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Are atheists denying the obvious? Koukl vs. Rauser and Feser

the foolHere’s an overview, with a few comments, of an interesting little public disagreement about Romans 1 and atheism. The discussion was kicked off by evangelical apologist Greg Koukl’s “No Duh” video, where he says that according to Romans 1, all atheists are intentionally suppressing their knowledge of God.

Randal Rauser then pointed out a hard to accept implication of Koukl’s claim, which seems to require us to re-think just how we read that passage:

Think, for example, of fifteen year old Emil whose family was just massacred in a home invasion gone awry. As tears roll down his cheeks, Emil looks to heaven and cries out “God, are you really there? Do you really care?”

According to Koukl’s reading of Romans 1, the evidence of God is plain, clear, and overwhelming. And Emil’s failure to recognize it as such is borne of his own sinful rebellion.

Philosopher Ed Feser too disagrees with Koukl, in essence,

So, Koukl is, I think, correct to this extent: We do indeed have a natural tendency to infer from the natural world to a divine cause, and this tendency is strong enough that it takes some effort (in the form of philosophical reasoning) to get ourselves to conclude that we ought to resist it. And again, I think even an atheist could agree with that much (as Jeff and perhaps Carroll apparently do).

However, Koukl also seems to think that the existence of God is simply blindingly obvious, so that our inclination to believe in God is nearly overwhelming — again, as difficult to keep down as a beach ball under water. And that, I think, is simply not the case. He also implies that nothing short of culpable irrationality and blatant self-deception could possibly lead one to resist this inclination. And that, I think, is simply not the case either. There is no good philosophical or theological reason to make either of these extreme claims. And the claims are, I think, pretty clearly empirically false. For one thing, there are lots of atheists who, though deeply mistaken, are nevertheless intellectually honest and do not have a difficult time resisting belief in God.  (I used to be such an atheist, and I knew, and know, other such atheists.)  For another thing, there are religious believers who have crises of belief — who find themselves doubting even though they don’t want to doubt.

…For another thing, St. Paul need be understood as claiming merely that atheism and/or idolatry on the large scale, as mass phenomena are maintained by a kind of sinful suppression of the natural inclination in question.  And I think that’s true.

He also takes some issue with Rauser’s objections, but you’ll have to see the end of his post for that.

Koukl blogs in response, making some defensive points about the restrictions of a three minute video format. He’s a bit taken aback at the disagreement, as he feels that he’s well within the boundaries of American evangelical common sense. I think that he is. But as concerns Romans 1,

As to whether or not my take on Romans 1 is an “extreme interpretation,” I can only commend you to Paul’s wording itself. I don’t think it is the least bit vague, ambiguous, or moderate.

And he clarifies,

…I take this knowledge [of God’s existence] to be dispositional (known even if not currently or consciously aware of), not occurent (in mind and currently aware of) for the reasons that Feser (and others) pointed out. So man’s state of awareness of God, and his heart’s disposition towards rebellion against God are both sub-conscious.

Thus, though many atheists are not consciously aware of their rebellion (some are, of course) and may feel they have intellectual integrity in their atheism (some demonstrate a measure of integrity in their reasoned rejection of God), still, when all the cards are on the table in the final judgment, when men’s deepest and truest motives are fully revealed (Lk. 12:2), rebellion will be at the core.

About Rauser’s Emil case, he says,

Remember, Paul’s point is that fallen humans are in rebellion and unbelief. But regeneration changes that, does it not? Those who have come to Christ (e.g., “Emil”) are not the subject of his concern. Doubt may still crop up, but for completely different reasons, I think. So the alleged reductio simply does not apply here since the scope of Paul’s comments (along with my reflections on them) is limited to man in rebellion, not to believers who have laid down their arms.

However, even deeply distressed Emil (and atheists with his same complaint) must account for the objective morality that was violated by the massacre, and no subjectivist account (biological or social) is going to be adequate. Ultimately, even man’s ubiquitous complaint about real Evil in the world (a complaint I share), ultimately and irrevocably (I think) points back to the God who alone grounds the Goodness necessary to make the problem of evil intelligible to begin with.

This last part strikes me as a red herring, a distraction. Why must Emil “account for… objective morality”? For me part, I think atheists are consistent in simply believing that some actions are intrinsically right or wrong. One has to wonder why morally aware animals like us arose, yes, but how does that affect Emil, exactly?

Oddly, Koukl ends his post with an unnecessary jab against atheists, quoting “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” I would urge him to re-consider his exegesis of that passage – a good place to start is Rauser’s book, or our discussion in this podcast @ 21 minutes.

Koukl takes up the matter again in an audio podcast, oddly, deciding not to link Rauser’s blog nor mention his name, for the first half hour. (Is this a passive aggressive way to diss Rauser?) Anyway, he just insists that the meaning of Romans 1 is obvious, that subconscious rebelling as at the root of all atheism. He expresses surprise at Rauser’s vehemence, evidently not knowing about Rauser’s interesting book. No doubt, Koukl agrees that Christians can and do disagree about this.

Koukl seems to not register the point made independently by Feser here and by Rauser and me in the podcast (after 26:00), that Romans 1 is making a general critique of the nations, but of course not all individuals are idolaters or engage in gay sex or disbelieve in the sort of God monotheists believe in. Still, the nations as a whole are subject to God’s wrath, though again, not all the people in them.

About the Emil case (20:00), Koukl says essentially the same things I quoted above. And at 24 minutes, he again credits God with calling atheists fools, assuming a popular misreading Psalm 14.

Rauser responds that it’s not to the point that Paul is not in Romans 1 speaking specifically about believers. That is true, but this does not save the reading that Koukl thinks is obvious from implying the guilt of any doubting Christian. As Rauser says,

If God’s invisible qualities are really always clear to all as Koukl apparently thinks, then why is it that so many Christians have deep struggles with doubting the goodness, and even the existence, of God. (In “Is the Atheist My Neighbor?” I provide the well known example of Mother Teresa, but of course there are countless others.)

The dilemma for Koukl is clear: if atheists are morally culpable for suppressing God’s revelation, the doubting Christian is as well. So if Koukl wants to retain this reading, then he can do so. But if he wants to be consistent, shouldn’t he start condemning Christians who doubt for willfully suppressing God’s revelation to them?

He also points out, I think correctly, that in reading the Bible we must be willing to consider as relevant other things we know, even about the beliefs and motivations of our atheist neighbors.

For his part, Feser weighs in with some apt observations about what is going on in Romans 1.

…the psychology of atheism is simply not the topic he is addressing.  Again, his topic was rather whether the Gentiles had sufficient moral and theological knowledge available to them to be culpable for their sins, and thus to be as in need of salvation as were those who had the Mosaic Law.  To treat Romans 1 as a straightforward statement of the Rebellion Thesis is therefore anachronistic.  You might try to argue for the Rebellion Thesis on the basis of the principles St. Paul sets out there, but he is not himself addressing that particular topic.

…his emphasis isn’t on how much we can know about God by natural means, but rather merely on how we can know at least enough to be able to see how stupid it is to think of God on the model of a man or an animal.

Because, as Feser points out, Paul’s main targets here are gentile idolatry and sexual immorality. These sins characterize the nations, but again, obviously, not all the individual people in the nations.

on-you-shameFinally, Rauser accuses Koukl of being a “misoatheist,” a term he coins to mean a person bigoted against atheists. He thinks this view of atheists needs to be named and shamed.

I would say that this is going too far. I don’t have any reason to think that Koukl hates or demeans atheists. To the contrary, he’s devoted his life to reasonable dialogue with atheists and other non-Christians. At worst, I would say he’s mistaken in his diagnosis of exactly how human fallenness leads to disbelief in God.

There certainly are people who are bigoted against atheists, of course. Rauser is right about that, to be sure. But reading Romans 1 is merely consistent with that disposition. Rauser compares this with the case of sexism. I would urge that, say, a Christian who holds based on certain New Testament texts that women should not preach in church are not necessarily sexist, and also that it’s not helpful to the purpose of persuading them to change their mind to call them names, trying to shame them. We all, when falsely accused, dig in our heels.

Rauser’s example of a Christian sexist says,

“As Paul says, Eve led Adam astray. So do you really want to trust the nuclear codes to a woman?”

Of course, the passage in question simply doesn’t say or imply that women ought not be political leaders. So, we think the guy’s sexism is manifest here – he’s seeing it as making a stronger point than it is. Now I agree that Koukl is reading something like what Rauser calls the Rebellion Thesis into Romans 1. But here, I think, there is a whole long theological tradition of so doing – a wrongheaded one, I agree. But then, we don’t need to uncharitably suppose that Koukl despises atheists, although he does seem to take a little too much glee in quoting Psalm 14, which again, I think he misunderstands, as so many do. But this just may be a little polemical elbow throwing, something common in folks who deal with atheists, including the obnoxious, over-confident, and bigoted variety. It’s really tempting, having been called a fool, to zing back that the Book says that it’s you who are the fool. It doesn’t say that, though.

In any event, none of these guys are fools, and I appreciate their arguing publicly, to help us all think about these things. The more prominent atheism becomes in our culture, the more Christians need to get straight just what we think about it.

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13 thoughts on “Are atheists denying the obvious? Koukl vs. Rauser and Feser”

  1. “This last part strikes me as a red herring, a distraction. Why must Emil “account for… objective morality”? For me part, I think atheists are consistent in simply believing that some actions are intrinsically right or wrong. One has to wonder why morally aware animals like us arose, yes, but how does that affect Emil, exactly?”

    What would make any action “intrinsically wrong” in an atheist’s universe? It’s not a red herring; it’s one of the most powerful proofs of God’s existence, and it demonstrates that atheists have to borrower from the Christian worldview in order to make their case against it.

    Many atheists have themselves admitted that without God, objective moral values and duties do not exist. By “objective” I mean (to quote William Lane Craig) that they are valid and binding regardless whether anyone chooses to believe in them or not. I can’t even imagine a valid reason for believing that moral values and duties are truly objective without God as their foundation. What would make them “objective”? They just are, and that’s all?

    “Rauser responds that it’s not to the point that Paul is not in Romans 1 speaking specifically about believers. That is true, but this does not save the reading that Koukl thinks is obvious from implying the guilt of any doubting Christian.”

    The Bible doesn’t say “The fool has said in his heart ‘I wonder if God is real in light of all this misery?'”, which is what it would have to say for the point to be valid, it seems to me. The “fool” in Psalm 14:1 is the one who declares to himself and/or to others that God does not exist. He is a fool not only because he is blind (whether willfully or not) to the evidence that a god must exist, but because in making such a positive declaration rather than a mere expression of doubt, he is claiming knowledge that he literally cannot possess. He is making a positive assertion about something that he is not in a position to be positive about. He is claiming to know what a less foolish person would realize we cannot know, and he has raised his own unsubstantiatable opinion to the level of established fact.

    ~Sean

    1. Of course Atheists have to be logically inconsistant when they approach morality, unless they are total nihilists which is damn near impossible for a real human being to be. But that doesn’t mean that they are rebelious, humans are logically inconsistant all the time, People honestly hold inconsistant beliefs in good faith all the time, we are not Perfect.
      So it doesn’t say anything toward the idea that atheists are supressing, consciously the knowledge of God but pointing out that they are inconsistent in their thinking.

      1. “So it doesn’t say anything toward the idea that atheists are supressing,
        consciously the knowledge of God but pointing out that they are
        inconsistent in their thinking.”

        Who said it did?

        ~Sean

          1. “Probably some Calvinists :P”

            Well, I think some of them probably make room for the notion that the suppression of belief in God can be SUBconsciously done, but I’ll let them work that out.

            I just wonder if this blog entry got off to a misguided start, since I’m not sure that Emil’s doubt really does suggest problems for Koukl’s view, as stated here. And there is the further question of where Emil’s doubt ultimately took him, and *why*? Did Emil respond emotionally, in the moment, in the throes of his overwhelming sadness but later come to accept Job’s response to suffering, or did Emil subconsciously *choose* unbelief, more out of anger than anything else? I suspect that there are many atheists who are really believers who have come to suppress their belief, whether consciously or subconsciously, because they’re just really ticked off at God, and that IS a form of rebellion.

            ~Sean

            1. I’ve heard the idea from Calvinists, that anyone who is not a Christian is morally culpable for supressing the knowledge of God and in rebellion, that’s the notion I was responding to, not you.
              I don’t think you can subvonsciously “choose” anything, in a meaninful way, I mean perhaps you subconsciously decided that there is no God, but part of the motivation was angery, but that motivation was subconscious, I don’t know how one could be held morally culpable for that anger?
              I absolutely agree With the distortion of Christianity, unfortunately especially in the United States, where in much of the country it has become more of a Cultural/political thing rather than a dedication to the person of Christ. Some of the rediculous defences of war, capitalism and other political ideas on christian grounds show that, the arguments are so weak and rediculous that it’s obvious what the religion is in that case.

              1. “I don’t think you can subvonsciously “choose” anything, in a meaninful
                way, I mean perhaps you subconsciously decided that there is no God, but
                part of the motivation was angery, but that motivation was
                subconscious, I don’t know how one could be held morally culpable for
                that anger?”

                Self deception is one of the most pervasive of all human failings. Everyone practices some form of self deception at one point or another in their lives. That’s one of the reasons my old Psych teacher would say that everyone is three people, conceptually: There is the you that you perceive; there is the you that others perceive; and there is the real you, which never corresponds perfectly to either of the other two. Only God knows the real you and the real me.

                ~Sean

                “The easiest thing of all is to deceive one’s self; for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true.” Demosthenes (Olynthiaca iii. 19)

                  1. “But the question is, are you responsible for what you’re not conscious of?”

                    Is there any reason why an atheist, who rejects God because deep down in his subconscious he wants atheism to be true, should not be held accountable for his atheism? I guess that’s a question for God.

                    ~Sean

  2. when it comes to this debate, and others that some evangelical apologists engage in, one thing that sometimes bugs me a little, is when they start out trying to establish some detailed and presice philosophical argument for a position, only to in the end find out that the Whole thing was based on a theological position taken from a specific exegesis of a text. Generally the arguments are somewhat Shady, and usually have holes in them, but I sometimes see it as kind of a Waste of time given that the real basis of believing that thing is a specific exegesis along With biblical inerrency. I just wish they would get to the core of the issue right away, and then deal With the secondary arguments after.
    So in this case, one can argue all one wants about psychology or moral culpibility and so on, but the Whole basis of the belief comes from a specific exegesis of Romans 1 … that’s the issue, everything else is secondary.
    Another thing that some apologists do, is read the text as if it were a detailed and careful philosophical text, it is not, none of the bible writers, even Paul, were analytic philosophers or theologians, and they cannot be read that way. There is no reason to think that Romans 1 is a descriptive psychological diognosis for all People who deny belief in the supernatural, it’s making a larger point, which is that everyone is deserving of wrath but that God has given us a way out.
    BTW, as to the argument that some People are rebelling against God but are not aware of it themselves. I don’t see how someone can be held accountable for a motivation which they are never actually ever aware of and thus have no ability to ever actually deliberate and decide whether or not to Accept or go along With the dictates of that sub conscious motivation. People are held accountable for rebelling, because they CHOOSE to rebel, in order to choose to do something you must be aware of it, by definition.

  3. Dale, this is a great summary. Thanks for putting it together. Let me address your objection to the misoatheist charge by making three points.

    First, I agree that one could in principle believe the Rebellion Thesis without being bigoted or prejudiced. Likewise, it is in principle possible to believe that women should never be president without being bigoted or prejudiced. But it is also possible for individuals to be guilty of bigotry and/or prejudice against atheists. By giving the phenomenon a name, we can begin to become more aware of the problem and ask the question of whether specific individuals express views that are indicative of misoatheism.

    Second, our assessment of whether a specific individual is prejudiced or bigoted will depend in part on the evidence one proffers for the view in question. If the evidence is very poor — as I believe Koukl’s is — then that makes the charge of bigotry and/or prejudice to be more plausible.

    Third, evidence of bigotry or prejudice in a specific individual is also found in additional displays of hostility or dismissiveness toward the target group. As you note, Koukl’s dig at atheists as fools is an unfortunate potshot, but I think it is plausibly read as indicative of precisely the kind of hostility that is indicative of bigotry and prejudice. The same is true in the case I provided of the fellow flippantly asking whether we’d be comfortable leaving the nuclear codes with a woman.

    Consequently, I think Koukl’s behavior is indicative of what I call misoatheism. But whether or not I’m right about that, at least we can agree that misoatheism is a problem which we should begin to address within the Christian community.

    1. Hi Randal,

      Thanks as always for a good and substantial comment. Yes, I agree that it is good to have a name for bigotry against atheists, and that it is a significant problem, and one too often excused in Christian circles. And I’ve no objection to the term you suggest, and don’t have a better one.

      I’ve met atheists who will tell me with a straight face that they want to believe that God exists, and that they wish they could come up with more evidence for it, so they can believe it. I can’t in good conscience tell them that they’re willfully suppressing evidence – I don’t know that this is so. I do believe that God will reveal himself to them eventually if they continue to seek, but I have to beg off trying to explain why this hasn’t happened yet. Having said all of this, I agree with what Paul is saying in Romans 1, in his general critique of the nations.

      About Greg Koukl, yes, sort of gleefully quoting Psalm 14 is *consistent with* being a misoatheist, as is thinking that Romans 1 condemns all atheists as deniers of the obvious. BUT, I just think charity requires holding back on the charge, till we see unequivocal behavior or speech that unequivocally shows the contempt in question. I just don’t see that. I could easily be proven wrong, of course. But a few years back, I read this book of his http://www.amazon.com/dp/0310282926/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3485750047&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2rtpfizwwn_e , the product of a lifetime of dialogue with non-Christians, including atheists. I think you and he have this value in common, of being willing to fully hear out atheists, showing them respect via truly rational argument. I think maybe you should revise your charge that what he’s saying is consistent with that bigotry, and may even encourage it. I would argue to him that he should cease and desist calling atheists fools via Ps 14, and that he should carefully consider again just what, strictly, Romans 1 asserts, in light of Ed’s and your observations. It’s consistent with a dark, Calvinist or Augustinian view of fallen humanity, but it doesn’t require the Rebellion Thesis.

      1. Dale, you write:

        “BUT, I just think charity requires holding back on the charge, till we see unequivocal behavior or speech that unequivocally shows the contempt in question.”

        I agree that we should only render a charge on adequate evidence, but folks will disagree on where that threshold lies, and background experience will inform where folks draw that line.

        I remember a documentary in which a Caucasian man was made up to look Afro-American. He then walked down the street with an Afro-American friend. As they approached two Caucasian pedestrians, the Caucasian pair crossed the street and started walking on the other side. After debriefing the situation, the Afro-American man called out the behavior as racist whilst his Caucasian (undercover) friend insisted the other two Caucasian men simply needed to cross the street.

        Is the Afro-American man hypersensitive or does the Caucasian man lack sensitivity? It’s an interesting question, and to answer it, I suppose I’d need to know more about each.

        Anyway, having spent a long time reading Christian attitudes toward atheists, you might put me on the sensitive end of the scale.

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