Unbelief
There are many diluted
souls of this age who in their ignorance (i.e. lack of quality knowledge)
profess that there is no God. To some, unbelief is a mark of intellectual
sophistication and they frankly contend that faith ought to be relegated
to the realm of superstition. Others, though not approaching that extreme,
feel that faith is, at least to a certain degree, unprovable. That it
is without the sort of basis that one might call reasonable; rather,
it is alleged to be a mystical experience, a "leap in the dark,"
the result of some better-felt-than-told subjective experience. Of course
there is really nothing new about this, but it is receiving more attention
these days than ever before.
I do not subscribe for a moment to either of these views. It is my
unflinching conviction that God exists, that he is our Creator having
endowed us with living bodies and rational minds. Further, I am equally
certain that our divine benefactor has provided adequate evidence
of himself which commends itself to the human mental faculty, so that,
upon a foundation of reasonable evidence, we may "believe that
he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that seek after him."
(Heb. 11:6)
The atheist claims simply that there is no God. The skeptic is not
so bold; he suggests that he simply "doubts" the Almighty's
existence. The agnostic shrugs his shoulders and pleads that he doesn't
know one way or the other. A deist professes to believe that there
is a God, but the God of his fancy is far removed from any interest
in man.
The Austrian psychopathologist Sigmund Freud taught that atheism
is a characteristic of the normal, well-adjusted mind. He felt that
faith in a supreme being was simply a hold-over of childhood fears,
hence, an adult abnormality. I do not hesitate to say that Freud's
theory is based upon preconceived assumptions resulting from anti-religious
bias. And the facts that oppose such may be developed along several
lines of reasoning.
First, a disposition to believe in some sort of supernatural power
is a well-established fact. The universality of this tendency argues
for its normalcy and not against it. In actuality, the very mental
phenomenon of believing appears to be a psychological necessity. Doctors
J. A. Mendelson and Wayne Oates conducted a nine-week study at the
Kentucky State Hospital. They made a study of religion in the lives
of 68 mental patients, and by far the largest group of several categories,
51.5%, "reflected an absence of religious influence in their
present thought and life activity..." Dr. Oates
concludes that "much that is called mental illness today is the
end result of a lack of wholesome moral education." Dr. Orlo
Strunk, Jr., affirms that the opinion that atheism is the "result
of deep and complex emotional problems - is undoubtedly true to a
great degree." (The Choice Called Atheism, p. 54)
There are several psychological factors which may pave the way for
unbelief. One of the most dangerous contributions a parent can make
toward the spiritual delinquency of a child is a failure to instill
within them a wholesome respect for authority. Another factor is an
unhealthy lust for power. This disposition sees God as competition,
hence, rejects him. A third motivation is the desire to be free of
moral restraint. Aldous Huxley, a professed and proud atheist in his
article "Confession of a Professed "Atheist" openly
admitted that he rejected belief in God and morality because he did
not want his sexual freedom hindered. The logic being: If there is
a God, I must be morally responsible to him. I will not be so restrained.
Thus, there is no God. Finally, for some, atheism is the result
of disappointment by someone who professed to be a devotee to God.
It is only realistic to recognize that a man is just a man and a fallible
man at that. It is folly to blame deity for the blunders of humanity.
There are many others. The bottom line is that one of the key reasons
why men refuse to accept the Christian faith is because the very principles
of their lives are in every way contradictory to the ethical principles
of the Bible, and, determined to remain in the lawlessness of their
own sensuality, they could not possibly embrace anything that could
get in the way of their selfish conduct.
In conclusion, I feel compelled to call attention to the atheist's
smug self-image of his totally "scientific" and rational
outlook. He or she feels that faith is irrational, and thus, allegedly
disassociates himself from such. The truth is, however, it actually
requires more faith, and that of an unreasonable variety, to accept
atheism than theism. The atheist does indeed have faith!
James D. Bales discusses some of the articles of faith in the atheist's
creed in his book, Communism: It's Faith and Fallacies. The following
is an adaptation of some of his points.
(1) Though the atheist cannot prove it, he believes that God does
not exist. "To know that God does not exist one would have to
know everything and to be everywhere, for the thing which he did not
know might prove God's existence. He would have to know all the causes
which have ever operated, for the one cause he did not know might
be God. The person who possessed such characteristics would be a god
himself! Thus an atheist, to be consistent, must be an auto-theist,
a self-God. There are no real atheists, only self-worshipping idolaters
who have deified their own beings. "The atheist cannot reverse
the argument and say that one must know all in order to have sufficient
reason to believe in God. Several lines of evidence show that it is
rational to accept God and irrational to reject God. We need to know
at least some of the evidence, but we do not need to know everything."
(2) The atheist ridicules the concept of an Eternal God, yet he himself
believes in the eternal existence of matter. His belief in the eternal
existence of matter is not only without reasonable evidence, it is
contrary to one of the best established scientific laws, the Second
Law of Thermodynamics, which demonstrates that the universe is "running
down" and hence had an origin. Likewise, it is much more reasonable
to believe that a Mind (God) produced matter, life, and human consciousness,
than to believe that matter created mind, consciousness, and intelligence.
(3) Atheist believe that life spontaneously arose from non-living
matter. Again, this is contrary to the evidence suggested by the Law
of Biogenesis which affirms that life can only come from pre-existing
life. The theory of spontaneous generation, as one unbeliever candidly
admitted, "is far from proven, and it is improbable that satisfactory
proof will ever be forthcoming." (Alford M. Elliott, Zoology,
p. 33)
(4) Atheists believe that the order and design found in nature are
simply the results of non-intelligent, non-conscious fate or chance.
"Atheists usually concede that there is at least 'apparent design'
and order in nature," which they attribute to irrational forces.
This is totally contrary to all our experience which reveals that
design is the result of intelligence.
(5) The atheist believes that consciousness evolved from a fortuitous
combination of non-conscious molecules. There is no proof for this
incredible view.
(6) The atheist believes that non-moral matter created man with a
moral sensitivity - a sense of obligation or duty. I appeal to your
good sense, does it seem reasonable to believe that primeval slime
could evolve into a morally sensitive man?
(7) The atheist, to be consistent, must believe that man is merely
a "matter-machine without any power of choice, and thus without
any real responsibility for his conduct. How could matter, regardless
of how refined it might be, decide between alternatives and be responsible
for that decision?!" When an atheist acts as if he were a morally
responsible being, he negates his own assertions.
(8) Atheist, if consistent, must beleive that all thought is irrational,
for it is all assumed to be the inevitable by-product of irrational
causes. According to atheism, mental processes are wholly determined
by the physical movement of atoms in the brain. A couple of years
back, I had a discussion with an atheist who contended that belief
in God was not reasonable since such belief was only the result of
a human brain that had evolved from matter. It had apparently never
occurred to him that if his reasoning was valid, the very atheism
he was urging me to accept, also was the product of an evolved brain
of pure matter and therefore unworthy of my consideration! Talk about
devastation to his argument. How strange it is that those who claim
the name 'rationalist' and maintain that theists are not rational,
should end up with a position which implies that all thought is irrational.
God is real not from the imaginations of those who believe but by
the very foundations of the earth in which we live. For the rational
mind, it is harder to prove the lack of God's existence than to prove
His existence. Science and biology cannot disprove God and in every
case, proves more of His existence to the studied mind who doesn't
get their information from the television. In any case of science
that attempts to support the position of evolution, a diligent individual
will find that everything from the geological timetable to every aspect
of the theory of evolution is based on supposition and baseless assumptions
wrapped into a meaningless formula.
May the Lord Our God be Glorified!
