A letter to the editor that appeared in the August 18, 2006 issue of USA Today begins with, “I don’t care how any god stands on abortion, as I don’t believe in any god.” The strident confession was in response to the article “Where does God stand on abortion?” that appeared in the August 14th issue. In an attempt to distance herself from faith, she must adopt another faith. “I don’t believe in any god,” she tells us. Her non-belief in God does not mean that God does not exist. Saying “I don’t believe in gravity” doesn’t make it so. A professed non-belief won’t help such a confessor if he or she decides to leap off the roof of a twenty-story building hoping to land safely on the street below. Of course, saying “I believe I can fly” will have an equally disastrous effect.
The confident atheist has another problem. He, or in this case, she, is limited in knowledge. Not only hasn’t the atheist studied all of what makes up this world, but there remains a vast visible and invisible universe that at this point in time and space we don’t have access to. The vastness of the cosmos is beyond accessibility and comprehension for anyone to claim there is no God. Her non-belief remains a faith as religious as that of the Christian’s.
Then there is the issue of what evidence a creedal atheist will accept as proof for God’s existence. The Psalmist tells us that “the heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Ps. 19:1–2). The fact that the universe exists is evidence that God exists, but the atheist does not consider this as ample evidence. There were those in the New Testament who saw an empty tomb guarded by Roman soldiers and no evidence of a stolen body, and yet they did not believe. Many saw Jesus perform miracles with the same negative results.
If a person begins with a set of unproven materialistic assumptions, then no amount of evidence will be enough to persuade him otherwise. Even so, the Bible tells us that God is known by everyone, “for God made it evident to them” (Rom. 1:19). While what we see with our eyes—the created order—is evidence of God’s existence, so are “His invisible attributes” (1:20). Materialists claim that only matter matters, but then go on to assert that reason and logic should be used to shape one’s worldview. But these are invisible “things.” No one has ever seen reason or the laws of logic, just like they have never seen love or compassion. While we know people are reasonable and compassionate, the attributes themselves have never been seen. How does the materialist account for them in a matter-only worldview? Reason and logic are meaningful because they are an extension of God’s “invisible attributes.” It’s no wonder that God says that the deniers of God “are without excuse” (1:20).
The letter writer continues by claiming that the “right to abortion is simply a matter of separation of church and state, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” Let’s put her logic to the test: The church is against murder and rape, and yet there are laws prohibiting murder and rape, therefore there should not be any laws prohibiting murder and rape. Just because they church is for or against some behavior does not mean that the State can’t agree with the opinion of the church. Of course, the First Amendment is not dealing with Church-State issues but the relationship between the federal government and state governments regarding religion and other freedoms. But that’s a discussion for another day.
Her argument continues: “Religious people who are opposed to abortion have no right to assault the U.S. Constitution.” First, there is nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing a woman a “right” to kill her preborn baby. Second, attempting to change the Constitution is not an “assault” if the amendment process is followed. If the letter writer believes that the Constitution is her best protection against what she considers to be an infringement on her personal freedoms, then she is on shaky ground since it can be changed. If the Constitution is the only thing that stands between us and freedom, then we are all in trouble.