HOLLY ORDWAY, ATHEISM, AND PLAYING MAKE-BELIEVE

How do we evaluate a worldview or a theory to determine its viability? One way is to assess how well it agrees with the facts, findings, and even our experiences and perceptions. Related to this is the question, “How completely can it account for the facts within its domain.” 

Holly Ordway, professor of English and Director of the MA in Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, and the author of “Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms” writes that her atheism was unable to do either:

·       “My atheism was eating into my heart like acid…My worldview was entirely negative. I could not have explained the source of my own rationality, nor of my conviction that there were such things as truth, beauty, and goodness. My worldview remained satisfying to me only insofar as I refrained from asking the really tough questions.”

When we ask the tough questions of atheism, we find that it is unable to explain many things. Consequently, it is forced to play make-believe.

FREE WILL - Atheist Daniel Dennett acknowledgeD that the atheistic worldview cannot account for free will, since everything is predetermined by the laws of science:

• free will…is obviously incompatible with naturalism, with determinism, and very likely incoherent against any background, so they cheerfully insist that of course they don't have free will, couldn’t have free will, but so what?  

Consequently, the atheist must play make-believe by treating their children as if they are responsible and that criminals deserve punishment.

HUMAN PRIMACY – Our legal systems give priority to humanity. Therefore, swatting a mosquito or cutting down a tree is still not a criminal offense.

•  “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:6)

However, atheism is unable to affirm that the human has more value than the mosquito. This is because there is no way for the materialistic atheist to rationally affirm human value. Judging by its behavior, cows value their lives more than they do our own lives.

Consequently, many claim, “All life has equal value.” However, the atheist usually tries to claim the humans have more value based on their intelligence, creativity,… However, these measures cannot stand against scrutiny.

Why not? The atheistic worldview lacks all objective values, including the value of having a superior intelligence. Therefore, even though intelligence gives us mastery and greater ability to survive, the atheist can provide no objective reason that even survival has value.

Besides, to base human value on our superior intelligence creates inequality among the human race. How? Some are more intelligent than others. Therefore, to apply this criterion of intelligence consistently, it would mean that the intelligent have more value than other humans. This means that the atheist must again play make-believe that all humans are of equal value.

HUMAN EQUALITY – From an atheistic POV, we are unequal according to any possible measure – age, sex, strength, intelligence, societal contributions, likeability… Therefore, abortion and euthanasia and many other social evils have now become rampant. Consequently, the atheist must make-believe that there is such a reality as “human equality.”

“Sanctity of all human Life” (SL) has morphed into a “Quality of Life” (QL) worldview. Consequently, seen through the QL lens, society has determined that some are less valuable and therefore more expendable. As this slide continues, it is inevitable that QL will regard some as having less protection under the law. However, the atheist still plays make-believe that we are all equal under the law.

HUMAN RIGHTS (HR)– Atheism has no adequate objective basis to place human rights above the pig’s rights. Therefore, the State must arbitrarily grant HRs, not God. However, if the State grants these, it can justifiably retract these rights when it no longer sees them as expedient. Instead, the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence reads:

·       "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The founders understood that if our rights depended upon government to grant them, they could never be regarded as “unalienable.” In contrast, the atheist must make-believe that HR have an unalienable objective reality.

JUSTICE – This used to be administered according to the guilt of the individual, but now it is becoming a matter of group-guilt relative to sex, sexual practice, color, race, religion, and to a social appraisal of who has been oppressed. This can only lead to distrust and division.

Atheism has no basis to believe in an objective good and bad, just and unjust, and a right and wrong. These are now regarded as socially evolving ideas, relative to each society. Therefore, we now lack any objective standards to judge anyone or any culture or even a Hitler. In contrast, the Biblical worldview applies justice and punishment only to the wrongdoer:

·       “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” (Ezekiel 18:20)

OBJECTIVE MORAL LAW (and morality) – Once the atheist rejects the Law-Giver, there remains no basis for objective laws or principles. Laws, therefore, must be humanly created, not discovered. This represents a major shift from principled Biblical thinking to a pragmatic cost/benefit analysis. However, human history has shown us that such thinking will inevitably favor those in power, who derive a different cost/benefit analysis. Consequently, here in the States, we find that Congress has been voting for themselves benefits far above those benefits granted to its citizens. In contrast, the Bible place everyone under the laws of God, even the king:

•  “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment..” (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)

However, atheists find that they are forced to say to their children that, “This is wrong.” They do not say, “This is wrong because it violates our evolving and humanly created laws.” Likewise, the teacher cannot say, “Cheating is wrong because it violates our rules.” Again, they are forced to play make-believe.

MEANING AND PURPOSE OF LIFE – Atheism has no rational basis to believe in the objective existence of theses. Since the cosmos was not created with any purpose in mind, we are left to fend for ourselves to create our own personal meaning and purpose.

Why then are many atheists doing morally good things? Because it produces temporary benefits for them! Once it does not produce those benefits, temptations to do what will produce more benefits will prevail. A pragmatic cost/benefit analysis will then be unable to ward off self-serving temptations. However, the atheistic worldview causes them to hope that their own subjectively-created purposes will produce a meaningful life.

SCIENCE – Instead, of the devotion of science to a search for the truth, science has adopted a narrowly secularized version – the search for a natural understanding to serve their worldview. However, the re-emergence of science had been the product of the Christian West. British scientist Robert Clark summed it up this way: 

·       However we may interpret the fact, scientific development has only occurred in Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations—Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on—science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that, perhaps, science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but in fact, it never did. And no wonder. For the non-Christian world believed that there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the fire-bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven, thus incurring the wrath of the gods. (Christian Belief and Science, quoted by Henry F. Schaefer, 14) 

For the Christian, science and everything else is to conform to truth, God’s truth. When the concept of truth is denigrated, it is inevitable that an inferior product, pragmatic cost/benefit concerns, will fill the vacuum. The search for immediate benefits will dislodge concerns for the truth. This will inevitably mis-guide research along with its “findings.”

All of the above principles find their objective support in the Biblical revelation. However, in the absence of any rational basis for these principles, atheism counsels us to make-believe that they do have an objective existence, because these principles are pragmatically necessary. Consequently, we are supposed to believe in free will, not because it really exists, but because we rationally need it to exist. We also need to make-believe in a right and wrong, a just and unjust, human right, human primacy, and that some behaviors are simply wrong. Outcome – cynicism, nihilism, and alienation!

However, playing make-believe is out-of-sync with reality and how we must live our lives in accordance with reality. Ordway had discovered that atheism did not give her an accurate roadmap by which to navigate her life. If we care about where we are going, we need an accurate roadmap. When our roadmap proves inaccurate, it should be discarded for a better one.

 

THEISTIC EVOLUTIONISTS MINIMIZE APOLOGETICS, THE SUPPORTIVE EVIDENCES FOR THE FAITH

My Response to a Biologos Foundation “Moderator”:

“Thanks for your response, especially in light of the fact that what I had written was deeply cutting. However, I have had many exchanges with theistic evolutionists (TEs) and believe that my remarks are warranted.

For one thing, the TE cannot expect to deprive Genesis 1-11 of its historical content and still retain a viable faith. Consequently, the TEs will also put themselves in opposition to the rest of the Bible, which regards these chapters as history. It is therefore not surprising that you write:

·       None of the most important truth claims of the Bible (which I believe, by the way) can be proven with reference to historical or scientific facts.

Of course, if you dismiss the Bible’s historical testimonies, you cannot consistently use them. You later cite WL Craig. However, he uses the historicity of the resurrection as one of his key proofs for the Bible and the Christian faith. If we have no convincing proof that Jesus rose from the dead, we have little compelling rationale to believe what He taught and how He affirmed the Scriptures. In contrast, you have written:

·       This idea that the gospel is dependent on fact-checking the Bible and the Bible passing with flying colors just doesn't ring true to me. The gospel depends on God being a trustworthy person whose revelation of himself in Scripture and in Jesus and by his Spirit is true. God is the source of truth. That is why the gospel is compelling.

While you are correct that we must believe that God and His revelation are trustworthy, we also must know WHY they are trustworthy. However, once you reject the history of the Bible is trustworthy – that the ENTIRETY of the Bible is “God-Breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) – it then becomes very difficult to believe that what remains of the Bible’s revelation is trustworthy. If we refuse to believe what the Bible very clearly teaches as history, how are we to believe what the Bible teaches as theology?

However, you have written:

·       The authority of Scripture comes from God, not from some one to one correspondence with Scripture and facts. All throughout the New Testament what is held out as the basis for the authority of the message (whether it is being preached by Jesus, or the disciples, or the apostles) is the demonstration of the Spirit's power.

However, “the demonstration of the Spirit's power” was performed historically, as the OT and NT has often affirmed, but the TE does not receive His testimony:

·       2 Corinthians 4:6  For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The entire Bible receives the testimony of the Spirit in Scripture as history, but the TE does not. Jesus so clearly quoted Genesis 1 and 2 as history:

·       Matthew 19:4-6 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

However, the TE rejects Genesis 1-11 as history, contrary to the uniform testimony of the rest of the Bible. Consequently, if we refuse to believe what the Bible teaches as history, how are we to receive what it teaches as theology?

In fact, these two aspects of Scripture cannot be separated. We cannot separate the theology of the Cross from its history -- that Christ historically died for our sins.

You claim that “at the end of the day, it's Jesus only Jesus.” While I do not doubt your sincerity, I would like you to see that you have begun to descend on a slippery slope that can only take you away from the Jesus of the Bible.

The former co-head of Biologos, Karl Giberson, describes this slope:

·       “Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science….[Darwin’s] acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred.” (Saving Darwin; 9-10)

He then assured us that the acid would dissolve no further. However, we later find that Darwin’s acid had also dissolved the God of the OT. I also find that this acid has dissolved away huge chunks of the Christian worldview of the many TEs with whom I have had exchanges. For example, I haven’t found one who is against same-sex marriage. You can easily prove me wrong here.”

HERE IS MY RESPONSE TO HER NEXT RESPONSE:

“Thanks again for your patience with me. You responded:

•         If WLC told me he based his faith on the historical evidence for the resurrection I would tell him he is misguided.

Would you say the same thing to doubting Thomas who had been persuaded by the evidence?

•         A person could live their whole Christian life completely ignorant of any evidences for the historical reliability of the gospels and it would not effect their salvation in the least, because salvation depends on faith in Christ. (Christy)

Without having a sound cognitive basis to believe, the Christian will live a very truncated, uncertain, and defensive life, one that will remain highly vulnerable to attack, for example the false assertion that our four Gospels found their way into our Bible because of Constantine.

Consequently, I have often observed that Biologos and its followers are very reluctant to witness to the many professedly non-believers who feel very at home with their blogs.

When I stated that “the ENTIRETY of the Bible is “God-Breathed (2 Timothy 3:16),” you retorted:

•         What does God-breathed-ness accomplish? It makes God's word useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness…It doesn't make Genesis into a historical record that follows modern standards of objective reporting.

Had the rest of the Bible never referred to Genesis 1-11, you might have a point. However, the Bible does refer to these chapters as history, and its theology is often inseparable from its history. For example, Peter, in proving that the coming judgment is not just a scare-tactic or myth, invoked God’s HISTORICAL judgments in support:

•         2 Peter 2:4-9 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

If this argument does not rely on actual history, then there is no reason to believe that a future judgment will also be actual. Let’s now turn to:

•         2 Timothy 3:16-17 ALL Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

First, ALL Scripture is God-breathed. Consequently, it is all “profitable.” However, the TE insists that they believe this way also, but they simply interpret it differently. Yes, they do interpret differently, disqualifying its historicity and the Bible commentary affirming its historicity.

This represents a major departure from Scripture, much like Mary Baker Eddy’s departure. She too insisted that Scripture is all correct as long as long as it is rightly interpreted.

Let’s now apply this to the Petrine verses above. By separating the Bible from its history, Peter’s argument collapses entirely. It means that these judgments didn’t take place, and if these didn’t take place, there is no reason to anticipate a future judgment.

Would you (or anyone else) care to comment on same-sex marriage?”

IF WE BELIEVE, WHY SHOULD WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT DEFENDING THE FAITH (APOLOGETICS)?

For one thing, apologetics, the defense of the faith, is not an option. Instead, we are commanded to make a defense for the faith:

• But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense [“apologia” in the Greek] to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Moses knew that he had to make a defense for the faith once he’d return to the Israelites, claiming that God had sent him to lead the His people out of bondage in Egypt:

·       Then Moses answered, “But behold, they [the Israelites] will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’” The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.  But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— “that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” (Exodus 4:1-9)

The LORD (“Yahweh”) did not tell Moses, “Just tell those Israelites to believe!” In fact, the Bible never asks us to believe without evidence, without reasons to believe. The Bible never tells us to close our minds in order to experience God. Instead, it tells us to love the Lord with all of our minds.

The Pharisees had tested Jesus by asking Him, “Which is the greatest commandment?”

·       And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

We are not to turn off our minds in order to get close to God or to experience Him. Instead, we are to turn our God-given minds up to their highest setting possible to receive everything that God wants to give us. He wants to give us understanding and reasons to believe – evidences. This is what He had given to Moses so that the people would believe.

It is these reasons that had become the basis for their faith. Forty years later, Moses reminded Israel of what they had seen:

·       “Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live? Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power.” (Deuteronomy 4:33-37)

Faith is not a leap into the darkness but an embrace of the light of truth. Is it different now in New Testament times? Does God no longer give us a rational basis for our faith?

Certainly not! Jesus performed miracles and prophesied about what would soon happen so that His disciples would believe:

·       “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.” (John 14:28-29)

Jesus didn’t tell them, “Just believe,” but He provided them with an evidential foundation for their faith. We need an evidential foundation, especially as we go through trials. John the Baptist experienced as crisis of faith after he was thrown into jail. He therefore sent his disciples to Jesus to find out if He is really the Messiah.

This might seem surprising to us. John had been Israel’s greatest prophet. He had even seen the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove. He had proclaimed about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” How could he now doubt? Wasn’t he above doubt? No! He too needed evidential reasurances.

And what did Jesus tell John’s disciples? Did He tell them:

·       Go tell John, “Just believe. He already has enough reasons to believe?”

No! Instead, He provided more reasons to believe:

·       And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. (Matthew 11:4-5)

Above all, we need to have confidence that the Bible is the very Words of God,

How can we face the world with the confidence and the boldness we need if we can’t be confident about the basis of our faith! We can’t! Before I went to seminary, I had subscribed to “Biblical Archeology Review” (BAR).  Many of the authors wrote approvingly of the “Wellhausen Hypothesis”– a radical theory of how the Hebrew Scriptures were humanly assembled by cutting-and-pasting from pre-existing manuscripts. The contributors to BAR seemed to be so confident about their working theory that they didn’t even bother to provide any evidence for it.

I was troubled but decided that I would lock my doubts away, pushing them back into a crevice of my mind until, perhaps, I might have the tools to critically examine them. However, this strategy didn’t work. The doubts that this theory had provoked interfered with both my reading of Scripture and my faith. Consequently, I read the Bible less and with less excitement. The doubt that the Bible might merely be a human creation festered in the back of my mind.

Fortunately, I was struck down with a bad back for several months. Meanwhile, someone gave me a copy of Gleason Archer’s “Survey of Old Testament Introductions.” Although it was one of the driest texts I’ve ever read, I cried my way through it. Archer dealt conclusively with the “Wellhausen Hypothesis” and restored my Bible back to me, as if Jesus Himself had been restored.

I think that it is inevitable that without understanding the rational foundations of the faith and without knowing how to critique the challenges, our faith and life will suffer.

We all experience challenges that come against our faith. The Apostle Peter warned:

·       Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

Our Lord allows these trials for a reason. For one thing, they prepare us for His return by creating within us a deep longing for His return.