1 Grappling With Atheism Chris Watkin chriswatkin@cantab.net christopherwatkin.com @DrChrisWatkin Introduction The two main ideas of the seminar up front 1. There is more than one way to grapple with atheism. 2. There is more than one atheism to grapple with. 1. Fighting fires 1: There is more than one way to grapple with atheism The atheist says that religion is the source of war and conflict: we need a response to that. The atheists says that Christianity is misogynistic or anti-gay: what are we going to say in reply? Evaluation: + scratches where atheists are itching intellectually + equips Christians with helpful ways of thinking about the sort of questions that circulate in conversation and in the media - Atheists set the agenda - Christianity is always on the back foot - It can just lead to more questions and not advance the debate in any meaningful way - You never get an overall view of Christianity 2. Finding common ground For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)
2 Evaluation: + More bridge-building, at least at first and shows people that the gospel meets them where they are at + In its 1 Corinthians 1 guise it is more pro-active than fighting fires, leading to the heart of the gospel message - Easy for people to mistake the gospel for just another way of meeting their felt needs - In its worst form it is apostasy 3. Storming fortresses By what standard, where are you standing when you make the claims that you do? You're borrowing from the Christian faith in order to attack the Christian faith. 1 Begging the question like a champion, Dawkins simply assumes what he needs to prove. The Zeitgeist is doing good things as long as it is moving in a progressive direction. But how on earth are we supposed to define progress? [quoting Dawkins] The Zeitgeist may move, and move in a generally progressive direction, but as I have said it is a sawtooth and not a smooth improvement, and there have been some appalling reversals. Appalling reversals? By what standard? A generally progressive direction? By what standard? Improvement? By what standard? The standard for how fast and in what direction the car should go cannot be how fast and in what direction the car is currently going. The car is not a map. An internal combustion engine is not a map. But Dawkins dismisses all of this with a facile look at us go. 2 Evaluation: + Often, people are not willing to hear a position other than their own before they sense that the ground on which they stand may not be as solid, self-evident and common-sensical as they had always assumed. Storming the fortress sometimes shakes people out of their certainty and opens them to hear other positions. - This way of grappling with atheism need not mention Jesus or the gospel at all; it can come over as a very negative way of proceeding: confrontational not inspirational. 1 http://hitchensdebates.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/hitchens-vs-wilson-kings-college-post.html 2 Doug Wilson, The Deluded Atheist: A Response to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2008) 57.
3 4. Setting out our stall Evaluation: + It is not limited to just one sort of atheism. + You can get everything out on the table. + It is well balanced. + It can explain atheism itself within the story of Christianity. If theology no longer seeks to position, qualify or criticize other discourses, then it is inevitable that these discourses will position theology: for the necessity of an ultimate organizing logic [ ] cannot be wished away. 3 - Takes more time. Paul and Augustine: master grapplers Grappling with the different ways of grappling Paul setting out his stall in Acts 17: the Bible s structure and story. 4 Structure: What reality is like, its fundamental building blocks and how we can know about them. Story: Where history is going. How the structure plays itself out through time. The structure and story of the bible: John 1:1-18 3 John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) 1. 4 The terms structure and story are adapted from Al Wolters Creation Regained. Wolters, following the Dutch Calvinist philosopher D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, prefers structure and direction.
4 The bible s structure Personhood Relationship Unity and diversity values Revelation The bible s story Salvation/emancipation from failure to know (Jn 1:10) and receive (Jn 1:11) Christ To a new restored intimate relationship with our Creator and Redeemer.
5 2: There is more than one atheism to grapple with The atheist s hopping tactic Imitative and ascetic atheism. 5 The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off again on the other side. One can't help him, no matter how one tries. He wants to be the devil's. 6 Imitative atheism [very broadly: New Atheism] Imitative atheism takes something from the created universe and tries to put it in the place of God (as the thing that provides a standard of truth, a source of knowledge, or ethical principles). We no longer have to resort to superstition when faced with the deep problems; Is there meaning to life? What are we for? What is Man? After posing the last of these questions, the eminent zoologist G. G. Simpson put it thus: The point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer the question before 1859 are worthless and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely [ ] 5 In his address Augustinian Christian Philosophy the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga uses two similar but not identical names: perennial naturalism and creative anti-realism. See https://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/augustinian_christi an_philosophy.pdf 6 Martin Luther, Table Talk #630 (1533). Luther-Werke vol. 54, p. 111.
6 Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do. 7 Ascetic atheism [very broadly: postmodernism] This form of atheism is ascetic because it denies itself any God substitute. It seeks to put nothing in the empty place of God. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? 8 7 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) 1,3. 8 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 119-20.
7 The emancipation narratives of imitative and ascetic atheism For Dawkins sort of imitative atheism, we emancipate ourselves from superstition and enter into the pure light of reason. For the Nietzschean sort of ascetic atheism, it is the very proliferation of different meanings and ideas that becomes normative: diversity in itself becomes a value. Suppose we think of a man made of water in an infinitely extended ocean of water. Desiring to get out of water, he makes a ladder of water. He sets this ladder upon the water and against the water and then climbs out of the water only to fall into the water. So hopeless and senseless a picture must be drawn of the natural man s methodology based as it is upon the assumption that time or chance is ultimate. On his assumption his own rationality is a product of chance. On his assumption even the laws of logic which he employs are products of chance. The rationality and purpose that he may be searching for are still bound to be products of chance. 9 So what? Recognize who we are grappling with Recognize how we are grappling at the moment Think about how we should be grappling Train the church to recognize the biblical structure and story 9 Van Til, C., & Edgar, W. (2003). Christian apologetics (2nd ed.). The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ.
8 Discussion questions Of the four ways of grappling with atheism, which do you think the church in Australia today is best at, and where is it weakest? What should we do about that? How would you explain the distinctives of the biblical structure and direction to a) a Christian friend, b) an unbelieving friend? With which sort of atheism do we most have to do in Australia today? How, practically speaking, can we better set out our stall? Further Reading Fighting fires Greg Koukl, Tactics Finding common ground Tim Keller, The Reason For God Tim Keller and Ed Clowney, Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World (on itunesu) Storming fortresses Augustine of Hippo, The City of God G. K. Chesterton, Heretics G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man John Frame lectures on itunesu Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture Blaise Pascal, Pensées Richard Pratt, Every Thought Captive Francis Schaeffer, The Francis Schaeffer Trilogy Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith Cornelius Van Til lectures on itunesu Doug Wilson, The Deluded Atheist Setting out our stall Augustine of Hippo, The City of God G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Alvin Plantinga, Augustinian Christian Philosophy, available at https://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/planti nga_alvin/augustinian_christian_philosophy.pdf Al Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview General Reading D. A. Carson, Christ and Culture Revisited
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