Jason's Blog

Why would someone want to be an atheist?

-      many believe that religion inherently leads to violence.  They think about all the conflicts that have religion at their roots.

-      many think that realists can’t believe in God.  Along these lines they suppose that science has disproved God.  They take it as “common sense” that the supernatural does not exist.  They think that a belief in God is something of a fairy tale akin to believing in the tooth fairy. 

-      many have seen or experienced religious people who have abused power.  How many parents (or governments) have sought to control others by using religious beliefs as a rod of punishment (or guilt)?

How can Christians prove the existence of God?  There a several proofs that are offered:

-       the ontological proof  (worded better by Anselm and more recently Platinga) goes something like this. 

God is something greater than anything else imaginable

     As human can conceive of such a being.

     In reality such a being must exist.

-      the teleological proof  (famous by T. Aquinas and Augustine before him)

1. X (being the cosmos) is too complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, or beautiful to have occurred randomly or accidently.
2. X must have been created by a sentient, intelligent, wise or purposeful being.
3. God is that being who has created.  Therefore, God exists.

There are several spinoffs on the teleological proof today.  One is the concept of “irreducible complexity” that is touted by proponents of intelligent design.  This states that the complex variables necessary to sustain human life could not have arisen from chance. 

-      the moral argument (proposed by Kant and many others).  We can detect a “conservation of values” that are consistent in all human cultures.  Deep down we know what is right and wrong.  How can this truth be explained apart from a creator?

-      the cosmological argument (as old as Aristotle).  All things must have started from a “Immovable Mover.”  There must be a god that has set all things into motion.

Can we really prove God’s existence?

The burden of proof in all these arguments is truly level.  Ultimately they don’t really prove that there is a God.  We have to have faith and believe.  For example, how are we to prove there is a maker because the world appears complex.

-      Many things that we have thought were complex processes have been explained as consistent with fixed laws (weather patterns, earthquakes, the aligment of the stars in space, etc.).

-      Could not the same be true for morality or cosmology?

-       Can I not conceive of a world in which there is no god?  Many apparently do.

Our goal must be not to prove that God exists, but to point out that atheism isn’t “common sense.”  It is a faith conviction like Christianity.  The burden of proof for atheism is the same as for Christianity.   Atheists have put their weight down on a faith system that is no more provable than Christianity.  It has produced violence, oppression, and limited morality just as Christianity has done. 

“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6) .  The Bible does not say, “without a proof for God’s existence, you cannot please Him.”  I would suggest that proofs of the existence of God are usually the consequence of faith or even a means of worship.  Faith usually seeks understanding.  This is not to say that a person can move from understanding into the realm of faith, but our foundation is not our skill or arguments.  Everything starts with a faith conviction. 

Getting atheists to see that they are doing the same thing will require us to listen to them and their arguments.  Then we’ll have to speak in all humility about the nature of faith. — JF

 

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