Bryan
is well-known for his weekly column, "Faithworks",
with "The Sunday Herald Sun", Melbourne,
Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT). His select
columns from previous weeks are republished in this space with his permission.-
Editor
"An
atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support" –
John Buchan
IN
1960, Time magazine declared God dead. Half the world seemed officially
atheist and the rest were expected to soon join. The tables have obviously
turned. Now, only about 2.4 per cent of the world's population is considered
atheist, according to the World Almanac, and the numbers are dwindling.
Meanwhile, spirituality is experiencing a global resurgence.
In his book The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief
in the Modern World, historian and theologian Alistair McGrath examines
where the atheist dream went wrong and explains why faith is destined
to play a central role in the 21st century.
Interestingly, he also makes it clear that, despite a resurgence in
faith, Western Christianity has not recovered from a faith crisis of
the '60s. McGrath says the origins of atheism lay primarily in a protest
against the power, privilege, and corruption of church institutions
-- beginning with the French Revolution and ending about the time of
the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The atheism that swept across Europe in the 19th century and dominated
most of the Western world in the 20th century was encouraged by a cerebral
Christianity with its emphasis on cold doctrines, which might have engaged
the mind but left emotions and imagination untouched.
Atheism envisioned a glorious future for a humanity freed from outdated
dogmas and moral restrictions, with the unlimited potential of scientific
advancement and the human imagination. Humans could not only be good
without God, but they could be much better.
God was chased out of heaven by Marx, banished to the unconscious by
Freud and announced by Nietzsche to be deceased. Well, not quite.
McGrath, a lapsed atheist, documents what he says are the philosophical
inconsistency and moral failures of atheism, especially when it acquired
political power, for example in the guise of communism.
But he also documents religion's "failures of imagination"
and complicity with oppression that often fostered an environment in
which atheism could thrive.
Atheism proclaimed science was God. But scientific advances often coincided
with moral confusion and environmental disaster. Science was expected
to reveal a universe that was random and mechanical. Instead, science
uncovered even more layers of intricate order that suggested an intelligent
design.
The discovery that the universe began with a creation-like Big Bang
around 13 billion years ago encouraged the argument for a creator as
the first cause of nature.
The discovery that the fundamental laws of nature contained constants
that appear to have been fine-tuned so that the cosmos would eventually
yield intelligent life, lent new credence to the design argument for
God's existence.
Quantum theory made the cosmos seem more like a thought than like a
machine. Modern science tells us the that our universe cannot sustain
itself, that it's dependent on something outside of itself, and that
our universe had a beginning.
We are seeing not a battle between God and science, but a discovery
of God in science.
The German physicist Max Born, who pioneered quantum mechanics, said:
"Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist
must be rather silly people."
Einstein said the world was like a well-constructed crossword puzzle.
"You can suggest any number of words, but only one will fit all
the facts," he said.
Science can't "observe" God. But we can all observe a universe
that yields evidence of either God's handiwork, or an amazing accident.
The evidence has to point one way or the other. And scientific discoveries
of this past century clearly show that our universe is no accident,
that there is an intelligent designer behind it all.
Albert Camus said death was philosophy's only problem. One of atheism's
great failings is that it cannot offer any comfort in the face of death.
David the Psalmist said we could not hide from God. Ever. Anywhere.
We either faced him in this life or the next -- one way or the other.
***
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