THE ABSURDITY OF LIF E WITHOUT GOD

WILLIAM LANE CRAIG

INTRODUCTION
1. Quote from Loren Eisley
A. Man is the only creature to ask why to questions regarding his existence
B. Since Enlightenment, has tried to answer without God
1) Man as accidental by-product of nature
2) Result of matter plus time plus chance
C. Answers are dark and terrible
1) Instead of freeing self, ended up orphaned instead
2) Without God, man and universe doomed to death
2. Paul Tillich
A. Man must come face-to-face with “threat of non-being”
B. Staggering and overwhelming thought
3. Sartre
A. Several hours or years make no difference if there is no eternity
B. Universe marching irretrievably to grave
 No escape and no hope

CONSEQUENCE OF LIFE WITHOUT GOD

Life itself becomes ultimately absurd
A. No ultimate meaning
B. No ultimate value
C. No ultimate purpose

NO ULTIMATE MEANING WITHOUT IMMORTALITY AND GOD

1. If each individual passes out of existence when he dies, what ultimate meaning is
there? Does it matter that he lived at all?
2. Relative vs. ultimate significance
A. If all events are meaningless, what is ultimate meaning of any of it?
B. What if Big Bang never happened at all? If all doomed to die anyway, what
difference if they ever existed at all?
C. Mankind is doomed race in dying universe
 It will cease to exist, and it makes no difference at all
3. Horror of modern man
A. Because he ends in nothing, he ultimately is nothing
B. Not just because of lack of immortality
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 Mere duration of existence ≠ meaning

C. But because lack of God = lack of meaning
D. Literary examples
1) Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
2) Sartre’s’ No Exit
3) Camus’ The Stranger
4) Jacques Monet’s Chance and Necessity

NO ULTIMATE VALUE WITHOUT IMMORTALITY AND GOD

1. If all ends at grave, ultimately makes no difference how one lives
A. Destiny unrelated to behavior
B. Live as you please
2. Without God, can be no objective standard of right and wrong
 Sartre—moral values just by-product of personal taste or socio-biological
evolution
3. Without God, who says whose values are right or wrong?
 What difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa?
4. To say something is wrong because it’s forbidden by a law-giving God is perfectly
understandable, but to say it’s wrong without having a God who forbids it is not
A. Concept of moral obligation unintelligible apart from God
B. Without God, only personally and culturally relative subjective judgments
5. Impossible to condemn war, oppression, crime as evil, or praise love, brotherhood,
equality as good

NO ULTIMATE PURPOSE WITHOUT IMMORTALITY AND GOD

1. Without God, no goal or purpose for which universe exists
2. Without God, man lost in indifference of oblivious universe
A. In universe without God, no hope, no purpose
B. If true of universe, then true of man individually
 Without God, man simply freak of nature—blind product of time +
matter + chance
C. Behavior explained in various ways
1) Psychology—behavior as result of repressed sexual tendencies
2) Sociology—all choices determined by conditioning; freedom is
illusion
3) Biology—man is electro-chemical machine, controlled by altering
genetic code

GRAVITY OF ALTERNATIVES
1. With God, there is hope for man
2. Without God, there is only despair
A. Majority of people do not understand the implications—continue on as
though nothing had changed
B. Nietzsche’s story of madman seeking God
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1) Predicted people would someday realize implications of atheism

2) Realization would usher in age of nihilism—destruction of all
meaning and value in life
3. Must ask Nietzsche’s question: How shall we then comfort ourselves?
A. Only solution of atheists
1) Face absurdity of life bravely
2) Live valiantly
B. Russell’s solution—come to terms with life by realizing world is terrible place
C. Camus’ solution—honestly recognize life’s absurdity and then live in love

PROBLEM OF ATHEISM
It is impossible to live consistently and happily within framework of this worldview
 Either/or, not both

SCHAEFFER’S MODEL OF TWO-STORY UNIVERSE

1. Upper story = meaning, value, purpose
2. Lower story = life w/o God—finite world, absurd life
 Modern man lives in lower story w/o belief in God, but can’t stay there
consistently and happily, so makes leaps of faith into upper—to affirm life has
meaning, value and purpose, but has no right to go there w/o believing in
God—man in lower story does not have God

ARGUMENTS AGAINST ATHEISM

1. Without God, life has no ultimate meaning—yet philosophers continue on as though
it did
A. Sartre—one creates meaning for life by choosing certain course of action (he
chose Marxism)
1) But utterly inconsistent to say life is objectively meaningless, then say
one can create meaning
2) Exercise in self-delusion
B. If atheism is true, universe w/o God remains objectively meaningless, regardless
of how we regard it
1) But man cannot live consistently, happily that way
2) Has to pretend life has meaning to be happy
 Utterly inconsistent philosophically
2. Without God, life has no value
A. Most blatant inconsistencies here
B. Logically incompatible to hold to atheistic humanism on one hand, and ethics
of love and brotherhood on other
C. If there is no God, objective right and wrong do not exist
1) But everything in man cries out against such wrongs as genocide,
slaughter, etc.
2) So he makes a blind leap of faith to upper story to affirm values anyway
3) Man cannot live with horror of world without value
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 E.g.—Holocaust survivor stories from documentary

4) But without God, our world is Auschwitz—all things are permitted
D. Nietzsche proclaimed necessity of living beyond good and evil
 But broke with mentor Wagner over composer’s strident German
nationalism and anti-semitism
E. Sartre condemned anti-semitism
1) Doctrine leading to extermination not merely opinion or matter of
personal taste—not of equal value with its opposite
2) Struggled to elude contradiction between denial of divinely pre-
established values and desire to affirm value of human persons
3) Like Russell, couldn’t live with own denial of ethical absolutes
3. Without God, all evil acts go unpunished and all good sacrifices go unrewarded
A. E.g. Air disaster in Washington
1) Praise for man’s selfless act in passing ladder to others
2) But logical conclusion of atheism = stupid, not noble of him—can give
no reason for it
B. Universe devoid of moral accountability and value is unimaginably terrible
 Atheist cannot live consistently within this view
4. Without God, life has no purpose
A. Atheists deal happily only by:
1) Making up some purpose, deluding self
2) Refusing to carry view to logical conclusions
B. To live purposefully, atheists must make leap of faith to upper story to affirm
basis for living
1) Attribute motive, choice, purpose to material things (Nature, natural
selection, Universe, Cosmos)
2) Smuggle in God-substitute because cannot stand to live in universe in
which everything is result of impersonal forces
C. To live purposefully, must betray views when pushed to logical conclusion
1) E.g. Feminism and Freudian psychology
2) Skinner’s social behaviorism leads to society similar to Orwell’s 1984,
where government controls, programs everyone’s thoughts
a) What is basis for objecting, if all actions are programmed?
b) If God doesn’t exist, can raise no moral argument against
treating people like guinea pigs, because not qualitatively
different—just matter + time + chance
c) No one can live with such a dehumanizing view
3) Crick’s biological determinism—man is biological specimen like any
other lab animal
a) If true, why outrage against Nazis using humans in medical
experiments?
b) Because intuitively know people are more than just
electrochemical machines
D. Only consistent protest for human value comes from God’s existence
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DILEMMA OF MODERN MAN IS TRULY TERRIBLE

1. Modernism issues in absurdity and despair
2. Postmodernism = bankruptcy of modernity; results in anguish
3. Atheistic worldview is insufficient to sustain happy and consistent life
 Man cannot live consistently and happily as though life were w/o
meaning, value and purpose
1) To live consistently within atheistic framework results in
profound unhappiness
2) To live happily within it demands a lie
4. How to escape dilemma?
A. “Noble Lie Option” of Dr. L.D. Rue
1) Within intellectual and moral relativism, quest for personal wholeness,
self-fulfillment and quest for social coherence become independent of
one another
a) If self-fulfillment pursued to exclusion of social coherence,
result is madhouse
b) If social coherence imposed at expense of personal fulfillment,
result is totalitarianism
2) To avoid either option, must embrace some “noble lie” that inspires
one to live beyond selfish interests and achieve social coherence
a) “Noble Lie” = one that deceives, tricks, compels beyond self-
interest, beyond ego, etc.
b) Tells us, even while claiming that it is a great fiction, that
universe is infused with value
c) Makes claim to universal truth, but doesn’t believe it exists
d) Says not to live for self-interest, but believes that is false
B. Noble Lie fails in end
1) Can’t believe in lies, atheism, and relativism all at same time
2) It can’t solve human predicament
3) Leads to society ruled by elitist group who deceive masses for their own
good by perpetuating lie
4) If moral and intellectualism relativism really true, why pretend they
aren’t?
5) Why should anyone sacrifice self-interest for social coherence?
 Even if social coherence is in best self-interest, they don’t
always coincide
6) But totalitarian option repugnant to Rue
a) He values both social coherence and personal wholeness
b) Both are objective values which don’t exist in his philosophy—
so has already leapt to upper story
7) It is self-refuting—affirming what it denies
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WHAT ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW?

1. Biblical Christianity provides the two conditions necessary for meaningful, valuable,
purposeful life
A. God
B. Immortality
 With these man can live both consistently and happily
2. Bible affirms that life is ultimately significant
 Man has eternal life (= knowledge of God forever)
 This is fulfillment of human existence, what man was made for
3. Moral values are rooted in nature of God Himself
 His commands = man’s objective moral duties
4. Moral choices have eternal significance
 God holds man accountable for them
5. Man’s life has purpose
 To glorify God and enjoy Him forever

CONCLUSION
Biblical Christianity succeeds where atheism breaks down
1. Doesn’t prove it true, but clearly spells out alternatives
A. If God doesn’t exist, life is futile
B. If God of Bible is true, life is meaningful
2. Second option only way we can live consistently, happily
3. Even if both options equal in value, rational person ought to choose biblical
Christianity
 Irrational to choose death, futility, despair over hope, meaningfulness, and
happiness