I came across an interesting article today @ Be Thinking. I have mulled this gist of this article around in my head for some time now. This line of thinking was focused somewhat when I saw Ben Stein’s “Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed.” And now, I believe God is wanting me to give some serious thought to the apologetic idea that: without God, life, morals, etc are all meaningless.
William Lane Craig has put forth this article to discuss how we might help non-believers come to believe in God (and hopefully the Gospel) by talking about the significance of human life. In the article Craig explores the logical conclusions of atheism. He notes that if there is no higher being then human life is futile with no purpose and no life eternal. He notes how morals have no foundation if God does not exist. He also speaks to the fact that there would be no aesthetics/beauty and that life would have no meaning without God.
The article is well written, repleat with historical explanations of “The argument from humanity’s predicament” and application of the apologetic. I realize that man’s best argument will never open the eyes of a man’s soul unto repentance and salvation, but this article and apology will certainly cause any honestly thinking non-believer to consider the truth that God does exist.
My Favorite Passage from the article:
Man, writes Loren Eiseley, is the Cosmic Orphan. He is the only creature in the universe who asks, “Why?” Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions.
“Who am I?” man asks. “Why am I here? Where am I going?” Since the Enlightenment, when he threw off the shackles of religion, man has tried to answer these questions without reference to God. But the answers that came back were not exhilarating, but dark and terrible. “You are the accidental by-product of nature, a result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death.”
Modern man thought that when he had gotten rid of God, he had freed himself from all that repressed and stifled him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself.
For if there is no God, then man’s life becomes absurd.
If God does not exist, then both man and the universe are inevitably doomed to death. Man, like all biological organisms, must die. With no hope of immortality, man’s life leads only to the grave. His life is but a spark in the infinite blackness, a spark that appears, flickers, and dies forever. Compared to the infinite stretch of time, the span of man’s life is but an infinitesimal moment; and yet this is all the life he will ever know. Therefore, everyone must come face to face with what theologian Paul Tillich has called “the threat of non-being.” For though I know now that I exist, that I am alive, I also know that someday I will no longer exist, that I will no longer be, that I will die. This thought is staggering and threatening: to think that the person I call “myself” will cease to exist, that I will be no more!
Norma Normans Non Normata 