Should Atheism be in Modern Day Education?
It might have been a while since you last heard the word "God" used in a classroom, other than just as a swear. The vibe I have always gotten from my public schooling has always been that people - specifically scientists - can explain every question worth asking... and if they can't now, sooner or later they will.
So, not only is there no good factual reason to believe that a supernatural uncreated Being who created the universe exists, humanity isn't lacking in anything regarding personal feelings and desires that cannot be tended to with caring people trained in the art of crisp, cool reason.
I believe the essence of reason is this: "Truth exists, because it is impossible for it to be true that truth does not exist." Proper reasoning, it is said, is one that discovers the real truth about something. Humans have this capability to reason, specifically to think, using the laws of logic to come to a rational conclusion about themselves and the world around them.
Of course, human reasoning starts with our conscious, cognitive faculties. They have a mind and the laws of logic, which are to be used to believe something. Therefore, if any worldview proposes to be a reasonable one, let alone the most reasonable one, it must justify where the human mind -- consciousness -- came from, and where the laws of logic and truth owe their existence.
So, not only is there no good factual reason to believe that a supernatural uncreated Being who created the universe exists, humanity isn't lacking in anything regarding personal feelings and desires that cannot be tended to with caring people trained in the art of crisp, cool reason.
I believe the essence of reason is this: "Truth exists, because it is impossible for it to be true that truth does not exist." Proper reasoning, it is said, is one that discovers the real truth about something. Humans have this capability to reason, specifically to think, using the laws of logic to come to a rational conclusion about themselves and the world around them.
Of course, human reasoning starts with our conscious, cognitive faculties. They have a mind and the laws of logic, which are to be used to believe something. Therefore, if any worldview proposes to be a reasonable one, let alone the most reasonable one, it must justify where the human mind -- consciousness -- came from, and where the laws of logic and truth owe their existence.
1. Unable to explain Consciousness
A year or two ago, when I read a book titled Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case by Frank Turek, and The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, I began to think about potential issues between atheism and the human mind. Now, I believe the conclusion I have reached is right and that I can well support it.
Allow me to throw us straight into the deal. You either accurately have “in the beginning was the particles,” or “in the beginning was the Logos”, which means “Divine Mind” or “Intelligence.” So, I have two questions. First, is consciousness material or immaterial? Second, if consciousness is immaterial, can atheism justify its coming into being?
That consciousness is immaterial is obvious. For one thing, no part of the brain is about anything other than electricity, neurons, and things of the like. While neuroscientists have been able to discover mind-brain connections, can figure some things out about moods, and know which part of our brain “houses” our thinking, they still can’t directly read our minds. No part of anyone's brain is about football, paper, or movies and Youtube videos. And even if our brain did show what we are thinking, this still wouldn’t explain where consciousness came from in the first place. A painting can be about anything, does this mean the painting is conscious? One cannot look at any part of someone’s brain and suddenly experience what the person is experiencing.
That consciousness exists is clear as well. If you think “truth exists because if truth did not exist, that statement could not be true,” you have tapped into existing logic. And what does not exist cannot reach what does. While humans can dream up imaginary things (and neuroscientists couldn’t tell us what they were), we create those dreams, those dreams don’t create us! The ideas exist!
J.P. Moreland, the great Christian apologist, was not the only one to define logos as presented above but absolutely was the genius responsible for contrasting logos and particles. He mentioned to Lee Strobel in an interview: “If you apply a physical process to physical matter, you're going to get a different arrangement of physical materials. For example, if you apply the physical process of heating to a bowl of water, you're going to get a new product- steam- which is just a more complicated form of water, but it's still physical. And if the history of the universe is just a story of physical processes being applied to physical materials, you'd end up with increasingly complicated arrangements of physical materials, but you're not going to get something that's completely nonphysical. That's a jump of a totally different kind."(2) He explains, " ...you can't get something from nothing. It's as simple as that. If there were no God, then the history of the entire universe, up until the appearance of living creatures, would be a history of dead matter with no consciousness. You would not have any thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, free actions, choices, or purposes. There would be simply one physical event after another physical event, behaving according to the laws of physics and chemistry.” (3)
In Antony Flew’s There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, co-author Roy Abraham Varghese makes this point: “As a matter of fact, as physicist Gerald Schroeder points out, there is no essential difference in the ultimate physical constituents of a heap of sand and the brain of Einstein. Only blind and baseless faith in matter lies behind the claim that certain bits of matter can suddenly ‘create’ a new reality that bears no resemblance to matter.” (4)
Neuroscience has discovered that the damage of some neurons can result in the person’s loss to feel empathy. In other words, destruction of part of the brain destroys someone’s feelings. The devil lies in the details for naturalism: for something to destroy another, naturally it has to apply pressure to it; it has to physically come into contact with what it will effect. But remember there is ultimately no difference in the physical constituents between Einstein’s brain and a heap of sand, and no one can look at a neuron and then suddenly experience whatever the person is feeling. You can’t squeeze out what takes up no space. You can’t unlock a door and create a non-spatial existence out of air. Since empathy lies outside of the physical realm and henceforth cannot be touched by a brain or anything that any organ can naturally touch, yet the outcome is the same as if empathy physically existed, the connection between the mind and the brain must be, by pure logical necessity, supernatural.
As Colin McGinn, an atheist philosopher, put it: “But in the case of consciousness the Darwinian explanation does not tell us what we need to know, for the simple reason that it is unclear how matter can be so organized as to create a conscious being. The problem is in the raw materials. It looks as if with consciousness a new kind of reality has been injected into the universe, instead of just a recombination of the old realities. Even if minds showed no hint of design, the same old problem would exist: How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness?” (5)
Leading sociobiological evolutionary ethicist Michael Ruse wrote, "Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing and why should you, even as you read now, be able to ponder my points, agreeing or disagreeing, with pleasure or pain, deciding to refute me or deciding that I am not worth the effort? No one, certainly not the Darwinian as such, seems to have any answer to this. ... The point is that there is no scientific answer." (6)
2. Irrational Grounds for Rationality
The human mind is the part of a person's consciousness that is responsible for reasoning. The human mind harnesses the laws of logic to distinguish what is true and what is false. Can atheism explain this capability? Probably not, since it can't even justify the mind's existence. But let's be sure.
1. The laws of logic and truth don't physically exist, so the exact same problem with consciousness plagues atheistic means. Only protons, electrons, neutrons, and the laws of physics and chemistry that govern them should exist.
2. It is true for all people at any time that truth exists. It cannot be true for truth to not exist. It is true for all people at all times that there is truth about everything. It cannot be true for there to be no truth about everything. We can believe there is no truth about some things, but that doesn’t change the obvious facts, and, ironically, we would end up subconsciously believing that it is true that there is no truth about anything. This shows us that truth is not up to the human intelligence. You try making it true that truth does not exist! Even though we are immaterial (we are our mind and feelings, which makes up our soul), we still can’t create anything that doesn't exist which is beyond ourselves. I would say that in order to create the laws of logic humans would need God-like abilities, but that is an understatement. In order to create the fixed laws of logic we would need the full ability of God. Truth is a tool of the mind, yet is absolute and beyond human opinion. Henceforth it must be founded in the absolute mind of God.
3. Finally, what do the laws of physics and chemistry know?. Imagine a junkyard, then a strong wind blew through the place and managed to put a working computer together. It started to sputter, and then began printing out math problems. Some of them were “2/7=5,” “3 x 2=99,” and “5 -10=0.” None of them were correct. And why should they? The whole means of creating the computer was unplanned and non-intelligent. And evolution is the exact same way. It had no understanding of reality. As famous atheist Richard Dawkins put it, “DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” (9) He has admitted something exactly like Christian apologists Frank Turek and Norman Geisler did: “...if materialism is true, then reason itself is impossible. For if mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that anything is true (including the theory of materialism). Chemicals can't evaluate whether or not a theory is true. Chemicals don't reason, they react." (10) Finally, as British evolutionist J.B.S Haldane wrote, "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." (11) So if we dance to something that has no knowledge of any kind that came by non-intelligent means, we lose all rational ability to believe in rationality!
Minds are immaterial and subject to the laws of logic. Brains are material and subject to the laws of physics and chemistry. In other words, if atheism is true, we don't reason, we react. We reason, therefore atheism is false.
At this point I can think of two possible objections. One could be that this is a circular argument: I am reasoning for sure, and so it is circular to argue that I wouldn't be reasoning. But this just begs the question. Since I know I reason, I need to seek out a reasonable explanation for my mind's capability. What I determine to be an unreasonable (or moreso, impossible) cause is of course going to be thrown out.
The other one is interesting and a bit perplexing, mostly because it involves something I don't know anything substantial about: computers. What about computers? They reason! We can create computers that run programs that give out correct answers faster then any man. Aren't they a counter-example that you can't get a mind and reasoning from matter? Actually, though, the only thing this argument does is multiply the problem for atheism! If what computers have is material, then they are not what I am trying to explain. If what computers have is immaterial, then the principle that what does not physically exist cannot be caused by and can only supernaturally effect what does physically exist still stands. All humans ever do with the physical world is re-arrange atomic particles and discover what they can be.We only discovered that if we rearrange non-intelligent atomic particles a certain way, then they will create computer programs. We did not create the potential for computers to be the way they are (however that way really is). Someone (an absolutely intelligent Mind) is the only possible explanation for a universe with the capability of immaterial reasoning. We discover the way God has made things.
3. Lack of Free Will
Citations:
1. Crispin Wright, "The Conceivability of Naturalism," in Conceivability and Possibility, ed. Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne (Oxford: Claredon, 2002), 401. Cited in J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Crossway: Wheaton, Ill. 2018), 149-50.
2. Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), 279.
3. Ibid., 278, emphasis original.
4. Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (Harperone: 2007), 174.
5. Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 13. Cited in Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-changing Truth for a Skeptical World (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN. 2017), lxxiii; cf. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 278.
6. Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2001), 73. Cited in Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 261.
A year or two ago, when I read a book titled Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case by Frank Turek, and The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, I began to think about potential issues between atheism and the human mind. Now, I believe the conclusion I have reached is right and that I can well support it.
Allow me to throw us straight into the deal. You either accurately have “in the beginning was the particles,” or “in the beginning was the Logos”, which means “Divine Mind” or “Intelligence.” So, I have two questions. First, is consciousness material or immaterial? Second, if consciousness is immaterial, can atheism justify its coming into being?
That consciousness is immaterial is obvious. For one thing, no part of the brain is about anything other than electricity, neurons, and things of the like. While neuroscientists have been able to discover mind-brain connections, can figure some things out about moods, and know which part of our brain “houses” our thinking, they still can’t directly read our minds. No part of anyone's brain is about football, paper, or movies and Youtube videos. And even if our brain did show what we are thinking, this still wouldn’t explain where consciousness came from in the first place. A painting can be about anything, does this mean the painting is conscious? One cannot look at any part of someone’s brain and suddenly experience what the person is experiencing.
That consciousness exists is clear as well. If you think “truth exists because if truth did not exist, that statement could not be true,” you have tapped into existing logic. And what does not exist cannot reach what does. While humans can dream up imaginary things (and neuroscientists couldn’t tell us what they were), we create those dreams, those dreams don’t create us! The ideas exist!
The answer to my first question is a convincing yes that consciousness is immaterial. It doesn't physically exist.
Crispin Wright, a world leading advocate for scientism and naturalism once wrote: "On one horn, if we embrace this naturalism, it seems we are committed either to reductionism: that is, to a construal of the reference of, for example, semantic, moral and psychological vocabulary as somehow being within the physical domain - or to disputing that the discourses in question involve reference to what is real at all. On the other horn, if we reject this naturalism, then we accept that there is more to the world than can be embraced within a physicalist ontology - and so take on a commitment, it can seem, to a kind of eerie supernaturalism." (1) His point is that consciousness is either physical, does not exist, or is immaterial and is unexplainable by naturalism.
J.P. Moreland, the great Christian apologist, was not the only one to define logos as presented above but absolutely was the genius responsible for contrasting logos and particles. He mentioned to Lee Strobel in an interview: “If you apply a physical process to physical matter, you're going to get a different arrangement of physical materials. For example, if you apply the physical process of heating to a bowl of water, you're going to get a new product- steam- which is just a more complicated form of water, but it's still physical. And if the history of the universe is just a story of physical processes being applied to physical materials, you'd end up with increasingly complicated arrangements of physical materials, but you're not going to get something that's completely nonphysical. That's a jump of a totally different kind."(2) He explains, " ...you can't get something from nothing. It's as simple as that. If there were no God, then the history of the entire universe, up until the appearance of living creatures, would be a history of dead matter with no consciousness. You would not have any thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, free actions, choices, or purposes. There would be simply one physical event after another physical event, behaving according to the laws of physics and chemistry.” (3)
In Antony Flew’s There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, co-author Roy Abraham Varghese makes this point: “As a matter of fact, as physicist Gerald Schroeder points out, there is no essential difference in the ultimate physical constituents of a heap of sand and the brain of Einstein. Only blind and baseless faith in matter lies behind the claim that certain bits of matter can suddenly ‘create’ a new reality that bears no resemblance to matter.” (4)
Neuroscience has discovered that the damage of some neurons can result in the person’s loss to feel empathy. In other words, destruction of part of the brain destroys someone’s feelings. The devil lies in the details for naturalism: for something to destroy another, naturally it has to apply pressure to it; it has to physically come into contact with what it will effect. But remember there is ultimately no difference in the physical constituents between Einstein’s brain and a heap of sand, and no one can look at a neuron and then suddenly experience whatever the person is feeling. You can’t squeeze out what takes up no space. You can’t unlock a door and create a non-spatial existence out of air. Since empathy lies outside of the physical realm and henceforth cannot be touched by a brain or anything that any organ can naturally touch, yet the outcome is the same as if empathy physically existed, the connection between the mind and the brain must be, by pure logical necessity, supernatural.
As Colin McGinn, an atheist philosopher, put it: “But in the case of consciousness the Darwinian explanation does not tell us what we need to know, for the simple reason that it is unclear how matter can be so organized as to create a conscious being. The problem is in the raw materials. It looks as if with consciousness a new kind of reality has been injected into the universe, instead of just a recombination of the old realities. Even if minds showed no hint of design, the same old problem would exist: How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness?” (5)
Leading sociobiological evolutionary ethicist Michael Ruse wrote, "Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing and why should you, even as you read now, be able to ponder my points, agreeing or disagreeing, with pleasure or pain, deciding to refute me or deciding that I am not worth the effort? No one, certainly not the Darwinian as such, seems to have any answer to this. ... The point is that there is no scientific answer." (6)
Another atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel realized: “Consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science. The existence of consciousness seems to imply that the physical description of the universe, in spite of its richness and explanatory power, is only part of the truth, and that the natural order is far less austere than it would be if physics and chemistry accounted for everything. If we take this problem seriously, and follow out its implications, it threatens to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture. Yet it is very difficult to imagine a viable alternative.” (7)
Lastly, D.M. Armstrong, another physicalist philosopher, summarizes my view of the origin of consciousness quite well (emphasis added): "It is not a particularly difficult notion that, when the nervous system reaches a certain level of complexity, it should develop new properties. Nor would there be anything particularly difficult in the notion that when the nervous system reaches a certain level of complexity it should affect something that was already in existence in a new way. But it is a quite different matter to hold that the nervous system should have the power to create something else, of a quite different nature from itself, and create it out of no materials." (8)
Lastly, D.M. Armstrong, another physicalist philosopher, summarizes my view of the origin of consciousness quite well (emphasis added): "It is not a particularly difficult notion that, when the nervous system reaches a certain level of complexity, it should develop new properties. Nor would there be anything particularly difficult in the notion that when the nervous system reaches a certain level of complexity it should affect something that was already in existence in a new way. But it is a quite different matter to hold that the nervous system should have the power to create something else, of a quite different nature from itself, and create it out of no materials." (8)
The human mind is the part of a person's consciousness that is responsible for reasoning. The human mind harnesses the laws of logic to distinguish what is true and what is false. Can atheism explain this capability? Probably not, since it can't even justify the mind's existence. But let's be sure.
1. The laws of logic and truth don't physically exist, so the exact same problem with consciousness plagues atheistic means. Only protons, electrons, neutrons, and the laws of physics and chemistry that govern them should exist.
2. It is true for all people at any time that truth exists. It cannot be true for truth to not exist. It is true for all people at all times that there is truth about everything. It cannot be true for there to be no truth about everything. We can believe there is no truth about some things, but that doesn’t change the obvious facts, and, ironically, we would end up subconsciously believing that it is true that there is no truth about anything. This shows us that truth is not up to the human intelligence. You try making it true that truth does not exist! Even though we are immaterial (we are our mind and feelings, which makes up our soul), we still can’t create anything that doesn't exist which is beyond ourselves. I would say that in order to create the laws of logic humans would need God-like abilities, but that is an understatement. In order to create the fixed laws of logic we would need the full ability of God. Truth is a tool of the mind, yet is absolute and beyond human opinion. Henceforth it must be founded in the absolute mind of God.
3. Finally, what do the laws of physics and chemistry know?. Imagine a junkyard, then a strong wind blew through the place and managed to put a working computer together. It started to sputter, and then began printing out math problems. Some of them were “2/7=5,” “3 x 2=99,” and “5 -10=0.” None of them were correct. And why should they? The whole means of creating the computer was unplanned and non-intelligent. And evolution is the exact same way. It had no understanding of reality. As famous atheist Richard Dawkins put it, “DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.” (9) He has admitted something exactly like Christian apologists Frank Turek and Norman Geisler did: “...if materialism is true, then reason itself is impossible. For if mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that anything is true (including the theory of materialism). Chemicals can't evaluate whether or not a theory is true. Chemicals don't reason, they react." (10) Finally, as British evolutionist J.B.S Haldane wrote, "If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." (11) So if we dance to something that has no knowledge of any kind that came by non-intelligent means, we lose all rational ability to believe in rationality!
Minds are immaterial and subject to the laws of logic. Brains are material and subject to the laws of physics and chemistry. In other words, if atheism is true, we don't reason, we react. We reason, therefore atheism is false.
At this point I can think of two possible objections. One could be that this is a circular argument: I am reasoning for sure, and so it is circular to argue that I wouldn't be reasoning. But this just begs the question. Since I know I reason, I need to seek out a reasonable explanation for my mind's capability. What I determine to be an unreasonable (or moreso, impossible) cause is of course going to be thrown out.
The other one is interesting and a bit perplexing, mostly because it involves something I don't know anything substantial about: computers. What about computers? They reason! We can create computers that run programs that give out correct answers faster then any man. Aren't they a counter-example that you can't get a mind and reasoning from matter? Actually, though, the only thing this argument does is multiply the problem for atheism! If what computers have is material, then they are not what I am trying to explain. If what computers have is immaterial, then the principle that what does not physically exist cannot be caused by and can only supernaturally effect what does physically exist still stands. All humans ever do with the physical world is re-arrange atomic particles and discover what they can be.We only discovered that if we rearrange non-intelligent atomic particles a certain way, then they will create computer programs. We did not create the potential for computers to be the way they are (however that way really is). Someone (an absolutely intelligent Mind) is the only possible explanation for a universe with the capability of immaterial reasoning. We discover the way God has made things.
3. Lack of Free Will
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." (12)
The prominent evolutionary biologist and historian William Provine of Cornell University pointed out quite explicitly in a debate: "Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. ... There are no gods, no purposes. ... There is no life after death. ... There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans." (13)
The creation of free will did not happen if atheism is true, because the entire history of the universe up until humanity has been a metaphorical stack of dominoes pushing one on top of each other. Nothing that happened before then was free, and so everything is lacking in the ability of and for freedom. Therefore, what room for free will? Atheists have properly recognized and admitted their lack of justification for reasonable human responsibility.
With all this information in mind, consider a conversation like this:
Atheist: There's really no reason to be a theist.
Christian: Why do you say that?
Atheist: Because science has shown that we do not have free will since our thinking is caused by chemical reactions in our brain, and Christianity demands that people get to decide for themselves whether or not they choose to believe in Jesus.
Christian: I don't believe science can prove that, and I think and feel like I experience free will, so I believe I do.
Atheist: Be reasonable!
Christian: "Be reasonable!" You tell me I am determined by non-intelligent matter and suddenly hold me responsible for being reasonable? You are being a hypocrite by demanding I be reasonable since you are being unreasonable!
How can the human race live a reasonable life without free will? We can't! We hold people accountable all the time as if they reasonably can be. But what should we expect if we are determined by an unreasoning cause?
But since consciousness was not created by a domino effect, and instead was created by a Being, and is only connected to the brain, the burden of proof lies on the one claiming we don't have free will. Our immediate experience of consciousness is an immediate proof of God, and so the fact that we feel like we have free will is much more reasonably explained by it being correct rather than not.
The prominent evolutionary biologist and historian William Provine of Cornell University pointed out quite explicitly in a debate: "Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. ... There are no gods, no purposes. ... There is no life after death. ... There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans." (13)
The creation of free will did not happen if atheism is true, because the entire history of the universe up until humanity has been a metaphorical stack of dominoes pushing one on top of each other. Nothing that happened before then was free, and so everything is lacking in the ability of and for freedom. Therefore, what room for free will? Atheists have properly recognized and admitted their lack of justification for reasonable human responsibility.
With all this information in mind, consider a conversation like this:
Atheist: There's really no reason to be a theist.
Christian: Why do you say that?
Atheist: Because science has shown that we do not have free will since our thinking is caused by chemical reactions in our brain, and Christianity demands that people get to decide for themselves whether or not they choose to believe in Jesus.
Christian: I don't believe science can prove that, and I think and feel like I experience free will, so I believe I do.
Atheist: Be reasonable!
Christian: "Be reasonable!" You tell me I am determined by non-intelligent matter and suddenly hold me responsible for being reasonable? You are being a hypocrite by demanding I be reasonable since you are being unreasonable!
How can the human race live a reasonable life without free will? We can't! We hold people accountable all the time as if they reasonably can be. But what should we expect if we are determined by an unreasoning cause?
But since consciousness was not created by a domino effect, and instead was created by a Being, and is only connected to the brain, the burden of proof lies on the one claiming we don't have free will. Our immediate experience of consciousness is an immediate proof of God, and so the fact that we feel like we have free will is much more reasonably explained by it being correct rather than not.
Okay... So what?
The claim that there is no God, or the claim that there is no good reason to believe in God, is, in at least my opinion, bogus because it can't even justify the ability to think.
But just because atheism is false does not mean that the exact opposite is true. I say exact opposite, because if there is no God, there definitely is no loving God who treasures humanity. And the majority of people think of God as a caring personal Being. The middle ground, when considering these two potentially true extremes, is deism, the belief that God exists, but doesn't meddle in human affairs. A deistic position is what Antony Flew took when he changed his mind (theism holds a personal God).
In a grand debate titled Does God Exist?, contributor Peter Kreeft wrote, "The argument for atheism from evil is also strong because it is based on a strong premise, on universally acknowledged data which is open to immediate daily experience - namely, the fact that there is evil. The reality of evil seems logically incompatible with the reality of an all-good, all-powerful God." (14) Personally in my experience, this argument has always been the most common reason for rejecting theism, and therefore Christianity.
Given that God is real, is this argument unbeatable? Maybe! But then again, maybe not.
1. Crispin Wright, "The Conceivability of Naturalism," in Conceivability and Possibility, ed. Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne (Oxford: Claredon, 2002), 401. Cited in J.P. Moreland, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology (Crossway: Wheaton, Ill. 2018), 149-50.
2. Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), 279.
3. Ibid., 278, emphasis original.
4. Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (Harperone: 2007), 174.
5. Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 13. Cited in Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-changing Truth for a Skeptical World (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN. 2017), lxxiii; cf. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 278.
6. Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2001), 73. Cited in Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 261.
7. Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (Oxford University Press: 2012), 35. Cited in McDowell, Evidence, lxxii-lxxiii; cf. J. Warner Wallace, God's Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (David C Cook: Colorado Springs CO. 2015), 136.
8. D. M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of Mind (London: Routedge & Kegan Paul, 1968), 30. J.P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist? The Debate Between Theists and Atheists (Prometheus Books: 1993), 238; Gary R. Habermas and J.P. Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality (Wipf and Stock: Eugene, OR. 1998), 90-91.
9. Richard Dawkins, Out of Eden (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 133. Cited in Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message (Thomas Nelson: Nashvhile, TN. 2000), 114.
10. Frank Turek and Norman L. Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Crossway: Wheaton, IL. 2004), 129.
11. J.B.S. Haldane, "When I Am Dead," in Possible Worlds and Other essays (London: Chatto and Winduw, 1927), 209, quoted in C.S. Lewis, Miracles (London: Fontana, 1974), 19. Cited in Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 281.
10. Frank Turek and Norman L. Geisler, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Crossway: Wheaton, IL. 2004), 129.
11. J.B.S. Haldane, "When I Am Dead," in Possible Worlds and Other essays (London: Chatto and Winduw, 1927), 209, quoted in C.S. Lewis, Miracles (London: Fontana, 1974), 19. Cited in Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 281.
12. Dawkins, Out of Eden, 133.
13. William Provine (transcript of a debate with Phillip E. Johnson, Stanford university, Palo Alto, CA, April 30, 1994). Cited in Randy Alcorn, If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil (Eternal Perspective Ministries: 2009), 111; cf. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 16-17.
13. William Provine (transcript of a debate with Phillip E. Johnson, Stanford university, Palo Alto, CA, April 30, 1994). Cited in Randy Alcorn, If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil (Eternal Perspective Ministries: 2009), 111; cf. Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 16-17.
14. J.P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, Does God Exist? The Debate Between Theists and Atheists (Prometheus Books:1993), 25.
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