Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
—George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four1
One night, my (Daniel’s) three-year-old daughter, Beth, complained to my wife and me as we put her to bed: “I need a snack; my tummy is very full.” My wife and I laughed at the contradiction. It was merely a semantic contradiction, fixable by tweaking the words. The aim of this book is the diagnosis of other, far more serious contradictions. If I had lectured my daughter about how her statement was a contradiction and about the perils of violating the laws of logic, she would all the while be thinking about snacks and wondering when I would stop talking so she could have some. In contrast, we hope to show that our diagnosis should not be ignored by the thinking atheist. Before proceeding, it will be helpful to define the terms that will be used in this diagnosis. In so doing, we set out in general terms the arguments we investigate in much more detail, and in the atheist’s own words, in the chapters that follow.
The first term we define is God-in-the-dock (GITD) argument. We have taken the phrase from a C. S. Lewis essay,2 and as an adjective God-in-the-dock will stand for the family of atheistic arguments that place God on trial for having contradicted his own nature. These arguments designate a particular action or inaction by God as incompatible with his perfect nature. We define his nature according to his infinite holiness, power, knowledge, and love. Each atheistic argument considered is a GITD argument, so each might be framed in such a way:
If God were truly moral, he would not [action].
God does [action].
Thus, God is not truly moral.
Of course, if God is not truly moral, then a moral God does not exist. Thus, more pointedly, the infinitely moral God of Christianity does not exist. It is true that some of the arguments that follow can be construed in ways other than GITD. For example, one might say, “The kind of totalitarian submission called for by the Christian God is evidence that Christianity was concocted by opportunists.” However, we are concerned with the version of the argument that says, for example, “If God were a truly loving God, he would not demand our submission.”
Note that because these are GITD arguments, it is only fair to remain within the Christian framework throughout the critique. It is trickery to argue, for example, “It is immoral of God to judge us for ‘sins,’ since we were never sinners because there was never a God to sin against in the first place.” No, if you are arguing that it is immoral of God to do such and such, then you must not caricature the Christian system to make it easier to knock down. If you want to argue against Christianity, let it be the real thing. It is important to prevent this illicit caricaturing early in the game because of a tempting tactic that might arise throughout. The atheist who argues that God does not do enough to fix the problem of moral evil often claims that the kind of morality God foists on humankind is actually immoral and thus makes the problem of moral evil worse. We are told that this immoral morality includes nasty prescriptions to faith, worship, and so on to which no dignified human should stoop. Yet if God exists, are not such prescriptions perfectly understandable, even inevitable? You cannot ask God for a godless morality. This book will not venture outside of GITD arguments against the coherence of Christianity, with the agreement that the atheist will not hop the fence mid-argument to snatch, bring back, and sneak in caricatures.
The Atheist
Throughout the book, it will be common to read statements beginning with the subject the atheist or the atheists. Please understand we never intend to speak for all atheists. When we speak of “the atheist,” we are merely referring to the atheist who holds the atheistic arguments under discussion. There may well be many atheists who do not hold to these particular arguments but instead disbelieve in God on the basis of other arguments. Similarly, we have used the generic “he” for ease of expression.
The Problem of Moral Evil
The third term in need of definition is the problem of moral evil. According to Richard Swinburne, “The main argument against the existence of God has always been the ‘argument from evil’—that is, from pain and malevolence. . . . Evils are traditionally divided into moral evils (ones knowingly caused or allowed to occur by humans) and natural evils (the ones for which humans are not responsible, such as the effects of disease and earthquake).”3 What Swinburne calls “moral evils” is what we have in mind as the problem of moral evil. As Philip Quinn puts it, “Moral evil inheres in the wicked actions of moral agents and the bad consequences they produce. An example is torturing the innocent. When evil actions are considered theologically as offenses against God, they are regarded as sins.”4
Suppose the atheist recoils from such an incriminating definition of the problem of moral evil. Perhaps he disbelieves in moral agency and would loathe to call a fellow human wicked. Recall, however, our no-fence-hopping rule from the above discussion of GITD arguments. Because, according to Christianity, a free humanity is capable of misusing their freedom to commit horrendous wickedness, then to try to soften what is meant by moral evil will fall short of fairness. When the atheist advances the problem of moral evil as a GITD argument against the Christian God, he cannot step outside Christianity to define moral evil solely in terms of genetics. If God is on trial for being inconsistent in himself, it would be absurd of the jury to rule that he should be even more inconsistent. As long as the argument starts out, “If the Christian God were really . . . ,” moral evil remains defined by Christianity as having arisen from human wickedness.
The Problem of Divine Intervention
Our fourth definition involves a second GITD argument. A second problem, just as oppressive as the problem of moral evil, confronts the atheist. God is no longer the absent deliverer as under the problem of moral evil; now God has arrived as the oppressor himself. The term to be defined here is the problem of divine intervention. Under the problem of moral evil, we find that God is not present enough, yet in this new problem we find God to be too present. In the same breath, the atheist utters “Please” followed by “No, thank you.” According to the problem of divine intervention, the interventions the Christian God introduces into human life are immoral. Thus, by appealing to the argument, the atheist makes clear that he does not want or need these interventions.
The problem of divine intervention is really a family of arguments. There are ten allegedly immoral interventions we will examine throughout the book. The atheists we will consult demand freedom from God in the following ten areas. God should not
Thus, the atheist who initially asked for God’s intervention into the problem of moral evil does not, in the end, actually need him.
Three distinctions will help pinpoint what is meant when the atheist asks for “freedom from divine intervention.” First, “I don’t need God” is to be distinguished from similar declarations, such as, “I don’t need God to explain the origin of life,” or “I don’t need God to explain where morality comes from.” Such arguments, based on which is the better explanation, are not dealt with here. It is not God as a theoretical explanation that is in the dock here, but, in fact, God as himself. Second, we ought to distinguish between freedom from God’s interventions and freedom from the religious establishment. One finds overlap, but much atheistic ink is used condemning Christian doctrines and actions that cannot be fairly traced back to the Founder of Christianity. What we have in mind in what follows is a call for freedom from the interventions of God himself, as described in the Old and New Testaments. Third, the idea of divine intervention sounds quite dramatic, but it ought to be kept in mind that none of these interventions are actually imposing enough as to overturn human freedom. As we see in the section “The Levels of Intervention” below, these interventions never involve the coercive manipulation of free will. Rather, these interventions should be taken as interventions that work on the willing conscience.
Human Autonomy
We have defined two GITD arguments against God’s existence—namely, the problem of moral evil and the problem of divine intervention. It should not be difficult to see why the atheist sees moral evil as a problem. For one thing, no one could deny that moral evil causes vast amounts of suffering. However, why is the second argument called the problem of divine intervention? If the atheist truly sees moral evil as a problem, should not the atheist restate the latter argument as the solution of divine intervention? This might be if divine intervention did not threaten a cherished value atheists hold called human autonomy. Divine intervention diminishes human autonomy, and thus itself becomes a problem even while solving another.
The word autonomy literally means “self-law.”5 One can be ruled by self or by something outside the self, such as others or God. Thus theologian Paul Tillich categorized the hierarchy of rule as autonomy (rule by self), heteronomy (rule by another), and theonomy (rule by God). Tillich scholar Michael Palmer explains, “Autonomous reason is thus independent reason, reason refusing to obey any authority, be it secular or divine, which seeks to control the way it grasps or shapes reality.”6 Because divine intervention would naturally confront human autonomy and because, as we will see, most atheists seem to be zealots for autonomy, divine intervention would be seen as a problem. Now, whereas Christians and atheists alike appreciate being granted freedom (i.e., freedom to make personal choices), freedom is not identical to autonomy. True, personal freedom permits oneself to rule autonomously; freedom could even be seen to encourage autonomy if one sees God as an impediment to freedom. Yet freedom permits the reverse as well. Those who freely obey God often see themselves as freer when living out God’s purposes than when they had enslaved themselves to various sins out from under his guidance.
The Levels of Intervention
Though many versions of the problem-of-evil argument suggest that God should intervene to prevent all cases of evil, suppose that an atheist backpedals and says, “Well, obviously, to get rid of all moral evil would obliterate human autonomy. I am not saying God should do anything as rash as that. I just think he should at least prevent the more horrendous evils, like child abuse and such.” Because this distinction by degrees alters the argument, it will be helpful to propose a categorization. In descending order, let us propose three ways God could intervene in the problem of moral evil:
A (“All”)—Forcible prevention of all moral evil
B (“Bad”)—Forcible intervention into the most egregious cases of evil
C (“Conscience”)—Voluntary intervention at the mental/spiritual level
The atheist who says, “God should fix everything,” and then inserts, “But God shouldn’t touch anything,” is contradicting himself. However, if an atheist says, “I don’t want God to fix everything, just the worst things,” does that dissolve the contradiction? To answer, first, it must be clear what it is the atheist wants God not to touch. As we will see, the atheist wants freedom from God’s interventions insofar as God commands things like faith, submission, and guilt, and insofar as God promises things like death, judgment, and afterlife. Although such interventions might seem restricting, they rely on voluntary responses. God might command, but man might refuse. God might promise, but one might distract oneself into forgetfulness. In other words, these commands and promises leave free will intact. No inch of autonomy is seized from the unwilling. Yet it is freedom from such voluntary interventions that the atheist demands. It is a demand for freedom from C-level interventions.
When the atheist says, “God should fix the problem of moral evil,” which level is he requesting? There are two possibilities. The atheist to whom all moral evil should have been or should be prevented is asking for A-level intervention. It would seem that this would entail the abolition of true moral freedom. B-level intervention is represented by the statement, “I’m not saying God should get rid of all evil, but at least the worst cases of it.” Yet how could God answer such a request practically? Either God designs the human up front without the ability to do significant damage, with built-in physical or mental constraints, much like chastity belts and training wheels. Or, if there be no constitutional constraints on human freedom, God intervenes at the moment prior to the urge or the act, so that, for example, as C. S. Lewis put it, “a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults.”7 So the request is for either A- or B-level interventions. He could not be arguing in favor of mere C-level interventions, for, if that were the case, there would be no argument, since those types of interventions are precisely what Christianity offers. In dropping his request from A-level down to B-level interventions, the atheist is still asking God to move mountains: erasing a near infinity of free actions either at creation or throughout history through literally countless miracles.
As we will discover in the section on the problem of divine intervention, the atheist sees it as immoral of God to intervene at the C level. Yet when it comes to the problem of moral evil, the atheist demands God to intervene at either A level or B level. Admittedly, it sounds extreme to accuse the atheist of wanting God to fix everything and yet not touch anything. However, the atheist’s position is even more extreme than that, for the atheist says in essence, “God is morally bound to go to such extremes to fix the problem of moral evil that he removes at least a good part of our autonomy. At the same time, it would be immoral of God to go to lesser extremes because to do so would infringe on our autonomy.” You cannot demand A-level and B-level intervention and then cry “Unfair!” at mere C-level intervention that leaves autonomy basically intact.
Our Thesis
Thus we arrive at a very broad outline of what is to come. From the atheists’ writings, we will discover two examples of what George Orwell called doublethink. As we shall see, the atheist holds two contradictory beliefs in his mind simultaneously, and moreover, he does it twice. These two fundamental inconsistencies will invalidate two central atheistic arguments. The first inconsistency overturns the atheist’s argument appealing to the problem of moral evil. In the argument concerning moral evil, atheists claim that an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God cannot exist alongside moral evil. In other words, because God does not intervene to fix the problem of moral evil, he is immoral, and thus, as an essentially moral being, nonexistent. Yet, as we will see, many atheists will contradict this argument against moral evil by going on to label as immoral the very interventions God would naturally use to fix the problem of moral evil. Why are these divine interventions immoral? The reason divine intervention becomes a problem for these atheists stems from the value they place on human autonomy. Divine intervention suppresses self-rule.
In their first inconsistency, the atheists’ appeal to the problem of divine intervention seems to defeat their argument appealing to moral evil. Their second inconsistency then works to overturn their appeal to the problem of divine intervention. As we will see, the very interventions denounced at the divine, or theonomous, level are actually admitted to be necessary, even perhaps commendable, at the societal, or heteronomous, level. It turns out that these interventions are not immoral in themselves. If not immoral in themselves, why is God immoral to employ them, especially since they are the very interventions that will go to fix the problem of moral evil? Thus, those are the two inconsistencies to watch for. In order to resolve these two inconsistencies, the atheist will need to (1) drop either the argument appealing to the problem of moral evil or the arguments claiming that God’s interventions to fix the problem of moral evil are immoral, and (2) stop labeling as immoral those interventions that the Christian God proposes while simultaneously claiming that their counterparts on the societal level are not immoral.
So our thesis is essentially an exposing of two fundamental inconsistencies that defeat two atheistic arguments. Thus the atheist basically crafts every argument in our book. One regiment marches under a banner that reads, “God Should Fix Everything”; another holds high the banner that says, “God Shouldn’t Touch Anything.” All the while, the opposite sides of each banner state the reverse: “Immoral for God, Moral for Humanity.” Our aim is not a head-on rebuttal of any particular argument. Rather, our aim is to turn atheistic argument against atheistic argument until the inconsistency is recognized and one side of the argument is dropped. Inevitably, therefore, this book will be filled with quotations from atheists. In order to develop our charge of inconsistency, initially we will not have to argue, only to faithfully represent what the atheist is arguing.