I recently re-watched Collision with a fellow teacher and his class. Collision is a documentary of a series of debates between Atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian Apologist Douglas Wilson. Hitchens repeatedly challenges Wilson to name a good action that a Christian could do that an atheist couldn't. This receives a good but only a partial answer from Wilson.
Wilson is right when he points out that the question is not whether there are some good actions which only a Christian can do, but whether an atheist has any basis for distinguishing between good and evil in the first place.
Whenever Hitchens criticizes anyone, which he loves to do, he assumes a norm that binds us all. But if Darwinism is true, then morality is subjective and evolving too. Hitchens claims that morality comes to us through the trial and error of evolution. This manifests in our innate sense of right and wrong and our consensus with fellow humans as to what constitutes an orderly civilization. But our innate subjective feelings are not very binding nor is an appeal to consensus. That we, as a species, agree to make laws in order to survive doesn't really mean anything to a Hitler. Hitchens says that referring morality upward doesn't help. But without God, how could you challenge the authority of a totalitarian state like Hitler's?
Wilson's answer is incomplete in that he fails to concede to Hitchens that morality is innate, but not because of evolution. It is innate in everyone because we are all created in the imago Dei (image of God). Not only is it doubtful that evolution would produce common morality, but, without a transcendent standard based in God, there would be no way to back it up or keep it in place. If Darwinism were true morality would not only be subjective, but it would also be like a passing fad. You could evolve beyond good and evil like the aliens that are abducting us in all those movies. Now back to the point. It is true that atheists can do any good deed that a Christian can, but this is because, as created beings, we all share the moral law written on the heart.
Hitchens points out that some Christians are just as guilty of moral evils as some atheists. This is true, but there is the difference: When a Christian does evil, he is being inconsistent with Christianity. But when an atheist does evil, he's not being inconsistent with atheism.
Wilson gets Hitchens to admit this at one point, and I don't think Hitchens realizes that this is a major weakness. People can be good without God, but they can also use atheism as a premise for changing the game in frightening ways. Exhibit A: Hitler. Exhibit B: Stalin. Exhibit C: Mao. Exhibit D: well, you get the picture. In fact, if survival of the fittest is the mechanism of evolutionary progress, it's hard to justify things like caring for the sick or giving blood. In such an act of charity, we are helping the weak survive and undermining the fitness of the species. It amounts to survival of the flimsiest!
2 comments:
Very true, Doc.
I find it interesting, too, that Hitchens, as well as other atheists, reduces an action to its mere outcome and not its origin.
Charity, for example, could not apply to Hitchens, since, if I remember correctly, atheists tend to view all actions as relating in some way to self-preservation and/or self-interest. However, that is not the definition of Charity in that oh so wonderful Christian sense.
The purpose of Charity in Christianity is to put into practice the conscious reduction of self-interest and self-preservation in the act you are performing (such as tithes, volunteering, etc...). I cannot say that we can achieve an absolute reduction in acknowledging our "selves" in this life, but that is its purpose nonetheless.
The atheist, it seems, can never achieve this goal if he is to be consistent within his worldview; he can never truly call himself charitable, but instead selfishly selfless since he can never remove his "self" from the exchange (isn't it also interesting that Charity doesn't even contain the word "self", unlike "SELF-less"?).
I find it rather unfair to try and equate the two worldviews on the premises of mere results. It is akin to divorcing a man's heart from his head. I suppose that is what's meant in the warning "...having a form of godliness, not knowing its power."
PS: Previous posts had errors which needed to be corrected. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Hitchens says it's impossible to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
To bad for his neighbor.
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