Emails to a Young Seeker: Exchanges in Mere Christianity

Exchange 1

Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?

Hello Prof,

A friend on campus mentioned that you believe in God and that you are a Christian. I hope you don’t mind that I’m e-mailing you. I’ve been thinking a lot about life and God lately, and I would like to ask you a few questions, again, if you don’t mind. Here goes . . .

I’ve heard some people talk about why they believe God exists, and I’ve heard others explain why they don’t believe God exists. I’m a little confused, because some who doubt the existence of God claim to be atheists while other doubters claim to be agnostics. What’s the difference? I have to admit that I’m not so sure where I stand on all this God stuff.

Sincerely,

Seeker

Dear Seeker,

Thank you so much for your e-mail, and I’m very happy that you chose to write me. I think issues of faith are vitally important to our lives, both materially on this earth and eternally in the afterlife, because I am convinced that this earthly existence simply is not all there is. I will do my best to answer your questions and point you toward other resources. Who knows where this will lead, but I hope we can have more exchanges, because there is much to discuss. But, I will leave that up to you. Whatever you would like to talk about is fine with me.

Your questions about atheism and agnosticism are important. By definition, atheism literally means no God, without God, or absence of God (a means without or the absence of, and theos means God). Therefore, in the strictest sense atheists claim there is no God. The problem, of course, is that a finite being (the atheist) cannot prove absolutely that there is no absolute being (God). Thus, atheism is untenable and self-defeating: you would basically have to be all-knowing to know that there is no all-knowing being like God. That is, you’d have to be God to know with absolute certainty that there is no God.

Because of this obvious logical problem, many atheists will claim that this is not the definition of atheism and, instead, will express a qualified position in which they say they really do not know for sure if there is a God or not (a form of agnosticism). Yet, since they think there isn’t enough evidence for God, they conclude by default there is no God. This is their revised definition of atheism, but it is equally poor reasoning. It places the burden of proof only on those who need to prove the existence of God and effectively bypasses the burden of providing arguments and evidence to sustain their claim that God does not exist. See the trick? Ultimately, such atheists (though not all, to be fair) express a view without having to substantiate the view and expect their opposition to do all the intellectual heavy lifting.

The more sincere and honest route is to claim agnosticism, which means to not know or to be without knowledge (a means without and gnosis means knowledge). Such people claim not to know. This is a very easy position to sustain, because all you have to prove is the fact that you don’t know. However, if a person is truly agnostic and doesn’t know either way, the question becomes: why is he or she coming down on the side of atheism? Why not just come down on the side of theism? If you truly don’t know either way, then you could just as easily be a theist as an atheist, no? Ah, but there’s the rub. Most so-called agnostics really don’t want there to be a God, because if they decide God exists, then they have to grapple with how this God would want his creations to live. That is, their problem with God’s existence is not so much intellectual as moral: they want to live the way they want without any higher moral authority telling them what they should and should not do. Yet, they know the logical problem of claiming pure atheism (as discussed above), so they try to sidestep the complexities by claiming agnosticism. I’m not sure this really helps them.

Saint Paul, who wrote the book of Romans (this is a letter he wrote to Christians in Rome around 56 AD and is found in the New Testament of the Bible), notes that the problem isn’t so much the absence of evidence but, rather, that people suppress or ignore the evidence that proves God does quite plainly exist: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse (Rom 1:18–20). Therefore, the issue of the existence or nonexistence of God is more a matter of will than reason, morality than intellect.

Note, too, that many agnostics will claim not to know or will assert the inability to know anything with certainty, yet they seem to know with certainty that they cannot know. I sometimes ask such skeptics why it is that they are so sure that they do know that they cannot know anything with certainty; and, why is it that in their lack of knowledge they seem to know for sure that they cannot know at least something about God? It’s rather self-defeating to claim to know with certainty that you cannot know anything for certain. Just making the claim of not knowing suggests we can know something, which then suggests we should be able to know something about the existence (or nonexistence) and nature of God.

There are plenty of reasons why some people believe in atheism, but I do not find these reasons to be compelling. I can understand having a degree of doubt rooted in a lack of knowledge. But, I do not believe there are good excuses for remaining in a state of ignorance, especially in our current age of information overload. Is it really reasonable to remain ignorant about such weighty matters and to just throw up your hands and be content with not knowing? For some people, I think it may be more an issue of fashion or preference—it’s cool to bask in ambiguity, some tell me, and others say that there is comfort in chaos and confusion. Ambiguity and confusion may be intellectually fashionable in some circles (particularly on university campuses), but at the end of the day, these perspectives are not comfortable, nor are they reasonable.

For example, if you were to discover that your car had been stolen, would you find it comforting if the police officer you called told you that you can never really know for sure if your car was actually stolen or if you ever really had a car to begin with? In your daily life, you want assurance of knowing certain things, like who stole your car and if it can be found or not. (No doubt your insurance company will want to know with certainty.) Simply put, skeptical agnosticism is plainly unlivable. Furthermore, remaining in ignorance about the existence or nonexistence of God isn’t intellectually honest or viable; there is no good excuse for not investigating the wealth of evidence that we do have. We may not be able to claim complete knowledge of God, but we can certainly claim sufficient knowledge. After my own extensive and sincere investigation of the evidence, I’m convinced that atheism is false and theism (the belief in the existence of God) is true.

Here are a few books that may help you start sorting through some of these issues more fully:

Geisler, Norman, and Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004.

Morris, Thomas V. God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Sproul, R. C. The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000.

Zacharias, Ravi. Can Man Live without God? Dallas: Word, 1994.

———. The Real Face of Atheism. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.

I hope this helps a bit. If you have more questions, then please do let me know. I enjoy discussing these issues, and I want to help you in your investigation of these questions.

Cheers,

Prof. Dave

Dear Prof,

Thank you so much for taking the time to address my questions. I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Actually, I was expecting you not to reply at all. Now, I’m wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. Ha ha. Seriously, though, you’ve given me a few ideas to chew on here, but I’m a bit uncomfortable with your saying you know some things are true and other things are false. I’ve been taught that there really is no such thing as truth, and I’ve been told that since we really can’t know anything very well we should avoid saying one person’s view is true while another person’s view is false. Can you please explain what you mean by true and false? Thanks.

Sincerely,

Seeker

Dear Seeker,

I can understand your hesitation, even shock, at my statements that some views are true and other views are false. It is common these days in schools and universities to teach a rather fuzzy notion of truth, and I find such instruction causes more confusion than clarity.

Let me begin answering your question by simply asking some questions back. I hope you don’t mind. You say you’ve been taught that there is no such thing as truth. Is what you have been taught true? You say you’ve been taught that you ought not to say that another person’s view is false. But, aren’t you basically saying that you think my view is false by disagreeing with me? You mention that you are not sure that we can really know anything with much certainty. However, aren’t you claiming to know something with a fair degree of certainty? (That is, you are claiming to know with certainty that you cannot know much of anything with certainty.)

Do you see where I’m heading here? For all of your good intentions of trying to avoid claiming any idea to be true or false, you are in fact making claims that you think are true, and you are implying that the views with which you disagree are false. You cannot escape truth and falsity. I think your deeper question is really this: how can we know what is true and what is false? Now, that is an important and meaningful question.

Let’s explore this question by looking at the example of different religions. There are many religions, like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, which teach various things about God. Though these systems agree that God exists, they do not fully agree with each other on the nature and character of that divine existence. Then, there are those religions and belief systems, like classical Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and atheism, which teach there is no God per se, and these systems also disagree concerning the nature of this divine nonexistence. So, how do we know which system is right?

We begin by acknowledging that, contrary to the view expressed by popular comparative religious studies, all religions do not teach the same thing about God. For example, Christianity teaches that Christ is God, and that he died on a cross and then rose from the dead; yet, Islam teaches Christ is not God and that he never died to begin with. Pantheistic religions teach that God is immanent (that is, God is in everything around us), whereas theistic religions teach God is not immanent but, instead, transcendent (different and separate from the created world). Some religions teach there is one life, then a judgment, then an afterlife; whereas other religions teach there are multiple lives and no final judgment. Some religions teach there is good and evil, while other religions teach that good and evil are but mere illusions.

Are you beginning to see how these are contradictory teachings, and thus they all cannot be true? To claim that contradictory statements are equally true violates a fundamental law of logical thinking called the law or principle of noncontradiction. This principle basically says that two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time in the same way. This is a fundamental rule of good thinking, and you cannot get around it. You can deny it, but in order to deny the law of noncontradiction you have to invoke it. That is, by denying the law of noncontradiction, you are basically saying that it cannot exist and not exist at the same time, or that this law cannot be both true and false at the same time, both of which are expressions using the law of noncontradiction. Think of it this way: by denying the validity of the law of noncontradiction, you are thus saying that it is true that the law of noncontradiction is invalid and it is false that the law of noncontradiction is valid. You have used the law of noncontradiction to claim that it is not a valid logical law to use. Thus by denying it, you have affirmed it.

Therefore, the opinions or perceptions of the truth taught by the different religions are all different and often contradictory, but they cannot all be the truth. If some religious claims are true, then those claims that are the opposite must be false. Notice that we are now back to your main question—how do we know what is true and what is false? How do we know whose truth is the correct truth? Skeptics say we cannot know the truth, but this is a self-defeating position (as I mentioned above), because by claiming we cannot know the truth, the skeptic makes a knowable truth claim. It basically says we cannot know the truth, while at the same time claiming truly to know that we cannot know the truth. You see how that is self-defeating? (Please forgive the professor in me: I realize I’m repeating myself a bit. Sometimes the repetition is necessary to finally realize the main point.) It seems, therefore, that we can know some