One of atheismʼs new champions, Richard Dawkins, believes that the greatest
contribution of Charles Darwin was to make atheism “intellectually satisfying.” I think
that Dawkins is wrong on two counts.
There is increasing evidence that the appearing of the universe (complete with a
host of physical laws by which it functions in a precise manner) cannot be a product of
chance. The former leading atheist, Antony Flew (There Is a God), now contends for
theism precisely for this reason. His analogy is that even an infinite number of monkeys
pounding on computers would never compose a Shakespearean sonnet. Six monkeys
did so pound on a computer for a month. Was anything intelligible produced? Not a
single word resulted. It was The British National Council of the Arts that actually
sponsored this project.
But I think the problem gets deeper. Atheism demands a naturalistic worldview.
Scientist Carl Sagan summarized this view in his statement, “The universe is all there is,
all there ever was, and all there ever will be.” The inescapable implication is that every
event, including what we think, is physically determined by chance. Most evolutionary
psychologists agree that free will and reason are not compatible with naturalism. If my
beliefs and those of Dawkins are the product of chance rather than reason and choice,
why are his views any more trustworthy than mine? Even Darwin was troubled by this
problem.
With “nothingness” as the First Cause and pure chance as the guide, there is no
meaningful purpose for our existence. Hence, according to atheistic evolution, we come
from nothing, for no reason, and go back to nothing. Everything dies and ends in the
nothingness from whence it came. And no one could have ever done other than what
has been determined by chance. Why am I not intellectually satisfied?
By Dan Arsenault (Dan Arsenault Ministries International) © 2012
