I conclude this section on ironies of those-who-don’t-know-God
with a quote from Somerset Maugham, atheist author of Of Human Bondage from another of his books, The Summing Up:
“If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival
after life as too doubtful… one has to make up one’s mind as to the use of
life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good nor to fear evil, I
must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must
conduct myself. Now the answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most will not
face it. There is no meaning for life, and life has no meaning.”
Note that Maugham, although clearly aware of where his
atheist thinking lands him - that life has no meaning - nonetheless lived as if
it did. If he did not believe deep inside that life has meaning, what compelled him to write?
Finally, those-who-don’t-know-God do not believe in a
creator, however, they should want it
to be true. Most care deeply about justice for the poor, alleviating hunger and
disease, and caring for the environment. Yet
many of them imagine that the material world was caused by accident and that
the world and everything in it will eventually simply burn up with the death of
the sun. Ironically their own worldview
undermines any motivation to make the world a better place: Why sacrifice for
the needs of others if in the end nothing we do makes any difference?
Next time: rationale for concluding there is a creator God. In Christ…
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