25AR30-07

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AR 30:7 - "Christian 'worldview' ... rests on shaky foundations"

In this issue:

BIBLICAL AUTHORITY - "Then came a moment ... Camus, famed atheist, asked if he could be baptized."

ETHICS - "I can't see myself ever believing in God. But...."

WORLDVIEW - What "explains the world more completely than framing the study of biology around apologetic topics"?

Apologia Report 30:7 (1,696)
February 21, 2025

BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

"The God Who Speaks" by Thaddeus Williams (Bible Gateway, Jan 20 '25) -- Early on, Williams (associate professor, Systematic Theology, Talbot School of Theology) defers to "one of the most famous atheists of the twentieth century, the French existentialist Albert Camus (pronounced Ka-me-you).  

   "Camus did not believe in a speaking God. Yet he is one of my personal favorite atheists. He did what so few atheists have been willing or able to do. He reckoned honestly with the implications for the human race if no speaking God exists. 'When it comes to man's most basic questions of meaning and purpose,' Camus said, 'the universe is silent.' We shout, 'Why are we here?' to the night sky, and the answer is crickets. ...

   "The implication is that 'all human attempts to answer the questions of meaning are futile. . . . In a word, our very existence is absurd.' That absurdity of life in a silent cosmos was precisely the tough pill Camus offered us in his best novels. ...

   "Camus offers a helpful, albeit depressing metaphor for modern man, the kind of ennui and unbearable absurdity that sets the protagonists ... on their respective antihero paths to cyber fraud, corporate terrorism, and meth cooking. ...

   "In the 1950s a New York Methodist pastor named Howard Mumma was guest preaching at a church in Paris. Mumma noticed a mysterious figure in a dark trench coat circled by admirers. It was none other than Albert Camus, mid-twentieth-century international atheist celebrity, and a self-described 'disillusioned and exhausted man.' He confessed that he had never read the Bible himself, and Mumma agreed to be his tour guide through the text. What followed was a friendship that lasted five years, Mumma visiting Paris and Camus visiting New York City to explore the possibility that God has spoken. ...

   "Then came a moment no one saw coming. Camus, famed atheist, asked Mumma if he could be baptized. Given his celebrity status, Camus had only one condition. The baptism must be private, behind closed doors. That way no paparazzi, no protesting atheists, no opportunist Christians could exploit Camus's sacred sprinkling.

   "Mumma kindly explained that the very concept of a private baptism was a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron like 'jumbo shrimp,' 'crash landing,' or 'soft rock.' Baptism is a public sacrament, a visible declaration of one's new identity in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

   "Camus said he would consider it. They parted ways. Camus died a couple of weeks later in a car crash. His final words to Mumma were, 'I am going to keep striving for the Faith.' ...

   "Yet the twentieth century's hundred-million-plus casualties of totalitarian megalomaniacs unite like a chorus of ghosts to shout, 'Resist! Don't sell your soul!' ...

   "'The answers are within' is the kind of advice offered either by those selling something by stroking your ego or those who have never plunged deep enough within to behold the contradictions and corruptions that lurk in our depths. The human heart is 'deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?' (Jer. 17:9 NIV)." <www.tinyurl.com/2tfbsrxk>

 ---

ETHICS

"How Assisted Dying Changed My Mind on Religion" by Sonia Sodha (Spectator, Jan 19 '25) -- "I've become increasingly worried about the prospect of legalising assisted dying in the last two years; my fears were grounded in the risks of people being coerced or even just lightly pressured by family, society or themselves into requesting medical assistance to bring about a death they didn't truly want. Those fears emerged out of my writing about domestic abuse, exploitation and safeguarding; I saw them as deriving from the evidence, not a belief system.

   "But I've felt deeply uncomfortable at the way some campaigners have rejected faith as a proper basis for concern about legalising assisted dying. In voicing her concerns about the bill, the cabinet minister Shabana Mahmood, a practising Muslim, was accused by its Labour proponents of trying to impose her religious beliefs on everyone else. The implication being, if someone's concerns are motivated by religion, they are less valid and should be discounted.

   "As a non-believer I find this absurd. ... 

   "I know from my work that vulnerable people would be at risk, including those suffering from despair, for whom society rightly sees suicide prevention as a proper goal. I find the idea of someone who might have been pressured into it being killed by the state horrifically chilling. It's not some dispassionate risk assessment; I feel it in my bones. ...

   "We all have own moral scaffolds, and growing up in a society with a Christian history, I acknowledge how much mine will have been influenced by those values.

   "I think too many secular liberals remain stuck in the Father Christmas view of faith I'm glad to have left behind: where religion is understood primarily as a belief in God. But the bits of faith that appeal most to me are its common rituals and shared moral scaffold, and as society has become more secular too many of us pretend it doesn't matter if the scaffold comes crashing down alongside the belief."

   Sodha concludes that her experience, "mirrors the sentiment of the serenity prayer (grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference). But my experience of the assisted dying debate is that people see belief not as something to be proud of, but as a gotcha. And so people with my views are accused of exaggerating our fears of coercion as a foil for our true opposition to assisted dying - we just don't believe in the principle. I think we should all do more to acknowledge how much our beliefs and understanding of the world are inextricably jumbled. 

   "I can't see myself ever believing in God. But I'd now describe myself as agnostic rather than atheist. I no longer look down on religion as irrational, and I have a newfound respect for - and yes, maybe even a slight envy of - believers." <www.tinyurl.com/mtrfu22e>

 --- 

WORLDVIEW

In "Pursue Wisdom. Worldview Will Follow" (Gospel Coalition, Jan 24 '25), Alastair Roberts (Theopolis Institute, Davenant Institute) reviews 'Against Worldview' by Simon P. Kennedy <www.tinyurl.com/4puhu2n9> -- "'Worldview' has framed curricula for Christian schools and shaped people's visions of apologetics. It has been routinely deployed in cultural commentary and functioned as a buzzword in marketing for countless ministries.

   "Kennedy invites his readers to take a closer look at the concept of worldview, its origins, its uses, and the rarely considered assumptions and biases built into it. By rethinking the use of the term, especially in Christian education, we can think more clearly about the nature of formation and become more effective in helping students obtain godly wisdom. ...

   "Kennedy challenges the conventions of Christian worldview education and provides a better way. Although the current concept of Christian worldview appears incontestable, it rests upon shaky philosophical foundations, fails to account for the complexities of how we interact with the world, and may even undermine the curiosity essential for true learning. ... Kennedy reframes worldview around wisdom. ...

   "'Worldview' has always been used in vague, inconsistent, and contrasting ways. Unfortunately, that ambigiuty has produced more incoherence than contestation among its users.

   "Kennedy particularly highlights the contrast between 'deductive' and "inductive' uses. For thinkers such as Abraham Kuyper, worldview primarily functioned as a deductive concept....

   By contrast, Herman Bavinck illustrates a more inductive approach. Rather than starting with an established big picture into which we fit all the pieces of our knowledge, he primarily builds up from our multifaceted engagement with concrete reality. Like the construction of a mosaic, for Bavinck this all fits into the overarching unified, meaningful, and ordered reality established by God's wisdom in creation - yet our understanding of this big picture will always be more partial and piecemeal. ...

   "Against Worldview is written primarily with Christian educators in mind.... 'Christian worldview' can ideologize education. This ideologization, among other effects, keeps students from understanding the many ways Christians and non-Christians are seeking to comprehend the world in similar ways. ...

   "In the task of coming to grips with the often-hidden paths of creation, while we can genuinely find a greater grasp on the whole through the Christian faith, we'll routinely find common cause with unbelievers. Kennedy's welcome approach, which is also influenced by Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy, brings Christian education back down to earth."

   After all, "studying biology as a means to understand the intricate wonder of creation will likely result in a perspective that explains the world more completely than framing the study of biology around apologetic topics. ...

   "Against Worldview is short, accessible, and affordable. It makes its case clearly, leaving its readers with a much sharper understanding of a key point and straightforward, actionable proposals. While it's most suited for Christian educators, it'll be valuable for laypeople, apologists, pastors, and scholars." <www.tinyurl.com/yf5fkrb4> 

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