Somewhere between 6% and 10% of Americans are atheists or agnostics. An atheist, of course, is one who doesn’t believe in God or any higher power; an agnostic is a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
What if the atheist is right? What if the largest percentage of humanity is completely deluded and there is no purpose for living or any existence of a God? What if we simply are the cause and effect of millions of years of evolution and have advanced far enough to ask the questions, yet still know that this answers nothing about origins? What if there is no beginning, no end, and everything is without any reason? What then keeps us in a collective moral “check”?
Atheists argue that the presence of evil, the inconsistency of religious people and communities, and the lack of a universal cogent idea about God, are just some of the reasons why God cannot exist.
If I had to acquiesce to one of the propositions about God between atheism and agnosticism, it would be this one—that God is unknowable. What I am saying is that I can understand the position better of the agnostic than the atheist.
What I do find difficult is the idea that a rational person can say there is no first cause, no grand architect to the complexity and beauty of the world and universe.
Guillermo Gonzalez in his book, The Privileged Planet, speaks about the enormity of the cosmos and how unique planet earth is in relation to the night sky. Brian Greene takes it a step farther in, The Fabric of the Cosmos, where he describes String Theory, Quantum Physics, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and much more. Both men speak of the profound genius that seems to be behind the mathematics and science of the universe.
So, while I cannot fathom anything but a God fashioning the known universe, I also accept those that posit God is unknowable. In fact, considering the intellect that I perceive that is behind creation, it may be highly likely that I would not be able to understand God even if I encountered him face to face. Could I comprehend the God who works at such a high level of understanding?
But this I do know. I can think, love, mourn, seek justice, laugh, compute and to create with the materials, at my disposal. I do these things not because I have fortunately and randomly been selected in the cosmos as the benefactor of good fate. Rather, I am able because I am fashioned to be able. Just as the universe is a profound expression of genius, so I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” by the same God who created these other things. That is proof enough for me.
Kent Simmons is the pastor of Canyon Community Church in Kingman, AZ. He can be reached at Kent@Canyon-Church.com.