Atheism: An Opiate For the Masses?

Alister McGrath, in his book, Doubting, gives Christians a way to understand, come to grips with, and fight doubt.  There are many excellent aspects of this book, but one that I want to mention here is how McGrath turns the famous “opiate” explanation on its head.  (I’m sure you’ve heard Marx’s statement before, that Christianity is an opiate for the masses to help them cope with the hardships of life).  Before I give the quote, let me address the atheists who might read this blog post based on its title.  I want to ask you to kindly refrain from nasty comments and encourage you to think through the actual quotation and the ramifications of it rather than throw it out without a second thought.  Here’s the quote.

“The atheist’s argument goes like this: you want there to be a God.  So you invent him.  Your religious views are invented to correspond to what you want.  But this line of argument works just as well against atheism.  Imagine an extermination camp commandant during the Second World War.  Would there not be excellent reasons for supposing that he might hope that God does not exist, given what might await him on the day of judgment?  And might not his atheism itself be a wish-fulfillment? This is a devastating point.  As cultural historians have pointed out for many years…people often reject the idea of God because they long for autonomy – the right to do what they please, without any interference from God.  They don’t need to worry about divine judgment; they reject belief in God because it suits them.  That’s what they want, but that doesn’t mean that this is the way things really are.”

“This point was made superbly by the Polish philosopher and writer Czeslaw Milosz, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.  Parodying the old Marxist idea that religion was the ‘opium of the people,’ he remarks in “The Discreet Charm of Nihilism” that a new opium has taken its place: rejection of belief in God on account of its implications for our ultimate accountability.  ‘A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, [and] murders we are not going to be judged.”

“Atheism thus depends on a core belief that it cannot verify [namely, that there is no God].  Do you see the importance of this point?  Atheists live out their lives on the basis of the belief that there is no God, believing that this is right but not being able to prove it conclusively” (p. 37-38).

There is more to the argument, and McGrath goes on from there to explain the limits of science.  But the main point above is valid and cannot be ignored.

Here’s the info of the book: Alister McGrath, Doubting: Growing Through the Uncertainties of Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006).

shane lems

sunnyside wa

A Christian Dealing With Doubts

 As I noted earlier, this one by Guinness has been the “book of the month” for me in many ways: God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt (Wheaton: Crossway, 1996).  As Christians, many of us have a tough time admitting that we have some doubts about the faith.  If that describes you, I recommend this book.  In it, Guinness defines doubt, discusses it, and shows seven major areas of doubt in the Christian life (a few examples: doubt from a faulty view of God, doubt from lack of commitment, doubt from unruly emotions, and doubt from weak foundations). 

The book is well written; it is clear and (thankfully) lacks all the buzzwords so common in Christianity today.  Though the book is easy to read, it is not a quick read because Guinness packs a lot in each chapter.  In fact, after reading it once and skimming it again, I’ve decided the best way to profit from this book is to outline it for myself.  To get you more interested, here are a few quotes.

“Anyone who believes anything will automatically know something about doubt.  But those who know why they believe are also in a position to discover why they doubt.  The follower of Christ should be such a person…they are those who ‘think in believing and believe in thinking,’ as Augustine expressed it” (p. 14).

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith, nor is it the same as unbelief.  Doubt is a state of mind in suspension between faith and unbelief so that it is neither of them wholly and it is each only partly” (p. 26).

“Doubt is not always fatal but it is always serious” (p. 29).

“Believe in God for wrong reasons or for no reason at all and you cannot expect to be free from doubt” (p. 40).

“We love our idols because we made them.  God’s truth, however, is much less comfortable, and the habit of being stretched by its demands is challenging” (p. 73).

“The Christian faith is not true because it works.  It works because it is true” (p. 77).

“Mystery is beyond human reason, but it is not against human reason” (p. 80).

“We do not trust God because he guides us; we trust God and then are guided, which means that we can trust God even when we do not seem to be guided.  Faith may be in the dark about guidance, but it is never in the dark about God.  What God is doing may be mystery, but who God is is not” (p. 176). (Note: Guinness is talking about the fact that God’s faithfulness and trustworthiness are not mysteries.)

One more:

“The waters may be dark and swirling, but faith steps from one stepping stone of God’s Word to another” (p. 205).

The whole book is like this – full of brilliant parts that take much reflection.  I’ll come back to this later…

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Faith, Doubt, & Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Newbigin)

This is an amazing and truly outstanding book.  Lesslie Newbigin’s Proper Confidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) is honestly one of the best brief and to the point books I’ve read on Christian epistemology (i.e. knowing things – specifically how faith and knowledge relate).  I would love to do a series of blog posts on this book, but I don’t have the time right now.  Instead, I’ll blurb a bit now, and come back to it later.

In this book, Newbigin talks about modernism & fundamentalism along with postmodernism & liberalism.  He wonderfully describes them, critiques them, points out the strengths of each, but then says neither will ultimately do for a Christian pilgrim “on the way.”  In fact, says Newbigin, our knowledge is “partial here in via, but promised in its fullness at the end” (p. 7).  We cannot assume a sort of enlightenment or even fundamentalistic view of knowledge, that we know so much based on scientific, reasonable propositions.  Nor can we assume a sort of liberal or postmodern view that nothing can be known with any certainty.  Instead,

“If the place where we look for ultimate truth is in a story and if (as is the case) we are still in the middle of the story, then it follows that we walk by faith and not by sight.  If ultimate truth is sought in an idea, a formula, or a set of timeless laws or principles, then we do not have to recognize the possibility that something totally unexpected may happen.  Insofar as our knowledge is accurate, we shall be able to predict the future.  Future and past events are governed by the same laws, the same principles, and the same realities.  But if we find ultimate truth in a story that has not yet been finished, we do not have that kind of certainty.  The certainty we have rests on the faithfulness of the one whose story it is.  We walk by faith” (p. 14)

Again, I’ll come back to this book some other time.  If you want a lesson in epistemology, especially how to think and act when it comes to liberalism and fundamentalism or postmodernism and modernism, reason and faith, and so forth, you really have to get this book.

A few more reading tips: First, Newbigin appropriates Polayni well in this book.  Second, this adds a new “robustness” to Van Til’s presuppositional arguments.  Finally, I assure you that if you read this book of Newbigin along with Herman Bavinck’s Certainty of Faith, you will not only be edified, your faith will also be strengthened, and you’ll have a great set of lenses with which to read and view the Christian faith in light of science, doubt, and skepticism.   Both books are around 100 pages and probably easy enough for anyone who knows the basic outlines of the history of philosophy.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Bavinck on Certainty IV

In my last post on Bavinck’s booklet, The Certainty of Faith, I promised to quote Bavinck on certainty in places other than Reformation Christianity.  Here are a few summary quotes from the third chapter of his book.

First, non-Christian religions teach us “that certainty is not the same as truth.  Truth always brings certainty, but certainty is no proof of truth.  The human spirit can find false rest in an error presumed to be the truth.  We like to believe in what we wish were true.  Certainty in itself, however, does not set one free.  Only the truth can free man from the servitude of sin and death.  If the Son has made you free, you shall be free indeed” (p. 33).

Second, certainty in the Roman Catholic Church “is, and remains, nothing more than an opinion, a surmise, an opinio conjecturalis.  …There is no room for such [i.e. ineradicable certainty] in Rome’s system, for it does not see salvation as assured in Christ and sealed in the heart of the believer by the testimony of the Holy Spirit.  …The Roman Catholic church never allows the Christian to become independent and to stand on his own feet.  It never sets him loose but always retains a hold on him, even years after his death in purgatory.  …Rome deliberately keeps the souls of believers in a restless, so-called healthy tension.  Spiritual life fluctuates between false assurance and painful uncertainty” (p. 35, 37).

Certainty among the Reformers was “the normal condition of their spiritual lives.”  “They were not mystics who retreated into isolation and left the world to its fate.  They were not intellectualists and moralists who failed to do justice to the richness of emotional life.  All unnatural, unhealthy pietism was foreign to them.  Their religious lives were sound at heart – clear and plain, yet passionate and deep.”  Bavinck then notes how the Heidelberg Catechism humbly yet boldly teaches assurance and certainty of salvation (p. 39-40).

Fourth, and finally, in post-orthodoxy pietism, “the believer was prompted to turn inward in order to assure himself about the reality of his faith.”  They argued that “real faith is experience.”  “Faith was not immediately certain of itself right from the beginning.  …The first years of faith were full of sighing and lamentation, praying and hoping.  Certainty was attained only after a series of experiences spread over many years.  It was not given with faith itself, nor did it issue from it.  Certainty was often added from the outside…sometimes through a sudden intrusion of some Bible passage,” sometimes “by a glorious light,” sometimes by being “drawn up into the third heaven and led into the inner chamber by the King.”  Then came assurance on the “highest rung of faith” (p. 43-44).

Bavinck goes on to say how neither proofs nor experience can provide certainty – only the gospel that comes from outside of us brings the certainty of faith by the Word and Spirit.  Not law, not morals, not experience, but only childlike trust in the free gospel of grace brings certainty (see pp. 60-83, for example).

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Bavinck and Certainty (II)

Moving on in the booklet, The Certainty of Faith, we note how Bavinck talks about science and certainty.  He briefly praises science for giving us so many benefits and insights into the universe.  Then, he states:

“But although it may have a lot to offer to our senses and understanding, it leaves the heart unsatisfied.  In the hour of suffering and in the face of death, what good comes from the conquest of nature, the blessings of civilization, the triumphs of science and the enjoyment of the arts?  What good does it do a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”

He continues to show the inadequacy of science concerning the heart. “Science may say what it wills about guilt and punishment, death and the afterlife, but it cannot ask us to hang eternity on a flimsy spider web.  When our highest interests, our eternal weal or woe is at stake, we must be satisfied with nothing less than infallible, divine certainty.  There must be no room for doubt.  But it is not hard to see that science can never offer us such certainty.”

“Every human soul is beset by a restlessness that no scientific reasoning can remove.”

More precisely, how is science inadequate when it comes to the religious heart?  “Science may honor the mystery of being but it can never explain it.  Precisely at the point where it would serve us the most, it has to admit its impotence and leaves us mute.  [It cannot] speak the word that will give life to our souls.  After only a little inquiry it keeps bumping into the unknown, the knowledge of which is indispensable for us.  It finds itself surrounded by an invisible world which it cannot enter.”

Finally, Bavinck also notes how science does offer a kind of certainty: that provided by the senses and that provided by reason.  The latter has to do with immediate certainty “derived from the first principles of science.”  The former has to do with “mediated certainty derived from demonstration and proof.”  However, “Scientific certainty, no matter how strong and fixed, always remains based on human argument and can, therefore, always be overturned by further and better investigation.  Such a doubtful, fallible certainty is insufficient in the area of religion.  Here [in religion] we need an infallible, divine certainty, one that transcends all human doubt and can never let us down.”

Stay tuned for more – next time on the role of testimony in science and religion/faith as well as divine certainty.

shane lems

sunnyside wa