Melissa Cain Travis of Hard-Core Christianity recently posted an article entitled The Catch-22 of Atheism in which she attempts to show that the philosophical validation of atheism is ultimately futile, since the establishment of the veracity of atheism would result in a world-view devoid of meaning and purpose.

Since her blog does not allow for comments on posts (a practice I find particularly odious), I will respond to some of the more glaring errors in her logic here. I will, of course, leave the comments completely open to whoever wishes to respond as I am confident in my ability to respond to whatever challenges to my logic are presented.

The Primordial Error in Logic

The first fundamental error in logic which the author presents is within the following assertion:

The most fundamental intellectual choice to be made is whether or not God exists.

It is upon this principle that the remainder of the author’s argument is based. The premise is flawed, however, because it makes an elementary philosophical error in forcing the competing worldview to accept the veracity of the statement without first substantiating why it should be considered normative for all world views. While it might be legitimate to suggest that such a statement is normative for philosophical systems which presuppositionally accept theism as given, there is no justification provided for why a competing system which does not presume theism should, nonetheless, accept the same. Until one can substantiate why such an equivocation should be made, the assertion remains flawed and untenable, a terribly shaky foundation for an argument that will eventually be shown to collapse under its own weight.

A Spate of Errors

Given this vaporous foundation, the author next launches into the core argument, which I quote in its entirety:

If God does not exist, then it logically follows that there is no true purpose for man’s life; there is only the purpose man invents in his own mind in order to make a pointless life emotionally tolerable. Man’s beliefs and actions do not matter, as there is no objective morality. Even the idea that humans should act in a way that helps fellow man survive and thrive is absurd, for we know that mankind faces inevitable extinction. Why exert the effort? It will be for naught in the end. Besides, without objective morality, there can’t be any objective “shoulds” or “should nots.” Man is a cosmic accident–nothing more, nothing less, and the very cosmos that spat him out will eventually annihilate him. The catch-22 for atheism is that If atheism is true, it doesn’t ultimately matter that it’s true.

The logical errors in this argument are too numerous to rehearse here, but I will take the more egregious in turn.

First, there is no meaningful justification made for the assertion that the belief in the non-existence of God (or, more appropriately, a materialist worldview) leaves the philosopher with a worldview devoid of meaning and purpose. The conclusion, of course, is based upon the flawed opening premise that the existence of God is the fundamental intellectual choice to be made by the philosopher. However, if we remove this foundation, the assertion falls apart, for such an assertion can only be made by a forced equivocation of the means by which the valuation of meaning and purpose are made between two systems. However, if the two systems do not share a common set of tools for making such valuations, then the standards by which meaning and purpose would be established or invalidated in the one cannot be presumed as normative for the other.

The second error is in arguing that an atheistic worldview denies the meaningfulness of human beliefs and actions. The proposed logic here is that since atheism denies the “objective” existence and reality of God, atheism is then left with no objective basis for morality, and therefore has no meaningful basis for adjudicating moral action.

The logical fallacy here is a presuppositional one. The argument in favor of theistic world-views is that they provide an objective basis for morality via the existence of a deity. What is ignored in this presupposition, however, is the problem of objective/subjective communication of moral reality. That is, even if the philosopher presumes that there is an objective ground and standard for morality, the mere assumption of this reality does not in and of its own assertion establish nor define how the presumed reality of the objective ground for morality (e.g., God) imposes itself within the subjective domain of human action and morality. In other words, if one presumes that God is the objective ground of morality and has, in some manner, endowed human persons with the capacity for moral action, we have yet to define precisely how the objective ground and standard of morality is brought to bear within the subjective domain of its execution, nor (and more importantly) how we are to adjudicate that its execution aligns with the objective reality which is presumed to underlie it.

Given the objective/subjective problem outlined above, I would argue that the theist’s articulation of moral principles is as equally prone and dependent upon “invention” as would be the atheist’s. And furthermore, it would seem that the one which accepted the subjectivity of moral actions would be the more philosophically honest of the two.

The third error revolves around the assertion that “Man’s beliefs and actions do not matter, as there is no objective morality”. The philosophical errors in this statement, similar to previous one, are quite glaring. As before, the claim makes an unsubstantiated assumption that the mere assertion of the existence of God and the affirmation of God as the objective ground of morality somehow imbue human actions with meaning and purpose. Yet the author fails to realize that her argument makes the same errors as that of which she accuses atheism. That is, since the adjudication of meaning and purpose is presumed to be based upon the ultimately subjective alignment of human actions and existence to the objective existence of God, there is no more substantial premise within the author’s worldview for asserting meaning and purpose than there is within a worldview that does not presume the existence of God. While the two systems will, of course, arrive at difference conclusions about the way in which meaning and purpose are defined for the human person, they both ultimately share a ground in the subjectivity of mind, and in that sense are completely indistinguishable in regards to the philosophical demonstration of the veracity of their conclusions.

There are other numerous logical and philosophical errors within the author’s post, but I will leave them for further discussion in the comments.

The Point of This

The reason I take issue with posts such as that outlined above is because these arguments, dressed up as “apologetics”, are actually more harmful to a Christian worldview than they are helpful. Logic and philosophy (and especially bad logic and worse philosophy) are not the ultimately goal of Christian apologetics, for the arguments which are made will ultimately be the product of mind, and as such will be prone to the same subjectivities and vagaries from which all thinking suffers. The attempt to logically and philosophically convince the world of the self-evident truth of Christian belief are on a fool’s errand, and will only harm that which they so ardently (albeit ignorantly) seek to “defend.”

Rather than spending energy on producing bad arguments that cannot stand up against the most cursory philosophical criticism, Christian apologists should spend their time articulating the truths of the faith. These truths have nothing to do with denying atheism, establishing the objectivity of God’s existence, or any of the other failed pursuits that have enraptured the minds of modern apologists. True apologetics does not need to convince anyone or defend itself. It’s only goal should be to communicate and articulate the hope that Christians have and why it changes the way that we live. This, ultimately, is all that those who “see through a glass darkly” can do.