An Agnostic Rebuttal To The God Debate
This essay is my own reaction
to the book "Does God Exist?" That work was a collection of transcripts
from an oral debate, plus some additional material written to add to
the debate after the fact. The principal authors were Dr. J. P.
Moreland, who is an activist for the Campus Crusade for Christ, and Dr.
Kai Nielsen, a well known academic and advocate of atheism. My own book
will focus on the allegedly impartial material supplied by Peter
Kreeft, as it points out the narrowness of the debate's focus from the
point of view of someone who has studied the matter more broadly.
My own opinion is that even
Peter Kreeft presents too narrow a focus, because so very little of the
material comes from outside of the boundaries of Western Civilization.
I feel that it is critical to bring in important concepts from other
historical periods throughout human history. For a question so
fundamental as the alleged existence of God, we must deal not only with
assertions of the Western Christian churches, but with the assertions
of each of the other great religions of the world. Furthermore, we
should view the morality or immorality of human conduct not only from
the perspective of our own 20th century Western values, but also from
the perspectives of various cultures and civilizations throughout human
history. My own views are strongly tinted with my belief in the
essential correctness of the cyclical theory of human civilizations
advanced by Oswald Spengler and his followers.
It has been nearly eight
decades since Spengler penned his grand view of the almost mechanical
repetition of important episodes of human history.1 When I first became entranced with this vision, in the early 1980s, the two volume set, titled "The Decline of the West," was still in print.2
It is clear to me that the West has continued to decline as those
many decades have gone by, but just because the West is declining does
not mean that mankind has no hope at all for a better future. In fact,
it would appear that mankind is on the brink of the possibility of
achieving the true greatness for which all humans have given their
lives so far.
It is difficult indeed for
anyone with a "contemporary" education to read Spengler. It is even
more difficult to contemplate that Spengler was taught in our high
schools back in the 1920s and 1930s. To understand what Spengler is
writing about takes a breadth of knowledge which our modern educational
system has ceased to convey to any but the "permanent student." Only a
few of the most intellectually gifted among us will ever gain the
requisite understanding needed to critique Spengler in detail. Still,
for those who wish to challenge their minds, and also expand their
horizons, a trip to "the horse's mouth" is highly recommended.
But most of us (including,
unfortunately, me) will never have the intellect and patience to sift
through nearly a thousand pages of highly boring text. Luckily, the
essential thoughts for all of us to grasp are actually quite easy to
comprehend. If you can believe in the principles of cause and effect as
scientific facts, then you can conceive of those forces leading to a
cyclical history. This occurs because the "root causes" of the
formation of civilizations and their progress from epoch to epoch are
virtually the same for each group of humans who forms such a complex
society.
At this point I must insert a
vocabulary note about the deliberate distinction which I mean to imply
between "Culture" (with a capital "C") and "culture" (without it), and
also in the same way, between "Civilization" and "civilization." We
have our own natural meanings for those words, and when I mean to imply
the natural meaning, I use the word uncapitalized. Spengler had very
specific meanings for those two words, and when I mean to imply
Spengler's meanings, I use the word with a Capital "C."
Spengler did more than merely
recording a history of the past. He also indulged a bit in predicting
the future. After over seven decades, it ought to be possible to
examine how well he did. Setting down that record is yet another goal.
My own conclusion is that, so far as Western Civilization goes,
Spengler's predictions continue unabated: the West still declines. In
fact, as Spengler asserts, the West began declining centuries ago, and
there seems to be nothing anyone alive today can do about it.
As death follows life for all
known living organisms, so does the decline and eventual death of the
Civilization follow the birth and growth of its Culture.
And this is the main "problem"
with Spengler: his thesis leads us to a thoroughly demoralizing
conclusion that Western Civilization is going down the drain, and there
is just about nothing we can really do about it (other than, perhaps,
to delay the inevitable).
This overall view of decline
and eventual death for our Civilization has tended to give a hugely
morose cast to what would otherwise be an unemotional and scholarly
dissertation. The moroseness is inherent in many people as they
approach their own death, so it should not be surprising to find it in
our civilization as it approaches its own death. In fact, many
civilizations develop morose and fatalistic philosophies late in their
existence. Western Civilization is certainly not unique in that regard.
Atheism is the ultimate in
morose and fatalistic philosophies. The essence of the atheistic belief
is that there is no hope for relief from an outside source for any of
the trials and tribulations in which mankind currently finds itself
engaged. God does not exist, the atheists assert, and thus mankind must
rely upon itself for any solutions to all of our present afflictions.
Such a belief system can never become popular, because it has no
attraction to the troubled souls of the Late Civilization period. In
the face of the absolute disbelief of the atheists, the forces of the
"Second Religiousness" arise to do battle.
A study of Spengler shows that
modern atheism has its counterparts in every one of the Civilizations
which Spengler studied in detail. In the Classical Civilization, it was
the "Hellenistic-Roman Stoicism" which became widespread after about
200 a. d. In the Arabian Civilization, it was a "Practical
fatalism in Islam" after 1000 a. d. All three of these
movements are characterized by a rejection of the hope which springs
from a strong religious belief. If Spengler is correct, each of these
world views will generate a strongly pious "Second Religiousness" as
counterpoint to their own lack of piety. For the two old Civilizations,
such movements were obvious. For our own, it was not.
So, one way for me to validate
a prediction from Spengler, who has set forth his predictions of the
future based on his perceived pattern, is to locate some event which
has occurred after the prediction of it, and which was remote enough
from the prediction of that event to show that the most likely
explanation for the accuracy of the prediction is the truth of the
world view from which the prediction flows. For my analysis of
Spengler, that accuracy is displayed by his prediction of a "Second
Religiousness" in the masses.
We are only now reaching the
point in the history of Western Civilization where we may assert the
truth of Spengler's prediction of the rise of a "Second Religiousness"
in the masses of humanity. Spengler asserts that this "Second
Religiousness is the necessary counterpart of Cęsarism, which is the
final political constitution of Late Civilizations."3
This clearly implies a relationship between the controlling religious
and political movements associated with the "end times" of Western
Civilization.
The "Second Religiousness" for Western Civilization was not at all obvious at the time when Spengler wrote "The Decline of the West."
Historical trends are best analyzed a few centuries after the facts, in
order to get the best perspective on those facts. Nonetheless, I would
assert that Spengler's predicted "Second Religiousness" arose in the
late 1960s with the rise of the "Born Again" Christian movement, which
is now sometimes called "Charismatic Christianity."
As Spengler sees it, the
"Second Religiousness" must be a form which contains certain elements
of Gothic Christianity, and it will be seen as sect-like as it grows.
The "Second Religiousness" is characterized by a strong feeling of
piety, and will implement a syncretism of religious movements. In my
humble opinion, all of these elements are fulfilled by the "Born-Again
Christian" movement which arose around 1965. It: 1) is a sect of
Christianity; 2) is open to present or former adherents of any
Christian (or other) church, and is insensitive to variations in ritual
(thus implementing the indicated syncretism); and 3) holds itself
out as a strongly pious belief system (although far too many of these
sects are seemingly involved in scandal of one sort or another). A
clear distinction, however, exists in the fact that the Christian
Coalition is attempting to mount a political program on behalf of the adherents of this religious sect. The program,
for example, includes such "steel-bright concepts" as a firm opposition
to all forms of abortion and suppression of entertainment options which
are not illustrative of so-called "family values." Whether or not
Spengler would consider that a disqualifying factor is open to
speculation. My personal opinion is that it is NOT a disqualification
for a "Second Religiousness" sect to have a political program.
But since it should be the companion of Cęsarism, its rise over the
last couple of decades would clearly indicate that part of the program
may well be to install the Cęsar-figure as our ruler. The first attempt
at this was clearly when Pat Robertson first ran for President. While
no obvious religious leader is in the 1996 presidential field, that
should not be taken as an indication that the influence of this group
is not felt. Just look at the Pat Buchanan candidacy.
You might wonder why the
introduction to a book about the debate over the question of the
existence or non-existence of God would focus on establishing a
political and historical context by reference to the theories of Oswald
Spengler. The reason for this is that my first criticism of the debate,
as presented by Drs. Moreland and Nielsen, is that it was far too
narrowly focused, in that it is an almost classical exposition of the
struggle for power in a Late Civilization period. It is virtually
inevitable that this debate should occur at this point in time in our
existence.
My personal view is that this
debate cannot have any validity until and unless we are ready to
divorce ourselves from the biases and prejudices with which our own
education in the ways of Western Civilization has endowed us. That is a
difficult task for any of us. My initial focus on the views of Spengler
is an attempt to create an abstract view of our present situation in
the greater scheme of things. This is also an attempt to move the
debate into an arena where the entire scope of human history must be
dealt with if any historical questions are going to be relevant to such
a debate.
It is clear from reading the
debate itself that both Drs. Moreland and Nielsen are culturally
myopic. Each of them debates from the point of view of someone who is
the perfect exponent of their camp in the Late period of Western
Civilization. This misses the point. If you cannot justify the truth or
falsity of the proposition(s) which you assert as valid for all people
at all times, then those who are outside of the scope of your world
view will be left to wonder where they fit in the overall scheme of
things.
The theists in this debate are
all products of the "Second Religiousness" which was predicted by
Spengler. Even in Islamic countries, the spread of Western Civilization
has caused the Islamic church to become subject to the same forces
which afflict the Christian religions, so there is a resurgent
fundamentalist Islamic movement throughout those nations which is
exactly in synchronization with the fundamentalist Christian movement
in our own nation and the other Christian nations. All fundamentalist
belief systems proceed from a base of absolute faith in their basic
scriptures. This is true whether you are speaking of fundamentalist
Jewish, Islamic, or Christian peoples. The accepted text becomes the
religion, and no variations, interpretations, or other deviance from
this text is allowed to gain any significant following.
Once these fundamentalists are
exposed for the religious bigots which they actually are, then you will
be able to locate the flaws in their chains of reasoning in any debate
which touches on their religious belief systems. A significant part of
this book is my attempt to set forth the flaws in the assertions of the
Christian bigots.
But the atheists will not
escape un-chastised from my own world view. The basic flaw in the
atheist belief system is that a vacuum consisting entirely of negative
concepts can be a viable human philosophy. It cannot. In other words,
just because the Christians (or Muslims, or whoever) are wrong in the
arguments which they advance from their own religious viewpoints, that
does not lead to a conclusion that there is no God.
However, my strongest
criticism will be saved for the assertion by Peter Kreeft to the effect
that Agnostics are basically indecisive about the existence of God, or
about their religious beliefs. I have taken a couple of decades of
thought to come to the totally valid conclusion (for me, at least) that
the Agnostic belief is the only valid belief system. I have
thoughtfully and willfully decided to be an Agnostic.
Since neither of the debaters
were Agnostics, neither propounded an Agnostic point of view. The basic
point of this book is to set forth my own Agnostic point of view as a
rebuttal to both Drs. Moreland and Nielsen. I hope you find my efforts
worthwhile.
RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA; March 21, 1996.
1 The author claimed to have it mostly done by 1914, and to have the first edition fully written by 1917, although the first edition of the first volume was not published until July of 1918. The second volume was published in 1922, and an extensively revised Second Edition appeared in 1923. Even measured from this essentially "final" version, it has still been more than seven decades.
2 And it may well STILL be in print. It is not possible for me to keep up with this, but check with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. My personal copy is dated as published in 1983.
3 "The Decline of the West" (1918 and 1922) by Oswald Spengler; authorized English translation (1926 and 1928) by Charles Francis Atkinson; Volume II, page 310.