Reason and the Atheist Straw Man

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she will promote you; she will bring you honor, when you embrace her."  -- Ancient Hebrew Proverb

An apocalyptic war is being waged for the minds and hearts of men and women everywhere. Atheists are on the offensive. Their goals are a secular, areligious society where Christians are marginalized as superstitious, irrational idiots whose beliefs have no reasonable basis. The strategy of the atheists can be easily seen in two recent news stories. The first comes from Canada, where columnist and atheist Christopher Hitchens recently debated former Prime Minister Tony Blair on the role of religion in the world. During the debate, Hitchens, the author of God is not Great, argued that believing in God requires the "surrender of your critical faculties." He continued, ""Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things." A second story, this one originating in New York, covered the annual assault on Christmas by an atheist group who took out a billboard in the city calling the Christmas story a "myth" and advertising their position as “reason[able]."

New York Times Photo.

These attacks on Christianity are standard fare amongst atheists. Notice the argument they are both advancing: “atheists have reason on their side,” and its corollary, “Christians do not.” So what of this claim? Are the atheists right? Is Christianity unreasonable? Is atheism really more reasonable?

We might start by defining our terms. What do we mean when we talk about things being “reasonable” and “unreasonable”? In the strictest sense, reason can be defined as the use of the rules of classical logic to govern thought. For example, we call a man reasonable if he can work out in his head, “All bachelors are unmarried. Bob is a bachelor. Therefore, Bob is unmarried,” and then actually live his life as if Bob were unmarried.

If this technical definition is what the atheist means when he claims reason as his own, he will be sorely disappointed. The greatest philosophical minds in human history have explored the question of God’s existence (or non-existence) with disappointing results for both sides. There are no arguments using classical logic which prove the non-existence of God in this strict technical sense. The argument which has the most merit is the Problem of Evil, and even that argument misses the mark as a proof by a wide margin. It should also be noted that there are also no arguments which proves the existence of God in this way. The argument which comes the closest is Anselm’s ontological reductio ad absurdum argument, but even it is not without its difficulties. As I argued elsewhere, this should not panic the Christian in the least.

So when the atheist claims reason as his domain, he is either ignorant, dishonest, or is using a different definition of reason than the one discussed above: if he is ignorant, then we must instruct him; if he is dishonest, then we must reprimand him; if he is appealing to a different definition of reason, then we must demand he tell us what that is.

However, another option exists. In a delectable twist of irony, it is actually the atheist who is committing a logical fallacy when he accuses the Christian of being illogical: he is creating a straw man for all the world to throw stones at. In philosophical terms, a "straw man" is a false position or argument created by one’s opposition as a tool of argumentation. The opponent then refutes the straw man position without ever addressing the real position of his adversary. We see this tactic used in modern politics all the time. For example, in the U.S. recently there has been a fascinating debate over tax policy. The Democrats, unable to logically refute supply-side trickle-down economics, instead created a straw man for the Republicans by declaring that they wantonly wanted tax cuts for the rich. The Democrats then attacked that position as indefensible and publicly harangued the Republicans for “holding hostage” 300 million Americans for the sake of their millionaire "friends." Perhaps one of the most entertaining straw man attacks of recent memory is the one performed by this congressman on the House floor.

Before moving forward, we should note a few essential aspects of a good straw man attack: first and most important, the straw man argument must resemble the position of the opposition close enough so no one recognizes the ruse; second, the straw man argument must be a weak position, easily beaten, humiliated, and dismantled; and third, the rhetoric must be effective enough to make the opposition look weak and foolish while making the straw man’s creator appear wise and erudite.

So what is the atheist Straw Man? As seen in the two news articles above, it is that Christian beliefs do not have a reasonable basis. All three aspects of a strong straw man attack are present. First, Christian ideology can be manipulated just enough that people who lack the ability to think critically gloss over the accusation without realizing what is being done. Here is what I mean. The Christian worldview is not without a rational basis. Christians have a long and proud intellectual heritage that forms the foundation of western civilization. Many of the greatest intellectual minds in the history of the western world - Paul of Tarsus, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Martin Luther, Kant, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, et al. - have been Christians. However, Christians do talk openly about abstract concepts like faith and hope. They embrace the metaphysical, things that cannot be seen or touched. As such, the atheist straw man is often easily accepted by a biased, thoughtless populace whose lack of historical perspective and philosophical education do not alert them to the fact they are being hoodwinked. Few within the realm of intelligentsia defend a position being sold as unreasonable, making the straw man easy to ridicule and dismantle. Lastly, the atheist’s rhetoric bears the characteristic condescension and egomania, like Hitchens’ comments that “religion makes intelligent people say stupid things” (I am unsure what religion has to do with anything. I hear people of all orientations - theist and atheist alike - say stupid things all the time; for example.)

Christians must recognize what it being done to them in the public arena. Only if we understand the fallacy being used against us can we counter appropriately with arguments that advance our faith. There is an embarrassing richness of arrows in our quiver if we only remember how to use them.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People: Christianity and the Problem of Evil

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  -- C.S. Lewis

The sad story has spread through the news and social networks, affecting not only a family but a whole community: Asher, only three years old, a little boy full of life and vigor and enthusiasm, died in one of the most tragic accidents imaginable. He was playing at his own house, one minute filling the backyard with his innocent laughter, and the next minute he was gone.

In moments like this, everyone - even the most faithful Christian - is left groping for answers to one of life’s greatest questions: If God is good and loving, why do things like this happen? If He cares like we claim He cares, why does He allow tragic accidents like Asher’s? Why do bad things happen to good people?

There can be no equivocating: these are difficult questions. Thankfully, we are not starting from ground zero. The greatest thinkers of human history have confronted these same questions, a long list which includes King Solomon, Paul of Tarsus, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dostoevsky, C.S. Lewis, and Alvin Plantinga. Collectively, the questions we are dealing with have been distilled down to a philosophical argument, often referred to by philosophers as “The Problem of Evil.” The argument goes something like this:

1.      God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent; that is, God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.

2.      God knows about every instance of evil in the world.

3.      God has the power to prevent every instance of evil in the world.

4.      A God who is all-good would want to prevent every instance of evil in the world.

5.      Instances of evil exist.

6.      Therefore, God does not exist.

We say God is all-knowing, He is powerful beyond measure, and He is perfectly good. I think almost everyone can agree on the first two statements: if God does exist, then He knows all things and has the power to do whatever He wills. Therefore, the third quality, or premise 4 of our argument, is the one which garners the most attention: is God really “good”, and if He is, would He desire to prevent every instance of evil in the world? Is it possible that God is either not all-good, or that the quality of being all-good does not require that He desire to prevent evil? That is, can God be all-good and yet allow evil to exist? This seems to be the crux of the problem, and it is what the casual agnostic is getting at when he says, “I’m not sure I can believe in a God who would let all these terrible things happen to good people.” It is an apparent contradiction that the theist must be ready to answer.

If God knows of every instance of evil, has the power to prevent every instance of evil that He knows about, and yet evil persists, the theist must focus on whether the quality of being all-good demands God prevent every instance of evil in the world; that is, the theist must show that God is not required by His own nature to prevent evil. Theists have attempted to answer this question in different ways, but their solutions have a common theme: is there something at work in evil – some greater good - which God deems valuable enough to allow evil to persist? Is there a greater good that comes of evil such that an all-good God would not feel the need to prevent it? When something tragic happens like Asher’s accident, God may have a purpose in allowing it that we might not readily understand. It is what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote that God “works all things to the good.” But what good could possibly come of such a sad accident?

For family’s like Asher’s that are suffering, I suspect attempts to explain God’s greater purposes often sound like hollow sermonizing; nonetheless, we might see what Christianity’s greatest minds have said about the problem. Augustine wrote in his Confessions that, “though the higher things are better than the lower, the sum of all creation is better than the higher things alone.”[2] Solving the Problem of Evil was a life-long quest for Augustine, and he ultimately believed that the universe is experientially more rich because it contains every form of existence: pain as well as euphoria, ugliness as well as beauty, sorrow as well as joy. It is because we see people acting ill that we have a proper appreciation for people acting virtuously. It is because we see much that is ugly in the world that we see the fullness of beauty. In the case of a tragic loss such as Asher’s, Augustine thought it is because we as humans experience such great sorrow that we can know such great joy.

C.S. Lewis took a similar route in approaching the issue in his work The Problem of Pain. He argued that evil is necessary because “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.”[3] Lewis understood the key to human happiness was obedience to God. He also understood obedience to God is not possible without the constant surrender of the human will, what Paul referred to as “[dying] daily.” Lewis argued that much of humanity is incapable of “turning [their] thoughts to God when everything is going well….,” so God allows us to be crushed on the rocks of pain and suffering. Once we have been ship-wrecked and realize our terrible state, only then do we turn our attention to God. Lewis’ position on pain seems to be similar to what Paul wrote of the Law: pain is something of a school-master, designed to lead us to a reliance on God. If the Law was designed by God so we could realize we are sinners in need of a Savior, then pain breaks our self-will so we forsake ourselves and rely on Him.

The ideas of Augustine and Lewis have a lot of merit. It seems to me that to some degree evil is even necessary for good to exist. There are certainly states that we all recognize as being “good” that cannot exist without an attendant evil: “heroic strength in the face of great suffering”, “extraordinary faith in times of terrible doubt”, and “humble forgiveness in light of a grievous wrong”, to name a few. Not even an omnipotent being could create “heroic strength in the face of great suffering” without “the great suffering.” And we all learn something about ourselves in these hours of overwhelming adversity. It is in the face of great evil, of debilitating pain and suffering, that humanity knows it’s most divine moments. Without Nazi facism humanity would never have known of the grace of Frank or the clemency of Schindler. Without Pearl Harbor we may never have known D-Day. Without 9/11 we would not have known of the courage of Beamer or his fellow passengers on Flight 93. Without a million Persians history likely would have forgotten the strength of 300 Spartans under the leadership of their king, Leonidas. Without slavery and racism, we could not have witnessed the resolve of Lincoln, Douglass, or Martin Luther King, Jr. God gives us opportunities to be heroes, and the stories of those who thrive in the face of such great adversity inspire others for generations.

None of this is likely to offer much comfort to those who are hurting, but our hope is in this: all things work together for good to those who love God.

(I approach this topic with all seriousness. My sincerest prayers and sympathies go out to Asher’s family and friends. This is my own awkward attempt at trying to help Asher’s memory persist and to make sense of his accident by helping us all to consider an important question. The joy and sorrow that we all share in this life binds us, and the questions that an accident like this makes us face are necessary.)

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[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York, 1996), p. 83.

[2] Augustine, Confessions VII. 13.

[3] Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p. 82.

The Rise of the Bully: Ethics and Education in America

A series of tragic suicides by young people have occurred in our nation over the past several months. The year began with the tragic story of Phoebe Prince, and recently experienced the very public suicide of Tyler Clementi; in between, at least 6 or more similar cases have occurred, many attributed to harassment over a young person’s sexual identity.[1] Bullying is on the rise as teens use the increased access to each others' personal lives afforded by social media as a tool to torment one another. It has gotten so bad that President Obama recently released a public service announcement addressing the problem.

While the teenage suicides are tragic – is there anything sadder than a young person, with a full life yet to live, ending it all? – no one should be surprised by what we are seeing. Am I the only one who finds it hauntingly coincidental that, at the same time legislators are pledging increased commitment to science and mathematics education in America, our schools are experiencing an epidemic of cruelty that borders on barbaric? Science is useful in as much as it assists in diagnosing and finding a cure for a certain disease; mathematics is useful for building a fine bridge or a rocket; unfortunately, neither is of much use when it comes to teaching students to value another human being, or how to respond when being mistreated by one. Those issues, and many like them, are the province of the humanities: history, literature, philosophy, et al. At an hour when our experiences should tell us that we need the humanities the most, it is precisely these subjects which get increasingly short shrift in the government schools.

It is time for some introspection. The liberty and prosperity that Americans enjoy did not grow out of a vacuum: Western Civilization stands of the shoulders of giants. Those giants almost without exception understood the indelible nature of education and moral virtue. For the Greco-Romans, the end goal of education was to create a virtuous person; as the famous French historian, H.-I. Marrou, wrote, “Classical teaching was chiefly interested in the man himself, not in equipping technicians for specialized jobs; and it is this, perhaps, that most sharply distinguishes it from the education of our own time….” [2] That was written in 1956; imagine how much more acute the difference has become. The American founders understood this principle as well: Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that the key to happiness in this life was to be virtuous, and that he sought “to convince young Persons” that the most important of those virtues for success in life were “Probity and Integrity.” Modern scholars, too numerous to count, have agreed. C.S. Lewis wrote that education without values simply makes man a more clever devil; similarly, Theodore Roosevelt said that to educate a student in mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Fast forward to our present straits. We are simply reaping what we have sown over the past four decades. Two landmark Supreme Court decisions in the early 60’s (Engel v. Vitale, and Abington v. Schempp) completed the secularization of the public school system; to avoid the pitched howls of a vast minority, many school administrators are not willing to add classes like Ethics, Comparative Religions, or The Bible as Literature to their available electives. But we should not wonder when we remove “Do unto others as you would have done to you” from the curriculum, and then students treat each other with a feral cruelty. When we encourage students in the belief that there are no moral absolutes, we should not be surprised when they behave like there are no moral absolutes. This is precisely what C.S. Lewis meant when he wrote, “such is the tragi-comedy of our situation - we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible.” We wish our students would do as they would be done by, but our education is not empowering them to even ask the question; instead, we demand that they increase their math and science scores in hopes that they might be able to build a better widget.

Without a suitable option by the government schools for addressing these problems, parents are seeking alternatives at a staggering rate. There are over 6 million students attending private schools in America, including both daughters of President Obama. According to the NHERI website, there are an estimated 2 million more students who are homeschooled, and that number is growing by 5-10% per year. These numbers are staggering when you consider economics: the government option is paid for by the tax-payers, while parents are paying out of pocket for the alternatives. The bullying crisis will only provide added incentive for parents to consider these other options.

A public service announcement from the leader of our country, however well-intentioned, will not fix the situation. As Einstein opined, it would be insane to do the same thing continually and expect different results. Our ills are systemic, and until the system is fixed nothing will change. Families cannot be expected to send their kids to school to be made clever devils and social menaces any longer; they must be given more and better options. Otherwise, the worst is yet to come.

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[1] I am not sure which I find more disconcerting: that a thirteen year-old would be harassed due to their “sexual identity”, or that a thirteen year-old would have a “sexual identity” to begin with. Add innocence to the long list of virtues that secular progressivism has utterly destroyed. But that topic is for another day.

[2] H.-I. Marrou, The History of Education in Antiquity, English tr. by G. Lamb, (New York, 1964), p. 302.