Breaking Down Belief: The Logic of Theology and Atheism

Wyatt Duclos is a college student currently enrolled in his fifth year of religious studies and has additionally served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Italy for two years.

“Obviously you don't understand much, Duclos, you’re Mormon.” “You would believe that: you believe God exists.” “Did your bishop tell you that one?” It was an argument that my opponent deemed applicable in any intellectual discussion, regardless of the actual topic in question. I had imagined that spending two years as a missionary in a foreign country would help me gain respect among my cohorts, yet that was not the case. In 2014, it was found that about 1 in 3 college students were atheist (Friendly Atheist, 1). The correlation between a belief in God and stupidity has always been one of my most loathed arguments. My belief in God stemmed from a love of truth and was sorted by the scrutiny through which I put all information. I found myself to be a very logical, methodical person and my belief was not simply a side act, like a teenager who still believes in Santa Claus.

It seems the prevalent belief in scholarly forums is shifting to attack God on grounds of logic with an appeal to science. Yet this change in stance away from God is only based on fallacious assumptions about science, the nature of God, and claiming a belief in God as an easy option to explain the unknown. The intent of this paper is aimed to help university students (as well as people in general) learn that theology is not weakness expressed in belief, but a hope in something that simply has less proof.

The first point with which atheists attack God is that an “advance of natural science, logic, and psychology have brought us to a stage at which God is no longer a useful hypothesis” (Huxley, 277). However, this claim is spurious in nature because science itself is not meant to prove anything. Science is defined as “a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws” (Oxford, “Science”). This definition and its utility in this argument may further make sense through an example. Imagine a sentient creature with an understanding of science awoke in the United States of America. After familiarizing himself with the world around him, he starts a scientific study of the laws of the land, the general laws of his world. Regardless of what he discovers, the laws themselves cannot disprove the existence of a law maker. Further, the more this creature learns about laws of the land, the more certain he will be that there is a lawmaker. Science has no grounds to disprove the “why” of the universe when its whole purpose is “how” the universe operates. John A. Widtsoe, Ph. D. stated in his book Joseph Smith As Scientist,

“It is true that in the beginning of science no faith seems to be required; for every statement is based on experiments and observations…nothing is ‘taken on trust.’ As the deeper parts of science are explored, however, it is soon discovered that in science as in theology, a faith in ‘things that cannot be seen,’ is an essential requisite for progress. In fact, the fundamental laws of the great divisions of science deal with realities that are wholly and hopelessly beyond the reach of man's five senses” (Chapter IX, Faith).

Widtsoe shows how science and theology can in fact, coexist. Indeed, science explains the how, not the why of the universe. Mr. Evan Whitaker, a junior high school science teacher once said in a lecture to his students, “I believe that if a man understood science and religion on a deep enough level, he would find that they all stemmed from the same great source.”

The Big Bang is an example of an attempt to utilize science to disprove God. It has been a point of conflict between theologians and atheists, the latter arguing that it is  a proof that God does not exist and the former believing as Robert Jastrow, previous head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “[S]cientists who, after climbing the arduous mountain of cosmology, came to the summit only to find theologians there already” (Russell, 117). This belief is common among theologians, a belief that the Big Bang is an “empirical confirmation, perhaps even proof, of divine creation” (Russell, 107). Yet the science behind the Big Bang explains how something happened, but cannot explain why it happened. A coroner can discover how a person was killed, but that cannot necessarily prove if they were murdered or not. However, this coroner can show that the murderer would need certain capabilities or resources in order to murder, thus narrowing the scope of suspects to someone who can match such a description. The simple fact stands that there is no way for atheists to prove that there is no Divine Creator behind the Big Bang; they can only prove that if God exists, He is powerful enough to create the universe in such a manner. Albert Einstein poetically stated, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

The main problem people have with theology is rarely science-based, however. J.J. Dyken stated in his book The Divine Default: Why Faith Is Not the Answer, “I am an atheist in that I don’t believe in any of the gods presented by our organized religions…I find that there is something highly irrational about those who make untenable claims of certainty about invisible realities…”(9). Dyken further states, “With every faith laying claim to the true God(s), the simple fact is that they can’t all be correct. Logically, the vast majority, if not all, are wrong. This is perhaps the single biggest reason for making the case that religion is a manmade invention. If there is a God, He is most likely not a personal deity who authors books and occasionally answers prayers” (195). Examining the claims of atheists, one must conclude that they are not based on facts that counter theology; theirs is an argument based on the beliefs of theologians. Dyken concludes his book in defense of atheism by pointing at specific beliefs or thoughts that he does not agree with, saying that it is manmade for these specific reasons. Although his points are logical, he is not disproving God. His argument simply supports that most of what we as humans collectively believe about God is incorrect. An atheist cannot prove God does not exist unless a theologian quantifies the nature of the Divine Being. Therefore, any argument that could be posed by atheists cannot stand without a belief in God, or rather their “proof” that God does not exist is simply doing away with any false understandings about God. Without a priest, there is no atheist. Paul Moser concludes his article, “Undermining the Case for Evidential Atheism” with the following:

“…[A]theists in search of a cogent justification for their atheism must face the difficult lesson identified previously: their position lacks the evidential resources to be cogently justified…We may describe the problem as the undermining of the case for evidential atheism. A retreat to simple atheism will not make the problem go away…Atheists, then, are well-advised to reconsider agnosticism or monotheism, for the sake of improved evidential stability.”

It is almost impossible to find any scientist who supports atheism as a logically reasonable argument. Most conclude, as Glenn Langford did, “The question ‘Does God exist?’ is neither meaningless nor self-contradictory; and there are good grounds for asking it” (Langford, 215). Atheism, it would seem, is an argument of the uneducated. At one point, we must all step into the great abyss of faith, where we can no longer prove  our beliefs beyond a feeling in our gut.

Religion often takes the step before any other field of study. Very often a belief in God seems to justify a lack of pursuit of how or why things happened. This is perhaps the most reasonable claim of atheism, the criticism that faith prevents discovery, that it is a “crutch” to explain the harsh realities of life. But this is not necessarily the case. The logic behind the belief in God is best explained by C.S. Lewis, a British novelist, former Oxford and Cambridge professor, and renowned Christian scholar. Lewis stated: 

“[Suppose] there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God” (Butler, 58).

Here, Lewis uses a chain of logic to explain concisely both a defense of a belief in God and a direct attack of atheism. He justifies his belief in a higher power with the explanation that lack of a designer makes a creation untrustworthy. Another theologian said, “Ask yourself, ‘Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?’ The likelihood is most remote” (Nelson, 1). These perspectives show that theism is not simply superstition in an organized form. The purpose of theology is not to avoid explanation of reality, but rather explain the complexities of reality with a different point of view.

So atheism cannot disprove theism and theology is not just a way of avoiding science. What purpose can atheism therefore serve? Maybe atheism should be considered less of an attack on theology and more as a misdirected attempt of comprehension of God’s nature. Critical thinking cannot disprove God, but it can disprove fallacies about God. Questions are not a bad thing. Many religious leaders and theologians believe imperfect faith is healthy. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a prominent leader from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, shared in a conference with church members, “It’s natural to have questions—the acorn of honest inquiry has often sprouted and matured into a great oak of understanding.” In the argument of the existence of God, there is no reasonable way to claim God does not exist, only that we do not yet understand the nature of God. Belief does not dictate reality, it simply dictates our conception of and reaction to reality. I once was playing with my two year old niece. She was running away from me (I was a monster) but was quickly cornered. Her last resort was to cover her face. She believed that if she could not see me, I could not see her. For all intents and purposes, by covering her face, she no longer existed. But she did exist. The study of theology may never be enough to find out the true nature of God, but there will be no way to “logic” away God. If logic is our standard, then logic says that there is a God. God may not be properly defined by many or all religions, but He does exist. 

Belief does not change fact or truth. Belief controls the believer, not the world. God exists and although atheists will continue to cover the face of God, His existence will not change.

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