Why I Am Not a Metaphysical Naturalist (And Why I Am a Christian)
In 1927 Betrand Russell published a famous atheological essay (later to become a popular book), Why I Am Not a Christian. A brilliant mathematician and logician, Russell began by offering a broad definition of Christianity in terms of belief in God, immortality, and the surpassing goodness and wisdom of Christ. Then he set out to refute the more popular arguments for God from natural theology: the cosmological (or "first cause") argument, the teleological argument (argument from design), and the moral argument. (Curiously, he made scant mention of arguments for distinctive doctrines of Christianity such as the deity or resurrection of Christ.) Since Russell's day, numerous like-minded thinkers have followed suit: At the popular "infidel" web site The Secular Web, for example, at least three well-known philosophers—Keith Parsons, Graham Oppy and Richard Carrier—have published essays bearing the same title.
Conspicuously absent in the case of Russell is anything like a seriously developed alternative belief system (by which I mean more than an appeal to the accumulation of scientific knowledge). The idea almost seems to be that there are only two worldviews worth serious consideration: Christianity, and atheism. But of course "atheism" is technically nothing but the negation of theism. I don't think such a one-sided analysis is quite fair. The way I see it, anyone proposing to tear down a comprehensive explanatory view of the world like Christian theism should have at least something with which to replace it. As a capitalist I find capitalism easy to criticize, but outlining a viable replacement economic system presents a much greater challenge. So I remain a capitalist. On this point Churchill famously quipped: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Christians bear a burden of proof for their own claims, yes, but that certainly doesn't entail that non-Christians make no claims or bear no burdens of their own.
When pressed, atheists will usually claim their view to be some form of metaphysical (or ontological) naturalism, which is said to be buttressed in turn by the ongoing success of science. To their credit, philosophers like Parsons, Oppy and Carrier have written at various lengths describing and defending their own naturalistic view of the world. Due largely to efforts such as theirs metaphysical naturalism is now Christianity's leading rival, at least among educated people in the West. Believing it always worthwhile to defend the Christian faith against its rivals, I will briefly explain here why I am not a naturalist. I will then further explain why I am a Christian instead.
Why I Am Not a Metaphysical Naturalist
Naturalism has been described as belief that the universe is a self-contained system, consisting of strictly natural, material or physical phenomena, constituting all of reality that is knowable in principle. As C.S. Lewis remarked, naturalism means nature is "the whole show": there are no agents external to the natural system (or if there are such agents, they are incapable of interacting with or influencing the system). This belief is commonly said to enjoy two major strengths relative to Christian theism: (1) It is more consistent with observable evidence, since we at least know that nature exists; and (2) in keeping with the principle of Occam's Razor, it is more parsimonious (it contains fewer explanatory elements), since we do not know with any certainty that any entity outside of nature exists.
Those certainly sound like reasonable assumptions at first blush. But they are far from self-evident. For example, naturalism entails much more than the modest and wholly uncontroversial claim that "nature exists," but claims further that nature is all that exists (or at least all that can be known). To say that nature exists is no more evidence for naturalism than it is for Christian theism, since both explicitly posit the existence of nature. It's not saying much, really: When you get right down to it, most any serious claim about anything must take into account that the observable universe exists. (There are exceptions, like idealism and solipsism, but these are generally taken seriously by neither Christians nor atheists.) Similarly, to say that naturalism is necessarily more parsimonious than Christianity asserts much more than can be demonstrated. For many observers (like me) naturalistic explanations for the origin of the universe, of life on earth, or of morality, appear to be exceedingly and even hopelessly complicated. Since these complicated explanations have been devised specifically as alternatives to more basic theistic explanations, there is no need for theism to invoke them and therefore it does not follow that theism entails more entities than naturalism.
But my rejection of naturalism extends beyond recognition that its strong claims cannot be validated. In addition I find naturalism less than fully coherent. I say this not because I believe naturalists are irrational people, but because the ambitious claims made for naturalism simply do not appear to square with nature itself. Naturalism stipulates that the universe (nature) is somehow self-existent, and perhaps infinite. But two of the most thoroughly verified fundamental properties of the universe, energy conservation and entropy, suggest it to be both finite and in need of an external power source. Or as the philosophers would say, the natural order is not necessary but contingent. This curious philosophical situation is made worse in light of the frequent appeals of naturalists to science and the scientific method. For if nature is not caused, how can it be amenable to the scientific method even in principle? Science is about physical (primarily causal) explanations, not metaphysical assertions. To say that the universe "just is," or "always has been," is to repudiate, or at least temporarily abandon, the scientific method, and thereby undercut the very foundation of naturalism. Christian theology of course not only permits but demands the repudiation of the scientific method regarding decidedly supernatural claims like the creation of the universe. But as a science-driven belief system naturalism can make no such allowances. On the issue of cosmology, then, Christianity appears more internally consistent than naturalism.
Another objection to naturalism arises from consideration of rational thought itself. The "argument from reason," famously explicated by C.S. Lewis in Miracles and revised by contemporary philosophers like Victor Reppert, basically holds that non-rational physical or material causes cannot be expected to create rationality. In principle, a thoroughly natural system would not be capable of producing rational thought, capable in turn of reliably determining whether or not naturalism is true. Or as Plantinga suggests, "the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low." This may not make naturalism completely self-contradictory, but it certainly provides fodder for skepticism: If our thoughts have been produced by mindless mechanisms of evolution, then our thoughts cannot at the same time be a product of reason and reflection. Besides, given evolutionary naturalism our brains—hence our thoughts—are still evolving at this very moment. Therefore the very principles of logic we consider rational and true today could be considered crazy and false tomorrow, as evolution dictates. Alternatively, what we believe to be logical or veridical might be false right now. Natural selection couldn't care less either way: If believing what is false confers short-term reproductive advantages upon our species, so be it.
A similar problem holds for the origin of morality: That is, non-moral physical or material causes cannot be expected to create morality, or at least not the sort of universally applicable objective morality that acknowledges love good and sadism bad for all people at all times. As a young man I recognized the truth of this. While a freshman in high school I recall witnessing a couple of bullies overpowering a smallish self-identified Jewish kid and literally shoving him into a trash can, laughing as he screamed in protest. My first thought (and one my first serious reflections on such matters) was that if there were a God he would not have allowed such evils; but a second thought immediately followed: What exactly is evil if there is no God? My answer was, and remains, that "evil" conveys little meaning unless there is some ultimate, transcendent moral authority. In more sophisticated forms the same question confronts naturalists to this day.
Now it is just possible that rational thought and morality are somehow emergent properties of a wholly naturalistic system, but that seems intuitively implausible. In any event there appears to be no evidence for such a proposition, nor any way to test it. For all its accomplishments and merits, the scientific method cannot presently verify the hypothetical past emergence of rationality and morality from non-rational and amoral physical matter (whether by evolution or by divine creation from the "dust of the earth"). Per the epistemology of naturalism itself—that only scientifically rigorous beliefs are justified—naturalism is therefore an unjustified belief. That situation would perhaps be more epistemically tolerable if naturalism were also a properly basic belief, since even for a naturalist properly basic beliefs cannot be justified by external evidence. But no one thinks the truth of naturalism is strictly self-evident or incorrigible, and consequently naturalism is not properly basic. It is therefore a belief simpliciter, an article of faith. It turns out that naturalists have no leg to stand on when deriding theists for believing without sufficient evidence.
Why I Am a Christian
In 1985 I was working a part-time job in Austin, Texas and taking classes at the university. As a self-absorbed, deeply insecure, increasingly alcohol-addicted and yet mildly religious young man, I was desperately in need of God and just as determined to keep him at a safe distance. One day my supervisor, David Drum, began to share with me the good news of the gospel. He told me quite boldly and straightforwardly that Jesus had forgiven his sins and changed his life, and wanted to do the same for me. (I will always be grateful to David for this, because in the intervening twenty-nine years I have never again been directly presented with the gospel message at a personal level.) Although I dismissively muttered something about being a "good person," I knew with deep conviction that what he was saying was true. Prior to my conversion, I had read bits of the New Testament, and despite not knowing exactly what I was reading or what it meant, I had always been awestruck by the words of Jesus Christ. Like the people of Jesus' own day I was "astonished at His teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (Matt. 7:29).
One of the first reasons I am a Christian, then, is this immediate and inescapable conviction that God exists and has revealed himself in the person of Jesus. My faith ultimately is not the result of an argument or a scientific inference, but more like the sort of properly basic belief mentioned earlier. For me the existence of God has always been something of an axiom, a self-evident truth that holds prior to any evidence adduced either in favor or against it. But as the prophets and apostles make so clear, one may know the truth and yet "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Although before conversion I believed in an abstract sense that God existed and Jesus was his Son, I had not exercised the sort of saving faith that acknowledges Christ as both Savior and Lord in the "real world" (where practical priorities are established and difficult decisions are made.)
For days after hearing the gospel message I wrestled with the terrifying alternatives before me: Surrender completely to Jesus and begin to live my life according to his will, or refuse the rulership of Jesus and risk eternal suffering in a hell created by God for Satan and his rebellious followers. (The prospect of living forever with God in heaven held no attraction for me at the time). I knew instinctively that there were no other options. To those who might allege that Christians choose to believe only because they want Christianity to be true, I would answer that in 1985 the very last thing in the world I wanted was to repent of my sins in the face of otherwise dire eternal consequences. These thoughts and convictions hounded me incessantly despite my desires to the contrary. With an odd mixture of anxious trepidation and firm resolve, I finally broke down and decided to do this Christian thing—whatever it was—with all of my heart. To the extent that I understood where he was going and what he was doing, I would follow Christ and do his will. I am a Christian to this day in part because by God's gracious leading I made a lifelong commitment to Christ. The completely unexpected result of that fateful decision was a sense of great joy, a profound realization that knowing God was my ultimate purpose for being born into the world.
Even if thoroughly sincere, however, my commitment to God would not have taken me far without the empowering of his Holy Spirit. In my pre-conversion days I had tried to commit to lots of things—projects, relationships, and other endeavors—almost always without success. The very fact that I have remained a Christian for almost thirty years testifies to the power of God at work in my life. I say that with special emphasis in light of the challenges I have faced as a believer. In the interest of truth I must state here that as a Christian I have experienced not only my greatest joys but my greatest sufferings and heartaches. Contrary to the particularly Americanized version of Christianity—in which the ultimate virtue is "happiness" and the ultimate testimony a recounting of material successes—my life in the faith has often proven exceedingly difficult. My wife and I have endured hardships we can scarcely begin to describe to others. This of course is just what Jesus and the apostles promised in their countless references to the trials, testings and temptations certain to confront every disciple. Again let me say that the appeal of Christianity is nothing worldly: not money, fame, success, ease or temporal pleasure. Like the apostles, I desire that all would come to know the spiritual life and joy of Jesus Christ; but at the same time, to anyone who seeks relief from real-world problems I would not recommend Christianity.
Rather than an escape from reality, Jesus offers new life in a real spiritual kingdom over which he personally rules as king. There are tremendous joys to be had in the discovery that God is alive and all-powerful and yet loves us unconditionally; that he sacrificed everything, as Paul said, to "demonstrate his love for us." God leads us out of sinful bondages and psychological snares with the grace of a loving Father. He fills us with hope, and gives us glimpses of his eternal glory by the power of his Holy Spirit. In an age of rampant fatherlessness and divorce he teaches us what it means to love our families—and what it means to be loved as his own. (I thank God daily for my lovely wife and my two precious children.) He teaches us how to work hard and be honest, how to be thankful for little things, how to rejoice and laugh during bitter disappointments, how to love and forgive our enemies, how to find contentment in the present world precisely by seeking a better world to come. All this makes life in the kingdom, as Jesus said, a hidden treasure and a pearl of great price. So, another reason for my remaining a Christian is simply that the joy of knowing Jesus is worth any cost.
Finally, I should mention that there have been times when my faith has confronted intellectual challenges. In fact, I became an atheist of sorts for a brief period while still a college student (and after my conversion!), the result of naively accepting the drastically secularized teachings of my professors and textbooks as undisputed truth. That experience of disillusionment led me to seek out the intellectual grounds for the faith I had so recently embraced, if indeed there were any such grounds. I thereupon discovered perennially influential Christian writings like Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, popular apologetic treatments like Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and various insightful critiques of an evolutionary history of the world widely (but wrongly) regarded as a "fact of science" that falsifies the creation story of Genesis. Realizing that Christian faith was not in fact groundless, I repented of my unbelief and determined never again to be so easily taken in by the voices of skepticism.
My reasons for believing from a rational or evidentiary standpoint are now legion. These would include, in no particular order: The correlation of the creation story in Genesis with the basic facts of cosmology and the "fine-tuned" structure of the universe; the astonishing levels of specifiable, functional complexity observable in living creatures, suggesting their deliberate design; general human acknowledgement of a transcendent moral law, pointing to a transcendent moral legislator; the origin and prophetically foretold history of Israel, as preserved in the Scriptures and still unfolding today; countless archaeological confirmations of the narratives of both testaments; the miraculous ministry and uniquely authoritative teaching of Jesus Christ, attested in the accounts of many thousands of early Gospel manuscripts; the birth of the early church in Jerusalem (the very site of the crucifixion) through the preaching of the bodily resurrection of Christ in the face of violent persecution; and perhaps more than the others, unforgettable direct experiences of God's loving presence and healing power.
Ultimately, though, any reasons I have for being a Christian always come back to the revelation of Jesus himself. When I read the words of Jesus and the accounts of his ministry, when I recall the facts of his death and resurrection, when I think upon who I was before trusting in him and who I am now, I know there is a God and that he loves me dearly. I am a Christian because of Christ.
-- Don McIntosh