THE CITY

Winter 2015
Christian theologians have often held that pride in this second
sense is the origin and root of all wrongdoing. In this case, pride is
held to be an arrogant assumption of superiority, a refusal to bow
the knee in obedience to God. I was just saying that three advantages
of atheism are that you need never worry about how God evaluates
what you do, you need never admit that you require God’s help,
and you can follow whatever moral code you want. It follows, then,
that those who instead set out to love and obey God are abandoning
pride. They are admitting that they were created by God, that they
owe their existence to God, that they must call upon God for grace,
mercy, and answers to prayer, and that they live under the moral
requirement of honoring God in their lives.
What is it that keeps people from God? Obviously, some folk
are atheists because they were raised in that way by their parents.
Others have known religious believers who were cruel or dishonest
or hypocritical. Others are concerned about great evils historically
committed by the church—its support, for example, of anti-Semitism,
the oppression of women, or slavery. In academic communities, one
frequently encounters the assumption that intellectual difficulties
constitute the main problem. And there is no doubt that such factors
are significant. But Christianity teaches that pride is the deepest
reason for rejecting God. People do not want to admit that they need
the guidance or protection or forgiveness of God. There is even an
argument against the existence of God that I think is convincing to
very many people today. Let’s call it the Lifestyle Argument Against
the Existence of God. It’s a simple argument, a two-step proof:
(1) I am not living and do not want to live the kind of life
that God would want me to live if God existed;
(2) Therefore, God does not exist.
Now the Lifestyle Argument is obviously absurdly fallacious as a
piece of logic. But, in my opinion, that does not prevent people from
being influenced by it.
II
But rather than try to reply to atheistic arguments, I am going to
take a different tack. I am going to try to mount an argument in
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