Answering the Atheists
Sam Harris
Atheist Sam Harris has recently written a slender volume entitled 'Letter
to a Christian Nation.' This author tells us, "One of the enduring
pathologies of human culture is the tendency to raise children to fear
and demonize other human beings on the basis of religious faith."
(Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 80). And if you don't believe
it, reading this author's hate-filled screed will surely convince you.
Is he right to demonize Christians?:
Christopher Hitchens
This best-selling author is another of the 'new atheists' who rose to prominence
as vocal supporters of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His literary contributions
to the debate include a hatchet job on Mother Theresa and the book 'god
is not Great.' Given that his own mother committed suicide, one can't help but
suspect Mother Theresa's goose was cooked when she took on the title 'Mother,' which is
a common and not particularly significant title used by Roman Catholic religious orders. His politics
are eclectic to say the least; a former Trotskyite, he was once the darling of the extreme right wing.
Lost Tomb
Has science discovered the tomb of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and their son,
'Sonny,' too? Or is it junk science?
Proofs of God's existence
The Christian pursuit of natural theology goes back to Paul the apostle, who saw proof of God's reality in the
mute testimony of His creation: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse..." (Romans 1:20). Natural
theology seeks to discover what may be known about God without recourse to His own revelation to mankind.
Indeed, it's only with information derived from
natural theology that God's self-revelation in the Bible can be validated. The question, 'Who authored the Bible?', is addressed
no differently from any other question of authorship or attribution: compare known works from the author's hand with the work whose
authorship is in dispute. Is this newly discovered sonata by Beethoven? Is that sonnet by Shakespeare? Absent documentary
or evidentiary authentification (to which the correlate in Bible study would be miracles), the investigator's only strategy is
comparison with known works by that author's hand. Is the petty, score-settling god who took up space in the Koran to threaten
Mohammed's estranged uncle the same God who made the expansive Rocky Mountains? The only way to know is to find out first...just
who did make the Rocky Mountains, if anyone? Does God exist?
A Posteriori Proofs
A posteriori proofs admit evidence derived from sensory experience of the world; a prior proofs do not. Here
are some common a posteriori proofs of God's existence:
Contingency
This proof does not ask much of the world; if there is only one thing which exists, which can be known to be contingent
through inventory of its concept, this proof is happy. After all, it's far from obvious that our sensory experiences give us
a peek into a 'real world' out there; though commonly assumed, the proof of this can be surprisingly elusive. Be that as
it may, from our own awareness, we can know 'there is something in the world which thinks'; this 'thinking thing' can serve as
our one contingent thing.
A 'contingent' thing is a thing which may be or not be; its existence is not necessary. To give a sufficent
reason for a contingent thing to exist, one must look outside it, beyond it either to another contingent or to a necessary being.
The world is filled with things whose existence depends upon other things; we realize this because they come and they
go, like smoke or vapor. If the cause for their existence lay within them, they would ever abide. We can recall times
when we were, but then we run into a brick wall; we are contingent beings. This is a matter of common observation: "Indeed,
You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.
Selah." (Psalm 39:5).
If we admit the existence of even one contingent thing: a 'thinking thing' which was not always, say -- it follows
necessarily that there is also some necessary thing. Yet there is one contingent thing; therefore God also exists. The
hinge point is that everything cannot be contingent; if we set off down a daisy chain where one contingent thing derives its
existence from another, which in turns derives its existence from another contingent thing, we are in the state of an economy which
functions through everybody borrowing five dollars from one another: where did the five dollars come from to start the system?
Not everything can be contingent: "We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found
to be generated, and to be corrupted, and consequently they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these
always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to
be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in
existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing
was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence
-- which is clearly false. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which
is necessary...Therefore we must admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from
another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First
Part, Q. 2, Article 3).
Nothing that once did not exist can be the cause of its own existence. When it did not exist, how could it call
itself into being? Thus, all contingent things depend upon something outside themselves for their existence. If any contingent
thing exists in the world rather than nothing, then a necessary being must also exist.
Order
As we cast our gaze about the world, we find the objects around us obeying natural law with wondrous docility.
Why is the world that way at all? Why do natural things conserve their own properties and behave in predictable fashion;
why doesn't water burn like gasoline on Monday, and quench fire on Tuesday? The very smallest things are not so accommodating,
so we know it need not be this way!
Why does the human day-dream of mathematics fit the world hand in glove -- just as if God were a mathematician?
Mathematics works, from from observation, but from the opposite direction, from deduction. Its objects are not even objects
in the world; no material thing is the triangle of the geometricians, only a feeble caricature thereof. Yet in the end mathematics
is found an apt model of the universe. How could that be, unless the mind that made the world thinks along the same lines?
Likewise, the world obeys law, just as if it trembled in fear of judgment. Law implies a law-giver.
When D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson set out, in his On Growth and Form, to detail the superfluity of order in the
world, sometimes called beauty, he found what he sought in gratuitous abundance. Intelligibility implies intelligence; the simplest
and most economical account for an intelligible world is an intelligent artificier.
The End
"The fifth way is taken from the governance of things. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as
natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain
the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end not by chance, but by design. Now whatever lacks knowledge
cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence, as the arrow is directed
by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end; and this being
we call God." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, Q. 2, Article 3).
If natural constants were set slightly off their present values, life would not be possible. The universe
is a vast machine for producing life; life is good, yet the universe, being unthinking, cannot know that life is good. Thus it
works to achieve an end of which it can have no cognizance. Some mind, capable of apprehending the good, must therefore have moved it so.
"The numerical values that nature has assigned to the fundamental constants, such as the charge on the electron,
the mass of the proton, and the Newtonian gravitational constant, may be mysterious, but they are crucially relelvant to the structure
of the universe that we perceive...Had nature opted for a slightly different set of numbers, the world would be a very different
place...More intriguing still, certain crucial structures, such as solar-type stars, depend for their characteristic features
on wildly improbable numerical accidents...And when one goes on to study cosmology -- the overall structure and evolution of the
universe -- incredulity mounts." (The Accidental Universe, P.C.W. Davies, p. vii.)
Design
"Should a man see a house carefully constructed with a gateway, colonnades, men's quarters, women's quarters,
and the other buildings, he will get an idea of the artificier, for he will be of opinion that the house never reached that completeness
without the skill of the craftsman; and in like manner in the case of a city and a ship and every smaller or greater construction.
Just so anyone entering this world, as it were some vast house or city, and beholding the sky circling round and embracing
within it all things, and planets and fixed stars without any variation moving in rhythmical harmony and with advantage to the
whole, and earth with the central space assigned to it, water and air flowing in set order as its boundary, and over and above
these, living creatures, mortal and immortal beings, plants and fruits in great variety, he will surely argue that these have
not been wrought without consummate art, but that the Maker of this whole universe was and is God. Those, who thus base
their reasoning on what is before their eyes, apprehend God by means of a shadow cast, discerning the Artificier by means of
His works." (Philo Judaeus, Allegorical Interpretation, III, XXXII, 98-102).
Is it begging the question to define 'God' prior to investigating His existence...or lack thereof? It's never been
so held with other non-existent things, like phlogiston or the luminferous aether. How can one investigate whether a thing
exists in the world, without knowing what the thing sought is? How to differentiate it from whatever other things might be brought
in by our drag-net, so as to say, 'No, that's not it'?
When physicists go looking in the world for 'dark matter' or 'black holes', they must first define what they understand
these looked-for things to be. How else to know what is looked for? Definitions of words need not be understood so as
to imply existence; for instance, 'A griffin' is an animal represented in ancient art with the fore part of an eagle and the hinder parts
of a lion. Anyone who knows what a griffin in, out for a stroll spotting one, could instantaneously say, 'that's a griffin!'
-- its definition is every bit as solid and clear as a rufous-headed towhee. Yet no one expects to see one.
So when the physicists define 'dark matter' without having yet found it, their definition should not be understood
to imply, 'Dark matter exists, and has the following characteristics'; but rather, 'If dark matter exists, it has the following distinct
characteristics.' How else could one know what to look for, or whether it had been found? Likewise we understand that, if God
exists, He is omniscient, omnipotent, exists necessarily, is omnipresent, etc.; it's not begging the question to find out what you're looking
for, before going out in the world to see whether it's there!
A Priori Proofs
Anselm's Proof
Anselm's original enunciation of his proof was a bit sloppy; thanks to adept criticism by Gaunilo the Fool, he
tightened it up thereafter. If simple existence is listed as an attribute of God, the proof is defective; predicating existence
of a thing is a judgment whether a concept in instantiated, not an attribute. But the mode of existence -- necessary existence
-- may well be an attribute.
Anselm's proof may be summarized,
a.) If God exists, He exists necessarily. (This does not assume God exists; it's
no more than saying, 'If dark matter exists, it is dark'.)
b.) Any being which exists necessarily cannot not exist. (Definition of what it
means to exist necessarily).
c.) Therefore, God exists.
Want your money back? Too bad: critics of the proof from Thomas Aquinas
to Immanuel Kant have trained their fire at the defective version; the
corrected version is surprisingly bulletproof. After defining God as 'that
than which nothing greater can be conceived', Anselm continues, "And
it [that than which nothing greater can be conceived] exists so truly,
that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive
of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and and this is greater
than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which
nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is
not that, than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable
contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater
can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist;
and this being thou art, O Lord, our God." (Anselm, Proslogium, Chapter III).
The proof has been harshly treated by theologians, but better received
by the rationalist philosophers, Descartes, Liebniz and Spinoza, who incorporated
it into their systems. Herein lies a problem: some people will say this
proof demonstrates an 'impersonal God.' But neither this proof, nor any
other proof of God's existence, demonstrates 'there is an impersonal God;'
rather, these proofs leave us with an outline. Other features must be sketched
in, from elsewhere, to show the full portrait. The proof may be summarized
as: if it is possible for God to exist, then He must exist, or 'What may
be and must be, is'.
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