I had an article published in our local newspaper in which I made the point in passing that the ultimate source of all authority is God. What I assumed to be a benign, and certainly not an inflammatory remark, nonetheless inflamed a local atheist who saw fit to dispatch an angry letter to me. Before opening the envelope that bore an address I did not recognize, I noticed the words: “Nothing Fails Like Prayer!” My thoughts immediately turned to a recent conference on cancer held in Kingston, Ontario. One of the participating scientists stated that the only factor we can be sure about that benefits cancer patients in the recovery of their health is prayer. Her claim was supported by statistical data. I thought it rather curious that someone would use envelopes to beseech the world not to pray.
In reading the letter I discovered that I was accused of “making irrelevant and spurious character assaults” against all atheists. I was also guilty of making “nonsensical” and “unsubstantiated claims”. My atheist advisor informed me that if I contend that God is the ultimate source of moral authority, then I implied that those who do not believe in God have no basis for their authority and consequently are immoral.
Was I accusing atheists of being immoral? An atheist may be loving, decent, and honorable without recognizing that these virtues ultimately come from God. A desert dweller who has never seen rain may believe that the ultimate source of water is the local oasis. I was really making no accusations, just stating my view that God is the ultimate source of morality. Not being able to see something is no reason to deny its existence. We neither see not can conceptualize the electron. Yet, it is so well known through its effects that we utilize it to illuminate our cities, guide our planes through night skies, and make the most accurate measurements. As astrophysicist, Wernher von Braun, has remarked, “What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electron as real, while refusing to accept the reality of God on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?” An atheist may have invisible means of support even if he is unaware of them.
I have always found it odd that a person who neither believes in God, the supernatural, the immortality of the soul, the consolation of religion, and so on, could be apostolic about such emptiness. It is as if a person discovered a formula for despair and was most eager to share it with everyone, even at his own expense. The atheist is content with the idea that we evolved from mud and slime and shuns the notion that a human being is made in the image of God.
My atheist apologist is a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In keeping with his apostolic zeal, he included information about how and at what price I could become a supporter of “freethought” and a subscriber to Freethought Today, allegedly “the only freethought newspaper in the United States”. Apparently my thoughts are not free if they lead me to a conviction that God exists, which I freely maintain. Are the freethought people promoting freedom of thought or are they simply advancing atheism? When thought is truly free, it could go in any direction. Should not thought be circumscribed by truth?
I opened one of the pamphlets that came with the letter: “Nontract No. 3” as it is called. I was greeted by the phrase, “We are all born atheists”. The authors may have been familiar with the opening line of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract: “Man is born free”. The plain truth is that we come into the world neither atheists nor free. A newborn is neither an atheist nor a theist. He has not given such matters any thought. Should atheism, therefore, be equated with ignorance as well as not thinking at all? What happened to the requirement of being a free thinker?
I read further and was told that among the great artists who exemplified the spirit of the sceptic or the freethinker and refused to bend to religion is Alfred Lord Tennyson. This was not a good choice, I thought. The most often quoted line from the pen of the great Victorian poet is a glowing testimony to prayer: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of”. Scholars have hailed Tennyson’s great poem In Memoriam as the most dramatic as well as the most religious of English elegies. Queen Victoria, upon losing her husband, stated that In Memoriam was her comfort, second only to the Bible. Consider the following quatrain from its Prologue: “We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.” The rest of my atheist’s material was equally uneven and unconvincing.
Theism and atheism do not exclude each other completely. The believer and the unbeliever share both belief and doubt. Even saints were tempted to disbelieve. The believer is not entirely free of doubt; the unbeliever is not entirely free of belief. I began to think that my apologist for atheism was trying to defend himself against belief that kept tormenting him, like the Hound of Heaven. Perhaps, if he could purge others from their beliefs he would find his own belief more easy to accept. Having read his arguments, it seemed only too clear that he had erected a house of cards which he hoped that I would evaluate as a fortress of steel.
