March 1, 2007
By Michael McCormack
NEW ORLEANS -- Honest dialogue, rather than heated debate, characterized day two of the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Feb. 23-24.
Scholars Keith Parsons, William Lane Craig, Evan Fales and Hugh McCann continued the ongoing discussion topic of “The Future of Atheism.”
Like in Greer-Heard Forums from the past, both scholars from the Friday night dialogue – evangelical theologian Alister McGrath and atheist scholar Daniel Dennett – responded to each person’s lecture.
Parsons and Fales, who both represented an atheist point-of-view, offered some of the most important and difficult questions of the day. Parsons, professor of philosophy at the University of Houston at Clear Lake, started the Saturday sessions with his paper titled “Atheism: Twilight or Dawn.”
Parsons responded to the book by McGrath titled The Twilight of Atheism, in which McGrath points to the decline of atheism and the resurgence of religion in the 20th Century. Parsons was unconvinced.
“How odd, in that case, to find atheist books recently heading up the bestseller list and atheists showing up on the TV talk shows to make the case for unbelief,” he said.
This, he said, evidences the public’s pro-atheism leaning.
Parsons, though, didn’t rest his argument on public opinion. He attributed the success of atheism to religious institutions themselves. Religions, namely Christianity, set themselves up to fail, he said, because of the claims they make for themselves.
“The Christian church, according to its own account, was charged by its founder to be the light of the world and the holder to the keys of the kingdom of God,” Parsons said. “When so much is expected of an institution or an individual, moral lapses are going to stick out with particular vividness.
“It cannot be enough to be no worse than others when you present yourself as setting the standard.”
Parsons then posed this question: “Who needs atheist agitators when the day-to-day impact of the church on people’s lives is so small?”
In response to Parsons charges, McGrath first warned today’s Christians by way of history. In his book The Twilight of Atheism, McGrath found that, historically, when Christianity has become linked to power, atheism has played a major role in the revolt against it. With this in mind, he cautioned American Christians of becoming too politically powerful.
“There is a burden on all of us who hold a religious position to insure that this is actually lived out properly and does not lead to violence,” McGrath said. “That seems to raise a whole range of political and ethical issues.” He then pointed to the Amish community who, when violence occurred at one of their schools in 2006, had the attention of much of the world. Their response: forgiveness.
“They have recognized in the DNA of Christianity is the nonviolent ethic of Jesus of Nazareth,” McGrath said. “The Amish made no call for retribution but instead offered forgiveness.”
Motivation found elsewhere
Evan Fales, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa and the second atheist to speak, devoted much of his attention to the matter of motivation.
If a person believes there is no God, what is there to motivate him or her toward moral living?
“Devotion to family and friends and to the wellbeing of all humanity, happy pursuit of one’s calling, delight in the beauties of nature and art, commitment to moral ideals and courage in their defense: these are all enough to fill a life with worthy goals and satisfactions,” Fales said.
Also, because the atheist does not believe in God, he or she cannot rely on God to ultimately right all of history’s wrongs. That, too, is a motivation to moral living.
“That … makes life infinitely more precious and the need to pursue the good while we can an infinitely deeper obligation,” Fales said.
In this way, Fales sought to address why atheists are often just as moral as theists. God’s existence, he would say, has no bearing on morality. McGrath’s response to his argument, therefore, didn’t simply hinge on the existence of God. Instead, it focused on the existence of a personal God.
McGrath told about how he, as an atheist when he was young, would gaze up at the stars as sense the temporal nature of life. “Now as a Christian, I look at the same stars and they symbolize something very different,” he said. “In dealing with God, we are not dealing with an indeterminate, divine entity. We are dealing with a very specific, divine entity who chose to enter into this world and put himself at the disposal of people.”
Arguments for theism
William Lane Craig, research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, and Hugh McCann, professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University, made the case for theism.
Craig, who has presented papers at all three Greer-Heard Forums, discussed current convincing philosophical arguments for theism, which include the cosmological argument, the Kalaam cosmological argument and the teleological argument.
Ultimately, he said, these reasoning tools point to the universe having both a beginning and a cause. That cause, he said, necessarily transcends space and time and is, thus, changeless and immaterial.
“Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused,” Craig said. “Such a transcendent cause is plausibly taken to be personal.”
Dennett, however, did not think the idea of a changeless God was an appealing one. “The problem with a changeless God is that it is changeless. It is outside of time,” he said. “Don’t bother praying to it and certainly don’t expect it to hear and answer your prayer.”
McCann briefly addressed the personal nature of God. He presented three areas in which religion offers a source of knowledge about God. Through religion, adherents gain an understanding about the origin of the universe and, therefore, the creator of the universe. In addition, believers gain knowledge of particular events that occurred miraculously. Then, the third source of knowledge speaks to the question of the personal nature of God raised by Dennett after Craig’s paper.
That last source of knowledge is experience. “Suppose someone tells us he has had an encounter with God,” McCann said. “For him, he says, the matter is settled. He knows there is a God because he has learned it from direct experience.”
“Is there a way to approach a claim such as this with a scientific spirit?” he asked. “In part, I think the answer is ‘Yes.’ Those who make such statements are testifying to something they say they have observed.”
McCann offered Jesus as an example.
“Regardless of what you think about who Jesus was, this is a guy who had a rich spiritual life,” he said. “He told people about it. It had quite a profound effect [on the world].”
Even though personal experience of God is not necessarily scientifically measurable or observable, McCann said, does not make that knowledge inadmissible.
A continuing dialogue
With regard to presenters at the forum, those who came as atheists probably left as atheists, and vice versa. And yet, according to Bob Stewart, Greer-Heard chair of faith and culture at NOBTS, the success of the weekend was measured in dialogue.
“I fear that too often we become entrenched like battles in World War I,” he said. “We rise up periodically to fire off an intellectual mortar and never know if we hit anyone or do any good or ill.
“Let’s talk to each other more in the future. Let’s talk with conviction and respect.”
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