Finding a Safe Habitation for the Soul
Posted on September 17, 2012 by Brother of Sorrow
That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
-Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship (1903)
Above you see an extremely powerful statement of the atheistic, naturalistic and materialistic worldview. We could call it that worldview’s dogma or creed, and I don’t mean that in any sort of demeaning way. Bertrand Russell was expressing what he believed to be the cold, hard truth of our existential reality, and many modern atheists rightfully respect him for having the courage to make such a claim. The atheists are also right to criticize those who reject atheism and adopt religious positions simply out of fear of the alternative, i.e. the “unyielding despair” which provides the foundation for the human soul, according to Russell.
I believe there are way too many people in this world that jump into spirituality for the sole reason of escaping their fears of mortality and meaninglessness. That, in turn, gives the atheist a solid foundation to attack various spiritual traditions, such as Christianity, by claiming that the faith is not based in any objective, rational or reasonable assessment of the Universe, but solely based on irrational reactions to certain emotional drives. However, the Christians can easily avoid this straw man when we base our faith in reason and logic, rather than fear.
We must make clear that our faith is never shaken by the prospects of fear, pain, suffering and death. Indeed, we recognize that there are many situations in which our faith would require us to endure those things. Why would it require them? For the sole reason that it is the truth. Evangelical Christians need to recognize and expose the fallacious assumption present in Russell’s quote (in bold) – none of those things are “nearly certain”, and the Christian metaphysical philosophy can easily stand up against them through rational and logical argumentation. We don’t have to accept “unyielding despair”, because it simply isn’t necessitated by reality.
I usually won’t delve into a whole lot of rational apologetics within my blog posts, and will simply leave that to the historical scholars and scientific experts who will be linked to in other sections of the website. Yet, I do feel the need to make an exception this time and show spiritual readers exactly how they can respond to the uninformed atheist who claims that science has “proven” we are simply a “collocation of atoms” that have evolved from stardust over billion of years. The truth is that science cannot even explain how the inanimate, material Universe came into existence, let alone living creatures and self-aware human beings.
You see, science has actually progressed quite a bit since the beginning of the 20th century when Russel was writing, and now there are many reasons to infer that the existence of a designing intelligence is the best explanation for the latest scientific evidence concerning the material Universe and the life forms existing in it. In 2003, for example, three cosmologists named Borde, Guth and Vilenkin developed a theorem that is now widely accepted in the physics community – it postulated that, based primarily on Hubble’s discovery of a constantly expanding Universe, the Universe could not have been past-eternal.
(full post at link above)
Posted on September 17, 2012 by Brother of Sorrow
That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
-Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship (1903)
Above you see an extremely powerful statement of the atheistic, naturalistic and materialistic worldview. We could call it that worldview’s dogma or creed, and I don’t mean that in any sort of demeaning way. Bertrand Russell was expressing what he believed to be the cold, hard truth of our existential reality, and many modern atheists rightfully respect him for having the courage to make such a claim. The atheists are also right to criticize those who reject atheism and adopt religious positions simply out of fear of the alternative, i.e. the “unyielding despair” which provides the foundation for the human soul, according to Russell.
I believe there are way too many people in this world that jump into spirituality for the sole reason of escaping their fears of mortality and meaninglessness. That, in turn, gives the atheist a solid foundation to attack various spiritual traditions, such as Christianity, by claiming that the faith is not based in any objective, rational or reasonable assessment of the Universe, but solely based on irrational reactions to certain emotional drives. However, the Christians can easily avoid this straw man when we base our faith in reason and logic, rather than fear.
We must make clear that our faith is never shaken by the prospects of fear, pain, suffering and death. Indeed, we recognize that there are many situations in which our faith would require us to endure those things. Why would it require them? For the sole reason that it is the truth. Evangelical Christians need to recognize and expose the fallacious assumption present in Russell’s quote (in bold) – none of those things are “nearly certain”, and the Christian metaphysical philosophy can easily stand up against them through rational and logical argumentation. We don’t have to accept “unyielding despair”, because it simply isn’t necessitated by reality.
I usually won’t delve into a whole lot of rational apologetics within my blog posts, and will simply leave that to the historical scholars and scientific experts who will be linked to in other sections of the website. Yet, I do feel the need to make an exception this time and show spiritual readers exactly how they can respond to the uninformed atheist who claims that science has “proven” we are simply a “collocation of atoms” that have evolved from stardust over billion of years. The truth is that science cannot even explain how the inanimate, material Universe came into existence, let alone living creatures and self-aware human beings.
You see, science has actually progressed quite a bit since the beginning of the 20th century when Russel was writing, and now there are many reasons to infer that the existence of a designing intelligence is the best explanation for the latest scientific evidence concerning the material Universe and the life forms existing in it. In 2003, for example, three cosmologists named Borde, Guth and Vilenkin developed a theorem that is now widely accepted in the physics community – it postulated that, based primarily on Hubble’s discovery of a constantly expanding Universe, the Universe could not have been past-eternal.
(full post at link above)
