I just finished
reading James Spiegel's book The Making of an Atheist. It was required reading in my philosophy of
religion class. I'm glad it was. In fact, I want to share it with you because it is
profound, short, and contains essential information for Christians and
non-Christians alike. If you are not a
Christian, I dare you to read it. I promise you will hate it. Read it anyways. It's only 128 pages, including the
introduction, but it sparked five weeks of classroom discussion. Spiegel's central thesis is powerful and
controversial. We'll get to that in a
minute. This is my chapter-by-chapter review of how he supports that thesis,
with all its strengths and weaknesses. Yeah it's a long blog post. Non-nerds are dismissed.
This guy...Spiegel
Not this guy...Smeagol
At the beginning of the book, Spiegel cites the belligerent quotes of
three prominent players in the "New Atheist" movement. Sam Harris says God is "...like Zeus and
the thousands of other dead gods whom most sane human beings now
ignore." Christopher Hitchens said,
"Religion poisons everything."
Richard Dawkins calls God a "delusion" and "a petty,
unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, blood thirsty ethnic cleanser;
a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent
bully." Sheesh! Tell us how you really feel, Richard.
I think some of those are British cuss words.
Spiegel points out that the only new thing these men offer the atheist
position is their "degree of bombast" and a prose that "seethes
with outrage." Though their
intellectual arguments have been repeatedly rebutted by Christian and non-Christian
philosophers and theologians over the centuries, they present themselves as
having arrived at their conclusions by intellectual inquiry. Who's delusional?
Spiegel explicitly states, "I want to show that atheism is not
ultimately about arguments and evidence." He elaborates further, "Atheism is not at all a
consequence of intellectual doubts. Such
doubts are mere symptoms of the root cause – moral rebellion (emphasis his)." This is Spiegel's central thesis, that
atheism is a consequence of moral rebellion and not intellectual doubt.
Spiegel gives the reader the book's definition of
"atheist." He states, "I
will use the term "atheist" to refer to anyone who does not believe
in God. This allows me to just use the
term "atheist" rather than repeatedly referring to "atheists and
other non-theists" throughout our discussion." This, in my opinion, is the major flaw in the
book. Is Spiegel's central thesis
referring to disbelief in monotheism or the God of the Bible? There are forms of monotheism, such as deism,
that reject the God of the Bible. Would
that not also be a rejection based on moral rebellion consistent with Spiegel's
thesis? It would seem so, but he points to
Anthony Flew as an example of rational evidence persuading someone away from
atheism. Spiegel says, "Flew
explains his reasons for recanting atheism and affirming the reality of
God." I disagree with Spiegel on this point. Flew did not affirm the reality of God. He merely affirmed the reality of monotheism. His conversion is still a very valid point
that supports Spiegel's central thesis as it is, but I believe Spiegel's
central thesis should have been more clearly that the rejection of the God of
the Bible is the consequence of moral rebellion.
This disagreement aside, the first chapter does well to address the
objections of atheists. Spiegel points
out that "the common objection from evil does pack some punch, and it is a
genuine problem for theists." He
rightly goes on to explain that it is a non-sequitur to conclude from this
problem that there is no God. Spiegel
also points to the deathblow to the atheists' positivism, self-refutation. Turns out it is actually impossible to
scientifically prove that everything should be scientifically proven. He also offers a compelling argument that
moral values and the belief that life is meaningful are "borrowed capital
for the atheist." How can the positivist be positive that positively
behaving positively is the positive thing to do? I'm positive they can't
be.
Spiegel concludes the first chapter by ceding that atheists are correct
in some of their common objections.
There are hypocritical believers. There are morally
complacent believers. Religion has been used "as a pretext for shoddy scientific methodology."
I agree that these are valid complaints.
I also agree, as Spiegel points out, that they do not constitute
reasonable objections to theistic faith.
At most, they accuse us as believers, not the belief itself. "Christians are so stupid! Therefore,
God doesn't exist!" You can put all colors of lipstick on that pig, it's
still a fallacy.
In chapter two, Spiegel, as previously mentioned, cites the conversion
of Anthony Flew from atheism to deism.
By illustrating the teleological arguments that convinced Flew, Spiegel
aims to show the "irrationality of atheism." I think Spiegel missed an opportunity here to
clearly level at least two additional powerful arguments for the existence of
God. The cosmological argument and the
moral argument are commonly compelling arguments. Not everyone finds the teleological argument
compelling, though perhaps one of the others they would. To be fair and clear, Spiegel does present
components of the moral argument in other parts throughout the book. I am merely suggesting that this chapter
could have included these arguments in a clear, syllogistic way. "That would be the logical thing to do,
Captain."
Spiegel also elaborates, in this chapter, on a biblical diagnosis for
atheism. He points first to Psalm 14:1,
"the fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Spiegel notes that the Hebrew word for
"fool" used here denotes a person who is "morally
deficient." Spiegel puts the
quotation marks on "morally deficient" not me. However, he does not cite a source for this
claim. Because Spiegel's area of
expertise is in philosophy and religion, and not biblical languages, I would
expect him to cite a source for this.
Despite that weakness, he goes on to illustrate the scriptural evidence
of the cause of disbelief with compelling passages. Most compelling to me in support of Spiegel's
central thesis was John 3:19-21. Here,
Jesus emphasizes the role of wickedness in rejecting the Truth. Jesus even makes the point that evildoers do
not simply reject the light, but actually "hate" it. Shall we queue Dawkins' whimsical, wordy,
wanton rant back up? Spiegel also
accurately cites Romans 1:18-24, 28-29, and Ephesians 4:17-19 to support his
thesis.
Chapter three was to me the most intriguing. Spiegel stands up three causes for
atheism. He cites the work of Paul Vitz
in Faith of the Fatherless to show that a look at the lives of numerous renowned atheists have
shared a common link of having defective fathers. He makes certain to emphasize
that this does not mean that having a defective father guarantees atheism. Seems from
the Amazon reviews that this line was omitted from the fry-cook-by-day-internet-genius-atheist-by-night
version of the book, with all the "Muh Daddy loved me and I hate God anyways!
So this book is full of LIES!" tirades. This
psychological consideration is both compelling support for Spiegel's thesis and
most intriguing to me. It's also a good reminder
that apologetics should involve compassion for the inevitable emotional roots of
atheism.
Another cause that Spiegel points to is self-serving depravity. He points to several leading intellectuals
and their accompanying perversions, especially of the sexual sort, as evidence
that atheism is self-serving. For
example, Karl Marx was fiercely anti-Semitic, unfaithful to his wife, and sired
an illegitimate son whom he refused to acknowledge. Jean Jacques Rousseau sired five illegitimate
children and abandoned them to orphanages, which in his social context meant
certain early death. Ernest Hemingway
was a pathological liar, misogynistic womanizer, and self-destructive
alcoholic. These are but a few of the
examples Spiegel cites. His point is
taken from the book Intellectuals by Paul Johnson, which Spiegel describes as "a 342 – page
historical exposé that recounts behavior so sleazy and repugnant that one
almost feels corrupted just by reading it." I think we call those "voting ballots".
Spiegel best makes his point when he
quotes Johnson thus, "the works of these intellectuals were often
calculated to justify or minimize the shame of their own debauchery." This is exactly what one should expect to
find if one considers the scriptural truths previously cited.
The third cause Spiegel points out is the "will to disbelieve." This he gives as a subtitle to this section,
playing on the words of William James' influential essay The Will to Believe, which he cites often. A quote
of James best sums up Spiegel's point: "If your heart does not want a
world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in
one." He brings up THE quote from
Thomas Nagel, which he introduced earlier in the book, as evidence for this
position. Nagel ticked off atheist philosophers everywhere when he said,
"I want atheism to be true...It isn't just that I don't believe in God,
and, naturally, hope that I'm right about my belief. It's that I hope there is
no God! I don't want there to be a God;
I don't want the universe to be like that." Wow! Nagel's moment of honesty
strikingly confirms this part of Spiegel's support for his thesis.
Chapter four introduces us to a concept Spiegel calls "paradigm induced
blindness." Those who suffer from
this are prevented from seeing the truth, even when it is right in front of
them. Women call these people "husbands". Spiegel cites Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to illustrate that it is a naïve notion to believe that scientists
are immune to bias. Geocentric beliefs (the
earth is the center of the galaxy) verses heliocentric beliefs (the sun is the center
of the galaxy) are an example of two opposing paradigms. Spiegel asks of the people of the fourteenth and
fifteenth century, "Why couldn't those geocentrists, including both church
leaders and scientists, see the truth?"
The geocentrists were victims of paradigm induced blindness. The centers of the two paradigms of theism
and atheism are expressed by Spiegel when he says, "God is the center of
the theist's worldview... On the other
hand, the axis of a worldview without God is necessarily the self, and the
atheist's values and personal experience are shaped accordingly."
This atheist paradigm naturally prevents one from seeing certain sinful
practices as immoral. In turn, their
repugnance at a "narrow" or "repressed" Christian ethic
serves to reinforce their atheist paradigm.
Add to the mix the noetic effects of sin (that biblical idea that the fall
has cognitive effects on the human mind), and paradigm-induced blindness
becomes a vicious cycle that entrenches the atheist in blind disbelief. This total causal pattern, Spiegel dubs
"the psychological machinery of self-deception." Mortals call it "deception". I think Spiegel has presented a compelling
case in this chapter, and the biblical concept of the noetic effect of sin
strongly supports this conclusion.
In the last chapter, Spiegel makes a positive claim for "the
blessings of theism." He makes the
point that there is apologetic value in the life well lived, and that the most
effective tools of persuasion are personal virtue and self-sacrifice. Spiegel gives three reasons why virtue is
beneficial to one who is already a believer.
First, one avoids the deadening of the sensus divinitatis (the innate sense
of God every human being is born with).
Second, virtue prevents motives for willful disbelief. Thirdly, living according to a true paradigm,
as opposed to a false one, has the power to enlighten, clarify, and sharpen
one's experience of the world.
Spiegel also points out that, in addition to the benefits of hope in
eternal life and relief by forgiveness of sins, we also have "the right to
complain and the privilege to thank."
Because negative emotions can be the first steps towards doubt and
disbelief, the right to complain to God is important. Because offering thanks can be profoundly
satisfying and a form of psychological release, thanking God is important. Furthermore, Spiegel claims that the failure
to be adequately thankful can cause one to have a distorted perception of pride
and autonomy. These are indeed
beneficial and compelling because the atheist worldview is left with the
challenge of showing how this is not the case, while the ideas seem axiomatic.
Spiegel concludes this chapter, and the book, with an eye to the grace
that God showed us. With a reminder
that, while everything we do warrants God's judgment, He intervened when we did
nothing to deserve it. This love is a matter
of virtue and should be "the first and last order of business for any
Christian."
Spiegel has provided the Christian with a concise and effective
resource to respond to the intrepid hostility, baseless conclusions, and
deceptive irrationality of the New Atheists.
While there is room for improvement, and I do not think this book
provides the complete essentials to equip the Christian to respond to
intellectual objections of atheists, I think this is a must read for any
Christian confronted with the New Atheism in our society. Yeah, that's you. That's all of us. Spiegel has supported his central thesis, that
atheism is the result of moral rebellion and not intellectual doubt, very well.
And here's the Kindle version:
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atheist-Immorality-Leads-Unbelief-ebook/dp/B0038U0U40/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1384218029
Spiegel, James S., The Making of an
Atheist, (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment