I think that faith in God depends largely on your definition and description of God. I believe that many people became atheists because traditional Christianity provided a most unsatisfying description of God as he is in his own nature. Let me explain further.
It is true that evolution is stating to play god for many. Many find the universe with its complexity and its vast profusions of relationships, internal as well as external, to be far more fascinating and aesthetically pleasing that the traditional Christian image of God, which seems, in comparison, too one-dimensional, to stale, too flat to be f any real aesthetic interest. Now, some may be taken back about what I just said here about the traditional model of God. So let me explain.
Since all this may be new to you, let me say again that the traditional Christian model of God came largely from Hellenic philosophy, not the Bible. I think you need to appreciate that you may be at a real disadvantage here, as you may not have had much background in church history or theology. So before you jump all over me all over as talking about something way outside Christianity, at least in your view, let me explain more about where I am coming from. So. let me go over more carefully about the historical data I am using here. Everything, and I mean everything that I said about classical theism, comes directly right out of the mouths of the historic Christian creeds as well at the church fathers.
First a bit about Hellenic philosophy. The Greeks were the master metaphysicians of the ancient world, and definitely not the Israelites. The Bible is not a book in metaphysics. it tells us very little about how God is built. Although there were many schools of Hellenic philosophy, those which tended to predominate wrestled with the world of time, change, materiality. The Greeks had real problems here. Some argued that all movement is in utter impossibility. Especially in the Platonic schools, the whole world of time, change, matter was written off as a big illusion and the source of all evil. The divine, 'the really real," was a wholly immaterial world of static perfection, wholly simple, wholly immutable. Early on, the church fathers, in search of a metaphysical system, feely incorporated major elements of Hellenic philosophy in to their doctrine of God. The result was a doctrine of God in which the Deity appears as a passionless absolute or impersonal mechanical principle.
Who said God has no emotion, no real feeling? Well, one major source is Westminster Confession of Faith, a major confession in the history of Protestantism, that's who. I By the way, if you want to study matters more here. it would be helpful to you to obtain a copy of "The Book of Confessions," which contains all the main historic creeds and confessions. Anyhow, when I speak of God as "without body, parts, or passions, immutable," I am directly the WC, Pt,60.11, "Of God and of the Trinity."
Another major source is "The Second Helvetic Confession," pt.5.069. It states that" The Divine Nature of Christ is not passible...therefore we do not in any way teach that the divine nature in Christ has suffered." This is the traditional doctrine that Chris has two separate, independent natures: the human one, which is capable of emotion , and then the divine or God part of Christ, which is incapable of all emotion ( not passible). Why the two separate natures, when there is no such concept in Scripture of Christ as a kind house divided against itself? Because the church fathers felt that the Father, who is strictly speaking God, cannot suffer or experience any form of emotion, as otherwise he would not be a statically complete perfection. Early Christians who believed that God the Father had real emotion and suffered were declared heretics and drummed out of the church.
But what about the Bible, the way it speaks of God as loving, having deep feeling, suffering, expressing sorrow , experiencing real anger, , etc? The SOP was to use the what is called the doctrine of accommodation. So, firth down the line the church fathers would simply state that these biblical descriptions had absolutely nothing to do with the actual nature of God. Our intellects are so puny and weak, that God has to talk "baby talk" (Calvin's term) to us so that we can understand. So, more than once in his sermons he will talk about the wrath and anger of God and then say to the congregation that ,of course, this is not an accurate picture of God, that he has no emotion, let alone anger, and that this is just a way of making God understandable to us carnal creatures who do have emotion.
Both St. Anselm of Canterbury and St. Thomas Aquinas stressed that God is absolutely without any compassion whatsoever. St. Anselm advanced two arguments. It is better not to suffer than to suffer. Hence, God cannot suffer. Another was that God could not have any compassion, as he has no passion no emotion or feeling to begin with. Aquinas followed suit. In describing God's love, he emphasized that it is not at all like our love. What;s the difference? When we love someone, we have compassion, we God, however, because of his high status, and passionless nature, cannot and does not do that. sympathize wit their pains and sorrows. Tell me the church fathers didn't promote a cold unfeeling model of God! In fact, St, Anselm said that when God seems to help us, it is like cold rain pouring on our faces. Couple all this with the fact the fathers sis not believe God could change, was without even the shadow of movement, to quote St, Augustine, and yes, it is fair to say traditional Christianity offered up an indifferent God, an Unmoved Mover.
As some of you may have noted from previous material I posted on Calvin, traditional notions such s predestination also poses real problems. Stated simply, we have no real freedom and yes, God is the author of al the terrible evil things that happen to us. Remember, as Calvin said,, murderers, larcenists, and other evildoers are the instruments of God by which he executes his harsh judgments upon us.
That is why I said the traditional Christian concept of God is one of his being a Ruthless Moralist, Ruling Caesar, and Unmoved Mover. And that is why I said contemporary Christian scholarship is giving this classical model a major Facelift.
