Atheist Says, "No Christian Morals Without Christian God."

I wanted to save this episode of Wretched.  Friel has a long quote from Nietzsche that would be too much right now to transcribe (If you do it for me, you'll store up treasure in heaven!).  The gist of it goes like this:  Nietzsche, who is perhaps the king of atheists, says that you can't have Christian morals without the Christian God.  It is only by borrowing from the Christian worldview that they can have a basis for their morality.

If only all atheists were this honest and consistent!


After the comment below was posted, I went back and listened again to the Nietzsche quote.  I even looked around the net to find Nietzsche in his own words.  I provide the quote in full, from his book, Twilight of Idols.  The first part is a quote; then N. elaborates.  In all, it sounds like N. still affirms that Christian morality is part and parcel with the Christian God.

G. Eliot. -- They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there.

We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.

When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem.

Chrisitanity is the Only True Religion

[The following is the article I wrote for the pastor's column in the local paper today. Thanks to all of you who have given me positive feedback. Some have said, as I well agree, that I may get some backlash for it. I'm posting it so that it is open for comment]


Many in our day cry “All religions are basically the same” or “People worship the same God just by different names.” But let it be clear: Christianity is the only true religion.

Someone will say that such a claim is preposterous, not to mention pompous. But it is true. Christianity is the only true religion.

It is a lot like a game I used to play called “King of the Mountain.” Everyone would scramble up a steep snow bank and try to push everyone else down. The one who stayed on top was the victor.

Christianity remains on top because it is the only worldview that presents a consistent and coherent philosophy of life. All other religions fall woefully short. Their worldviews are shown to be false because they are logically inconsistent and reduce to absurdity when pressed.

For instance, if you confess that all religions are basically the same, you not only voice your complete ignorance of world religions, you make God into a liar. Who could trust a god that tells one people to believe one thing and another group to believe something completely different? Such is complete nonsense.

Or take Hinduism. Hinduism teaches that everything in the world is one and that everything is god. I am one with you and we are both god—and so is the chair in which you sit. But what then happens to evil? If the Hindu was consistent, evil could not exist. Evil would be just as right as good, for they are one. Though no Hindu would admit to such an absurd statement, it is the logical conclusion of his belief.

Choose any other life-philosophy—Islam, secular humanism, Mormonism, etc.—and you will get the same result. When you press their views to their logical conclusion, they end in absolute absurdity. As one theologian has said, “[All] non-Christian philosophical systems cannot properly and consistently operate within God’s created world because they are inconsistent with the reality that He created.”

This is why the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As the Author of all order, truth, beauty, goodness, and reason Christ alone provides the only consistent and coherent belief system. Rejecting Christ means rejecting the creator and source of truth. That rebellion then leads to a life full of contradictions, confusion, and utterly ridiculous notions of morality.

This is averted though when we renounce these competing philosophies and submit to Christ as the only true God. If we heed what he has revealed in Scripture, our thinking will become aligned with God’s thinking. If we let the Bible shape our minds, our reality will begin to mesh with Christ’s reality. We will, in other words, possess the right basis for understanding what is true, right and eternally lasting.

A multitude of philosophies may present themselves as viable options, but only one stands as undefeatable on top of the worldview mountain. Christianity is king because Christ is the almighty king and creator of the universe.

Apologetic Kung-Fu

Apologetic Kung-Fu Awesome! The illustration is perfect!

The Atheist Producing Church

Christian churches are producing atheists! This article in the Christian Post (and its subsequent comments) are quite right. The education of our covenant children needs to be taken more seriously. The church has adapted the Sesemea Street approach to learning about God and his Word. Should we be surprised that our young people grow up to be wholely ignorant and radically atheistic.

Is There A God?

The Philosophy Club at Ashland University is starting up an annual debate. They kick off their yearly scrum with a debate on whether or not God exists (Friday March 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Student Center Auditorium).

It used to be that Theology was considered the Queen of the Sciences. But in today's society, theology is considered more of a joker. Instead of being the height of intellectual inquiry, it is relegated to the basement or outhouse (this is true even among many evangelicals!). Therefore man's belief in the existence of God has descended too.

I have mixed feelings about the choice of topic for the first debate. On the one hand I commend them them for starting with the question of ultimate starting points. Is God foundational to all we do or not? Moreover, engaging today's society means that one must be able to zero in on the reality of theism and the demand of God on people's lives.

On the other hand, it rubs me the wrong way, for it is skepticism at its best.

Defending the faith is vital to one's life as a christian. The work of apologetics (just a fancy word for "defending the faith") is of the utmost importance and has proven vital throughout history. Christianity would have died out quickly if it could not have given an answer for the hope within them to the pagans all around them.

Yet Christians understand that everyone already knows that God exists. It is only due to man's utter depravity that they suppress that truth and live otherwise (Romans 1).

As well, God is not one who, as CS Lewis used to say, should "be put in the dock." (In England, when a case is being tried, the one on trial is put in a certain designated area called "the dock"). In other words, man is not to sit in judgement of God, God is the one who sits in judgment of man.

The evening looks to be an intriguing one. If anything it will most likely reveal something about the state of Christianity on the campus. I simply hope that the students defending the Christian theistic position take the right approach.

When engaging in such an affair one does not "prove" God's existence by mere proofs. Fallen man will not accept those assertions, otherwise he would have believed long ago.

Defending Christianity is a lot like a game I used to play when I was a child. When it would snow and the trucks had plowed it all up into a large mound at the corner of the parking lot, we would play "King of the Mountain." Everyone would try scramble to the top and then you would try to push everyone else down. The one who stays on top was the king.

Christianity defends itself like that, by going on the offensive. Christianity remains atop because it is true. No one can topple it because it is the only consistent and coherent philosophy of life. Being that it is God, you wouldn't expect anything else now, would you?

All other religions and philosophies are based on lies. Because they are born out of false claims, they will collapse if pressed. This is an old debate tactic called reductio ad absurdom found in Proverbs 24, "Rebuke a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." What you do is take your opponent's thesis to its extreme in order to show how it contradicts itself and is completely absurd to all reason.

For instance, the scientific atheist would say life is based on the scientific method. If you can't see, taste, touch & feel it, then it doesn't exist. Their argument would go like this: You can't examine God in this way, so he must not exist. But the Christian responds, "Can you see, taste touch feel the scientific method?" Of course not. It is a self refuting argument. Your opponent has been cast down.

Christian theism remains atop of the mountain because it cannot be defeated. I just hope the students are good debaters and take this tactic. Otherwise we could end up looking silly.

Yet, knowing that I have made such blunders and more, I'm glad that God's existence does not depend on my feeble debate skills.

Since my wife and child will be out of town that weekend, I'll be heading up. If anyone wants to tag along with me, let me know.