The Absurdity of life without god

We are beginning our apologetics series by following the format of William Lane Craig’s book, “On Guard.” We like this format because it follows a set structure, but also because we believe it logically builds the case for the Christian God. Craig begins his cumulative case by attempting to show individuals their need for God. If people don’t see their need for something, they are generally not receptive of a solution. 

While everyone needs to see their need in order to accept a solution, all of us are on different place on the theological continuum. Some recognize their need for God, but don’t see themselves as sinners in need of a savior through grace. 

Some recognize that objective morality exists, but don’t recognize its grounding in God. And some people deny that God exists altogether. This particular topic, the absurdity of life without God, starts from the very beginning. It is largely geared towards individuals who view meaning, value, and morality as being wholly independent of a divine being. Therefore, it is a particularly powerful argument to use with atheists. However, it is also a great discussion to have with Christians who are doubting their faith, or considering the strengths of atheism. This topic provides us with the motivation to seek out whether or not God exists, and spurs us on to find the deeper answers of how those aspects play out. While it doesn't lay out evidence for the existence of God (Craig will do that in the next chapter), it does paint a vivid picture of what a life lived consistently and without delusion should look like under atheism.

Craig’s argument from absurdity does not contain much in the way of positive arguments for God, as the main line of thinking is more of a negative argument against atheism through a reductio ad absurdum. That’s fancy talk for reducing an idea to the absurd.  Craig takes a look at atheist thought, then shows what living consistently would look like under such thought. Craig attempts to show that if an atheist actually lived in line with what their beliefs imply, then their lives would be utterly unliveable. An atheist’s life lived consistently would leave them without meaning, value, and purpose. Atheists tend to jump up at this point, arguing that they do feel meaning, they do have morals, and they do find purpose in life. Many atheists live more fulfilled and more moral lives than many Christians. However, Craig would argue that this is not evidence for atheism, but for the contrary - that atheism lived consistently is unliveable. Craig would likely argue that if you find an atheist living with meaning, purpose, and value, it is only a result of that individual living inconsistently, not following his or her worldview to its logical end. This is because the grounding of meaning, purpose, and value are untenable if an atheist's worldview is followed out to its logical end. The video below briefly explains a reductio ad absurdum, then proceeds to show a moral subjectivist who understands his lack of moral restraints - which will come up again when we get to values. 

Craig's first step is to set up the absurdity of meaning under atheism. By meaning, he really means “why does something matter?” Under atheism, the world has been around for billions of years without humans, and in only several billion years more, the universe will go on forever without us, ultimately ending in heat death and destruction. As atheist philosopher Jean Paul Sarte writes, “several hours or several years make no difference once you have lost eternity.” Without eternity, what does it ultimately matter that I have lived? Even if I believe my life affects future progeny or people, their ends and their children’s ends are as certainly doomed and as empty as mine, meaning my affecting of their lives is ultimately meaningless, or ultimately amounts to nothing. While our lives may carry relative significance, they lose ultimate significance under atheism.

However, the duration of existence alone does not take away the absurdity of life. Craig  uses the example of a science fiction book he read as a child where an astronaut is marooned on a barren planet. The astronaut has two vials, one filled with a deadly poison, and the other with a tonic that will prevent death. The astronaut intends to take the one causing death, but inadvertently drinks the vial containing the elixir of life. The book ends in utter despair, as the astronaut is doomed to live out eternity alone, with no purpose. Therefore, beyond perpetuated existence and lasting meaning, a life that is not absurd also requires that there is a goal or purpose.

The notion of purpose is somewhat wrapped up in the idea of perpetuated existence. For without lasting meaning, in a world that ends in destruction, purposes end up being fleeting and fickle. But beyond that, in a universe that has brought our existence about by mere chance – with no care, foresight, or intention – what objective purpose can we derive from the universe? While we may create our own purposes and impose those purposes upon the world, the universe has no purpose for us, and any purpose we create is temporary and fabricated, artificially imposed on the universe, not derived from it. For atheists who tend to pride themselves on their scientific superiority, this is a bit ironic. Rather than observing moral truths, they embrace a fictitious, fabricated framework, similar to the fiction or "delusion" of which they accuse the religious as using for a crutch. But the atheist with meaning, purpose, and value only maintains those things due to their fiction - their crutch. If atheists were right, it would be the lame leading the lame. In this section, Craig quotes philosophers like Nietzsche, who are often quoted by atheists as triumphantly declaring “God is dead,” yet rarely quoted in context. Men like Nietzsche recognized that such a statement was made in sorrow, as they understood the implications of nihilism and purposelessness that follow such a statement. As T.S. Elliot says, the world ends not in a bang, but in a whimper. There is no purpose under consistent atheist thought.

Finally, beyond meaning and purpose, Craig argues that atheists cannot live consistently and uphold objective moral values. All things are matter. A rock is not qualitatively different than a human. While science and observation can provide all the descriptions in the world, there is no prescriptive value they can supply objectively. One can describe the fastest way to hammer a nail, but we can’t say that someone should use a hammer on a nail. We can describe cause and effect, but we can’t prescribe means without imposing our own goals upon them if those goals are not inherent to the structure of the universe. All values in an atheistic system are subjective rather than objective. Rather than finding the values permanently and immovably ingrained in the nature of how things are, they are dependent upon the subject imposing them upon the world. In an uncaring, unguided universe, where would one expect to find objective values?

If value depends on the subject, then all values are of every individual’s own creation. Values are a personalized fiction, and we attempt to get as many on board to play out the same fiction. And if life ends at the grave, and there is no justice for “evil” and reward for “good,” then what should morality be to an atheist but a system whereby they attempt to bolster their own fiction, in an attempt to get what they perceive is the most out of what short, meaningless existence they have? Watch the following clip from the late Christopher Hitchens – an adamant atheist – as he very openly admits what altruism and "morality" are under an atheistic system of thought [from 1:13:25 to 1:14:30].

While Hitchens was a relatively upstanding and moral individual in light of his own admission of what morality is, it does not work out the same for all who understand the logical conclusions. 

"Then I learned that all moral judgments are ‘value judgments,’ that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I even read somewhere that the Chief Justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself–what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself–that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any ‘reason’ to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring–the strength of character–to throw off its shackles…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable ‘value judgment’ that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these ‘others?’ Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as ‘moral’ or ‘good’ and others as ‘immoral’ or ‘bad’? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure that I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me–after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited." --Ted Bundy, cited in Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 3rd edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 1999), 31-32. ​​

None of the above says that atheists can’t live wonderful, moral lives. But if they do so, they do it with great inconsistency. Both Hitchens and Bundy understood the same truth, yet chose different paths. The ends are descriptively different, but the method of prescription - the subject's desire - is equally legitimate. Who is the atheist to say that one path was "wrong" and the other "right?" The most an atheist can logically say is that they preferred one choice over the other, and at the core (as Hitchens points out), both preference logically boil down to self-interest. But very few atheists will admit this, as it careens their lives towards absurdity and dissonance. For atheists to live happy, moral lives, they must live in delusion and inconsistency. Throwing off delusion and living consistently, however, brings utter hopelessness to the atheist. Nietzsche, Sarte, Russell, and other philosophers in the nineteenth and twentieth century honestly faced such conclusions, but many atheists today don't see or admit the logical dilemma in which they find themselves. If you think that is cherrypicking one or two of the "crazy" atheists, follow this link to hear more from atheists such as Dawkins, Provine, and Ruse. 

So there it is. Craig lays out the case for the inadequacy of atheism to provide a foundation for our lives. It leads to utter absurdity and hopelessness. While this does not prove that atheism is wrong, and it doesn't prove that God exists, it certainly should make one want to dig into the topic. We all want purpose and meaning, and we have had glimpses of where a world without morals would lead. It is all very unpalatable, and a route one should not want to pursue, unless the evidence very strongly lead there. And even then, we may be far better off if the majority remained deluded in such a world.

Video on absurdity of life without God

Craig on absurdity of life without God