This section concentrates on arguing against Professor Richard Dawkins, the world’s best-known atheist, thanks to his book “The God Delusion”.
Dawkins’ main aims are to expose religion and to show that Science and Theology are incompatible.
America ‘s leading evolutionary biologist,Professor Stephen Jay Gould, has stated: “Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs – and equally compatible with atheism”, Dawkins is livid with Gould.
Sir Peter Medawar, a Nobel laureate, suggests that scientists need to be careful about making pronouncements agout religion. He fears that they may lose the trust of the public.
Dawkins is a believer in Scientism, the view that Science can or will explain everything. This is rejected by most academic disciplines.
Professor Francis Collins, an evolutionary biologist, heads up the famous Human Genome Project. He says “The principles of faith are complementary with the principles of science”.
The cosmologist, Professor Paul Davies, argues for the existence of “fine-tuning” in the universe. For Davies the bio-friendliness of the universe points to an overarching principle that pushes the universe towards the development of life and mind.
Back in 1916 active scientists were asked whether they believed in a God who actively communicates with Humanity and to whom one may pray. Roughly 40% said “Yes”; 40% said “No”. In 1997 the survey was repeated with similar results: 40% said “Yes”, 45% said “No”.
Professor Freeman Dyson, a physicist who has done groundbreaking work in quantum electrodynamics, on being awarded the Templeton Prize in Religion in 2000, gave an acceptance speech celebrating the achievements of religion, while criticising the downside. He was also clear about the downside of atheism, noting that the individuals who epitomised the evils of the Twentieth Century, Hitler and Stalin, were both atheists. Dawkins’ reply? “He was just pretending to be religious, when,in fact, he was really an atheist”.
When Pope John Paul II wrote a letter endorsiing Darwinism, Dawkins commented: “The pope is a hypocrite”.
The President of the Skeptics Society in the USA , is Michael Shermer. He says that while religions have been implicated in some human tragedies, such as holy wars, “for every one of these grand tragedies there are ten thousand acts of personal kindness and social good that go unreported”.
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A slight alteration in the initial heat of the universe or in its total mass or any other factor would have prevented its formation. Without a fine adjustment of heat in the shrinking core of a hot star, carbon would not have been produced. Our planet swept up from debris of an exploding star; on this all life systems depend. A further co-incidence relates to the formation of the atmosphere and oceans. There are self-regulatory mechanisms which have kept the climate almost constant over 3 billion years despite a 25% increase in the Sun’s luminosity. Life emerged in the oceans; however, the salinity of the living cell’s internal fluids or external environment must never exceed 6% for more than a few seconds. Conditions on Earth have been almost always optimal for life.
Other co-incidences include: Just the right distribution of gases in the early universe; the primitive dynamic equilibrium; the right heat of the universe; the relative weight of neutrons, protons and electrons; the fine balance between gravity and electro-magnetism; the precise value of the strong nuclear force; and all the necessary ingredients were already in place at Time Zero, able to come together for the Creation.
(With acknowledgements to Bishop Hugh Montefiore for this section.)
Over the centuries Christian philosophers have felt it possible to prove the existence of God.
Some of the points made by Professor Richard Swinburne of Oxford University in this connection are:
It is fundamentally reasonable to believe in God
When a rational person finds all the cards in the pack are the same or all the flowers in some neighbourhood are exactly the same,he/she says: “There must be an explanation for this”. When lookig at the universe, the enquirer must say: “I can explain why everything in the universe behaves the same if it has one Being who created it and gave it that power”.
An argument for the existence of God has as its premise the order of the universe; this makes the conclusion probable – but not certain – that God exists.
The Rationalist is credulous: he/she must start by believing experiences as they seem to be, in the absence of evidence to the contrary; otherwise he/she would never believe anything about the universe.
The former Master of Churchill College, Sir Hermann Bondi, FRS, a prominent Humanist, said: “In my acquaintance with scientists I find belief and non-belief. I know sufficient numbers of scientists of each persuasion to be willing to make two statements as being stupid and palpably untrue prejudices viz. that a person, being a scientist, must accordingly be a believer in a revealed religion – or the opposite statement…..Some feel there must be an intelligence, an architect of all this grandeur, an architect that may be called God but without ascribing to this unknown entity any interest in our human affairs or in our prayers. If I rightly understand it, this was Einstein’s view)”.
Lord Winston, Professor of Fertility Studies at London University, has stated that religious belief is genetic and has been so for 40,000 years.
It is interesting to note that Stalin, the foremost atheist in the world from the Twenties to the Fifties prayed during the Battle of Moscow in WW2. According to his bodyguard he went down to a small chapel in the basement of the Kremlin, knelt down, put his hand on a book of the gospels and prayed.
It is also interesting to note that Stalin’s successor, Georgi Malenkov, towards the end of his life became a member of the Orthodox Church although he, too, was for a time the foremost atheist in the world.
Since the demise of Communism Gorbachev and Putin have become members of the Orthodox Church
It is instructive to read that Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot were all atheists. They had no Higher Power to whom they were answerable. When confronted with this Professor Dawkins says that Stalin was as he was because of his Communism, not his atheism – little realising that atheism, according to Marx and Lenin, is an essential part of Communism! Also, in Soviet Russia “scientific atheism” was a compulsory subject in state universities for all careeers before 2001.
Christian Social Teaching
In Gen 1:28-9 God gives to human beings control of the earth so that it may supply their needs in abundance
The ideal state of Israel during the reign of Solomon is not just the abundance of the national wealth but the fact that “Judah and Israel lived in security , everyone under his own vine and under his own fig-tree” (1 Kings 4:25).
The Hebrew Bible takes the possession of private property for granted and is at pains to protect it (e.g. Ex 21:1-23:19, the Decalogue).
In the O.T. there is a marked reluctance to any interference with private property, not least by enforced taxation (e.g. Prov 29:4)
The Wisdom literature contains a number of exhortations to work hard and warns that failure to do so will result in poverty (e.g. Prov 6:6-11, 10:4, 20:13) and the wealth that God destines for human beings is the reward for their own effort to acquire it” (Eccls 3:13).
There are limitations in the Bible on the individual’s freedom to use his wealth. The sabbath year, the jubilee and other provisions in the O.T. outline the special duty to relieve poverty but on the basis of individual rights to leasehold (from God) of land. In the administration of law, however, no bias was to be given to rich or poor (Ex 23:2-3; Deut 1:17; Lev 19:15).
In the second section of the Book of the Covenant (Ex22:21-23:19) we find an appeal to conscience to help the poor and needy.
It is when the rich use their economic power to destroy the freedom and independence which is every Israelite’s heritage that they are attacked in the O.T., not simply for being rich (e.g. Jer 22:13-19.
When the prophets inveigh against the rich, it is not because of their wealth as such but because of their enjoyment of it while ignoring, or taking advantage of, others’ needs.
In parts of the O.T. we meet a conception of the poor which is religious and not restricted to social and economic poverty. This appears, for example, in Zeph 3:12 and Ps.108(109):22.
In later passages of the prophets post-exilic Judaism identified piety with poverty and lowliness. Such passages mean that true religion is not simply identified with membership of the depressed economic class but more an attitude of spiritual outlook.(Is 29:19,61; Jer 20:13)
In the Dead Sea writings we find a developed sense of the piety of poverty, the devout poor. In the pre-70 A.D. rabbinical writings poverty is often viewed as a curse.
(With acknowledgements to Professor J.R. Porter)
Jesus
There are two points which need to be made about Jesus in this context.
Jesus was not born as the poorest of the poor, The only reason that he was born in a manger is that Joseph could not find accommodation for them in “a hotel”. He could have afforded it otherwise he would not have asked.A carpenter was reasonably well up the economic scale in the ancient world. The poorest of the poor would have been the long-term unemployed, including the beggars, and slaves.
Liberation Theology, although commendable in its struggle against economic exploitation of the poor in Latin-America, is determined to politicise the life and particularly the death of Jesus.
Insofar as Jesus was actually crucified by the occupying power in Palestine – the Romans – a political power may be said to have killed Him. Jesus, however, did not see His death in political terms, but in theological terms. At His arrest He protests that He is not leading a rebellion against the state.(Mt 26:55; Mk14:48; Lk 22:52)
Unlike Moses and Mohammed Jesus was not a legislator. As Hans Kung has written: “Jesus did not produce any programme for the renewal and transformation of political structures. He did not raise in principle either the question of slavery or that of women, still less the universal emancipation of Man. Nor did He outline any commercial, political or cultural ethics….”. Furthermore, according to Kung, the Christian message does not give any detailed information regarding the problem of a technical solution to the “riddle of the magic square: how full employment, economic growth, price stability and a favourable balance of payments can be simultaneously achieved”.
Jesus did not reject money: in the Sermon on the Mount, for example,He insisted on the practice of alms-giving and He paid taxes to an oppressive regime. His band of followers had money (Judas was the treasurer).
There can be no doubt that He warned against the danger of riches (Mt 6:19-21,24; Lk 6:24; Mk10:30-31)
In His teaching to the masses He emphasised love of God and love of neighbour. He even advocated love of enemies. In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats He illustrated what will be expected of people at the individual judgement: how we have treated the most vulnerable members of society. This is the keynote of Christian Social Teaching.
It is instructive that after the Ascension the Apostles established “Christian Communism”, as we learn from the early chapters of Acts.
In keeping with the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles we are obliged to hold in our political leanings the poor (whether at home or abroad) ever before our eyes. As some main-line churches put it: the bias to the poor.
Pacifism
In many parts of the O.T. and in some parts of the N.T. God is depicted as a God wrath. Jesus is quoted, however, as saying “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors”; “Do not resist one who who is evil.But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”.
Some of the early Christian writers (the Fathers) make the same point:Origen, Tertullian , for example.
Against the idea of Jesus the pacifist it has been argued that His words were not meant to be taken literally – they were couched (as were other parts of His teaching) in colourful, striking language, complete with Oriental exaggeration and “poetic licence”; that He was not laying down detailed guidance for every conceivable situation – He was not a legalist; that the examples He cited do not deal with a threat to life; that He did not tell us how to react if the injury is about to be inflicted on a third party; that His followers carried swords.
St Augustine pointed out that, when Jesus was struck on the cheek at His trial, instead of accepting it silently or turning the other cheek, He answered back.
The evidence from the early centuries of the Faith is ambiguous. The first evidence of Christians joining the army dates from 173, when a number was recruited by Marcus Aurelius, near the Danube. Christians were very unhappy about joining the army because, at least among the officer was compulsory to sacrifice to the Emperor.
With the conversion of Constantine opposition to military service was dropped, as the Church now formed the government. By the year 410 the army had become a “closed shop” for Christians!
Eventually, the concept of the Just War emerged: a war must be declared by proper, supreme authority; the cause must be just; last resort; principle of proportion; reasonable chance of success and the right intention.
The nuclear threat has undermined some of the Just War points.
During the Second World War the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, England stated: “Far better some years of ‘total war’ with the misery and waste and increasing bitterness of spirit than the riveting of that diabolical Nazi system upon more and more people”.
In 1983, before the collapse of Communism, Cardinal Hume of Westminster, England arguing for the retention of the Bomb, said: “The acceptance of deterrence on strict conditions and as a temporary expedient leading to progressive disarmament is emerging as the most widely accepted view of the Roman Catholic Church”