A fable and its lesson

Tags

"ad absurdum argument", "forged license", "knowledge and faith", anonymity

Henry told his family members that he was going away for several days; he needed to just be alone and not even in his house.  It seemed somewhat unusual to them, because it was.  He had never done that before.  But, they said, “Alright.  Keep in touch if you need to.”

“No problem.”

The next day, he left home with the several thousand dollars he had withdrawn from the bank two days ago.  About 300 miles out he found a motel for the night.  It had the amenities he was looking for, and there were eating places nearby that matched his preferences.  To check in, he used cash to pay for two nights, using as identity a forged driver’s license he had obtained a week earlier.  It wasn’t all that difficult.  Up to that point he was still unknown, although the motel folk didn’t realize it.

Why was Henry doing this, maintaining anonymity to such a degree?  What was he planning?

His rationale was that if people, both family and friends, knew that he was as sick as he knew he was, and that he would be dead within a week at the max, they would be shocked, solicitous, and self-giving.  He was correct about that.

That was the point.  Henry said to himself that knowledge, such as that of his impending death, would destroy free will.  Their expressions of concern weren’t really being birthed from within them, but were “forced” out of them due to their recently gotten knowledge of his impending death.  Since that was the case, he didn’t want to receive their expressions of kindness, of grief, etc.  – they weren’t really authentically and freely offered.

But, was Henry correct?  If free will is as he projected it to be, is there such a thing as “free will”?  Does knowledge of some kind curtail free will?  If that were the case, would the only truly free person be the completely ignorant person, the one who knew absolutely nothing?

Such a conclusion is an example of an ad absurdum argument.

The fact that destroys Henry’s argument is that knowledge isn’t the enemy of free will, but one of the requirements for free will.  The greater our knowledge, the greater is the possibility of escaping unforeseen consequences.  And, for a Christian, the greater the knowledge, the greater the possibility for faith.

 

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Atheism, an unwitting friend of theists!!

Tags

"ad absurdum argument", "God and morality", "self-destruction", atheism, Nietzsche

Some in the audience were familiar with the name of Richard Dawkins.  For others, the speaker could just as well have referred to Aamiekson Qarhprek.  Whatever.  Dawkins has become popular in today’s European and North American markets, along with likeminded authors such as Harris and Hitchens.

Of course, atheism’s popularity may increase.  And yes, theists will be well served to cogently explain the intellectual legitimacy of theism.  But, there is one additional feature that we would be smart to consider — As more and more people become atheists, atheism self-destructs.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s argument, which seems solid, is that if there is no God, there is no morality.  Nietzsche didn’t make that statement as part of an argument to affirm God’s existence.  Quite the contrary.  His affirmation was that there is no God, and consequently there is no basis for morality.  “That is the hand humanity has been dealt.  Play the hand.  Face facts.”

Thus, the statement about atheism being self-destructing.  Where there is no morality (and I agree with Nietzsche that if there were no God, there would be no basis for morality) not only is God dead, but humanity also dies.  If atheism were correct, then not only would there be no God now, but there never would have been a God.  Without there ever being a God, morality would never have come into existence.  Unfortunately for the atheists’ argument, morality has come into existence.

This puts atheism in an ad absurdum situation, which destroys the legitimacy of the first premise – that there is no God.  So, atheism ends up becoming a strong friend for theism!!!  And so the advice from two paragraphs back about playing the hand and facing the facts, comes back to bite the atheists!!

True enough, the situation isn’t quite as simple as just described.  If we humans are inescapably moral, is there any evidence that we are morally progressing?  Of course, humanity is accumulating greater and greater amounts of information.  That is not in dispute.  But, are we humans, as a race, any “better” (a moral term) than ever?  The best that could be said is that we are not any worse, but concerning that the jury is still out.

That being the case after as many eons of existence that the human race has had here on earth, there is no reason to think that trend will flip-flop.  So, please, people, even if we are moral to some degree, don’t live the delusion that with time we will, on our own, “be better people.”  If we want to be better, it will not come out of what we are, but out of what is given to us from outside ourselves, from the God who is not dead, but who very much loves humanity!!!

 

 

 

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