Pride as Proof of God
I watched the news as it showed scientists applauding themselves for the successful start up of the Haldron Reactor. Their overwhelming sense of pride for building a sixteen mile long reactor that smashes particles so as to recreate a big bang event was pulsating through the room. They were shaking hands and back slapping one another so that it looked more like football players celebrating in the end zone than scientists in a laboratory.
As I watched, I thought, what do these scientists have to be proud about? You may think, as I do, that the genius of these men and women who created this reactor is cause for pride. But before you assume that they think as you do, you have to ask, “What is thought to an atheist”?
Many of these scientists think like atheists and thought to an atheist is chemical messengers firing along the neurons of the brain. This means that out of the six billion people on the planet, random selection chose their chemical messengers to flow along the neurons of their brains to create the Haldron Reactor. If that is true, what did they do to take pride in?
When we take pride in our achievements, we act as though we have done something special. Our pride is in effect saying that I made a noncompulsory choice that resulted in something special for which I deserve credit. Pride in this sense is well deserved and it is an expression of free will.
Free will is a problem though if you do not believe in uncaused causes. In the world of atheism, there are no uncaused causes and that means there can be no noncompulsory choices.
Scientific atheism believes that everything that happens is caused by something. Nothing just happens on its own, not even thought. Thought is caused by chemical reactions in the brain so that free choice is an illusion. An article in the New York Times titled Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t quoted Mark Haller of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders as saying, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception…The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.”
To an atheist, free will is an illusion of a human being’s higher biochemistry, which means there can be no free choice to take pride in.
Most atheists who read this will scoff at that assertion. Because they know it is self evident that they freely think. Their problem is that they can’t explain how they arrived at free thought by starting at the first premise of chemical necessity.
This creates a problem for atheist because when your first premise contradicts what is self evident, you have to live a contradiction.
It has often been said that you have to suspend logic to believe in God. The reality is that you have suspend logic be an atheist. The atheist does not believe that free will exists but lives in a manner that contradicts his belief. It is illogical to live in a manner that contradicts your beliefs and it is irrational to continue living that way. But every time an atheist takes pride in his achievements, he contradicts atheism.
Any belief system that does not correspond with reality forces its adherents to live a contradiction. The wonderful thing about the truth is that it corresponds to reality and allows its adherents to live consistent lives with what is real.
Free will is consistent with belief in a creator. God, who is sovereign, made mankind in his image so that mankind was created with a free will as part of that image. We are free moral agents who make free choices and when those choices achieve something great, we should take pride in our achievements. When we take pride in our achievements, we are acknowledging that we were created in the image of God.
Pride may sound like a strange proof for God. Yet, we see it around us everyday as wonderfully brilliant people make choices that better the lives of others. God empowered them to make those choices and they deserve credit for their achievements.
The Haldron reactor is one such achievement for which those who made it deserve credit and should take pride in their achievement. I, for one, am looking forward to reading what God shows mankind through these wonderfully brillant people that He created.
God bless you
Dr. Michael Peters
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