As many of you know, Billy Graham and Charles Templeton were evangelists who rose to fame in the 40s (Graham, of course, is still an evangelist). Early in their careers they were friends – close friends. Many have said Templeton was the one that everyone thought was going to overturn the world with the Gospel. However, Templeton ended up leaving the Christian faith, eventually becoming an atheist.  In 1982, though still an atheist, he said of Billy Graham, “There is no feigning in him: he believes what he believes with an invincible innocence. He is the only mass evangelist I would trust” (Anecdotal Memoir). Templeton died in 2001 at the age of 86, shortly after he wrote what I consider to be one of the most heart-breaking books ever published: Farewell to God.

Here is an excerpt from that book, about a pivotal conversation he had with Billy Graham as he was leaving the faith. The context is his desire to go to Princeton to study the Christian faith more critically. He wanted Graham to come with him. Please keep in mind, this is his account of the conversation:

“All our differences came to a head in a discussion which, better than anything I know, explains Billy Graham and his phenomenal success as an evangelist.

In the course of our conversation I said, ‘But, Billy, it’s simply not possible any longer to believe, for instance, the biblical account of creation. The world was not created over a period of days a few thousand years ago; it has evolved over millions of years. It’s not a matter of speculation; it’s a demonstrable fact.’

‘I don’t accept that’ Billy said. ‘And there are reputable scholars who don’t.’

‘Who are these scholars?’ I said. ‘Men in conservative Christian colleges[?]‘

‘Most of them, yes,’ he said. ‘But that is not the point. I believe the Genesis account of creation because it’s in the Bible. I’ve discovered something in my ministry: When I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power. When I stand on the platform and say, ‘God says,’ or ‘The Bible says,’ the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don’t have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of the theological dispute, so I’ve decided once for all to stop questioning and accept the Bible as God’s word.’

‘But Billy,’ I protested, ‘You cannot do that. You don’t dare stop thinking about the most important question in life. Do it and you begin to die. It’s intellectual suicide.’”

‘I don’t know about anybody else,’ he said, ‘but I’ve decided that that’s the path for me.’”

(Farewell to God, 7-8)

For me, this represents one of the saddest encounters two people have ever had. It recounts a decisive breach in the friendship between two men as one left Christ, never to come back, and the other went on to, in my opinion, change the world.

As I said, I don’t know if Graham’s words are the words he actually said, but I have no reason to doubt that they are. You see, there does come a time in our life when we “decide” to believe. It is not as if our intellect is no longer in the game, it is simply that there is a sufficient amount of evidence to make a commitment. Graham had enough. He is right, there is no way faith can wait until every stone is overturned. None of us will ever get to a place where our intellect has no objections whatsoever. This is the modernistic ideal of indubitability, which is impossible in any area of life. At some point in our journey, we decide that God is real, the Bible is trustworthy, and Christ is who he said he was.

Templeton, as his own story makes plain (p. 3), never truly reached a point where he was intellectually convicted of the truthfulness of Christianity (what the reformers called assensus). Assensus represents the conviction we have in our minds. Assent of the mind is vital to our faith. Graham, according to this testimony, had enough assensus to make a decision. He was not going to be an eternal “tire-kicker” with regard to Christianity. Sure, he could have waited, like Templeton, until every possible objection to the faith was answered, but this would amount to a failure of modernistic irrationality. We can never have all our questions answered. At some point there must be a sufficiency in probability.

There is a time when we, like Billy Graham, must stop the type of questioning that comes prior to faith, and make a decision. This does not mean we stop using our minds, as Templeton unfortunately assumed. In Christianity, we call this fides quaenes intellectum, “faith seeking understanding.” We believe in order to understand. We have faith and seek understanding.

May God give us all the ability to be like Billy Graham and make a decision to trust God and the Bible. May he help us to believe what we believe with an invincible innocence. Though doubts may still exist, they do not mean that our faith is not real.Similar Posts:

• Tire-Kicker Christianity
• The Parable of the Life Preserver
• “How People Become Evangelists of Unbelief” or Leaving (Christ)ianity – An Evangelical Epidemic
• "Will God Protect My Kids?" – What Am I Supposed to Say
• What Defines Ministry Success?

2. Teleological Argument: (Gr. telos, “end” or “purpose”) This is also known 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.

4. sensus divinitatus (“sense of the divine”): While this argument goes by many names, the sensus divinitatus argues for the existence of God from the innate sense of the divine that exists within humans. This sense of the divine, it can be argued, is the “God-shaped void” within all of us. This explains why people, societies, and cultures of all time have, by nature, sensed a need to worship something greater than themselves.

5. The Argument from Aesthetic Experience: This is the argument from universal beauty and pleasure. Beauty and pleasure are universally recognized as such. Even subjective variations in one’s definition of what is beautiful are not distinct enough to relativize this principle. From the beauty of the sunset over the Rockies to the pleasure of eating certain foods, there is a common aesthetic experience that transcends the individual. This transcendence must have a ultimate source. This ultimate source is God.

6. Argument from the Existence of Arguments: The idea here is that there is no such thing as an argument without order and rationality. In the absence of God, all that exists is chaos. Chaos does not give birth to order. Arguments assume order. Order assumes purpose and design, which in turn require a transcendent being for their genesis. To even argue against the existence of God assumes his existence and is therefore self-referentially absurd. Therefore, there is no such thing as an “argument” against Transcendence (God).

7. Argument from the Existence of Free-will Arguments: If there is no God, then all we have is a meaningless series of cause and effect stretching back into eternity. This series of causes and effects is necessary and determined, being the result of the previous cause and effect. As a billiard ball is hit by another and has no self-motivated movements of its own, so all of human existence operates under the same conditions. All things are determined, not self-motivated, including beliefs. Therefore, if someone does not believe in God, it is not the result of self-motivated free-will beliefs, but because of a determined and fatalistic series of causes and effects stretching back into eternity. To argue against the existence of God would not be the result of looking at the evidence and making a more reasoned decision to not believe in God, but because that is what people were fatalistically determined to do. Therefore, all arguments are absurd and unjustified without God.

8. Argument from the Existence of Evil: Like the moral argument, this argument assumes the existence of a universal characteristic that is meaningless without God. Some argue that the existence of evil disproves God (or at least a good God), but to argue such is formally absurd since one would have to have an ultimate and transcendent standard of good in order to define evil. If evil exists, goodness exists. If both exist, there must be a transcendent norm from which they get their meaning. Since evil does exist, God exists.

9. Argument from Miracles: There are events in human history which cannot be explained outside of the existence of God. Many people have their subjective stories that bend them in the direction of theism, but there are also historical events, such as the resurrection of Christ and predictive prophecy, which cannot be explained without an acknowledgment of God. In short, from the Christian’s standpoint, if Christ rose from the grave, then God exists. There is no alternative reasonable explanation that accounts for such an event outside a belief in God. History convincingly demonstrates that Christ did rise from the grave. Therefore, God exists.

10. Pascal’s Wager: Popularized by French philosopher Blaise Pascal, Pascal’s Wager argues that belief in God is the most rational choice due to the consequences of being wrong. If one were to believe in God and be wrong, there are no consequences. However, if one were to deny God and be wrong, the consequences are eternally tragic. Therefore, the most rational choice, considering the absence of absolute certainty, is not agnosticism or atheism (which one could definitely not be certain about), but a belief in God.

11. Ontological Argument: Look it up at your own risk!Similar Posts:

• 10 Arguments for God's Existence
• Conversations with an Atheist Concerning the Irrationality of Atheistic Rational
• Stephen Hawking Worships the “Unknown God”
• Fridays with Aquinas: Can it be Demonstrated that God Exists
• A Letter to an Atheist

Thom Stark has offered a lengthy response to my book Is God a Moral Monster?  His online book is entitled:  Is God a Moral Compromiser? When a book is laden with sarcasm, distortions, and ad hominem attacks, genuine dialogue and cordial exchange—the stuff of genuine scholarship—become difficult, if not preempted.

My good friend Matt Flannagan, with whom I have collaborated on various projects, has extensively engaged with Stark in the past.  (Note: I have posted his response alongside my posting.)  I’ve held off on commenting on Stark for this very reason, as the experience of others shows that engaging with Stark on such topics tends to be unproductive.

Let me make some preliminary comments on Stark.  

First, Stark accuses me of ignoring the critical scholars.  Keep in mind that I am writing for a popular audience—a group that isn’t going to read at a scholarly level but who are reading the New Atheists.  Mentioning these critics is simply a springboard to launch into the topic of Old Testament ethical issues; these men are hardly legitimate sources of critique, even if they raise points discussed by critical scholars. 

Second, it’s disappointing that Stark simply writes off Old Testament scholars who have endorsed my book, calling them “Little Leaguers.”  These include Christopher Wright (Ph.D. Cambridge), Gordon Wenham (Ph.D. Cambridge), and Tremper Longman (Ph.D. Yale).  They have earned their stripes at leading academic institutions.  Stark’s demeaning talk strikes me as disrespectful and unprofessional.  One gets the impression from reading Stark that those who agree with him are the “real” scholars. 

Third , Stark assumes I have no background in biblical studies.  Not so.  I’d imagine that I’ve probably logged the same number formal academic hours (if not more) in biblical/theological studies than Stark—though Stark would no doubt dismiss such training as “Little League.”  I have a B.A. in Biblical Studies as well as an M.Div. (Having studied Greek and Hebrew)—in addition to an M.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in philosophy (in which I also took courses in theology).  I’m also a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, and I have presented at SBL as well as the American Academy of Religion.  Furthermore, I am a Fellow of the Institute for Biblical Research.  

Fourth, Stark mentions Baruch Halpern as one of his “Major League” scholars.  Yet Halpern has actually written an endorsement for one of Tremper Longman’s coauthored books, A Biblical History of Israel:  “The most talented trio in the last fifty years to turn their attention to recounting the history of Israel.”  William Dever, another big leaguer (of whom Stark might approve) , recommends this same book: “I cannot imagine a more honest, more comprehensive, better documented effort from a conservative perspective.”   Another evangelical archaeologist (whom I cite in connection with the Canaanite question), Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen (Liverpool), has written On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans).  This hefty book is robustly endorsed by William Hallo (Yale) and Harry Hoffner Jr. (University of Chicago)—leading scholars in this field, whom I also cite in my book.  So I think a bit greater academic fair-mindedness is warranted rather than demeaning dismissal and condescension.

Or think of the archaeologist/Egyptologist James Hoffmeier (another evangelical), to whom I refer in my book.  Baruch Halpern endorses Hoffmeier’s Ancient Israel in Sinai (Oxford University Press):  “Hoffmeier furnishes a sophisticated fresh approach to the Biblical Exodus traditions filled with detailed Egyptological background, and utterly indispensable because of its basis in recent, and in many cases as yet unpublished, archaeological data. This is a virtual encyclopedia of the Exodus.”

Fifth, as to the charge of selectively citing scholars, I would say this:  Look no farther than my own endorsers! There are points at which I would disagree with Longman, Wright, and Wenham (and they with me), but I would hardly call this selective.  I have tried to weigh and make judgments of a number of scholars on different sides of the debate.  What’s more: have I really duped these Cambridge- and Yale-educated scholars so that they endorsed my book without reading it, or are they completely misinformed too?

Sixth, consider the question of worldview/philosophical as well as hermeneutical assumptions.  For example, one’s presuppositions will affect the degree to which one gives the benefit of the doubt to Scripture’s  authors’/editors’ trustworthiness.  One’s presuppositions will affect one’s view of the Scripture’s canonical coherence and mutual reinforcement (as Matt Flannagan notes in his post).   One’s presuppositions will also affect whether one views Yahweh as a mere tribal deity in Israel’s history (before the fifth century BC) or as the “one true God.”

Take the last set of dueling assumptions.  When we see that Yahweh is the “cloud-rider” on a chariot (2 Sam. 22:10-12; Psalm 29; 104:3; Isa. 19:1), is this syncretistic?  After  all, in Ugaritic literature, Baal is the chariot rider on the clouds.  What of the mentions of the Chaoskampf (the divine effort to subdue chaos and bring order) in the Bible?  There’s Yahweh’s battle against Leviathan the dragon (tanniyn) mentioned in Isa. 27:1; yet the Ugaritic refers to Baal’s fighting against tannin (dragon) and lotan.  Is this polytheistic syncretism?  I would argue that the biblical texts are polemical and subversive.  They appropriate literature familiar to ancient Near Easterners, and they present Baal and other deities with the one true God, Yahweh.  Yahweh literarily displaces them.  The same is true in the creation story:  the deep, the darkness, the sea, and even the heavenly bodies were gods in their own right in ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies (accounts of the world’s origin).  Yet in Genesis 1 they are domesticated and seen as the creation of God himself.  Again, we have displacement, not polytheistic syncretism.

Another presuppositional issue is that the place of archaeological discovery and what this may “prove” or “disprove” about the Bible.  For example, he claims that I offer no evidence for the exodus or the Canaanite conquest.  For one thing, this wasn’t my purpose in writing the book, even indirectly.  For another, I cite books that address these topics at length—namely, those authored by James Hoffmeier and Kenneth Kitchen.  For a brief overview, however, see “Did the Exodus Never Happen?”.  Along these lines, one could also examine Tremper Longman’s coauthored A Biblical History of Israel (Westminster John Knox Press).  No, the evidence—which is indirect—does not prove or disprove the exodus.  Rather, it presents plausible historical context for the event’s historical occurrence.   In addition, I do mention in the book the archaeological evidence surrounding the gradual transition from Canaanite domination to Israelite domination.  I follow Egyptologist Alan Millard’s work.  He argues that Israel’s settling in the land was a gradual infiltration rather than a dramatic military conquest, which is what the biblical text affirms. 

Seventh, as I’m in the midst of a number of writing and editing projects, I’m even less inclined to respond to Stark, at least with any comprehensiveness.  Even before Stark wrote a response, I had begun compiling material based on further research as well as cordial (!) interaction various friends and critics who offered helpful suggestions.  For instance, I should have elaborated more on the word(s) herem/haram (sometimes translated “utter destruction/utterly destroy”) at places like Jeremiah 25:9, where Yahweh promises to “utterly destroy” Judah by using Babylon.  Were the majority of Judahites annihilated or destroyed as a people? 

Eighth, I have approached Baker Books about a second edition in which I could incorporate this further research and also do some tweaking/clarifying on some certain points Stark raises.  Also, I am working on coediting a book on warfare in the Old Testament (IVP Academic). Matt Flannagan and I have written a lengthy chapter that responds to the sorts of challenges Stark raises on the warfare issue.  Also, I’ll be presenting at a conference in November on slavery in the Old Testament. This will be an occasion to reply to any relevant challenges that Stark raises.  So stay tuned.

Finally, Stark’s critique resorts to much bluster, condescension, and distortion; he makes abundant claims and arguments that are either false or tenuous (as Flannagan points out).  As a specific sampling, Old Testament scholar Richard Hess (whom I cite frequently in my Moral Monster book and who also endorsed it) responds to Thom Stark in a separate post at Parchment and Pen.  I’m keeping  my own piece here separate from Hess’s specific comments (as well as Flannagan’s comments) so that Stark, if he chooses, can respond directly to Hess’s (and Flannagan’s) rebuttal.Similar Posts:

• Matthew Flannagan’s Interactions with Thom Stark
• Richard Hess’s Response to Thom Stark
• Is God a Moral Monster?
• Deuteronomy 25:11-12, an Eye for an Eye, and Raymond Westbrook: A Reply to Hector Avalos
• N.T. Wright on God and Evil

We’ve been engaging the thinking of Richard Dawkins, and more recently we’ve touched on the counterintuitive nature of (Dawkins’) naturalism.  I’ll be looking at the topic of naturalism’s counterintuitive claims regarding morality, but first the historical question of naturalism’s alleged link to human rights.

Dawkins, Human Rights, and Historical Connections

When Dawkins spoke Nova Southeastern relatively recently, he talked about how Enlightenment secularism gave rise to human rights.  This is a common claim made be naturalists, but it is simply false.  As human rights scholar Max Stackhouse of Princeton writes:  “intellectual honesty demands recognition of the fact that what passes as ‘secular,’ ‘Western’ principles of basic human rights developed nowhere else than out of key strands of the biblically-rooted religion.”^[1]   These rights are rooted in the biblical language of the “image of God”—and natural law (in the Middle Ages) and natural rights (in the modern world).  The two leading documents of the eighteenth century refer to God as the basis for human rights: the Declaration of Independence (which speaks of humans being “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (affirming human rights “in the presence and under the auspices” of God, “the Supreme Being”). 

More recently, the chief movers establishing a Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1948 (which speaks of humans being “endowed with reason and conscience”) were primarily church coalitions and individual Christian leaders who worked closely with some Jewish rabbis to create a “new world order” of human rights.^[2]

Jürgen Habermas is one of Europe’s most prominent philosophers today.  Another fact about Habermas: he’s a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.  Yet he highlights the inescapable historical fact that the biblical faith has had a profound influence in shaping civilization.  Consider carefully his assessment:

“Christianity has functioned for the normative self-understanding of modernity as more than just a precursor or a catalyst. Egalitarian universalism, from which sprang the ideas of freedom and a social solidarity, of an autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights, and democracy, is the direct heir to the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.  This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of continual critical appropriation and reinterpretation.  To this day, there is no alternative to it.  And in light of current challenges of a postnational constellation, we continue to draw on the substance of this heritage.  Everything else is just idle postmodern talk.”^[3]

Even non-Westerners have come recognized the remarkable impact of the Christian faith in the West.  TIME magazine’s well-respected correspondent David Aikman reported the summary of one Chinese scholar’s lecture to a group of eighteen American tourists: 

“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,” he said.  “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective.  At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had.  Then we thought it was because you had the best political system.  Next we focused on your economic system.  But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion:  Christianity.  That is why the West has been so powerful.  The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics.  We don’t have any doubt about this.”^[4]

This lecturer was not some ill-informed crackpot.  To the contrary, he represented one of China’s premier academic research organizations—the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

This isn’t surprising.  Intrinsic human dignity and worth make sense if we have been made in God’s image rather than being mere molecules in motion.  Biblical theism has the metaphysical capital to sustain the concept of human rights.  Our law courts and legal system assume that humans don’t simply dance to the music of their DNA.  The criminal’s excuse (“Your honor, my genes made me do it”) flies in the face of what we all know of human nature and our presumption of moral responsibility.  Human value and moral agency make better sense if we have come from a supremely valuable being beyond nature.  We certainly have no rational justification to anticipate the emergence of intrinsic human dignity and worth if we are simply the products of mindless, deterministic, valueless material forces in a purposeless cosmos.

Many Naturalists Themselves Acknowledge No Room for Objective Morality

Another point that undercuts objective morality and human dignity given naturalism is that many naturalists themselves see the logical outcome of their own metaphysic.  Naturalism, they argue, simply lacks the metaphysical equipment to account for objective moral values.  Many naturalists admit that natural material processes without God cannot bring us to moral responsibility and human dignity and worth.  These features of reality—which we routinely assume—don’t square well with naturalism.  Here’s a sampling of key naturalists on this topic:

• Friedrich Nietzsche: “Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which are no realities….There are altogether no moral facts.”  Indeed, morality “has truth only if God is the truth—it stands or falls with faith in God.”^[5]
• Jean-Paul Sartre: “It [is] very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him.”^[6]
• Bertrand Russell believed that “the whole subject of ethics arises from the pressure of the community on the individual.”^[7]
• E. O. Wilson locates moral feeling in “the hypothalamus and the limbic system”; it is a “device of survival in social organisms.”^[8]
• Jonathan Glover considers morality a “human creation” and calls on humans to “re-create ethics.”^[9] 

We could add lots more leading naturalists—J.L. Mackie, James Rachels, Peter Singer, and the like; these acknowledge that nature can’t get us to objective moral values and human dignity. 

Science’s Inability to Move Us from “Is” to “Ought.”

Dawkins admits, “Science has no methods for deciding what is ethical.”^[10]  The study of natural processes can’t get from the way things are to the way things ought to be.  Yet why does Dawkins consider religion   “the root of all evil,” as his BBC documentary affirms?

The popular writer Michael Shermer affirms that our remote ancestors have genetically passed on to us our sense of moral obligation within, and this is reinforced by group pressure. Ultimately, to ask, “Why should we be moral?” is like asking, “Why should we be hungry or horny?”^[11]   But this doesn’t mean that I have a moral obligation to eat.  I just have this inclination, and I do it.  If I don’t eat, then I starve.

C. S. Lewis was familiar with such reasoning.  He argued that given such naturalistic conditions, moral impulses are no more true (or false) than “than a vomit or a yawn.”^[12]  Thinking “I ought” is on the same level of “I itch.” Indeed, “my impulse to serve posterity is just the same sort of thing as my fondness for cheese” or preferring mild or bitter beer.^[13]  All naturalism can do is describe human behavior.  It can’t prescribe human behavior, nor can it ground moral obligation.  How do we move from the “is” of the natural world to the “ought” of ethics?  Naturalism doesn’t inspire confidence that we really have duties and that we ought to be virtuous.

If ethical beliefs are simply hard-wired into us for our fitness and survival, we have no reason to think these beliefs are true or that we ought to act in a certain way; these beliefs simply are. If, as Francis Crick argues, human identity (“you”) is simply “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules,”^[14] then such a perspective is only accidentally correct. After all, this belief itself is the result of “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”! 

At his talk at Nova, Richard Dawkins said that everyone knows that rape is wrong.  How can he say this from a “scientific” point of view?  And what if rape is completely natural—that it enhances survival and reproduction?  The book A Natural History of Rape^[15] (coauthored by a biologist and an anthropologist) maintains that rape can be explained biologically: “[Rape] is a natural phenomenon that is a product of the human evolutionary heritage” comparable to “the leopard’s spots and the giraffe’s elongated neck.”^[16] 

How does this work?  When a male cannot find a mate, his subconscious drive to reproduce his own species pushes him to force himself upon a female. Such acts happen in the animal kingdom (e.g., male mallards or scorpionflies). Now the authors do not advocate rape; in fact, they claim that rapists are not excused for their (mis)behavior. But we have to ask:  why oppose an act that is as “natural” as granola?  Why stop an act that may enhance survival and reproduction?  To appeal to a standard outside nature suggests that a transcendent realm exists—that nature is insufficient to account for our opposition to what is natural.

Given naturalism, it appears that humans could have evolved differently and inherited rather contrary moral beliefs (“rules”) for the “chess game” of survival. Whatever those rules, they would still direct us toward surviving and reproducing. Ruse (with E. O. Wilson) gives an example: instead of evolving from “savannah-dwelling primates,” we, like termites, could have evolved needing “to dwell in darkness, eat each other’s faeces, and cannibalise the dead.” If the latter were the case, we would “extol such acts as beautiful and moral” and “find it morally disgusting to live in the open air, dispose of body waste and bury the dead.”^[17]

According to Ruse, our awareness of morality (“a sense of right and wrong and a feeling of obligation to be thus governed”) is of “biological worth,” serves as “an aid to survival,” and “has no being beyond this.”^[18]  He has claimed, rather, than morality is a corporate illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.

The theist doesn’t have to take such a counterintuitive positions and metaphysical gymnastics.  He is properly placed to affirm intrinsic dignity and moral duty rooted in a supremely valuable, worship-worthy Creator.  Such a moral perspective flows more naturally from theism than from naturalism.

Similar Posts:

• God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality
• Reason, Personal Responsibility, and Naturalism’s Counterintuitive Claims: Response to Dawkins, Part IV
• The Moral Indignation of Richard Dawkins
• Richard Dawkins: Advocate of Science or Self-Refuting Scientism? – Response to Dawkins, Part III
• The Language of God: Some Reflections on Francis Collins’s Perspectives on God and Science

Someone has once rightly said that this is the most basic philosophical question that there is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

As far as I can tell, there are only six options:

1. The universe is eternal and everything has always existed.

Everything has existed for eternity. As far back as  one can go into the past, there is still an infinite amount of time which preceded it. The sum total of the universe is inclusive of an infinite succession of events and moments going backward.

Why this is wrong

An infinite number of temporal events going into the past is a formal absurdity. Going backward, no matter how far you travel in time, you would always have an infinity to go. Going forward, we would never get to the present moment because we would have an infinite amount of time and causes and effects to traverse to get here. It would be like asking of a man who is jumping out of an infinitely deep hole, when would he get out? The answer is never. There is no starting point from which to jump.  Or, better, it would be like someone walking down the street and you heard him counting down… “negative 5, negative 4, negative 3, negative 2, negative 1, zero!” And you said, “What are you doing?” And he responds, “I just got done counting to zero from negative infinity!” That would be a logical absurdity.

Even most atheists, since the early 20th century, now believe that there was a singular moment when all things came into existence called the big bang. Some have even proposed a multi-verse theory where our universe came out of another universe. But this only pushes it back one level. Where did that universe come from unless it is transcendent?

2. Nothing exists and all is an illusion

Everything you hear, see, do, or think does not really exist. There is no reality. There is not something. There is only nothing. 

Why this is wrong

This proposition, it should be obvious, is completely self-defeating. In order to even make such a proposition, the subject has to exist in some sense. If all is an illusion, where did the illusion come from? If another illusion produced the illusion, then where did that illusion come from. In other words, there is something, namely the illusion.

Even the solipsist, who does not believe in the existence of other minds, has to explain the genesis of his own mind.

3. The universe created itself

This is the idea that the universe and all that is in it did not have its origin in something outside itself, but from within. The universe did come into being, but it came from itself. It is self-created. Here, we may suppose that while we don’t understand how this could happen, advancements in scientific theory will eventually produce an answer.

Why this is wrong

Like with the previous two, we have created a logical absurdity. It would be like creating a square triangle. It’s impossible. A triangle by definition cannot be square. So creation cannot create itself as it would have to pre-date itself to create. The pre-dated form would then need a sufficient explanatory cause, ad infinitum.

4. Chance created the universe

“The universe was created by chance.” Have you ever heard that? While the odds of winning the lottery are not very good, given enough time, everyone will win. While the odds of the universe coming into existence are not very good, given enough time, it had to happen.

Why this is wrong

This option is a slight of hand option that amounts to nothing. The fact is that chance has no being. This option implies that “chance” itself has quantitative causal power. The word “chance” is used to describe possibilities. It  does not have the power to cause those possibilities. It is nonsense to speak of chance being the agent of creation of anything since chance is not an agent.

“Sophisticated arguments of chance creation have been formulated which dazzle our mathematical comprehension… What are the real chances of the universe created by chance? Not a chance. Chance is incapable of creating a single molecule, let alone an entire universe. Why not? Chance is no thing. It is not an entity. It has no being, no power, no force. It can effect nothing because it has no causal power within it. …It is a word which describes mathematical possibilities which, by the curious flip of the fallacy of ambiguity, slips into the discussion as if it were a real entity with real power, indeed, supreme power, the power of creativity.” (R.C. Sproul, Not a Chance. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999.)

5. The universe is created by nothing

Simply put, nothing created the universe.

Why this is wrong

The problem here is that it is either a restating of option #1 (the universe is eternal) or fails due to the irrationality of #4. In our current universe, the law of cause and effect cannot be denied with any sanity. While we often don’t know what the cause of some effect is, this does not mean that it is causeless. When we go to the doctor looking for an explanation for the cause of our neck pain, we don’t accept the answer “There is no cause. It came from nothing.” When there is a fire, the fire investigator does not come to a point where he says, “Well, we searched and we searched for a cause to this fire. Our conclusion is definite: the fire came from nothing.” In both cases, we would assume that the person who gave such answer is better fit for a straight-jacket than a respected professional of his field.

There is an old saying, ex nihilo nihil fit which means “Out of nothing, nothing comes.” Even Maria in the Sound of Music got this one right, “Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could.” To say that the universe was created by or came from nothing is an absurdity. Like with the idea of chance, “nothing” is a non being with no causal power. If there is something, there must be a sufficient explanation for it. 

6. An transcendent being (God) created all that there is out of nothing.

This is the last option that I know of. Here we recognize the impossibility of the first five. Realizing that the universe must have come into existence a finite time ago, we know that there must be a sufficient cause. Here is how it might look:

• Whatever comes into existence has a cause.
• The universe came into existence.
• Therefore the universe has a cause.

The question now is what is that cause? It can’t be “chance” or “nothing” as we have shown that they don’t have causal power. As well, it cannot have relation to time, space, or matter in its actual being as that would make it subject to the laws of cause and effect (i.e. then we would be infinitely stuck in the trap of “If God created everything, who or what created God?). Therefore, this being is transcendent (above, beyond, without ontological relation to…) to the universe. This causal agency must be “all”-powerful or else the grandeur of the effect would eclipse the grandeur of the cause (then we are back to absurdities). This causal agent must have a will (i.e. be personal) or else there would not have ever been a time when the universe was not created (i.e. it would always be being created—again, an absurdity) since it would not be a willful decision to create, but simply a natural aspect of the transcendent cause.

This creator had to have created all things ex nihilo (“out of nothing”). In other words, all of matter could not be eternal since material itself is, by definition, not transcendent and subject to the law of cause and effect. This creator, being transcendent to the laws of our universe in which the saying “out of nothing nothing comes” applies, must create time, space, and matter out of neither himself or preexisting material. He creates it all out of nothing. He brings all of existence into being by his power. While it is beyond our understanding how transcendence can create immanence, it does not form a logical absurdity. In fact, existence itself demands that it is a logical necessity.

All other options, I believe I have shown, are self-defeating, formally absurd, and irrational. In short, the only logical explanation for existence is that a transcendent, powerful, and personal being (i.e. God) created all that there is out of nothing.

Are there any other options that I am missing?Similar Posts:

• Stephen Hawking Worships the “Unknown God”
• Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?
• A Letter to an Atheist
• Fridays with Aquinas: Can it be Demonstrated that God Exists
• Ten Arguments for the Existence of God

Last week, Richard Dawkins spoke here in Ft. Lauderdale at Nova Southeastern University on “The Fact of Evolution.” The following week, I spoke on “The Fact of God”—also delivered at Nova Southeastern. It was a direct response to Dawkins’s naturalistic worldview as well as a number of the comments he made at his lecture. My talk was followed by a very spirited discussion with a number of atheists in attendance. Well, “spirited” is euphemistic. One atheist who attended wrote to me, apologizing for the rude behavior of his fellow-atheists as they engaged with me!

Next week I’ll begin posting my response to Dawkins at Parchment and Pen. I’ll do so in a short series rather than giving my entire talk in one large chunk. But what I want to do here is discuss the question I posed to Richard Dawkins during the Q&A and then comment on his response to it. After all, since I couldn’t offer a rebuttal when I was on campus, I do so here!

One observation before I comment: During the Q&A time, when someone identified himself as a believer in God (or could be suspected of it), Dawkins at times sidestepped questions, ending with a quick jab at “religious” people being terrorists and or ignoramuses. For example, he called any advocate of old-earth creation “the not-completely stupid creationist.” His anti-religious quip to me was another such instance. So give a listen to the brief audio clip here—and then you can read my comments….

There I was—the first one in line during the Q&A. I asked Dawkins how he could claim that the naturalist id rationally superior to the theist since, according to his book River Out of Eden, all of us are dancing to the music of our DNA. Our beliefs are the product of non-rational, deterministic physical forces beyond our control—whether we’re theists or naturalists. In fact, if the naturalist is right, it’s only by accident—not because he’s more intellectually virtuous than the theist. That is, the naturalist has accidental true belief (which is not knowledge) rather than warranted true belief (which is knowledge).

Dawkins gave the odd reply that it’s kind of like Republicans and Democrats—with each group thinking they’re right and the other group wrong. But on what grounds could either side think they are more rational than the other? Dawkins then added that he supposed that whatever view “works” the correct one to hold. But here’s the problem: what “works” is logically distinct from “true” or “matching up with reality”—since we may hold to a lot of false beliefs that help us survive and reproduce, even if they are false. Indeed, naturalistic evolution is interested in survival and reproduction—the “four F’s” (fighting, feeding, fleeing, and reproducing). Truth, the naturalist philosopher Patricia Churchland argues, is secondary to these pursuits According to another such naturalist, the late Richard Rorty, truth is “utterly unDarwinian.”

To top off his answer to me (without addressing how to ground rationality), Dawkins dismissively quipped that science flies rockets to the moon while religion flies planes into buildings. Many in the audience applauded his rhetorical flourish. (How could a guy with a charming British accent be mistaken, right?!) His “bumper sticker argumentation” [1] reminded me of what St. Augustine said about the dismissive “Christian” answer to the sincere (Manichean) question: “What did God do before he made heaven and earth?” Augustine disliked the mocking answer that North African Catholics would give back to this heretical sect: “He was preparing hell…for those prying into such deep subjects.” (This actually reminds me of the unthinking dismissiveness of Dawkins here!) Yet Augustine refused to evade “by a joke the force of the objection.” He wrote:

It is one thing to see the objection; it is another to make a joke of it. I do not answer in this way. I would rather respond, “I do not know,” concerning what I do not know rather than say something for which a man inquiring about such profound matters is laughed at while the one giving a false answer is praised. [2]

Such responses from Dawkins are no doubt one of the reasons that atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse declares: “The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.” [3]

The problem with Dawkins’s response is threefold. First, as one of my friends commented on Dawkins’ quip, it was science that built the airplanes capable of flying into a building, and it was Nazis during World War II who developed rockets to fly into space! No, it’s not “science vs. religion” here. Rather, people with differing motives and agendas can use science properly—or misuse it for evil ends. In fact, modern science is rooted in the biblical worldview, building on the foundation of Bible-believing thinkers such as Copernicus, Newton, Faraday, Boyle, and many others, as, say, Stanley Jaki has argued in his book The Savior of Science.

Second, how can Dawkins condemn “religious” people who fly planes into buildings since they are just dancing to their DNA—just like the naturalist is? They’re just doing what nature has programed them to do. We can further ask: Why isn’t Dawkins denouncing atrocities done in the name of atheism—like those of Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Tse-tung? Dawkins gives the impression that it’s only people of “religion” who carry out horrendous evils. Of course, if Dawkins is right, these mass murderers could not justly be condemned since they too were wired by nature to act as they did.

Third, Dawkins himself has elsewhere admitted that he doesn’t know what to do with determinism, and he recognizes something hypocritical in his own emotional reaction to murder or rape. In fact, the more consistent perspective would not be anger but rather argue that such criminals need to have their “faulty motherboard” replaced.

Note the excerpt from the following interview from October 2006:

Here is how the interview on determinism went:

Dawkins:….What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should… I sometimes… Um… You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil where his car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. ….

Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?

Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue. [4]

Hmmm. You wouldn’t have known determinism was a profound problem for Dawkins, given his evasive response to my question! Of course, Dawkins doesn’t want us to accept the obvious conclusion that his hostility to belief in God just isn’t a “separate issue.” Rather, if he’s right, then his beliefs—on religion or biology—are just as determined by non-rational, material forces as anyone else’s, including the theist’s. They’re both in the same non-rational camp.

This is the kind of self-defeating perspective proferred by the late Nobel laureate, Francis Crick. Human identity—your joys and sorrows, your sense of identity (“you”) and your belief in free will—is nothing more than “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” [5] If true, then Crick, like Dawkins, was only accidentally correct—not because of any superior rationality. After all, this belief itself is only the result of “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules”!

Eighteenth-century philosopher Thomas Reid critiqued David Hume, author of The Treatise of Human Nature and one who held a similar view to that of Dawkins. Hume denied the self, arguing that individual humans are just a bundle of physical properties rather than morally responsible selves or agents: “it is certainly a most amazing discovery,” wrote Reid, “that thought and ideas may be without any thinking being.” Presumably then The Treatise of Human Nature had no author after all! It is only a set of ideas which came together, and “arranged themselves by certain associations and attractions.” [6] Likewise, this would mean that there is no self or agent whom we call “Richard Dawkins” and who is responsible for writing The God Delusion. Indeed, a large collection of molecules is gathering up the royalties!

I’ll have more to say about Dawkins’s determinism and naturalism in general in future blog posts. But for now, I hope this preliminary engagement with Dawkins’s ideas will generate some good discussion.

______________________

[1] See Edward Feser’s brilliant depiction of Richard Dawkins’s dismissiveness rather than genuine intellectual engagement in his “To a Louse” at http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/02/to-louse.html.

[2] Confessions, 11.12.14.

[3] From the cover of Alister McGrath’s book The Dawkins Delusion? Published by InterVarsity Press.

[4] “Who Wrote Dawkins’ New Book?” in Evolution News (October 2006). Accessed February 23, 2011: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html.

[5] Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis (New York: Scribner’s, 1994), p. 3.

[6] Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind: On the Principles of Common Sense, ed. Derek R. Brookes, 4th edn., (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1997), 2.6.13-14, p. 35Similar Posts:

• Richard Dawkins: Advocate of Science or Self-Refuting Scientism? – Response to Dawkins, Part III
• Richard Dawkins: A Philosophical and Theological Lightweight? Responding to Dawkins, Part II
• God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God Is Reasonable and Responsible
• Reason, Personal Responsibility, and Naturalism’s Counterintuitive Claims: Response to Dawkins, Part IV
• The Moral Indignation of Richard Dawkins

I don’t believe the Christian faith is indubitable, but I do believe that it is true.

I tell this story when talking about the bankruptcy of requiring indubitability before you believe something (Yes, I’ve told this before):

I play this game with my kids that drives them crazy. Sitting in the room, with no one but us, while they are not looking I will slap them on the rear-end and act like I did not do it. They turn and say, “Daddy! I know you did that.” I say, “I did not.” ”Then who did it?” they respond (thinking they have settled the issue with this one question).  I say, “A guy ran in the front door and slapped you and then ran out.” They look at me like I am crazy and exclaim, “Daddy! We know you did it.” “Look!” I respond to their skepticism, “The front door is not locked. It is possible that someone could have come in since the door is not locked.” Upon further looks of skepticism, I force them go check the door to see if it is locked. Once they see it is unlocked, I have won the day. I have poked a hole and their certainty and even caused them to confirm it by checking the door. No longer possessing the indubitably that I have required for their epistemic verification, they now have lost poise in their former confidence. In other words, I tricked them into thinking that one has to be absolutely certain about something before it can be believed.

Ideas about the value of certainty are currently on the theological stage of debate. With the intellectual challenges of the so-called “new atheism,” some Christians are opting for a fidist approach to the faith (ignore the evidence, just believe). Others, however, are responding to their challenges with precise and cutting vigor. However, many are on wild goose chases checking doors to see if they are locked and becoming frustrated, even doubting, when they find that the door is not locked.

Objection: “You can’t be certain that Christianity is true. One scholar has proposed Christianity borrowed from other ancient religions to get its story.” 

Response: Oh great. Yes, most people don’t believe this, but what if this one scholar is right? What does this mean for my faith? 

Objection: “You can’t be certain Christ rose from the grave since his body might have been stolen.”

Response: I supposed this could be true. Though there does not seem to be any evidence for this, it might have been stolen. What does this mean for my faith?

Objection: “It would seem you have a problem since there are two angels in one resurrection account and only one in the other. Which one is it?”

Response: While they both agree that Christ rose from the grave, should I continue to believe when these two accounts cannot agree on this most basic detail?

Objection: “Stephen Hawking said that a black hole could have created our universe out of nothing.”

Response:  I have no idea what this means, but what if Hawking is right? He is a very smart man.

Often, a skeptical world will will provoke us with the reality that we cannot be indubitably certain about any of our beliefs because of the infinite amount of alternative possibilities.  No matter how unlikely these alternative possibilities are we find ourselves spending time defending against positions that are well beyond tipsy in their stability. When people poke “holes” in our beliefs with arguments that are no better than “look, the door is not locked” we find ourselves missing the big picture, backed into a corner seriously discussing the security of the door.

How do we get here? Glad you asked.

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), the father of the “Age of Reason,” was commissioned by a cardinal in the church to find a way of attaining a level of certainty that went beyond mere probability. With skepticism on the rise, mere probability was looked at as the ugly step-sister of the indubitability that accompanied absolute certainty. “We don’t want probability! People can poke holes in that. We want absolute certainty. We want to be indubitable!” Indubitability ultimately equates to infallible knowledge—knowledge that can’t be wrong. Prove without a shadow of a doubt that God exists by mere intuitive resources. That was Descartes commission.

Again (just in case you have not grabbed a hold of this word yet), indubitability describes the impossibility of being wrong due to an exhaustive and infallible method of inquiry; indubitable beliefs are beyond the possibility of question or doubt. This is what the church wanted Descartes to produce with regard to the Christian faith.

Descartes was up to the task. Locking himself in a large dutch oven, he reasoned with himself until he could reason no longer. “What can I be indubitably certain about so that I might get a foothold on faith? What truth is beyond question?” He decided to doubt everything (and I mean everything). He even doubted his own existence, believing that, no matter how unlikely, the demons might be tricking him into thinking he exists. But when push came to shove, there was one thing he could not doubt. There was one thing he was indubitably certain about. From this he would build all the rest. What was it? He could not doubt that he was doubting. For in order to doubt that he was doubting, he would have to doubt! And if he was doubting, he would have to be thinking. And if he was thinking, he was in existence. Cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”) was his conclusion. Upon this, he built his method for attaining indubitability. His “I think, therefore I am” looked as if it provided a bridge to attain the type of certainty to which humans have never been privy.  His methodology, which became known as “the Cartesian method,” was adopted in large part by those in the West. And thus began the Age of Reason, where certainty—indubitable certainty—reigned supreme. There was celebration at Descartes seeming defeat of the skepticism of his day.

The problem: The Christian faith does not require human indubitably. God does not call on us to infallible certainty before we are required to believe in him. Our trust in the Lord does not come only after we have considered every other possibility, no matter how unlikely. Why? Because indubitability is a black hole leading to perpetual skepticism. Contrary to Descartes methodology, there are always going to be alternative possibilities. There will be an infinite number of objections that can be brought up. No matter how unlikely, there will always be doors to check to see if they are locked. Once we suspend belief until all the doors are checked, we have suspended belief forever. No one actually can or does live by such a method in the acquisition of truth in any area of life. We never require ourselves to check all the locks on all the doors since there are an infinite number of locks and an infinite number of doors. Yet, often, we do it anyway. When the door is unlocked, those who are epistemically conditioned to find this substantial, like my children, enter into a state of suspended belief, doubt, or skepticism or opt for a “leap of faith” that demands no evidence, and then sneer at those who do demand evidence as if it is passé.

There is a point in our faith where our search for indubitability needs to yield to the sufficiency of probability. This does not mean we are taking a blind leap into the dark. On the contrary, we are responding to the sufficiency of the light that has been given. In fact, to fail to respond is the leap of blind faith. For in our indecisiveness, we have actually made our decision for the least likely of all the options. “I am not going to commit myself to believing my daddy slapped me since there are other possibilities that, while unlikely, are out there.” That is making the least rational decision of all. That is the biggest leap of faith there is available.

There are many people out there who are on the never ending quest for indubitability. You might be one of them. Forever on the verge of making a decision, but always getting tripped up by the least likely of alternatives. “The door is unlocked.” “A demon is making me think this.” And a million other things. There are many people out there who will make you think that your search is valid. My encouragement to you is to make a decision based on the light given. When you look at the Bible, yes, there are going to be an infinite amount of alternative explanations for many of the events described. But there comes a point where you must commit yourself to the Scriptures, opting for the most likely. If Christ rose from the grave, there are implications that the Bible is trustworthy. Infallible implications? No. Sufficient implications? Yes.

What my kids should say is this, “Daddy, I don’t care if the door is unlocked. It does not play a sufficient part in your proposition to warrant a disregard of the greater areas of viability with regard to our belief that you are the one who slapped us.” And if I respond, “But you don’t know with perfect, absolute, and infallible certainty,” they should say, “No daddy, probability is sufficient to warrant, yea, demand a belief such as ours and, as a consequence, to reject your alternative.” Well, if they said it like that, I would be quite scared, but you know what I am saying.

Probability is sufficient. We neither need to go into intellectual hibernation and accept our beliefs on blind faith nor do we need to suspend our belief until all the objections, no matter how improbable, are answered.

What I posed to my children was merely a possibility to explain the slap, but possibilities do not create probabilities. We are responsible in this life to act upon the revelation given to us, not to seek absolute indubitably.

We are neither postmodern skeptics nor modern rationalists. We find value in both skepticism, when truly warranted, and rationality, when the probability is conditioned by God to be such.

In other words, our belief in the Bible’s truthfulness should not be sidetracked simply because someone presents an alternative possibility. Yes, we engage these alternatives, but we don’t give them more credit than they deserve. The old illustration of the “leaky bucket” only finds relevance in an imaginary world where indubitability is required for every rational decision. All buckets are leaky, but this does not mean they don’t hold water. Those who say that the Christian story borrowed from other religions or that Christ’s body was stolen have simply presented other possibilities that are often no more sufficient to warrant credibility than my “look, the door is unlocked.” Possibility, yes. Probability, no.

Sermon principles (for those of you taking notes):

• Don’t be shaken by unlikely theories (there are an infinite number of them).
• Don’t hypocritically require indubitability (you don’t in any other area of life).
• Don’t think that all possibilities are equal (they are not even close).
• Don’t opt for a blind “leap of faith” type of faith (this is immoral).
• Just because something is possible does not make it probable (my thesis that I wear on my sleeve).

Finally, and most importantly, I believe that the truths of Christianity are probable to such a degree that the only rational option is for all people to fall on their face and worship Christ.

No, I am not completely (indubitably) certain that Christianity is true. I am not indubitably certain of anything. However, I am sufficiently certain that it is true. So certain that any other choice would be irrational.Similar Posts:

• The Sufficiency of Probability in the Christian Belief
• Some Alternative Explanations for the Resurrection of Christ
• “What if I Missed Something?”
• Why I Believe the Canon is Fallible . . . And am Fine with It!
• In Defense of Sola Scriptura – Part Seven – What About the Canon?

Some may credit the advent of the so-called “new atheism” for the number creeping down in recent years. The “new atheism” is interesting in so many ways. I suppose the fundamental reason why it is called “new” is not because of any new evidence that has been found that profoundly militates against traditional theism, but in the attitude and zeal of the “new atheists.” In essence, whereas the “old atheists” were content to keep their disbelief in God to themselves, not being too concerned about what others believed, these “new atheists” seem intent on converting as many people as possible to their faith. What is “new” is that they are evangelists of unbelief. They truly believe that the world would be better off without a belief in God. Therefore, they want us to be atheist too. In fact, I just saw that The American Humanist Association just launched the largest evangelistic anti-God campaign in history.

However, the fluctuation in the numbers (90 to 88 percent) may not be a very good indicator of the true effect that the “new atheism” is having on people’s beliefs. With the proliferation of atheistic “evidences” among the general public brought about by the ”new atheism,” we have something very different. While people are not giving up their confession of belief that God exists and becoming outright atheists, I find that they are more prepared to suspend their belief in God for a sort of accommodating agnosticism. This could be just as problematic for the Christian cause as full-blow atheism itself.

Let me explain.

Belief is not black and white. In fact, the anatomy of belief is very complicated. There are various degrees and ways which people believe things. When it comes to a belief in God, people can lose their conviction without completely losing their faith. When you ask someone whether they believe in God and require a yes/no response, you are assuming that belief in God is either something that you have or you don’t, with little regard for the complexities and variations in between. To put it in a very elementary way: some people kinda believe in God. Others just believe in him. Still, others really believe in him. And some really believe in him. You see the difference?

But, it is even more complex than this. In fact, there is a fundamental difference between believing in God and believing that God exists. You cannot have the former without the latter, but you can have the latter without the former. One can also have varying beliefs about God. Confused?

How about some Patton graphics to confuse things more (don’t pay attention to where the dials are at on the first one here)?

 This meter represents faith. There are three individual meters that contribute.

1. Correct information: This has to do with orthodox information or data.

2. Intellectual assent: This speaks to the level of intellectual conviction that a person has that the information is actually true.

3. Trust: This speaks to the action of resting in the truths about which one is convicted.

The complexities of this present meter illustrate how one can have correct information, be resting in this information, but have a very low intellectual conviction of its truthfulness. Psychologists would label this meter “cognitive dissonance.” Here, you are living according to beliefs that you don’t really believe.

In a perfect Christian world, all of the meters would be at their highest. But the reality is that, depending on the person, these meters can vary.

Country Music Faith

Notice here, there is a high conviction with no little or no trust. I find people like this all the time. I often call it “country music faith” since it expresses a strong belief in God, but just does not seem to live according to that belief.

Unorthodox Faith

Notice there is not much correct information. Without the right information, all the intellectual assent and trust are not going to get you to God. This would also be true of other religions. (Although, the intellectual assent will vary a great deal. This chart may express it way too high for most.)

Back to the “new atheism”…

So far, my desire is to convince you that belief (and non-belief) is not black and white. When it comes to the issue of the “new atheism,” many of us may be content to say that if the “bottom line” is not being affected (i.e. people still say they believe in God), we don’t really need to turn our heads.

But I believe the “new atheism” is having a greater effect than the bottom line suggests. While the meters of trust and information may not be changing, I do believe that the meter of intellectual assent is. And with this change, I believe that the Christian faith, from a human perspective, is facing some serious challenges.

Let me use the meter chart to show what I mean.

Timid or Cognitive Dissonant Faith

If you don’t get anything else from this article, let me be clear here: This is what I believe the average American Christian’s faith looks like.

Notice here: There is a distinction between “belief about God,” “belief that God,” and “belief in God.” This parallels the “information,” “conviction,” and “trust” in the other chart. Now we are talking specifically about beliefs about God’s existence.

When we take surveys, people’s belief about God and belief in God may only change slightly. Therefore, when they are asked the question Do you believe in God? they answer with what seems to be an honest “yes.” The survey marks it up as such. However, what we don’t see is that their intellectual conviction that God exists is very low.

It is said that Darwin made it possible to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Prior to this, the atheist had no credible path to take in his rejection of an ultimate creator for all things. However, the average Christian is struggling these days to find a way to be an intellectually credible theist. They may be theists, believing in God, but they are slowly losing their conviction that God exists.

Now, I am not saying that any of the supposed intellectual credibility of the new atheists is real, but I do think it is perceived to be real by the average Christian. When this perception occurs, most Christians simply rely on the trust meter alone to sustain their faith.

The biggest problem is that Christianity simply cannot function without all three of these meters pushing forward. A cognitive dissonant faith is not a biblical faith. Commitment without convictions will lead to a dead church for it is the conviction upon which the commitment is built.

In the end, I do think that the “new atheism” is having more of an effect than the polls suggest.Similar Posts:

• The Anatomy of Belief (1)
• An argument against atheism?
• A Not So Good Argument Against Atheism: The Argument from Finite Knowledge
• The Anatomy of Belief (4): Complexities of Conviction
• The Parable of the Life Preserver

If something exists, then so does God.

Now more complex:

Romans 1:18-20 is one of the great, theologically rich passages in all of Scripture. It tells us that evidence of God’s reality is universally known and that no one will be able to present a (valid) excuse for unbelief.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 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.”

An interesting point that we, as Christians who believe in the ultimate authority of the Scripture, need to be reminded of is that this passage tells us that God has made himself known, not since the creation of the Scriptures, but “since the creation of the world.” While the specifics of the Gospel are not present in creation, God’s “eternal power and divine nature” have been “clearly” seen so that no one will be able to say “I did not know.”

Theologians term this “natural revelation.” It is also spoken of in Psalm 19. Natural revelation is the type of revelation that is available to all people of all time, everywhere. From it we derive a “natural theology.” Natural theology stands beside the Scriptures and aids us in our understanding of God.

Have you ever noticed that the Bible does not make a concerted effort to argue for God’s existence? There is no book in the Bible that is focused on this “first principle” of theology. Why? Because creation itself is sufficient to bring us to a reliable conclusion about this matter. God’s written word does not need to do what his voice in creation had already sufficiently done. As R.C. Sproul put it, “It would be like bringing steel to Pittsburgh. You just don’t need it!”

So, why is there something rather than nothing?

Here is how I work out Romans 1:18-20 from natural revelation:

No matter how ridiculous talking snakes, parting seas, and incarnate Gods may be, when I am at my best, I recognize that existence itself is about as bizarre as it comes. The fact that there is something demands that there be some-thing to explain it. The fact that something exists is more miraculous than we can normally bring ourselves to imagine.

Here is a four step process to moving from natural revelation to the necessity of God.

1. Transcendence:  This some-thing responsible for creation must be metaphysically transcendent. Metaphysical transcendence is defined as being above and beyond all things in the physical or material world. In other words, it is outside of this universe or dimension of existence. Time, space, and matter all demand that they be separate from the essence of their genesis. This metaphysically transcendent “essence” is what is traditionally defined as “God. 

2. One: This ”God” from which all things came must be one, not many. For if there were many, one would have to have a way to distinguish between their essence. Once we distinguish their essence, we can no longer describe them as transcendent since multiplicity in essence, demands space and matter as means to essentially distinguish their nature. The presence of space and matter are the antithesis to metaphysical transcendence. If there were many, we would be back to step one of justifying their existence by finding that one existence that is transcendent to them. In other words, “God” must be unified in nature (we sometimes call this “divine simplicity.”)

3. Willful: This ”God” from which all things came has to be willful. Since time came into being, there was a singular point when it was birthed. Why was it created when it was created? The answer to this demands that the transcendent “essence” from which all things come must have “decided” at some point to bring it into being. Otherwise, it would have never come into being since, without a will, the transcendent essence would have never created it. This is due to the fact that outside of willful intent, we are left only with cause and effect. Since “God,” in his unified essence, does not exist in relation to cause and effect, before and after (all attributes of immanence), there is no explanatory cause for creation. This transcendent essence must have willfully brought all things into being at some singular point.

4. Personal: Willfulness implies personality. Therefore, this tells me that this “God” must contain “personhood” in some sense. Adding to this personhood is characteristics observed in creation, particularly humanity. Humanity carries characteristics of emotion, rationality, and morality. Love, anger, joy, satisfaction, and desire are all emotional characteristics. Logic, rational thinking, and common sense are all rational characteristic. The innate sense of right and wrong, good and evil, and the pursuit of truth itself are all moral characteristics. Due to the assumed reality that the thing created cannot be greater than that which is responsible for its creation, “God” must contain all of these characteristics to a degree transcendently greater and more pure than the creation.

Thus far, I have ruled out:

Polytheism (Belief in many Gods): There could not be many of these beings or they are not truly transcendent. To be one who believes in many gods, the whole idea of what it means to be “god” must be depleted of essential characteristics. At best, polytheists are those who worship the most powerful beings in our universe who themselves need a sufficient explanatory cause.

Pantheism and Panentheism (Belief that all is God or all is “in” God): Their cannot be immanence coming from the essence or being of transcendence. Both pantheism and panentheism must redefine what it means to be “God” in a similar way as polytheism as true transcendence no longer exists. This is why pantheists are often described as “philosophical” or “metaphysical” atheists.

Atheism (Belief that there is no God): In atheism, there is no transcendent explanatory cause for all things, only an infinite regress of time, space, matter and cause and effects. This is referentially absurd since the reality of a present moment demands, in their worldivew, an infinite amount of time to have been traversed before we arrive at the present moment. But an infinite cannot, by definition, be traversed since there would always be an infinite amount succession of moments and events before we get to “now.” It would be like asking when someone would get out of an infinitely deep hole. The answer is “never” due to the fact that there is no starting point from which to begin and, therefore, complete the journey. Since we are at “now” there must have been a beginning. Since there is a beginning, there must be a transcendent explanation for this beginning. Once this is conceded, atheism no longer is possible.

Deism (Belief in a transcendent God who cannot intervene in history): As deism itself is self-defeating. If something exists, God must be responsible for it. If he is responsible for it, by definition, he is and can be involved in creation. While this is a paradoxical situation that a transcendent God can be involved in immanence, it is, nonetheless, a philosophical necessity due to the fact that something exists. (I understand that there is “soft deism” which is a believe in a transcendent God who does not (not cannot) intervene in history, but that is an internal issue that does not have relevance here. It is really just another form of theism).

Why is there something rather than nothing? Because one transcendent, willful, personal God created it and is involved in it. Creation spells this out clear enough. We are without excuse for disbelief.

Back to the simple:

“You don’t truly understand something until you can exlain it is a simple way where everyone can understand it.”

If something exists, then so does God.Similar Posts:

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Of course we have all be sitting on pins and needles waiting for such a definitive announcement, right? This information comes from his new book The Grand Design, his first major work in nearly a decade (to be released later this month). What makes this information news, I suppose, is that before this announcement, Hawking could have been labeled as an agnostic with quasi-deistic sympathies. In other words, if Hawking allowed for a God, it was not one like the Christian God and he/she/it was certainly not interested in the going-ons here on earth. ”The universe,” according to Hawking, ”is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws” (source). In other words, no miracles, no transcendent love, and no God becoming man. How he was privy to the information that “God does not intervene” is for his eyes only.

However, as I said, there has been a change. Hawking seems to have figured it out. In his new book he says that “Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” He goes on, “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going.”

But I don’t get it. Aren’t we as rational being supposed to be rational? Is it really rational to say that something comes from nothing. What about the axiom, ex nihilo nihil fit, “out of nothing, nothing comes.” What if this “spontaneous generation” answer was permissible in our every day life? Me: “Will, who made this mess in your room?” Will: “Ummm…no one. It just appeared from nothing.” Fireman: “How did this fire start? Man: “It was just one of those things. Nothing started it.” Policeman: “Who robbed the bank.” Robber: “No one. The money is just gone and nothing caused it to go.”

As irrational as this “something from nothing” philosophy is in the real world, it cannot and should not get a better shake when it comes to religion. People often ask, “If God created everything who or what created God?” Many times we just stare with a blank look on their face, not knowing how to respond. However, we do have a response. It is called transcendence.

(Hang with me, I will get back to the Hawking kind of faith thing in a moment.)

We believe in a transcendent God. This is what we call a ”necessary” belief. “If something exists,” so the argument goes, “God must exist.” It is actually the best argument for God that is out there. If something exists, we have to have an adequate cause to explain it. This cause must be transcendent in order to avoid the infinite regress produced by the “If God created everything, who created God? Who created that which created God? Who created that which created that which created God?” You see, there must be an “ultimate cause.” This is called the “unmoved mover.” Because of the law of cause and effect (every effect has an sufficient cause) and because we know that time cannot go infinitely backward (or we would never reach the present because we would always have an infinity to go), we know that the “universe” in which God resides, must transcend the physical laws of our universe.

Back to Hawking…

Hawking understands well the ultimate atheist dilemma. It is not whether or not evolution can explain the the genesis of life. It is not whether God shows his face here and there. It is not even whether spiritual bodies can be scientifically proven. It is the problem of existence itself. Where did everything come from? The law of cause and effect says that there must be a sufficient explanation for existence. If there is no God, then there is no answer to the question, Why is there something rather than nothing?

However, Hawking has the answer. In his new book (from what I understand) he argues for the reality of multiple universes. From here he argues that if there are many universes (possibly an infinite number), one will have characteristics in physics that are much different than ours. One of these characteristics may be that it does not have to abide by the law of cause and effect. If so, in this universe, something can come from nothing.

At this point I pause and say to myself, Stephen Hawking believes in a god. You see, this is not so much unlike the tentative belief that aliens created our universe held by Richard Dawkins. In both cases, you have to have something above and beyond us which explains our existence. There must be something/someone which exists outside of our universe to explain the existence of our universe since the laws of our universe militate against self-creation. For Hawking there is a “universe” out there which is responsible for all things. Hawking’s creative universe where something can come from nothing carries the same basic and essential characteristic of the Christian view of God: transcendence. Sure, Christians add attributes to our understanding of God such as intelligence, love, and intervention, but the essential realm of existence is the same. God resides in a realm where the laws of physics do not have the same application. Why? Because he created them. They had their genesis with him through the creation of our time/space universe. God, in his essence, has no relation to time, space, or matter, therefore, he is not “under” the laws we are under. What we call heaven (often as a metonymy for God), Hawking calls “the universe where the same rules do not apply.” What this “universe” is like would most certainly be a great mystery to Hawking, but it exists nonetheless. Why? Because it must exist. There simply must be a sufficient explanation for all things. Therefore, Hawking believes in a mysterious creator of all things. Whether this creator is personal or not is not the issue right now. The point is that Hawking invokes a mysterious creator he calls “Other Universe.” This puts him in the religious camp of either pantheism or deism.

Does he worship this “other universe”? It depends on what you mean by “worship.” He credits it with the creation of all things, believes in its power and transcendence, and, now, is evangelizing on its behalf. But he does not have a relationship with it and does not believe it cares about him. Like Paul walking through Athens and noticing the alter built to the “unknown god” (Acts 17:23), Stephen Hawking has a similar alter with the same kind of generic name: “Another Universe.”

The point is that ultimately you have to avoid the “Where did it all come from?” question if you want to be a consistent atheist. Hawking’s pronouncement that God is not necessary dies the death of his own qualification. His faith step here is in the right direction, but needs to go further. I simply call on him to see that this God has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ and call us to a life of recognition and service to him.

Having said this, I do say what a brilliant mind Hawkins truly does have. Even though he is an unbeliever, he is shows God’s image so brightly in many ways.Similar Posts:

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