"GUILTY."
A lot of what we believe is simply what has been taught to us. We believe because we have never known anything else, or because our parents have taught us, or our teachers, or culture and society in general. We may believe because of religious authorities, books or experiences. We may believe because we want to believe: our beliefs give us meaning, identity, or freedom from guilt. But the most important reason for believing something is clearly its truth.1
So, then, we must evaluate our beliefs and resolve whether or not they are true. If two people believe two different and mutually exclusive things about the nature of reality, one of them must be wrong. We have a responsibility and a need to ascertain the truth of what we believe.
It is easy to see that people believe different and mutually exclusive things about the existence of God. If the atheist is right then the theist is wrong, and vice versa.2 We must come to a conclusion about the truth of these claims. Does God exist? Or more specifically, does YHWH, the God of the Bible, exist?
Agnosticism as a philosophical movement originated in the last part of the 19th century, and died out around the turn of the century.4 However, as Bernard Lightman observes, "The twentieth century has spawned other varieties of agnosticism which also display a tragic quality. There are the complacent unbelievers who seize upon agnosticism in order to justify a self-serving, lazy attitude toward religious and metaphysical issues."5 There is clearly no excuse for resting in a vague agnosticism, for the issues are vitally important. Furthermore, the suspension of commitment or belief is incapable of offering any counsel for our lives. As a system of belief to base decisions on, agnosticism is as anti-helpful as nihilism. We must search for an answer to the existence of God, and agnosticism can only be a temporary period of indecision.
Atheism inevitably leads to nihilism, although it is usually not followed out to its proper conclusion. There are four areas in which naturalism/atheism imply and produce total nihilism: the temporality of human existence, the necessary relativism of morality, the impossibility of knowledge, and the impossibility of human free will.
The first nihilistic implication of atheism comes from the brevity of human life. If the natural world is all there is, and we are simply bunches of atoms and chemical processes, there can be no afterlife and we must simply be extinguished at death. The problem is that if all we have is seventy years to live, what value can there be to anything we decide to do? Imagine if we had only a few days to exist. Would anything we do have more than an arbitrary value? The most profound act of self-sacrifice, the finest humanitarian advancement or the greatest hedonistic pleasures would still be reduced to the same insipidity of death, extinction and utter non-being. Our moral choices would not matter-- whether we were responsible for genocide or for fighting world hunger we would meet the same end. Nothing could have meaning after death, and our lives would be remembered only by others doomed to the same fate. An example of this mortal futility is found in the Bible:
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, NIV).The second component of atheism that leads to nihilism is naturalistic morality. Under naturalism, morality has to be relative, because it is simply the result of evolution. Moral systems are simply products of society, and different moral systems must all be right, even if they disagree. There can be no such thing as an objective standard of truth or justice, because all standards are subjective to their own cultures. It is a small step from moral relativism in different societies to moral relativism in individuals. If we are merely accidents in the universe how can we maintain any sort of ethical standard? In turn, if we can not speak meaningfully of constants of right and wrong, the concepts themselves become meaningless. The atheist can have no objection to war, slavery, rape, or discrimination and remain constant to his views.
The third form of nihilism implicit in atheism is epistemological nihilism. If nothing exists outside the physical universe, then there is no reason for trusting that our brains can think accurately or know anything about reality. James Sire writes,
[Under naturalism] people are bound to their bodies. Their consciousness arises from a complex interrelation of highly 'ordered' matter. Why should whatever that matter is conscious of be in any way related to what actually is the case? Is there a test for distinguishing illusion from reality? Naturalists point to the methods of scientific inquiry, pragmatic tests and so forth. But all these utilize the brain they are testing. Each test could well be a futile exercise in spinning out the consistency of an illusion.7If our brains are nothing but collections of chemically interacting matter, there is no reason to trust them in thinking that our brains are nothing but collections of chemically interacting matter.
The last nihilistic implication of atheism I will discuss here is the impossibility of human free will in a closed natural system. In a closed system everything that happens is either an effect of a cause or an effect of chaos. If everything is a result of some cause, even though we may not know which cause it is, then all of our actions, thoughts and decisions are also inevitable results of some causes, and we have no real free will. If I decide to make a sandwich right now, it is simply the product of many causes and effects-- the operation of my brain, the condition of my stomach, my upbringing and heredity-- which are based on still other causes and effects, ad infinitum. Our "decisions" are merely the natural effects and reactions matter, and could not happen any other way. And if we have no capacity for free will, life is indeed meaningless. James Sire summarizes: "Human beings are conscious machines without the ability to effect their own destiny or do anything significant; therefore, human beings (as valuable beings) are dead."8 If we add chaos to this picture, we arrive at not only meaninglessness but absurdity, for chaos is utterly irrational and unmeaningful.
What then, does all this mean? Atheism implies complete bankruptcy of significance and content in life, knowledge, morality, and action9 . Nihilism is the logical and necessary outcome.
At first glance pantheism seems completely different from atheism, but in practice there are many similarities. To begin with, pantheism gives no basis for morality. If everything is a part of God, then both good and evil are good, and our actions are simply a part of everything-- God is not only good or all good, God is everything, and therefore includes evil. It can be argued also that pantheism leads to nihilism in much the same way as atheism. It seems that there is only a slight difference between being nothing but part of matter, which is the only thing that really is, and being nothing but part of God, which is the only thing that really is.
Pantheism, at least under the Hindu concept of karma, also leads to moral absurdity. First of all, Hindus believe that our deeds will be rewarded by a suitable amount of blessing or suffering in our next life. This leads to a confusing problem, though: If the suffering of people is the result and just dessert of their former lives, then how can we go against karma and remove their suffering? Furthermore, are not our actions, even if they do hurt other people, only justice? If everything we do is simply part of the complicated system of paying people back for the good or bad they have done, there can be no reason for morality.
Another way in which pantheism is similar to atheism is the problem of death. If we have no knowledge of our past lives, how are they different from the lives of other people who have lived and died in the past? There is essentially no difference between dying and being reincarnated with no knowledge of our personalities or experiences and dying and being simply extinguished. The pantheist is subject to the same temporality as the atheist, and has the same difficulties in finding meaning in the few years we have under the sun.
Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favours what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labour under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, NIV).Paul affirms hedonism as the only logical alternative to Christianity, if it should turn out to be false:'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.' (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NIV).
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1Corinthians 15:13-19, NIV).He concludes, "If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" (1Corinthians 15:32, NIV). The importance of this problem, then, is absolute. If we are not resurrected, there is nothing for us-- we are doomed to a hollow life of arbitrary meaning, if any meaning can be found at all. If there is no reason or meaning in the universe we might as well seek whatever form of enjoyment we can glean from our existence, and give up hope in reality.
In The Psychology of Atheism R. C. Sproul argues that atheism is grounded in pride and fear of God. He gives several reasons why we are unwilling to accept the holy. "...the human experience with the Holy produces a wide variety of shocks. This traumatic character of the encounter can be summarized as involving a positive threat of disintegration. Man's self-image, individually and collectively, experiences a clear and present danger in the presence of the Holy."10 Later he states, "The holy and the pure are indirectly destructive forces, forces of disintegration. Absolute holiness, purity, and innocence cannot be tolerated because they are dangerous and destructive."11 Sproul goes on to point out the human shame and nakedness implicit in the idea of God, and the reasons why we want to hide from God-- we cannot tolerate his stare. He further points out the destruction of autonomy that comes with believing in God-- we lose our freedom, one of our most treasured (especially in America) possessions, to the sovereignty and kingship of God. To admit the Christian God is to admit guilt. We have to accept the fact that he knows us and stares at us despite our efforts to hide from him, and our extreme shame and embarrassment of being under his relentless gaze are because of our consciousness of our own guiltiness and fallenness. Atheism delivers us from the trauma of holiness, the shame of nakedness, and the enslavement inherent in believing in God. As Sproul concludes, however, I must always ask myself, 'Do I believe what I believe because I am honestly persuaded by cogent reasoning that it is true, or do I believe what I believe merely because in the final analysis that's what I want to believe?'12
William James says of the paradoxes of Zeno that these are problems to be 'solved livingly,' ones that 'ask no leave of logic.' We resolve them by doing what Zeno claimed to be impossible, namely, by simply proceeding to move about in space (1967:II, 261,255). In similar manner, the problem of the nay-sayings of nihilism is 'solved livingly' in most of us: practically or existentially nullified by instinctive affirmations of our existence. There is something in us that justifies life in the face of suffering and death, something that insistently negates nihilism's negations, regardless of what even the most forceful nihilistic arguments may conclude.14So, atheism is impossible. We must now ask ourselves to consider the evidence and look for information about what the God who is there is like. There are some very good evidences and arguments for the existence of the Christian God. It is important to note, too, that though the evidence for God is possible to deny or ignore, just as in the court case described at the beginning of this paper, there is no evidence against the existence of God. Atheists have proposed positive arguments15 for the nonexistence of God, but they all reduce to negative arguments against his existence or are simply too circular and incoherent to make any sense. I will give a short overview of some of the most commonly given evidences for the existence of the Christian God:
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. (Romans 2:14-15, NIV).
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20, NIV).
"I am not insane, most excellent Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. (Acts 26:25-26, NIV).
2 Of course, both could be wrong...
3 See the first chapter in Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler for elaboration of this idea.
4 See Lightman, The Origins of Agnosticism, especially the conclusion, for a good explanation of the origins and demise of agnosticism as a philosophical movement.
5 Lightman, The Origins of Agnosticism, p. 182.
6 See Martin, Atheism, pp. 469-470.
7 James Sire, The Universe Next Door, pp. 93-94.
8 Sire, p. 91.
9 Nihilism extends into many other areas as well. See Crosby, The Specter of the Absurd, especially part 2, for an excellent exploration of nihilism.
10 Sproul p. 88.
11 Sproul p. 100.
12 Sproul p. 155.
13 Sire, The Universe Next Door, pp. 96-97.
14 Crosby, The Specter of Absurdity, p. 363.
15 See Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification for some of these attempts.
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Caldecott, Alfred. Selections from the Literature of Theism. Ediburgh: T. & T. Clark 1904.
Clark, Gordon Haddon. In Defense of Theology. Milford: Mott Media 1984.
*16Crosby, Donald A. The Specter of the Absurd. Albany, NY: State University of New York 1988.
Drane, John. The Bible: Fact or Fantasy? Oxford, Batavia, and Sydney: Lion 1989.
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*Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia: Temple 1990.
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*Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove, IVP1988
*Sire, James W. Why Should Anyone Believe Anything at All? Downers Grove, IVP 1994.
*Sproul, R. C. The Psychology of Atheism. Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship 1974.
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Taylor, A. E. Does God Exist? New York: Macmillan 1947.