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Why the Atheist doesn't exist

There can be no such things as an atheist. This is why: Let's imagine that you are a professing atheist. Here are two questions for you to answer: First, do you know the combined weight of all the sand on all the beaches of Hawaii? We can safely assume that you don't. This brings us to the second question: Do you know how many hairs are on the back of a fully-grown male Tibetan yak? Probably not. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that there are some things that you don't know. It is important to ask these questions because there are some people who think they know everything.

Let's say that you know an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. To know 100 percent, you would have to know everything. There wouldn't be a rock in the universe that you would not be intimately familiar with, or a grain of sand that you would not be aware of. You would know everything that has happened in history, from that which is common knowledge to the minor details of the secret love life of Napoleon's great-grandmother's black cat's fleas. You would know every hair of every head, and every thought of every heart. All history would be laid out before you, because you would be omniscient (all-knowing).

Bear in mind that one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, Thomas Edison, said, "We do not know a millionth of one percent about anything." Let me repeat: Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible. Somewhere, in the knowledge you haven't yet discovered, there could be enough evidence to prove that God does exist.

Let's look at the same thought from another angle. If I were to make an absolute statement such as, "There is no gold in China," what is needed for that statement to be proven true? I need absolute or total knowledge. I need to have information that there is no gold in any rock, in any river, in the ground, in any store, in any ring, or in any mouth (gold filling) in China. If there is one speck of gold in China, then my statement is false and I have no basis for it. I need absolute knowledge before I can make an absolute statement of that nature. Conversely, for me to say, "There is gold in China," I don't need to have all knowledge. I just need to have seen a speck of gold in the country, and the statement is then true.

To say categorically, "There is no God," is to make an absolute statement. For the statement to be true, I must know for certain that there is no God in the entire universe. No human being has all knowledge. Therefore, none of us is able to truthfully make this assertion.

If you insist upon disbelief in God, what you must say is, "Having the limited knowledge I have at present, I believe that there is no God." Owing to a lack of knowledge on your part, you don't know if God exists. So, in the strict sense of the word, you cannot be an atheist. The only true qualifier for the title is the One who has absolute knowledge, and why on earth would God want to deny His own existence?

The professing atheist is what is commonly known as an “agnostic” - one who claims he “doesn't know” if God exists. It is interesting to note that the Latin equivalent for the Greek word is “ignoramus.” The Bible tells us that this ignorance is “willful” (Psalm 10:4). It's not that a person can't find God, but that he won't. It has been rightly said that the “atheist” can't find God for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman. He knows that if he admits that there is a God, he is admitting that he is ultimately responsible to Him. This is not a pleasant thought for some.

It is said that Mussolini (the Italian dictator), once stood on a pinnacle and cried, "God, if you are there, strike me dead!" When God didn't immediately bow to his dictates, Mussolini then concluded that there was no God. However, his prayer was answered some time later.

Paul and the development of his Christology :

The Apostle Paul was not a contemporary of Jesus and at first glance it might seem that his Christology has little to do with the living human being who walks the pages of the Gospels. In spite of this impression most scholars will concede that the Gospel that Paul preaches is very closely allied to what Jesus taught in the four Gospels.As is usual with Paul it is difficult to interpret his thinking without reference to the circumstances of his life as many of his letters were writtenwith particular churches and situations in mind. The facts about Jesus that Paul would have been familiar with are that he was born a Jew, that he exercised a ministry in and around Galilee and that he was betrayed by one of his followers and suffered death on the cross. Paul would also have known thatJesus was believed to have risen from the dead and to have appeared to some of his followers.

Many scholars take the view that Paul's Christology developed as a direct result of his conversion on the roadto Damascus.This most particularly relates to the doctrine of justification by faith as itis found in the letter to the Romans.A central concern of Paul is his Christology and what God has accomplishedin the Christ event. Central to Paul's argument is Jesus' death on the cross, Paul preaches Christ crucified. For Christians thisis the basis of faith and of life in the Spirit.Paul's Gospel or good news is founded on Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection. Paul acknowledges Jesus' message of the kingdom but it is secondary to his Christology. For Paul the kingdom of God is Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17).

The primary content of what Paul has to say is that concerning justification through faith. Because of the legalistic behavior of some Jewish Christians Paul was keen to demonstratethat righteousness and justification before God was not achieved throughadherence to the Law but through faith in the risen Christ. In the Hebrew Biblethe law reveals God's righteousness but in Paul this righteousness is onlyrevealed in the Gospel and through faith in Christ. Through the Christ eventjustification takes place now rather than at some point in the future and forthe Christian there is no more condemnation.The justification of the Christian leads to a life centred on Christ and to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It was this feeling of being justified in the sightof God that Paul experienced through his conversion at Damascus and which hewas intent on communicating to others. Bultmann says of Paul'sChristology that:

Paul proclaims the incarnate,crucified and risen Lord; that is, his kerygma requires only the 'that' of thelife of Jesus and the fact of his crucifixion. He does not hold before hishearer's eyes a portrait of Jesus the human person, apart from the cross ( Gal.3:1), and the cross is not regarded from a biographical standpoint but as savingevent. The obedience and self-emptying of Christ of which he speaks ( Phil.2:6-9; Rom. 15:3; 2 Cor. 8:9) are attitudes of the pre-existent and not of thehistorical Jesus . . . the decisive thing is simply the 'that'.

We have seen however, that although Paul does not place great emphasis on the details of Jesus' life he certainly does acknowledge certain of the known facts. In other respects Paul's Christ is similar to that of the fourth Gospel in that Christ is seen as pre-existent withthe Father. The early Church moved through a number of different phases intrying to work out the meaning of Jesus and his life. The early followers inGalilee and Jerusalem concentrated on what Jesus had done in his time on earthand they looked forward to the Second Coming. In the book of Acts the general New Testament Christology develops through the idea of God's sending of his Son who now reigns as the Christ. It was leading up to andduring Paul's time that the idea of the pre-existent role of Christ in creation became dominant all though each of these developments can be found in the Pauline corpus. The Hellenistic Church were the first to name Jesus Lord (or Kyrios, a term which Paul uses often) and also the Son of God. Bultmann says that this came to mean the divinity of Christ, his divine nature by virtue of which he is differentiated from the human sphere; it makes claims that Christ is of divine origins and is filled with the divine power.Bultmann further argues that this development meant that the EarlyChurch were forced to defend the fact of Jesus'humanity against the Gnosticswho regarded flesh and matter as evil. In view of this Paul's theology couldnot be said to be Gnostic because his is an anthropological view. His theology is based on man's (humanity's)condition and his own experiences as a man. In Paul's thinking the presence ofJesus in a believer's life is confirmed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.Thus he writes in his letter to the Romans that the Divine Spirit bearswitness to our spirit that we are God's children (Romans, 8:16). Thispoints to another feature of Paul's Christology where Christ and the Spirit areclosely intertwined and at points almost indistuingishable.

In Paul's Christology Christ is a distinct person thus he writes in his letter to the church in Galatia:

For through the law, I died tothe law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and itis no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me (Gal. 2:19-20).

At the same time, when Paul speaks of the Christ event he is not so much referring to the person of Christ as the situation and events that were connected with his life. So inPaul's Christology, although the person of Christ comes first it isinextricably tied up with what Paul calls the Christ event. For Paul the two things are closely intertwined because it is only through life events thatwe can truly see and appreciate the character of a person.What is a clearly distinctive feature of Paul's Christology is his Christologicalway of speaking about Jesus. Jesus is the Judge of the world. Romans 14:9 says Forto this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the deadand of the living and as Bultmann maintains contains within it the idea of Jesus as Judge of the world and which co-inheres with the apocalyptic Jewish view of the Son of Man as Messiah. However, Paul's Lord and Judge is the crucified Jesus of Nazareth There was a prevalent view in the early churchthat the death of Jesus took place to expiate or wipe away the sins ofhumanity. Bultmann contends that this view of Jesus' death was notspecific to Paul but can be seen in a number of writings of the time. This hasbeen interpreted in a number of different ways, as a kind of Passover sacrifice that availed for everyone and also for the individual. It is from this latterthat the idea of Jesus as personal savior (prevalent in contemporary evangelical thinking) developed.

Human beings avail themselves of this sacrifice through the act of faith. Faith in Paul's terms is acceptance ofthe message that he delivers what Bultmann says is the Evangel. In this way faith was not simply a matter of belief but came to denote humanity's relationship to the Divine.

Paul believed that we could only take part in justification and in what Christ had to offer as a result of ourfaith. The message of the Christ event is what generates faith in the hearts and minds of believers, thus for Paul faith in God is God given. It is onlythrough this faith that humanity can be free from sin. This was where some ofthe Jews had made their mistakes. They believed that if they strictly observed the law then they were righteous but instead they had made themselves a slave to the law and thus to sin because they tried to achieve justification in theirown right. Bultmann says:

Sin's deceit (Rom 7:11)consists in deluding man to think that if he follows his 'desire' he will gain life, whereas he only acquires death. Victimised by this deceit, man does notknow what he is doing: for what I am bringing about I do not know (v.15a)i.e. he does not know that by what he is doing he is only reaping death.

In Paul's thinking Christ is viewed as the second or last Adam. The first Adam brought sin into the world and the second came to redeem the world from sin. Bultmann (ibid) contends however that in this area Paul who may have come under Gnostic influence because of the view that all mankind has suffered for the sin of one, avoids this pitfall by sayingthat sin came into the world because of sinning. He further contends that inspite of this sin has been understood in the earlier form and that this posesan ethical problem if all are viewed as guilty for the sin of one. Sin came into the world and death was the consequence. It was to redeem humanity from the full consequences of this death that Christ came and died on the cross. As the new Adam Christ represents a new form of God's relationship to humanity rather than a specific person. It is arguably the case that although Paul's Christology may be seen in terms of the wider benefits to the whole of humanity, it may also be that the macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm, and as Bultmann suggests the human situation and relationship to God is also that of the individual. In this way the coming from death to life of which Paul speaks about in his own experience may be the heritage for each individual Christian.

Paul's thought is not always easyto decipher and many scholars attest to this. It is also difficult to give an adequate account of Paul's Christology in such a short paper. However, based on the evidence presented here it would seem to be the case that thedistinctiveness of Paul's Christology lies in the notion of Jesus as the secondAdam. It is the second Adam that brings and end to the law or perhaps in Jesus'own terms, brings it to fulfilment and through his sacrifice on the cross andhis subsequent vindication establishes a new covenant between humanity and God.

Abortion and Ethical Theory

Abortion is the premature termination of a foetus from the womb, legal up to 24 weeks with the agreement of two doctors

PERSONHOOD

Central to one’s views on abortion is the concept of personhood. This explores what constitutes a person and at what point during foetal development a person becomes a person. This is fundamental to one’s system of belief and their views on abortion; if a foetus is terminated after the point at which it can be considered a person, such an action can be deemed murderous.

J GLOVER

Glover argued that determining the point at which a person becomes a person is not logically possible – to attempt to do so would be the same as trying to define the point at which a cake mix becomes a cake:

When does a cake become a cake?

When does a person become a person?

However, various different views of personhood have developed giving rise to a range of different ideas about the point at which a person becomes a person:

THE RIGHT TO LIFE

Once we have considered the point at which a foetus can be considered as a person with rights, we must further question what exactly what rights the foetus is deserving of, or, perhaps more importantly, what rights the mother has over a growing foetus. This is a much debated area of medical ethics. A key contributor to the pro-choice movement (in favour of the right of the mother to choose to have a termination) is J.J. Thompson.

J.J. THOMPSON (PRO-CHOICE, SUPPORTS FEMINIST ETHICS)

Thompson uses an analogy of a violinist to support the right of the mother to decide to have an abortion:

A man is kidnapped and wired up to a famous violist in a hospital in order to save the violinist. He wakes up and is given the choice of staying attached to the violinist for nine months and saving him, or leaving the hospital and letting the violinist die.

VIOLINIST = FOETUS

PERSON = MOTHER

HOSPITALISATION = PREGNANCY

The violinist (foetus) has the right to life. However this right is not greater than the person’s right to freedom. The violinist has no right over the person’s body, and therefore the person is morally justified in reversing his hospitalisation by leaving – just as a mother has the right to terminate her pregnancy.

PETER SINGER

Peter Singer develops the analogy of the violinist:

You visit a friend in hospital but accidentally get off the elevator on the wrong floor where doctors are waiting to rig you up to someone.

This represents the situation in which a woman (the friend) has accidentally become pregnant. Her mistake (getting off on the wrong floor) permits her to have an abortion (to leave the floor) if she so desires.

FEMINISM

The feminist, J.J. Thompson, uses a second analogy to support the rights of the mother over the right to life of the foetus:

Imagine a world in which pregnancy occurs when little pollen seeds take root in soft furnishings. A woman likes having the window open so she takes precautions by putting up a fine wire mesh to stop the pollen seeds. However one seed still ends up on the rug and she becomes pregnant.

Therefore, a woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant has only two options:

1. CLOSE THE WINDOW COMPLETELY – Never have sex

2. HAVE ALL HER FURNISHINGS REMOVED – Have womb removed

Thompson thus argued that if a woman takes reasonable steps to avoid pregnancy she should not be held responsible for the pregnancy, and has the right to choose to have an abortion. J.J. Thompson cites another analogy to illustrate the absurdity of the claim that a woman does not have the right to terminate an accidental pregnancy:

An intruder enters a house because a window is left open and is asked to leave. However the intruder refuses to leave because he has the right to stay since he was able to get in.

This is absurd – an intruder (foetus) has no right to your property (body)

CRITICISMS OF THOMPSON’S ANALOGIES

• The examples are not relevant – a foetus is innocent and did not choose to come into existence, whilst a intruder is guilty of freely choosing to climb into someone else’s property

• Thompson also fails to take emotions into account

• She talks of a baby as if it were a possession or object

APPLYING ETHICAL THEORY TO ABORTION

In this module you will be required to apply an understanding of Kantian Ethics, Utilitarianism, Relativism, Virtue Ethics, Natural Law and Christian Ethics to the issues raised by abortion; namely personhood and the right to life. You should look to the notes on ethical theory in the first section of this module and the foundation module (2760) and apply them to the issue of abortion, taking the following points into consideration:

CHRISTIAN ETHICS

The division of the Christian church has lead to the development of three main traditions, each turning to a different source for moral teaching:

1. Authority – Roman Catholic (the encyclicals or papal teachings and the belief that the pope is infallible)

2. Bible – Protestant (belief that the bible is the literal word of God)

3. Conscience – Orthodox (belief that the conscience is the literal voice of God)

BIBLICAL ETHICS

The sanctity of life is a key theme running throughout the bible:

• God created Humans in his image

Genesis 1:27

So God created man in his own image

• Humans are purposefully called into existence

Genesis 1:28

God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number

• Human life has intrinsic value because it has been made in God’s image

Genesis 9:6

‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made them.’

• Life is divinely and uniquely ordained from conception

Psalm 139:13

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb

From this we can deduce that humans have intrinsic as opposed to instrumental value because they were purposely and uniquely designed in the loving image of their creator and therefore should not be treated as a means to an end but as ends in themselves (Kant).

Killing a foetus to reach the end that is for the benefit of the mother is not treating the foetus as a means to an end.

Furthermore, if abortion takes place after the point at which the foetus is considered a person with a right to life, it goes against the Old Testament commandment not to murder:

‘Thou shall not murder’

NATURAL LAW (ABSOLUTE, DEONTOLOGICAL)

Aquinas postulated that humans have the ability to reason which leads to a knowledge of five primary precepts. From these five primary precepts, secondary precepts can be deduced.

It could be argued that abortion goes against two of Aquinas’ primary precepts:

1. Continuation of the human species through reproduction:

Secondary precept: No contraception, no abortion, no homosexuality

2. Self-preservation and preservation of the innocent:

Secondary precept: No abortion, no euthanasia

Real & Apparent Goods

Aquinas’ Natural Law is routed in Aristotelian thought. Aristotle distinguished between real and apparent goods:

Real goods lead to flourishing – a real good might involve avoiding abortion

Apparent goods appear to be good but don’t lead to flourishing – having an abortion might appear to be a real good but in reality it is an apparent good and does not lead to human flourishing

However, abortion could be justified by the doctrine of double affect:

DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT

The doctrine of double effect could be used to justify abortion if it is a secondary consequence of a primary intention e.g. the removal of the mother’s womb with the primary intention to save her life but the secondary consequence of terminating the pregnancy.

SITUATION ETHICS (RELATIVIST, TELEOLOGICAL)

According to Fletcher’s Situation Ethics, the morality of abortion depends on the situation. Situation Ethics is based on the single maxim – agape love. Abortion could be seen to be:

1) LOVING – if the mother’s life is in danger (abortion is morally permissible)

2) NOT LOVING – if the mother does not want to have a child (abortion is immoral)

VIRTUE ETHICS (AGENT-CENTRED)

• About the person rather than the action

• Derived from the thinking of Aristotle who devised a list of twelve moral virtues:

VICE OF DIFFICIENCY GOLDEN MEAN VICE OF EXCESS

Cowardness Courage Rashness

Courage is one of Aristotle’s twelve virtues. It could be argued that abortion is a cowardly or rash action, in which case it will not help the progression towards Eudaimonia. However, abortion could be seen as a virtuous action if it demonstrates the golden mean that is courage, leading to human flourishing.

ACT UTILITARIANISM (RELATIVE, TELEOLOGICAL)

Act Utilitarian theories start with specific cases from which general principles can be deduced. Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus weighs up the following measures of the consequential pleasure/pain:

Certainty

Duration

Extent

Intensity

Remoteness

Richness

Purity

Situation 1 – Abortion is morally right when the mother’s life is in danger. The duration of the pain of the loss of the mother will be ongoing, the extent of its effects will be widespread as many family and friends will suffer from the loss, and the intensity of the pain of the death of a mother with a family to support is high.

Situation 2 – Abortion is morally wrong if the mother simply wants a promotion at work. The duration of pleasure brought by the baby is greater than the duration of pleasure brought by the promotion, the extent of the effects is widespread because the family want the baby, and the pleasure is more intense to those who want the baby than the mother’s promotion.

RULE UTILITARIANISM (DEONTOLOGICAL, TELEOLOGICAL)

Rule Utilitarianism starts with general principles from which specific acts can be prohibited without exception to the rule. It follows rules that promote the greatest happiness, for example the rule:

Allow abortion up to 24 weeks if desired

This rule can be seen as promoting the greatest net utility

PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM (RELATIVE, TELEOLOGICAL)

For Preference Utilitarians such as Peter Singer, the moral course of action is the one that results in the most preference satisfaction. It could be argued that foetuses don’t have preferences but women do; thus abortion is morally permissible in any situation.

KANTIAN ETHICS (ABSOULUTE, DONTOLOGICAL SINCE DEON = DUTY)

Applying Kant’s Categorical Imperative to abortion:

1) The Universal Law

All moral statements should be both universalisable (applied to all people in a situations) and willed to be universalised. If they are not universalisable then they are contradictions in the Law of Nature, and if they cannot be willed to be universalised they are contradictions in the Law of the Will.

“So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle establishing universal law”

If you were to universalise abortion the human race would become extinct and there would be no one left to have an abortion, thus abortion is a contradiction in the Law of Nature. Furthermore, one may not will abortion to be universalised in all circumstances, e.g. a mother has an abortion simply because she wants to go on holiday, and therefore can also be seen as a contradiction in the Law of the Will.

2) Treat humans as ends in themselves

People should always be treated as ends in themselves and not as a means to an end

Kant argued that people and foetuses have intrinsic value and not instrumental value – they cannot be disposed of for the benefits of others.

Therefore, according to the Categorical Imperative, abortion is morally wrong in all circumstances. However, this is only the case if ethical status and moral worth can be extended to a pre-mature being such as a foetus. Kant did not make his view on this clear and did not deal with potentiality (the potential of a foetus to become a human).

Kant distinguished between three types of beings:

1) People – rational Agents

2) People with partial rights – people who lack rights e.g. children, mentally disabled

3) Things – animals, plants etc (things can be treated as a means to an end)

Kant did not make it clear where he classified foetuses. If they are classified as things, Kant might justify abortion on the basis that they can be treated as a means to an end.