I work with a master bulldozer operator named Pete. He is probably about sixty-five years old, and he has had more interesting experiences than anyone I have met, ranging from countless jobs all over the United States to meeting French President Charles De Gaulle. Pete and I often have discussions while we are working, and during one of these I learned that he is an atheist. I picked out three particular arguments from his explanation of his (dis) beliefs that demand the attention of Christians if we want to relate to people like Pete.
The first and most powerful argument that Pete used to explain his atheism is the existence of evil in the world. Pete's wide range of experiences have shown him many glimpses of the horrible things that happen to human beings. “When you go to a children's hospital,” he explained, “and see all those disfigured limbs and diseases, and the looks on their faces—no, there's nothing. You die, and that's it.” Here Pete is giving voice to the classic theological problem of evil, that is, that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God can permit evil to exist. As Christians, we need to be sympathetic to people like Pete and acknowledge that we haven't solved the problem of evil instead of acting like it isn't a problem.
Pete's second reason for his atheism is his disillusionment with the institutional church, particularly the Catholic Church. “God said, 'Make no monument in my name,'” Pete told me, “but these people build great big buildings with statues inside, and burning candles...That's all nothing, theres more religion in that tree over there than in all those buildings” Here I am in wholehearted agreement with Pete. Often the church has become so obsessed with itself that it forgets to follow God, and in doing so it alienates and confuses unbelievers. Have we invented a gospel that places the Church above the Kingdom?
Lastly, Pete has perceived the lamentable and unnecessary gap between science and faith. He seems to think that both the scientific method and the theory of evolution are in direct conflict with Christian theology. Again, here I highly sympathize with Pete. Christians have gone out of their way to portray science as irreconcilable with the Bible. Instead, they should be thoughtfully trying to match up natural revelation with special revelation. Perhaps people like Pete would respect Christians if they didn't always seem to be on a crusade against higher learning.
So those are the lines of reasoning that Pete uses to justify his atheism. The problem of evil, anger at the institutional church, and questions about science are probably among some of the most common barriers that keep people from God (Christianity's claim to exclusive truth might be another). We would benefit from a more open and honest dialogue on these issues.
