A Relationship with God

Atheists’ avoidance of God is based on a misunderstanding of what God means to mankind. Many atheists want independence from God in order to claim freedom for themselves. They do not realize that a relationship with Him promises more freedom than they can ever find on their own terms. They will remain imprisoned within themselves and their constricted universe until they allow God to lead them to freedom.

Meaning is what drew my agnostic friend to Christianity. Even if there were no promise of life after death, just knowing that God exists bathes the universe with purpose and glory that vanishes when we see it as the product of blind chance. Yet the wonder of it all is that when we turn to God, we gain this assurance of meaning not only in a theoretical sense but also in a direct and personal sense. The God of the universe wants a personal relationship with us and offers to share eternity with us. We are designed for relationship, and this invitation to a relationship with God is our ultimate source of meaning. The universe takes on meaning only because God made it and has a plan for it. And your life takes on meaning because He created you for a particular purpose which you can find when you come into a proper relationship with Him.

The Untenable Position of Atheism

If we could peel away all the layers of atheists’ denial, we would find that they are potential believers who have chosen not to activate their innate capacity for belief. They have chosen to cling to something that is mutually exclusive to belief in God, so they buried their God awareness in order to get on with their wants. Perhaps many of them do not want to place themselves under the authority of a higher power that may have claims on them, so they deny that any higher power exists in order to maintain the illusion of self-mastery. Theirs is not a solid, insoluble conviction. And if either atheism or belief in God must be wrong (as one or the other must), it is the atheists who are in greater jeopardy.

The Reality of Meaning

The fact that we can imagine, comprehend, or even deny the concept of meaning shows that meaning does exist. Otherwise, we could never have thought of it. It is impossible to complain of meaninglessness unless we have some idea of what meaning should be, which proves that meaning is a reality that has somehow managed to invade our experience. If light had never existed, it would be impossible for us to imagine it and we would not know to complain of darkness. In a world where all was truly meaningless, the idea of meaning would never occur to us and we would be incapable of complaining of its absence. The idea of meaning is with us because meaning is a reality of the universe we live in and we cannot escape the innate sense of purpose that emanates like an aroma from every created thing.

This sense of meaning points directly to an absolute, and the only absolute that can provide meaning is the God who created this universe for a specific purpose. We find meaning for our own lives when we discover how our individual purpose fits into His purpose. There is no escape. Even when unbelievers step off the cliff of irrationality, God is the unyielding truth that meets them at the bottom.

Think About It

The fact that human beings have a concept of meaning is telling. It demonstrates that, whether or not we believe meaning actually exists, we can at least imagine its existence. And it is impossible to imagine anything that is completely outside our own experience. The most creative human thinkers merely discover, reorder and synthesize elements collected from their senses and experiences. They never come up with anything truly new.

For example, try to imagine a new primary color, a sixth sense, a fourth dimension or a third sex that is not a combination or extension of those that exist already. Of course we can claim to imagine things we have neither seen nor experienced—flying cows, strangely shaped alien beings or water running uphill. But such mental fabrications are assembled from the raw material we have gathered from actual experience. Recombining or reshaping what we have experienced through our senses is the limit of what we can create or even imagine.

The Conscience Existence

Just as the existence of the eye implies light and the existence of the ear implies sound, the existence of the conscience implies God. The existence of conscience implies the existence of a universal moral code that strongly suggests the reality of an external absolute. And, as I have discussed in blogs #22 thru #36, the invention theory, the social contract theory and the instinct theory all fail miserably as an explanation for absolute morality. However, it is completely rational to accept the idea that God is the absolute for morality and that He wired us with this moral sense in order to keep our natural urges from leading us to disaster.

The bleakness of unbelievers’ view of the universe may lead them to deny that thinking can lead to any true conclusions. When they claim there are no absolutes, they must believe that this claim, at least, is absolute. At the very least they must believe their thinking is true when it leads them to conclude that there can be no truth. And they must find some way to live with the convoluted inconsistency of such a conclusion. The very nature of the universe forces unbelievers to live and think in ways that are inconsistent with their unbelief. They must isolate themselves from the rational nature of the universe and lock themselves inside a cell of irrationality. But the rational universe continually seeps in from every crack and corner, challenging their illusions with strong doses of reality. Believing that conscience, reason, morality, self and truth are not there does not make unbelievers immune to their effects. Reality grants no exemptions: thinking the stove is not hot will not keep it from burning a man who puts his hand to it.

The Conscience Existence

This thing called conscience—that intrusive, uninvited voice that so often challenges our intentions—is inexplicable in a naturalistic universe. Unbelievers may try to deny its existence, but just like believers, they feel guilty when they lie or steal. They are appalled at themselves when they lose their temper and hurt a friend or a loved one. They can’t stand bearing the blame for their misdeeds, so they make excuses to justify their bad behavior. Even the worst, most godless criminals always have a rationale for their crimes: they were mistreated or deprived as children; society has cheated them, and they are getting even; their victims had it coming; treating themselves to someone else’s property just levels the playing field after a run of bad luck.

People who operate outside the bounds of the universal moral code (see blog #22) always grope for traditional morality to justify their errant behavior. Sane people cannot live with themselves without finding some way to justify their own behavior by the standard the universe prescribes. If the universe is really meaningless and humans are nothing more than impersonal blobs of atoms, unbelievers shouldn’t need to scramble for excuses—but they do. They feel compelled to align themselves with the universal standard of morality, even though they deny the existence of such a standard. And if they fail to justify themselves, the conscience they deny will sting them just as painfully as it does believers.

The Inconsistency of Unbelief

When people choose unbelief over belief in God, they choose a view of the universe so out of step with reality that it is impossible to live consistently with it. The universe is too relentlessly rational and orderly to allow us to construct our own version of reality. Every day unbelievers will be forced to contend with and make decisions about realities they steadfastly deny but cannot elude.

One of these realities is the existence of a self with its attendant conscience. In a meaningless universe where people are no more than machines, there is no need or explanation for a sense of self or the moral supervision of a conscience. Unbelievers may deny that self is real, yet they must deal with an inexplicable internal presence that has all the earmarks of self. They may deny that conscience is real, but a phantom presence exactly like a conscience will prod them all the same.

The Choice is God or Nothing

Save yourself the trouble of exploring the many philosophies that attempt to explain existence and find meaning in it apart from God. Meaning simply cannot be found apart from Him. Either God is the absolute (see blog #10) of the universe, or the universe is meaningless. Either God is the source of moral law (see blog #22), or morality is an illusion. Either God is the source of reason, or everything is irrational. It’s as if we are all swept downstream in a swift river and must choose between climbing onto a rock and plunging over a waterfall. One option offers security and a solid grip on stable reality; the other ends in a tumbling fall into a void where nothing has meaning and nothing is true. The choice is God or nothing; we have no other alternatives.

A Dead End Universe

It seems ironic that naturalists, pronouncing the vast realm of nature to be the sum total of reality, thought they were freeing themselves by getting rid of the oppressive idea of God. But instead they imprisoned themselves inside a dead-end universe with no way out. If God exists in an unlimited supernatural realm above nature, we have a connection to a transcendent being who gives our lives purpose. We have a doorway out of close-ended nature into an infinite realm without limits. Instead of enlarging humanity’s universe, the naturalists’ removal of God has shrunk it to the size of a coffin.

What’s the Point?

In an article on the beginnings of the universe, Rick Gore, a senior writer for National Geographic, wrote, “So what is the point of a universe that ends in such oblivion? The more I begin to comprehend the universe, the more that question bothers me. I have no answer, beyond some memories that will not decay” (“The Once and Future Universe,” June 1983).

We can easily forgive Mr. Gore for tempering his despair with a little rhetorical wishful thinking, but we all know that if his view of the universe is correct, his memories will decay. The passing of the universe will leave nothing at all in its wake, not even a memory. Unbelievers, if they think it through, must share Mr. Gore’s despair. To them, the story of the universe is a cruel tragedy of matter bringing itself to life, waking itself to consciousness, raising itself to intelligence, and dreaming itself into eternity, only to face inevitable, unalterable, total oblivion.

The Naturalist Point of View

To the naturalists, mankind is no different from anything else that exists. In an accidental universe we are merely temporary clusters of atoms with no more importance than any other clusters, whether they are rocks, fence posts or pill bugs. In such a view, we are nothing more than aimless lumps of matter stuck to a mass of the material we are composed of, floating in the empty void of a meaningless universe that will burn itself out as blindly as it banged itself in.

Without God, the universe offers nothing but despair. If there is no higher power to place value on humanity and give us purpose, any sense of a meaningful existence is an illusion. If you came into being accidentally with no plan and if your existence is terminal with nothing but a void of oblivion beyond, how can you muster up enough sense of purpose to get out of bed in the morning? And what does it matter how you occupy your hours, days, and years? Regardless of how important your plans and activities may seem at the moment, how can you find real meaning in them if everything you do is purposeless and destined to end in nothingness when the universe burns out and dies?

A World without Meaning

Without God, mankind’s existence is meaningless and the human position is hopeless. If we are not the products of a creator, we are merely accidental machines programmed with reflexes and responses that cause us to do whatever we do. Without God, freedom has no meaning, responsibility has no meaning, and goodness, heroism, justice, and love have no meaning. Neither do hate, lust, treachery, lying, or cowardice. If we are nothing more than randomly programmed machines, a person who commits murder is merely doing what a machine of a given type and programming is conditioned to do under a given set of circumstances and stimuli. How can society rightly judge or punish a machine for doing what a machine does? In a world without God, people, their ideals, and all their activities are utterly meaningless.

Without God, Why Ask?

The search for certainty is at the same time a search for the meaning of human existence and the meaning of the universe in which we exist. The unbeliever may try to find momentary comfort in the theory of evolution but the hard truth is that the universe is running down toward ultimate oblivion. In the mind of the naturalist, the story will end in the tragedy of a lifeless universe with all energy expended, all suns dead and cold.

It is useless for unbelievers to gaze at the stars and ask why they have been placed on this planet because without God there is no one in the endless, black silence who will even hear the question, let alone provide an answer. Without God as the ultimate absolute (see blogs #10 and #11), there can be no why and no reason to ask for one.