For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. – Romans 11:36
In earlier posts in this series, I noted that atheists have responded the same way to the gospel for millennia and that mankind actively suppresses the truth as Romans 1:18 states. A third observation I made when equipping our college students about the new atheists is how all evidence of what exists in this world leads to one conclusion—there is a God. God has inherently designed His creation this way. When one then rejects the obvious conclusion that God exists, then that individual is left with certain holes in his world view that he is unable to fill. This results in significant unanswerable questions.
Specifically evidence such as the existence of concepts of “morality” and the evidence of existence itself will be inexplicable by denying that there is a Moral Law Giver and A Creator. Once God is ruled out as an explanation, the individual is left with no reasonable answer. The answers to significant life questions will inevitably lead to God. God has set eternity into the heart of man (Eccl. 3: 11).
For example, atheist Dr. Dawkins attempts to answer the question of what warrants morality in his atheistic worldview. Dawkins acknowledges a universal acceptance of right and wrong by society. He senses it. He acknowledges it. But his a priori rejection of God leaves him with no reasonable warrant to believe in right or wrong. He ends up giving the very unscientific and irrational warrant that our sense of morality is simply “in the air.” His statement in full is given below.
“How do I know what is moral? I don’t on the whole. But the point I want to make is that there does seem to be a kind of universal human acceptance that certain things are right and other things are not.. But it also comes from something less easy to define, but which is clearly there. I call it the shifting moral zeitgeist. It’s something that changes from decade to decade. Living as we do in 2007, there will be a broad consensus as to what is right and wrong… which characterize we who live in the early 21st century which would not necessarily have characterized our ancestors in this place 200 years ago. The consensus has moved on and I find this a very interesting and fascinating fact which suggests that there really is a kind of something in the air about what is regarded as moral and it clearly has nothing to do with religion because it doesn’t come from Scripture because Scripture doesn’t change over the decades in the way that our attitudes toward slavery, women, etc. do. There really does seem to be a powerful shifting zeitgeist effect which doesn’t tell you anything in itself but indicates that there is something in the air— some other force, something which we can understand with sufficient sociological, psychological sophistication. Whatever else it is, it is not religion.” –Dr Dawkins
How is “In the air” a reasonable explanation for a universal sense of right and wrong? And why does he not give us an answer with “sufficient sociological and psychological sophistication?” Dawkins does not have compelling reasons to believe why morality exists. He continues to manifest the dynamic I mentioned in my previous post—the suppression of the obviously evident that there is a Moral Law Giver.
While Dawkins’ God-given sense of morality allows him to entertain a debate with Lennox about the origin of good and evil, in other remarks, Dawkins asserts that his worldview had no foundations for the concepts of good and evil.
“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replications, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it nor any justice. The universe we observe is precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good—nothing but blind pettiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music” –Dr. Dawkins, A River out of Eden, pg 133 emphasis added.
Christian Dr. Greg Bahnsen dismantles this kind of irrationality in his humorous, classic response to atheist Dr. Stein in a “The Great Debate” in 1985 at Irvine, CA.
“I mean if there aren’t laws of morality, I can just take out a gun right now and say ‘Okay Dr. Stein, make my day. Is there a god or not?’ You see if he argues ‘oh no! You can’t murder me because there are laws of morality’, then of course he’s made my day because I win the debate. That shows that the atheist universe is not correct. But if he says ‘Oh no, there are no absolute standards; it’s all by convention and stipulation’ and that sort of thing, then I just pull the trigger and it’s all over and I win the debate anyway.” -Dr. Bahnsen, The Great Debate.
The common universal ethic that Dr. Dawkins fumbles to explain leads to the Bible’s claim that that God has created mankind in His image as moral beings so that mankind “shows the work of the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15).
Finally, in one other demonstration that all evidence lead back to God, Dr. Dawkins regularly admits in his debates/discussion with Christian Dr. Lennox that science has no answers for the origin of the cosmos/life. He regularly claims that science is “working on it.” As mentioned here, when pressed, Dawkins may be persuaded to postulate intelligent causation (alien origins or a deist type of god). But my point is that when an individual denies God, he leaves himself with no explanation for the origin of what he sees around him. Romans 1:19 states “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God has made it evident to them.” Thus, when an individual denies the obvious conclusions toward which the evidence leads, he leaves himself with no answers.
Because God is the creator and sustainer of all things it is inevitable that all evidence and answers to life’s significant questions lead back to Him. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
