Ist Gott Tot ( Is God Dead )

The madman ran through the marketplace shouting “Gott ist tot. Wir haben ihm getötet. ( God is dead. We have killed him )”. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Zarathustra in the 1880s on the rise of the Rational Man. The invisible, all-powerful Divinity is just a figment of man’s imagination. God is killed in the Age of Enlightenment. The rational mind is fully capable of logically figuring things out. The universe is governed by the Laws of Physics or Nature and there is no Divine Providence.

Atheists commonly deride the existence of Creator by pointing out the ridiculous idea that out of billions of galaxies, the tiny planet Earth is so significant to God that He waited for billions of years till the environment is able to sustain life, then showed up and created every living creature, only to disappear for the next 7,000 years. It is irrational to believe there is a Creator.

Those who are inclined towards theism (belief in a God) can take comfort in the fact that many great thinkers past and present, many of whom are great scientists, share the belief of a universal intelligent Creator. It does’nt appear to be irrational after all. Sir Isaac Newton was devoutly religious, as was Rene Descartes. Einstein famously said “God does not play with dice”. The consumate atheist Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.

My position is there is a God, the Creator, and that proof of this automatcally whitewashes Dawinism. I write from the perspective of the western world, where Judeo-Christian traditions and values have been pushed back by secularisation that came out of the Age of Enlightenment and unleashed dangerous consequences that we experience today.

No philosophical theory which I have yet come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis, that ‘In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth’.
… C.S. Lewis

Ever since cavemen gazed at the stars at night, they instinctively felt there is an unseen Creator. Other than Abraham, Mosses and some others in the Old Testament who had felt the presence of God, or seen His manifestation, there is no evidential proof of His existence. In our present day science and technology, it is easy to forget many things we understand today, stuff like gravity, electricity, viruses, the expanding universe, the Earth’s revolution around the Sun and its rotation on an axis, etc, were initially abstracts developed out of logical postulation.

Cosmological arguments originated with the Greek thinkers with Aristotle’s ‘First Cause’ being foundational. Aristotle himself must have wrestled with “Nothing comes from nothing”, an idea of Parmenides who preceded him. These are causality theories that something caused the universe to come into being. It was a search for origins of the universe, not a divinity outing. Thomas Aquinas, a 12th century theological philosopher, was one of the first to provide arguments for the existence of God in his book Summa Theologica. He proposed the quinque viae (“Five Ways”) or five logical arguments regarding the existence of God. Aquinas’ arguments basically shifted the idea of the First Cause to an entity we call God. Cosmological arguments run into a problem of the infinite, as each case has a cause, back into infinity. This is the question of if God created the universe, who created God, and so on.

A modern revision of these cosmological arguments is the Kalam Cosmological Argument proposed by William Lane Craig. This is derived from Islamic thoughts. Craig’s idea is all things that came into being has a cause, thus the Universe has a cause. God willed by Speech (or Words) the Universe into being. God is the Uncaused Cause which transcends the Universe, thus it is timeless, spaceless, infinite. Kalam Argument overcomes the problem of infinite regression.

Let’s pause and reflect for a moment, what is this concept of God. Is it anthropomorphic, (has human features)? This is asking about the nature of God, and it is a meaningless question as God is beyond nature, it is supernatural. We can posit on the attributes of God. If it created the universe, it existed before Time began, thus it is Timeless. and it is outside, and not part of the Universe, ie God is transcendental – beyond the Laws of Physics and Nature. Its essense is Intelligence, thus it is formless and permeats universally, or Omniscient. That it is Omnipotent and interferes in the affairs of humanity is man’s construct based on faith, revelation and theological philosophy.

A Creator exists but the manner of its substance is unfathommable to man. The idea that there is an external Intelligence outside the consciousness of living things manifests itself in Nature. What explains a shoal of fish to change direction simultaneously? How is it possible that hundreds of thousands of fish in a shoal can all change direction in the same split second? A flock of hundreds of birds in flight move similarly in the sky. Frogs, caterpillars, butterflies and some other creatures occasionally obey an unknown intelligence to congregate somewhere. What explains the mass hysteria seen often amongst Muslim women on factory floors?

A psuedoscientific explanation for the existence of God is the “Intelligent Design” argument. Ironically it’s the advancement of science that points more and more to the plausibility of an intelligent and transcendatal designer. Science has revealed so much wonders and the intricacies in so many features in the natural world which are impossible to attribute them to have come into being by pure chance. So many things are so finely-tuned in the world for life to exist. Sir Isaac Newton and many of his peers upheld “that the physical laws ….. uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God.” William Paley took on the watch analogy that if one were to find a watch, one automatically knows it did’nt come into existence on its own, but that there was a designer responsible for it. Francis Collins, who led the Human Gnome Project, said when he first saw the DNA he felt he was looking at the Book Of Life. There are 3.1 billion bits of information in the DNA gnome mapping. It’s simply mind-boggling. He likened the DNA to the softwares that bring machineries to life, the DNA being the softwares that cause cells to function the way they are supposed to and bring life to organisms. Bill Gates adds that whilst software works in parity mode, DNA coding seems to be of a terribly complex 4-bit level.

The American philosopher Dallas Willard (1935-2013) laid out the most logical proof of existence of a Creator. Willard was heavily influenced by the German philosopher Edmund Husserf who started a new way of philosophical thought called Phenomenology which is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. Willard’s 3 conditions for the existence of God:

1. External condition – It is a physical reality that every physical quantity owes its existence to something else. It does not explain its own existence. It does not will itself into existence. Take for example, an apple. No matter how it is cut up and examined, the apple cannot explain its existence.

2. Conditions precedent – There is a necessary condition in some specific type of state which immediately precedes a physical quantity in time and is fully existent prior to the emergence of the state which it is. The apple obviously requires an apple tree to bear fruit. The apple tree has to be physically present at the time and space of the apple coming into existence. The apple tree itself does not explain its own existence. It came about from some physical apple seed that was planted in some preceding time. So it goes back a series of physical causes — but no physical quantity explains its own existence.

3. Self-existent First Term – The natural world is observed in terms of (a) currently existing physical structures whose existence depends on that of underlying structures, or (b) events each of which depends on the occurrence of previous events. This logic leads to an ultimate First Term or Cause which can only be satisfied under 2 conditions — (i) There cannot be infinite causes and time because if there is infinity, then the present physical quantity could not have arrived. This is best explained with dominoes. For example, the 200th tile is knocked down by the 199th tile which in turn was caused to fall by the 198th and so on. We keep on going backwards till the 1st tile. There has to be a 1st tile. It is impossible to have infinity in the regression because if so, we will never arrive at the 200th tile; (ii) Since all the physical quantities or events cannot explain itself, the 1st tile domino cannot explain itself, the First Cause must be outside of the Natural system, ie non-physical or transcendental.

Willard’s idea gets beyond naturalism and open up the strong possibility that the non-physical, self-existence First Cause of the Universe is the Christian God.

“All species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce”… Darwin’s theory

Charles Darwin beat many illuminaries of his time to the press to publish “On The Origins of Species” in 1859, which was an epoch shattering moment. Darwinism greatly boosted the Naturalists of the time and drove a spear into the heart of Theistic philosophy in the following decades. Did Darwinism in any way negate the idea of the existence of God? Absolutely not.  Darwin was in fact a religious person. He made it clear his theory did not present an explanation on the First Cause. Evolution is not an explanation for ultimate origins. It does’nt explain the Big Bang. Nor could it explain the Cambrian explosion of species. Natural processes have never been observed to produce the biodiversity and complexity of cell development.

Darwin was merely espousing on micro-variations over a vast expense of time. There was no cross species evolution. Many things could not be explained away by evolution. If the giraffes neck grew so long in order to reach the higher trees for the leaves, would it be wrong to expect Filipinos who lived by the seashores to have grown longer legs climbing those coconut trees? Advancement in sciences in fields like epigenetics and new knowledge on mutation, variation, DNA sequencing, etc, are showing that Darwinism is no longer irrefutable.  (Read ‘one third of biologists now question Darwinism‘).

“Knowledge enormous makes a God of me” … John Keats

18th century Age of Enlightenment unshackled men from the chains of the Church. It was euphoric times when great thinkers proposed the rational mind could explain everything in the unverse with Laws of Physics or Nature. The absolutes from revelation which had guided the western world were no longer the Way. Naturalism and atheism became vogue and Church attendance declined and continues to decline today.

There have been militant atheists out there ever since. In the late 2000s there was an explosion of Atheistic literature that ‘New Atheists’ became a cause celibre. Any discourse with atheists tends to be rabid and with rancor. Men of science look out of their laboratories at faith believers as irrational and ignorant. Very much similar to any engagement with MMTeers. The living atheist high priest is superstar David Hawkins, who is happily raking in millions from the sales of his books. His latest best seller “God Delusion” made claims that infuriated David Belinski, himself an atheist, to respond with his own book “Devil’s Delusion” which lambasted the pretensions of scientists.

Francis Bacon said it eloquently :
“It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth philosophy bringeth men’s minds to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further.”

Atheists will not discuss ‘origins’. As Dawkins puts it, to discuss origin is to bring in religion. And if they must, then they subscribe to Panspermia, a theory of life coming from cosmic dusts contamination caused by travelling space aliens on their star-hopping Odyssey. If pushed, Stephen Hawkins saves them with the Big Bang Theory. But then they are cornered. Big Bang Theory posits the beginning of the world from one tiny dot of singularity. The problem is that quantum physicists agree that at singularity, the Laws of Physics break down. So Atheists’ idea of origin starts off from a state where their Laws of Physics do not apply.

Atheists will attack religion and try to show how irrational it is to believe in faith, without realising the Science they believe in is in fact, their religion. Invariably, they will point to the destructive nature of religion and how violent religion has been historically. They will point to the hundreds of thousands killed in the Crusades or the Conquistadors, or in the Inquisitions. Yet they fail to see rationalist minds like Maximillien Robespierre drove the French Revolution into its excesses in the period known as the Reign of Terror.   Neither do they see the monstrous events of sheer evil madness when hundreds of millions of people were slaughtered  in Germany, Russia, China, and Cambodia, all committed by men with no religion.

Atheists do not realise the freedom of thought that allowed them to develop naturalist ideas came from the very Judeo-Christian values and traditions they seek to break from. Compare this to the haunting vacumn of naturalist thoughts from the Islamic or Eastern worlds. Nobody wants a theocracy. That was settled long ago in Jesus’ “Render unto Ceasar that which belongs to Ceaser; and to God that which belongs to God”. But atheists want to obliterate God.

Where is all this hate for God coming from that is increasingly pulling believers out of Churches? Out of 17th century Age of Enlightenment, rationalists proliferated. These learned minds populated scholastic universities and in 3 or 4 generations, the learning institutions are churning out naturalists and these new learned minds end up in top echelons of governance and the business world. One single person has the capability to change 100,000 minds over time.

Atheistic militancy is nowhere more profound than in the US. America grew as a nation strongly entrenched in Judeo-Christian traditions. Much of the credit for this goes to John Locke who was himself much influenced by Sir Isaac Newton. After World War II, German philosophical seeds crossed the Atlantic Sea as the US took in hundreds of Nazi scientists who became naturalised US citizens. Mostly through the learning institutions the seeds germinated and soon whole new generations of fine minds indoctrinated with noveau naturalism, took over policy making machineries in government, academia, and decision making positions in media. And we wonder why the media today are so ultra liberal, churches are hollowing out, and neoliberalism is moving to the extreme left.

Engel v. Vitale 1962 was the landmark case when the US Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to have a prayer recitation in public schools. From hence, Americans under Democrats have gone on to kick the Church out of schools, out of government, out of the Police and Army. 12 years under Obama and the Democrats have not only gone to the extreme political left but has gone to bed with extreme right Islamists. Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff of Hillary Clinton, is a card carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Zaki Barzinji, as liaison to the Muslim American community under the Office of Public Engagement, is the grandson of the founder of Muslim Brotherhood. There were other Muslim Brotherhood affiliates with roles in various levels of the government. Extreme Left Liberals played right into the hands of Muslim Brotherhood’s manual on an Islamic takeover of the US. Today it’s difficult to give a talk on Christianity, nor a civil critique of Islam, without being branded an “Islamophobe”. Entrenched Islamic and Atheist interests in Academia, funded by Saudi Arabian money, will prevent Christian apologetics or Islamic critics, from ever entering US campuses. It’s ironic the naturalists’ disbelief in the Judeo-Christian God paves the way by default to the Islamic God.

“We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me … Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.” …. Kai Nielsen (atheist).

It is frightening that atheists themselves opine that there is no morality in naturalism. That is not to say that an atheist is naturally immoral. All thinking persons accept that there are laws of morality. If there are laws, there is a Giver of the laws. Atheists reject there is a Giver of Laws of Morality. Naturalists thinkers all wrestle with the issue of morality. The quintessential atheist Betrand Russell said he has no answer to the question of morality and that’s what haunted him. Dawkins submitted that the reality of evil has to be denied if the argument that there is no God is to stay valid.

Nietzsche’s madman asked :
“Whither is God? I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

What an extraordinary insight. Nietzsche understood Naturalism leads to abandonment of morals. “Unchained this Earth from the Sun” is about the rejection of existence of God. “Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?” is talking about wiping away Judeo-Christian traditions and values and re-writing them. “Is there any more up and down?” is about high and low moral values. “Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?” – we are blind to moral values that we need to light up the day in order to see.

The loss of moral values in a godless world is the great danger that philosophers can see, even those who are atheists. With no moral boundaries, hedonistic lifestyle surges. The world is increasingly focused on indulgences of the sensual kind – in food, sex, drugs, alcholism, gaming, filthy wealth accumulation, pornography, etc. Is it a wonder Extreme Left Liberals champion gay sex marriages and abortion and the killing of millions of foetuses. Is it a wonder to see displays of monstrosities of evil entities popping up in public spaces. Is it a wonder why the ‘Living Dead’ zombies themed movies are churned out. Is it a wonder why folks are tattooing their bodies in vile debasement of the temples of God but calling it art. Is it a wonder why the seductively easy way of MMT economics is popping up at this particular time. Everything makes sense taken in the context of lax morality in a godless world. Moral standards are decaying in western societies. When we discard God, we dismantle the moral boundaries that guide our lives. With no God, nothing is sacred anymore. Marriage is not sacred, your property is not sacred, your neighbours’ properties are not sacred, your words and promises are not sacred, the constitution is not sacred.

Move away from God, and abominations fill the vacuum. How many times must the Bible repeat the same story?

The path of atheism leads to nihilism — meaninglessness. Atheists believe after death, there is nothing – just decaying atoms. Deny the existence of God, then there is no meaning in our lives, no hope. Atheists offer us nothing. Is it a wonder many surveys are showing students say they suffer most from meaningless in their lives, which quite often is a cause for suicides. Nihilism devalues lives which are then taken too lightly. Is it a wonder that godless leaders, who believed in their own powers, led to extermination of hundreds of millions in Nazi Germany, Communist USSR, China under Mao, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and many other wanton unconstitutional killings on smaller scales elsewhere.

Gott ist nicht tot (God is not dead)

Multiculturalism is well and good and it enriches lives. But pluralism is failing due to exclusivity of belief systems. Each community says their way is the right way. Period. Lax immigration policies pursued by extreme left liberalism and Judeo-Christian humanitarian idealism has seen a one-way migration of people from Islamic backgrounds pouring into Western Europe and US. The situation is now untenable and it’s a powder keg waiting to explode. Austria recently closed down many unauthourised mosques and banned foreign imams (mostly Turks) and the reaction of Turkey’s strongman Endrogan is the threat of nuclear war.

On the issue of exclusivity, the reader is pardoned to ask the next logical question –  so, which God? In a world facing a civilisation clash, one needs to thread carefully to avoid being labelled a bigot, Islamophobe, or someone agitating religious intolerance. Whether you believe in a compassionate God that teaches Love, in Whom you can seek a personal relationship, and gives you Free Will to make your own decisions, or you believe in a God that demands your total submission and requires world domination by the extermination of non-believers, or you have Gods that manifest themselves in some other ways, it is after all, your belief.

To the reader’s question, I say seek and ye will find. In this, I have found the best teacher in Ravi Zacharia who said any worldview must have answers to four questions – Origin, Meaning, Morality, and Destiny and must stand the tests of logical consistency (coherence), empirical adequacy, and experiential relevance. In this manner have I found mine. To this I will add if your faith is strong, never be fearful to allow your beliefs be subject to scrutiny and querry, as some faith I know considers it a blasphemy simply to raise a question.

In closing, the words of Dallas Willard :

“The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.”