Talk on the Basics of Modern Day Atheism and Our Response as Christians

This is the rough outline of a talk that I gave recently on evangelizing atheists in our culture today.

Introduction

Preface: Understanding atheism in our culture: I am going to be speaking tonight on the topic of atheism in our culture and how we can evangelize atheists through understanding the origins of their belief system. 

Story: Protestantism: When I was your age in high school, about 20 years ago, most of the apologetic talks and programs that I listened to were heavily focused on debates between Catholics and Protestants. And so they often centered around examining Scripture and talking about the role of Tradition and the Magisterium. But something has changed in our culture, and those debates between Catholics and Protestants have become less common. Rather, must of the apologetic work in the last decade has been more focused on defending the faith from atheism and a type of cultural skepticism towards the Bible, the Church, and the higher spiritual realities in general. And so that's what we are going to talk about tonight. 

Part 1 - Practical Atheism 

Definition: Practical Atheism: A first category of atheism that I want to address could be called a "practical atheism". This would be someone who believes in God, but their actions don't reflect or someone who hasn’t thought deeply about any of it 

Explanation: - often hindered by moral problems as faith takes a total self surrender to God 

- moral problems become metaphysical problems 

Explanation: -sometimes trauma or emotional problems become metaphysical problems 

Part 2 - Theoretical Atheism 

Definition: someone who has thought about the question and may have intellectual reasons for atheism. 

Worldviews and Belief Systems

Categorization: here it is helpful to understand the concept of worldview and belief systems work, bc atheism is a type of belief system. 

Background: the human condition and the nature of complexity. 

Analogy: the darkened room analogy 

Analogy: we set limits to reality and create a cosmic story to live in 

Genus: Both are systems of belief about the ultimate nature of reality based on faith

Specific Difference: our cosmic story is revealed by God, there’s is of a reductionist in nature 

A Historical Look at Two Major Threads 

Time: - from a historical perspective, here’s a few things we can say. Atheism is almost certainly a 19th century phenomenon. -unpacking the historical part, there’s really two threads we need to follow. 

Origin 1: - there’s the metaphysical skepticism that results from modern rationalist philosophy, and 

Origin 2: there’s the advance of the material sciences which grew along with that skepticism. 

Thread 1 - Metaphysical Skepticism

Descartes and the Self - to briefly trace the origin of that metaphysical skepticism, we can see a clear origin in the philosophy of Descartes. Descartes wanted to put as the foundation of truth, not being itself, but the subjective knower of being. What happens when man’s mind is the foundation of all truth is that people begin to realize over time that if truth starts in the human mind then there is no way to bridge the gap back to reality itself. The mind becomes a prison. 

Attempts: - there’s attempts to escape that prison through idealist philosophy. Here’s there figures like George Berkeley. Or in Kantian Critical philosophy. Or with Hegel.  

Skepticism 200 years: - But within two hundred years a skepticism emerges towards truth and thinking in general. 

Anti-Rationalism - this is the anti rationalist worldview and the birth of atheism because of one cannot know reality they cannot know the creator or reality. They begin to look at God as a psychological weapon of power, which certain groups have secretly wielded over other groups. 

- here you have figures like Karl Marx and Frederick Nietzsche. 

- and so in order to throw off this perceived manipulation they reject God and religion altogether. Not with intellectual arguments, but by the sheer force of the will. 

- it is a putting out of the mind by choice. 

- here we have the birth of anti theistic ideologies that in the 20th century seek to create a utopia on earth given that heaven is supposedly a lie. 

- Marxist communism, socialism, fascism, Nazism, atheistic existentialism, post modernism and so on. 

Take Away 

It’s not an intellectual argument: - and so it’s important to remember that atheism isn’t an intellectual argument against God, but it’s a type of epistemological skepticism toward reality. 

Have a Defense of Realism - and so for us we need to have answers ready as to why truth does not begin in our minds, but our minds are rather first formed by reality itself. 

- we need to be ready to explain how we can know reality and truth and why it is trustworthy. 

Reality Leads to God - once one assents to the knowledge of reality, reality always leads the mind to God as its ultimate origin and source. 

Thread 2 - Naturalism

Bleeds Into Science -the second major strand we need to follow is how this skepticism bleeds over into the scientific community. 

Naturalism - that metaphysical skepticism bleeds over into science and there’s a worldview formed which thought that science could answer all questions and any that it couldn’t answer weren’t worth asking. 

Reductionism- hence you have a movement to reduce all the wonders of human existence to material phenomena. Thus, they thought that questions about spirituality, religion, God, the soul, morality were meaningful questions as these don’t fit within the scientific method. These questions were characterized as irrational, and the conflict model of faith and science becomes the bumper sticker view od things. 

-this is the worldview known as Naturalism. 

Take Away

Thinking God’s thought- the ironic part is that before the metaphysical skepticism bled in, the early founders of science believed that science could only be practiced as a discipline because there was an intelligent source to our reality. And so we were thinking gods thoughts after him when we uncovered scientific truths. If there was not an intelligence behind it, why is the world understandable at all? Why are there laws which govern how things work? 

We own science- and so in reality, science is a discipline that really belongs to the Christian believer because if there is no divine intelligence there is not intelligible order to the world and thus there can be no science or study of things. 

Conclusion

Call to Action:  as Christians we have the intellectual ground and our job should be to point out the philosophical errors that have led to the atheism that we see today in our culture. 

Wonder - living a theistic worldview means always being open to the workings and wonder of God. God is entering our world, our lives, every day. Are we attentive? 

Fully Human- it means living as humans fully alive to the higher realities of life: love, family, festivity, art, language, morality, wonder, and of course faith. 

Education- it means educating ourselves so that we do not duped into living the wrong story and missing the entire point, that this life is a preparation for the next life.