I wonder how many casual atheists
have actually thought through
the fact that atheism implies
that life ultimately is meaningless.
One of the world's most celebrated
atheistic evolutionary writers
of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--
Dr. Richard Dawkins--confessed that,
"The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect
if there is at bottom no purpose,
nothing but pitiless indifference."
A few years later Graham Lawton
penned a one-page article titled
"What is the Meaning of Life?"
What answer did this leading
atheistic evolutionist give?
Here was his heavy-hitting first line,
"The harsh answer 'Is it has none,'"
Your life may feel like a big deal to you,"
he wrote, "but it's actually a random blip
of matter and energy in
an uncaring and impersonal universe.
Other than subjective feelings
of meaning and importance,
atheism implies we will never get
objective data on the matter.
Atheism simply fails to capture
a true or higher 'meaning.'"
In light of such valid but depressing confessions
about atheism I would simply like to point out
two beautiful truths about theism
and specifically biblical theism.
First, a person can logically come to know
that the God of the Bible exists.
If matter demands a Maker,
if life on Earth demands a Life Giver,
if complex functional design in
the universe demands a Designer,
and if the supernatural attributes
of the Bible demand a supernatural author,
then the evidence demands this verdict:
the God of the Bible exists.
Second, the word of God gives mankind the
meaning and purpose that He inherently longs for.
Please understand, rational Christians do not
come to believe in God and in the Bible
as the inspired word simply because we want
some objective meaning to our life on Earth.
Rather, once we see the evidence
for God and His Word and commit our lives
to the Lord in obedience to the gospel of Christ
our admittedly innate but formally uninformed
desire for higher meaning is at that moment
made complete by the perfect law of liberty.
In fact, God gave His inspired words,
"so that the man of God may be complete."
No doubt part of this divinely given,
God revealed perfection or completeness
is one's realization that the human life
actually has real objective meaning.
The best atheism can do is to ask people to
choose individually for themselves
what the meaning of human life is,
but such meaning is entirely subjective.
One person could decide that the
meaning of life is to eat as much good food
and to have as many sex partners as possible.
Another could easily say
that the meaning of life
is to explore space and to
establish a colony on Mars.
On the other hand, Christianity offers
the world real objective meaning.
The Creator of mankind has informed us
that we exist on Earth for the purpose
of choosing by the grace of God
where we want to live eternally.
As we prepare to meet our Maker,
He has instructed us to,
"Fear God and keep His commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man.
For God will bring every deed into judgment
with every secret thing whether good or evil."
