In two previous posts (The Atheist’s New Clothes and
What You Don’t Know Can Kill You), I pointed out that Christianity’s two skeptical
critics, atheism and agnosticism, are essentially irrational and explained why
they just cannot be taken seriously.
In this post and the next one, I’m answering the obvious first
comebacks. These are what I get from the atheists and agnostics themselves, or
from those who have been trusting in them. Theism, they say, must surely be
susceptible to exactly the same criticisms I have raised against atheism and
agnosticism — and perhaps, they venture, even more susceptible: for their
supposition is that if their own positions are weak, then surely anything “religious”
must be even less well thought out.
Sorry. Not so.
I can show them, but they usually don’t like it much when I do.
Atheism’s Response
Let’s start with atheism. Atheism, I showed, is possible in
two forms: wish atheism and knowledge-claim atheism. The first one
is empty of threat because it’s only a personal taste, not one premised on
facts or evidence. The second one tries to threaten theism based on evidence,
but cannot do so rationally, as I showed in that earlier .
But the atheist has a comeback there. He says, “Okay, you’ve
shown I cannot rationally defend my atheism; but you, as a theist, are in no
better position than me. I cannot conclusively prove God does not exist, but
you cannot conclusively prove he does. So it’s all a wash — I may be behaving
irrationally, but theism is no less irrational.”
However, the atheist is simply wrong. He does not take into
account that he makes two claims that the theist does not. These two claims,
inherent to atheism itself, allow theism to be rational but leave atheism as
irrational.
What are these two claims? Firstly, there’s the claim the
atheist makes that he does not go beyond the material evidence available. Secondly,
there’s the atheist’s assertion of a negative-knowledge claim, whereas the
theist gets to make a positive knowledge-claim in return.
Weighing the Evidence
Let’s take each of the basic atheist claims in turn. We’ll begin with its so-called superiority of evidence.
Knowledge-atheism’s own claim is that is it based on facts, evidence and knowledge, not on guesswork, wishes, hopes or
suppositions. Often, atheists mock theists as though they have no evidence, and
thus are willfully working contrary to all evidence — which is how they
understand the word “faith”.
But “faith” is not at all what they imagine it is. The
thinking theist is not the least bit reluctant to concede to the atheist critic
that he does not stand possessed of total evidence, but rather only of partial
or personal experiential indicators of the existence of God. The theist also
freely admits that the evidence for God can be viewed as equivocal — it would
be quite possible for a person living here to see all the evil, injustice and
destruction that goes on here, and to have limited contrary experiences upon
which to draw, and so to doubt the existence of God; but it would also remain
quite possible for someone who had different experiences, a different set of
data in mind, and a different view of divine revelation to hold a view that God
does exist.
Faith, the Wild Card
But vive la différence. Theism believes that faith is
a reasonable route — indeed, the correct route — to the knowledge of God. Theism
does not expect that a lone person, in the absence of experience or available
evidence, and in the absence of willingness to believe, can find God. “Without
faith it is impossible to please God”, says the Bible, “for he who comes to him
must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them who seek him.” He also says to his people, “You shall find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
The theist says, “God tells us quite frankly he is not
prepared to be known by those who seek him cynically. He expects us to exercise a vote of confidence in his existence first,
and then in his character — that he is one who rewards those who really want to
know him — because he wants to know people in precisely that way and no other. Faith
is the prerequisite for knowing God; we freely and unapologetically admit that.”
The heart, not just the head, must get into the game. Whether
or not you can know God, whether he will let himself be known by you, depends
on what attitude you take when you come to him. And why would that be a
surprise? If God is a God of relationship and love, why would it surprise us if he is very concerned about the kinds of people we are willing to be in coming
to him? Apparently, he is uninterested in meeting us on our own terms, and even
less on cynical terms. Apparently he loves those who are open to loving him.
Surprise? No. Every human being has that attitude too. We don’t
want cynics; we want friends. We want people who trust us, seek us, desire our
company and think well of us. So can it strike us as odd if God wants no less
than we do?
Atheism and Faith
So the willingness — indeed the necessity — of the theist to
accept faith as an essential part of “knowing” means that he or she can
rationalize belief on the basis of sound partial empirical evidence, plus
induction from that evidence, plus willingness to remain open to the
possibility of God’s self-revelation, plus the person of Jesus Christ, plus
personal experience of the reality of God. For the theist, that is plenty to
warrant belief.
But the atheist is stuck. Since all he or she will accept is
total and conclusive proof — a thing unavailable except in mathematics and formal
logic, and not even available in empirical science itself — the atheist can
never have evidence sufficient to warrant the skeptical decision upon which
atheism depends.
Ironically, to remain an atheist, he or she will have to
exercise some faith.
Atheism and Negatives
Now to the second reason the atheist’s response against
theism doesn’t work, its attempted defense of a universal negative.
The fundamental statement of the atheist is “There is NO
God.” None. Nowhere. No kind. The fundamental claim of theism is “There IS a
God.” Note that the first is a negative statement, whereas the second only has
to prove a positive.
What difference does that make? Quite a big one, actually. And
a little illustration will make this perfectly clear.
Let us suppose that instead of God we are talking about an
elusive animal of some kind … let’s call this creature a tenrec. You are an atenrecist: you believe no tenrecs
exist. I, on the other hand, am a tenrecist:
I believe there is such a thing as a tenrec. Now ask yourself, what has each of
us got to do to win our case?
It’s hard, but not impossible, for the atenrecist to make
his case solid. All he has to do is travel all over the earth, at all times, and eliminate all
possible places capable of holding a tenrec. If he can cover them all, then he
can conclusively declare, “There is no tenrec — I have proved it.” But now,
contrast that to what I, the tenrec-believer have to do: do I have to go
everywhere? Do I have to check every possibility? No.
How many tenrecs do I have to produce to destroy completely
any possibility of atenrecism?
That’s right: just one.
One tenrec will show quite conclusively that I was right and
the atenrecist was completely wrong, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt.
Now taking this back to the present case, if there is but one genuine manifestation of God in the
entire universe, if there is but one appearance, even one miracle, one genuine case of revelation, one authentic prophetic bestowment, one genuine intervention by divine
action, or anything in any religious tradition on the face of the entire planet … any one of these destroys
the possibility of atheism utterly. So no, the tasks facing atheism and theism
are vastly different, and far less demanding on the theist.
So then the only question is this: Is there or has there
ever been, in any place or at any time in history, any such genuine
manifestation of the existence of God? Only if there has been absolutely none
is the atheist secure.
Theism has a much more doable task to prove its case, you
can see.
Why Theism is Rational
All of this means that atheism is badly behind the eight
ball compared to theism when it comes to the issue of proving its case. Theism
can legitimately defend its own claims about God using both evidence and faith. In incorporating faith, it is being duly modest about how
all human beings know things; for we know practically nothing absolutely, and
most things by their greater or lesser probability in light of evidence. Logicians
call this “inductive knowing”, and it is so common that practically everything
we humans know is of this type — especially science.
But atheism by definition cannot refer to faith in its explanation of knowledge. If it does,
it collapses into agnosticism. Atheism is forced, by its own claim to be
evidentiary rather than wish-based, to ante up the evidence. It must prove beyond any possibility of doubt that God
does not exist. And it cannot.
Not only that, but should even a single genuine piece of evidence for theism ever appear, that would
be sufficient to blow atheism to pieces forever, rationally speaking. One
genuine miracle, one genuine prophecy, one genuine divine visitation, even a
single word of genuine revelation from God would destroy the value all the contrary
evidence atheism could ever muster. If one
modicum of genuine evidence for God exists — in any religious tradition or
anywhere else in the universe — then the conclusion is inescapable: atheism is
simply untrue. God exists.
So again we see that theism can be rational, but atheism
never can. It’s not just horribly vulnerable to disproof, but as we saw
earlier, is completely incapable of producing adequate proof for its own claims.
Escape Clause
“Okay”, says the atheist, “you’ve got me. But so what? Let
me call in my cousin, agnosticism; he’s really big, and he’ll mop the floor
with you!”
Should the theist be more afraid of agnosticism than atheism? We’ll see next post.
___________________________
Photo: Heinonlein [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Very nice. You have hit the second nail right on the head. I am venturing the guess that with all that hammering you are in the process of building a coffin for atheism/agnosticism :-).
ReplyDeleteMore seriously though, but that discussion has been going on (futilely) forever and you should consider having had an impact even if you are just able to reach one or two persons. It remains true that, ultimately, God needs to draw people to himself and that your presentation is only one aspect of that. I call those things life events that are introduced in a person's life to make them consider or reconsider to give God a try. Those who have had them know so and have no doubts about that. In addition, there is, of course, the much more mundane way to acknowledge and recognize God simply by having been part of a loving family life and environment where you grew up that way. The ultimate proof of God is then where you are in, or are able to create, an environment that exemplifies Christ's (supreme) teaching of sacrifice, forbearance, love and compassion, like "love your enemy", which is not available anywhere else. None of this comes free, of course, and takes a lot of work, mostly in yourself, which is, in my opinion, the main reason why people stay away from making it part of their lifes. It's the inconvenience thing again.
Too true, Qman. If IC's posts on the subject are helpful to atheists or agnostics, that would be a terrific bonus. Our main concern is to encourage believers who might worry that atheism and agnosticism have more intellectual and philosophical substance than they actually do. But like you say, even "one or two persons" are of great concern to the Lord.
DeleteTom's got my purpose right.
DeleteAtheism is not curable except by open-mindedness plus the relevant evidence. Absent either of those, there is no way to change it -- because it's a heart choice, not a head choice.
However, Christians are often anxious that a great many eloquent or academically-inclined folks declare themselves atheists. We must admit there are a disproportionately high number of educated persons who choose that label -- at least in the West. Some even insist that no intelligent person could possibly believe anything else.
Dawkins et al. call themselves "The Brights."...presumably to shame theists as "dullards" of some kind. That's stupid talk, of course, but enough of it can become discouraging. And it is the case that a great many people in the higher realms of academe call themselves atheists.
In any case, tthere are a lot of purported atheists around, and a lot of brave words associated with that posture. Atheism is a sort of de facto position in a lot of public life and politics as well.
We can forgive Christians, therefore, if they sometimes feel a little intimidated and put down by all that. But the real marvel here is not the number of people who claim atheism, nor its pervasiveness in our media and society, but the fact that the belief system itself is so clearly absurd. It is a bombastic posture, one that intimidates more through the extremity of its rhetoric than anything, and which has no good reasons to commend it, as you can see.
It is liberating for Christians to realize the enemy in this case is so shallow and rationally implausible. It's clicking on an empty chamber. So I'd like Christians to see the truth of that for themselves. And that's my audience here.