Is Atheism Intellectually Respectable?

On Romans 1: 18-20.

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Comments

[Joe Odegaard]

That we have to decide wether to believe in God or not,
preserves our free will.

There could be a further discussion on the differences between believing and apprehending.

[Elliott]

Bill,

I agree that atheism is an intellectually respectable position. I’ve puzzled over Romans 1: 18-20. If Paul was begging the question, what does that fact mean for the traditional Christian claims that the Bible is divinely inspired and that all of its teachings are true? Does divine inspiration entail the absence of fallacy?

I sometimes wonder if that passage from Paul was not intended as an argument, or at least not as an argument he endorsed, but instead was part of a Cynic-Stoic diatribe – a polemical style of rhetoric meant for dramatic and didactic purposes. Douglass Campbell has explored this idea in The Deliverance of God, suggesting that Romans 1-4 contains Hellenistic diatribe and Socratic dialogue.

http://girardianlectionary.net/special_series/Romans1-3_read-in-light-of-Campbell.htm

On another note, there is an argument for atheism that addresses the so-called “hiddenness of God.” It goes something like this:

1. If God (unsurpassedly great and thus unsurpassedly wise and loving) exists, then there are no nonresistant nonbelievers*.
2. There are nonresistant nonbelievers.
3. Thus, there is no God.

*A nonresistant nonbeliever is a human person capable and willing to believe in God’s existence but who, through no fault of his own, fails to believe.

Some theists have objected to (1), arguing that God hides his existence from some people for their benefit, e.g., to respect their autonomy or enable their moral or intellectual growth so that they can come to believe on their own terms. God will not coerce belief. These people from whom God hides are nonresistant nonbelievers. Hence, the existence of God is consistent with the existence of nonresistant nonbelievers.

Now, the claim that God hides his existence from some people seems inconsistent with Romans 1: 18-20.

By the way, there are passages in the OT indicating that God hides. For example, consider Psalm 10:1 and 88:14. Are these passages consistent with Romans 1: 18-20? How can it be true that God hides and makes his existence evident?

Perhaps these psalmic verses shouldn’t be taken literally since the Psalms are mostly poetic. Then again, maybe Paul was writing a Socratic-style dialogue, as Campbell suggests; thus, the argument in Romans 1: 18-20 shouldn’t be construed as an argument Paul endorsed any more than Thrasymachus’ “might-makes-right” arguments in the Republic should be construed as representing Plato’s view on the nature of justice.

But if Paul was writing a dialogue, why have the translators and theological exegetes missed this fact? Translators and exegetes don’t get confused about the fact that Plato was writing dialogues. Why would they be confused that Paul was writing one? Such confusion would be a major blunder!

[BV]

Elliot,

In your excellent and deep-going comments you raise an important question: Is Paul giving an argument at Romans 1: 18-20? My post assumes that he is, but there are other ways to read the passage. The noted Thomist, Ralph McInerny, takes it to be an argument in natural theology and thus not an articulation of a tenet of faith, but an ingredient in the preambles to faith. These preambles are supposed to show the reasonableness of faith. "Traditionally understood, the reasonableness of belief is a claim that has reposed on an interpretation of Romans 1: 19-20 which has it that men are capable, independently of faith, of arriving at knowledge of the invisible things of God." (One Hundred Years of Thjomism, ed. Brezik, p. 72)

McInerny apparently thinks that the argument is a good one! To my mind it is worthless inasmuch as it is plainly question-begging. Necessarily, if there are creatures, then there is a Creator. You can just SEE that the things of nature are creatures; ergo, a Creator exists! Triuble is, you can SEE no such thing.

Here is another worthless argument you sometimes hear: Whatever is contingent depends on something noncontingent for its existence. Now Bill and Elliot etc. are contingent. Therefore a noncontingent being exists. "And this all men call God."

You could say that Paul is not arguing at all: he is merely unpacking or articulating his presupposition, namely, that God exists. He is not trying to show that belief in God reasonable; he is just unpacking a presupposition that he doesn't question.

This is essentially the presuppositionalist approach. You don't argue to God; you start with God as revealed in the Christian Bible. But how do you know that the Christian Bible is true and utterly reliable? Because it is the Word of God who is utterly reliable! God exists because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true because it is God's Word! The diameter of the circle is so short that you can't even say that they are arguing in a circle: they are just making a statement or a series of statements.

[Joe Odegaard]

"Necessarily, if there are creatures, then there is a Creator. You can just SEE that the things of nature are creatures; ergo, a Creator exists! Trouble is, you can SEE no such thing."

But there is a variation of the above approach, which doesn't require seeing the things of nature externally, and that is to ask oneself "Did I create myself?" I think that pretty much, universally, the honest human answer to that would be "No." (And neither did I always exist.)

You can dodge the implications of not having created yourself by invoking "parents," but that is an infinite regression.

[BV]

Joe,

You didn't address the question of what Paul is doing in the passage in question.

And note that this is a non sequitur: I didn't create myself; ergo, God created me.