True - I was overcritical. It’s the reference to Jesus as being the messiah that is the insertion.
When Jesus talks about people who wouldn’t believe even if they saw someone risen from the dead what He was talking about? There are people who wouldn’t believe no matter what, they themselves admit that (I have literally quoted people who even said that if they saw Jesus doing Jesus things they would think He is an alien). So sometimes yes, it is about having an open heart. There are people who are completely closed off to God’s grace by their own choice.
I was talking about salvation. Faith is necessary for salvation but God can bring someone to Faith even in their very last moments.
I need to put up a thread steelmanning atheism. I just haven’t had the time. If you ever get a chance, Randal Rauser’s website is good from my perspective; he had a debate steelmanning with a kind atheist who also steelmanned him, and wrote several good books, such as “Conversations With My Inner Atheist” and “Is the Atheist My Neighbor”? I also found the Harvard study on intuitive vs reflective reasoning and faith really interesting. I certainly don’t have certainty; my faith is more of a Puddleglum kind. I do also think, like George MacDonald, that God honors those who follow the reasoning that they see honestly leads to atheism.
As GK Chesterton put it in one of his kindly skeptics in Father Brown, “I wish to God there was a God. But there ain’t. It’s just my luck.”
Thanks for your kindly interaction.
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Coming back to this for a second
That is indeed correct—not in the sense that atheism offers a superior alternative, but rather that this mode of thinking has come to dominate modern society. In my view, this constitutes one of the signs that we are living in the era of the Great Apostasy: the period foretold by the Apostle Paul, which will culminate in the manifestation of the Antichrist—the Beast described in the Book of Revelation and the ‘man of lawlessness’ spoken of in Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians
CCC 675: “Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.”
In order to prepare the way for the manifestation of the man of lawlessness, it was necessary for modern humanity to become truly God-blind: to believe that it could flourish without God, and that the words of Jesus were binding two thousand years ago but no longer applicable to the present age. Modern humanity now regards itself as having outgrown the Gospel and thus considers itself finally prepared for the manifestation of the man of lawlessness. I confess that I hope he does not appear within my lifetime; yet I very much doubt that we are separated from his manifestation by many centuries—much less by millennia.
2 Tessalonians 2,1-12
“Now regarding the arrival of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to be with him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily shaken from your composure or disturbed by any kind of spirit or message or letter allegedly from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God. Surely you recall that I used to tell you these things while I was still with you. And so you know what holds him back, so that he will be reveleas in his own time. For the hidden power of lawlessness is already at work. However, the one who holds him back * will do so until he is taken out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will destroy by the breath of his mouth and wipe out by the manifestation of his arrival. The arrival of the lawless one will be by Satan’s working with all kinds of miracles and signs and false wonders, and with every kind of evil deception directed against those who are perishing, because they found no place in their hearts for the truth so as to be saved. Consequently God sends on them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false. And so all of them who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evil will be condemned.”
*The Greek term used in this context is katéchon (κατέχον), which many theologians have interpreted as a reference to the Eucharist.
What does it mean to steel man atheism in your mind?
Regarding this
Joseph Ratzinger – Eschatology: Death and Eternal
“The katechon must be understood as the power of the presence of Christ in history.”
(p. 160)
“Christ remains present in the world through the Church, and the Church lives from the Eucharist.”
(p. 162)
“The delaying of the final unleashing of evil is bound up with the sacramental presence of Christ in time.”
(p. 163)
Hans Urs von Balthasar – Theo-Drama, Vol. V: The Last Act
“The persistence of Christ’s mission within history takes form in the sacramental actuality of Christ’s self-giving.”
(p. 405)
“So long as Christ is really present, history cannot collapse into total negation.”
(p. 406)
Aidan Nichols OP – The Shape of Catholic Theology
“It is Christ’s eucharistic presence which delays the full manifestation of the mystery of lawlessness.”
(p. 282)
Tracey Rowland – Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI
“The Eucharist stands at the ontological centre of this sacramental restraint.”
(p. 146)
Henri de Lubac – Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man
“So long as the Eucharist endures, the Church stands between the world and its final disintegration.”
(p. 336)
Jean-Luc Marion – God Without Being
“The saturation of evil is impossible where the gift of presence is not withdrawn.”
(p. 187)
“This presence is not conceptual but eucharistic.”
(p. 189)
David Bentley Hart – The Beauty of the Infinite
“What restrains the violence of the principalities is not force but liturgy.”
(p. 379)
Romano Guardini – The End of the Modern World
“Only where Christ remains present can the powers of chaos be restrained.”
(p. 86)
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Salvation requires faith yes… but faith does not equal belief in particular dogmas. Salvation by belief/knowledge is Gnosticism not Christianity.
And when people are choosing atheism for reasons of morality, then I think they can ironically come closer to the kind of faith and doing what is right for its own sake as the Bible teaches. I would suggest that “closer to God” has more to do with sharing God’s values than with filling your head with a lot of talk about God.
Look… I am not arguing for atheism. I am a theist – a Christian. But frankly I think that is just my opinion and I don’t think it earns me anything. Entitlement is the opposite of faith.
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I can’t recall ever encountering anyone who has chosen to be an atheist. Nor can I recall encountering any atheist who is an atheist because of morality.
But I agree that those who choose their own morals rather than adopting moral frameworks specified externally can come closer to doing what is ‘right’, and even more reflect Jesus’s teachings.
I have also seen people claim they were (previously) atheists because they didn’t want to have to obey God’s laws. But they clearly are neither atheists nor the type of person you are referring to.
No, it doesn’t. In fact, Jesus Himself said that there would be many surprises—people whom everyone believed to be lost, yet who ultimately would be saved. God’s grace works in mysterious ways. But one thing is for sure: no one comes to the Father except through Jesus.
I don’t think they do it that often. What happens more often is that there are people who delude themselves into thinking that they can construct a better morality without God. Even Peter Singer is unironically convinced to be a moral person and to have devised a far, far better morality than the Christian one. He framed a whole ethic around “compassion”. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095394689901200204 The same compassion that brought him to say that a newborn child is less worthy than an adult pig. Cory Bernardi is right, in Peter Singer’s anti-human world.
LOL Sorry. This is absurd.
You are basically claiming people delude themselves into thinking they can construct a better morality without an imaginary being who does exist. Sorry but that sounds rather sensible not delusional. It is more delusional to think non-believers are fighting a God they don’t believe in.
The simple fact is they can and they do construct excellent systems of morality. I know it, because I did it. Mine was based on principles of psychology, which in many ways you can say is the “religion” in which I was raised – both of my parents were psychology majors.
The stark reality for believers is not an inability to see any better morality than what they see recorded in their book, but frankly justifying the rather poor morality they honestly see portrayed in there: God commanding genocide, acceptance of slavery, legal systems supporting murder for trivial offenses, misogyny, child abuse, strong condemnation for personal grooming and diet. Sure justification is possible, but the reality is the need for defense not easy superiority.
LOL
So all the atheists you know are just atheists because that is whay they have been taught. First time I have heard that suggested.
LOL
I don’t believe morality is merely a matter of rewards. There is also a profound concern for justice—because it is an undeniable reality of this world that the wicked often prosper and enjoy long, comfortable lives. But before we can talk about “doing what is right,” we must first define what “right” even means—and ask whether the question itself holds any meaning in a given worldview.
All materialists, for example, reject any theological basis for morality and most reject even any teleology. But that rejection leads to a logical impasse: if there is no transcendent foundation for morality, then there can be no objective standard by which to determine right from wrong. In practice, their moral views often reflect nothing more than the prevailing sentiments of their time—whatever happens to be popular or fashionable in the modern age.
Consider this: some today argue that it is morally acceptable to permit a prepubescent child to “change sex”—as if such a thing were biologically possible. In truth, it is a delusion. One may alter outward appearances, but one cannot change one’s biological essence or DNA. And yet, the same individuals may strongly oppose the ethical permissibility of eating animal meat.
How are such moral conclusions reached? Not through consistent or objective reasoning, but because these positions conform to the cultural zeitgeist. They are not rooted in enduring truths, but in the spirit of the age (In fact, in any sane society, practices such as prepubescent transgenderism would never be permitted, and the very idea that one can literally change sex would be dismissed as the delusion that it is, but when you refuse essentialism anything becomes possible).
Now, it’s true that some Christians may act out of a desire for reward rather than from a pure love of what is right. But even so, it is an undeniable fact that Christians are significantly more likely to be charitable than atheists. For example, studies such as those reported by the Washington Times and Premier Christian News confirm that religious people are far more inclined to donate to charity.
This is not surprising. If I believe my fellow human beings are made in the image of God, I am far more likely to view them as sacred and worthy of compassion. But if I believe human beings are nothing more than soulless biological machines—accidental products of a purposeless universe—then why should I feel a strong moral obligation to care for anyone beyond myself or my immediate family? In that case, moral concern for strangers becomes far less compelling.
Indeed. I took out that phrase because of possibly misunderstanding I was saying that was what the Bible teaches, because I think it teaches the opposite – doing what is right for its own sake and not just because of some expected rewards.
Sure—if you approach it from a purely secular perspective, it can seem more reasonable.
And yet there are people who openly say that even if they witnessed Jesus rising from the dead, they would assume it was an alien rather than believe in God. I am not claiming that all non-believers are in conflict with God—many today fall into what is often called “apatheism”, which is far worse, as it reflects a lack of concern for truth altogether (it’s not a mere saying that we live in the age of post-truth). Still, there are individuals who are genuinely opposed to God and to His children. This is attested to in Scripture and confirmed by human experience.
They often permit practices that a Christian would rightly regard as horrifying. From what perspective, then, are these moral systems considered exemplary? This raises another question: what value is there in a Christianity that molds itself to the world rather than teaching the world the ways of God?
Today you said something that I found, quite honestly, deeply disturbing—namely: “Taking your morality from a 2,000-year-old text is foolish because you don’t live in the world of 2,000 years ago, when it was applicable.” This is said as though the Gospels were not intended to endure until the very end of the world, despite Christ’s own words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
We are called to be the salt of the earth—not the Alka-Seltzer.
Do you seriously believe that psychology itself has not been heavily shaped by society? And do you think that a hypothetical modern Aztec society—imaginary, of course, since it is hard to imagine a civilization that practiced human sacrifice surviving into the modern era, but let us grant it for the sake of argument, and let us grant that they would still practice said human sacrifices, they would just have modern structures, technology etc—would not have developed a psychology significantly different from the one taught to your parents?
We believe that Jesus revealed the true face of God, and I do not believe that God has ever literally commanded genocide or misogyny or anything of the kind.
It also teaches very clearly the complete futility of human life without God.
Ecclesiastes 1:14: “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
Ecclesiastes 2:11: Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Psalm 39:5–6: “You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure.”
James 4:14: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
1 Corinthians 15:32: “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
This reminds me of Nazi ideology before the Nazi rule in Germany collapsed. All animal experiments were forbidden in Nazi state because well, at least Himmler apparently valued animal rights much. At the same time, experimentation with ‘untermennschen’ was allowed. Those experiments using unwanted humans could be really cruel and were done without pain medication, except the experiments testing novel pain medication.
I do not say that the philosophy of Peter Singer would equal the twisted ethics of Nazi rule in Germany. Yet, both can be seen as logical consequences of their basic values.
If all beings with an ability to think, feel and suffer have equal value, then any conscious adult mammal is more valuable than any fetus or newborn that is not yet capable to fully conscious life. That leads to the conclusion of Singer.
If one group of humans has much more value than the other groups and the goal is that the superior group conquers the world, then using the ‘subhumans’ in experiments that advance the success of the superhumans is acceptable. The ‘subhumans’ should be anyway wiped out, so it does not matter how they are treated before their extermination. Getting some benefit out of these people before their death would be beneficial. That thinking lead to such practices that were applied in the Nazi state.
These are extreme examples but reveal that all logical philosophies do not lead to moral systems that should be accepted. This leads to the question: what are the acceptable limits of logical moral systems? Who decides and based on which criteria?
What is the fate of those who follow such moral rules that we cannot accept?
I am not sure how I would answer these questions if I would not believe in the God of Christianity.
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What a great post
Yes, absolutely.
Exactly this.
Yes—and to me, these are also the most logical conclusions that follow from a materialist worldview. Very few people, however, are as coherent and courageous as Singer in accepting what their worldview actually implies and leads to. In one sense, this is a good thing: it suggests that many people are not truly convinced of their worldview, because if they were, they would accept it along with all of its implications. Many of these people can—and will—be saved, which is the most important thing. In another sense, though, this reluctance is misleading, because it sugarcoats the ugly truth that really would follow if materialism were true.
Me neither. To be completely honest, I actually find it frightening that Peter Singer’s ideas seem far more logical to me—assuming materialism is true, for the sake of argument. That’s also why I think that if I were ever to return to atheism (which I consider totally impossible after what I’ve gone through and the events that led me to conversion, but let’s assume it for the sake of argument), I’d probably spend the whole time high as a kite and completely drugged out of my mind.
I’ve spent too long, years and years and years, contemplating the nature of reality and analyzing the implications that follow from certain worldviews. The stark ugliness of those worldviews would be unbearable to me now. I would turn to alcohol and drugs to escape the demon I would fear most in that case: lucidity.
I would not consider a life in which I could believe that a newborn child is less valuable than an adult pig to be a life worth living. Even the realization that my loved ones are ultimately meaningless would be intolerable. I would merely go on surviving until I found the courage to opt out of the whole shitshow—or until drugs and/or alcohol tore me apart. And I certainly would NEVER bring new children into this world.