The Many Faces, and Causes, of Unbelief - Apologetics Press

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passed, evolutionist Richard Lewontin expressed even more forcefully the unbeliever’s attitude toward both science and God. Our willingness to accept scientific claims against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of it failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to naturalism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door (1997, p. 31, emp. in orig. except for last two sentences). Notice what Lewontin has admitted. Neither he, nor his scientific cohorts, bases unbelief on “the methods and institutions” of science. Rather they are “forced” by their “a priori adherence to material causes” to accept an absolute materialism. Why? Because they resolutely refuse to “allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Thus, scientific materialism has fostered unbelief. In his book, Intellectuals Don’t Need God and Other Modern Myths, Alister E. McGrath asked: “But what of the idea that science has rendered God unnecessary? As scientific understanding advances, will not God be squeezed out from the gaps in which Christian apologists have tried to lodge him?” (1993, p. 166). While Dr. McGrath expressed hope that this will not happen, he likewise acknowledged that, in fact, all too often it has. Smith wrote: -87
But science is no synonym for spirituality, and the life of men is made up of more things than can be measured with test tubes and balances. Yet, man is so absorbed in the pursuit of nature’s secrets that he is increasingly ignorant of his inner spiritual life, and this is one of the tragedies of our day. Men engaged in science are themselves partly to blame for this. They devote days and nights, months, and sometimes years, to the discovery of some scientific fact, but they will not give twenty minutes a day to pondering the Word of God, nor five minutes a day to the exercise of their soul in prayer to God.... Of course if men are going to lift such a miserable thing as humanity to a pedestal, then a holy and invisible God must be not only ignored, but despisingly rejected and hated, which is why many of our intellectual leaders today who look upon humanity as divine, must irritatingly and scornfully declare their conviction that a transcendent, omnipotent, sovereign and eternal Being can, for them, have no meaning (1974, pp. 163,164, emp. added). INTELLECTUAL INTIMIDATION Some time ago, I received a heart-rending letter from a young Christian who was a graduate student in the applied sciences at a state university. His major professor was a man he termed “a giant in his field...rocket-scientist intelligent... and a devout evolutionist.” In his letter, the student went on to say: Working this closely with one who thinks as he does is beginning to cause not a small amount of cognitive dissonance in my own mind. Hundreds of thousands of scientists can’t be wrong, can they? Consensual validation cannot be pushed aside in science. How can that many people be following a flag with no carrier, and someone not find out? I do not want to be a fool! This young writer expressed what many people experience, yet are unable to enunciate so eloquently. It is not an -88
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APOLOGETICS PRESS
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CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPT
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For example, when Joshua—who had
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the truth, but they will not. The s
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obliged to acknowledge that it was
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2 THE MANY FACES OF UNBELIEF Throug
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Impossible task, that—since one w
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Neither of these tasks is simple (n
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foundation, not in divine guidance,
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are monkeys” (see Leonard Huxley,
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Such a premise is flawed internally
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The development, over the past four
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Thus, in the end the skeptic does n
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le plethora of men and women who ma
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include “Hell” and “Some Mist
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In fact, in the late 1970s, while I
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future state of rewards and punishm
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tion to function on its own; some b
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Deism...refers to what can be calle
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Page 58 and 59: What should be the response of Chri
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Page 103 and 104: At Noel’s funeral, the minister b
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Page 107 and 108: sin? No, they were no worse sinners
Page 109 and 110: Just as suffering is real, so are t
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Page 124 and 125: 4 CONCLUSION Every person familiar
Page 126 and 127: This latter observation needs a lit
Page 128 and 129: REFERENCES Abelson, Phillip (1964),
Page 130 and 131: Durant, Will (1980), “We Are in t
Page 132 and 133: Huxley, Thomas Henry (1896), Darwin
Page 134 and 135: Raymo, Chet (1998), Skeptics and Tr
Page 136: Watkin, Edward I. (1936), Theism, A
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The Many Faces, and Causes, of Unbelief - Apologetics Press

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