How do you know? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Christian music nowadays is often so terrible with how someone knows that Christianity is true. As important as Easter is, I dread going to a church and having to hear “He Lives.” I can’t imagine the disciples in the first century saying “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” A Jesus that lives in your heart would not be a threat to the Roman Empire.
Or consider Toby Mac who sang a song called “Feel It.” How does he know Christianity is true? He feels it. That’s it. This is the kind of nonsense that is being sent out to young Christians and I fear young Christians hearing that will think that’s how you know and then go off to college to be destroyed by an atheist professor.
Not only will they think that Christianity is false, they will think this is what Christianity is. Christianity is all about how you feel. Sadly, most adults in the church will give that exact same kind of mindset to them.
That’s the kind of argument that Paulos is presenting in this chapter. Again, Paulos goes for low-hanging fruit consistently and doesn’t do any real interaction with the material at its best. The only possible exception is the ontological argument and even with that, he doesn’t look at modern defenders of the argument.
I recently had someone contact me asking about the claim that what they experienced in their faith could be explained by brain studies. I said that this isn’t an argument I would use as I would point to the existing of God and the resurrection of Jesus, but I did tell them, “So what if brain studies do show there is a correlation between the two?” If God is behind something, is He always to work in miraculous means?
Generally, that’s the approach I take. Enjoy experiences that are good that come to you, but don’t make them the foundation.
Surprisingly, he says something I agree with:
It’s repellent for atheists or agnostics to personally and aggressively question others’ faith or pejoratively label it as benighted flapdoodle or something worse. Those who do are rightfully seen as arrogant and overbearing.
Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 79). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
Unfortunately, Paulos often doesn’t follow his advice here. He hasn’t done any real research on the material he is writing on. Where are these academics who say the first cause argument is that “Everything has a cause.”? Part of treating a position respectfully is trying to treat it at its best. It means not giving out trite arguments for atheism like
I’ve often wondered why adherents of a particular religion and its associated figures and narratives claim to be incapable of understanding atheists and agnostics. As has often been noted, they generally have some relevant experience that they can call on. Their religion teaches them to deny the figures, even the God(s), of other faiths and traditions—Zeus, Osiris, Woden, and so on. Atheists and agnostics simply do them one better, extending this denial one God further to make it universal.
Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 80). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
An argument like this is not against God. It’s against Superman. It’s assuming the God of the Bible is just like the gods on Mount Olympus. People like this do not have the basic understanding of Christian theology necessary to argue against God. Yes, atheists. You need to read Christian theology to argue against Christianity.
My analogy I use for this is to imagine a defense attorney making a closing argument in a case. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We all agree that there are plenty of people in this room that did not commit the murder. I ask that you just look at my client and go one person further.”
I actually found amazing his use of Ambrose Bierce with The Devil’s Dictionary.
(Relevant is Ambrose Bierce’s definition of “pray”—“to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”)
Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 81). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
I actually found this definition quite amazing. Sometimes, we are asking that and sometimes, the answer can be yes. God does amazing things for we who are unworthy.
Finally, Paulos says
My own feeling derives in part from the realization, mentioned in the preface, that I had when I was ten years old and wrestling with my brother on the floor of my family’s house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In an important sense, I mused, there was no essential difference between me and not-me; everything was composed of atoms and molecules, and though their patterns differed, the rug below our heads and the brains inside them were made of the same stuff.
Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 81). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
With this, I wonder why he is an atheist. Why is he not a pantheist? Besides that, has he not thought about any of this since he was ten years old?
Sadly, it looks like he hasn’t.
We’ll continue next time.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)