The Absurdity of Life without God

Reductio ad Absurdum

Definition: Proving a statement by demonstrating its opposite is absurd

Philosophical Support: Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus argued that if God does not exist, then life is absurd

Key Distinction:

• God = all-powerful, perfectly good Creator offering eternal life

• Without such a God = life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose

Objective vs. Subjective Reality

Objective: Real or true independent of anyone's opinion (e.g., "Water is H2O")

Subjective: Matter of personal opinion (e.g., "Vanilla tastes better than chocolate")

The Claim: If no God exists, meaning/value/purpose are merely subjective illusions despite our desperate belief otherwise

No Ultimate Meaning

The Death Problem:

• Individual Death: Every person faces "the threat of nonbeing" (Paul Tillich)

• Universal Death: Universe expanding toward cold, lifeless end - dead stars and black holes in endless darkness

• Cosmic Indifference: Stephen Crane's poem captures this: "A man said to the universe: 'Sir I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.'"

The Consequence:

• No ultimate significance whether you existed or not

• Humanity no more significant than "swarm of mosquitoes or barnyard of pigs"

• All contributions (scientific, medical, diplomatic) come to nothing

• "Because he ends in nothing, he is nothing"

Immortality Alone Insufficient:

• Mere duration doesn't create meaning

• Science fiction example: Astronaut cursed with meaningless eternal existence

• Need both God and immortality for ultimate significance

No Ultimate Value

The Dostoyevsky Principle:

Historical Evidence: Soviet prison torturers understood this - "There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish." (Richard Wurmbrand testimony)

The Moral Problem:

• No objective standard of right and wrong without God

• Humans just "accidental by-products of nature" on "infinitesimal speck of dust"

• Richard Dawkins' assessment: "There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference... We are machines for propagating DNA"

Logical Implications:

• Impossible to condemn war, oppression, crime as evil

• Cannot praise generosity, self-sacrifice, love as good

• Killing someone or loving someone becomes morally equivalent

• "Good and evil do not exist—there is only the bare, valueless fact of existence"

The Auschwitz Reality:

• Holocaust survivor's testimony of Dr. Mengele's experiments

• Rabbi's observation: "At Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed"

• Conclusion: "If God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz"

No Ultimate Purpose

The Futility Question: If death ends everything, what's the goal of life?

Universal Purposelessness:

• Universe destined for "cold grave in recesses of outer space"

• H.G. Wells' Time Machine vision: Dead earth with only lichens, orbiting red sun

• "All the sounds of man... all that was over"

Individual Purposelessness:

• Ecclesiastes insight: "The fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same... there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity" (Eccl. 3:19-20)

• Even without death, life would be purposeless - humans as "freak of nature," "miscarriage of nature"

• Universe as "cosmic accident, a chance explosion"

The Verdict: Life utterly without reason - no purpose in ending (death) or beginning (chance)

Nietzsche's Madman

The Prophecy: Friedrich Nietzsche predicted modern man would eventually realize atheism's implications, ushering in nihilism

The Marketplace Scene: Madman crying "I seek God!" to laughing crowd:

The Problem: Most people don't reflect on atheism's consequences and "go unknowingly on their way"

The Practical Impossibility of Atheism

The Dilemma:

• Live consistently with atheism → profound unhappiness

• Live happily → only by being inconsistent with atheism

Francis Schaeffer's Two-Story Universe:

• Lower Story: Finite world without God (absurd life)

• Upper Story: Meaning, value, purpose

• The Problem: Atheists live in lower story but make "leaps of faith" to upper story without justification

Meaning: Sartre's Self-Delusion

Sartre's Contradiction:

• Claims life is objectively absurd

• Then says you can "create meaning" by choosing a course of action (he chose Marxism)

• Problem: Universe doesn't acquire meaning just because you give it one

• Reality: "Let's pretend the universe has meaning" = fooling yourself

Value: The Humanist Contradiction

Camus' Inconsistency: Affirmed both life's absurdity and ethics of human love/brotherhood

Bertrand Russell's Admission: Couldn't live as though ethical values were personal taste; found his own views "incredible" - "I do not know the solution"

New Atheists' Contradiction:

• Richard Dawkins claims "no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference"

• Yet vigorously condemns harassment of homosexuals, religious indoctrination, human sacrifice

• Even offers his own "Ten Commandments" while denying objective morality

Universal Pattern: "One will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system"

Purpose: Weinberg's Noble Tragedy

Steven Weinberg's Contradiction:

• Admits universe is "pointless" and human life "farcical outcome of chain of accidents"

• Yet calls scientific pursuit "one of the very few things that lifts human life... above the level of farce"

• Problem: Why is science more significant than "slouching about doing nothing"?

• Reality: All pursuits equally insignificant - "no more significant than shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic"

The Terrible Dilemma

Modern Man's Situation:

• Atheistic worldview insufficient for happy, consistent life

• Cannot live consistently as though life lacks meaning/value/purpose

• Can only live happily by "giving the lie to our worldview"

Dr. L.D. Rue's "Noble Lie" Solution

The Relativism Problem:

• "Intellectual and moral relativism is profoundly the case"

• Quest for self-fulfillment vs. social coherence fall apart

• Two Bad Options:

  • "Madhouse option": Pursue self-fulfillment regardless of social coherence

  • "Totalitarian option": State imposes coherence at expense of personal fulfillment

The Noble Lie Proposal:

Why It's a Lie:

• Tells us universe is infused with value (fiction)

• Claims universal truth (when there is none)

• Says don't live for self-interest (evidently false)

• But: "Without such lies, we cannot live"

The Dreadful Verdict: "In order to survive, he must live in self-deception"

The Gravity of the Alternatives

If God Exists: Hope for humanity

If God Does Not Exist: Only despair remains

The Ultimate Question: Not merely adding another item to our inventory, but "an issue that lies at the very center of life's meaning"

The Proof by Contradiction

The Argument:

• Atheism leads to absurdity (no meaning, value, purpose)

• Humans cannot live consistently with this absurdity

• Even atheists live as though meaning, value, and purpose exist

• This reveals the inadequacy of a world without God

The Implication: While this may not definitively prove God exists, it demonstrates that "the question of God's existence is the most important question a person can ask"

Final Reality: "No one who truly grasps the implications of atheism can say, 'Whatever!' about whether there is a God"