts this with the popular notion that can do “anything that can be conceived of.”
Does that comport with Orthodox Christian beliefs?
I read an essay by a priest which contended that the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Father were each distinct as well as omnipotent. (I’m probably not alone in having difficulty phrasing the notion that they are distinct and yet also the same One True God, especially when considering the more abstract holy spirit, but I suspect the general concept is well known on this board.)
At any rate, the notion of there being more than one omnipotent being is a fallacy, and this logic is distinct from the “God can’t create a rock he can’t lift” argument.
Phil writes: “There is no mechanism to agree on what “evidence” is actually relevant, but Roebuck contends that an atheist must consider all the evidence before arriving at a decision.”
Yes, the whole issue is that it is not clear what counts as evidence. Everyone has access to the same facts — existence of the universe, reports of personal religious experience, etc. — but it is not clear what the facts mean, or of what they are evidence. I suppose what is necessary as far as something that would compel rational belief would be some kind of overwhelming, incontrovertible, publicly verifiable miracle. But those don’t seem to happen. And if they did happen, the belief thus compelled would be a kind of cold, loveless, abstract, factual belief.
What you would end up with would be a kind of “god of reason.” As Miguel de Unamuno said in The Tragic Sense of Life
Not by the way of reason, but only by the way of love and of suffering, do we come to the living God, the human God. Reason rather separates us from Him. We cannot first know Him in order that afterwards we may love Him; we must begin by loving Him, longing for Him, hungering after Him, before knowing Him. The knowledge of God proceeds from the love of God, and this knowledge has little or nothing of the rational in it. For God is indefinable. To seek to define Him is to seek to confine Him within the limits of our mind—that is to say, to kill Him. In so far as we attempt to define Him, there rises up before us—Nothingness.
People believe on the basis of experience — a personal mystical experience, a divine calling, a feeling of gestalt — that “it all” makes sense, it clicks, it explains in an emotionally compelling way things that are otherwise inexplicable. Anyone who would become a Christian after researching “evidence” would, I believe, have to have some kind of predisposition to belief in the first place.
The author feels that reason and logic are a way to reach the atheist: “There is only one effective way to respond to the supercilious atheist’s question: Speak his language, the language of evidence and reasoning, of logic and proof. ”
Here I think the author is playing with fire, but he doesn’t know that. He wants to use critical reason as a way to undermine the atheist’s position. Ironically, it will only undermine his own position. What he doesn’t grasp is that, as Anthony Giddens says, in modern times one aspect of critical reason is radical doubt:
Doubt, a pervasive feature of modern critical reason, permeates into everyday life as well as philosophical consciousness, and forms a general existential dimension of the contemporary social world. Modernity institutionalizes the principle of radical doubt and insists that all knowledge takes the form of hypotheses: claims which may very well be true, but which are in principle open to revision and may have at some point to be abandoned.
To believe on the basis of reason would be to turn faith into an hypothesis that might have to be abandoned if better arguments came along. I think this is the point that JamesK is making in post #2:
Those who are potentially willing to accept the notion of a divinity but doubt the historicity and authenticity of Scripture (among which are many Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman who used to consider himself a conservative evangelical and who had graduated from Moody Bible Institute.
There’s that word again — “doubt.” And you could add to Ehrman, Robert Price, Borg, Crossan, Mack, Armstrong, and countless other scholars for whom traditional faith became an hypothesis that had to be “revised.” It’s no accident that some graduate students in divinity programs refer to “seminary” as “cemetery.”
In centuries past critical reason was seen as the way that philosophical and scientific truths could be established with certainty. (E.g. Descartes’ “clear and distinct ideas.”) But eventually critical reason ended up doing just the opposite. As Giddens notes
[critical reason] actually undermines the certainty of knowledge, even in the core domains of natural science . . . The integral relation between modernity and radical doubt is an issue which, once exposed to view, is not only disturbing to philosophers but is existentially troubling for ordinary individuals.
The whole time I was reading the article I wanted to say to the author, “nice try, but are you sure you really want to go there . . .”
Our Lord Himself answered those of his time who sought evidence by saying the only sign that shall be offered is the sign of the Propet Jonah. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
It has not changed.
Michael,
While that notion is poetic, the scriptural Jesus seems to have contradicted that statement, performing several miracles in front of witnesses.
It seems to me that there are parallels to the statements “I don’t believe in God” and “I don’t believe in love.” I’m not saying that I, personally, think that the two are the same thing. But one probably wouldn’t respond to someone who “doesn’t believe” in love by trying to quantify it.
The real sign is His Resurrection. Pre-figured by the raising of Lazarus. Miracles do not show that He is God.
Roebuck (the author of the piece above) writes:
Kinda, sorta. What Roebuck should really say is that philosophical materialism (that reality only consists of matter; reality is that which is only empirically measurable), is itself an article of faith. This doesn’t prove in any sense the existence of God (or “non-material,” transcendent, reality) of course, but it does take off the table dimensions of human experience such as love, beauty, morals — all the constituents that reveal man is more than animal in his quest for deeper self-knowledge.
That’s one reason why secularist “art” (if we can call it such), is necessarily deconstructionist. It can only tear down, rather than build, amplify, or illuminate those deeper dimensions of human experience that are transcendent, which is to say material and something more.
Roebuck tries too hard to keep reason in the realm the scientifically rationale. Nevertheless, if the materialist was correct, something like this or this or this or even this could not have been created.
One can be an atheist and not a materialist, though?
I don’t see how. (Don’t forget, we are talking about people who understand their suppositions, not about people who think their assertions are fact just because they uttered them.)
I could see one arguing that “materialism,” as a philosophy, requires one to adhere to certain beliefs. But it doesn’t follow that atheism does; all that is required of atheists is to not believe in a God. It doesn’t really matter why you don’t believe; you’re still an atheist.
Materialists believe that everything can be explained by physical phenomena. But isn’t it possible, and still logical, to reject that mindset, and yet still believe that there isn’t a Supreme Being, a Creator, or any sentient power keeping track of us?
Even if your atheism is irrational, what does that make you? A Christian? Or are you saying that any atheist who can’t support her beliefs is really an agnostic?
Why all the gnat straining? One either knows God or does not, one either longs for union with Him or not. One either gives glory to God or does not. It does not matter what one calls oneself. Chuck Colson says that people who call themselves agnostic are just lazy. IMO they are worse. As it points out in Revelation, the lukewarm are vomited from His mouth. Or as Yoda says, “there is do or do not, there is no try”
Note 16. Phil writes:
Possible? Yes. Lot’s of lazy people around. Logical? No. No transcendence, all you have left is matter.
There are different kinds of materialism, but simply put materialism is the belief that everything in the universe is purely physical or depends upon physical entities. Thus atheism follows logically from materialism.
But strictly speaking, materialism does not follow logically from atheism. One could be an atheist — not believe in the existence of a supreme being — without that belief being dependent on any particular metaphysical beliefs about the nature of the universe. Some religious people are, in effect, atheists (e.g., Buddhists.)
I don’t think that agnostics are any more “lazy” than anyone else. In fact many agnostics end up as agnostics after studying all the arguments on both sides, which certainly takes a lot of effort. The passage in Revelation refers to Christians, not unbelievers. You have to be in the body in the first place in order to be “vomited” out. Concerning Yoda, I think he was referring to Jedi knights, which most agnostics are not. At least I have not met any agnostic Jedi knights.
Or you have nothing but transcendence and matter is an illusion.
I’m sure that there are lazy agnostics, just as there are lazy atheists and lazy Christians. But to believe that something is unknowable does not seem to me to be any simpler than believing, say, in the supernatural, such that there’s a convenient explanation for every mystery.
Perhaps, but as has been discussed in this thread, transcendence does not necessarily equal Supreme Being, creator god, or sentient power. There are myriad other beliefs that one could hold: for example, that there is more to the Universe than matter, but that whatever else is out there probably doesn’t care about or involve itself in our existence.
For the purposes of this type of discussion, if it isn’t God or at least a divine essense of some kind, its matter.
Then there is the epistomological questions: what does it mean “to know”; how does one arrive at and verify that “knowledge”? None of it, even outside the religious/spiritual sphere is subject to proof. One cannot prove or disprove the immaterial in a material way. I can say personally, without any doubt, that I have encountered the living God in the Person of Jesus Christ. That really doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot to anyone else unless I allow myself to be transformed by Him. Even then, there is nothing that I can say that will convince anybody who is not willing to believe. Jesus Himself couldn’t so how could I. That is what makes these types of conversations ultimately meaningless. You, Phil have to make the choice to believe or not. Nothing else matters
Michael writes: “That is what makes these types of conversations ultimately meaningless. You … have to make the choice to believe or not.”
If when I die I get to ask a few questions, the first one would be: “why the mystery? Why the necessity of believing in that which is completely veiled from all human sense?”
I don’t mean this to sound blasphemous, but I’m not sure why an appearance or two by the Creator of the Universe every now and then is so out-of-the-question. It would certainly silence most of these debates, wouldn’t it? I mean, most people agree that there’s a place called Niagara Falls, and someone who questioned its existence would be deemed a lunatic I would think. Why? Well, too many people have seen it and been there or know someone who’s been there. Why the challenge of believing in something that exists “out there”, unheard and unseen? I just don’t see the point.
Aren’t the commands to be ethical in one’s life a sufficient challenge?
James,
I believe CS Lewis can address at least some of your questions: “why the mystery? Why the necessity of believing in that which is completely veiled from all human sense?”
If revealed Scripture is to be believed, not all humans faced such mystery. During the time of Christ, people enjoyed what we would now call “material evidence” of transcendent phenomena.
I suspect, however, that there is a convenient explanation for this. One of the many traits of supernatural belief systems is that they can pretty much account for any permutation of events, after the fact. This can be contrasted with “lazy” agnostics, who recognize mysteries, but don’t necessarily cling to beliefs about them.
Phil, yes they did have “material evidence” and many chose to not believe anyway. There are many authenticatable healing miracles even in this day and age that do nothing for those who choose not to believe. When I say at every Divine Liturgy and during my personal prayers, the Nicean Creed: I believe… it is both an affirmation of the truth revealed to the Church and a personal on-going commitment to my belief.
There simply are no “reasons” for belief that are compelling to everyone. In fact, each persons reasons are unique and personal because Jesus Christ is a person, He issues a personal invitation to follow Him. Belief is a choice, an act of faith. Knowledge comes after belief. Those who choose not to believe will never know. You have to heed and respond to the inward call first. That’s just the way it is.
I don’t mean to imply in the slightest by my comments that we are autonomous either in our belief or in our salvation. We are not. Human beings share a common nature that is united in Christ whether we are conscious of it or not. Each person who makes the commitment to belief makes it easier for the next person. Concomitantly, there is a weight of unbelief we all carry. Our ontological unity makes the commandment to bear one another’s burdens impossible to avoid. It is quite easy to see this even in the material world. We are all affected by our own sins and the sins of others, e.g., insurance fraud causes all of us to pay more for our insurance. The saints, however, consciously and willingly take up other’s burdens in prayer and fasting entreating God for the salvation and healing of us all.
Despite our ontological unity, however, it is still up to each of us in our own person to accept the responsibility for belief or not. Once that is done we can, as C.S. Lewis so aptly put it in the Chronicles of Narnia, “go higher up and further in.”
From a Christian standpoint, simply being a nice person is not enough. Not only does the word nice share the same root as ignorant, our righteousness is like filthy rags in the site of God. His mercy and grace alone are sufficient to allow us salvation. Anyone who relies solely on his or her own devices is sadly and deadly wrong. The false belief that we will simply pass into nothingness once we die allows us to be apathetic about the state of our own being. But again, knowledge of such realities is not really open to those who choose not to believe. According to the saints and the Church, the more one loves God, the more awareness one is given. The living tradition of the spiritual elder within the Church is an example of such awareness. Again, for those who choose not to believe, rarely is a word given. God does not waste His breath.
All I can say is that “there is far more in heaven and earth…than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” It boggles my mind that so many simply refuse to consider the possibilities and really investigate with an open heart and mind. I mean really, if even 1/10th of what the saints describe and is promised in the Bible is true, wouldn’t you want that?
Note 21. Phil writes:
You missed the point Phil. It’s not that lazy agnostics exist, it’s that the terms “agnostic” and “lazy” function almost as synonyms. Agnosticism is a pose of convenience; living a life of unexamined assumptions.
Yes. That’s one area where the pagans are closer to the truth than materialists. (Brute materialism, will, of course, end up in ideology, although the shape of the ideology is determined by the cultural outlines shaped by the religion that the ideology purports to replace.)
Transcendence implies something more than a exclusively materialist definition of the universe without negating the materiality (the obverse of which the materialist cannot affirm). Deny the transcendent dimension of reality, and it leads you to conclusions like thoughts have only biochemical origins, etc — something that Marx taught and now many determinists believe.
So yes, affirming transcendence won’t lead you see the God of Abraham (although it may help you hear Him), but the denial of transcendence must, if you follow the claim through to its end, deny that the universe is at all logocentric — that is void of any word of meaning. All speech is chaotic blather.
Of course this was perceived many moons ago: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was….” (I’ll let you look it up (John 1)). It’s the penultimate repudiation of deconstructionism, that slow crawl to the denial of the Word the empties the universe of its silence and the embrace of nihilism in its wake.
Note 24. James asks:
No. If ethical demands are indeed a challenge, then you imply an authority above the demand itself that compels you to obey those demands. IOW, you are positing that the challenge to obey ethical demands is a universal, something that applies to everyone (whether or not everyone obeys those demands has no bearing here).
Someone not content with accepting your assertion at face value, even though he might agree with it, would ask what is the nature of that authority, perhaps even who is that authority? You stand at the door of mystery, but don’t seem to see it’s a door. It’s kind of an opaque wall in your view.
Just to be clear, is it the belief or the falsity that allows this? (I suppose I should only invite you to respond if your beliefs allow you to be hypothetical.)
But it seems, based on this statement, that a true belief that we will simply pass into nothingness would be just as likely to allow us to be apathetic about the state of our own being.
Would it be preferable for a person to not be certain whether he will pass into nothingness? From your statement, it seems agnosticism is preferable to atheism.