I have to admit to myself that if I did not have evidence and good reasons for my conclusion that God exists, that Jesus is the divine Son of God, that He established the Catholic Church, that there is an objective purpose to Life, I would have no problem with atheism or even nihilism. It is very understandable and even partly logical why many today subscribe to atheism or nihilism. Considering their arguments can strengthen our own and help convert them.
I listen to the likes of Hitchens (RIP) and Dawkins (RIP) debate theists and Christians, and while I reject their at-times vitriol against religion, or more often against religious authoritative figures like the Pope or Mother Teresa, which is ridiculous the way it is said, I do see some continuity of intellectual honesty in their arguments.
And, I sometimes appreciate the points they make. That may sound scandalous to defend them, considering their penchant for social liberalism, scientism, and a radical form of secularism.
But what if they are right??
As heretical as that might sound, such a question is a rhetorical device in the argument, that the apologist for theism seems often unwilling to consider as a mere hypothetical in a logical argument with the opponent. We have to concede a lot to them if we want to convince them of what we believe, including the limits of our own methods of knowing things.
In my mind, it is perfectly reasonable to believe in God, but that philosophical, syllogistic arguments cannot yield absolute certainty He exists, only moral certainty or at least probability.
So if someone has never seriously experienced traditional, theistic religion in their life, without the certainty of God from divine revelation, the evidence does not necessarily, absolutely demonstrate absolute certainty that a divine creator of the cosmos exists. On its own, reason at best strongly points to God’s existence, and explains it in a coherent, rational way, but it does not prove it with 100% certainty, where we can be 100% certain like other facts, such as “1 + 1 = 2.”
That said, I think it is reasonable to assert to oneself absolute certainty based not only on evidence and revelation, but on an absolute interior conviction that is intuitive, from personal experience and reflection. But I don’t see the evidence from reason alone objectively concluding it as an absolute.
In other words, if someone were to assert an absolute belief in God I would agree, but not based purely on logic, or observation, but also a combination of divine revelation and personal experience.
But one could also say that the evidence does not clearly enough point to God, again only with reference to the sphere of rationality and a modern, scientific frame of mind from which the atheist operates, One could say it is just as reasonable that the universe somehow came from nothing without a pre-existing creator, than that there was a mysterious pre-existing creator with the power to create something from nothing,
I wouldn’t say that, but without any prior sense of a creator ingrained into a person, a cosmos that came into existence without any prior cause is also a mystifying possibility, as is the idea of an infinite mind pre-existing the cosmos.
One might also argue for the possibility that a non-God “thing” caused this universe, whatever that thing is, with an infinite regress of non-God things going back in time, along an infinite chain of causality, one causing the other, such as pre-existing universes, or things in that pre-existing universe.
They might argue with some degree of reasonableness that perhaps an advanced civilization in a pre-existing universe found out how to create another universe using energy from theirs. Since I know the Bible is true, with that knowledge such a proposition sounds absurd.
But if you’ve never seriously learned about divine revelation, alternative explanations are reasonable from the point of view of pure reason devoid of faith. Today we are able to accelerate and collide subatomic particles at the speed of light, in long underground tunnels, to yield almost limitless amounts of energy, simulating the creation of suns and black holes, so it is not unthinkable that a civilization in another universe might after millions of years of scientific advancement learn how to create other universes, that is to take energy and explode it into a continuum of energy, matter, space, and time. That is another universe. I don’t pretend to know if that could ever be possible at least from the laws of physics in our own universe, but someone could validly postulate that as a possibility coming from another universe with its own laws.
The Bible says “the fool says there is no God,” but atheists often don’t say “there is no God.” The distinction has been clarified. They “do not see enough evidence to believe in God.” Many are open hypothetically to the possibility, and some eventually do change their mind. This implies that if sufficient evidence was presented, in whatever form, they are open to believing, which makes it intellectually dishonest when some atheists, though not all, say “there is no evidence for God, therefore he does not exist.”
That would be absurd, because it excludes the possibility they might discover such evidence one day which they cannot be certain does not exist, unless they have (hypocritically) blind faith in absolute materialism. They rightly object to us basing our arguments on an irrational blind faith in our own sources of knowledge, so they have to be careful not to fall into the same.
Those kinds of atheists are no better than certain fundamentalist creationists who are anti-science. The kind who don’t believe in dinosaurs or think that God in His omnipotence could not in His nature, if He wanted to, have created Adam and Eve as a result of an evolutionary process. Not to advocate for Darwinian evolution.
Too often atheists are reacting to Protestant, fundamentalist, and fideistic arguments for the existence of God and the supernatural. It is a postmodern, culture war reaction to the other side, where the “other side” is sadly often a poor representation of historical theism and religion.
If you’re honestly trying to examine whether or not God exists, in any mature or rational way, listening to a snake-holding Pentecostal preacher say “because the Bible says so” doesn’t help much. Nor would a modernist Catholic sermon asserting religious belief is based solely on the outpouring of our most interior emotional state rather than the conclusion of reason, let alone an objectively supernatural divine revelation given from above.
It is no wonder then that there is such a rise of atheism. It is a cultural reaction to the already degraded state in religion in popular, postmodern, Western culture. But if we can step outside of that reactionary dynamic, if they are of good will, we can debate them in an effective and civil way.
We have to put in the work to explain our positions with distinction upon distinction, to set them at ease we are not condemning them or dismissing all their points, or being idiotic in our line of reasoning. If we say “those who don’t believe in God have no basis then for morality,” that’s just going to imply they have no moral compass as atheists and anger them. We have to be very careful and surgical in our language or else we drive them deeper into atheism.
Put it this way, if someone says “Theism or religious belief means you have no real, humanistic basis for morality,” or “Religion is responsible for the ills of society,”many theists are going to be very offended by that on a personal level. It would suggest they religious believers are immoral and enemies of society because they are religious believers.
Likewise, when our side says things like “atheism is responsible for the totalitarian regimes and wars of the 20th century,” they’re likely to also take that as a personal condemnation. An atheist has access to the natural law to know objective morality, and being an atheist doesn’t equate to believing in what Stalin did to Russia in the name of atheistic ideology.
When the theism vs atheism debates typically devolve into a heated rhetoric of one side vs the other, that only fuels the atheists. While I’m inclined to think unnecessary rudeness tends to start from the atheist side, it comes from both, and we should lead by example.
In these debates, demonizing atheism, making simplistic arguments, relying mainly on the Bible, arguing from mere assertion of belief, all of this the atheist side will be very offended by, so much that they will likewise respond with rudeness and stupid, sweeping comments like Hitchens or Dawkins often made in their own arguments.
Comments like the Catholic Church is a criminal organization, or Mother Teresa was a sadistic charlatan. In my view, or my observation, these intellectual exchanges often devolve to a polemical war of words because they begin with sloppy slogans and doctrinal-like assertions, which results in a mutual hissy fit.
We have to address the hardest facts of the human condition in a way that reaches both the mind and proverbial heart in a meaningful and effective way. If I do not see that God exists despite my best efforts, or a supernatural reason to suffer to gain salvation in the afterlife, nihilism seems reasonable at least for some.
The atheist apologists seize upon this point often, which to me is one of their most compelling arguments to be addressed, the one hardest to answer from a purely rational point of view: why should I believe in an all-good God, and Creator, who wants eternal happiness for everyone, but who would allow the worst forms of misery on Earth, even for the most innocent?
Such as the most indescribably painful of illnesses among children, born into poverty and a broken, abusive home, in a severely poor country ran by the worst of dictatorial governments. Why should their parents, or the child themselves, who may have never heard of the Bible, ot the Gospel, of Christ’s teachings about redemptive suffering, based on reason itself, believe in an all-good, all-loving God? There needs to be good reasons presented.
I personally would find that very difficult to argue against in a debate with an atheist without referencing divine revelation.
If I am intellectually honest, if a person honestly cannot see the existence of God or the afterlife, but they are suffering the worst imaginable of human conditions, with very low quality of life on a purely material level, that is physically and psychologically, then I can understand if they desire to die simply to end their suffering, even if by euthanasia.
I absolutely reject euthanasia as a solution under any circumstance because of my Faith, but for those who understandably have not yet discovered any form of Faith, or spiritual reason to suffer through horrible suffering, then I understand why so many are turning towards nihilism.
Towards saying there is no inherent, absolute value to a human life, to Life itself, especially if they are going through the worst forms of suffering. Towards finding no spiritual form of well being or meaning in a constant state of pain with little pleasure. If I can’t see yet a spiritual dimension to reality, but only material, I’m naturally going to only assess the human condition based on material pleasure vs. pain.
Yet misery on some level is everyone’s condition. Everyone will experience it on some level, at different times, and in different ways, to the point we look up at the heavens and ask God to explain more His ways, in a way each individual can understand, so we don’t despair and give up on Life.
The Catholic Church teaches that even in our fallen state, after Original Sin, in general across humanity, humans are still more good than evil. While atheism and nihilism are pure evil, in themselves, most atheists are still more good than bad, except perhaps the more militant, anti-Christian, and hedonistic they are.
It is then spiritual warfare, in which we have to discern the honest atheist or nihilist from the malevolent variety. The latter we should either avoid and obliterate their arguments from a distance, including with polemics, and culture war methods, OR when they are more likely to be the former, to lead them in a civil debate.
Avoid referencing the Bible as a reference to prove itself, fideistic arguments, circular reasoning, or anything that the other side may misinterpret as a personal judgment against atheists rather than atheism itself.
If you can keep the exchange fair and intellectually honest—which is saying a lot—I think the key is to win them over to theism, Christianity, and Catholicism in a personal way based on mutual respect and friendship over time. To slowly plant seeds rather than expect a total change in one argument.
Ultimately, it comes down to showing how our Faith addresses the problem of human suffering, especially misery. How belief in an all good God is compatible with, for example, a child kidnapped and sold into sex slavery, imprisoned in the basement of a sadistic billionaire, raped every night for years, all four limbs amputated because they kept resisting (which happens), and in the end brutally murdered.
To go from not yet seeing evidence for God, to believing this kind of misery is still part of a Christian God’s plan for redemption, is going to take a lot of convincing over time. To see there are no real contradictions in divine revelation with the raw realities of Life. It means conversion, not just an intellectual change of position.
In conclusion, consider the case of Christopher Hitchens, who to me seems to be the most extreme advocate for atheism during these times. He was often arrogant and condescending, full of hatred. He was an alcoholic and chain smoker, and to me very depressed about the nature of human existence.
The man went so far as to write a hit piece on Mother Teresa, which would take a special kind of malice. But he was often right about the threat of religious fundamentalism, especially within Islam, about religious hypocrisy, denial of science, and the problem of blind faith pretending to be a virtue.
Not long before he died of cancer, he took a road-trip across the US with a close friend of his who is a devout Christian. After his death, this friend reported to the press that on that road trip, Christopher was reading the Gospel of John in the car, and told him privately that he was seriously considering converting to Christianity before he died!
Interestingly, the friend never disclosed whether or not there was a verifiable conversion before his death. Perhaps he didn’t. Or perhaps it was kept private to keep intact his intellectual legacy. Odds are if he was considering it, he at least said private prayers to a potential God asking for mercy. And odds are those past theists and Christians he debated with, in an edifying and fruitful way, helped lead him to at least the possibility of conversion.