ANSWER TO RUSSELL'S, "WHY I AM NOT...."
Recently, I came back to daily relationship with Jesus Christ. As far as my own understanding and feelings go-I don't need any intellectual justification to validate that which is already so amazingly real to me. Anything more would be mere "window dressing". I do have a son, that is convinced (as much as a 20 year old can be convinced) that secular humanism is the only legit way to percieve reality. He would probably deny that he is a humanist(so did Russell), but no other label fits his espoused philosophy in my estimation. For His benefit and to put my own thoughts in order-I thought I would write this humble essay. When our subject is too broad it is practically impossible to really make any headway in coming to real understanding. With that in mind, I decided to narrow this essay to Russell's famous essay "Why i am not a Christian." I am very familiar with the work; having read it many times through the years and have written papers on it in the past for college philosophy. The essay also is a sort of starting point for most rationalist attacks on true Christianity. So please bear with me. I am a layman, not a philosopher. I don't have even a undergraduate degree. I am self-taught while spending years in the "belly of the beast"-our nations prison system. I am in good company with the likes of Malcolm X and many other brothers whose only finishing school is in the prisons of the powers that be.
Russell originally delivered the famous lecture entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian." at the At the Battersea Town Hall on March 27, 1927. It was published in 1957 in a volume I used to own that included many of his other essays. He believes that Christianity, along with every other religion, is both untrue and harmful. Furthermore, in Russell's opinion the teaching of religion to children inhibits their ability to think clearly and to cooperate with others whose beliefs differ from theirs. Far from being the source of great contributions to the civilizations of the world, religion has done nothing more than help fix the calendar and provoke Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses. In Russell's words, "These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others." In short, Russell took as dim a view of religion as one can take and he claimed to have good philosophical reasons for doing so.
It should be pointed out in passing that Russell's pontifications about history have all the characteristics of the dogmatic religious narrowness and bigoted ignorance that he professed to loathe. No historian, Christian or non-Christian, would ever make the kind of simplistic assertions that Russell made. Nor should any well-read high school student be without the knowledge to refute them. How can a man of Russell's intellectual stature and education express such utter nonsense? The answer may be that Russell is to some atheists what the fundamentalist preacher is to uneducated Christians. What he provides for his followers is not enlightenment, but emotional support, a goal that, in cases where factual and logical proof are insufficient or not understood, can best be achieved by extreme rhetoric. Russel was a master of that. I spent about 3 hours last week watching old videos of him and could not take my eyes off the screen. I admit the man had charisma.
Setting aside Russell's remarkable views on history, we return to his reasons for rejecting Christianity. First, Russell tells us that we must define what it means to be a Christian. He is surely correct in asserting that it used to be very clear what a Christian beleives, but that Christianity nowadays is rather vague. He aparently assumed that his audience would be more likely to run into the modern murky mentality and therefore chose to refute the less vigorous form of Christianity. Having defined what he means by Christianity, next Russell offers two main arguments against Christianity. First, he contends that the traditional Catholic arguments for the existence of God are inadequate. Second, he maintains that Christ was not the best and wisest of men. Either argument, if established, refutes Christianity. If God does not exist, or if Christ is inferior to, say, Socrates or the Buddha, then Christianity is not true.
As I will explain, a Christian may, in one sense, grant Russell's argument about the existence of God. Traditional Catholic arguments for the existence of God are deficient. Though the reader of his lecture may not be able to escape the impression that Russell is rather too quick in his dismisal of argumants that have occupied the greatest minds in Western history, the points that he makes are cogent enough, at least against the weak form of the theistic arguments he presents. Even more carefully stated presentations of the traditional arguments suffer from defects similar to those that Russell mentions.
As to Christ, Russell should have stated his case with much more vigor. If indeed Christ was mistaken on all of the matters Russell claims he was mistaken, then he was no great man at all. He was just another ancient religious quack whose name is better forgotten, whose sound ideas may be found in countless other thinkers. But, as we will demonstrate, Russell's arguments fail. In the final analysis; Russell gives us nothing more than an expression of his own irrational bias, an idea about the world which, if it were true, would invalidate the very possibility of knowledge and ethics.(Think carefully about that point David.) I argue that without the Christianity he hates, Russell cannot formulate an argument for or against anything.
Russell briefly explains and then refutes in order the following five arguments for the existence of God: 1) the first cause argument, 2) the natural law argument, 3) the argument from design, 4) the moral argument, 5) the argument for the remedying of injustice. As I said above, he has not chosen to refute the best forms of these arguments, but a man of Russell's ability should be able to respond effectively even to the most sophisticated presentations, for the proponents of these arguments do not usually regard them as airtight proofs. These arguments are merely said to point to the probability of God's existence or the reasonableness of faith in God.
Russell's five arguments belong to three basic types of arguments for the existence of God: cosmological, teleological, and moral. Cosmological arguments argue that the universe must have been caused and that the cause is most likely God. Teleological arguments argue that the order men observe in the world cannot be accidental and, therefore, suggests design by God. Moral arguments come in various types. Russell deals with two, one which contends that God must be the source of moral standards and the other which argues that the moral injustice of history must be rectified by a post-historical judgment.
Russell's objections to the traditional arguments are neither original nor particularly profoundly stated. Concerning the cosmological type of argument Russell states, in essence, that if Christians can believe in a God who needs no cause, he can believe in a universe that needs no cause. (Yeah, Yeah, he's grasping here David.) To the teleological arguments he answers that the world does not need a law-giver to have laws, nor is the order in the world impressive when one considers the problem of evil. (Come on David, How does bringing up the problem of evil invalidate the wondrous bueaty of all the implicent order in the universe, especially in the quantum world) Moral arguments fail too, in Russell's opinion, because there must be a standard for good and evil apart from God in order to affirm God's goodness, but if there is such a standard, then men do not need God for morality, but the standard itself. Russell could have added that even if the traditional arguments for God were accepted, they would only demonstrate the probability of the existence of some kind of a god, which is still a long way from proving the existence of the Triune Personal God of Christianity.
Finally, in a concluding argument against Christianity, Russell asserts "Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments that I have been talking to you about are not what really moves people. What really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason." (David, I can prove in my case that is for sure not true. I was your age before I came to believe. C.S. Lewis was in his 30's and my parents never sent me to church or talked much about god until i came to The Lord.)
He adds a second reason, "the wish for safety, a sort of feeling that there is a big brother who will look after you." Again, he writes near the end of the essay, "Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death." According to Russell, then -- and this seems to be the most important point actually -- belief in God is not a rational enterprise. People believe out of habit or fear, but they have no adequate intellectual basis for their faith.
What should a Christian say to all this? In the first place, we should admit that the traditional approach is wrong. Christians should not be attempting to prove the existence of God to unbelievers as if both Christians and non-Christians alike could address this question from a neutral perspective. In the nature of the case, intellectual discussions about God are not ethically neutral. Ironically, there is a sense in which Russell himself seems to understand this point better than some Christians. He suggests that Christians are irrational in their faith, believing, as it were, in spite of better knowledge. In Russell's view something other than the strictly intellectual issues, either fear or a desire for security, determines the Christian's faith.But this is precisely what the Bible teaches about the unbeliever.
According to the Bible, the unbeliever is not intellectually neutral and objective. He is irrational, unbelieving in spite of better knowledge. In his heart he knows that God exists (You know it too David), but he rejects Christianity out of fear, especially the fear of death which is ultimately a fear that God will judge his sins. For the unbeliever, eliminating God from the world is the way to obtain security. Arguments against God are motivated by the unbeliever's wish to believe that he is ethically normal and that the apparent unfriendliness of the universe, summed up in the inescapable fact of death, is not a testimony against his sins. Terrified of death, the non-Christian seeks to justify himself in the face of it, some denying that it has any special meaning, others asserting that it will be a wonderful experience. All of this manifests what the Bible is speaking of when it says that sinful man hates God (Rom. 8:7). (David-- Roman's is one of the deepest, most coherent depiction of the dilemma of humankind)
When, therefore, a Christian argues with an unbeliever about the existence of God, he is not engaging in a neutral discussion. From the unbeliever's perspective it is more like a personal attack. From the Christian's perspective it is seeking the salvation of a man who is blind and lost. Neither side is or can be neutral, so the traditional approach to apologetics, since it assumes or recommends neutrality, cannot honestly represent the Christian position.(Especially with you David-How can I be neutral?)
What about Russell's denial of God's existence? Russell's arguments do not stand. It can be demonstrated that Russell's approach is fundamentally irrational, evidence that the Biblical description of the unbeliever is accurate. Russell does not reject Christianity for neutral philosophical reasons. He rejects Christianity out of fear.(He is scareed David, you have to see some of the videos of his lectures-you can see the fear in his eyes).
To demonstrate the truth of this assertion requires what might be called an indirect approach. We have to ask the question, if Christianity is untrue, and all the other religions of the world are also untrue, what is the alternative? If Russell has chosen to reject Christianity, it is presumably because he has found something better. At least he has found some substitute worldview. What was it?
To find the answer to this-I had to strain my eyes trying to read a web version of another of his essays-"A Free Man's Worship." It jumped out to me because of the word "worship". I am going to put some of his own words in here because I don't know if you've read this essay. In "A Free Man's Worship." Russell informs us that science teaches us of a purposeless world, void of meaning: He Says:
"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's salvation henceforth be safely built."
This is a bleak image, but, as he hinted in the pregnant words "soul's salvation," Russell finds hope, and in so doing betrays a Christian hangover. In the paragraph immediately following the above quotation, unyielding despair yields:
"A strange mystery it is that nature, omnipotent but blind, in the revolutions of her secular hurryings through the abysses of space, has brought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but gifted with sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity of judging all the works of his unthinking mother. In spite of death, the mark and seal of the parental control, man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticize, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life."
Having rejected God and posited a blind, omnipotent mother-nature, Russell blithely assumes that he can somehow from this "firm foundation of unyielding despair" infer knowledge, morality, and freedom. Readers must assume that the adjective "omnipotent" is used here by way of hyperbole, since he has not demonstrated that nature must be all-powerful. But one cannot simply allow him to speak of "nature." What actually does he mean by "nature"? The answer would seem to be brute forces. But brute forces could be the forces of an utterly irrational universe of chance, or the forces of a deterministic system.
How did Russell conceive of it? In the essay "What I Believe," written in 1925, Russell wrote "Man is part of nature, not something contrasted with nature. His thoughts and his bodily movements follow the same laws that describe the motions of stars and atoms." David, I'll give you another long quote from him, You will probably writhe in escatsy while I try to control my nausea!
"Mother nature appears to be Mama machine. If that is the case, the one thing that neither man nor any other being has is freedom. Mechanical necessity rules all. Not having freedom, man's so-called knowledge would be nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain, inevitable as the "laws that describe the motions of stars and atoms" and devoid of meaning. Good and evil would be words that men use because something in their brains has triggered them to think and speak in such terms, but ethical words could have no real content."
Russell gives us, in other words, a world that is not only without God, but one which logically excludes the possibility of rational knowledge, ethics, and freedom, a world in which "nature" itself obviates the existence of the kind of free man he wishes to believe in. The bare assertion that knowledge, ethics, and freedom exist cannot bring them into being, except in Russell's fervid imagination. Mama machine can only give birth to baby machines.
If, to escape this problem, David, you should seek to find comfort in a world of chance, another view of the world suggested by Russell, you would not actually be helped at all. Chance knows nothing of reason, ethics, or freedom. Randomness -- the "liberty" of spastic convulsion -- is the closest a world of chance can possibly come to the idea of freedom, but randomness is inexplicable by definition. It precludes reason. And in a world without logic or reason, good and evil cannot exist. Thus, whether Russell chooses a deterministic mechanical view of the universe or a chance view of the universe, he has no right to proceed beyond the foundation of despair to find salvation in a free man's worship. No right Damn it! If he wasn't dead, I think I'd give him a whipping with my cane! His vision of the free man is a religious delusion, a desperate dream to comfort those not brave enough to face real despair. I have faced real despair and if you haven't yet David-you will! His confession of faith, then, is the epitome of fanaticism:
"To worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power."
David we must conclude that Russell's view of the world is irrational. A world that is ultimately ruled either by chance or deterministic law is a world in which the idea of knowledge is unintelligible. It is clear, then, as we asserted above, that Russell does not hold on to this faith for intellectual reasons. It has been suggested, and will be argued further in the next chapter, that Russell's real motivation is fear of God's judgment.
Concerning his so-called philosophical argument against Christianity, it must be admitted that on Russell's presuppositions Christianity is untrue. This is not a particular problem, however, because on his presuppositions, his own philosophy is also untrue. If Russell's presuppositions reduce his own philosophy to absurdity, they cannot be used to deny Christianity.
David if you are honest and have read this without your obvious bias you will have to admit that my indirect approach has demonstrated is that Russell makes demands on Christianity that cannot be fulfilled by his own alternative either. What he does is typical of non-Christian philosophy in general. The unbeliever demands that God meet his impossible conditions -- impossible due to limitations in man and impossible because they contradict the nature of God and reality -- and then has the audacity to claim that God fails. But his own inability to provide a rational alternative resoundingly speaks the hidden truth that Russell is a fool, that his pretended intellectual neutrality is a sham, that his reasoning is controlled by a perverse self interest. This, the real reason that Russell was not a Christian, does not argue against Christianity. Just the opposite. -- The facts that Russell in attempting to philosophically disprove Christianity is unable to provide a logical alternative, and that he actually conforms to the Christian description of man, serve, rather, as an indirect argument for the truth of Christianity.
Do you ever wonder what the mind is? Only so much thought can be exerted into this almost unanswerable inquiry. Many greater minds than mine have wrestled with this question and you may wonder what I can add to the great multiplicity of writings on this subject. All of our understandings are unique to us. With the wonder of the net, we can all put our two cents in.
