(HT: Bring the Noiz)

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1. Cosmological Argument: Also called the argument from universal causation or the argument from contingency, the cosmological argument is probably the most well know and well loved among theistic apologists. The basic argument is that all effects have an efficient cause. The universe and all that is in it, due to its contingent (dependent) nature, is an effect. Therefore, the universe has an cause. But that  cause cannot be an effect or one would have to explain its cause. Therefore, there must be an ultimate cause, an unmoved mover, an uncaused cause that began the process. This cause must transcend time and space in order to transcend the law of cause and effect. This transcendent entity must be personal in order to willfully cause the effect. This ultimate cause is God.

2. Teleological Argument: (Gr. telos, “end” or “purpose”) This is also know as the argument from design. This argument moves from complexity to a necessary explanatory cause for such complexity. The universe has definite design, order, and arrangement which cannot be sufficiently explained outside a theistic worldview. From the complexities of the human eye to the order and arrangement of the cosmology, the voice of God is heard. Therefore, God’s existence is the best explanation for such design. God is the undesigned designer.

3. Moral Argument: This argument argues from the reality of moral laws to the existence of a necessary moral law giver. The idea here is that if there are moral laws (murder is wrong, selfishness is wrong, self-sacrifice is noble, torturing innocent babies for fun is evil), then there must be a transcendent explanation and justification for such laws. Otherwise, they are merely conventions that are not morally binding on anyone. Since there are moral laws, then there must be a moral law giver who transcends space and time. This moral law giver is God. Continue Reading »

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The above title is taken from a chapter in the eminent sociologist Rodney Stark’s recent book What Americans Really Believe (Baylor University Press, 2008). Anti-Christian prophets such Thomas Woolston (1670-1731) and Voltaire (1694-1778) foretold the disappearance of religion. In the 1960s, anthropologist Anthony Wallace claimed, “The evolutionary future of religion is extinction.” Belief in supernatural forces affecting nature without obeying its “laws” will “erode and become only an interesting memory.” Around that time sociologist Peter Berger was quoted in the New York Times as saying that religious believers “are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture.” However, in 1997 Berger took it all back, as the world had gotten more religious since that assertion. Atheists are ever the minority in our global village.

The rise of the New Atheism, led by what Stark calls “angry and remarkably nasty atheists,” is attested to by several bestsellers, which have presumably signaled a breakthrough for atheism—“that large numbers of Americans were now ready to stand up and admit they didn’t believe in God.” Despite recent claims that the number of atheists has risen sharply in recent years, the evidence reveals something else: “what most people who say they have no religion mean is not that they are irreligious, but that they have no church.”

The percentage of atheists in America revealed by, say, Gallup polls and the Baylor Survey, shows a tenacious consistency over the years: 1944: 4%; 1947: 6%; 1964: 3%; 1994: 3%; 2005: 4%; 2007: 4%. I found it interesting that “the majority of children born into an irreligious home end up joining a religious group—most often a conservative denomination.” Continue Reading »

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contra “The Argument from Finite Knowledge”

I have heard many people use an illustration when talking about atheism and its viability. Many will say that they can convert an atheist to an agnostic with this simple illustration. Here is how it goes.

If someone claims to be an atheist, you can easily convert them to agnosticism thereby moving them one step closer to theism. How? By asking them a series of questions.

First you ask them how certain they are that there is not a God. If they say that they are not certain, that is just what they believe, then you inform them that they are not really an atheist–one who is certain that there is no God–but an agnostic–one who is uncertain about God’s existence.

If they say that they are certain that there is no God, then you move to step two. Here you draw a large circle that represents all knowledge in the universe. You ask them to draw a circle within that circle that represents their relative knowledge in relation to all knowledge. Of course, they will draw a much smaller circle within the large circle knowing that they do not possess all knowledge, only a small portion of the whole. Once they have created this smaller circle, you ask them if God could exist somewhere in this vast area that you have no knowledge about. They should always answer yes since that area is their area of ignorance. At that point, it is said, you have converted them from atheism to agnosticism. Voila! The Argument from Finite Knowledge. Continue Reading »

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In February 2007, I participated in the Greer-Heard Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The two featured speakers were the Christian theologian Alister McGrath and the “new atheist” philosopher Daniel Dennett. I had the opportunity to present a paper entitled “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality.” I argued that God’s existence makes much better sense than naturalism to account for our basic moral intuitions, human rights/freedom/responsibility, moral duties. Naturalism cannot get us to objective morality, and the subjective morality that roots morality solely in survival-enhancement fails to account for what is integral to human nature.

A couple of weeks ago, the book based on this particular Greer-Heard Forum appeared in print: The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, edited by Robert Stewart (Fortress Press). My essay, published therein, is available at my website. It’s a long piece, but here it is. I welcome your comments.

When Daniel Dennett responded to it at the Forum, he observed that I had hit on all the important challenges that naturalists had to come to grips about morality. He claimed that, by “reverse engineering,” he could account for objective morality naturalistically. I argued in response that, even given evolution, theism offers a more robust backdrop to explain the emergence of value than does naturalism. Dennett’s view begins with valuelessness and ends with value; theism begins with value (in the good character of God) and ends with the basic moral values we commonly agree on.

So check out the essay for yourselves and let me know what you think.

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So, being bored, I made this out of another atheism poster:

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Article 2. Whether it can be demonstrated that God exists?

Objection 1. It seems that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated. For it is an article of faith that God exists. But what is of faith cannot be demonstrated, because a demonstration produces scientific knowledge; whereas faith is of the unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Therefore it cannot be demonstrated that God exists.

Objection 2. Further, the essence is the middle term of demonstration. But we cannot know in what God’s essence consists, but solely in what it does not consist; as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 4). Therefore we cannot demonstrate that God exists.

Objection 3. Further, if the existence of God were demonstrated, this could only be from His effects. But His effects are not proportionate to Him, since He is infinite and His effects are finite; and between the finite and infinite there is no proportion. Therefore, since a cause cannot be demonstrated by an effect not proportionate to it, it seems that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated.

On the contrary, Continue Reading »

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I’m in England right now, photographing ancient New Testament manuscripts housed at various colleges of Cambridge University. The name ‘Cambridge’ evokes respect, wonder, even a certain awe. It’s a conglomerate of 31 colleges, spreading out from the 13th century on, and sprawling out from the center of town (which is, technically, Great St Mary’s Church, across from King’s College). (One of the most recent, Darwin College, is shaped like Noah’s ark to mock the biblical story of the flood and creation. But Trinity College, where Isaac Newton taught, allows no Trinitarians into its halls; I understand that one has to be an atheist, or at least an agnostic to be a part of that college, whose focus is mostly on mathematics and the sciences.) The street names change every block—a most irritating feature for those of us who are already directionally challenged. (When I was living here during one of my sabbaticals, when walking home from the grocery store one day I got so lost that the milk soured by the time I got home!) But the street names also have a certain logic for they are often named after the most prominent institute on that street. Thus, King’s Parade is named after King’s College; Queens’ Lane after Queens’ College, etc.

Well, after a terribly busy week shooting manuscripts, we decided to take a break on Saturday and visit the Orchard in Grantchester, just a couple miles from Cambridge. The Orchard is on a spot that has been frequented by Cambridge students and alumni for over seven hundred years. But in the early twentieth century, it took on a new significance. A shack was bought by an entrepreneurial litterateur (Rupert Brooke, poet) who shared it with his colleages. Seven friends would come here frequently to talk about life, love, logic, and literature. Famous friends, too: Forster and Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maynard Keynes (economist), and Augustus John (artist).

These were not your normal pillars of the community. They were wild, creative, energetic, passionate, troubled, deeply feeling individuals. Wittgenstein, the brilliant logician-philosopher, came from a family full of musicians and artists, and full of inner turmoil. Three of his four brothers had committed suicide. Virginia Woolf, the novelist, was in many ways a free spirit—freedom that bore deep and passionate literary fruit. She later committed suicide because of the challenges of facing depression. Bertrand Russell, a genius in math, logic, and philosophy, and a social activist whose views anticipated the great social revolutions of the 60s, fit in well with this group. Augustus John lived with two wives and ten naked children who ran wild in the woods near Cambridge. And the list goes on. But my point is simple: these were creative geniuses, social odd-balls, comrades in countercultural values. But they weren’t just that; they also changed the world in which we live. They changed the way we think and talk about life, love, logic, and literature.

So here we were, sitting at a table having tea and crumpets at the world-famous Orchard, thinking about the great thinkers who had gone before. And we wrestled with the thread that seemed to bind them all together: they were not normal. They were troubled souls, in deep turmoil, social outcasts to some degree, yet with such innate qualities that society could not ignore them. In the end, society embraced their views and their lifestyles and those of others like them in other orchards in other parts of the world.

It got me to thinking: First Continue Reading »

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I use the word atheist to be provocative. Agnostic might be a better word.

I have an acquaintance who is a closet agnostic, not wanting to disrupt his family and friends. He attends church, sings the hymns, takes communion, but is not at all sure that God exists. He has become settled in this state of mind and heart and only confides in a few individuals—including me, whom he came to know through my book, Walking Away from Faith.

If I know him, why haven’t I argued him back into faith, some would say. I talk about atheism and apologetics in my book and I touch on related issues in an article I wrote in the most recent issue of Mission Frontiers.

People come back to faith most often through their emotions, including music and personal relationships. When someone admits their unbelief, they are regarded as unbelievers—as objects of evangelism—which puts them outside the community of faith.

I defend my acquaintance because I believe he will discover his faith again inside the community of faith—more likely than he would on the outside, hanging out with the atheists.

Two comments come to mind. Madeleine L’Engle who said, With my naked intellect I cannot believe in God. She needed the emotions and community to believe in God. The other comment is from Kathleen Norris who had wandered in unbelief for 20 years: “I came to understand that God hadn’t lost me even if I had seemed for years to have misplaced God.”

So, I defend the closet atheist.

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Dear Atheist,

Having discussed the God questions with you for quite some time, it would seem that we have come to an impasse in our conclusions concerning the evidence that the universe provides. I, on one hand, have argued that the intricacies of the universe from cosmology and biology compel any honest observer to the conclusion that there is a self-existent, all-powerful, intelligent, and personal force behind its genesis. As you said, and I agree, this does not necessitate the God of the Scriptures being this creator, but, upon concession, it would create common ground between you and I with regards to the existence and nature of the creator.

Unfortunately, common ground has not been created. You did not concede to my compelling but responded with many counter arguments of your own, explaining that your view of naturalism was the simplest most reasoned explanation. You concluded, therefore, “There is no need for a God hypothesis to explain the genesis of the universe. The rational arguments for atheism/naturalism should compel people to abandon belief in God.”

Your last letter had many counter arguments which led you to this rationale. I do wish to respond to these in time. Please forgive me, however, as I want to stop and examine something more expedient at this point. I want to deal with what I believe to be a self-defeating premise upon which your arguments stand.

My proposal for your consideration is this: To make a rational argument that people should not believe in a creator is self-defeating for two reasons: 1) There is no such thing as “rational argument” in your worldview and 2) There can be no place for moral statements such as “should” or “ought” in your worldview.

1) There is no such thing as a “rational argument” in your worldview.

You said in a previous letter that the universe came about by chance and that there was no personal agency behind its creation. You also said that “Chaos cancels creation” and that “Chaos is the foundation of the universe, not God.” If I were to grant this proposition, then I would out of necessity have to reject your arguments since they become necessarily chaotic.

Let me explain.

You define your arguments as “rational.” Rational is defined as “agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible.” Reason is defined as the ability “to form conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises.” An argument is made when the reasons for a position are explained in a compelling manner. The problem with positioning your stance in such a way is that it assumes that which it denies. If the genesis of existence has no reason or order, then the effect will carry the same attributes (remember, the effect cannot be greater than the cause). Yet you are saying that reason (the effect) came from chaos (the cause)? Rational arguments, in your worldview, can only amount to a conventional interpretation of the data that is subjectively held, but not universal truth. In other words, your “rational arguments” are not really rational at all. They are devoid of the power that they assume. All you are left with is the statement, “This is true for me according to my conventions that are random and chaotic, but it is not universally true in any way.” If this is the case, then a “rational argument” is not possible. In other words, you are borrowing from my theistic worldview where rational arguments are possible because of order and design. You use a theistic system in order to make your arguments against theism! This is self-defeating.

2) There is no place for moral statements such as “should” or “ought” in your worldview.

This is closely tied to the previous argument, but approaches it a little differently. If you believe that all that exists today is the result of a meaningless chaotic explosion 14 billion years ago, and that there was no personal agency then or now, then we are all destined to a worldview of fatalism. Fatalism is “the doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable predetermination.” “Fate” is defined as “something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot.” The key here is “unavoidable.” Just like when a billiard ball hits another ball which starts a necessary (unavoidable) chain reaction without a personal determining agency, so also, according to your naturalistic worldview, all events that have transpired since the big bang are just as necessary (or unavoidable). There is no outside determining cause of the events. No freedom in any sense. As some people have put it “Naturalism has nothing outside the box.” All that is in the box is fatalistically due to a series of molecules bumping into each other. We may be billions of years beyond the first “strike of the ball” but we are still caught up in the motions having not only who we are, but why we are who we are determined by fate. Therefore, according to your worldview, there is no such thing as “should” or “ought,” only “is.” You are the way you are necessarily, not because of any good, wise, or rational decisions that you have made. Since all things are fatalistic, being determined by the first strike of the ball, you have no real “self-determinism.”

In order for you to come to the conclusions that you have and say that others “should” follow in the same suit, you would have to presuppose that they can, by their own self-determined free will, change their mind and do what they are morally compelled to do. But, once again, in order to have this type of expectation or demand, you would have to assume that chaos and fate are not the foundation for creation. You would have to assume either divine determinism of some sort or the divine gift of self-determinism. In other words, you are borrowing from my theistic worldview once again to make your argument! Therefore, once again, your argument is self-defeating.

I believe that you are intelligent because my worldview allows it even if yours cannot recognize intelligence! I believe that you “ought” to submit to God because my worldview allows for moral obligations even if yours cannot.

For a much more thorough presentation of this same type of argument, I suggestion you listen to Alvin Plantinga’s interview on Converse with Scholars called An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.

You can find it here. (Please forgive me as the audio is not the best. You get used to it after a while.)

Evolutionary Argument Against Atheism

I pray that this conversation is stimulating you to think more deeply about the presuppositions that you hold.

Truly,

Michael Patton

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The news has been out since 2004 that the world’s leading atheist, Antony Flew, changed his mind in light of the available evidence. Like waking up from a bad dream, a number of atheists and skeptics reacted in, well, . . . disbelief. Their stance shifted to skepticism and then, as this late-in-life conversion became undeniable, it shifted to outright denunciations of Flew. In his God Delusion book, Richard Dawkins refers scornfully to the "over-publicized tergiversation [apostasy]" of Flew in his "old age," having been "converted to belief in some sort of deity." He contrasts Flew with the "great philosopher" Bertrand Russell, who "won the Nobel Prize."

Flew was of course, the atheist philosopher for decades, and his accomplishments, insight, and creativity can’t be minimized by such cheap shots from within his former “community." His recently-released book, There Is a God: How the World’’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (Harper One, 2007) tells a remarkable story of Flew’s pilgrimage. He had been the son of a Methodist minister, but as a teenager he "rejected the thesis that the universe was created by an all-good, all powerful God." The book recounts an astonishing career of achievements and acquaintances, including his participation in Oxford University’s Socratic Club during C.S. Lewis’ tenure as president (1942-1954). The club’s stated goal was to heed Socrates’ exhortation to "follow the argument wherever it leads." This is the maxim Flew has sought to follow all his life. But for many of his critics, "free-thinking" is a one-way street: thinking is "free" if you move away from God, not toward God.

We should remember that Flew didn’t just change his mind about one thing”and late in life, at that. He earlier repudiated his Marxist beliefs. Also, he came to realize that his juvenile insistencies" that first led him to atheism were ill-founded"”namely, that evil decisively disproved God and that the free-will defense didn’t relieve God of his responsibility for evil. Indeed, before he would come to renounce atheism, Flew repudiated a number of previously-held beliefs including determininsm (in favor of free agency) and the rejection of disembodied personhood as incoherent.

Flew challenges his former fellow-atheists: "What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a reason to at least consider the existence of a superior Mind?" An appropriate question indeed”especially for those who assume that nature is all there is. What prompted Flew’s change of mind to become a believer in God (a "Jeffersonian deist" ) was modern science itself guided by philosophical arguments. There are three key considerations: (a) nature’s obedience to laws; (b) the intelligently organized and purpose-driven nature of life; (c) the very existence of nature (something rather than nothing). Flew takes time to explain these points. In the midst of this, he comes to acknowledge there is a point to the design argument he once rejected.

I could go on, but I won’t review the whole book here. (Dr. Gary Habermas offers a nice overview of this book in the next issue of Philosophia Christi”of which you can get a sneak peek. And while you’re at it, check out the upgraded Evangelical Philosophical website at www.epsociety.org). I did want to point out a couple of excellent bonus features to the book, however. Roy Abraham Varghese (Preface and Appendix A) has a fine critique of the "new atheists" (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and so on). He points that these thinkers have mistakenly resorted to the old logical positivism of the late A.J. Ayer: for a statement to be meaningful, it must be scientifically provable; ironically, Ayer himself came to see that his whole system itself could not be scientifically provable and was therefore meaningless. He confessed that his view was "full of mistakes." Yet these new atheists are embracing a system that, in Ayer’s words, "died a long time ago." Furthermore, a physical world by itself cannot account for rationality, life’s self-organizing capacities, consciousness, conceptual thought within language, and human identity and agency.

The second appendix is by the Christian historian N.T. Wright, who makes an argument for the historicity of Jesus and the plausibility of Jesus as God incarnate and of his bodily resurrection from the dead. Flew offers his "free-thinking" comments on Wright’s arguments: "I am very much impressed with Bishop Wright’s approach, which is absolutely fresh. He presents the case for Christianity as something new for the first time . . . It is absolutely wonderful, absolutely radical, and very powerful." Flew affirms his openness to any further revelation of God, asking: "Is it possible that there has been or can be divine revelation?" He at least sees that "the claim concerning the resurrection is more impressive than any by the religious competition."

This book is a fascinating and honest story of someone who has courageously followed the evidence where it has now led him. Flew not only tells his personal story, but he shares with us the specific evidences and arguments that led to his change of mind. It’s an exceptional book to readand to give away to all "free-thinkers" in the truest sense of the word.

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I’ve been reading J.P. Moreland’s superb book Kingdom Triangle, which was recently released by Zondervan. He begins with this true story by the missionary doctor to Zaire, Africa—Helen Roseveare. Though it’s a bit long for a blog, it is very inspiring.

One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter.

     

We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts.

     Continue Reading »

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I found this and thought it was cute:

So, being bored, I made this out of another atheism poster: Continue Reading »

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The emperor has no clothes. You all know the story. When people have an influential belief, there are reasons why it is influential, right? Of course, or it would not be influential. But the “what” of these reasons is always a case of hit or miss apologetics where consideration of their view is either asked for based upon the evidence, or demanded by a passionate appeal. Those who use the latter to argue their case have little recourse other than emotions. Continue Reading »

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What do you think? Is this a good illustration of our belief in the truthfulness of Scripture? Continue Reading »

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You believe that God heals, right? When you or a loved one is sick, you pray in such a way that evidences a belief that God, the “Great Physician,” might come to your aid and provide a miracle. Right?

I want to ask a few questions here and I want you to feel free to answer in this blog:

1. Do you believe that God still heals people today?

2. Is a miraculous cure from cancer any more difficult for God than healing someone who has lost a leg?

3. Have you ever seen either type of miracle?

4. Why, assuming that you have never seen nor heard of an amputee being healed, doesn’t God heal amputees? Continue Reading »

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Dear Atheist,

Having discussed this with you for quite some time, it would seem that we have come to an impasse in our conclusions concerning the evidence that the universe provides. I, on one hand, have argued that the intricacies of the universe from cosmology and biology compel any honest observer to the conclusion that there is a self-existent, all-powerful, intelligent, and personal force behind its genesis. This creator must be self-existent, otherwise we enter into the irrational proposition of infinite regress. Continue Reading »

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