8. Dealing with Atheism, continued...

Dealing with Atheism, continued...

This is the eighth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

This is a continuation of the previous post. In the last few posts, I described how the religion of my youth had taught me that science was the enemy of faith. I was taught to believe that evolution was an evil idea invented by Satan to lead people into atheism. It was beginning to look like they were right. I had discovered the overwhelming evidence for the truth of evolution, and was terrified of the implications. If evolution was true, then my faith in God must be a silly case of wishful thinking.

The fourth phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is that of transition. The first part of my transition phase involved dealing with atheist arguments that had caused my faith to diminish to a tiny ember. In my last post, I discussed two of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In this post I'll discuss what I see to be the main flaw in atheist Richard Dawkins' view of God, and then deal with a problem I mentioned in a previous post about the lack of evidence for God's action in the world.

3. Dawkins' picture of “god” is naturalistic, not supernatural

One thing that strikes me as I read Dawkins' anti-religious writings is that Dawkins seems to be completely stuck with a picture of a god that is totally within nature. I didn't notice it in my first reading of The God Delusion, but it becomes more obvious to me every time I read or hear him speak. This was an important element of my transition; I deliberately approached subjects that I had a one-sided knowledge of and balanced out my familiarity with both sides of each argument.

As I said; Dawkins's view of god seems to be that of a god who is within nature. This is important, because almost every one of his scientific arguments against the existence of God assumes a god that is within nature. It is easy to see why: a God outside of nature is not within the purview of science.

Take this quote from Dawkins in this debate with Alister McGrath; notice how he constantly invokes the “probability” of God's existence:

"When you say god didn't come into existence but was always there, I find that not really very helpful because suppose I go back to my problem of explaining the eye; it would be no kind of answer to say "oh, well the eye was always there", it would still be something that requires explanation in the sense that anything statistically improbable does. So I don't think you can't get away with it with an eye, and I don't really see why you can get away with it with God." [21:14]

And just a few minutes later:

“Everybody agrees intuitively that the eye is far too improbable to have suddenly jumped into existence, and I want to say the same about God, and you don't and I don't understand why not...”

An eternal, supernatural God doesn't make sense to Dawkins, because for him, everything must be explained naturally. This can be seen by his insistence on comparing God with an eye: He requires the same kind of (scientific) explanation for God that he requires for an eye. He sums up this belief quite succinctly when he states:

“Any entity, any being, capable of designing a universe, or an eye, or a knee, would have to be the kind of entity which would be statistically improbable in the same kind of way as the eye is.” (emphasis mine)

This is a classic case of begging the question:

1) It's very improbable for natural causes to give rise to a being capable of creating the universe.
2) Therefore, God does not exist.

Dawkins' implicit assumption is that any god must exist within nature. He then bases the rest of his argument on this assumption. This is circular reasoning and complete nonsense. The Christian God exists outside of nature, and therefore it is nonsense to speak of the probability of His existence. The god that Dawkins argues against has nothing in common with the Christian God.

4. Divine Action: God as “The Great Delegator?”

In a previous post I mentioned one of the most significant challenges to my faith is the difficulty I experience in perceiving God's action in my life. This is a problem I still struggle with today, but McGrath provided me with some insights that help the situation considerably.

For instance, in the same interview I mention above, McGrath discusses this matter with Richard Dawkins. When discussing God's part in the September 11 terrorist attacks, McGrath states:

"Why didn't God just take the steering wheel [of the terrorist's plane] and change things? Well, that has been a constant issue down the ages as you well know. Christians understand God to have made the world in a certain way that is like a framework, but does not actually intervene. Of course the classic example of this the crucifixion. People were screaming at Jesus: 'If there is a God, why doesn't he just take you away from here?' That reminds us that we are dealing with a God that does not intervene directly in the world as we might hope." [47:40]

So God apparently prefers to delegate his action to creation itself; His activity in the world happens almost exclusively through natural causes. I didn't quite grasp this concept while I was initially dealing with the atheist proposition, but later it resonated with me because it fit perfectly with my experience. The concept of God as “The Great Delegator” sowed the seeds that eventually grew into an understanding of a God who is constantly creating through natural processes (evolution). This concept was simultaneously a defense against atheism and an introduction to the God who created evolution.

Unfortunately, this problem is not completely solved. A God who delegates His action to his creation can explain the lack of His obvious action in our world. But most Christians, including McGrath, claim that God does intervene in the world. In their discussion, McGrath states that if one child were spared in a devastating earthquake (while thousands of others perished) God could be seen as intervening to save the child. Dawkins points out the inconsistency of this position:

“What worries me is the inconsistency of what you just said when when I asked you whether God saved that one child... Sometimes you say that God doesn't intervene, (and you make a very eloquent case for why it would be a rather undignified thing to do as a God.) On the other hand you say He does intervene when He rescues one child from a earthquake.”

In a sense Dawkins is saying “Which one is it! Does he intervene or doesn't he?” I think Dawkins has a point here. Sure, God is free and able to intervene in one case and delegate in another, but for us to conveniently invoke God's intervention in this way is a pathetic case of theological cherry-picking. We really don't have a leg to stand on.

I think one possibility for obtaining a consistent picture of God's action centers around the extent of His involvement in the creation of natural laws. The word “design” has undesirable connotations in this context, but bear with me: What if God has so intricately designed the natural laws so as to bring about his purposes in both types of situations? What if God set up natural laws so as to save the child from the earthquake in what only seems like a miraculous way? This suggests a God in control of his creation in a completely different way; the laws of nature truly become the hand of God acting in our lives. It's hard for my finite mind to imagine, but I think this only amplifies the wonder of God and His creation.


So in conclusion: Atheistic ideas had dealt a serious blow to my faith, resulting in a seemingly perpetual state of doubt. With the help of the writings of people like Allister McGrath, I dealt with this problem by first realizing that both atheism and belief in God were faith positions. I decided to choose faith in God, regardless of my feelings about whether or not that faith was real. I saw that atheists like Richard Dawkins presupposed God's non-existence, and this could be seen in their main arguments for their position. Furthermore, my view of God was altered significantly with the observation that He seems to act almost exclusively through natural causes, and these causes could be so intricately designed so as to bring about events that are both mundane and incredible. This matched up well with my every-day experience. Finally, I was left with the resolution that my faith, whatever would become of it, would cease to be real unless it deliberately incorporated all the evidence from all credible sources.

In the next post, I'll continue discussing my transition phase by describing how I dealt with the remains of Young Earth Creationism that still lingered in the corners of my mind.

7. Dealing with Atheism

This is the seventh in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Dealing with Atheism

As I described in the last few posts, disembedding from my YEC roots was pretty thorough. I had learned a lot about evolution, and was completely convinced of its veracity, despite being taught as a youth that it was an idea invented by the Devil. I believed in an old earth, and and old universe. I was frustrated and confused because I had been taught (and still believed) that Genesis clearly stated that the universe was created in six days.

I had adopted old earth creationism as a sort of stop-gap, but this also crumbled under the weight of new scientific knowledge and devastating atheistic ideas. Suggestions by atheist writers had been devastating to my faith, and I couldn't shake the thought that all my religious beliefs were just a sad case of wishful thinking. Was I just hanging on to God because I would loose my friends, marriage and parent's love?

In Roxbaugh's description of paradigm change, the fourth stage is "Transition". My transition stage involved dealing with four different things: atheism, young earth creationism, the people in my life, and the science-faith conflict. I'll describe how I dealt with each of these in separate posts. Each of these happened simultaneously, but I will discuss them sequentially to avoid total confusion.

Dealing with Atheism

As I mentioned in my previous post, atheist suggestions (particularly those coming from a scientific perspective) had a significant affect on my languishing faith. One of the most outspoken atheists is of course, Richard Dawkins. Young Earth Creationists do a terribly poor job at defending against Dawkins' attacks, resorting to their typical tactics: quote-mining, red herrings, and ignoring Dawkins' actual points. As a result, I was surprised when I encountered the writings of Allister McGrath.

Two of McGrath's books, Doubting and The Dawkins Delusion, were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. McGrath approaches Dawkins intelligently from a scientific perspective, acknowledging the value that scientific inquiry and reason can have to the conversation.

An even greater help was a debate between McGrath and Dawkins, which can be seen here. Watching this for the first time was rather poignant for me; I was overcome with relief and hope as I watched McGrath engage in an actual conversation instead of the usual circus I had constantly seen from YECs.

I'm going to discuss several main ideas that were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. Some of these come from McGrath's body of work as a whole, some are more general. I'll give references where I can.

1. The faith of atheism

The main, over-arching problem with atheism, at least for me, is that it is just as much a matter of faith as is any religious faith. Evidence and reason are vital, of course, but at some point the usefulness of evidence and reason come to an end, and we are left with a choice. McGrath describes this in Doubting:

“[W]hen anyone starts making statements about the meaning of life, the existence of God or whether there is life after death, they are making statements of faith. You can't prove, either by rational argument or by scientific investigation, what life is all about. Whether you are Christian or atheist, you share the same problem.” Doubting, p.34

McGrath goes on to explain that doubt is not something that only Christians are vulnerable to: Atheists themselves are in the same situation. They doubt too.

It really came down to a choice: Would I have faith that God exists and wants a relationship with me, or would I choose to have faith that He does not exist? A third option, to continue to dwell in indecision, was also possible. But I had wallowed in indecision for so long. My soul was rotting away, and there wasn't much left.

At one point I read Phillip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God. While I wouldn't recommended it to anyone in a similar situation, it did make this point very clear to me. I had to choose. In his book, Yancey quotes Thomas Merton on the importance of this choice:

"How shall we begin to know who You are if we do not begin ourselves to be something of what You are?" asks Thomas Merton. "We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act: we act, then see. . . And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey."

I definitely did not see clearly, and this is why I was finding it hard to act. God was not real to me, and previous efforts to change this had proven futile. But it was clear to me that I needed to make a choice, and act on that choice. At that time, this was all the farther I took this idea.

As of the moment I write this, I am still discovering what that all means, but I do know that Merton was right. He suggests that the more completely we give ourselves to God, the more real he will become to us. In a way, this is blatantly obvious. But it's also a strange way for God to convert new believers, isn't it? I think it shows just what kind of people with whom God wants a relationship. And it reveals a little bit of His character; he seems to want us to come to him on our own accord; He will not impress us or bully us into a relationship. In a way, He's kind of shy.

Note: I've discussed the subject of God's silence in a previous post.

2. Making sense of things

McGrath makes another suggestion that became quite important to me. He suggests that one of the basic goals of faith is to try to make the most sense of things; to try to explain our experiences and convictions in the most complete and internally consistent way possible.

This concept may sound strange, depending on ones religious background. It sure sounded foreign to me at first. I had been raised to be content with mysteries and unknowns, so burdening religious experience with the task of explaining “everything” sounded almost sacrilegious. But I think this is right at a very basic level. Deciding that God definitely doesn't exist would solve some of the problems I had been struggling with, but leaves others open and unsolved. (I do exist, after all...) Faith, (especially Christianity) attempts to answer more of these questions more consistently.

McGrath, (in his debate with Dawkins) when discussing whether faith is rational, says:

"Evidence takes us thus far, but then when it comes to deciding between a number of competing explanations, it is extremely difficult to have an evidence driven argument for those final stages. I believe faith is rational in the sense that it tries to make the best possible sense of things. But in the end it has to move beyond that, saying: Even though we believe this is the best way of making sense of things, we can't actually prove this is the case.” (at 4:58)

So an element of faith is the process of dealing with the evidence, and trying to make sense of it all. This appealed to me, since the religion I grew up with had completely ignored (intentionally or not) a lot of the evidence. I was at a point where any faith I chose to act upon must include (and integrate) all the evidence. ALL the evidence.

These are just a couple of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In the next post I'll discuss two final ideas that helped increase my doubts about the faith of atheism, and enabled me to make a choice to pursue a faith that incorporates all the evidence.

6. Four Tough Problems

This is the sixth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.


Four Tough Problems

In the previous post I described how my faith lost the battle with science and atheism. The dichotomy had been set up and reinforced since I was a child: Either my faith is real, or evolution is real. I was taught evolution was evil, and when I discovered that it was probably true, my faith went up in smoke.

I'd like to mention a few of the most significant problems that I struggled with in this period of my transition.

The Anthropic Principle

In my first post on this disembedding phase, I described how a large part of my confidence in old earth creationism came from the incredible amount of fine tuning evident in the universe. As I described, this ended up being a significant chink in my armor.

The anthropic principle (when adopted by creationists) states that the properties of the universe appear to be fine-tuned by God to be perfectly suited to support life. This argument is actually quite stunning. There are hundreds of physical constants and properties that, if changed only slightly, would not allow life to exist. God custom made our universe for us! Case closed, right?

Not really. The ironic fact is that the anthropic principle is actually the most easily dismissed argument for God. It's really quite simple: With all the millions of galaxies, stars, and planets in the universe, if life is going to arise, it will happen on the planet with the right conditions, orbiting at the correct distance from its star, in the galaxy with the right conditions for life to arise. In short, we are here because the conditions are right for us to be here. As Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time:

"Why is the universe the way we see it? The answer is simple: If it had been different, we would not be here."

The Demystification of the Universe

Scientific explanations can take the wonder out of God's creation. A sunset can loose some of its splendor when one learns that it is due to particles in the air. It's easy to see why science has become the enemy of many Christians: God seemingly has less to do when he is not painting sunsets. [Pardon my sarcasm]

In the 1600s, while Kepler was developing his laws of motion, the motion of the planets around the sun was explained by angels beating their wings in toward the sun. Today, we don't need to invoke spiritual beings to explain many of the phenomena we experience.

In the words of Stephen Weinberg, in Dreams of a Final Theory:

"Once nature seemed inexplicable without a nymph in every brook and a dryad in every tree. Even as late as the nineteenth century the design of plants and animals was regarded as visible evidence of a creator... Today, for real mystery, one has to look to cosmology and elementary particle physics. For those who see no conflict between science and religion, the retreat of religion from the ground occupied by science is nearly complete."

Or, in the words of Stephen J. Gould:

“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”

Every time I learned something new about the universe, my faith became smaller. This is predictable, for when science is painted as the enemy of faith, new and exciting information about our world is credited to Satan, and against God.

Belief & Wishful Thinking

This third issue is a little more personal. As I said in my last post, I had always struggled with my faith, it hadn't felt real to me since high school, and that seemed like ancient history. At one point, I remember sitting in a Sunday School class at my church where our pastor asked the question: “Why do you believe in God?” One by one, each and every person who answered said something equivalent to “I believe in God because I have a relationship with Him.” I had never had a relationship with God.

I was raised in a Bible church with a strong Calvinistic theology, so I was familiar with the teaching that God chooses those whom He wants to be his “elect”, i.e. whom He wants to save. This teaching says that no one is able to believe in Him unless God himself gives them the ability to believe. The thought had come to my mind many times: Is is possible that I am simply not elected by God? Does He simply not want me? Could belief be something that I am just not capable of? I surely wanted to believe, but was finding it harder and harder to do so. I repeatedly begged God to give me faith. When it didn't come, Weinberg's words in Dreams of a Final Theory rang loud and clear:

“The decision to believe or not is not entirely in our hands. I might be happier if I thought I were descended from the emperors of China, but no effort of will on my part can make me believe it, any more than I can will my heart to stop beating.”

Richard Dawkins echoed this thought in The God Delusion when discussing the claim by Christians that we just need to “Believe in Jesus” to be saved. He responded to this by saying “What if I don't believe? Does God want a bunch of fakers?” [a paraphrase]

It seemed like my faith came down to a simple case of wishful thinking. I had a lot to lose: Most of my good friends were from our church, and while I'm sure they would still love me as an atheist, it surely would ruin many relationships. My family would be devastated, and who knew if my marriage would survive. Not to mention the promise of life after death! I certainly had an abundance of reasons to continue “believing” even if I was a faker.

Weinberg captured this thought in the single most devastating passage of any I have read:

“Unlike science, religious experience can suggest a meaning for our lives, a part for us to play in a great cosmic drama of sin and redemption, and it holds out to us a promise of some continuation after death. For just these reasons, the lessons of religious experience seem to me indelibly marked with the stamp of wishful thinking.”

Divine Action

The final issue I'll discuss is the problem of divine action. Christianity teaches that God is intimately involved in our lives, from moment to moment. This is one of the reasons prayer is important, since it can affect the course of our lives.

My problem was that I did not see this action in the world. Do not get me wrong! I had (and have) been blessed in so many awesome ways; My wife is incredible and custom made for me, my closest friends are truly gifts from God, and my family was just starting to grow with the birth of my daughter. The problem was that I could usually see the cause and effect relationships that lead up to God's supposed action. The world looked as if God wasn't doing anything. Anything anyone claimed to be “of God” or an answer to prayer was easily explainable by its natural causes. This is okay, if God is said to act only through nature, but it seemed incompatible with a God who does specific things; a God who is intimately involved with our lives.



So, these are just a few of the issues and ideas I struggled with toward the end of my disembedding phase. By this point, young earth creationism was gone. My faith was all but gone. Disembedding was complete.

The next phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is transition. In the next post, I'll discuss how I tried to make sense of everything I've discussed so far. First, I'll talk about what happened when I shared my struggle with those close to me, and then I'll share my experience as I tried to reconcile my faith and scientific knowledge.

5. A Bit of Light Reading

This is the fifth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.


A Bit of Light Reading

In the process of paradigm change, the third phase (according to Roxburgh) is disembedding. He describes this phase as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my disembedding process began by shedding my long-held beliefs in a young universe/earth in favor of old earth creationism. This included extensive reading of Hugh Ross' books which left me with a significant interest in cosmology and theoretical physics. I began to read books on these subjects and was fascinated by this new window in to the world.

Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything really kicked things off for me. It was an incredible description of the unfolding of the universe, from the very beginning to this very moment. It gave me an appreciation for the process of science, and helped me understand not only what science says about the history and operation of the universe, but how we figured this stuff out. It helped to whet my appetite for more.

Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell was next. I was awed by his description of the beginnings of the universe and the nature of time. Brain-bending concepts like supergravity, supersymmetry, p-branes and imaginary time were fun to tackle and I was surprised at Hawking's ability to explain these complex ideas so accessibly.

Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! made me want to become a theoretical physicist. Its informal character stood in stark contrast to Hawking's books, but Feynman made the process of pursuing authentic knowledge seem so interesting and important. This, along with another book, Feynman's Rainbow, helped me understand that one can make profound advances in science without leaving ones desk.

I also read a bit more on evolution: Richard Dawkins' spectacularly written story, The Ancestor's Tale traces our ancestry from the present to the past, in an incredibly compelling survey of the theory of common descent. Also, Stephen J. Gould's essays in Evolution and Extinction were vital in understanding some of the nuances of natural selection, speciation and punctuated equilibrium.

Steven Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory blew my mind. Half-way through I was ready to pack my bags and head back to grad-school to become a particle physicist. I loved the idea that it might be possible to finally join the worlds of quantum physics (which I had studied in grad school) with cosmology (in which I was beginning to dip my toes) into one complete theory of everything.

Okay, I'm leaving something out. All this exploration of ideas that were previously deemed outright wrong across the board had brought me to the conclusion that I had been duped. The wool had been pulled over my eyes. I now saw that the universe was utterly ancient, and it was fascinating. This previously forbidden territory had opened up countless avenues of exploration, and each one I ventured down turned out to be more exciting and compelling than the next. But there was a profound and dire problem that I had yet to face: I had been taught that all of this was a lie; each exciting detail was in some way a deception perpetrated by Satan. Either the entire picture of the universe that had been painted for me was false in every detail, or my faith in God was a total sham. These two armies had become firmly entrenched in my mind, and it was only a matter of time before the battle would begin.

It didn't turn out to be much of a battle. My faith didn't put up much of a fight.

The first significant blow to my faith came from the final chapter of Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory entitled What About God?. In it, he discusses the implications of the search for a theory to describe everything on the existence of God; generally answering the question of whether the final theory will say anything about God, or even prove or disprove His existence. I'll discuss specific ideas in my next post, but I remember spending my lunch hour in the parking lot at my work, devastated by the feeling that my faith was gone. I remember talking myself through the steps that would be required to break the news to my friends and family. It wasn't pretty.

Well, feelings come and go, and apparently so does faith. I regained my composure, walked back into work, and proceeded to live my life. I continued to go to church with my wife, and existed in a state of denial for a while.

I should note that faith had never worked very well for me. I had never developed much of a relationship with God. My personal Bible reading and prayer time had always been boring and seemed pointless. It's easy to see why the battle was almost over before it began.

Curiosity made me pick up The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. [You should be hitting your forehead with your palm right about now...] Although Dawkins' tone was quite off-putting and condescending, I still got his message: I was raised by Christian parents, so I was a Christian. I want God to exist to make myself feel better about death. My faith is wishful thinking, nothing more.

At about the same time I read Bertrand Russell's Religion & Science and Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Both reinforced the conclusion I was quickly reaching: My faith was a sham. I was a fake. Faith had never worked for me because it wasn't true! I knew science was right, and Christianity was wrong. Evolution made sense; I saw it everywhere I looked. I was forced to choose between science and God. Science seemed so real. God seemed so fake.

In my next post, I'll finish describing the disembedding phase of my transition from YEC to evolutionist. I'll discuss a few of the specific problems that really bothered me in the reading I described above, especially those which became significant in the later phases of this transition.

4: To Old Earth Creationism via Clark's Gully

This is the fourth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.


To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

Roxburgh describes the third phase of paradigm change, disembedding, as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my confidence in Young Earth Creationism took a huge hit when I heard creationist Kent Hovind make a fool of himself in a radio debate with evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci. This bothered me considerably, and was enough to overpower my comfortable ignorance and begin looking into the evidence for creationism.

A more profound effect of the rupture of these long-held beliefs was a heightened interest in the world around me. The new possibility of great age was enough to turn an ordinary rock from boring into fascinating.

My wife and I both grew up in Michigan, and we frequently travel between upstate New York and western Michigan. Each trip brings us over the Niagara Escarpment, a raised ridge that is prominent along the QEW expressway in Ontario. The Niagara Falls is also along our travel route, a feature which occurs where the Niagara river flows over the escarpment.

YECs believe that all the geological features of the earth came about as a result of Noah's flood, a theory which they call "flood geology". That had always seemed a little incredible to me: How could this massive step in the earth's crust be selectively carved or deposited by a big flood? How would that same flood deposit the layers into which the escarpment is carved? Even so, I had never had a reason to question these claims.

The new discontinuity in my YEC beliefs prompted me to look up the geological explanation for the Niagara Escarpment. I just couldn't drive up and down along it without knowing how it might have really been formed. I learned that it is the edge of an ancient sea; The remains of microscopic animals that lived in this sea had formed a layer of hard limestone, which has since eroded more slowly than the surrounding rock. Now that made a whole lot more sense. And it was pretty neat.

Also at this time, I had begun to take frequent hiking trips to the gullys that pepper the slopes of the finger lakes region of upstate New York. My favorite was a gully on the south side of Canandaigua lake called Clark's Gully. This is an incredible place. From an unmarked trail, a short 5-minute hike over huge boulders is rewarded with a view up a modest 30-foot waterfall. The sides of the gully rise sharply on both sides, cutting off access to all but the most intrepid. Those willing to climb up the slippery waterfall, or take the "long way" and trek up the steep slope around the gully are rewarded with an incredible array of features; Steep, ribbed cliffs line each side, while huge mossy boulders are placed in strategic positions as if by an interior designer. I know it sounds cheesy, but I left a piece of myself in that gully, and I think that piece may just be fully YEC.




The discovery of this new and exciting worldview (at least geologically speaking) prompted me to look into the next piece of the puzzle: The Big Bang. Whole volumes are written about the evidence for the Big Bang, so this is not the place to regurgitate this information. In short, I was astonished. The evidence is so complete, so compelling, that I became embarrassed for ever believing it was incorrect. I felt lucky that I hadn't shared my anti-Big-Bang beliefs with many of my non-church friends.

While I was learning about the Big Bang, I made another significant discovery: Other Christians exist that believe the universe is old, and that the Big Bang really happened. This is one of those things that I look back on and think: "Well, duh, of course!" But this disconnect with reality is a result of my history; I was taught a single (YEC) viewpoint as a child, and taught that it was the only correct belief, and that anything different (evolution, old earth) is evil and from Satan. Coupled with an overall disinterest in all things spiritual during my college years, I had never encountered another Christian who believed anything other than a recent creation 6000 years ago. This is why the discovery of old earth creationism was a surprise to me.

Hugh Ross is the most outspoken proponent of old earth creationism. I devoured his books: The Fingerprint of God, The Creator and the Cosmos, Creation and Time and Beyond the Cosmos. Ross describes a set of beliefs that acknowledges the validity of both science and religion, including the ancient age of the universe as well as the validity of the Genesis creation account. Typically, this approach inserts large amounts of time in the days of creation in Genesis 1, and proposes a parallel between the things that were created during the seven days of creation and the scientific description of the history of the earth. Evolution is generally denied in favor of "progressive creation" which suggests that God created via fiat miracle at various points in the history of life on earth.

Another aspect of this process that I must mention is this: Old earth creationists are very fond of listing scientific facts that point to an incredible fine-tuning of the universe and solar system to support life. This concept, called the anthropic principle, describes how properties of the cosmos, universe, solar system, earth, and biology are perfectly "tuned" to support life. This interesting and remarkable fact was key in bolstering my confidence, but as I will describe in the next post, ended up being a key chink in my armor in the following few months.

So, as Roxburgh describes, the third phase in the process of paradigm change, disembedding, involves disconnecting from the current system which has failed. As I've described above, the first part of this disembedding process involved embracing old earth creationism. This was basically the same YEC beliefs, with an acceptance of the theory and process of science, the old age of the universe and earth, and a modest change in the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. This might seem small, but I felt light-years away from were I was just months before.

But my disembedding process wasn't over. In the next post, I'll try to describe how my new interest in cosmology would lead me to the brink of full-blown atheism.

3: Enter Kent Hovind

This is the third in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Discontinuity - Enter Kent Hovind

Discontinuity came very slowly. It began when I took a zoology course at Grand Rapids Community College. It didn't shake my belief in YEC in any way, it simply began to help me understand what evolution is, what it claims to explain, and why it makes sense. I remember coming home one night and telling my Dad that I was starting to see how someone could think that it made sense. He continued to wonder out loud "How anyone could actually believe that stuff?"

So, my scientific knowledge updated with a basic understanding of evolution, I finished college (electrical engineering) and grad school (materials science) without significant change in my faith; mainly because my faith had a very small place in my life. During this time, my god was not the creator of the universe, but a creator of music... I lived and breathed The Dave Matthews Band. You could delete this section of my life without effect. It's sad, but true.

When the music was over, I found myself at a Baptist church, becoming challenged to either make my faith a real part of my life, or stop pretending. I decided to do the former; to embrace Jesus as my savior. But I was again surrounded by people who believed that evolution wasn't true.

At one point, the evidence for an old earth came up in a Sunday School class I was attending. An elderly man, one I had come to know well in recent months, made the statement: "What's wrong with that? Weren't there rings on the trees in the garden of Eden?" This was surprising to me. This was the first time I had encountered a Christian who admitted that the earth might at least look old. As I look back on it, I am shocked that it took that long. In any case, the door was open to at least consider the characteristics of the earth that made it look older than 10,000 years.

In the following months, I read a considerable amount of Creationist writings, by people like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti. My intention was to build my knowledge and confidence in my faith; to equip myself to defend my belief in creation. The result of all this reading, however, was a growing uneasiness.

I was troubled by the seemingly complete lack of understanding of evolution. This is not the place for a discussion of the failures of YEC, but their statements repeatedly show either a complete incompetence in all things scientific, or an incredible lack of integrity. I won't make this judgement, but both options are detrimental to the YEC crusade to disprove evolution.

A typical YEC tactic is to present a barrage of statistics and "proofs" that the earth is young, and that evolution cannot occur. In my effort to evaluate and understand this viewpoint, I decided that I needed a better understanding of evolution to more accurately decide who was right. I decided to use my 45-minute commute to "take" an audio course titled "Darwin, Darwinism, and the Modern World" by Chandak Sengoopta. This helped greatly in gaining a correct understanding of evolution, but increased my uneasiness with the YEC arguments.

At about this time, I found on the internet a radio debate between Kent Hovind (a YEC), and Massimo Pigliucci (an evolutionary biologist). I was excited to hear the two viewpoints presented side-by-side, and was anxious to see a Christian (and a professional evolution "debunker" at that) deal with the evolution problem head-on. I completely expected for the Creationist to give compelling reasons why evolution should be doubted, and to show that Creation, as laid out in Genesis, was the most viable alternative.

If you listen to the debate, you will be able to predict what happened. Pigliucci presents an easily understandable, well-reasoned explanation of evolution, and Hovind presents an air-tight case for his own incompetence. Hovind made statements that I knew anyone who even attempted to understand evolution would not make. Statements like:

The dogs change to get big dogs or little dogs, but they don't change into cows or bananas or pine trees.

and

You think humans and dogs came from a rock.

Or when asked what kind of evidence would convince him of evolution:

I want to see a frog come from a pig.

Hovind made statements that show that he is either intentionally deceptive, or incredibly dense and stupid. I'll avoid making that determination, but I wanted nothing of either alternative. As I listened, I couldn't believe the shame and embarrassment I felt for believing the same things as Hovind. My expectations of Hovind slam-dunking evolution had gone down in flames. I was ashamed and disappointed.

This is where the second phase of paradigm change reached its climax. The old system wasn't working so well, and it scared me to death.

Now, to be fair, Kent Hovind is the bottom of the barrel. Other YEC proponents like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti do not act like children, and at least they pay their taxes. As I said before, I was familiar with these guys, and my entire YEC worldview did not crumble with Hovind's incompetence. But I realized that I couldn't take their claims at face value. I at least needed to look into their claims to make sure they were true.

So that's what I did. What happened, in short, is incredible [heavy sarcasm]: I actually checked these claims. It's embarrassing, I know, but this was the first time that I actually looked at the claims of YECs to determine if they were true. I was disappointed.

I have to admit that this was also my first time I had actually seen a lot of the evidence for creationism. Frankly, up until that point, I didn't really have a reason to read any creationist literature. I was content that someone, somewhere had some reason for me to keep believing what I had been taught since I was a child.

I've decided not to discuss specific creationist evidence in this post. I'm sure I'll discuss this in future blog posts, but I don't think that proving the inadequacy of the YEC position is necessary, and would only prolong this lengthy post.

So, this is how discontinuity set in, in this retrospective look at my paradigm change from creationist to evolutionist. My next post will continue from this point, into the next phase of Roxburg's description of paradigm change: Disembedding.

"Evolution... is the dumbest idea in the history of humanity" -Kent Hovind

2: YEC, Born and Raised

This is the second in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

YEC, Born and Raised

This is the step in which I have spent the majority of my life. As a child, I was taught to believe that the earth, moon, and stars are all about 6000 to 10,000 years old. My Dad, a young earth creationist, (YEC) taught me that all the features of the earth, the continents, oceans, mountains and canyons were formed during the flood described in Genesis 6-9. Now, I won't attempt to describe all of the beliefs of YECs, but the core of their beliefs is that, as described by a literalist interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2, God created the universe in six 24-hour days. In the following chapters of Genesis and the rest of the Torah, there is a continuous narrative, including an unbroken genealogical record that can be used to calculate the age of the universe.




In addition to these beliefs, I was taught that evolution is false; an evil idea that scientists invented and continue to push in order to eliminate God from a complete description of the universe. Evolution was a tool of atheism, the two went hand-in-hand. I was also taught that evolution is scientifically unsupportable, and that everything that evolution attempts to explain can be better explained by YEC theories.

When I was about 10 years old, my Dad took me to a "creation conference" at a local Christian Reformed church in my hometown of Caledonia, MI. The conference, run by the Institute for Creation Research, consisted of talks and seminars with the aim of equipping the attendees to defend their beliefs against the onslaught of evolutionists. Book and video sales were heavily promoted. Ironically, the huge mass of pamphlets, VHS tapes, and vast collection of YEC books is the only specific thing I remember from the conference.

In high school, my youth group leader at Whitneyville Bible Church supplied the teens of our church with t-shirts to wear to school. I remember buying two which said

"I believe in the big bang theory: God spoke and BANG! It happened."

and

"Over millions of years, monkeys evolved slowly into human beings. NOT!"

My high school never taught about evolution. In fact, I don't believe I ever heard the word in any high school class. (I come from a very dutch, very conservative region of western Michigan.) Therefore, it was easy for phase 1 to persist until my sophomore year of college.

My next post will describe the next phase of my transition from creationist to evolutionist: Discontinuity.

1. Paradigm Change: Introduction

One of the most significant elements in the story of my faith was my transition from young earth creationist (YEC) to theistic evolutionist. I went from believing that the earth is about 10,000 years old to a complete acceptance of the current scientific consensus on the origin and development of life on earth.

This was not an easy process. It is a very long story. I recently read a description of this process that gives a very accurate framework of this journey. In the introduction to A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren presents Alan Roxburgh's teaching on the process of paradigm change. Although it was included in the book to describe the transition from the modern to postmodern mindset, as I read it, I was shocked at how well it described my change from YEC to theistic evolutionist.

Alan Roxburgh, a colleague in the Terranova Project (an initiative to explore how Christian faith will reconfigure in the postmodern matrix), teaches people that this painful process of letting go of life as we have known it and embracing a new life on new terms (the process of paradigm change) typically follows five phases:

1. Stability, when life is fine, current theories explain everything adequately, and questions are few—perhaps like Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz living happily in Kansas

2. Discontinuity, when the old system seems to be working less well—reflected socially in Dorothy’s conflict with her witchy neighbor, psychologically in her ambivalent desire to run away from home, and physically in the approaching thunderstorm

3. Disembedding, when we begin feeling that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it—like Dorothy being carried away from Kansas by the tornado

4. Transition, when we haven’t fully left the old world and we haven’t fully entered the new world—like Dorothy newly arrived in Oz, trying to get her bearings

5. Reformation, when we decide to make a go of it in the new world we have entered—like Dorothy setting out on her journey to see the wizard, invigorated with new hope and passion

Of course, while we are going through an experience, we are rarely able to say to ourselves: "Oh, I just entered step 2 of 5." In the midst of paradigm change, our final state seems quite uncertain, and no "process" can be seen. Hence, I can only see retrospectively that the description above is strikingly accurate. It describes very well my change from creationist to theistic evolutionist.

I plan to use the next several posts to describe my journey through this paradigm change. Here are links to all the posts in this series:

1. Paradigm Change: Introduction (this post)

Phase 1: Stability:

2. YEC, Born and Raised

Phase 2: Discontinuity

3. Enter Kent Hovind

Phase 3: Disembedding

4. To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

5. A Bit of Light Reading

6. Four Tough Problems

Phase 4: Transition

7. Dealing with Atheism

8. Dealing with Atheism, Continued...

9. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism
10. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism. Continued...
11. Dealing with Genesis

To be continued..

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (4/4) - Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

This is the last post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

The fourth reason Carrier says he is not a Christian is that Christianity predicts a very different universe from what we actually observe. He suggests that the universe that we inhabit looks exactly like a universe should look if there were no god.

Right out of the gate, Carrier reveals one of his presuppositions that I think leads to this conclusion:

For a loving God who wanted to create a universe solely to provide a home for human beings, and to bring his plan of salvation to fruition, would never have invented this universe, but something quite different.

Carrier's starting assumption is that of God's purpose for creating the universe - that God created it solely to provide a place for us to live, and to bring about His "plan of salvation". As I've described in the first three posts on this topic, this is short-sighted. Of course, this universe was created to provide us a place to live, and He is in fact carrying out his plan of redemption. But these are not His only (or even primary) objectives. Carrier leaves out the key ingredient: free will.

If you haven't yet read my first post dealing with Carrier's essay, you should do so before continuing. It deals with the apparent fact that God values our free choice enough to allow us to choose to reject Him; to choose to spend eternity separated from Him.

I have chosen to use the words of Kenneth Miller to complete the rest of this post. He says it better than I could, anyway. I apologize for the long quote; if this bothers you, pretend they are my words. I believe every one of them.

Here are the last few paragraphs of his book, Finding Darwin's God, (with a few of my edits):

Science in general, and evolutionary science in particular... reveals a universe that is dynamic, flexible, and logically complete. It presents a vision of life that spreads across the planet with endless variety and intricate beauty. It suggests a world in which our material existence is not an impossible illusion propped up by magic, but the genuine article, a world in which things are exactly what they seem. A world in which we were formed, as the Creator once told us, from the dust of the earth itself.

It is often said that a Darwinian universe is one whose randomness cannot be reconciled with meaning. I disagree. A world truly without meaning would be one in which a deity pulled the string of every human puppet, indeed of every material particle. In such a world, physical and biological events would be carefully controlled, evil and suffering could be minimized, and the outcome of historical processes strictly regulated. All things would move toward the Creator's clear, distinct, established goals. Such control and predictability, however, comes at the price of independence. [This is the world Carrier says Christianity predicts, but...] Always in control, such a Creator would deny his creatures any real opportunity to know and worship him - authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution.

If he so chose, the God whose presence is taught by most Western religions could have fashioned anything, ourselves included, ex nihilo, from his wish alone. In our childhood as a species, that might have been the only way in which we could imagine the fulfillment of a divine will. [This is why, as Carrier describes, early Christians (and todays Creationists) believed in ex nihilo creation.] But we've grown up, and something remarkable has happened: we have begun to understand the physical basis of life itself. If a string of constant miracles were needed for each turn of the cell cycle or each flicker of a cilium, the hand of God would be written directly into every living thing - his presence at the edge of the human sandbox would be unmistakable. Such findings might confirm our faith, but they would also undermine our independence. How could we fairly choose between God and man when the presence and the power of the divine so obviously and so literally controlled our every breath? Our freedom as his creatures requires a little space and integrity. In the material world, it requires self-sufficiency and consistency with the laws of nature.

Evolution is neither more nor less than the result of respecting the reality and consistency of the physical world over time. To fashion material beings with an independent physical existence, any Creator would have had to produce an independent material universe in which our evolution over time was a contingent possibility. A believer in the divine accepts that God's love and gift of freedom are genuine - so genuine that they include the power to choose evil and, if we wish, to freely send ourselves to Hell. Not all believers will accept the stark conditions of that bargain, but our freedom to act has to have a physical and biological basis. Evolution and its sister sciences of genetics and molecular biology provide that basis. In biological terms, evolution is the only way a Creator could have made us the creatures we are - free beings in a world of authentic and meaningful moral and spiritual choices.

Those who ask from science a final argument, an ultimate proof, an unassailable position from which the issue of God may be decided will always be disappointed. [Stephen Carrier included.] As a scientist I claim no new proofs, no revolutionary data, no stunning insight into nature that can tip the balance in one direction or another. But I do claim that to a believer, even in the most traditional sense, evolutionary biology is not at all the obstacle we often believe it to be. In many respects, evolution is the key to understanding our relationship with God.

-Kenneth Miller in Finding Darwin's God [pp. 285-291] (bold emphasis and bracketed text mine)

So it looks like the universe in which we find ourselves (the one described by the current scientific consensus) could be a necessary ingredient for God's plan to create beings free to choose to love him. What does that imply for the Creationist who rejects the scientific consensus of cosmology, biology, and geology? Must they also reject free will? Maybe not, but I have to agree with Miller, the Creationist's god is a weaker, marginalized version of the true Christian God.

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (3/4) - The Evidence is Inadequate

This is the third post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

The third reason Carrier says he is not a Christian is that the evidence for Christianity is inadequate. A scientist through and through, Carrier uses the scientific method (or a form of it) to investigate the claims of Christianity. The basic argument takes the following form:

Christianity claims A.
If A is true, we would expect to observe B.
We do not observe B, we observe C.
Over and over again, Christianity's claims fail this test.
Therefore, Christianity is false.

He doesn't stop there; he also presents a parallel argument:

Naturalism claims X.

If X is true, we would expect to observe Y.

We do observe Y.
Over and over again, Naturalism's clams pass this test.

Therefore, Naturalism is true.

It's important to note that this approach is exactly how science studies something that is not directly observable: If the theory is true, each piece of evidence checks and supports the theory. The data is cumulative; no single piece proves the theory, but as each piece is added, predictions can be made about what further evidence should show… Every time the theory makes a correct prediction, (and does not make incorrect predictions) the more confident we are that the theory is correct.

In my previous posts on this essay, I have quoted snippets of his essay to present his argument in his own words. I'm not going to do that this time, for one simple reason: I think he is right.

Let me make myself clear; I think there is very little evidence for the existence of God from a scientific perspective. Anyone who seeks to determine the existence of God by looking for "evidence" will probably come up empty, over and over and over again.

The problem is, a large portion of Christians insist on subjecting their religions beliefs to this type of scientific scrutiny. This is most striking in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. I'll save discussion of ID for a future post, but the topic at hand brings an important issue to the surface:

Science and religion are separate ways of knowing; they address issues in separate domains. Therefore they can only provide answers to questions from within their prospective domains. In other words, science and religion provide answers to different types of questions.

The insistence that we must use science to address the claims of religion (and vice versa) is an overstepping of the boundaries of both ways of knowing. The late biologist Stephen J. Gould was a strong proponent of this separation, saying in his paper Nonoverlapping Magisteria:

"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."

Although Gould was an agnostic, he understood the limits of his science. Unfortunately, it seems that people outside Christianity understand the proper roles of these two ways of acquiring knowledge better than Christians themselves. Don't get me wrong; science and religion will always provide clarity and inspiration across the border in both directions. In reality, the border is not easily defined, and there is a portion of inquiry which requires input from both science and religion. The majority of questions, however, lie squarely within one of these two domains.

Do Christians really need science to legitimize their faith? Do you really want to hand over your cherished beliefs to the authority and scrutiny of science?

The reality is that the nature of science is intrinsically atheistic. It operates under the assumption that the physical is all that exists, regardless of whether or not the scientists involved believe in the supernatural. This is by necessity because science can only study reproducible phenomena. God's will and action are inherently unpredictable, and therefore inaccessible by scientific inquiry.

Robert T. Pennock in a great paper on the subject, says it another way:

[A] characteristic of the supernatural... is that it is inherently mysterious to us. As natural beings our knowledge all comes via natural laws and processes. If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural. The lawful regularities of our experience do not apply to the supernatural world... The same point holds about divine beings--we cannot know what it is that they would or would not do in any given case. God works, they say, in mysterious ways.

If science shouldn't be used to defend the existence of God, what are we to do? How do we convince the world that they are in need of a savior? How do we convince them that Jesus is truly the Son of God?

I think Jesus gave us the answer in John while he was praying with his disciples:

"My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." John 17:20-21

Here Jesus prays for unity in his church, a church consisting of true believers; true followers of Him. Francis Schaeffer, in his book The Mark of the Christian, calls this "the final apologetic", explaining that according to John 13, to be one with God (and therefore show the world that Jesus is God) means to show love to other believers and also to non-believers:

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. [But in John 17] Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

I have already written this post three different times, each ultimately ending up in my virtual trashcan. I just couldn't make sense of why, if there really is very little evidence of God's existence, do I still believe He exists? This morning in Sunday School, our teacher read the quote above from Schaeffer's book. It cut deep into my heart, and I remembered something I wrote in my journal several years ago, when I first wrestled with atheism. I was just coming out of the lowest point of my life, and I wrote these words:

"The love of these people [my Christian friends] is the only reason I still have any faith left at all."

The love I felt from the people close to me was the only thing I had left; it was the rope that kept me from falling headlong down that cliff. It really is the final apologetic.

Should we have answers for the issues Carrier brings up in his essay? Of course. But this should not be our primary defense. Instead, our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ will show the world that there really is something different, something real about our faith. It will show that Jesus really is the Son of God.

Schaeffer, in another one of his books, summarizes this entire post:

“[W]ithout true Christians loving one another, Christ says the world cannot be expected to listen, even when we give proper answers. Let us be careful, indeed, to spend a lifetime studying to give honest answers. For years the orthodox, evangelical church has done this very poorly. So it is well to spend time learning to answer the questions of men who are about us. But after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.” Francis Schaffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, pp. 164-165

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (2/4) - God Is Inert

This is the second post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

His next argument is equally simple: God is inert. The argument goes like this: God is all powerful. God is a loving God. Things exist in the world that a loving, all powerful God would do away with if he could. Therefore, God does not exist.

Here it is in his words:

It's a simple fact of direct observation that if I had the means and the power, and could not be harmed for my efforts, I would immediately alleviate all needless suffering in the universe. All guns and bombs would turn to flowers. All garbage dumps would become gardens. There would be adequate resources for everyone. There would be no more children conceived than the community and the environment could support. There would be no need of fatal or debilitating diseases or birth defects, no destructive Acts of God. And whenever men and women seemed near to violence, I would intervene and kindly endeavor to help them peacefully resolve their differences. That's what any loving person would do. Yet I cannot be more loving, more benevolent than the Christian God. Therefore, the fact that the Christian God does none of these things--in fact, nothing of any sort whatsoever--is proof positive that there is no Christian God.

This is certainly a difficult problem, one that I have struggled with for a long time. One does not need to watch the news very long to realize that the world is not the way it should be. A couple years ago my mother-in-law passed away from colon cancer. She was an awesome person - she loved God with all her heart, even in the midst of her illness. I remember attending church with her in the final months of her life, when the effects of her cancer and chemotherapy were really starting to become obvious. As we sang, (I don't remember the song) I remember turning to look at her. She was standing, eyes closed, olive green arms outstretched, praising her heavenly Father. My wife was at her bedside when she died. It was not a peaceful death. Why would God do this to someone with so much faith, someone who loves him so much?

It reminds me of a poem I have sitting in my quotes list (I can't remember where I got it) that sums up the problem in a rather poignant way:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
-- Epicurus

The problem of evil is, in my opinion, the most compelling argument against the existence of God.

Job surely would have something to say: He asked this question, and demanded that God answer him. And answer him He did:

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:
"Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
"Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?"
Job 40:6-8

And it doesn't stop there; God unleashes a barrage of Who do you think you are? and Who are you to question me? that would make any man shrivel up into a speck of dust.

Just to be sure Job didn't think these questions were rhetorical, God ends his assault with:

"Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!" Job 40:2

Job's answer:

"My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes."
Job 42:5-6

So, according to the book of Job, the appropriate answer to the problem of evil, and why bad things happen to good people is: Who are you to question God?

Now, I believe this is probably the best and only way for us to respond when life becomes unfair. But on second look, I think there is more to this story.

As I explained in my last post, God created us to love him. Real love is not forced, not compelled, and does not arise from obligation or fear of punishment, it is freely given by an individual who makes a choice to love. In order to bring this kind of love about, God had to give his creation the choice to love Him. This was a risk, for sure.

Part of loving God is obeying Him. A lot of the evil in the world arises from human beings exercising their free will, disobeying God. Creatures that are free to love must be free to choose. This could explain evil that arises as a result of human beings, but what about natural disasters? Hurricanes, earthquakes and floods surely are not the result of free will. Why doesn't God stop natural disasters?

I think it is entirely possible that the natural laws that govern the behavior of tectonic plates and tropical storm systems exist because they are just the sort of laws required for the existence of beings with free will. C.S. Lewis made this same suggestion in his book, The Problem of Pain:

"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself."

As Lewis continues, he almost appears to be answering Carrier's objections point-for-point, he describes the world that Carrier suggests is "the way it should be" and points out that this type of world is intrinsically incompatable with a world in which free will exists:

We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of... [our] abuse of free will... at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void... Not even Omnipotence could create a society of free souls without at the same time creating a relatively independent and 'inexorable' Nature."

Carrier, in his essay, actually comes pretty close to answering his own question in a way that might satisfy Lewis:

The only possible exception here is when a loving person is incapable of acting as he desires--either lacking the ability or facing too great a risk to himself or others--but this exception never applies to a God, who is all-powerful and immune to all harm.

I think Carrier has it right: God is "incapable" of granting free will without also allowing evil to reign in the world where that free will exists; the two go hand-in-hand. It is similar to asking the question we have all heard: Can God create a stone so big even HE can't lift it? Or can God make a round square? These are nonsense questions because they ignore the nature of things; All squares must have four sides, it is nonsense to think of a round square. Likewise, all beings with free will must exist in a universe with both natural and human evil.

Finally, a somewhat more satisfactory answer lies again in the consequences of free will, and in God's purpose for his creation. A lot of people look at the world as if God created it as a playground for people. Any time we are inconvenienced, any time our pleasure is cut short by some natural event, they think that the world has somehow fallen short of the "way things should be." However, this assumes God's goal is to make us happy, or at least to give us pleasure. What if his goal is to change us?

I asked my wife why she thought bad things happen to good people, and one of her answers was exactly this; "Well, bad things help us change." I think she is exactly right.


In any case, I'm sure it will always remain in my mind as one of the most difficult for any Christian to answer. Perhaps we might learn from Job's experiences and come to peace with the fact that a completely satisfactory answer is intentionally beyond our grasp.



Next, I'll tackle Carrier's third objection to Christianity: The evidence is inadequate.

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1/4) - God Is Silent

A while ago, I encountered an essay by Richard Carrier entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian". When I first read it, the old doubts reignited, the ones I experienced years ago when I first read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.

This is the first of four posts with the intention of discussing the essay. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

Before I continue, let me answer the question you may be screaming at your computer monitor right now: Why on earth am I reading something like this?! Well, as I have said before, I want no part of a faith that is based on ignorance. If I cannot read something like Carrier's essay without filling my heart with doubt, than something is wrong with my faith. I'd like to ask you: Can you read his essay without doubt creeping into your heart? If not, what does that say about your conclusions about God? I want (as Os Guinness describes) an "examined faith, unafraid to doubt". I believe it the only way to "know God more certainly, and enjoy God more deeply." (again Guinness)

God is silent


Carrier's first objection to Christianity is that God is silent. He rejects faith in Christ because God does not communicate with mankind in a way that an all-powerful being should:

The Christian proposes that a supremely powerful being exists who wants us to set things right, and therefore doesn't want us to get things even more wrong... It should be indisputably clear what God wants us to do, and what he doesn't want us to do... Yet this is not what we observe. Instead, we observe exactly the opposite: unresolvable disagreement and confusion [about what he wants us to do]. That is clearly a failed prediction. A failed prediction means a false theory. Therefore, Christianity is false.

This difficulty has bothered me for a long time. God clearly does not communicate with us in a way that he could. He is all-powerful after all. But the problem does not start there: The Bible describes Him communicating with mankind in a very direct way in the past. In Exodus 3, God speaks directly to Moses via burning bush. So we know it is something that He has done in the past. So why doesn't He do it today?
I think the majority of Carrier's objections arise from a basic misunderstanding of God's relationship to man. Certainly the God that created the universe, the One who counts the stars and calls them by name, is able to grab us by the collar, look us in the eye, and tell us exactly what he wants us to do. But I think this is missing the point. God created us for a reason. He didn't create us to obey him, or do anything for Him. If he did, his communication (or lack of it) with us is certainly puzzling. I believe God created us to love him.
Love is never forced. I know this in a very real way; my two year old daughter has recently stopped giving me hugs. Of course, this makes me sad. Some days I really need to feel her tiny arms squeeze my neck. I could make her hug me; demand that she give me a "squeeze". Sometimes I do just that. But this kind of "love", forced love, is not really love at all. Love is not forced. I believe that God is silent because he will not force us to love him. He gives us hints of his existence and character in a way that only an infinite being can if he wants to reveal part of himself to a finite being without overwhelming that finite being...
Ironically, Dan Barker, in his book Losing Faith in Faith, hit the nail on the head:

It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. [source]

Well said, Dan. God wants us to love him, not because "if we don't he will send us to hell" or because "if we do, he'll send us to heaven". He wants us to love him because he made us, because he loves us, and because of what he has done for us.
In Miracles, C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

The sin, both of men and of angels, was rendered possible by the fact that God gave them free will: thus surrendering a portion of His omnipotence (it is again a deathlike or descending movement) because He saw that from a world of free creatures, even though they fell, He could work out (and this is the renascent) a deeper happiness and a fuller splendour than any world of automata would admit. [source]

God somehow, in some way, suspended his sovereignty over our actions and gave us free will. He gave us a choice - He wants us to decide to love him.
Carrier has obviously heard this explanation before. He addresses it in his essay:

Typically, Christians try to make excuses for God that protect our free will. Either the human will is more powerful than the will of God, and therefore can actually block his words from being heard despite all his best and mighty efforts, or God cares more about our free choice not to hear him than about saving our souls, and so God himself "chooses" to be silent.

I think this second option is correct. But here Carrier is focusing only on our free will to hear or not hear God's voice. Although hearing God is important, Carrier neglects to mention another, arguably more important choice we are free to make: how we live our lives. God gave Adam & Eve, and all their descendants, including you and me, the choice between right and wrong; we can choose whether or not to obey. God gave us the ability to decide who will be lord of our lives; Jesus or something else.

This is important, because a holy God cannot spend eternity with a soul tainted by sin. It becomes apparent that God took the ultimate risk: He gave us free will, and in doing so, took the risk that we would reject Him; that our choice would result in eternal separation from Him. I think it was a risk worth taking, because (as I described above) it is the only way real love is possible. So to me, it looks like Carrier is correct; God cares more about our free choice than about "saving our souls". It has to be that way for loves sake.

Carrier has a few more things to say about free will:

Right from the start, [the appeal to free will] fails to explain why believers disagree. The fact that believers can't agree on the content of God's message or desires also refutes the theory that he wants us to be clear on these things. This failed prediction cannot be explained away by any appeal to free will--for these people have chosen to hear God, and not only to hear him, but to accept Jesus Christ as the shepherd of their very soul. So no one can claim these people chose not to hear God. Therefore, either God is telling them different things, or there is no God.

Some Christians put a lot of significance on the Holy Spirit, and understandably so; the idea of God dwelling within us, guiding us and telling us what is right and wrong is very appealing. However, I think Carrier has a good point. If the Holy Spirit is a significant force in guiding Christians, then God is intentionally sowing confusion in His church. The reality is that Christianity has an incredibly diverse array of beliefs, and they can't all be right. The church must be full of misguided people.

The only possible explanation is that the Holy Spirit is not a significant force in the guidance of the majority of Christians. And I am no exception. That's why, when I feel that "inner voice" nudging me in this way or that, I severely doubt that this is the Holy Spirit communicating with me. There is nothing different between me and the hordes of other misguided people sitting in the pew next to me every Sunday. I know this is pessimistic, but I see no way around it.

Either way, Carrier's first objection to Christianity is a reasonable one. Next on the list (and the next one I'll address here) is more serious: God is inert. Here he discusses, among other things, the problem of evil, and asks the question: Why would a good God allow suffering?