Jim Davison’s Sermon – 4/13/08
The Faith of An Atheist
Psalm 34:4-8
John 20:24-31
The universe is a marvelous place, is it not? You need only look out into the depths of space – beyond our constellation to the dust clouds, the supernovae, the swirling galaxies – to know that this universe is beyond imagining. In the face of this beauty and these marvels, there’s nothing we can do but thank God and praise the name of the Lord.
Or is there? Listen to some words from a recent best-seller:
“…the doctrines of modern religions are no more tenable than those which…were cast upon the scrap heap of mythology millennia ago; for there is no more evidence to justify a belief in the literal existence of Yahweh and Satan than there was to keep Zeus perched upon his mountain throne or Poseidon churning the seas.”(16)
And, lest that not be sufficient to indicate where this writer is heading, listen to another quote:
“It is time we admitted…that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe. The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology.” (45)
These are the words of Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith. My first thought as I hear these diatribes is, “This man can write!” As these quotes suggest, his language is graphic; it’s to the point; and it’s never, ever boring.
You may have heard of Sam Harris by now, because he and a few others are being quoted, discussed, attacked, or celebrated in just about every venue you can imagine – Time and Newsweek, various literary magazines, Internet articles and blogs, and, or course, the lecture circuit. Harris’ friends include Richard Dawkins, author years ago of a famous book, The Selfish Gene, and recently, of The God Delusion. (You can guess what that’s about, can’t you?!)
Other “new atheists,” as they are being called are Dennis Dennett and Christopher Hitchkins. Together with Harris and Dawkins, they make a “fearsome foursome,” and they are aggressive about their atheism. In fact, there’s a curious sort of missionary zeal to it. They suggest that anyone who believes in God, of whatever kind, is deluded and is endangering society. They deny that there is anything good to say about religion at all.
* * * * *
Now, what shall we say to this? We could say, for instance:
“Most people – throughout history and throughout the world today – have believed in some kind of God or gods. In fact, recent studies in ancient archaeology suggest that religion is just as early as the first emergence of human beings!”
But Sam Harris would reply,
"the fact that religious beliefs have a great influence on human life says nothing at all about their validity. For the paranoid [person]…terror of the CIA may have great influence, but this does not mean that his phones are tapped.”64
We could say,
“My faith has blessed me and helped me through troubled times. It makes me a better person.”
But Sam Harris would respond:
“The alleged usefulness of religion – the fact that it sometimes gets people to do very good things indeed – is not an argument for its truth…Religion gets people to do good things for bad reasons…and it rather often gets people to do very bad things that they would not otherwise do.” (blog discussion, Jan 23, 2007).
The truth is: Sam Harris and his friends are raising a complaint, or a challenge, that we need to hear. It’s not that this complaint hasn’t been lifted up before. In spite of their language, which sometimes suggests that they are the first to ever think these atheistic thoughts, philosophers as far back as the ancient Greeks have argued against belief in Zeus and Poseidon, not to mention Athena and Aphrodite. In more recent times, names like David Hume, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche come to mind. Nietzsche, of course is the one who wrote the memorable line,
“God is dead.” (And you may have heard the response, supposedly written in graffiti on a wall somewhere, “Nietzsche is dead. Signed, God.”
Famous proponents of God’s non-existence in our own day include Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking. Denials of God’s existence, in other words, have been around for a long time. But in these post-modern times, the voices are increasing in number, and also in volume. They are much shriller. There’s an anger too, it seems. The new atheists are furious that you and I could continue to believe in something so irrational (their preferred word), something which divides people and nations, something that leads to ethnic conflicts and sometimes to all-out war.
What I like about Sam Harris is his sense of humor. In a dialogue with Andrew Sullivan just over a year ago, Harris insisted that he was open to evidence for the truth of religion – if there just was some. He says that, for example,
“[if God] gave you some highly specific information that you could not have obtained by any other means, I would take this as powerful evidence in favor of your point of view.” “So,” he goes on to say, “I have just written a 30-digit number on a scrap of paper and hidden it in my office. If God tells you…what this number is, I will be appropriately astounded….”
Harris and his other atheist friends intend, if possible, to convert their readers by playing to their doubts. Doubt, we all know, is normal in human life. If you’ve been around on this globe for a while, I’m sure you’ve entertained some doubts about all kinds of things:
Doubt is a normal part of life, and healthy doubt can be good. After all, some of the stories people tell sound pretty doubtable – stories of statues weeping, slivers of wood from the cross causing healings – we should be a bit cautious about such reports.
Harris is right, therefore, that we need to test our faith claims. Marvelous beliefs like the incarnation, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus on the third day – not to mention the presence of God when we pray – all need to be scrutinized. Why do you believe those things? Are these beliefs in any sense rational? Can they be? Agreed that they can’t be tested by scientific means – is there any way that we can assess whether there is any truth to such amazing beliefs?
Harris would say “No.” There is no way to test such claims, and religions often contradict each other. Thus, we ought to gather the whole set of humanity’s religious beliefs into a large plastic bag and set it out for the trash this week. Harris seems very certain that there’s nothing worth keeping in religion. The oddity, however, is that he appears to have no doubts about his own atheism.
His is the faith of an atheist. He seems to have just as absolute a faith in the power of human reason, as a believer does in God! That’s why Harris’ declarations that he could be convinced that God exists sound hollow – the 30 digit-number challenge is just a joke. The only sort of proof he will allow (some sort of stupendous, miraculous event) is just the kind of proof he will never get.
It’s true that, at times, we may wish that we could just receive a sign from heaven that would dismiss our doubts and confirm our faith. I’m reminded of the cartoon about a football game. The defense is waiting while the offense is huddled up to pick a play. Suddenly a cloud settles over the stadium. A hand appears out of the cloud and presents the quarterback with a sheet of paper. A radio announcer watches in amazement, and then exclaims into his microphone, “Wait a moment, folks. Here’s a play coming in for Notre Dame.”
Unfortunately, faith in God, and trust in Christ, is not something that comes – at least not usually – by extraordinary visions and marvels. That’s why Jesus says to Thomas,
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”(John 20:29)
Christ is not saying here that faith in Him or in His resurrection is irrational. No, the disciples – and now Thomas too – have seen the risen Lord; they have touched him, eaten with him, walked and talked with him. But those who come afterwards will have to trust the word of these first disciples.
That doesn’t mean that the resurrection is irrational. It means that it is a one-time, non-repeatable event. Harris and his friends insist on empirical verification of all truth claims, but the resurrection can’t be judged – it won’t be judged – that way. We have to ask other questions, questions more like those a historian would ask, “Is this sensible? Can we trust the witnesses? What did they have to gain; what did they have to lose, when they affirmed that Jesus had risen from the dead?
For instance, if the disciples were making up the resurrection story, you might wonder
The actions of the disciples, in other words, cohere with their belief that the resurrection we celebrated on Easter Sunday really happened. They don’t prove it. After all, no historical event can be proven, if by “proof” we mean empirical, scientific verification. However, thinking that there is something to this stupendous, mind-blowing event is by no means irrational, as Harris would have us believe.
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It is not that faith is irrational, but rather that God is too great to be available to us like any other object that we can simply study or investigate. God transcends the entire creation. This universe, as unbelievably vast as it is, is nothing compared to the divine Creator. God goes far beyond our world, so you won’t be able to pin him down within it. God, in other words, is not an object; God is personal, and God comes to us, therefore, in a personal relation.
So, we might say,
“Sorry, Sam, but if you want to know God, you’ll have to give up insisting on an empirical analysis of the Lord of heaven and earth. You’ll have to get to know God by relating to God.”
Listen to the words of the Psalm from our Scripture lesson:
“O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
You have to taste in order to see! That’s the secret. The way to know God is to trust in God’s goodness – to go out on a limb, so to speak, where you can’t see, and simply trust that God is there. It’s then that a relationship starts to take hold. It’s then that God begins to reveal God’s goodness; it’s then that you begin to feel that you are immersed in the presence of the Almighty.
Remember Elijah, who faced the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, but then ran from Jezebel when she threatened his life. He made his way out of the land of Israel, all the way south to Mt. Sinai, where he waited for God to give him a sign. Maybe he expected a marvel, like Sam Harris wants. We are told that a great wind arose, splitting rocks apart, but God was not in the wind. Then a great earthquake shook the ground; then fire burned intensely on the mountain, but God was not in either the earthquake or the fire. Then, at last, there was a “still small voice.” Only then did God communicate with Elijah. (I Kings 19)
If you want to experience God, if you want to know that faith is real, then don’t try to prove that God exists; don’t expect to wrap your arms around God and analyze him. Rather, quiet yourself. Humble yourself. Open yourself for prayer. Prepare yourself so that you can listen and speak to this Transcendent One who lives far beyond our small world, but who is also everywhere in this world, closer to you than your very breath.
With that awareness of God’s greatness, and God’s presence in mind, listen to the words of the Psalm:
“I sought the Lord, and he answered me…
Look to him and be radiant…
This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord.
These are the words of a relationship. It’s when we seek God; it’s when we look to God; it’s when we cry to God that we come in contact with the Lord. This is very subtle, and it’s easy to overlook it. It’s easy to deny it. But it’s only in these relational sorts of ways that we can come face to face with the Lord of Glory.
It’s when we open ourselves to God, when we are ready simply to receive the divine – that’s when we will experience the truth of the Psalmist’s words:
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
Happy are those who take refuge in him.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
© James E. Davison
Director of Continuing Education
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
616 North Highland Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
jdavison@pts.edu