Part II: Materialism, the Universality of Faith, and the Worth of a Worldview

Continuing my discussion of materialism, I think Christian theism has much more to offer personal experience.

First, while we have seen it is not reasonable to believe that there is nothing beyond the physical realm of which we are conscious, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that, if we do accept with faith the reality of the physical world,(11) and since experience tells us that reality is dependent upon consciousness, that "the ‘real’ world is the experienced world, the world that exists in conscious experience,"(12) then it would make sense—but would not necessarily follow—that the world is dependent upon an ultimate consciousness; i.e. God. Just as reality wouldn’t exist for us if we didn’t have consciousness, so it is not unreasonable to claim, if reality does indeed exist, its existence is dependent upon God’s consciousness. As Ward says, "Just as my experiences . . . wouldn’t exist without me, without my mind, so I think objective reality wouldn't exist without the mind of God."(13)

Christian theism also offers a possible explanation for the reaching-out of the world, the emptiness of nature. Paul said, "the whole creation has been groaning" (Rom. 8:22). We reach out intellectually, existentially, and emotionally because, as Newbigin says, we have "infinite desires beyond the satisfaction of our biological necessities."(14) Or, in Augustine’s words, "our heart is restless until it finds rest in [God]."(15) Blaise Pascal describes this beautifully:

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.(16)

Are we to accept that our insatiable desire, our inner restlessness, our helpless craving, our infinite abyss, can simply be reduced to the workings of evolution? The one who claims such a thing is not being honest with himself/herself.

Christian theism is also much more satisfying with regard to love. Jefferson Aeroplane sang of wanting and needing someone to love. The Beatles sang, "All you need is love!" John said, "love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 Jn. 4:7-8). It is more reasonable to put our faith in Christian theism, which holds that we feel an overwhelming desire to love and be loved because there is a God of love that loves and desires to be loved by us, than it is to put our faith in materialism, which holds that love is simply a byproduct of evolution.

Another topic on which Christianity has much more to offer is that of free will. Materialism suggests that free will is an illusion. Christianity suggests that free will was the necessary component to a mutual love relationship with God. He wanted us to have autonomy so that we can freely enter communion with him. Psalm 8:5-8 quite profoundly describes this autonomy:

You have made [human beings] a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Not only have we been created with free will, but each with uniqueness and beauty. Paul says that we are God’s poeima, his masterpiece (Eph. 2:10). No two masterpieces are exactly alike. Christian theism sees the uniqueness of each person and attributes it to the creative workmanship of God, beckoning us to join in that creativity and fashion our own masterpieces—"be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:22). Materialism sees the uniqueness and creativity of each person, and reduces it to biological phenomena. Which explanation is more worthy of our faith?

A subject most difficult for materialists is morality, as their explanations of it are utterly bankrupt. Richard Dawkins says that we have to construct our own morality.(17) Such a claim has no rebuttal to relativism. If my construction of morality maintains that it is good if I steal from Dawkins, then, if I do steal from him, he cannot claim that my stealing from him was wrong. He would only be able to say that he believes it was wrong, and why should I adhere to his construction of morality?(18)

In Christian theism, on the other hand, we have a solid foundation on which to understand morality. We put our faith in Jesus Christ, who gave us the perfect good from which we can measure what is morally right. This morality is defined by self-emptying, other-focused love (Phil. 2:3-11)—running completely counter to social Darwinism’s self-centered, survival-of-the-fittest ideology, which Dawkins himself recognizes as morally depraved.(19)

Timothy Jennings has observed that nature is at its best when it is taking part in a kind of self-emptying, other-focused love. In the hydrologic cycle, the oceans give water to the clouds, which give water to the land, which gives water to the oceans. In the oxygen cycle, we give plant-life carbon dioxide, and through photosynthesis plant-life gives us oxygen. These are processes of self-emptying, other-focused giving, which Jesus ultimately modeled for us by giving up his life on the Cross.(20)

We could embrace our experience of the world and believe that our existential transcendence of the physical world points to the existence of a transcendent God; that our endless desire to love and be loved points to a God of love; that our free will and unique creativity point to a creative God who wants us to be free and to participate in his creative activity; that our inherent sensitivity to morality points to a moral standard provided by a perfect God—or, we could believe with the materialists that life is simply about survival and everything we experience is merely the work of nature, that our experiences are more illusionary than genuine. Again I ask, which worldview is more worthy of our faith?

I do not claim that all these considerations prove that Christianity is true. Neither Christianity nor materialism can be sufficiently proven as true. They both require faith. While much more could be added, a case has been made that Christianity should be preferred over materialism, that it is more worthy of our faith, because it takes seriously our experience of the world, instead of reducing that experience to the work of the world. Christianity has much more to offer our inner-selves (cf. Ps. 51:6) than the meaninglessness of materialism.

Too long have materialists acted like their view of the world is the most reasonable and factual. In reality, they exercise just as much faith as Christians do in positing that there is nothing beyond nature, nothing beyond our consciousness, and that we can fully rely on our perception of the natural world.

If there is room to doubt such a belief system—and we have seen that such room for doubt is definitely there—then why embrace such a futile, empty worldview? Why put our faith in something that offers nothing to our personal experience, but rather gives us a very pointless and hopeless view of life that will inevitably lead to despair? Why not put our faith in something that speaks to what we experience to be true, and has an answer for our most intimate desires? As Paul saw of the people in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), many worship an unknown god; what Christianity offers is the identity of that God. 

Notes:
(11) While some of my comments might make me sound like I believe the physical world is just some kind of matrix, I don’t think we should reject the reality of the world we perceive simply because we can’t know for certain that it actually exists in the way it is perceived. Matrix-like understandings of the world are as meaningless as materialism. We should simply accept the world we are given—but should also humbly acknowledge our inability to know with certainty.
(12) Ward, More Than Matter?, 134.
(13) Keith Ward in BiolaUniversity, “Science, Mind, Religion, and Reality,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRt7qCuwj20.
(14) Newbigin, 179.
(15) Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3.
(16) Blaise Pascal, Pensees, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 45.
(17) Richard Dawkins, interview by Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Comedy Central, September 24, 2013.
(18) For a classic treatment of morality, see C.S. Lewis, “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe,” in Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1952), 3-28.
(19) See Wendy Wright, interview by Richard Dawkins, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AS6rQtiEh8.
(20) See Timothy Jennings, The God-Shaped Brain (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 24-26.

Materialism, the Universality of Faith, and the Worth of a Worldview, Part I

There is a widely-held misconception in our culture that Christianity and science are in opposition. On one end of this dichotomy is the anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist Christianity that sees science as a threat to a Bible-based understanding of creation.

On the other end, subject to much less critique, are the materialists with the understanding that reality is limited to the physical world that we perceive, rejecting any and all talk of a metaphysical realm and so operating with the mindset that science is incompatible with religion.

The latter of these two is often seen as more science- and fact-based and so, more reasonable. Materialists are the sophisticated ones, chin-up and aristocratic in their analysis of petty religious tendencies. My purpose here is to pull the rug out from under this Enlightenment arrogance by exposing their dependence on faith. With faith as the common requirement for materialism and Christianity established, the issue becomes which worldview is more worthy of one’s faith. It will be shown that Christianity meets this criterion far better than materialism, as it takes seriously personal experience and speaks to the needs of that experience, while materialism simply reduces that experience to the illusory work of nature. 

Materialism, or what Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford call scientific naturalism, "holds that all that exists is physical and can be reduced to its elemental material composition."(1) Advocates of this position have to take for granted, flippantly dismiss, or attempt to explain away consciousness. Daniel Dennett, in his monumental work Consciousness Explained, suggests that consciousness is simply a product of brain states, and could be given to a machine if the proper scientific advancement is reached.(2) 

The major problem with this, and the particular aspect of consciousness that materialists have to ignore, is that Dennett cannot prove that the material world exists beyond his consciousness. Sure, in the reality he experiences, maybe he can explain consciousness as a by-product of evolution, but he would have to provide evidence that the natural world he perceives actually exists outside of his consciousness. That, he most definitely cannot do.(3) As Keith Ward wonders, "What is the point of being a materialist when we are not sure exactly what matter is?"(4)

Ward makes another excellent point against Dennett’s proposal: "Nobody can observe anyone else’s conscious states, and we cannot really be sure that anyone else has any conscious states at all."(5) Thus, to say that we can give consciousness to a machine because consciousness is purely mechanical, would be impossible to prove, since one cannot actually make claims about any consciousness other than one’s own. 

Furthermore, inherent within materialism is the flaw of starting with the perceived world and moving to the perceiver when determining what reality is. It would be silly for me to say, "The shirt I’m wearing is blue; thus, I am able to perceive the blueness of my shirt." The only reason I can speak of the color of my shirt is that I perceive it. In order to make judgments about the color of my shirt, I have to trust what I perceive (which, in this case, would be mistaken, because of what we have come to learn about our perception of color). Similarly, I think it is mistaken to start with the material world and say that our consciousness is merely a product of it. The only way we can observe the material world is through our consciousness, and we cannot actually prove that it actually exists beyond that conscious state.

For these reasons, I see materialism and Christian theism on a level playing field, because their respective claims about what is beyond consciousness require the same amount of faith. We Christian theists believe in a God who transcends our consciousness. Materialists believe that the material world we perceive makes up reality, and that nothing is beyond it. Can either of these be proven? No. I propose, then, a question: Which belief system is more worthy of our faith? I contend that materialism is bankrupt in addressing this question, and that Christian theism is much more sufficient. 

I have shown that in order to be a materialist, one must accept the world that one perceives as reliable—as truly real. Furthermore, one must believe that nothing is beyond one’s consciousness. These actions, whether materialists like it or not, are actions of faith. By taking these steps, they trust their perceived reality and that nothing goes beyond it—and they do so without any proof. This is faith. But why should we have such faith? Why is it reasonable to believe that there is nothing beyond the reality that we observe? Not only does it lack reason, but it is counter-intuitive. We naturally reach beyond our perceived reality. Why should we believe that there is nothing beyond what we perceive when we have an inherent inclination to try and transcend our perception? As Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan state, "humans are incurably religious . . . by nature a person has an irresistible urge to transcend himself."(6)

This is not the only area in which materialism is counter-intuitive. We experience free will, love, morality, emotion, etc. In materialism, all of these are reduced to nature at work. They are illusions. I find this claim to be ridiculous. Because our subjective consciousness is how we experience reality,(7) we shouldn’t make claims about reality that run completely counter to how we experience it. As Lesslie Newbigin says of free will, "All arguments designed to show that free will is an illusion break down into absurdity . . . [for nothing should be accepted] which simply denies our daily experience."(8) Ward also finds it strange that materialism would accept a belief system that "ignores the all-pervading evidence of personal experience."(9)

Can we honestly say that the choices we will to make, the people we love, the love we receive, the morals we cannot help but adhere to, and the emotions we feel, are all the mere work of nature? We’re just pawns in the game of evolution? Not only does this leave life bereft of meaning, it destroys everything we experience to be true. Charles Pearce once said, “A belief that can’t make any difference on how you act when acting counts is a belief that is devoid of meaning.(10) Materialism is meaningless because it does not ring true in our experience, and it has nothing to contribute to our lives practically.

Continue to part 2 here

Notes:
(1) Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sanford, "Scientific Naturalism," in Hidden Worldviews (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 100.
(2) Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (New York: Back Bay Books, 1991).
(3) Dennett (ibid., 455) asks, "why should consciousness be the only thing that can’t be explained?" The answer to this is simply because we cannot go beyond our consciousness to observe and explain it. Any ‘explanation’ would require faith, because we cannot know if whatever explanation we ascribe to it is actually true.
(4) Keith Ward, Why There Almost Certainly Is a God (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2008), 15.
(5) Ibid., 16.
(6) Norman Geisler and Winfried Corduan, quoted in Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman, Faith Has Its Reasons, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 86.
(7) So, Descartes: “I next considered attentively what I was; and I saw that while I could pretend that I had no body, that there was no world, and no place for me to be in, I could not pretend that I was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things it evidently and certainly followed that I existed.” Quoted in Dennett, 30.
(8) Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 69.
(9) Keith Ward, More than Matter? (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2011), 133.
(10) Charles Pearce, quoted by Gregory A. Boyd, "The History and Hope of Open Theism" (lecture, Open Theology & the Church conference, St. Paul, MN, April 4, 2013). This was probably a paraphrase.