Apologetics

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Atheism on Trial

“Everything is Meaningless? Life is meaningless.” He argued. I paused and said, may I ask you, “How do you find meaning in that statement? Do you expect me to find meaning your statement? Are your words really meaningful?” And so the story begins…..
The story of C.S Lewis and Ravi Zacharias has some points of convergence which is very remarkable and important to the discourse of meaninglessness. Both personalities are very fine philosophers, while Lewis thrived and made significant contributions to Christian literature in the 20th century, Ravi understudied him and is also making significant contributions to Christian apologetics in the 21st century. Both men directly have connections with Oxford University. Lewis may be considered an elder brother to Ravi. Ravi birthed in India, Lewis was birthed in Britain but despite the gap between their origins, East and West, the question of meaning brought their stories together. Both personalities were staunch atheists at some points in their lives before Christ arrested them, both men witnessed at first hand the utter meaninglessness in a life without Christ. Whiles Ravi indeed attempted suicide because of his emptiness and despair with life at a point in time, Lewis struggled with meaning in his philosophical world view, atheism, skepticism and agnosticism. The point of convergence is the influence both personalities have made philosophically in our faith in Christ. They sought to pursue meaninglessness but realized it was meaningless. They both, were arrested by the author of meaning and given a new direction which brought meaning into their lives. Today Lewis is much celebrated for his contribution to the Christian literature and his sound philosophy. Ravi, even though still alive and has some years to go is still widely celebrated in some circles. These men were located by Jesus Himself and when Jesus locates you, he gives you meaning.
Let’s now take a look at the meaninglessness of the atheistic worldview in the light of the question of evil and suffering.

Atheism negates theism and so denies the existence of God. ‘Naturalism’ tries to describe everything in human experience exclusively through empirical inquiry in the sciences. So while the first clearly rejects God, the second finds the idea of God irrelevant, since God cannot be subjected to standard scientific inquiry. The fundamental difference between both the naturalistic and atheistic worldviews and the religious worldview is the moral framework. While a naturalist or an atheist may choose to be a moral person, their worldviews provide no compelling rational reason why one should not be amoral. Reason simply does not dictate here.
There are two approaches in addressing the atheist who claims there is no God. The first approach is to point out the self-defeating claim in his philosophy. Anyone who makes the bold claim, ‘there is no God’, is in fact saying that, he is all knowing as he has knowledge about all of history both past and future to have concluded that there is no God, all-powerful to have travelled throughout the entire universe to have come to the conclusion that there is no God anywhere in the universe. What such a person is actually saying is that, he or she is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, in essence he is God. In other words, this person maintains that he is a God, whiles denying the existence of a God anywhere in the universe. This is self-defeating. It is like saying, ‘I cannot utter a single word in English Language,’ whiles expressing this position using English Language. That is why the Psalmist, emphasized in Psalms 14:1a that, ‘the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.’
The underlying purpose is not only to expose the absurdity in the logic of the man who maintains there is no God. The purpose is to capture the entire being of that person for Christ therefore the need to go a step further in addressing his atheistic world view.
Whenever the question of evil is raised in this world, we then have to assume the reality of good. Now, once we agree to the existence of good and evil, we must as well posit a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. The question then becomes, who provides this moral law that serves as a yardstick to determine good and evil? Is it a result of evolution or a God? The Christian’s response is that, it is God. The question of evil in this world always points us to God. The atheist may argue that governments determine what is good and evil as stipulated in the constitution across nations, but the challenge with this position is that, how then do you question or find fault with the actions of a Hitler or a Stalin whose governments decided to commit all those atrocities in the name of racial purifications? Or how do you question governments that teach their young children that Israelis are pigs and must be slaughtered at all cost? How do you question the constitution of governments that recognise Jihad as a legitimate venture? Government decisions are always changing and so does the atheistic position. He again posits cultural evolution and argues that, morality is determined by man. The deficiency with this position is shown when one complains of injustice, if his neighbor considers it expedient to cannibalize him because of his own peculiar taste. On what basis is one society more evolved than the other? In light of this, the atheist quickly shifts position. He posits Utilitarism, ultimate good and happiness must inform one’s ethical outlook. So here again we ask, who determines what an ultimate good is? What is good? On what basis does one question the actions of Osama Bin Laden if morality is relative and man ultimately makes the rules and decides what is good for him? What is even wrong with murder, rape or cheating if the perpetuator ultimately feels good about it? Why is it wrong for ISIS to engage in something that ultimately gives them pleasure?
So in summary, “If there is no God, no divine lawgiver, then there is no objective moral law. If there is no objective moral law, then there is no real right and wrong. Right and wrong are just human customs and conventions that vary from society to society. Even if an entire society agrees to a code of conduct, they’re still just human inventions. Everything is permissible in this kind of society including murder, rape, homosexuality, adultery, cheating etc. The man who puts his trust not in God and neither believes in him has no reasonable justification as to why his brother must not live an amoral life. He has no point of reference. He is a ‘Self Made Man.' What a tragedy!!!
To better understand the atheistic worldview. It is important to understand attempts made by man to live in a society devoid of the hand of God. The foolish man believes that once God is ‘killed’ through human philosophy, he can live whatever life he prefers, accountable to no one. In fact Friedrich Nietzsche was audacious enough to declare that, ‘God is dead!!’ His brother in faith, Voltaire also took it a notch further when he pronounced that within a hundred years of his day the Bible would be a forgotten book. In a strange twist of irony, within a century of his death, one of Voltaire’s homes in France belongs to the Geneva Bible Society and serves as the place where Bibles are printed and distributed. The last time I checked Nietzsche and Voltaire have been dead and gone for a long time. It seems the Bible has as humorous way to mock its pallbearers. Read the full edition of this in my book Answers to Life’s foundational Questions. Click on my Amazon page below to order for a copy.

Written by
G. K. Sarpong
www.amazon.com/author/gksarpong

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