Q.34 People with real courage will face up to the cold hard realities of a godless universe.

“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

This is clearly Dawkins’ way of restating his view that there is no God, because God’s universe is quite different from Dawkins’. God’s universe is of course created by God with superintelligent design, purpose, meaning, and no evil when created. God created it so he could show love to man, the pinnacle of his creation (Ps 8.5), and man could show love back to God. So Dawkins’ assertion about the meaninglessness and purposelessness of the universe can be falsified by demonstrating that his root assertion—that there is no God—is false.

The “Godless universe” of the atheist necessarily denies the biblical creation account and all that goes with it: God’s intelligent design of it as well as the many things that God has imbued his creation with. Some of those things are life, morality and consciousness, which atheistic models such as the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution cannot explain.

So let us take the atheistic worldview and assumptions, and determine if this question is consistent with the atheistic worldview, or if the atheists are actually stealing from God, as Frank Turek would say in their attempts to discourage people from the obvious truth: that there is a God, that he created the universe and is drawing you to himself in love. So let’s examine the statement and see how well it holds up to scrutiny given an atheistic worldview. 

“People with real courage will face up to the cold hard realities of a godless universe.”

1. This question assumes there is such a thing as courage. If we are just an “accidental aggregation of stardust in an amoral purposeless blind pitiless indifferent cosmos” (as Apolojedi reminds us of another claim that Dawkins makes in “The God Delusion”), then how can such an accidental aggregation of stardust have courage? Does the dirt on the ground have courage? Does the wood or brick of your house have courage? If we are just an “accidental aggregation of stardust” why should humans have courage?

2. There is an implication that courage is good. Why is courage good? And how could it be “good” in a universe where there is no evil and no good? How did lifeless stardust become conscious allowing an ability to recognize “personhood” and that a person could have courage? How could stardust gain morals (do rocks have morals?) and become moral enough to know about “goodness” and “courage”? Atheist, are you not borrowing against the qualities God has put into his creation to make such atheistic assertions?

3. There is an implication that there is such a thing as a “cold harsh reality”. That is clearly something bad. But how can there be something bad in a universe where there is “no good”, “no evil” and thus nothing can be “bad”?

4. “Cold harsh realities” point to a clear gradation of goodness and evil. Thomas Aquinas is famous for his Five ways or proofs for the existence of God. The fourth way is from the clear gradation of goodness in things. So by claiming there are “cold harsh realities”, you’re also affirming there are non-cold harsh realities, which are better than the “cold harsh realities.” And if there are both good and bad realities, clearly there is a gradation, thus proving Aquinas’ point. So in claiming there are “cold harsh realities” you are affirming one of the classical proofs of the existence of God, which of course makes the statement self-contradictory.

5. The atheistic worldview cannot explain the obvious hallmarks of a God created universe, things like the origin of life (and thus why you’re alive), the origin of consciousness, (and thus why you are self aware and can notice anything about the universe) or the origin of morality, (and thus why you have sense of right and wrong and have a basis for talking about “cold harsh realities”).

I could go on with the inconsistencies, but these five are sufficient to make these two points: 1. The question itself undermines an atheistic worldview. 2. The question is self-contradictory. It points to one of the proofs for God. I’m neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, but since the questioner feels free to make unfounded assertions about theists in general, and Christians in particular (since they are almost always the target of atheistic ire), let me make a well-founded observation about those making this assertion. That assertion is this:

It is not the Christian who is not facing up to “cold harsh realities”, it is the unbelieving atheist, knowing that for all those who refuse to believe in the only one who can take away their sins, Jesus the Christ, their destiny is an eternity apart from God in a place of torment called hell. Hell, as Jesus describes it, is such a horrible and fearful place, that you need to do anything necessary to avoid the things that cause you to sin and keep you from God. Thus Jesus says:

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”
(Mark 9:43)