THE RATIONAL CONSEQUENCES FOR REJECTING GOD

What happens when we reject the spiritual dimension, as materialists and naturalists (atheists) do? Materialists believe that what you see and measure is all that you get. The naturalist believes that everything has only a natural cause, even our intelligence, freewill, and consciousness.

What happens to our lives if we believe that there is nothing beyond the natural and material? We punish ourselves. We and our view of ourselves become severely narrowed, as psychologist James Hillman has written:

·       We dull our lives by the way we conceive then…By accepting the idea that I am the effect of…hereditary and social forces, I reduce myself to a result. The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim. I am living a plot written by my genetic code, ancestral heredity, traumatic occasions, parental unconsciousness, societal accidents.

We suffer from what we believe and choose. Perhaps the most famous French atheist, Jean Paul Sartre, had written, “Atheism is a cruel, long-term business.”

 In fact, the Bible gives ample testimony that God need not punish us directly (proactively) when we reject Him. Instead, our own choices punish us:

·       Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster. (Proverbs 1:29-33)

It seems that God’s justice is something that we impose upon ourselves. Rejecting God is to live in a narrow two-dimensional world. For example, forget the idea of freewill, since everything is, by necessity, governed exclusively by the laws of science in a materialistic world – forces that completely determine what we will think and decide. Forget the idea of being a “freethinker.” Thinking becomes reduced to a series of pre-determined biochemical reactions along with love, grieving, hurt, and our ethical behavior. They are stripped of their inherent, life-giving meaning. There is no right/wrong, good/bad, or even just/unjust. Indignation and the pursuit of justice and virtue are no more than a mechanical obedience to chemical reactions.

If there is no meaning to life, then only the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain remains. As a high school student, I didn’t believe that there was such a thing as the “good.” However, I needed to feel that I was a good and worthy person. Therefore, in my first year of college, I volunteered to be a teacher’s assistant in a slum school.

The teacher was supportive and concerned about the welfare of his students. He invited me to his Thanksgiving celebration/cookout along with many of his colleagues. After a while, one colleague asked me why I had volunteered to be part of this worthy program. They probably wanted to know what Berkeley students thought about such things. I answered honestly: “I just need to feel good about myself.”

My answer was greeted by a chilling silence. I felt I had said something so unacceptable that it had to be avoided. As a result, I dropped out of the program, reasoning that since life was no more than a matter of self-satisfaction, I was playing the hypocrite by making-believe that I was virtuous in a world devoid of virtue. Besides, it suddenly became obvious to me that since life is simply about what I can get out of it, the most authentic life is the life in pursuit of pleasure without any pretense.

If we believe that this is a purposeless world, we have to arbitrarily create whatever values we have. We are left to play make-believe because morality, freewill, and justice are merely ideas that we – our biochemical reactions – created. In Free Will, atheist Sam Harris tries to make the best out of a universe devoid of meaning:

·       Happiness and suffering, however extreme, are mental events. The mind depends upon the body, and the body upon the world…(204)

All we have are “mental events” caused by the body and the mindless world. For Harris, these events do not signal the existence of an independently existing justice or goodness. These “mental events” are not like the experience of seeing, which informs us of an actual external and independent reality. Instead, the only “goodness” or “justice” exists in our evolving and competing mental perspectives.

From the above, we see that when we reject God, we also reject ourselves, needs, and all those created in His likeness. How? We reduce all of our intuitions of love, beauty, meaning, purpose, freewill, morality to biochemical reactions, and reject the fact that God intended these to point to Transcendent truths. Therefore, when our wives ask us, “Why do you love me,” we should answer that “It is merely a series of pre-programmed biochemical reactions.” Are you willing to die for your biochemical reactions that tell you that you should be willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your family? The materialistic answer should be “no,” since their life here-and-now is all that they have. But do they have the courage to answer “no” according to their worldview?

For the most part, we are blind to this empty world we have created for ourselves. The late German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, recognized the implications of rejecting the Christian God:

·       They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to the Christian morality… When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. (Twilight of the Idols)

It is not just a matter of rejecting Christian morality; it is also a matter of rejecting all of the values we have held sacred, like equality. Equality is a transcendent value. When we look at our fellow humans, we do not see equality. Instead, we see a constellation of differences. Some people are strong, others weak. Some are healthy, others are not. Some are educated, others are not. Some contribute to the welfare of society, other detract from it. Yes, we can play make-believe in regards to this concept of equality. However, in order to do so, we become hypocrites, since we know that equality does not exist is a strictly material world.

To illustrate this point, let’s take the psychotherapeutic concept of “unconditional positive regard.” Psychotherapists understand that their product is only as good as their relationship with their clients. Consequently, they have to display unreserved respect and caring for their clients, even if they regard them as inferior.

Most psychotherapists will balk at my depiction, claiming that they genuinely and equally care for each of their clients. However, the materialist has no philosophical basis to extend equal caring to each client, apart from manipulatively obtaining results, since they are all different, and some are even reprehensible.

Well, who cares about having a philosophical basis for equality as long as you treat them with respect! However, this is the essence of being two-faced. As Nietzsche had pointed out over a hundred years ago, the West fails to acknowledge the implications of their rejection of God. Instead, the West seeks to retain certain Christian habits of thinking that no longer have any objective support.

As a probation officer, I supervised many probationers who had done many things that were reprehensible. However, I also regarded them from the greater transcendent perspective as children of a God who is also able to transform them. This Christian perspective enabled me to treat each with the dignity they deserved, without me having to put on a false face.

Well, what if the psychotherapist does put on a false face for the sake of the client? This will conflict with her sensitive and caring nature and condemn her as a hypocrite. Eventually, this conflict will come to a relational head, even if they fail to see the disconnect.

The secular quest for equality and for their moral superiority has led it to strip away all the essential distinctions. For example, the distinction between the guilty and the innocent, the abuser and the abused, has become blurred. Why? Well, if we are just a product of our nature and nurture and lack freewill, we cannot blame others. Instead, we can have compassion of them. In Free Will, Sam Harris has stated as much:

·       Speaking from personal experience, I think that losing the sense of free will has only improved my ethics - by increasing my feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and diminishing my sense of entitlement to the fruits of my own good luck. (45)

However, the implication of this kind of thinking are damning to society. It undermines accountability, reward and punishment, the provision of justice, and the promotion of excellence. Instead, if Harris wants to be compassionate and forgiving, there are other foundations for these virtues. The Bible teaches that we are all sinners who need the mercy of God. If He has forgiven us, then we are obligated to forgive others. If He has been compassionate to us, then we have a responsibility to show compassion to others.

When we reject God, our worldview can no longer be coherent. While I endorse Harris’ affirmation of compassion, his philosophy denies any possible basis for compassion. In Waking Up, Harris has written:

·       The conventional sense of self is an illusion—and spirituality largely consists in realizing this, moment to moment. There are logical and scientific reasons to accept this claim, but recognizing it to be true is not a matter of understanding these reasons. Like many illusions, the sense of self disappears when closely examined, and this is done through the practice of meditation. (82)

If the self is an illusion, then the self we see in others is also an illusion. Consequently, it is not reasonable to forgive and to have compassion on a non-existent illusion. Some sects of Hinduism are willing to confront this paradox. In The King of Knowledge, Prabhupada deduces:

·       The hospital making business is being conducted by the government; it is the duty of a disciple to make hospitals whereby people can actually get rid of their material bodies, not patch them up. But for want of knowing what real spiritual activity is, we take up material activities.

Prabhupada and other monists believe that “material activity” and acts of compassion, like building hospitals, simply strengthens the illusion that we have a self . Therefore, acts of compassion are often discouraged.

By rejecting God, we reject ourselves in other ways. We crave that our lives be infused with meaning and purpose. However, without God, we are left to scramble to create our own meaning and purpose. The late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel insisted that these have an objective basis:

·       “It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?”

Rabbi Heschel had identified a basic human need to determine who we are. It also seems that we not only need meaning, but we also have to live in accordance with this meaning. Based upon a series of studies, Karen Wright had written about the benefits we experience as we live according to what we find meaningful:

·       “Eudemonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values.” (Psychology Today, May 2008, 76)

To live according to our deepest values is to thrive. However, we don’t need studies to recognize the validity of eudemonia. The late novelist Norman Mailer had written:

·       “I think we are all healthier if we think there is some importance in what we’re doing. …When it seems like my life is meaningless, I feel closer to despair. I like life to have meaning. That is not to say you have to jump into meaning and find it where there is none.”

Mailer described himself as a hungry man who didn’t believe in real food – what a pity! Nietzsche observed, “If we have a ‘why’ to live for, we can endure any ‘what.’” I think that the majority of us would agree with Nietzsche. However, many of us believe that we don’t have to discover meaning. Instead, it is enough to create it, as long as it works for us. One millennial confessed:

·       I don’t believe anyone can know the ultimate answers, but I also don’t think the ultimate answers are important. We can find peace and our purpose by knowing that we’re living our lives the best way we can!

While I applaud this quest for virtue, this will not silence our unforgiving conscience. Instead, it just another form of the make-believe life? Can we find mental rest and peace by just telling ourselves that we are doing the best we can? Are we? Why then do we continue to suppress or make excuses for our many painful moral failures, breeches of our own conscience and standards?

The Bible offers a superior answer – to confess our moral failures and to receive the forgiveness of the One who died for our sins:

·       If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

No longer do we have to resort to suppressing, denying, or rationalizing our sins and faults. Nor do we have to continue the endless fight to prove our significance and worthiness. Instead, we can rest assured that we are beloved by the Creator of all truth and value. Nor do we have to flee from our ordained purpose of serving as His ambassadors to a darkened world of make-believe.

Are there costs for our denial of an objective meaning for our lives? One atheist friend explained to me that he had learned many years prior to reject freewill. Why? Believing that he could not have acted otherwise relieved him of his guilt. It “worked” for him, but at what price? For one thing, he had degraded himself by regarding himself as a mere wet machine, devoid of freedom. Besides, he would now have to regard others as mere wet machines. If he was to live consistently with his philosophy, he would have to favor the idea of throwing humans onto a junk-heap, where we throw other machines, once they lose their desired function.

Well, perhaps we should live according to our imaginations of romance and freedom from guilt? What else do we have? If our time on the stage of life is very limited, perhaps our goal should be pleasure even if this pleasure requires a “reality” which we construct. Why experience guilt if we don’t need to?

Actually, I can sympathize with this reasoning, if this existence is all that there is. However, I think that we have shut our eyes to the possibility of having real meaning and truth:

·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Free from what? Self-deception, among other things! Many atheists have commanded me, “Prove it! Prove it! Prove that your God exists.” I have learned to respond:

·       You are already surrounded by all the evidence of the world that the Creator exists. Everything is a testimony to His existence and workmanship – consciousness, the cell, life, biological complexity, the immutable and elegant laws of science, and the anthropic principle. Even the tiniest atom is a marvel of design. If you are unwilling to listen to what your eyes, conscience, and mind tell you, there is little more that I can tell you.