It's hard to be both an intellectual and an atheist

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

It’s not easy to be both an intellectual and an atheist. That may seem like an odd thing to say, especially given that most people would probably argue the opposite, that it’s not easy to be both an intellectual and a Christian, since we read a book that includes talking snakes, worldwide floods, people rising from the dead, and, at the center of it all, an invisible God (and a three-in-one God at that!). But consider for a moment some of the implications of atheism:

1) Life is ultimately meaningless

If there is no God, then death is the end. We are here for a brief time, and then we will cease to exist. Worse yet, someday the universe will die as well, meaning that all we have spent our time doing here on Earth will ultimately be for nothing.

2) There is no objective right or wrong

If there is no God, then we are just the product of natural selection and random mutations, and right and wrong are just made-up concepts (after all, when was the last time you saw a cat imprisoned for killing a mouse?). And if there is no ultimate judgment at the end of our lives, no eternal consequences for our actions, then it really doesn’t matter how anyone lives. If there is no God, and we are all just highly evolved animals, then who is to say what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is unjust? You say it’s evil to fly a plane into the World Trade Center. A group of people half a world away disagree with you and think it is good. By what standard do you say they are wrong?

3) There is no purpose to your life

If your life is destined to end in death, if you will cease to exist, then what is the purpose of your life? You are no different than an animal, as much as you might try to delude yourself otherwise. Go on and believe that your work, your love, your charity, makes a difference. But in the end, we will all die, and everything will be forgotten. We might as well eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
When I say that it is not easy to be both an intellectual and an atheist, what I am arguing is that it is difficult to be an intellectually consistent atheist without losing all motivation for living. Sure, the atheist can create all kinds of reasons to live, and claim that it is better to love than to hate, but the truth is that if there is no God, then the atheist is just making things up in order to make himself feel better, pretending there is a purpose and order to his life in order to keep at bay that voice that keeps declaring that life is really meaningless.
But there is a God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ. And because He lives, life is meaningful, there is an objective standard of right and wrong, and our lives have purpose. Amen and amen!

Today’s post was influenced by William Lane Craig’s book On Guard, which I highly recommend if you are interested in learning how to defend your faith.