J.M. Njoroge, an associate apologist at RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, posted an article, entitled, The New Atheism and Morality, that I want to look at tonight.
The New Atheism and Morality
Though the chorus of voices decrying belief in God has been humming in the ideological background for centuries, it seems to have reached a crescendo with the emergence of a movement that has been dubbed the new atheism. The trademark of this new brand of atheism is its vitriolic attack on religion. To its advocates, religious beliefs are not only false; they are also dangerous and must be expunged from all corners of society. The pundits of the new atheism are not content to nail discussion theses on the door of religion; they are also busy delivering eviction notices to the allegedly atavistic elements of an otherwise seamlessly progressive atheistic evolution of Homo sapiens.
Let’s pause to think about what we just read. First, Njoroge sets up a straw man characterization of the so-called new atheists and loads it with emotional language: their vitriolic attack on religion includes delivering eviction notices (although I’m not precisely clear who Njoroge sees as the target of these notices – are atheists trying to evict believers, or just their beliefs? Perhaps I should count this as an ambiguous use of language). Second, he mischaracterizes either an atheistic view of evolution, or the gist of the theory itself (more ambiguity?) – evolutionary theory does not posit seamless progress, nor do atheists, on the whole, view human evolution as a continuing forward march of progress. Some atheists may view history that way, but it cannot be posited (legitimately) as a view that is entailed by either atheism or evolutionary theory. So, he got something wrong with that sentence; unfortunately, the author’s ambiguity makes it difficult to pin down precisely what error he made. Perhaps he made both errors, it’s hard to tell.
Given the rhetoric, one might be forgiven for thinking that some new discoveries have rendered belief in God untenable. Curiously, this drama is unfolding in the same era in which perhaps the world’s leading defender of atheism, Antony Flew, has declared that recent scientific discoveries point to the fact that this world cannot be understood apart from the work of God as its Creator. This is no small matter, for Flew has been preaching atheism for as long as Billy Graham has been preaching the Gospel. Unlike Flew and others, the new atheists seem to forget that the success of their mission hinges solely on the strength and veracity of the reasons they give for repudiating religion. Venom and ridicule may carry the day in an age of sensationalistic sound bites, but false beliefs will eventually bounce off the hard, cold, unyielding wall of reality.
It’s time to pause again. Njoroge takes a jab at science with his implication that scientific discoveries have not made belief in God untenable. My opinion – which is shared by many nonbelievers - is that, yes, scientific discoveries of the past several hundred years have, in fact, made belief in God untenable. Discoveries in at least a dozen sciences have caused religious believers to give ground on beliefs that, before the Scientific Revolution and Age of Enlightenment, were seemingly unassailable. Moreover, such discoveries are being made all the time. So, yes, new discoveries that undermine gods have been made and are being made as I write.
Njoroge then cites a former atheist who has become a favorite reference for evangelical Christians, Antony Flew. I want to point out two things here. First, I need to ask: when was Flew coronated as the world’s leading defender of atheism? He was a significant atheist critic, yes, but the world’s leader? Was that title bestowed on him by a jury of his peers because of the acuity of his arguments (which were and still are strong), or because of his fame? Or was it bestowed on him by evangelicals eager to misleadingly claim a feather in their caps? This brings me to the second problem with this claim. Flew professed belief in a deistic deity, not the God of the Bible, a distinction that Christians usually neglect to make. Njoroge follows suit here; capitalization of the term, God, is routinely understood by Christians as a reference to their specific deity. Thus, readers unfamiliar with Flew’s story will likely understand Njoroge’s reference as a reference to their God, not Flew’s. Njoroge then implies that atheistic arguments against deities are weak and unfounded, that they simply consist of venom and ridicule. This is a gross mischaracterization that, in my mind, comes close to being duplicitous. The fact is, the so-called new atheists are making strong arguments, backed by evidence, for their claims. Instead of dealing with any of their claims, Njoroge just slings mud at them.
A good example of a claim against religion that does not sit well with the facts of reality is issued in the form of a challenge to the believer to “name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.” (1) We are expected to agree that no such action or statement exists and then conclude that morality does not depend on God.
The problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The fact that a non-believer can utter moral statements and even act morally does not logically lead to the conclusion that morality does not depend on God, much less that God does not exist. This challenge misunderstands the believer’s position on the relationship between morality and God.
Ah, Njoroge pretends to dismantle Christopher Hitchens’ challenge. Look carefully at what he does. He knows that Hitchens’ argument is a modus tollens argument. I know he knows this because he explains precisely how the argument works. Put in syllogistic form, Hitchens’ argument is this:
Premise 1 – If God is necessary for human morality, then non-believers can’t be moral.
Premise 2 – Non-believers can be moral.
Conclusion – God is not necessary for human morality.
Since Njoroge can’t admit that this is a successful modus tollens argument, he describes the argument as a non sequitur. This is incorrect. The problem with Hitchens’ argument, from a Christian point of view, is not that the argument is invalid (it is a formally valid argument, and, if one accepts the premises, it is also a sound argument); the problem with the argument is that Christians simply don’t accept Hitchens’ premises. Njoroge skirts this issue by suggesting that Hitchens’ argument fails because Hitchens misunderstands what believers actually believe. Hitchens is a pretty smart guy, so I’m not going too far out on a limb here to suggest, with confidence, that Hitchens understands Christian beliefs very well indeed – probably better than many Christians do.
The believer’s claim is that the world owes its existence to a moral God. All human beings are moral agents created in God’s image and are expected to recognize right from wrong because they all reflect God’s moral character. The fact that human beings are the kinds of creatures that can recognize the moral imperatives that are part of the very fabric of the universe argues strongly against naturalism.
Unlike the laws of nature, which even inanimate objects obey, moral imperatives appeal to our will and invite us to make real decisions on real moral issues. The only other parallel experience we have of dos and don’ts comes from our minds. Thus when the atheist rejects God while insisting on the validity of morality, he is merely rejecting the cause while clinging to the effect.
Has Njoroge cited any evidence to support the believers’ claims he outlines? No. He simply lists his presuppositions. That’s not inherently bad; everybody argues from some basic presuppositions or maxims. This is inevtiable, as spelling out every presupposition for every argument would get tedious in a hurry. But, strong premises require support, something that Njoroge’s premises lack. The problem atheists have with Njoroge’s argument is not that we don’t understand it, it’s that we don’t accept his premises.
Without God, morality is reduced to whatever mode of behavior human beings happen to favor either because of their genetic makeup or conventional accords. There is no action that is objectively right or wrong. Rape, hate, murder and other such acts are only wrong because they have been deemed to be so in the course of human evolution.
Had human evolution taken a different course, these acts might well have been the valued elements of our moral code. Even Nazi morality would be right had the Nazis succeeded in their quest for world dominance. Unless the world contains behavioral guidelines that transcend human decisions and genetic determinism, there is no reason why anyone should object to such conclusions.
Njoroge’s argument here is basically that subjective morality is too uncertain, that the only secure basis for morality is something outside of humanknd. First of all, not all atheists hold that morality is subjective. Second, there is nothing wrong with subjective morality. Subjective morality is what enables humankind to continuously reconsider our values and recast them, if need be. Thus, over time we’ve determined that slavery is wrong, that subjugation of people from particular groups is wrong,and so on. Njoroge’s God certainly didn’t teach us those things. Yes, some Christians reached those conclusions and fought valiantly for those values, but they did so in spite of their doctrines, not because of them.
Njoroge then appeals to fear via Godwin’s Law. This is simply laughable. But, I’ll play along a bit. I’ll concede that, yes, if things hadn’t happened the way they did, then they would have happened differently and the current state of affairs would be something other than what they are. There’s nothing profound or startling about that idea. It certainly does not lead inexorably to Njoroge’s conclusion that humankind requires a transcendent source of morality. The fact is, we have evolved as we have, and we have reached the moral conclusions that we have. It could have been different, but it wasn’t. Arguing from a position of “what might have been” is silly.
Though some religious people do not live up to the moral principles they espouse, it is not true that genuine religious devotion makes no difference to one’s moral commitments. It is missionaries, and not atheists, who regularly give up their own comforts and accept unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering to better the lives of societal outcasts, not just through preaching but also through education, technology, and humanitarian relief. Our failure to live up to what we know to be right provides empirical evidence for the need for God’s intervention in our lives.
Ah, here we go – the evil atheist argument – only Christians are selfless; atheists are selfish. Only missionaries do good deeds and give of themselves to others, while atheists take, take, take. Njoroge doesn’t substantiate his claim. He may not be aware of the many secular charities that do good works – not because God commanded them to do them – but because even nonbelievers care about alleviating suffering, and want to do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. Many nonbelievers do rather well at serving their communities and the world at large without any intervention from God.
Those who insist that objective morality makes no difference to human autonomy still expect morality to guide the behavior of others. That our society is saturated with transcendent moral sentiments accounts for the popularity of some television programs that arrest our attention night after night. Perhaps ninety percent of the shows depend exclusively on our ability to apply objective moral standards to the actions of the characters. Should the Judeo-Christian moral bank close its doors to our cultural psyche, the bankruptcy of human-centered morality would eventually send our spiritual tentacles scouring for an alternative transcendent anchor.
More atheist selfishness – we expect others to be guided by morality (but want to exempt ourselves from such guidance?). Then, the fabrication of a false statistic is so pathetic that it’s actually funny: perhaps ninety percent…. Nothing like pulling a nice, round number out of one’s ass in an attempt to mask the fact that one’s argument is bogus. Of course, Njoroge can’t close without making an appeal to Judeo-Christian morality – after all, that is the only one that’s right, isn’t it? Moreover, if that moral foundation is lost, humanity will certainly seek to replace it with another transcendent anchor (read: God/religion). This appeal is important because:
Thus were the new atheists to succeed in their quest, the result would not be the elimination of religion but the entrenchment of a different religion. As Ravi Zacharias has warned in his new book The End of Reason, eventually, the real choice for the West will not be between Christianity and atheism but between Christianity and another religion.
This paragraph initially struck me as ambiguous. At first glance, it appeared to me that Njoroge was implying that atheism is a religion. But, I think he’s actually doing something more subtle than that. He claims that, if Christianity loses its supremacy in the West, it will be replaced by, not atheism, but a rival religion. The implication seems to be that the sole target of atheism is Christianity and the Christian god. Therefore, if atheists succeed in undermining Christianity, then another religion will step in to fill the void. It may be the case that Njoroge doesn’t realize that atheism is a stance against all gods, not just his. Or, if he does realize this, then his aim may be to feed the Christian persecution complex and reinforce their tendency to believe that they, alone, are the beleaguered ones. I’m inclined to think that this possibility is the more likely one.
Beware of ethical naturalists bearing moral gifts.
Cute. Meaningless, but cute.
1) Christopher Hitchens, “An Atheist Responds,” The Washington Times (Saturday, July 14, 2007).
Njoroge’s argument fails as an attempt to persuade non-Christians that they should convert to Christianity. Since non-Christians are not likely to accept any of Njoroge’s premises, such an attempt wouldn’t get very far. To be fair, that wasn’t Njoroge’s intention anyway; his target audience is Christians. His piece is well-suited for the purposes of
a) fear-mongering among the Christian faithful (if those godless atheists have their way, your churches will be transformed to – mosques, temples, synagogues?), and
b) keeping the faithful tethered firmly to their churches by presenting the illusion of reasoned argument.
When Christians start doubting their faith, the apologist’s role is to reassure them that their faith is neither groundless nor blind. That’s really all that apologists are good for, really, as long as the audience doesn’t look too closely at what the authors are actually saying and how they’re saying it.
– the chaplain
(Via An Apostate's Chapel)
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