Atheism.

Natural reason, to oppose atheism (or agnosticism), can bring forward arguments for the existence of a creating God, as we have seen earlier. But it can oppose atheism by also bringing to light invalid reasons why some people refuse to accept the existence of God. And it can also answer specific arguments that atheists put forward.

One invalid reason for being an atheist is that a person was brought up in such a way that the influences brought to bear on him favoured atheism. Most people know someone who does not believe in God and whose upbringing was such that he never really had a chance to do otherwise. His parents did not believe, or at least did not practice, their faith; he went to a secular public school; and while he was there his friends were about the same as himself. I read of a Communist leader in Paris several decades ago who in his thirties became a Catholic. He said that he never actually met a Christian until he was in his late twenties. In his autobiography, Dr. Bernard Nathanson tells of his dreadful deliberate atheistic upbringing. He became a leading abortionist in the United States. It was only decades later that he stopped performing abortions, became a leading pro-life activist, and finally became a Catholic.

Another invalid reason for being an atheist is that a person does not want to give up the sinful life he is living. It could be that he was a believer when he was younger but now he has acted against that belief so much that the thought of going back to it fills him with dread; it is easier to tell himself that there is no God. After killing King Duncan and others in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth told himself: "I am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er."

As for answering specific pro-atheistic arguments, the most common, and perhaps the hardest to answer, is that, if there were a good, creating God, there would not be so much evil in the world.

The first attempt to answer this argument is to point out that the evil in the world is caused by human free will. Wars, murders, rapes, the oppression of the poor, the abuse of children, and so on, are caused by human malice. And the reason human beings are free is so that they can love God and their neighbour but, wherever there is free will, there must be the possibility of moral evil.

As for natural disasters such as droughts, floods, or forest-fires, one can argue that they are allowed by God as punishment for sin. If it is alleged that only some people are gravely immoral, and that the innocent often have great suffering, one has to point out that the human race is a unity, that we are brothers and sisters of one another, and that the suffering of the innocent, besides atoning for their own lesser sins, can also atone for the great sins of others.

And this is the best that philosophy can do. We say to ourselves, "But there is so much evil, so much suffering. I'm sure that, if I were God, I would be able to prevent a lot of it." And what does God answer? "My children, I love you. I don't want you to suffer. I don't want you to be evil. But I made you free, and you want your freedom. How can I show you that the suffering, the evil, come from evil human beings, not from me? In so far as I am God I cannot suffer. But I became a human being so that I could suffer with you. I even allowed myself to be put to death so that you can see that it is the evil in human beings that is to blame, the evil which kills even the Son of God. Evil exists because you are free. I must allow it but I would not allow it unless I saw that it is far outweighed by good. That is why I rose from the dead: to show you that, though evil is necessary, it cannot triumph."

The answer to the problem of evil is not found as convincingly in philosophy as in the revealed truth that God became a human being and died for love of us.

Fr. Kennedy at present teaches philosophy at the Academy of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Barry's Bay, ON.