God frequently tells us to be careful in our choices (De_30:19) because they have consequences. (Ga_6:7) He asserts that we have a will, that we are conscious, and that we have a responsibility to choose the good and refuse the evil. (Is_7:15) There is a moral law, and we violate it at our peril.
To all of us, each and every one of us, this is self-evident, that we have the ability to make choices: that we are conscious and aware of the options of both good and evil choices before us, and that we have an obligation to make good choices.
Atheism, however, asserts that only matter and energy exist, and that matter and energy are not conscious. This implies there is no consciousness, thus no free choice, and no good or evil. This implies that our perception of free will and moral choice is merely an illusion in our brains, implying that we are no more than mechanical robots, programmed by evolution to act as we do. Atheists assert this because it is implied by atheism, not because there is any actual evidence for it.
Even Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle does not provide for conscious, moral choice; it only provides for the possibility of random, unconscious, amoral behavior.
When accepting proposition A implies conclusion B, and B is false, we know from the logical contrapositive that A is also false. This is called proof by contradiction. In other words, the fact that atheism implies we are not conscious, and that we make no voluntary choices, and that there is no moral reality, conclusions which we know by experience to be false, proves that atheism is false.
It is true that while we are alive in our body we are intimately linked with our brains, which operate with chemicals and electricity, but we are not merely our brains: we are more than bodies. We live through our bodies and think through our brains, but our thoughts are not merely impulses in our brains any more than we are merely our bodies. In other words, we are intimately connected with Nature, but we are not merely of Nature: we are eternal, made in God’s image.
Our ability to think and to choose, to understand Nature, something Nature by itself cannot do, proves we are above Nature, that we exist outside of and apart from Nature, such that we can look at Nature as an outside observer. This is the foundation of epistemology, the science of knowledge, that enables us to perceive, understand and know the living God, and the universe He created.
Tim, a friend of mine, who is an atheist, whose privacy I will respect, differed with you on the following points. Should be a good discussion. Stephen
Atheistic viewpoint:
In short, I find Tim’s conclusions misleading and tendentious; and his usage of proof of contradiction in this context is nonsense. Why would he claim something without even googling before? (https://www.google.com/search?q=atheism+consciousness&oq=atheism+consciou&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57.7834j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8, https://www.quora.com/How-do-atheists-explain-Consciousness, https://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/ben-andrews/consciousness-awareness)
In a longer format: this topic is very interesting! I’m reading a book called Life 3.0 (https://www.amazon.com/Life-3-0-Being-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1101946598) that discusses the consciousness (among a lot of other things) from a very interesting perspective: how is it, that a certain combination of atoms creates what we call “consciousness”, and some others just meat, water, or stones?
From a scientific perspective we can observe, that indeed a certain combination of atoms results in brain cells, and the brain cells together make a brain. We can observe that most of the living creatures are conscious at least on some level, and that e.g. brain-dead people are generally considered not to be conscious; or when people sleep or are under anesthesia, they usually are not conscious. My rough guess is that this people agree on this throughout the scientific world, of which a large portion are non-religious rationalists (or atheists).
As far as I know, there is not yet a clear understanding on why certain matter is conscious, and others not. I’m not sure how exactly consciousness is defined.
The idea of free choice is another interesting aspect, that I studied in 2009. If we assume all movement is deterministic, then we can trace back the position of each of the atoms down to the Big Bang. If this was the case, then indeed everything that happened was already defined at the Big Bang and thus anything that we’d consider as free will wouldn’t exist. However, this is not the case as the subatomic particles (quantum mechanics) don’t follow the same rules as the atomic world, but instead include truly random events.
Thanks for writing me about this topic!
Hi Stephen, Here’s a response for your friend.
Thanks for your comments and interest in dialogue. I appreciate it.
I have two questions.
[1] Can you be specific about why you consider my use of proof by contradiction in this context invalid?
[2] Would you accept this definition of consciousness? “the state of being aware of and responding to one’s surroundings; awake”
As to the links you posted, I didn’t find in any of them a reasonable materialistic explanation of consciousness, not even a legitimate attempt at an explanation.
It appears from the following article that this has not yet been done, and that many feel it is a fundamentally insolvable problem for materialists.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/21/-sp-why-cant-worlds-greatest-minds-solve-mystery-consciousness
Consciousness is called “the Hard Problem” for a reason. This reason is that consciousness evidently defies atheism, contradicts it, otherwise it wouldn’t be called a “problem.” We don’t call other areas of genuine scientific inquiry “problems” in this same manner.
Effects cannot be greater than their causes; the whole cannot be inherently different than the sum of its parts. If matter and energy are not conscious, then no mere arrangement of matter and energy can produce consciousness; something else (spirit) must be present in a sentient being.
Atheists must ignore these facts, this “problem,” in order to persist in atheism, so they do.
In any besetting sin there is a constant need to choose what God chooses, and to train our spirits in making these choices consistently. It is here that we may properly be said to “deny ourselves,” and to count everything but loss for the pleasure of Christ.