Atheists and Agnostics

I have been considering atheism a lot lately. Not to become one, but to understand why and how anyone could profess such a belief. This is quite puzzling, because the basic tenant of atheism is that there is no God. Any good scientist knows that it is impossible to prove a negative. Follow this.

In order to definitively proclaim that there are no purple people eaters, I have to examine every portion of the universe, known and unknown. (This is not a new argument, by the way. It is just modified.) Since it is physically impossible to explore everywhere, it is impossible to positively state that no purple people eaters exist anywhere. Let’s take a different approach

Draw a circle of any dimension. That circle represents the totality of all knowledge. Now draw a circle inside of it depicting the amount of known knowledge. Now draw a final circle inside the “known” circle to represent your personal knowledge. We know that the total knowledge circle is increasing, and hopefully our personal circle is also getting larger.

As a teacher, I spent about 20 minutes every year demonstrating to my chemistry students in both high school and college that total chemistry knowledge was increasing faster than they would learn it in the class. That meant that at the end of 18 or 36 weeks in class, they would be farther behind in their total knowledge of chemistry than they were when they started. That is why we were not aiming to learn “all of chemistry.” My goal was to teach them how to teach themselves how to learn new things for themselves.

Likewise, our consideration of God is necessarily limited to learning how to learn about Him. He is not increasing, but we can never understand or comprehend infinity. But we can learn more about what it means. So let’s turn to God.

As we explored briefly above, God cannot be disproved, because we have not explored the totality of the circle of knowledge. All we can declare is that either we cannot know that there is a God, or we do not know that there is a God. Either way, the “atheist” option is precluded. “There is no God,” is a non-starter both logically and encyclopedically. A convinced but honest atheist must modify his declaration to, “I do not believe that there is a God that I can know, or that I do know,” which seems to me to be a statement of agnosticism. They cannot categorically declare that, “There is no God.”

One more idea will sum up this part of the discussion. This is the scientific portion of our consideration. Heat travels from areas of high concentration to areas of low or lower concentration. We all know this. Touch a hot light bulb. The “higher” concentration of heat, energy, travels to the lower concentration of your finger. Now turn it around. Place your “hot” finger on an ice cube. The heat from your finger will migrate to the ice, a lower concentration and remove energy from your finger. This is thermodynamics: thermo–heat and dynamic–movement.

The universe is composed of “hot” spots and “cold” spots. Energy is flowing from high concentrations to lower concentrations. The sun and stars radiate energy, dissipating their reserves and will continue to do so until the entire universe is the same temperature (level of energy). Then they will be effectively “burned out.”

Scientists have estimated that when the entire universe has “leveled out” in energy content, the temperature will be about 3 degrees Kelvin. That is about 270 degrees below zero in centigrade or minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since the universe is not a uniform temperature, we know that it had to have a beginning or genesis, if you please, at some time in the finite past. No thinking scientist ever claims that the universe is infinitely old. So how did it begin? Where did the energy and the separation of energy begin?

Someone or something had to “start” it. Some suppositions appeal to a “big bang” but never address the who or what “banged.” A “point singularity” is the best answer I have heard. But what is a PS, where did it come from, and what exploded it? Science is unable to answer that because those items preceded “observation.” We can only “observe” the Big Bang and thus anything preceding it cannot be observed and is beyond the purview of science.

That is a convenient “waffle” answer, but it does not satisfy curiosity, let alone the need to know. The natural universe began at some point and that is as far back as our observations can extend. We are asking questions about something outside of “natural,” thus it is “super”natural. (Above or outside) And our only recourse is to posit a supernatural being or something outside nature which acted to begin the existence of the  universe and time. Meet God.

And we cannot know anything about this “outside of nature” entity because we are limited to the natural realm. The only way we can know anything about God is if He reveals Himself to us. It turns out, He did.

Romans 1:19 and 20 explain:
...since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made.
Notice immediately the word, “known.” “What can be known,” is our theme. An agnostic says that either he CANNOT know or DOES NOT know. But something CAN be known. An atheist/agnostic is left with the option of not knowing what can be known, ignorance, or deliberately refusing to know what can be known–you choose the label.

Which brings us to the point with which I began. To save you the trouble of scrolling back to the top, why and how can anyone could profess a belief in atheism or agnosticism? The crux of the problem is summarized in Romans 1. “What can be known is evident.” To continue the quotation from Romans 1, “...people suppress the truth.” The illustration of “the truth” was the intent of the earlier explanation of energy transfer. So why not just believe the Big Bang and go on...without a god or God? God did not intend for us to merely stop at knowing that there is a God. He wanted us to know Him personally. We find that in the first chapter of Hebrews. (1:1-3)
Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

God did not confine Himself to revealing Himself in nature as Romans 1 explains. He wanted to be known by the people He created. He went farther and spoke to men through the prophets. Now He has gone even farther, and “spoken” through His Son. He sent Him to earth to live here. That is what we celebrate in Christmas. (Aside: What do atheists celebrate at Christmas?)

But the Son did more than just live here. He “made purification for sins.” We explored that in “Christmas in Hebrews.” (https://reflectionsfromjim.blogspot.com/2018/12/christmas-in-hebrews.html)

Look again at the description of the Son. “He made the universe.” That is the Someone or something that we referenced in the energy discussion. Isn’t it nice when ideas come together? Let’s follow this train of thought.

Jesus is the ultimate witness. In fact, in Matthew 11:27 He explains:
...no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal Him.
We cannot know God, unless The Son, Jesus, reveals Him to us. This does not contradict Romans 1. It enhances it. We can know ABOUT God, that He exists and that He created everything, but we cannot know Him personally without Jesus. And Jesus does reveal God. As it says, Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature....” But God and Jesus’ intent is not just for us to have the information that God exists. He wants us to “know” Him, to believe in Him.

Hebrews 11:6 explains this.
...he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

And how can we know that this is not an elaborate fable, concocted over about 1500 years? (1400 BC to AD 90) Well, begin with the question: A 1500 year conspiracy of subterfuge and deception? That is a petty daunting task.

But to simplify it, refer back to the Hebrews 1 text. Jesus revealed God. So our ultimate witness is Jesus. If one could discredit His testimony, then one could logically and reasonably reject God. Jesus is the ultimate witness and confirmation. He came back from the dead. That is the basis of His claim. To impeach His testimony, a person would have to kill him. But Jesus has already demonstrated that death has no power over Him, it could not hold Him...if the resurrection is true.

And the evidence for that is abundant, and summarized in a post from Josh McDowell, once a doubter who examined the evidence. Here is his post and I will summarize the sources he quoted.

E. M. Blaiklock Professor of Classics Auckland University
I claim to be an historian. My approach to Classics is historical. And I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history....

Clark Pinnock Mcmaster University
There exists no document from the ancient world, witnessed by so excellent a set of textual and historical testimonies . . . Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is based upon an irrational bias.

F. F. Bruce Manchester University
If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.

My conclusion is that it is very hard work to believe in nothing. If there is no God, then there is nothing to deny. There is nothing not to believe in. In actuality the concept of atheism is to deny what others believe.

Finally Jesus promises eternal life. That is to know God. John 17:3
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
As noted before, belief that there is a God of some sort is a “no brainer.” Everyone knows about God, whether they admit it or not. Even demons believe that there is a God. James 2:19 
You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
But to believe IN God; that Jesus came, and died, and rose again, is to know true life–Eternal life.

The ultimate question is not whether there is a God, but whether one will choose to believe it. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex topic, the discussion/controversy is not whether there is a Supreme Being, a Creator, but whether one will acknowledge, i.e. believe that there is a God. That is theism. To believe that God exists merely acknowledges the obvious. And the next step is believing IN God, for eternal life.

Choose life.