CRI vs Atheism
I found this little page on the web. It’s the Christian Research Institute’s (CRI) take on God vs Atheism. The subtitle is “Is Atheism Logical?” and I suppose they are trying to answer this question. Let me start with the irony alert, the site has a trademark slogan at the top of their page, “…because Truth matters”. Not surprisingly, they have no interest in truth – capital T or otherwise.
GOD VS. ATHEISM- Introduction
They start with an attempt to define atheism and they fail.
“Atheism is the world view that denies the existence of God. More specifically, traditional atheism argues that there never was and never will be a God. But is this position logical?”
Atheism is not a world view, it is a response to one question, “Do you believe in one or more god?” An answer in the affirmative means you are a theist otherwise you are an atheist. An atheist may believe that “there never was and never will be a God” but that is not a requirement for them being an atheist.
GOD VS. ATHEISM- Suppositions
“Atheism positively affirms that there is no God.”
So they have set the stage to argue against a straw-man atheist. The next part of their argument is true, this claim would require evidence and to prove “absolutely” would require omniscience. However, we do not, typically, require “absolute” proof to make affirmative statements. If I leave my house and lock the door before going, I am not being unreasonable to make the statement that “my door is locked at home”. After all it is possible that someone has broken into my house and unlocked my door or any other number of possibilities as to why my door may no longer be locked as I left it. We make affirmative statements all the time without omniscience. How about “Santa is not real”? Are you being unreasonable to make that claim without omniscience? Certainly not, in reality, in Science, we don’t make statements of absolute certainty. Every claim is subject to change with the introduction of new evidence. The statement quoted above is not a logical fallacy and is not dogmatic as they claim, because without evidence in favor of the extraordinary claim that there is a god, the reasonable conclusion is that there isn’t one. Also, it’s not dogmatic because that claim is subject to change in the event that convincing evidence is provided to the contrary.
GOD VS. ATHEISM- The Failings of Atheism
The straw-man continues to be picked apart here. As I’ve stated, atheism isn’t a world view, if there were no theist, there would be no need for the word atheist. So while it is true that atheism can’t adequately explain the existence of the world, it isn’t true that the existence of the world can’t be explained without injecting the supernatural. Science is the method we use to study reality (including the existence of the world) and it does a fine job, we have no better method to study and know about objective truth than science. So if you replace “atheist world view” in this part of their argument with “science” what you get is lies. Science does provide us with explanations and will continue to allow us to refine our knowledge about the universe.
GOD VS. ATHEISM- The Claims of Christ
Here they just devolve into preaching but I still want to address their claims.
“…let them consider the claims of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be none other than God in human flesh (John 1:1). This astounding claim was supported, however, by His matchless personal character, His fulfillment of predictive prophecy, His incredible influence on human history — and most importantly, the historical fact of His resurrection from the dead.”
The claim that one is “God”, in any form is an astounding claim indeed. So the evidence would have to be pretty astounding to back that claim up. So what astounding evidence does he provide here?
- His matchless personal character – I would argue that Jesus’ personal character wasn’t matchless. As described in the bible, Jesus was no better a person than most people. He lied, he got angry and behaved in a petty manner, mistreated his mother, etc. There are many examples. Sorry, this point does not amount to evidence of divinity.
- His fulfillment of predictive prophecy – Some examples need to be provided here. I can find no examples of predictive prophecy made by Jesus (or anyone else for that matter). This also does not amount to evidence of divinity.
- His incredible influence on human history – Many people have had an incredible influence on human history, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and Muhammad. Is this evidence for the divinity of all these people as well?
- The historical fact of His resurrection from the dead – There is no meaningful way to call this a fact. There is no evidence for it, there is no contemporary evidence that it ever occurred.
All of this adds up to nothing, no evidence what-so-ever that Jesus was a “God” in any form.
And that’s the “CRI Perspective”. I think Hank Hanegraaff needs to do a lot more research.