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The Many Faces of Unbelief [Part I]
One of the most mind-numbing mysteries for those who believe in God is
trying to understand the unbelief of those who do not. As one who writes
and lectures often on the topics of apologetics and evidences, I
frequently am asked the question: “What causes people
not to
believe in God?” Generally, the motive behind the question is not
derogatory, but complimentary. That is to say, the querist really is
asking: “Why is it that
obviously intelligent people do not believe in God?”
Neither question is easy to answer because usually the person doing the
asking wants a simple, quick, concise response. It is difficult for the
inquirer to understand why people who are “obviously intelligent”
refuse to believe in God. It has been my experience that rarely is there
a single reason for unbelief, because rarely is there a single reason
that can explain adequately why a person thinks, or acts, as he does.
THE “FREEDOM” OF UNBELIEF
Surely a part of the answer has to do with the fact that when God created humans, He endowed us with
freedom of choice
(often referred to as “personal volition” or “free moral agency”). This
stands to reason, considering Who God is. The Bible describes Him as
being, among other things, a God of love (1 John 4:8). Even a cursory
survey of the Scriptures documents God’s desire that man, as the zenith
of His creation, possess, and employ, the freedom of choice with which
he has been endowed. The truth of the matter is that God did not create
mankind as some kind of robot to serve Him slavishly without any
personal choice in the matter.
For example, when Joshua—who had led the Israelite nation so faithfully
for so long—realized that his days were numbered and his hours were
few, he assembled the entirety of that nation before him and, in one of
the most moving, impassioned pleas recorded within the pages of Holy
Writ, admonished his charges to employ their personal volition in a
proper fashion.
And if it seem evil unto you to serve Jehovah, choose you this day whom
ye will serve; whether gods which your fathers served that were beyond
the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as
for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah (Joshua 24:15).
Joshua’s point could not have been any clearer. The Israelites,
individually and collectively, had the ability, and yes, even the
God-given right, to choose whether or not they wished to follow Jehovah.
As the text continues, it indicates that on this particular occasion
they chose correctly.
And the people answered and said, Far be it from us that we should
forsake Jehovah, to serve other gods.... And Israel served Jehovah all
the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua,
and had known all the work of Jehovah that he had wrought for Israel
(Joshua 24:16,31).
Years later, however, the people of Israel—employing that same
heaven-sent personal volition—freely chose to abandon their belief in,
and obedience to, God. Judges 2:10-11 records:
[T]here arose another generation after them, that knew not Jehovah, nor
yet the work which he had wrought for Israel. And the children of
Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, and served the
Baalim.
Within the pages of the New Testament, the principle is the same. When
Jesus condemned the self-righteousness of the Pharisees in John 5:39-40,
He made this observation: “Ye search the scriptures, because ye think
that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness
of me; and ye
will not come to me, that ye may have life.” The
Pharisees of New Testament times possessed the same freedom of choice
that the Israelites of Old Testament times possessed. But while the
Israelites to whom Joshua spoke chose at first to heed his plea and obey
Jehovah, the Pharisees to whom Christ spoke chose to ignore His plea
and to disobey God.
Two chapters later, when Jesus addressed the Jews in their own temple,
the text indicates that they marveled at His teaching (John 7:15). But
Jesus demurred, and said: “My teaching is not mine, but his that sent
me. If any man
willeth to do his will, he shall know of the
teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself ” (John
7:16-17). Jesus’ point to the devout temple Jews was no different than
the one He had made earlier to the legalistic Pharisees. God has imbued
mankind with the ability to
choose. If a person
wills, he
can accept God and His teaching, but God never will force Himself on
that person. As the apostle John brought the book of Revelation to a
close, he wrote: “he that will, let him take the water of life freely”
(Revelation 22:17). The operative phrase here, of course, is “he that
will.”
But what of he that
will not? Freedom is accompanied by
responsibility. With freedom of choice comes the responsibility to think
carefully, choose wisely, and act forcefully. Freedom of choice always
works best when tempered with wisdom and good judgment. Thus, in every
human activity the process of recognizing, believing, and properly
utilizing truth is vitally important. Especially is this true in the
spiritual realm. Jesus tried to impress this upon His generation when He
said: “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”
(John 8:32). What we as humans so often fail to realize is that we are
not involved in a search for truth because
it is lost; we are involved in a search for truth because without it
we are!
Some, however, have elected to employ their freedom of choice to ignore
the truth regarding God’s existence and to disobey His Word. They are
the spiritual descendants of the first-century Pharisees; they
could come to a knowledge of the truth, but they
will not.
The simple fact of the matter is that we are responsible for what we
choose to believe. Using the personal volition with which God has
endowed us, we may choose freely to believe in Him, or we may choose
just as freely to disbelieve. The choice is up to each individual. And
once that individual has made up his mind to disbelieve, God will not
deter him, as Paul made clear when he wrote his second epistle to the
Thessalonians. In that letter, he spoke first of those who “received not
the love of the truth” (2:10), and then went on to say that “for this
cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a
lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11).
What, exactly, was Paul suggesting? Was the apostle teaching that God
purposely
causes men to believe error? No, he was not. Paul’s point in this
passage was that we may choose to accept something as the truth when, in
fact, it is false. Because God has granted man personal volition, and
because He has provided within the Bible the rules, regulations, and
guidelines to govern that personal volition, He therefore will refrain
from overriding man’s freedom of choice—even when that choice violates
His law. God will not contravene man’s decisions, or interfere with the
actions based on those decisions. The prophet Isaiah recorded God’s
words on this subject many years before when he wrote:
Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in
their abominations: I also will choose their delusions, and will bring
their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I
spake, they did not hear: but they did that which was evil in mine eyes,
and chose that wherein I delighted not (Isaiah 66:3-4).
Concerning the people who refused to have God in their knowledge, and
who exchanged truth for error, Paul repeatedly stated that “God gave
them up” (Romans 1:24,26,28). In his commentary on the Thessalonian
epistles, Raymond C. Kelcy addressed the fact that men often prefer the
consequences of a certain belief system, and that as a result
God gives the man over to the belief of the lie which he prefers. In a
sense it might be said that the means by which a person is deceived is
God’s permissive agency—not God’s direct agency (1968, p. 157).
There is an exact parallel in the instance of the Pharaoh who sparred
with Moses and Aaron over the release of the Hebrews from Egyptian
bondage. When Moses and Aaron arrived at Pharaoh’s court as God’s
ambassadors to demand the release of the enslaved Israelites, they told
the pagan potentate: “Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, ‘Let my
people go.’ ” Pharaoh’s response, preserved in Scripture for posterity,
foreshadowed the attitude of millions of unbelievers who would imitate
the militant monarch’s demeanor of disbelief throughout the course of
human history: “Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto his voice to
let Israel go?
I know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go” (Exodus 5:1-2, emp. added).
Several times the biblical text records that it was God Who “hardened
Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 7:3; 9:12; 10:1, 20,27; 11:10; 14:8). Are we to
understand, therefore, that God
caused Pharaoh’s stubborn
attitude of disbelief? Certainly not. The simple fact of the matter is
that God did not cause Pharaoh to harden his heart and disobey, but
instead
permitted the ruler’s actions. The Scriptures speak to
this point when they acknowledge that Pharaoh himself “hardened his
heart” (Exodus 8:15,32; 9:34-35). In their commentary on the Pentateuch,
Keil and Delitzsch addressed Pharaoh’s hardness of heart, even after he
witnessed the miraculous plagues sent by God.
After every one of these miracles, it is stated that Pharaoh’s heart
was firm, or dull, i.e. insensible to the voice of God, and unaffected
by the miracles performed before his eyes, and the judgments of God
suspended over him and his kingdom.... Thus Pharaoh would not bend his
self-will to the will of God, even after he had discerned the finger of
God and the omnipotence of Jehovah in the plagues suspended over him and
his nation; he would not withdraw his haughty refusal, notwithstanding
the fact that he was obliged to acknowledge that it was sin against
Jehovah. Looked at from this side, the hardening was a fruit of sin, a
consequence of that self-will, high-mindedness, and pride which flow
from sin, and a continuous and ever increasing abuse of that freedom of the will
which is innate in man, and which involves the possibility of obstinate
resistance to the word and chastisement of God even until death (1981,
pp. 454,455, emp. added).
Pharaoh’s hard heart was not God’s doing, but his own. God’s
permissive agency was involved, but not His
direct agency.
That is to say, He allowed Pharaoh to use (or abuse, as Keil and
Delitzsch correctly noted) his freedom of will in a vain attempt to
thwart God’s plans. Throughout history, God’s actions have been
consistent in this regard. The psalmist wrote:
But my people hearkened not to my voice; and Israel would not hear me.
So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart, that they might
walk in their own counsels (Psalm 81:11-12).
Concerning the rebellious Israelites, Paul wrote in Romans 11:8
(quoting from Isaiah 29:10): “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes
that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear.” In every
generation, God has granted mankind the freedom of self-determination to
be blind to His existence, and in so doing to believe a lie. E.M. Zerr
put it well when he said:
The Bible in no place teaches that God ever forces a man to sin, then
punishes him for the wrong-doing. Neither does He compel man against his
will to do right, but has always offered him proper inducements for
righteous conduct, then left it to his own responsibility to decide what
he will do about it (1952, 5:159).
The same principles operate even today, almost two thousand years
later. If an acknowledgment of God’s existence and obedience to His Word
make us free (John 8:32), surely, then, disbelief and disobedience make
us captives of one sort or another. Set adrift in a vast sea of
confusing and contradictory world views, we find ourselves susceptible
to every ill-conceived plan, deceptive scheme, and false concept that
the winds of change may blow our way. We become captives to error
because we have abandoned the one moral compass—the existence of
God—that possesses the ability to show us the way, and thereby to set us
free.
Throughout history, unbelief has worn many masks. But behind each is a
Pharaoh-like spirit of rebellion that—in angry defiance—raises a
clenched fist to God in a display of unrepentant determination
not to believe in Him. An examination of the faces, and causes, of unbelief is both informative and instructive.
THE MANY FACES OF UNBELIEF
Atheism
In his book,
If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists?, R.C. Sproul noted in regard to theism that “literally, the word means ‘Godism,’ that is belief in God. It is derived from
theos, the Greek word for God” (1978, p. 16). Chief among unbelievers, then, would be the
atheist (
a, without;
theos,
God)—the person who affirms that there is no God. As Sproul went on to
observe: “Atheism involves the rejection of any form of theism. To be an
atheist is to disavow belief in any kind of god or gods” (p. 18). In
his book,
Intellectuals Don’t Need God, Alister McGrath noted:
The atheist is prepared to concede—no, that is too negative a word, to celebrate—the
need for commitment and the existence of evidence to move one in the
direction of that commitment. In other words, the atheist recognizes the
need to come off the fence and the fact that there are factors in the
world of human experience and thought that suggest which side of the
fence that ought to be. At present, the atheist happens to sit on the
godless side of that fence (1993, p. 81, emp. in orig.).
Bruce Lockerbie, in
Dismissing God, referred to atheism as “the abdication of belief,” and described the person who falls into this category.
For the ardent disbeliever, the hypothesis and its given propositions are one and the same: God does not exist....
All that has energized the human imagination and motivated the human
spirit with prospects of nirvana, the Elysian Fields, the happy hunting
grounds, paradise, or heaven—all that is meant when the Book of
Ecclesiastes declares that God “has set eternity in the hearts of
men”—must be invalidated by counterclaims of atheism (1998, pp. 225,
227, emp. in orig.).
This, no doubt, explains why a famous unbeliever like the late Carl
Sagan, eminent atheist/astronomer of Cornell University, opened his
television extravaganza
Cosmos (and his book by the same name)
with these words: “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will
be” (1980, p. 4). Commenting on the exclusivity of that statement, D.
James Kennedy wrote: “That is as clear a statement of atheism as one
could ever hear” (1997, p. 61).
Declaring oneself to be an atheist, however, is much easier than
defending the concept of atheism. Think of it this way. In order to
defend atheism, a person would have to know
every single fact
there is to know, because the one fact that avoided detection might just
be the fact of the existence of God. Theodore Christlieb noted:
The denial of the existence of God involves a perfectly monstrous
hypothesis; it is, when looked at more closely, an unconscionable
assumption. Before one can say that the world is without a God, he must
first have become thoroughly conversant with the whole world.... In
short, to be able to affirm authoritatively that no God exists, a man
must be omniscient and omnipresent, that is, he himself must be God, and
then after all there would be one (1878, pp. 143,144).
Impossible task, that—since one would have to
be God in order to believe with certainty that there is no God! Yet, as apologist Dan Story has pointed out,
...[T]his fact stops few atheists from arguing against the existence of
God. Rather than admitting (or even recognizing) the irrationality of
their own position, many atheists attempt to remove the rationality of
the Christian position.... These atheists argue that because they don’t
believe in God, because their belief is negative, they don’t have to
martial any arguments in their favor (1997, p. 20).
Evidence of such a stance abounds. Atheistic writer George H. Smith, in his book,
Atheism: The Case Against God, wrote:
Proof is applicable only in the case of a positive belief. To demand
proof of the atheist, the religionist must represent atheism as a
positive belief requiring substantiation. When the atheist is seen as a
person who lacks belief in a god, it becomes clear that he is not
obligated to “prove” anything. The atheist qua atheist does not
believe anything requiring demonstration; the designation of “atheist”
tells us, not what he believes to be true, but what he does not
believe to be true. If others wish for him to accept the existence of a
god, it is their responsibility to argue for the truth of theism—but the
atheist is not similarly required to argue for the truth of atheism
(1979, p. 16, emp. in orig.)
Such a view, however, is seriously flawed for at least two reasons.
First, theists do not make the statement, “God exists,” with wild
abandon, expecting it to be accepted as if somehow it were spoken by
divine fiat. Rather, when they defend God’s existence, theists offer
evidence
to back up their case (e.g., the cosmological argument, teleological
argument, moral argument, etc.)—which places the matter of the existence
of God in an entirely different perspective. As Story properly noted:
Christians have given ample evidence for the existence of the
Judeo-Christian God. In light of this, if atheists claim God does not
exist, they must be prepared to explain why. When Christians state that
God exists and offer evidences to support this claim, they have moved
the debate into a new arena—an arena in which atheists must prove that
the Christian evidences are erroneous (1997, p. 20, emp. in orig.).
If
evidence for God’s existence has been set forth, the atheist
has a responsibility (if he expects his world view to be considered
seriously and accepted intellectually) to show
why such evidence
is not legitimate. After all, the Law of Rationality (one of the
foundational laws of human thought) states that one should draw only
those conclusions for which there is adequate and justifiable evidence.
Indifference to such evidence—in light of the claim made by the atheist
that God does not exist—could prove to be suicidal philosophically. The
evidence just might document the theist’s claim. And in the process, the
atheist just might be proven wrong!
Second, in his book,
Dismissing God, under the chapter heading, “When Disbelief Has Gone,” Bruce Lockerbie rightly remarked:
To disbelieve necessitates the possibility of a reasonable alternative, namely to believe.
So “when disbelief has gone” means that the secular mind has passed
even beyond this stage of contesting with Christian orthodoxy, no longer
deigning to concern itself with the fantasies of faith (1998, p. 228,
emp. in orig.).
While it may be the case that the modern-day unbeliever no longer
deigns to concern himself with what he views as “fantasies of faith,”
such an attitude does nothing to address the evidence presented by the
theist. Nor does indifference to the theist’s evidence on the part of
the atheist do anything to establish whatever type of unbelief the
atheist wishes to recommend in its place. Lockerbie is correct: “To
disbelieve necessitates the possibility of a reasonable alternative, namely to
believe.”
Thus, the atheist shoulders two burdens: (1) to prove the theist’s
evidence is invalid; and (2) to establish—with attending evidence—a
belief system that is a “reasonable alternative” worthy of acceptance by
rational, thinking people.
Neither of these tasks is simple (or, theists would suggest, possible).
One problem that, by necessity, would have to be broached from the
outset is this. For whatever reason(s), many atheists appear unwilling
to consider the evidence in the first place. Robert Gorham Davis is a
retired professor of English at Harvard University who spends much of
his time writing letters to the editor of the
New York Times in
order to take exception to any published reference to religion in that
newspaper. In one such letter to the editor, he wrote:
On no clear evidence theologians and philosophers declare God to be omniscient and omnicompetent. Plainly if there were such a God who really wished to reveal Himself to mankind, He could do so in a way that left no doubt (1992, emp. added).
That God
did reveal Himself “in a way that left no doubt” is
made clear from such evidence as: (1) the marvelous order and complexity
of the macrocosm we call the Universe; (2) the intricate, delicately
balanced nature of life; (3) the deliberate design inherent in the
microcosm we know as the incomparable genetic code; (4) the astounding
historical testimony attesting to the miracle-working Son of God; and
(5) an otherwise unexplained (and unexplainable) empty tomb on a Sunday
morning almost two thousand years ago. Each of these pieces of evidence
(and many more like them) helps form the warp and woof of the fabric
whose purpose it is to document God’s eternal existence.
That the atheist does not consider the evidence to be trustworthy or adequate to the task
does not negate the evidence necessarily. A man’s attitude toward the truth does not alter the truth. As Winfried Corduan stated in his book,
Reasonable Faith:
An argument, in order to be considered sound, must have true premises
and valid logic. Because we think within the context of world views,
someone may not be convinced by a perfectly sound argument. This is an
everyday occurrence in all human reasoning and attempts at persuasion. That is no fault of the argument... (1993, p. 106, emp. added).
The late atheist, Isaac Asimov, once bluntly admitted: “Emotionally, I
am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t
exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste
my time” (1982, p. 9). Such a boast is easy enough to understand, and
requires no further explanation. Yes, Dr. Asimov was a committed
atheist, but not because he could offer adequate, legitimate reasons to
justify his unbelief. Rather, his world view was an emotional response
resulting from his personal freedom of choice.
The fact remains that after everything is said and done, the atheist’s
first option—disproving the theist’s evidence—is a difficult challenge
that many choose not to accept.
What, then, about option number two—providing, with attending evidence,
a belief system that is a “reasonable alternative”? That, too,
apparently is beyond the pale of atheism. In 1989, Richard Dawkins,
renowned atheist and evolutionist of Oxford University, released the
second edition of his book,
The Selfish Gene, in which he
discussed at great length the gene’s role in the naturalistic process of
“survival of the fittest.” Dawkins admitted that, according to the
evolutionary paradigm, genes are “selfish” because they will do whatever
it takes to ensure that the individual in which they are stored
produces additional copies of the genes. In commenting on the effects of
such a concept on society as a whole, Dr. Dawkins lamented: “My own
feeling is that a human society based simply on the gene’s law of
universal ruthlessness
would be a very nasty society in which to live” (1989, p. 3, emp. added).
Michael Ruse, a Canadian philosopher, and Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard
entomologist, had made the same point four years earlier when they wrote
under the title of “Evolution and Ethics”:
Morality, or more strictly our belief in morality, is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends....
Ethics is seen to have a solid foundation, not in divine guidance, but
in the shared qualities of human nature and the desperate need for
reciprocity (1985, 208:51-52, emp. added).
The eminent humanist/philosopher, Will Durant, went even further when he admitted:
By offering evolution in place of God as a cause of history, Darwin
removed the theological basis of the moral code of Christendom. And the
moral code that has no fear of God is very shaky. That’s the condition
we are in.... I don’t think man is capable yet of managing social order
and individual decency without fear of some supernatural being
overlooking him and able to punish him (1980).
Once again, the fact remains that after everything is said and done,
the atheist’s second option—providing, with attending evidence, a belief
system that is a “reasonable alternative”—is an unattainable goal.
Enter “agnosticism.”
Agnosticism
Perhaps the logical contradiction inherent in atheism (i.e., one would have to
be God in order to
know God does not exist) has caused many unbelievers to affirm agnosticism instead. The
agnostic (
a, without;
gnosis,
knowledge) is the person who says it is impossible to know if God
exists, due to the fact that there simply is not enough credible
evidence to warrant such a conclusion. Sproul believes that “the
agnostic seeks to declare neutrality on the issue, desiring to make
neither assertion nor denial of the theistic question.... The agnostic
maintains that there is insufficient knowledge upon which to make an
intellectual judgment about theism” (1978, pp. 19-20).
The term “agnostic” was coined by British scientist Thomas Henry
Huxley, a close personal friend of Charles Darwin’s and an indefatigable
champion of evolution who frequently referred to himself as “Darwin’s
Bulldog.” Huxley first introduced the word in a speech in 1869 before
the Metaphysical Society. He later wrote of that occurrence:
When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I
was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a
Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and
reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the
conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these
denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these
good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them.
They were quite sure they had attained a certain “gnosis”—had, more or
less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite
sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was
insoluble....
This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among
the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since
deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society.
Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented
there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues
were –ists of one sort or another.... So I took thought, and
invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of “agnostic.” It
came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the “gnostic” of Church
history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I
was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our
Society.... To my great satisfaction, the term took.... This is the
history of the origin of the terms “agnostic” and “agnosticism” (1894,
pp. 239-240, italics in orig.).
Huxley cannot be accused of inventing the term “agnostic” in a cavalier
fashion. Nor can he be accused of harboring a “hidden agenda.” He knew
exactly what he was doing, and went about doing it in a most public
fashion. He spoke often to “working class folks,” frequently presenting
lunchtime lectures at factories. In a letter to a friend written on
March 22, 1861, he remarked: “My working men stick by me wonderfully. By
Friday evening they will all be convinced that they are monkeys” (see
Leonard Huxley, 1900, 1:205). He was passionate about referring to
Charles Darwin as the “Newton of biology” (see Blinderman, 1957, p.
174), and did not hesitate to affirm that, so far as he was concerned,
I really believe that the alternative is either Darwinism or nothing,
for I do not know of any rational conception or theory of the organic
universe which has any scientific position at all besides Mr.
Darwin’s.... Whatever may be the objections to his views, certainly all
other theories are out of court (1896, p. 467).
Huxley worked diligently to convince those around him that agnosticism
was a respectable philosophical position, and that it was quite
impossible to know whether or not God existed. Yet he simultaneously advocated the position that it was quite
possible
to deny some theistic claims with certainty. He “knew,” for example,
that the Bible was not God’s Word, and openly ridiculed anyone who
believed it to be so. He heaped scathing rebukes upon those who believed
in what he termed “the myths of Genesis,” and he stated categorically
that “my sole point is to get people who persist in regarding them as
statements of fact to understand that they are fools” (see Leonard
Huxley, 1900, 2:429).
That Huxley had in mind antagonistic views toward Judeo-Christian
theism when he claimed to be “agnostic” has been made clear by those who
otherwise would have no reason to be biased against Huxley. For
example, under the heading, “agnosticism,” the authors of the
British-produced
Encyclopaedia Britannica wrote:
Agnosticism both as a term and as a philosophical position gained
currency through its espousal by Thomas Huxley, who seems to have coined
the word “agnostic” (as opposed to “gnostic”) in 1869 to designate one
who repudiated traditional Judeo-Christian theism and yet disclaimed
doctrinaire atheism, transcending both in order to leave such questions
as the existence of God in abeyance.... But Huxley’s own elaboration on
the term makes it clear that this very biblical interpretation of man’s relation to God was the intended polemic target of agnosticism. The suspension of judgment on ultimate questions for which it called was thought to invalidate Christian beliefs
about “things hoped for” and “things not seen....” Huxley himself
certainly rejected as outright false—rather than as not known to be true
or false—many widely popular views about God, his providence, and man’s
posthumous destiny... (1997a, 1:151; 26:569, emp. added).
Rather than courageously embrace and defend atheism, Huxley opted to
feign ignorance with his “I don’t know, you don’t know, nobody knows,
and nobody
can know” position. This cowardly compromise did not
endear him to those who were quite willing to champion the more radical
stance of apodictically affirming that God does not exist. In their
discussion of agnosticism under the section on “religious and spiritual
belief systems,” the editors of
Encyclopaedia Britannica noted that
Huxley and his associates were attacked both by enthusiastic Christian
polemicists and by Friedrich Engels, the co-worker of Karl Marx, as
“shame-faced atheists,” a description that is perfectly applicable to many of those who nowadays adopt the more comfortable label (1997b, 26:569, emp. added).
The fact is, the agnostic is far from indifferent. He takes his
agnosticism extremely seriously when he affirms that nothing outside of
the material world can be known or proved. But agnosticism is built upon
a self-defeating premise. English philosopher Herbert Spencer (also a
close personal friend of Charles Darwin, the man from whom Darwin
borrowed his now-popular phrase, “survival of the fittest,” and
popularly regarded as one of the foremost apostles of agnosticism in his
day) advocated the position that just as no bird ever has been able to
fly out of the heavens, so no man ever has been able to penetrate with
his finite mind the veil that hides the mind of the Infinite. This
inability on the part of the finite (mankind), he concluded, prevented
any knowledge of the Infinite (God) reaching the finite.
Such a premise is flawed internally because it wrongly assumes that the
Infinite is equally incapable of penetrating the veil—a position that
reduces the term “Infinite” to absurdity. An Infinite Being that is
unable to express Itself is less finite than mortals who forever are
expressing themselves. And an Infinite Being that is both capable of
self-expression and aware of the perplexity and needs of mortal man, yet
fails to break through the veil, is less moral than mortal man. As one
writer expressed it:
What man would stay in shrouded silence if he were the Infinite
and knew that a word from him would resolve a thousand human complexes,
integrate shattered personalities, mend broken lives, bring coveted
light to baffled minds, and healing peace to disturbed hearts? (Samuel,
1950, p. 14, emp. added).
To be either correct or defensible, Spencer’s proposition must work
both
ways. Finite man must be unable to penetrate the veil to the Infinite,
but at the same time the Infinite likewise must be unable to penetrate
the veil to the finite. By definition, however, the Infinite would
possess the capability of breaking through any such veil.
Further, there is a question that begs to be asked: Will the agnostic admit that it is at least
possible for
someone else to know
something he does not? If he is unwilling to admit this point, is he
not then attributing to himself (even if inadvertently) one of the
defining characteristics that theists attribute to God—omniscience? In
commenting on this very point, Nelson M. Smith wrote:
Obviously, no agnostic can speak for anyone but himself and perhaps not
then. What effort has he made to know God? Has he exhausted every
effort to know God? Maybe he has not been as honest with himself and
with the evidence as he ought to be? Maybe he is unconsciously hiding
behind a screen of “can’t know” to avoid responsibility as a being made
in God’s image of facing his Maker? (1975, 92[6]:6).
Smith’s point is well taken. Is it not possible that the agnostic is
avoiding—purposely—the evidence for the existence of God? Rather than
being
unable to know, perhaps the agnostic is
unwilling to find out. Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal Emeritus of Glasgow University, addressed this concept when he said:
There are issues on which it is impossible to be neutral. These issues
strike right down to the roots of man’s existence. And while it is right
that we should examine the evidence, and make sure that we have all the
evidence, it is equally right that we ourselves should be accessible to the evidence (as quoted in Samuel, 1950, p. 29, emp. added).
The agnostic is perfectly
capable of making himself “accessible to the evidence.” The question is—
will he? Or will he choose instead to hide “behind a screen of ‘can’t know’”?
[to be continued]
REFERENCES
Asimov, Isaac (1982), “Interview with Isaac Asimov on Science and the Bible,” Paul Kurtz, interviewer,
Free Inquiry, pp. 6-10, Spring. [See also: Hallman, Steve (1991), “Christianity and Humanism: A Study in Contrasts,”
AFA Journal, p. 11, March.]
Blinderman, Charles S. (1957), “Thomas Henry Huxley,”
Scientific Monthly, April.
Christlieb, Theodore (1878),
Modern Doubt and Christian Belief (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons).
Corduan, Winfried (1993),
Reasonable Faith (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman).
Dawkins, Richard (1989),
The Selfish Gene (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press), second edition.
Davis, Robert Gorham (1997), “Letter to the Editor,”
New York Times, July 5.
Durant, Will (1980), “We Are in the Last Stage of a Pagan Period,”
Chicago Tribute Syndicate, April.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1997a), s.v. “Agnosticism,” (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), 1:151.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1997b), s.v. “Religious and Spiritual Belief, Systems of,” (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), 26:530-577.
Huxley, Leonard (1900),
Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley (New York: Appleton).
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1894),
Collected Essays (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968 reprint). [Quotation is from volume five of a nine-volume set published between 1894 and 1908.]
Huxley, Thomas Henry (1896),
Darwiniana (New York: Appleton).
Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch (1981 reprint),
Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Kelcy, Raymond C. (1968),
The Living Word Commentary: The Letters of Paul to the Thessalonians (Austin, TX: Sweet).
Kennedy, D. James (1997),
Skeptics Answered (Sisters, OR: Multnomah).
Lockerbie, D. Bruce (1998),
Dismissing God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
McGrath, Alister E. (1993),
Intellectuals Don’t Need God (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).
Ruse, Michael and Edward O. Wilson (1985), “Evolution and Ethics,”
New Scientist, vol. 208, October 17.
Sagan, Carl (1980),
Cosmos (New York: Random House).
Samuel, Leith (1950),
The Impossibility of Agnosticism [a tract], (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).
Smith, George H. (1979),
Atheism: The Case Against God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus).
Smith, Nelson M. (1975), “The Case Against Agnosticism,”
Firm Foundation, 92[6]:6,11, February.
Sproul, R.C. (1978),
If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House).
Story, Dan (1997),
Defending Your Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel).
Zerr, E.M. (1952),
Bible Commentary (Bowling Green, KY: Guardian of Truth Foundation).
The
Outback of Australia is home to this magnificent bird. The hot
temperatures and dry climate do not deter the mallee, though. During its
mating season, the male will create for its partner’s eggs a nest that
has an average circumference of seventy feet, and is over three feet in
height.
But
building a nest is only half the battle. The other half involves
temperature maintenance in the mound. This job, once again, is left to
the male mallee. Several times a day, the male inserts his beak into the
pile of debris and sand. He proceeds to stick out his tongue, which is
such a good thermometer that it can measure a temperature change as
small as 1/10 of a degree! After assessing the temperature, the
male can act accordingly. If the nest is too hot, he can remove some of
the sand that is covering the nest. If the nest becomes too cold, then
the male can insert sticks to produce more heat, and add sand to
insulate the mound from the surroundings. The temperature must be kept
at exactly 33 degrees Celsius, and this medium must be maintained to
within one degree in order for the unborn chicks to survive while still
in the nest.
