…a confused apologist
There’s a tombstone in Thurmont, Maryland that reads, “Here lies an atheist. All dressed up and no place to go.” When C. S. Lewis heard about it, he simply said, “I bet he wishes that were so.”
I’ve been pondering the near-glee I often encounter when I see atheists discount God, heaven, hell, the whole Christian package. I think they must be very brave. I tremble in my boots when I think of an eternity that would at best be nothingness, and at worst, separation from all light and goodness, as well as who knows what horrors (if some folks are right).
I would never presume to argue or debate with an atheist. I haven’t the knowledge, nor, I’m sure, the wit requisite for the joust. My whole hope regarding anything I write is simply to encourage a good hard look at Christianity. My core belief is that the mind, the heart, and the instincts of one who assiduously seeks truth will bear fruit. What puzzles me is that non-believers seem so content and even sometimes rather giddy in their nihilism.
I could never be so.
I think there’s something else with which the atheist could hardly disagree.
I can envision a scenario:
Two hospital beds, side by side. I am in one, our atheist friend in the other. We are in our last moments of life here. I would be a sad excuse for a Christian if I feared death. I fear the process: the pain, all the attendant mess of the body shutting down, and so on, but death itself? No. To me, this is the door to Paradise.
My real life is waiting, about to begin. I believe that last instant, that last breath will see me smiling, with the name of Jesus on my lips. But I wonder what my roommate will be thinking in those final seconds as his organs begin their final failures and darkness starts to settle in. Will there be a doubt, then? Will the scoffing, the witty derision still mix with his final breath? Might he then, in extremis, think, What if? What if I’ve been wrong?
The saying came out of one of our wars: “no atheists in foxholes.”
How about deathbeds?
I’ve heard it: “Everyone has doubts.” I’ve heard more than one Christian admit to the occasional doubt. Do atheists have doubts about lack of faith? They seem so arrogantly certain! I know this: I would love, should I able in those final seconds, to ask my roommate his thoughts as death settles on him. What does a man have to look forward to when his highest hope is nothingness at the end of it all? When the alternative to that nothingness, should he be wrong in his non-belief, is a horror, alienation from his creator—the realization, at last, of the paradise he’s passed up and that he’s facing a waiting hell, whatever its exact nature?
We can’t debate the greatest of all questions. He can’t prove a negative and I can’t give him the sort of empirical evidence he seems to need. But how can he be happy? This, I would like some of our glib and witty atheist friends to answer for me. Forget, for the nonce, arguments, pro and con, God, the nature of the universe, the truth of the resurrection. Just tell me how you can so gleefully respond to the questions of life and death when your only belief is bleak nihilism and nothingness? If that’s all I had to look forward to, not only in this life, but at the end of it, I would be one sad puppy, I’ll tell you.
I honestly want to understand just this little bit of it. We likely have little chance of agreement on the larger issues, but to be so sanguine! Just give me your secret.
How do you do it?
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