Do you have a reason for reason?

Unfortunately Christians sometimes distance themselves from reason. At the same time, it is very common for atheists to consider reason to be the exclusive domain of atheism. This is especially true in a somewhat recent phenomenon known as the New Atheist movement, led by the likes of Richard Dawkins, (the late) Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. There is literally nothing that is actually “new” about their atheistic beliefs. The only thing that is somewhat novel is their tone and activism.[1] To the New Atheist, faith is, by definition, a suspension of critical thinking and that’s what religious folk trade in—the atheist, however, has no place for faith. They only rely upon reason, or so they allege.

This emphasis on reason has, for them, become a defining theme. In 2012, the “Reason Rally” was held in Washington D.C. The event featured everyone from Richard Dawkins to Bill Maher to Michael Shermer. It was a who’s who of popular level atheism united around the common theme of reason. This theme shows up routinely with atheist groups. Richard Dawkins has the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. At one point, if you contributed a significant amount of money to his foundation, you actually got to join the “Reason Circle.” There is the United Coalition of Reason and many other atheist groups that lay claim to this theme of reason. There is the National Day of Reason that just so happens (wink, wink) to be observed on the same day as the National Day of Prayer and even a move to have “In Reason We Trust” replace “In God We Trust.” Not long ago, there was a law suit against the city of Warren, MI due to the fact that the city had denied a petition to put up what was to be called the “Reason Station” by an atheist group. The Reason Station was to be a contrast to a long standing tradition of having a “Prayer Station” in the atrium of City Hall operated by religious folks. The suit was successful and the city was forced to allow the atheists to put up the Reason Station alongside the Prayer Station. My point with bringing this is up is that all of these suggest that this group values reason.

The incredible irony here is that many of these groups and their sites trade primarily in invectives and vitriolic slams rather than any kind of reasoned defense. The dialogue surrounding the installment of the Reason Station, for example, was anything but thoughtful. You can go to their sites and see for yourself. If one dares to make a positive claim about God or Christianity (or any religion for that matter), one will find oneself mocked and ridiculed in real time, often with no critical reasoning in sight. Even with formal debates involving the so-called experts, it can be difficult to disentangle mocking complaints about religion from actual arguments on the atheist side.

I’m not saying this to match the ridicule. Rather I mention this to point out a radical inconsistency in the current scene. This brand of atheism extols reason but tends to not engage thoughtfully and reasonably. Many have noted this inconsistency, even fellow atheists. Some professional philosophers, who are avowed atheists, have distanced themselves from the New Atheist movement. In fact, atheist philosopher Michael Ruse has said that Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion has made him ashamed to be an atheist. This is due to the fact that the philosophical arguments are just so weak and there is no effort to deeply engage the views of the many very serious thinkers on the theistic side.

What’s more is that the atheist will often act as if he or she never depends upon faith, only reason. But this is ridiculous. The object of the atheist’s faith may not be God or Scripture, but he or she will often have an undying faith in the ability of science to discover truths about (and beyond) the world. Theists will often point to features of the world that are inexplicable on an atheistic worldview, and the response is often faith of the fundamentalist sort that science will one day explain these facts. Moreover, the atheist will have faith in his or her senses, memory, the report of (select) books, and the powers of reason itself. The point is that the atheist exercises a very active trust in these things and, thus, is equally a person of faith.

But there’s a further irony here in the atheist’s faith in reason. Does the atheist have good reason for reason? I realize it is a funny question but it seems difficult for the atheist to give a reason, or a ground, for reason. To see this, we should note that reason is ultimately governed by principles of logic. What makes a claim reasonably supported is that the claim accords with the standards of logic. But the following also seems to be a legitimate question. What explains the system of logic itself? Put a bit more technically, what is the metaphysical ground of logic itself? This is a difficult question to answer. Perhaps the atheist could say that logic exists as a kind of brute unexplained fact, but then this is going to look especially like an article of faith.

By contrast, the theist has an explanation for the values of logic. The system of logic is explained by God himself, as the ultimate ground of all things. He created matter and the physical laws of nature but he is also the ground of all values, including logic, morality, and beauty. Logical principles are, on this view, the expression of the very mind of God.

It is always important to point out this is not to say that atheists cannot know the principles of logic and the standards of reasoning. But that’s as far as it goes for the atheist. Their worldview does not seem to provide a ground for the principles of reason itself.

The atheist cannot argue in a noncircular way for the existence of reason but the theist can. The theist can mount a variety of non-question begging arguments for the existence of God and this provides a ground for reason itself.

Now there is a lot more to be said on this issue. I haven’t said, for example, how logical principles are grounded in the mind of God and do not have the space to do so here. But the point, for our purposes, is that everyone has faith and everyone uses reason. For the Christian, faith and reason are friendly concepts. God is the very ground of logic. So it seems that Christians should value the principles of logic and canons of reason precisely because, as Christians, we worship the God of logic.

[1] See for example a recent book called A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing, 2013).