The problem of atheism

GUEST EDITORIAL BY MICHAEL SHACKLETON

It matters to the Church and its beliefs that there are professed and unprofessed atheists in large numbers in the modern world. An ideology that totally contradicts the fundamental tenet of our faith, that God exists and is our Lord, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential to Christian living.

“The French theologian Henri de Lubac remarked that there are no atheists, simply those who think they do not believe in God.” (CNS photo/Tyrone Turner courtesy of Religion News Service)

If the reality or concept of a transcendent God is rejected, then so are Christ’s divinity and the substance of the Christian faith.

Vatican II pointed out that atheism is one of the most serious problems of our time, and atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be “an end in himself and the sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 19,20).

It may be easy to define atheism as the rejection of the existence of God but it is far less simple to declare who in particular does so absolutely or conditionally. St Paul wrote that what can be known about God is perfectly plain since God himself has made it plain, and ever since God created the world, his power and deity, however invisible, have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made (Rom 1:20-32).

For St Paul the evidence of God’s creative power is right there, in the created things we all experience. He finds no excuse for those who cannot acknowledge this.

Of course, psychologists know that there are degrees of perception, and not everyone will immediately react to the experience of the real world by inferring that it has a superior creator god as its source and origin.

There are individuals who may resist the idea of a god, yet of a god they have never known or tried to understand. Some may get the idea of a vindictive god who is responsible for all the evil in the world. Others will want to be free from any restraints imposed by an unknown god. Many will be more agnostic than atheist yet lack the intellectual honesty to know and commit themselves to being one or the other.

The French theologian Henri de Lubac remarked that there are no atheists, simply those who think they do not believe in God.

Here we can consider the comment made by Pope Francis in which he apparently said non-believers could be saved through Christ if they do good.

A Vatican spokesman, Fr Thomas Rosica, reaffirmed the Church’s teaching: those who can clearly see that Jesus Christ is the only way, truth and life in relation to God, yet stubbornly refuse to embrace this fact in their hearts, are not destined to eternal happiness. This was not in contradiction of the pope’s words. Rather, it laid stress on the Church’s belief that God wants all humans to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and it is only those who have the faculties to absorb this with commitment yet do not use them, who will be lost to Christ and his Church.

Not everyone is going to concur on who or what God is. The question is: Does a transcendent God exist? This is a vital question for Christians and it is one that we must answer by the way we live and practise our creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty…

One example may highlight this: Those who perform Catholic baptisms, marriages and funerals that often dwell excessively on human feelings and reminiscences, must never be tempted to let God be elbowed out of the sanctuary where he is forever present.