Christians hear it all the time in one
form or another from atheists and skeptics. It’s heard on Internet forums, at
the recent “Reason Rally” held in D.C.,
and in personal one-on-one debates that center on the existence of God.
“Show me the evidence!” says the atheist
to the Christian.
The atheist, believing they have triumphed,
usually concludes their demand with a folding of the arms, as if no good
evidence for the Christian worldview has ever been put forward. This, of course, is a position that is either
unknowingly or willingly ignorant of the weighty philosophical, empirical, and
historical evidence that has been provided from the first century all the way
up to the present by Christian apologists in defense of the faith.
Such demands by atheists are naturally
designed to put the Christian on the defensive, but let me ask: do atheists not bear any burden for the
exact same type of proof they demand from Christians for their own worldview
and faith? Indeed they do.
The implied idea that just because a
person holds a worldview that is devoid of God means that no evidence needs to
be brought forth in defense of that held belief is absurd. The atheists have
much to prove, and the fact is, when their own set of criteria they apply to
Christianity is aimed back at their own belief system, it is shown to be in
need of immediate CPR.
Let’s look at three particular areas where
the atheist needs proof to back up their claims.
Part
I - Where is the philosophical evidence for atheism?
Some atheists scoff at the idea that
philosophical evidence is needed to justify atheism. For example, Stephen
Hawking has said that “philosophy is dead”.[1] One can
only roll one’s eyes at such a statement, especially since Hawking goes on to philosophically
argue much in his book to support his anti-supernatural position.
From the start, the atheist puts
him/herself in a difficult philosophical position because they make a
negatively existential proposition (i.e. “no god”); a type of proposition that
can never be proven. Intellectually honest skeptics will admit this and retreat
to an agnostic position instead, which is more defensible.
It’s important to note that with its
primary assertion (no god), atheism has much prove and explain. First, it must
answer the primary philosophical question put forward by Leibniz, Heidegger,
and others: why do we have something
rather than nothing at all? Recent attempts by atheists have failed
miserably at providing proof for an answer to this query. For example, Dr.
Lawrence Krauss’ latest book embarrassingly shows how far some committed
atheists will go. Krauss is only able to give an answer by redefining ‘nothing’
to be the quantum vacuum or empty space, neither of which are ‘nothing’.
Unless they believe in an infinite regress
of causes, the atheist must philosophically defend his or her concept of the
existence of an eternal/self-existent being that caused everything else. To
date, no hard proof has been offered for the atheist’s eternal first cause.
No matter how you section reality, the
fact is, you will always end up with something that owes its existence to
something other than itself. In other words, everything that is known is a
contingent being in one form or another. This being true, the atheist must
produce sound proofs for what necessary being exists that provides existence to
everything else.
Further, this necessary being must match
the effects we observe all around us. The atheist has to explain how an
impersonal, amoral, meaningless, purposeless universe accidentally created
personal, moral beings who are obsessed with meaning and purpose. As a cause
cannot produce an effect that possesses something it doesn’t (i.e. you can’t
give what you don’t have), the atheist struggles greatly for a satisfying
philosophical solution to their dilemma.
This issue is multiplied greatly when the
question of unity and diversity is added to the mix. Unity and diversity in
effect necessitates unity and diversity in the first cause, and while the
Biblical concept of the Trinity comes to the aid of the Christian, the atheist
has no such answer to fall back upon.
The atheist must also explain the notion
of absolute moral values and how the concepts of good and evil are defined and
managed. Some atheists such as Sam Harris have attempted to explain these
things in recent works through pure natural means, but have been soundly
refuted by both religious and non-religious ethicists.
The logic the atheist must deal with where
morality is concerned is the following: If there’s such a thing as evil, you
must assume there’s such a thing as good. If you assume there’s such a thing as
good, you assume there’s such a thing as an absolute and unchanging moral law
on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. If you assume
there’s such a thing as an absolute moral law, you must posit an absolute moral
lawgiver, but that would be God – the one whom the atheist is trying to
disprove. So now rewind: if there’s not a moral lawgiver, there’s no moral law.
If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil.
Some atheists, such as Richard Dawkins admit there really is no good or evil,
but most atheists aren’t willing to make such a confession.
Again, some atheists will try and dismiss
these and other similar philosophical issues that confront their worldview and
will attempt to assert that the only evidence worthy enough to be considered is
that which is scientific/empirical in nature. However, this presents them with
another philosophical problem.
When the atheist says, “We should only
believe that which can be scientifically proven”, they aren’t aware that the
truth claim that has just left their lips is one that cannot be scientifically
proven (it is a philosophical proposition). This means their position is a non-starter
right out of the blocks.
For atheists that either already
understand this fact or are forced to awaken to this truth, they then are
brought to a couple of other unpleasant realities. If science cannot be the end
all/be all where truth claims are concerned, then why demand that evidence for
God must be found only in the empirical-only dimension? If questions of
morality (e.g. “were the Nazi’s evil?”) and concepts like justice cannot be
empirically tested and validated, perhaps neither can God.
Further, the legal/historical method of
ascertaining truth is widely accepted and can also be used to investigate
things that cannot be handled by pure, repeatable empirical methods. If the
atheist denies this, then they must explain how courtrooms worldwide arrive at
their findings.
In the end, the atheist cannot escape the
need to provide philosophical evidence for their position that God does not
exist. Their attempt to rely only on empirical methods to support the atheistic
worldview cannot be maintained, and, as we’ll see in Part 2, science isn’t much help
to their cause either.
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