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January 20, 2019January 20, 2019

A Reflection on a Sermon of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Refuting Atheistic Materialism

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we commemorate on Monday, is best known as a civil rights leader who worked to end racial injustice, but he had other things to say as he preached each Sunday, first in his own assembly and later as he spoke around the country.

Among his recorded sermons is one in which Dr. King addressed the problem of unbelief, of materialism and atheism. His reflections are well worth pondering today because the problem is even more widespread now than it was when he made these remarks in 1957. A complete transcript of the sermon is available here: The Man Who Was a Fool.

In this sermon, Dr. King commented on Jesus’ parable of the wealthy man who had a huge harvest and, instead of sharing it, just built bigger barns to hold the excess. The Lord called him a fool for thinking that his material wealth could provide security.

Following are excerpts from this sermon, with Dr. King’s words shown in bold, black italics and my comments displayed in plain red text. After discussing several reason why the man was a fool, Dr. King said,

Jesus [also] called the rich man a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on God. He talked as though he unfolded the seasons and provided the fertility of the soil, controlled the rising and the setting of the sun, and regulated the natural processes that produce the rain and the dew. He had an unconscious feeling that he was the Creator, not a creature.

Having discovered the inner realities of many processes, the materialistic atheist fails to ask more fundamental questions such as “Where does the cosmos ultimately come from?” and “What is the ultimate destiny of all things?” Having found some answers, he mistakes them for the ultimate answers; they are not.

There is no problem with a scientist saying that these sorts of questions lie beyond science, that science is only focused on material and efficient causality. Each discipline does have its area of focus. The error of scientism is in its claims that science alone explains all reality; it does not.

The usual response of those who ascribe to scientism (not all scientists do) to questions that science cannot answer is to dismiss them or to say that one day science will find an answer. When we, who are obviously creatures and contingent beings, dismiss our Creator, we are displaying either hardness of heart or a form of madness. Such a dismissal is neither rational nor reasonable.

This man-centered foolishness has had a long and oftentimes disastrous reign in the history of mankind. Sometimes it is theoretically expressed in the doctrine of materialism, which contends that reality may be explained in terms of matter in motion, that life is “a physiological process with a physiological meaning,” that man is a transient accident of protons and electrons traveling blind, that thought is a temporary product of gray matter, and that the events of history are an interaction of matter and motion operating by the principle of necessity.

Dr. King describes here the problem of reductionism, in which things are reduced to matter alone and attributed entirely to material causes. This view holds that even concepts such as justice, meaning, and beauty must somehow be explained materially in terms of their cause. The human soul that knows immaterial things does mediate its thoughts through the brain and the central nervous system, but it does not follow that the medium is the cause. It does not pertain to matter to be the cause of what is spiritual.

Having no place for God or for eternal ideas, materialism is opposed to both theism and idealism. This materialistic philosophy leads inevitably into a dead-end street in an intellectually senseless world. To believe that human personality is the result of the fortuitous interplay of atoms and electrons is as absurd as to believe that a monkey by hitting typewriter keys at random will eventually produce a Shakespearean play. Sheer magic!

Many atheists think they have solved this conundrum, but I think that they “solve” it with a set of assumptions so outlandish and unproven that it requires far more “faith” to accept them than to believe in an intelligent designer and creator.

The statistical possibility that things could come together “by chance” to form complex life—let alone intelligent life—and not just once but at least twice (for reproduction’s sake) is minuscule! (As Dr. King says, “Sheer magic!”) Those who demand we accept this explanation are far more credulous than are believers, who observe the intricate design of creation and conclude (reasonably) that there is an intelligent creator.

It is much more sensible to say with Sir James Jeans, the physicist, that “the universe seems to be nearer to a great thought than to a great machine,” or with Arthur Balfour, the philosopher, that “we now know too much about matter to be materialists.” Materialism is a weak flame that is blown out by the breath of mature thinking. Exactly! The universe shouts its design and intelligence.

Another attempt to make God irrelevant is found in non-theistic humanism, a philosophy that deifies man by affirming that humanity is God. Man is the measure of all things. Many modern men who have embraced this philosophy contend, as did Rousseau, that human nature is essentially good. Evil is to be found only in institutions, and if poverty and ignorance were to be removed everything would be all right. The twentieth century opened with such a glowing optimism. Men believed that civilization was evolving toward an earthly paradise.

The Catholic faith defines this error as utopianism and pseudo-messianism.

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism (Catechism of the Catholic Church #675-676).

We all know what a bloodbath the 20th century became—so much for man being his own measure!

Herbert Spencer skillfully molded the Darwinian theory of evolution into the heady idea of automatic progress. Men became convinced that there is a sociological law of progress which is as valid as the physical law of gravitation. Possessed of this spirit of optimism, modern man broke into the storehouse of nature and emerged with many scientific insights and technological developments that completely revolutionized the earth. The achievements of science have been marvelous, tangible and concrete. …

[But] Man’s aspirations no longer turned Godward and heavenward. Rather, man’s thoughts were confined to man and earth. And man offered a strange parody on the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our brethren which art upon the earth, Hallowed be our name. Our kingdom come. Our will be done on earth, for there is no heaven.”

Those who formerly turned to God to find solutions for their problems turned to science and technology, convinced that they now possessed the instruments needed to usher in the new society.

Scripture says, Claiming to be wise they became fools and their senseless minds were darkened (Rom 1:22).

Then came the explosion of this myth. It climaxed in the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and in the fierce fury of fifty-megaton bombs. Now we have come to see that science can give us only physical power, which, if not controlled by spiritual power, will lead inevitably to cosmic doom.

Atheists are forever pointing out how many lives were lost in the name of religion. However, those numbers are not even close to those claimed in the bloodbath ushered in by atheistic materialists.

The words of Alfred the Great are still true: “Power is never a good unless he be good that has it.” We need something more spiritually sustaining and morally controlling than science. It is an instrument that, under the power of God’s spirit, may lead man to greater heights of physical security, but apart from God’s spirit, science is a deadly weapon that will lead only to deeper chaos. Make it plain, Dr. King!

Why fool ourselves about automatic progress and the ability of man to save himself? We must lift up our minds and eyes unto the hills from whence comes our true help. Then, and only then, will the advances of modern science be a blessing rather than a curse. Without dependence on God our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest night. Unless his spirit pervades our lives, we find only what G.K. Chesterton called “cures that don’t cure, blessings that don’t bless, and solutions that don’t solve.” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Notice that Dr. King called upon two Catholic intellectuals (St. Alfred the Great and G.K. Chesterton) to be his witnesses.

Unfortunately, the rich man [in the parable] did not realize this. He, like many men of the twentieth century, became so involved in big affairs and small trivialities that he forgot God. He gave the finite infinite significance and elevated a preliminary concern to ultimate standing. After the rich man had accumulated his vast resources of wealth—at the moment when his stocks were accruing the greatest interest and his palatial home was the talk of the town—he came to that experience which is the irreducible common denominator of all men, death.

At every funeral I say to the mourners, “You are going to die.” Then I tell them that we must get ready, not with more things but with more God.

The fact that he died at this particular time adds verve and drama to the story, but the essential truth of the parable would have remained the same had he lived to be as old as Methuselah. Even if he had not died physically, he was already dead spiritually. The cessation of breathing was a belated announcement of an earlier death. He died when he failed to keep a line of distinction between the means by which he lived and the ends for which he lived and when he failed to recognize his dependence on others and on God.

May it not be that the “certain rich man” is Western civilization? Rich in goods and material resources, our standards of success are almost inextricably bound to the lust for acquisition.

The means by which we live are marvelous indeed. And yet something is missing. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.

An Oriental writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms:

“You call your thousand material devices ‘labor-saving machinery,’ yet you are forever ‘busy.’ With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else. You have a machine to dig the raw material for you, a machine to manufacture [it], a machine to transport [it], a machine to sweep and dust, one to carry messages, one to write, one to talk, one to sing, one to play at the theater, one to vote, one to sew, and a hundred others to do a hundred other things for you, and still you are the most nervously busy man in the world. Your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.” So true!

…The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man. Like the rich man of old, we have foolishly minimized the internal of our lives and maximized the external. We have absorbed life in livelihood.

Yes, we have maximized the minimum and minimized the maximum.

We will not find peace in our generation until we learn anew that “a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses,” but in those inner treasuries of the spirit which “no thief approaches, neither moth corrupts.” Our hope for creative living lies in our ability to re-establish the spiritual ends of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments. Our generation cannot escape the question of our Lord: What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world of externals—airplanes, electric lights, automobiles, and color television—and lose the internal—his own soul? Amen!

Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: A Reflection on a Sermon of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Refuting Atheistic Materialism

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018

Of Mice and Men – Pondering the Strange Loss of Faith in an Age of Science

One of the more perplexing claims of the growing number of agnostics and atheists among us is that there is no evidence of an intelligent creator of the universe. Clearly, the created universe manifests intelligibility and order from the farthest reaches of outer space down to our small planet and further down into the “inner space” of cells, atoms, and molecules. Science affirms the existence of a creator by uncovering the inner order and intelligibility of created things. Strangely, though, this age of science seems to be fostering an increasing denial of that evidence.

Indeed, creation is a veritable symphony of billions of notes working together in an extraordinary harmony that seems to shout, “I was composed and carefully thought out; my master composer is also the great conductor of my symphony, so painstakingly laid out.”

That the created world is intelligible is the very basis of the sciences. The world manifests meaning that we can discover and it moves along in predictable ways; it does not randomly change from one thing to the next from one moment to the next. Because there is order and intelligibility, a scientist can predict, propose, and test theories, and can replicate results. Without order and intelligibility there could be no scientific method.

Yet many of these same scientists who use this scientific method deny the very Intelligence who provides the intelligibility that their science presumes. If the created world is intelligible, then clearly an intelligence imposed this intelligibility upon it. That the created world manifests order demonstrates that someone so ordered it.

If all of this intricate order had happened just by accident at one moment in time, it would then require something to maintain that order and keep it from breaking down the very next instant into something completely different—yet this does not happen. Reality does not suddenly and randomly mutate into something else. It follows predictable laws; changes are orderly and exhibit continuity with what went before. Order is present not just at one point in time; rather, it is sustained over time and becomes demonstrably more organized as complex life forms develop. Clearly, creation tends toward a certain end in an orderly and progressive way.

That there is order and intelligibility to the created world is demonstrably true and denying this would seem to be the reaction of a madman. The universe shouts out, “I was planned and carefully executed; I have been intricately designed by an intelligent cause moving me in an intelligible direction!”

I would understand if physical scientists were to say that they are not equipped to opine on who or what this intelligence is. Indeed, the physical sciences are not equipped to measure the metaphysical. For so many scientists to claim the ability to deny that there is an intelligence (whom we believers call God) is for them to step outside of their field of expertise—unreasonably so.

The claim that there is no God is not a scientific one; it is philosophical in nature. Those who maintain that there is only the physical and not the metaphysical are actually making a metaphysical claim. They refute their own assertion in the very act of declaring it! The contention that physical science wholly explains all of reality is not one that can be demonstrated scientifically. The claim is proven false the very moment it is declared.

Many will say that there is no evidence of God’s existence because He cannot be seen under a microscope or through a telescope. But of course God is not a physical being; He does not register on our scales. He cannot be physically measured any more than can justice, mercy, beauty, or any other metaphysical concept. None of these can be seen with the tools of physical science—but they are no less real.

Yes, there is a great deal of evidence of a creator. The entire created world is steeped in intelligibility and order. There is a magnificent interplay between material, efficient, formal, and final causality. By its intelligibility, the created world shouts of the intelligence that made it so. By its order, it sings of the one who so ordered it.

Existence itself provides the answer to the questions: “Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all?” The only reasonable answer that can come back from the existing cosmos is this: “I was caused!” Something cannot cause itself any more than you and I can cause ourselves. We, and the entire cosmos, were caused by someone other than ourselves and outside of ourselves. The cosmos says, “Someone outside of me caused me. That is why I exist. That is why anything exists at all.”

We moderns have become obtuse and inwardly focused. If anything, we should be more convinced than ever that God exists, as our sciences have revealed such incredible complexity and intricate order in every layer and at every level of creation. We should be singing of the incredible wisdom of the Creator who has so perfectly ordered every level of His creation. Sadly, though, just the opposite seems to be happening: agnosticism and atheism are growing.

Far too many scientists, who should know better (for there would not be science at all without the intelligibility built into creation), make unfounded denials of God, a pronouncement that is clearly outside their field of expertise. And because so many of us idolize the sciences, we give great weight to the claims of scientists, even when those claims are nonscientific.

Contemplating this tragic turn of events brings to mind a parable told by Venerable Fulton Sheen many decades ago:

Those who refuse to unify the cosmos in terms of Pure Intelligence but content themselves with secondary causes may be likened to an all-wise mouse living in a grand piano who … explained the music by the play of hammers on the strings, the action of which could be seen in his own narrow little world. Scientists catch the tune, but miss the player (Old Errors and New Labels, Fulton J. Sheen 1931, p. 27).

Yes, we have become mousy in our thinking. We prefer to live inside the piano and explain the music of the spheres only internally, never thinking of the great artist outside, who gives and causes the magnificent, understandable, beautiful, and intricate melody we hear.

Sadly, the great debate over the existence of God seems only to grow, even as the evidence of intelligibility, order, and design increases. It is a great debate of mice and men.

Are you a mouse or are you a man?

In this video, hear the song of the cosmos:

October 6, 2014May 28, 2015

Atheism is Acquired, and recent studies show it is not natural to the human person

"Chartres Cathedral” by Tony Hisgott. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons. — “Chartres Cathedral” by Tony Hisgott. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen once remarked that atheism was not natural to the human person and that it was acquired. He used as his reference St. Paul’s words in Romans:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. ¹⁹For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; ²¹for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened (Romans 1:18-21).

And thus the Holy Spirit, speaking through St. Paul, says that the ungodly suppress a truth that is plain and available to the human intellect, namely that God exists and is to be honored and thanked. Our capacity to perceive the existence of God is activated by the evidence of God’s power and divinity that is itself perceivable in creation. Hence, to choose to live in an ungodly (atheist) stance is not natural to us, but must be acquired through suppression of the truth and the evidence.

Since this suppression requires effort and an overriding of truth and evidence naturally available to us through our reason, those who engage in this suppression are, as the text says, without excuse. The term suppress is a present active participle in the Greek (κατεχόντων (katechonton), literally “suppressing.” Hence the text implies that atheism requires an ongoing effort to maintain the suppression.

Now of course none of this would mean a thing to an atheist, since I am quoting a sacred text. However, for us who believe, Scripture is a prophetic interpretation of reality. In other words, it tells us what is really going on. Atheists are suppressing the truth in an ongoing way. The reference to their “wickedness” need not be taken to mean that all, or even many atheists are living wicked lives in a comprehensive sense. Rather, it can simply mean that the suppression of the truth of God’s existence and the evidence for it in creation is itself a sin, a form of wickedness. As such, atheism is not seen by Scripture merely as evidence of bad luck, poor upbringing, or ignorance. Atheism is sinful because it resists what we are naturally equipped to do: perceive God’s existence. And this resistance is described as on ongoing, sinful state since the verb form used is a participle, indicating ongoing action.

A recent article at Science 2.0, describes some recent studies on the capacity of the human mind to perceive and ponder the metaphysical. The term “metaphysical” refers to concepts and realities that are beyond (meta) the physical world. Hence, concepts and realities such as justice, fairness, mercy, and so forth are not seen under a microscope but as real concepts that we not only debate, but which can both cause war and launch great humanitarian acts. Radical materialists deny metaphysics anywhere in the definable world. However, truly radical materialists are very rare, partly because it is so unnatural for humans to “think” this way, or to suppress the truth of metaphysical reality, which so clearly affects us.

I’d like to highlight excerpts of the article in the usual way, using black, bold italics, and include my own remarks in plain, red text. I do not vouch for the credibility of the Science 2.0 site, and I limit my comments simply to what is written in the column. But even if the science of studying this topic is nascent and is disputed by some, it nevertheless remains interesting that some in the field are beginning to discuss whether the human person is naturally wired to perceive and ponder the metaphysical. The full article is here: Atheism Unnatural?

Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged … We are born believers, not atheists, scientists say. Humans are pattern-seekers from birth, with a belief in karma, or cosmic justice, as our default setting. “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas” …

And this is just what Fulton Sheen once observed: atheism is unnatural to us and is acquired only through effort. There is also reference here to a kind of “meta-narrative” about justice, to which all human beings seem oriented no matter the culture or the era. We have a sense of justice, of right and wrong. I recently featured an article describing the discovery by brain researchers that this sense is apparent even in the youngest children. You can read that article here: Even the youngest children know right and wrong

While the UK is often defined as an irreligious place, a recent survey by Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present … In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists. The majority are “nothing in particular” according to figures published in New Scientist …

And this makes sense, since the rejection of God does not necessarily imply a wholesale rejection of the metaphysical, as is proposed by the radical adherents of “scientism.” Scientism is the claim that the physical sciences can and do explain the whole of reality, that there is nothing beyond the physical.

Indeed, it appears that stories exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person … the stories which become universally popular appear to be carefully composed records of cosmic justice at work …

This is what I referred to above as a meta-narrative, which is essentially the set of archetypal stories that illustrate the basic human longing for justice and truth, and the triumph of what is good and true. This is a consistent theme in every culture and in every epoch of recorded human history. It is a remarkably consistent theme that points to its being placed in the human heart and soul, not merely as a learned preference but as an infused attraction to what is good, true, beautiful, and just. Biologists and anthropologists may wish to attribute this merely to a learned biological mechanism that helps survival. But the question still remains as to how the physical can produce the metaphysical. Further, it seems puzzling that this would be a necessary adaptation for survival, since none of the other animals seem to need a meta-narrative, or archetypal stories assuring final triumph of justice, in order to survive.

But if a belief in cosmic justice is natural and deeply rooted, the question arises: where does atheism fit in? Albert Einstein, who had a life-long fascination with metaphysics, believed atheism came from a mistaken belief that harmful superstition and a general belief in religious or mystical experience were the same thing.

In other words, atheism arose as a response to spiritual extremism and unbalanced or inaccurate notions of God and faith. But they overcorrected by dismissing good faith along with bad or flawed notions.

But as higher levels of education spread, will … atheism sweep the field, as some atheism campaigners suggest? Some specialists feel this is unlikely … The need for periods of contemplative calm in churches or temples or other places devoted to the ineffable and inexplicable will remain. They appear to be part of who we are as humans.

Yes, it is unlikely that we will outgrow what is a fundamental human trait. Faith is not a lack of education; it is a fundamental human quality that may at times go in wrong directions intellectually, but which is innately correct and essential to who and what we are: spiritual as well as corporeal persons.

When looking at trends, there’s also population growth to consider. Western countries are moving away from the standard family model, and tend to obsess over topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these issues, in practice they are associated with shrinking populations …

Touché

Africans and South Asians, on the other hand, are generally religious and retain the traditional model of multi-child families—which may be old-fashioned from a Western point of view, but it’s a model powerfully sanctioned by the evolutionary urge to extend the gene pool.

The power of the womb and the noticeable dying of the culture of death and selfish decadence; faith will out!

“It’s clearly the case that the future will involve an increase in religious populations and a decrease in scepticism,” says Steve Jones, a professor in genetics at University College London, speaking at the Hay Festival in the UK recently … Bad news for pro-atheism campaigners.

Indeed, I frequently get atheists, and also some non-Catholics, who predict the demise of the Catholic Church. I always respond to them that they must not have not read history. In the 2000 years of the Church, empires have come and gone, nations have risen and fallen, theories, heresies, trends, and fads have all sparked and then faded. But the Church is still here. Many have predicted our death, and to quote Chesterton, “We have buried every one of our undertakers.” Where is Caesar, where is Napoleon, where is Stalin, where is the USSR? They are gone, but we are here. I do not write this triumphantly; the Church is ever in need of reform and our numbers may rise and fall, but by the Lord’s promise, the power of Hell will not prevail over His everlasting Kingdom, the Church.

Here’s a hymn by John Henry Cardinal Newman: “Firmly I Believe and Truly”

January 19, 2014May 29, 2015

The Doctor is In – A Reflection on a Sermon of Dr. Martin Luther King refuting Atheist Materialism

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birth we commemorate this weekend, is most known for his work with racial justice and civil rights. But Dr. King had other things to say as he preached each Sunday, first in his own assembly and later as he moved about.

Among the recorded sermons that are available comes the excerpt below from one, where Dr. King addresses the problem of unbelief, of materialism and atheism. His reflections are worth pondering since the issues he addresses here are more widespread than when he made these remarks in 1957.

The title of the sermon is “Why the Lord Called a Man a Fool” He is commenting on the parable of the Lord about the wealthy man who had a huge harvest and, instead of sharing, just built bigger barns. The Lord called him a fool for thinking his material wealth could supply is needs and give him security. As a sidebar in his sermon Dr. King addressed the problem in the modern world of unbelief, and speaks to the foolishness of this. I present here excerpts. The full sermon is here: Why the Lord Called a Man a Fool

As usual, the original remarks are in black, bold, italic print and my comments are plain red text. After discussing several reason why the man was a fool, Dr. King writes:

For the materialist and atheist, having discovered the inner realities of many processes, fail to ask the more fundamental questions of where the cosmos ultimately comes from, or what is the ultimate destiny of all things? Having found penultimate answers, they mistake these answers for the ultimate answers. They are not.

There is no problem with a scientist saying these sorts of questions lay beyond science, that science is only focused on material and efficient causality. That is fine, each discipline has its area of focus. But the modern error of “scientism” says that science alone explains reality. It does not.

The usual approach of scientism (not all scientists!) to those who ask questions science is not equipped to handle is to dismiss the question or to say, “one day science will answer this.” When we who are obviously creatures, and contingent beings dismiss a Creator, this is a form of madness or of hardness of heart. But such a dismissal is neither rational nor reasonable.

He describes here the problem of modern reductionism wherein things are reduced to matter only, and attributed to merely material causes. Thus even immaterial things like, justice, meaning, beauty, etc., must somehow be explained materially in terms of their cause. It is evident that the human soul that knows immaterial things does mediate its thoughts through the brain and central nervous system, but it does not follow that the medium is the cause. For it does not pertain to matter to be the cause of what is immaterial or spiritual.

Many atheists think they have solved this conundrum. But I must say that they “solve” it by a set of assumptions so wild and un-demonstrated that it requires far more “faith” than to believe in an intelligent designer and creator.

The statistical possibility that things could come together “by chance” as they have to form complex life, let alone intelligent life, and not just once, but at least twice (for reproduction’s sake) is astronomical! (As Dr. King says, “Sheer magic!”) It indicates that those who demand we accept this notion are far more “credulous” than believers who observe creation and the obvious fact that it is intricately designed and thereby conclude, reasonably that there is an intelligent creator.

Yes, the Catholic Faith defines this error as utopianism and pseudo-messianism. The catechism says,

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism. (CCC #s 675-676)

We all know what a bloodbath the 20th Century became. SO much for man being his won measure!

[But] Man’s aspirations no longer turned Godward and heavenward. Rather, man’s thoughts were confined to man and earth. And man offered a strange parody on the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our brethren which art upon the earth, Hallowed be our name. Our kingdom come. Our will be done on earth, for there is no heaven.”

Those who formerly turned to God to find solutions for their problems turned to science and technology, convinced that they now possessed the instruments needed to usher in the new society.

Scripture says, Claiming to be wise they became fools and their senseless minds were darkened. (Rom 1:22)

Atheists are forever saying how many lives were lost i the name of religion. Frankly our numbers are not even close to the blood bath ushered in by atheist materialists.

The words of Albert the Great are still true: “Power is never a good unless he be good that has it.” We need something more spiritually sustaining and morally controlling than science. It is an instrument that, under the power of God’s spirit, may lead man to greater heights of physical security, but apart from God’s spirit, science is a deadly weapon that will lead only to deeper chaos. Make it plain, Dr. King.

Note that Dr. King has called upon two Catholic intellectuals to be his witnesses 😉

Unfortunately, the rich man [in the parable] did not realize this. He, like many men of the twentieth century, became so involved in big affairs and small trivialities that he forgot God. He gave the finite infinite significance and elevated a preliminary concern to ultimate standing. After the rich man had accumulated his vast resources of wealth — at the moment when his stocks were accruing the greatest interest and his palatial home was the talk of the town — he came to that experience which is the irreducible common denominator of all men, death.

I say at every funeral to the mourners: You, are going to die. And then I tell them we have to get ready, not with more things, but with more God.

May it not be that the “certain rich man” is Western civilization? Rich in goods and material resources, our standards of success are almost inextricably bound to the lust for acquisition.

An Oriental writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms:

“You call your thousand material devices ‘labor-saving machinery,’ yet you are forever ‘busy.’ With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else…. You have a machine to dig the raw material for you, a machine to manufacture [it], a machine to transport [it], a machine to sweep and dust, one to carry messages, one to write, one to talk, one to sing, one to play at the theater, one to vote, one to sew, and a hundred others to do a hundred other things for you, and still you are the most nervously busy man in the world. Your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery. They are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.” So true!

We will not find peace in our generation until we learn anew that “a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses,” but in those inner treasuries of the spirit which “no thief approaches, neither moth corrupts.” Our hope for creative living lies in our ability to re-establish the spiritual ends of our lives in personal character and social justice. Without this spiritual and moral reawakening we shall destroy ourselves in the misuse of our own instruments. Our generation cannot escape the question of our Lord: What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world of externals — airplanes, electric lights, automobiles, and color television — and lose the internal — his own soul? Amen!

January 11, 2013May 29, 2015

Answering an Atheist and Asking for Fairness and Accuracy

Susan Jacoby, an author and atheist wrote a column in last Sunday’s New York Times entitled “The Blessings of Atheism.” In it she proposes that atheism has a lot to offer, especially in times of tragic loss and that it frees human beings from having to ask and answer difficult question. As you may imagine, I am not so sure that asserting a question can be avoided means that it has actually been avoided, or that what she calls blessings are in fact blessings.

I would like to excerpt her article and make a few comments. Her original writing is in bold, black italics. My comments are plain red text. These are excerpts. For the full article CLICK HERE

In a recent conversation with a fellow journalist, I voiced my exasperation at the endless talk about faith in God as the only consolation for those devastated by the unfathomable murders in Newtown, Conn. Some of those grieving parents surely believe, as I do, that this is our one and only life. Atheists cannot find solace in the idea that dead children are now angels in heaven. “That only shows the limits of atheism,” my colleague replied. “It’s all about nonbelief and has nothing to offer when people are suffering.” …..

Just a minor quibbles here, the Christian faith does not teach that “dead children are now angels in heaven.” Human beings never become angels, we always remain quite human.

Secondly, I am not sure that what her friend said should be allowed to represent what all Christians think of atheism. I for one do not hold that atheism “has nothing to offer.” People generally do not cling to philosophies that offer them nothing. Atheists clearly do have reasons for holding to their philosophy and it must offer them something. For some it is their response to the problem of evil or the seeming absurdities of this world. For others it is merely that the existence of God is inconvenient to their moral life, or worldview. For still others, it is a way for detaching from what they see as the problems posed by belief (e.g. our concepts of sin, guilt, judgment, and so on). Yet others have many complaints about the Church. I am not trying to speak here for atheists, or put words in their mouths, but the bottom line is people usually hold to things for a reason.

Ms. Jacoby goes on, in a part of the article not reproduced here, to trace the origins of her atheism to the problem of evil and suffering. She saw a friend die a lingering death from polio back in the 1950s. Being dissatisfied with the answers faith provided, she detached from faith and sees atheism as an alternative to believing in a God who would allow such things to happen.

So it would seem that atheism does have something to offer her. She seems to think that the non-answer of atheism is an answer and that denying the existence of God means she can avoid struggling with the questions related to evil and suffering. As we shall see, I propose that here solution offers neither an answer, nor an escape from the problem of evil.

[But] it is primarily in the face of suffering, whether the tragedy is individual or collective, that I am forcefully reminded of what atheism has to offer. When I try to help a loved one losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, when I see homeless people shivering in the wake of a deadly storm, when the news media bring me almost obscenely close to the raw grief of bereft parents, I do not have to ask, as all people of faith must, why an all-powerful, all-good God allows such things to happen.

I am not sure why Ms. Jacoby considers herself free of having to ask this question. I think the problem of evil and suffering is something that perplexes every human being on the planet, and Ms. Jacoby cannot so easily exempt herself from the questions surrounding it. While she may not direct them to God, she cannot ultimately avoid the universal human struggle to inquire into the meaning of all things, including evil and suffering.

Human beings seek meaning, seek reasons. I am not at all convinced that her demurring from the question of suffering is either possible or authentic. The only truly authentic “refuge” from this question is to insist that life and this world really has no meaning at all, to insist that everything is ultimately meaningless, absurd, and pointless. But I have never met a human being, let alone an atheist, that “brave” to live in a world of utter meaninglessness. And hence even Atheists search for meaning, something to work for, base their lives on, something by which to navigate. They too seek answers.

So unless Ms. Jacoby is insistent that nothing has meaning, then she too must somehow wrestle with the basic questions we all wrestle with. Questions that underlie our alarm at the presence of suffering and evil, even before God is included in the question. For example:

Why does anything exist at all?
What is existence?
Why do we value existence over non-existence?
Why is there Love?
Why do we ponder meaning, assign value, grieve loss and celebrate gain, in ways that other animals do not seem to do?
What is justice?
And how do we come to know it and distinguish it from injustice?
Why are its basic concepts so ubiquitous?
And why do humans ponder justice whereas animals do not?
Why does injustice trouble us?
What is suffering?
Why does some suffering alarm us more than other forms?
Why does death alarm us and life please us?
Why are we alarmed at what happened at Sandy Hook?
Why do we say it was wrong or evil?
Why do we seek ways to prevent it in the future?
Where does human wickedness come from?
Why do we call it wicked?
Why do we do such horrible things to each other (things not even animals do) and why does it bother us?
Why do we even have these questions?
Why do we seek answers for them?
Why do we care at all?

I am not trying to be impertinent or playful. But just dismissing “the God question” does not let Ms. Jacoby off the hook. She like all of us, is stuck with trying to make sense out of all this. And there are a ton of underlying questions and imponderables beneath tragedies like this.

I am sure that Ms. Jacoby would have to say, to many of these questions, “I don’t know for sure. I have some ideas but I cannot answer all this.” And that is a fine and honest answer. And you know, I cannot answer it all either.

But then why do we suddenly have to have a clear answer to the God question? Why does Ms. Jacoby say that all people of faith must ask (and I presume answer?) as to why an all-powerful, all-good God allows such things to happen?

Honestly, I don’t have a simple pat answer. And if Ms. Jacoby is ready to answer all the questions above thoroughly and with air-tight completeness that maybe I’ll answer this one. But until then, I don’t know why believers are required to answer such a mysterious and complex question, while she goes free.

To be sure faith does supply some answers to aspects of the problem (e.g. God allows suffering for some greater good or purpose, God draws good from struggles, one moment in time is not the full picture and God will reward those who have suffered, many who are last shall be first, etc.) But none of these are full answers to the great mystery of suffering, evil and iniquity. In many places God is clear that we cannot comprehend all his ways, and believers are content to recognize in humility that we only see a very small part of the picture.

But Ms. Jacoby’s implicit insistence that we must have an air-tight answer to “the God question” is no more binding on us or reasonable to demand than that she should also have air-tight answers to the thousands of other questions that underlie incidents like Sandy Hook. Neither can she reasonably claim to be wholly free of having to ask these questions and both answer them to some extent and admit that she does not have complete answers either.

It is a positive blessing, not a negation of belief, to be free of what is known as the theodicy problem. Human “free will” is Western monotheism’s answer to the question of why God does not use his power to prevent the slaughter of innocents, and many people throughout history (some murdered as heretics) have not been able to let God off the hook in that fashion.

Her assessment is not fair or correct. Theodicy is not “Western monotheism’s answer” to the problem of suffering or evil. The Church does not have a simple answer to the very deep mystery of suffering. Theodicy is surely one of the factors in a framing of the discussion, but the truth of human freedom is held in tension and balance with God’s sovereignty. This is what orthodoxy does, it often holds competing truths in balance and tension. Human freedom is part of the picture, but it is not alone the answer, and we do not propose it as such.

Hence, her statement as written is incorrect.

Her parenthetical remark about the murdering of heretics is gratuitous, and displays the negative animus she brings toward believers and the Church. In this she tips her hand. I will agree that if she will not mention those murdered as heretics, I will not mention 100+ million who were murdered in the last century under the aegis of Atheistic Communism and other secular philosophies.

The atheist is free to concentrate on the fate of this world — whether that means visiting a friend in a hospital or advocating for tougher gun control laws — without trying to square things with an unseen overlord in the next. Atheists do not want to deny religious believers the comfort of their faith. We do want our fellow citizens to respect our deeply held conviction that the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth.

Her remarks here fail in terms of relevance. Believers are no less interested in the matters she describes than atheists. The Christian faith has had a remarkable role in inspiring countless people to undertake works of charity. The Church has founded and runs a huge number of hospitals, orphanages, shelters, soup kitchens and many other such outreach. Her implicit suggestion that atheists place a higher moral importance on our actions on earth is not only insulting, it is wrong and misinformed. I’d like to see some statistics to back up her claim. Meantime, I’ll continue put the outreach of Christians and other believers up against any group and I’ll bet we have nothing to be ashamed of.

We must speak up as atheists in order to take responsibility for whatever it is humans are responsible for — including violence in our streets and schools. We need to demonstrate that atheism is rooted in empathy as well as intellect. And although atheism is not a religion, we need community-based outreach programs so that our activists will be as recognizable to their neighbors as the clergy.

Fair enough. But I wonder how atheists would do this as a group since there is no real way they consistently come together in large numbers that I know of. Perhaps that will change. But as it is now, atheists do not seem to be a group that come together or act together in any large.

Robert Green Ingersoll, [an agnostic], frequently delivered secular eulogies at funerals and offered consolation that he clearly considered an important part of his mission. In 1882, at the graveside of a friend’s child, he declared: “They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest … The dead do not suffer.”

Yeah, well, it’s a kind of the “death as therapy” thinking. Frankly death is a very strange therapy. But I find it is common today among many to esteem death as therapy. For example, some applaud abortion because otherwise the child might be born in poverty, or have a birth defect or something.

But death is a very strange therapy. To folk who talk like this, I wonder how they would feel if someone from the government came to them and said, “It must be tough earning less than $27,000 a year, so I’m going to kill you.” Or if someone lost an arm in an accident, and the doctor said, “Gee, it must be awful having a defective body. Here let me kill you.” At any rate the “death as therapy” movement is pretty active in this country via abortion and euthanasia.

I suppose I can relate to the fact that it’s good when suffering ends. But I’d kinda like to be alive to experience the relief, if you know what I mean. And even if I could say of my father, when he died, “I am glad his suffering is over,” I’d kind of like for him to be alive somewhere to experience that relief. I’m not really sure what good a benefit of any sort is when you’re not alive to experience it.

Too bad that this is the best consolation that Ms. Jacoby could cite. There’s just something about life and existence that seems essential for consolation to really matter. Non-existence just doesn’t “get me right here.” I’m looking for something with a little more heart.

In the end, a simple request of Ms. Jacoby. How about a little accuracy and fairness? Consistently in her article she has misrepresented what we teach. And while she thinks that “the God question” should have an airtight answer for a believer (it does not for it contains mystery) she would not likely insist on such an answer to any number of other questions apart form the God question. So in fairness, please answer, (with an airtight answer), “Why does anything exist?” And for a bonus question, “Why is there love?” Perhaps there is not a simple answer to such questions. And perhaps there isn’t a simple answer to the problem of suffering and evil. And perhaps that’s OK. Maybe we’d like complete answers, but maybe we can live without them too.

December 20, 2012June 9, 2015

Rude and Uninformed. A reflection on a recent billboard campaign by Atheist Humanists

I was asked by the Young Adult group in my parish to address some ads on our local buses and subway trains here in Washington. The members of the Young adult group found the ads offensive and troubling, especially since they were aimed at kids. The ads are posted by the American “Humanist” Association (AHA) and are indeed aimed at kids and teenagers. The focus of the message is “Kids without God: You’re not the only one.” I have altered the ad at the upper right of this post to avoid listing its website but as you can see God is represented by a seeming angry and/or accusing finger and a bemused teenager who says “I’m getting a bit old for imaginary friends.”

OK, so lets start with the necessary disclaimer. This is America and an folks are free to post billboards and promote ideas, even unpleasant or obnoxious ones. That said, I wonder if Christians would get away with the kind of demeaning and dismissive tone evident in these bill boards by the AHA.

Consider, first of all the timing of these ads, Christmas. Just about every year, the AHA runs its ads right during the Holy Season of Christmas and Chanukah. I would argue that this amounts to an intentional form of rudeness that the secular media would never accept in return from Christians.

Think, for example if, on “Earth day” (usually happens in April) Christians were to announce that, as far as we were concerned this had become an annoying celebration of the secularists, druids and others. And therefore we sought to ridicule their holiday by burning leaves, throwing trash around in public, or on our property, or turning all our lights on in protest. Perhaps too we might engage in personal ridicule on earth day, scoffing at them, calling them “tree huggers” and erecting posters encouraging people to kick a tree instead. It is unlikely we would be ignored by the media if we acted thus, on their special day, and ridiculed “Earth Day” and those who celebrate it. Rather we would be excoriated by the press and others for this.

And yet, many secularists and atheists rudely ridicule, mock and seek to put an end to our observance of Christmas. I am willing to engage secularists and atheists on matters of my faith, and I have done so on this blog. But acting, as many of them do, at the times of our sacred feasts is just plain rude, it is shameful behavior.

Next, note the ridiculing nature of the poster at the above right. The slogan equates faith in God with being childish and immature, as if faith in God were no different than “believing” in Santa Claus or some other imaginary friend, as little children do, who don’t know any better.

This dismissal of the belief in God as childish is insulting to the billions of people on this planet who DO believe in God. Belief in God is not childish, and God is not an “imaginary friend” for those of us who believe. I did have imaginary friends as a child, and I know the difference between what they where, and who God actually is. I am not stupid, and others who believe are not stupid, or childish, or immature.

I and others who believe, do so by the gift of faith and also because of the manifold evidence of God’s works and presence in our lives. I live in a world, that to my observation has obviously been designed and thus presents strong evidence of having a designer, that obviously has existence and thus has a source of that existence. Further, when I pray I am heard. I talk to the Lord every day, and I hear from him every day. I know and experience his presence in the depths of my soul, in deep contemplative experience, and in my daily life. And the Lord Jesus Christ is changing my life. His word and plan for my make sense to me, and have summoned me to a magnificent and joyful life. His gospel is a prophetic interpretation of reality that has have ordered my life and given meaning and explanations that comport with my lived experience. I have tested God’s promises and teachings in the laboratory of my own life and found them to be true.

Now an atheist or secularist is free to question me on any of this, and I understand that they doubt my experience or would what to explain it away. But the disrespectful nature of this AHA ad is rude and insulting. It presumes that I and others who believe are merely to be regarded as simpletons, clinging to childish notions and fairy tales. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am no fool, I am not a child, and God is not “an imaginary friend” to me. My life of faith is rooted in real experience and the manifold evidence of having tested God’s word, having found it true and wise, and seeing my life changed by God. I also have the lived experience of thousands of other acquaintances who believe, who know and encounter the Lord in their lives and experience his powerful presence.

There is also the lived experiences of billions of others, currently on this planet and those who have gone before who testify to the existence, presence and power of God in their lives.

Ridiculing all of us as simpletons, and implying that the ancient Catholic, Christian and Jewish faith amounts to no more than have “an imaginary friend is not only insulting and rude, it is uninformed. The intellectual, spiritual, liturgical, Scriptural and artistic legacy of the Judeo-Christian faith is both rich, and rooted in careful thought and balance. I would also add to this the many other great religious traditions on this planet. And while I do not agree with many of their fundamental tenants, the great contribution of these faith traditions to civilization and culture cannot be denied and should be respected.

Dismissing this great and rich tradition of faith and more than implying it is childish comes across as boorish, bigoted and unschooled.

Further the “pointed finger” supposedly representing God is also cartoonish, unbalanced and disrespectful to the great religious tradition. It is true that God does confront injustice, wrong-doing and sin in the Holy Scriptures I revere. But it is also true that those same scriptures teach and reveal that God creates everything in Love and provides for his children and creation. He is merciful and forgiving. He respects human freedom and summons us to follow him freely, not under compulsion. In his love he entered our world and joined his sufferings to ours, and repaired the ancient breach, reaching out a saving hand (not just a pointed finger) to all who take hold of it. The God I know and have personally met, loves immensely, and when he does seek to correct me, I experience it as an act of love just as the Scriptures assert (e.g. Hebrews 12). God has a passion to set things right in and for those whom he loves. Here too, the cartoonish simplification of God by the AHA is inaccurate and unschooled.

To summarize, the bill board, ad campaign of the American Humanist Association comes off as rude, boorish and bigoted. It steeps its message in a ridiculing notion and implication that billions of believers throughout this world and many more stretch back into time are nothing more than children who believe in an “imaginary friend.” The utter lack of respect for the rich cultural tapestry, careful intellectual tradition, and lived experience of billions of believers in this ad shows the AHA is little more than uniformed an unschooled in the traditions and faith they try to criticize. The timing, tactics and content of this bill board by the AHA show them to be far from the humanitarian principles they claim to promote.

There is nothing humanist or humanitarian in their ad at all. It is plain and simple, “Rude,” just plain rude.

July 18, 2010June 10, 2015

Concerning the Question of Evil and the Problem of Suffering

To me there are three kinds of atheists, in a broad sense. First there are the lazy ones who simply want little certainty. The trouble with certainty is that, once it is manifest, you have to take a position. They prefer the vague and uncertain. Then no commitments are necessary and life can be pretty well lived as I see fit. If there is no God then I am god. I will do what I want to do and I will decide what is right and wrong. This is the lazy atheist. They have little reason for their unbelief other than as a premise for doing what they please.

The second kind of atheist is the “intellectual” atheist who claims that there is no proof for the existence of God. They tend to be materialists in that everything that is real to them must be physical, touchable and physically observable and measurable. Science, which is the study of the physical and measurable is therefore (for them) just about the only validator of truth. Thus when they claim that there is no evidence for God they usually mean scientific evidence. It seems to me that they live in a rather narrowly described world as the though the physical was all that was real. Even what most of us call spiritual, concepts like love, justice, appreciation of beauty, longing, conscience, desire. These too get reduced by them to phenomena of the brain, brain mapping, anthropological archetypes and the like. But alas, their time may be running short as modern science and physics keep bumping up against and blurring the line between physics and metaphysics. Quantum isn’t as “clean” in its distinctions and is moving the discussion in very new directions. This second sort of atheist may be walking with his science into terra incognita very soon.

And then there is the troubled and dare I say, “thoughtful” atheist who does truly struggle with some aspect of God or religion and this struggle leaves them unsatisfied. All the answers of scripture and organized religions to their questions are somehow inadequate. The biggest single issue is the “problem of evil.” If there is a God who is omnipotent and omniscient how can he tolerate evil, injustice, and suffering of the innocent? Where is God when a young girl is raped, when genocide is committed, when evil men hatch their plots? Why Did God even conceive the evil ones and let them be born?

The problem of evil cannot be simply answered. It is a mystery. It’s purpose and why God permits it are caught up in our limited vision and understanding. The scriptures say how “all things work together for the good of those who love and trust the Lord and are called according to his purposes.” But how this is so is difficult for us to see in many circumstances. Anyone who have ever suffered tragic and senseless loss or observed the disproportionate suffering that some must endure cannot help but ask, why? And the answers aren’t all that satisfying to many for suffering is ultimately mysterious in many ways.

I have some respect for atheists of this third sort. I do not share their struggle but I understand and respect its depths and the dignity of the question. At the end of the trail of questions, often asked in anguish, is God who has not chosen to supply simple answers. Perhaps if he were our simple minds could not comprehend them anyway. We are left simply to decide, often in the face of great evil and puzzling suffering, that God exists or not.

As in the days of Job, we cry out for answers but little is forthcoming. In the Book of Job, God speaks from a whirlwind and He questions Job’s ability to even ask the right questions let alone venture and answer to the problem and presence of evil and suffering. In the end he is God and we are not. This must be enough and we must look to the reward that awaits the faithful with trust.

The final and most perplexing aspect of suffering is its uneven distribution. In America we suffer little in comparison to many other parts of the world. Further, even here, some skate through life strong and sleek, wealthy and well fed. Others suffering crippling disease, inexplicable and sudden losses, financial setbacks, and burdens. It is a true fact that a lot of our suffering comes from bad choices, substance abuse and lack of self-control. But some suffering seems unrelated to any of this. And the most difficult suffering to accept is that caused on the innocent by third parties who seem to suffer no penalty. Parents who mistreat or neglect their children, the poor who are exploited and used, caught in schemes others have made, perhaps it is corrupt governments, perhaps unscrupulous industries.

Suffering is hard to explain or accept simply. I think this just has to be admitted. Simple slogans and quick answers are seldom sufficient in the face of great evil and suffering. Perhaps when interacting with an atheist of this third kind, sympathy, understanding and a call to humility goes farther than forceful rebuttal.

A respectful exposition of the Christian understanding of evil might include some of the following points. Note, these are not explanations per se (for suffering is a great mystery) and they are humble for they admit of their own limits.

The Scriptures teach that God created a world that was as a paradise. Though we only get a brief glimpse of it, it seems clear that death and suffering were not part of the garden.
But even there the serpent coiled from the branch of a tree called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and EVIL. So even in paradise the mystery of evil lurked in minimal form.
In a way the tree and the serpent had to be there. For we were made to love. And love requires freedom and freedom requires choices. The Yes of love must permit of the No of sin. In our rebellious “no” both we and the world unravelled, death and chaos entered in. Paradise was lost and a far more hostile and unpredictable world remained. From this fact came all of the suffering and evil we endure. Our sins alone cause an enormous amount of suffering on this earth, by my reckoning that vast majority of it. Of the suffering caused by natural phenomenon this too is linked to sin, Original Sin, wherein we preferred to reign in a hellish imitation rather than serve in the real paradise.
This link of evil and suffering to human freedom also explains God’s usual non-intervention in evil matters. To do so routinely makes an abstraction of human freedom and thus removes a central pillar of love. But here too there is mystery for the scriptures frequently recount how God does intervene to put an end to evil plots, to turn back wars, shorten famines and plagues. Why does he sometimes intervene and sometimes not? Why do prayers of deliverance sometimes get answered and sometimes not? Here too there is a mystery of providence.
The lengthiest Biblical treatise on suffering is the Book of Job and there God shows an almost shocking lack of sympathy for Job’s questions and sets a lengthy foundation for the conclusion that the mind of man is simply incapable of seeing into the depths of this problem. God saw fit that Job’s faith be tested and strengthened. But in the end Job is restored and re-established with even greater blessings in a kind of foretaste of what is meant by heaven.
The First Letter of Peter also explains suffering in this way: In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7) In other words, our sufferings purify and prepare us to meet God.
Does this mean that those who suffer more need more purification? Not necessarily. It could also mean that a greater glory is waiting for them. For the Scriptures teach Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison(2 Cor 4:16-17) Hence suffering “produces” glory in the world to come. With this insight, those who suffer more, but with faith, will have greater glory in the world to come.
Regarding the apparent injustice of uneven suffering it will be noted that the Scriptures teach of a great reversal wherein many who are last shall be first (Mat 20:16), where the mighty will be cast down and the lowly exulted, where the rich will go away empty and poor be filled. (Luke 1:52-53) In this sense it is not necessarily an blessing to rich and well fed, unaccustomed to any suffering. For in the great reversal the first will be last. The only chance the rich and well healed have to avoid this is to be generous and kind to the poor and those who suffer (1 Tim:6:17-18).
Finally, as to God’s apparent insensitivity to suffering we can only point to Christ who did not exempt himself from the suffering we chose by leaving Eden. He suffered mightily and unjustly but also showed that this would be a way home to paradise.

To these points I am sure you will add. But be careful with the problem of evil and suffering. It has mysterious dimensions which must be respected. Simple answers may not help an atheist of this sort. Understanding and an exposition that shows forth the Christian struggle to come to grips with this may be the best way. The “answer” of scripture requires faith but the answer appeals to reason and justice calls us to humility before a great mystery of which we see only a little. The appeal to humility before a mystery may command greater respect from an atheist of this sort than pat answers which may tend to alienate.

Here is the video which got me thinking all this. I saw it over at Patrick Madrid’s Blog. He posted it as a reason why you shouldn’t let you kids watch MTV. I agree, don’t let them! But the video is a kind of cry to God from an atheist who is struggling with the problem of evil. Not every charge leveled in the video is fair but overall it illustrates well the problem of evil and suffering from an atheist perspective. It is not a view I share, but has one who has struggled alongside with some who have experienced appalling suffering and evil I cannot simply dismiss questions like those asked in this video. Another disclaimer, I have no idea who XTC is and have heard none of his other works. Posting this video amounts to no endorsement by me of any sort. It is not an easy video to watch.

July 19, 2009June 10, 2015

Finding God at the Sears Tower! (or) The Existence of God and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The History Channel has been running a series called Life After People It depicts what would happen to our cities and landmarks if all humans suddenly disappeared. As you might imagine, things tend to fall apart pretty quickly. What the series depicts rather graphically is the Second Law of Thermodynamics which is:

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

What? You might say! Well, consider a cup of hot coffee that is placed on the counter. Over time the coffee will lose its heat (this is entropy) until it returns to room temperature (equilibrium). It is not in the nature of a cup of coffee to keep its heat or to get even warmer unless acted upon but some outside factor such as man or strong sunlight etc. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the cup of coffee must follow it. Stated in a broader way, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and in particular entropy means that complex things tend to fall apart and go back to their basic elements without something outside them to maintain them. Lets illustrate this using an example you might see on the series “Life After People.”

We’re at the Sears tower in Chicago, one of the tallest buildings in the world. The massive building is like a small city with lots of complex systems that maintain it. It is January 1, 2010 and suddenly all humans disappear from the planet. In the first moments there is little difference to the building except an eerie quiet. Music still plays in the elevators and the escalators in the lobby move along. At 2:30 pm a small alarm goes off in the basement indicating to the boiler mechanic that the boiler needs a minor adjustment. But the boiler mechanic is not there. Heat slowly builds in the boilers and other alarms go off. But no one is there to hear or respond. The heat reaches a critical point by 3:30 pm and two major pipes burst spewing steam and boiling water. By 4:30 pm the boiler room has flooded to the point that several electrical panels short out causing a major portion of the building to lose power. In the building above the temperature begins dropping. Outside it is a frigid January day. As the sun sets mid afternoon, the once well lit and warm building descends into darkness and increasing chill. By 5:00pm the next day portions of the building near the external walls have begun to drop below freezing. Outside the temperature is hovering in the lower teens. Overnight the water in some of the pipes near the external walls begins to freeze. By noon the next day there is some thawing and then refreezing as the night temperatures drop. After several days of this pattern, several large pipes begin to break and water begins to flow freely in the upper floors and starts to leak out some of the window casements. The freezing and thawing begins to loosen some of the windows and, several months after man the glass starts falling to the streets far below. The building is now increasingly open to the weather and more and more the building suffers deterioration.

Well you get the point: Entropy is at work. This are falling apart and returning to their basic elements. In the months and years ahead rust and other corrosion will take a toll and the building will deteriorate to the point that it will begin to collapse. Finally, in the decades ahead complete collapse will have occurred and steel and rubble will be strewn all over State Street. In the centuries to come even the steel and rubble will return to dust and be overgrown by trees and forest. Without an indwelling intelligence and energy to maintain equilibrium, the Sears tower cannot stand. It looses its complexity and returns to the dust from which it came. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and particularly the principle of entropy illustrated.

But don’t you see, as the Sears Tower in Chicago needs Man, so the created universe needs God. Without God’s indwelling intelligence and maintenance, entropy would cause all kinds of disorder in the universe and ultimately failure. The complex systems of this world would fail and return to their basic elements without some outside force acting upon them. Even the atheists who so love to talk about evolution have to see that evolution, in a way, is the opposite, of entropy. The evolution of simple things into complex things cannot take place without an outside energy (and intelligence) causing it. Otherwise the Second Law of Thermodynamics is violated. A cup of coffee does not heat up on its own. The Sears Tower would not suddenly or even gradually appear out the earth as a fully functioning little city without a lot of outside energy and intelligence. It does not pertain to sand and rocks to evolve into steel and then take shape as a fully functioning building with plumbing, electricity and computers. For this to evolve takes energy and intelligence, some force from the outside to act upon it. The Sears Tower or a hot cup of coffee cannot explain themselves. Something outside of them must explain them. The atheists want you to think that all this order came it to existence by itself and organizes itself. Well if you can tell me how the Sears Tower could suddenly or even gradually come into existence all by itself as a fully functional building, I might start to believe the atheist and secularists arguments. But as it is I think it takes a lot more “faith” to believe the atheist arguments than simply to admit the obvious, that this world has order that resists entropy because it is designed and indwelt by God who sustains it. A cup of hot cannot explain itself or maintain itself something or someone from the outside does this. Our bodies are far more complex that even the Sears Tower. What caused entropy to reverse and for the complexity to evolve? It had to be something outside of and this world bound by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Maybe it’s God!

So here is my Argument for the Existence of God Based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics:

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time until it returns to equilibrium. (i.e. things tend to fall apart and return to their basic elements without someone or something to cause their evolution into more complex things or to halt their tendency to entropy)
But this world does manifest substantial complexity that manifests an evolution from the simple to the complex, a kind of reverse entropy.
Therefore this world must be acted upon by someone or something outside itself that orders it and pushes back entropy.
This someone or something we call God.