Stealing From GodSample

Why Atheism Is Not Reasonable but Christianity Is

Many atheists today believe that they are “free thinking” beacons of reason. Unfortunately, there is no “free” and there is no “thinking” going on if atheistic materialism is true. 

How so?  

Consider atheist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, who explained the implications of atheistic materialism when he wrote, “The astonishing hypothesis is that ‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” 

To see the problem with this atheistic hypothesis, imagine if Crick had written this: “The Astonishing Hypothesis is that my scientific conclusions that I write in this book are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Then why believe anything he says? The non-rational laws of physics determine everything he thinks and writes! If Crick is correct, we’re not free creatures — we’re just molecular machines; we’re nothing but moist robots. We’re not really reasoning; we’re merely reacting. Which means Crick has no justification to say what he says, and we have no justification to believe it. 

Atheist evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane put it well. He wrote, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” He also has no reason to trust anything he believes, including atheism or evolution.

In other words, atheism makes reason itself impossible. Science too. As C. S. Lewis observed, “Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.” 

So although they claim to be beacons of reason, atheists can’t justify their claim. In order to construct any valid argument for atheism, the atheist has to steal immaterial tools from God’s universe because no such tools exist in the robot world of atheism. 

Christians, on the other hand, have an ultimate explanation for our ability to reason.  In the beginning was the Word—the Logos (from which we get the word “logic”).  Logic is rooted in God’s nature, and we can understand reality because God has endowed our minds with the ability to do so.  That’s reasonable.  Atheism is not. (See Chapter 2 of Stealing from God)