Atheism

THE “ISMS”
ATHEISM
DR. JIM DIXON
HEBREWS 11:1-6, PSALMS 14:1
OCTOBER 3, 2010

We are in the beginning of this series called isms. Today we look at atheism. We are looking at some of the philosophies that are in our culture, philosophies that are in this world and as we seek to live for Christ, as we seek to represent Christ and be faithful to Christ, we want to know how to respond to a lot of these philosophies, these isms that are out there in our nation and in our world. Really what we are dealing with in this series is the subject of apologetics. Just to give you an understanding of what that means look at 1 Peter 3:15. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you but do it with respect and with gentleness.”

So, God is telling us, as followers of Christ, followers of his Son, we need to be able to defend the faith, but we need to be able to do it gently and we need to be able to do it with respect. The word for defend in 1 Peter 3:15 is the Greek word apologia, and we get the· word apologetics from that word apologia. We also get the word apology from that word apologia, but the word means from logic, to defend from logic, apa-logos, from logic. That is what Christ wants from us: that we can defend our faith and we can do it logically, we can do it reasonably, and we can do it in the midst of all the world systems and all the isms that are out there.

Just a few months ago, Christopher Hitchens woke up in a New York City hotel room and he knew something was wrong. He was gasping for air and he could not breathe and he could not even move. He had a lot of bad mornings in his lifetime, a lot of mornings where he woke up feeling horrible because of his lifelong love affair with cigarettes and excessive amounts of Scotch. He knew this was different. A subsequent medical examination discovered that he was suffering from esophageal cancer, advanced esophageal cancer, that it had spread into his lymph nodes, and that it had spread into his lungs. By his own testimony, Christopher Hitchens is dying. Just when his memoirs had soared to the top of the best sellers lists.

His books are marketed all over the world at Barnes and Noble and Borders. Christopher Hitchens has written many, many popular books. What are those books about? They are about atheism. Christopher Hitchens is a renowned atheist. He attacks Christianity, he attacks the Bible, he attacks all religion, all belief that God exists. Christopher Hitchens. Now that he is dying, people are emailing him and sending him letters. Some of these emails and letters and communications come from Christians. As recorded in Vanity Fair and World Magazine and in many other publications and newspapers, Christopher Hitchens is not surprised that some Christians have written him and said, “Burn in Hell.” He is surprised that many Christians have written him expressing their loving concern, offering to pray for him that he would be healed and that God would have mercy on him.

Then Christians of course have written saying that they would pray for him that he would come to faith. Christopher Hitchens says that there is no way that he will ever come to faith, that he will be an atheist until he draws his last breath. He says, “if you ever hear that I have made a death bed confession, and I have renounced my atheism and become a believer, just know that I am not responsible because I would have lost my mind by then.”

Today we talk about atheism. We have a growing number of atheists and agnostics in the United States of America. Studies of our national demographics show that in terms of religious grouping in the United States, the group that is growing most rapidly is this group of agnostics and atheists. They are almost evangelistic about their unbelief. So, you see billboards promoting atheism and asking people to join the club, large book sections at book stores promoting atheism. They are passionate about their atheism. Today we look at this subject; the Bible tells us, “A fool has said in his heart there is no god.” What I would like us to do is to examine three different forms of atheism and share a brief Christian response.

The first form of atheism we look at is called evidential atheism. This term was coined by philosopher Dr. M. Westphal, who is the distinguished head of the Philosophy Department at Fordham University. He coined the phrase evidential atheism, but the primary proponent of evidential atheism was Bertrand Russell. I think many of you have heard of Bertrand Russell. He died in 1970 at the age of 98. He is considered one of the greatest philosopher mathematicians in the history of the world and such a great thinker in logistics that he has been called the Aristotle of the 20th century. His writings, including his 1927 writing, Why I Do Not Believe In Jesus Christ, are still read widely today. He is highly esteemed as a thinker, but an atheist.

He was once asked, “If you die, and by chance you find yourself in the presence of a god you didn’t believe in, what would you say to God?” He said, “I would say this: ‘Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!’” We have all met people in the world who think that way; we meet them at work, we meet them in our neighborhood. People who just say in regard to God that there is “not enough evidence.” They are really more agnostic than they are atheistic, but there is just not enough evidence.

This week Barb and I took a trip into the mountains. We took a drive. We decided on my day off to just head out. We drove up to Golden and went around 470 and up into Golden and then continued on. It is a beautiful drive up into Boulder. Then we thought, let’s just keep going. We went from Boulder to Lyons. Then we thought, let’s just go up to Estes Park. So, we went from Lyons on up to Estes Park on up through the canyons. In Estes Park we had lunch down by a river, it was beautiful. Then we thought, let’s go up into Rocky Mountain National Park, Trail Ridge Road. It had been probably 30 years since Barb and I had driven up there.

So, we drove up onto Trail Ridge Road and wow, is it beautiful! Over twelve thousand feet, you are above timberline; you are looking at glaciers that are there year-round. Here we are September, October and there are glaciers up in the high country. You see these great peaks rising up and you see meadows and lakes and elk herds. We continued on down to Grand Lake, went to Shadow Mountain Lake, went to Granby Lake, went to Winter Park. We had a little drive. The whole way, with the changing of the colors Barb and I thought, wow! You look at the majesty of the creation. You think of the majesty of the Creator.

Of course, evidence is in the eye of the beholder, is that not true? Some people look at the world and see evidence of God; other people look at the world and they see no evidence of God. They look at mountain peaks and just view them geologically, they look at forests of majestic trees and they just view them dendrologically, they look at elk herds and they view them zoologically. Maybe they think of a vast process of time through which there has been all these things formed, but they don’t think of the Ancient of Days, they don’t think of the master plan and the Master. “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!” This is true of evidential atheists, not enough evidence.

What is the Christian response? Some Christians respond with the cosmological argument, the Thomistic form or other forms, the argument of a first cause, the argument that there must be a prime mover, for every movement there must be a mover, for every effect there must be a cause, can’t be creation without a Creator. The cosmological argument: if something began, there had to have been a cause for the beginning. The evidence is that the universe began so therefore there must be a cause for the universe. There is the ontological argument based on being, teleological arguments that talk about design and purpose, moral arguments, many arguments that Christians have proposed with regard to the existence and the evidence for the existence of God.

I think Christians respond to evidential atheism primarily by pointing out that evidential atheists have limited their epistemology. You know what epistemology is, I am sure many of you do. Epistemology is the method you use to discern truth. Epistemology is your means of determining what is true. It is your means of ascertaining knowledge. What is your epistemology?

Well, evidential atheists use the epistemology of the Enlightenment. The epistemology of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is basically the scientific method. It does involve sensory observation, inductive, deductive reasoning. Some of this goes back to Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, but basically the method of the Enlightenment is the scientific method you want to “test tube” everything to see whether or not it is true.

As Christians we would respond to evidential atheists by saying, “Your epistemology is too narrow. The scientific method cannot deal with matters that are spiritual; it cannot deal with matters that are moral. It is inadequate to deal with matters theological.” I think as Christians we appreciate science and the scientific method, we appreciate the examination of the physical universe, but we understand its limited scope. Evidential atheists are not open to revelation, they are not open to the supernatural, they are not open to the miraculous, they are not open the possibility of prophesy fulfilled. Prophesy fulfilled over time, and in our time, provides significant evidence, but it is outside the realm of the scientific method, outside the realm of the Enlightenment epistemology and therefore can’t be dealt with.

Our nation was founded by many Christians, but also some who were Deists, including Franklin and Jefferson, and they were products of the European Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. They recognize that that epistemology was inadequate to deal with all truth therefore they affirmed the existence of God and his providence, despite the fact that they could not prove it scientifically. It is also more than a curiosity that today in the Christian world we speak of evidentialism. We don’t claim we can prove the existence of God—that is why we come to God through faith. We don’t claim that we can prove the existence of God, but we do assert evidentialism, that there is overwhelming evidence that God exists and that it is reasonable and rational to affirm the existence of God. Evidentialism. That seems ironic that it is becoming increasingly popular in light of evidential atheism, which says there is insufficient evidence.

The second form of atheism that is out there is anthropomorphic atheism. Anthropomorphic atheism basically is the belief that man has created God, that Genesis one two and three had it backwards. Instead of God creating man, man has created God. Instead of God creating man in his image, we have created God in our image. Instead of God giving man dominion over the earth, we have created God in our image and we have given him dominion over the earth. Anthropomorphic atheism.

If you studied any of the Greek and Roman religions, the Greek and Roman theologies (I am sure you didn’t do that by choice, you probably had to do that in school, maybe in high school, maybe in college or university), if you study the Roman pantheon or the Greek pantheon of gods you notice that it is so anthropomorphic. The gods look just like us. As they live on mount Olympus, they have all of our human frailties, all of our eccentricities, our strengths and weaknesses, all of our petty jealousies. They are anthropomorphized deity.

Anthropomorphic atheists say, “That is what all religion is like. That is what all religion is like that man has simply created God. We created him in our image, and God is an outgrowth of our own needs, our own wants, our own desires. We just projected ourselves out there and created God.” This was the view of Karl Marx, this was the view of Fredric Nietzsche, this was the view of Sigmund Freud. They all had different world views, but they all agreed with anthropomorphic atheism that man has created God. So, Nietzsche believed that man created God in order to impose bourgeois morality on the masses. We created God in order to impose bourgeois morality on the masses, which is middle class morality, commonly held morality. We created God to back up all of this morality and use it ecclesiastically to let the church run the world and control people’s behavior. Karl Marx believed that man created God and has used God for political, social, economic power. Sigmund Freud believed that man created God and needs God to explain psycho-sexual guilt. Anthropomorphic atheism. You see a lot of people out there in society who think like that.

What is the Christian response? I think there are many, but first of all, I think it is true that there are millions maybe even billions of people in the world who do not want God to exist. You can argue that man has created God because we want him, we need him. The truth is many people do not want him and have no felt need of him. Many, many people in this world, the last thing in the world they want to be true is that there is a God and if there is a God, they don’t want him to be like the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. They want him to be a teddy bear who doesn’t demand anything and rewards everything.

I want to tell you a story, and this story is hard to tell but it is absolutely true. I know it is true because I was there. I told this story many years ago and it concerns a time when I was ministering in Aurora, Colorado, at Faith Presbyterian Church, which was then called Faith United Presbyterian Church. It was a PCUSA church at that time. I was in charge of the singles ministry. We had a singles group we called the Grad Group, which later became the Aleithians, which means “truth.” In this group we had a lot of young men and women. Some of them came to examine what they believe, and some accepted Christ. We had many in our singles ministry who accepted Christ and received him as Lord and Savior. We had others who were there just to make friends, some to have a good time.

We had Bible studies, social events, athletic recreational things, we had worship and singing times, and prayer times. Of course, some people went to the group just to find a wife or a husband, and I did have the privilege of marrying a number of people through the years. One day a gal came who had set up an appointment with me; she was a graduate student at DU. She was an atheist, she told me. She said, “I am an atheist, but I am curious why some people believe and what believers are like. I am just making an appointment with you to ask if I can come to the singles group because of curiosity. Would it be okay if I go to the Bible studies and hear the teachings, would that be okay? I would like to come to the worship times, hear the singing, and maybe I will even learn the songs and sing along. I am just curious. I would like to come to the socials. I would like to play volleyball, go to the mountains, do a picnic. I would also like to get to know some of the people, make some friends and really check it out. I would like to be there in your prayer time if that would be all right. I want to see what makes believers tick.”

I said, “Go ahead and come. Come and join us. We would love to have you.” She was very intelligent, extremely intelligent, she was attractive, and had a really wonderful personality. People really related to her and connected with her. So, she came to our Bible studies, and she listened to the teachings. She studied the Word of God and I could see her thinking as we would go through the passages. She came to our worship times and she sang our songs. I could tell that she was learning the songs, I could see her lips move and she was singing along as we sang our songs. She was there when we prayed for people, when we laid hands on people and prayed for healing. Sometimes it appeared that she was joining in our prayer. I know that she saw miracles as God healed. She came to our social times and our fun times. I would see her laughing, she would just laugh. I saw her make many friends, get to know people and many people became friends to her.

Then one day, she made an appointment and came into my office. She said, “I just wanted to say goodbye.” I could see there were tears in her eyes. I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “I am leaving and I won’t be coming back. I just wanted to say goodbye.” I said, “Why are you leaving?” She said, “I have made my decision.” I said, “Well, what is your decision?” She said, “I have decided that Christianity is true. I have decided that Jesus Christ is real, that he is who he says he is. I have seen too much. I have felt too much to deny the reality of his claims. You see the problem is I want to run my own life. I understand his call, I understand the gospel and I reject it because I want to run my own life. I don’t want to live for him; I want to live for me. I want to run my own life; I want to have my own choices.” She went out of my office, and I have never seen her since.

I have thought about her from time to time and prayed for her, but I have never seen her. I would submit to you that she is an unusually honest person, incredibly honest, shockingly honest. I would submit to you that there are not millions, but billions on this earth who feel exactly like her, people who don’t want a god to serve or live for. People want to be their own god. People want to live for themselves. People want to do it their way. People want to do what they want to do. The world is filled with people like that and they are not looking for a god, they are not trying to create a god, make up a god, they are their own god. The last thing they want is God out there who cares about how they live.

You can even go to Hollywood, and yes in Hollywood there is some anthropomorphized religion, people are creating their own gods, people create their own Jesus. They make Jesus whoever they want him to be. In Hollywood you have a lot of people who are just living immoral lives. They just move from one sexual relationship to another sexual relationship, from one rehab to another rehab and they want to do what they want to do. Yet, they also want a little bit of spirituality so they dabble in some Eastern religions or whatever and they create their own god. They maybe even talk about Jesus and create their own Jesus, but the last thing in the world that they want is the God of the Bible, the Judea-Christian God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. So, I would say, there are maybe some people who have a felt need to create god, but probably far more people who would just as soon there was no God, or if there is, it would be a god that they could shape.

The third form of atheism is moral atheism. Moral atheism is simply the belief that there is so much evil and so much suffering that there cannot be a God. We have all heard moral atheists speak. So much evil, so much suffering, how could there possibly be a God? Furthermore, they argue, that a lot of the evil and a lot of the suffering that is in the world throughout history has been caused by those who claim to believe in God. A lot of that evil, a lot of that suffering has been caused by religious people. Most of the wars of human history have been caused by God-fearers, and religious people: a lot of the racism, a lot of the bigotry, a lot of the hatred …caused by religious people. Moral atheism.

Let me acknowledge that Christians, throughout history, have sometimes made mistakes and sinned gravely. Those who take the name of Christ have done things in the name of Christ contrary to the will of Christ. This was true of the Spanish Inquisition, ethnic cleansing, racism, murder in the name of Christ and the alleged cause of Christ. Tragic! The Crusades certainly did not reflect the will of Christ. I think most colleges and universities and historians do acknowledge now that the Crusades were very understandable given centuries of Muslim aggression, centuries where Muslim armies conquered Christian nations and lands and seized citadels and thrones. As the Christian world diminished, Christians were upset. Certainly, this is part of the reason we saw the Crusades. The Crusades do not reflect the teachings of Jesus. Jesus does not want the Gospel promoted with the physical sword. Jesus makes it very clear that we are not to promote his Gospel through militant war or the physical sword. That is not how we evangelize or take the Gospel to the nations.

Yes, many times Christians have done the wrong things. This is not because we are Christians but because we are people. People are fallen and we are all sinners in desperate need of grace and Christians are no less fallen, no less in need of grace, they are simply people who have found grace through Jesus Christ and his cross. Certainly, it is bogus to say that Christians or religious people have caused most of the wars of history. That is revisionist history and it is bogus. The truth is, as any reliable historical text will explain, most wars in human history have been fought regarding economics or they have had geopolitical causation with kingdoms and empires seeking to expand their territory and power. Sometimes religion has been used for justification, but the motives in war have almost always been economic or geopolitical.

Look at the wars in the 20th century, because more people died in war in the 20th century than any prior century. We had World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War; none of those wars had any religious motive. They were not launched or established by religious people. World War II really was three dictators—the ruler of Germany, the ruler of Italy, the ruler of Japan—seeking geopolitical advancement and economic enhancement and the rest of the world responding to their aggression. It had nothing to do with Christianity, nothing to do with religious motive. You can look at the Korean War, you can look at the Vietnam War and you had North Korea and North Vietnam, communist entities seeking to expand their territories. As communists they were atheists. You could even argue that atheists caused those deals, but it is revisionist history and crazy history to say religious people have caused the wars in the world.

I tell you this, despite the tragic errors that Christians have sometimes made, there is no group of people in this world that have done more good on this earth than Christians. I believe that with all my heart. All the hospitals, all the schools, all the orphanages, all the compassion relief agencies that serve all over the world to the ends of the earth, established by Christians with love. I tell you that any Christian throughout history who has done something abominable did it in contrast to the teachings of Jesus. Christians who have done bad things have always done them in opposition to the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. Our Lord Jesus Christ stands against racism, stands against bigotry. Look at John, chapter four, and you see Jesus talking to the woman at the well. You look at Luke, chapter ten, you see Jesus telling the story of the Good Samaritan and he is confronting sexism and he is confronting racism. You see Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, all are one in Christ Jesus.”

I tell you, Christianity revolutionized the world. In those early churches you saw people come together, male and female, slave and free, and they were one, a community of equals by the power of Christ. It shook the Roman Empire to the foundations. Jesus in his time, at least according to Josephus, there were four political-religious parties. He was probably partly wrong, but Josephus said there were four political-religious parties in the time of Jesus—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. You look at the Essenes and they were separatists, they were monastics, reclusivists. They went away from society to live on their own. Jesus was not an Essene.

You look at the Zealots and they were political militant radicals, seeking to overthrow Imperial Rome. Jesus was not a Zealot; he was not an Essene and he was not a Zealot. You look at the Sadducees, they were theological liberals, and also political liberals, who were willing to compromise their Judaism and hold hands with Rome. Jesus was not a Sadducee. You look at the Pharisees. The Pharisees were theologically conservative. They believe in Torah, they believe in the resurrection of the dead, they believe in the final judgment. Indeed, their theology was very similar to the theology of Jesus.

Yet, why wasn’t Jesus saving his criticism and his wrath for the Essenes, or the Zealots or the Sadducees? Why did he unleash so much anger and judgment upon the Pharisees when theologically they were very similar? The answer is the Pharisees were self-righteous; their heart was not like the heart of Jesus. The Pharisees were self-righteous, they were judgmental, they were bigoted, they were racist. They did not love and the supreme call of Jesus with his people is to love. Jesus said all of Torah is summed up in love and he quoted the Shema from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19:18, “Love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself this sums up the law of the prophets. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

He made his yoke love; his summation and interpretation of Torah was love. He called his talmidim, his disciples, to accept his Semikhah, his authority, and his authority was expressed in the command to love. You can’t bring any moral charge against Jesus. You can’t give Jesus a black eye because Christians have misbehaved. There’s no reason to be a moral atheist.

We come to the end of this discussion today and there is so much we could discuss. So much has been written, so much said, the scope of books and philosophies and thoughts relating to atheism is vast. We are the people of Christ. We accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We received him as Lord of Life. We have been called to keep the faith. We have been called to finish the race. We have been called to contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. We have been called to be faithful unto death and he has promised us the crown of life.

So, as you leave this place and as we go through these “isms,” the call is to faithfulness, no matter how hard the culture makes it. We covet your prayers for this series as we discuss all of these isms. We want to with gentleness and with respect invite people to receive Jesus. You might be here this morning and maybe you are not a Christian. You might sense the seed of faith in your soul. You might have doubts and maybe you have doubts because of so much of the stuff you have read, so much of the stuff you have heard, some of the studies you have participated in. You have doubts but you also know that in your soul, your heart there is the seed of faith. I tell you, God placed it there. He doesn’t want your doubts to paralyze you; he actually wants you to respond to that seed of faith. There is no room for apathy; you can’t bail on this deal. You can’t just say, “Well, I will mind my own business and take my chances.” You have got to do something.

The call of Christ is to respond to that seed of faith and let him water the seed. I want to invite you to make a commitment this morning in the midst of your doubt. Respond to that seed of faith he has placed within you and let him water it. See if he won’t grow you, grow your faith in him starting today. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.