The Atheist and his T-Shirt...

I have noticed on the blogs of Fr Finigan and Fr Blake that there is this new trendy T-shirt with a silly atheist slogan. I cannot quite understand why anyone would boast of ignorance, but I guess we live in a Fallen World where Truth is scorned and Virtue mocked. On 17th March 1953, C.S Lewis wrote a letter (in Latin) to Don Calabria, a Catholic priest living in Verona, on the subject of atheism. He wrote:

''Quae dicis de praesenti statu hominum vera sunt: immo deterior est quam dicis. Non enim Christi modo legem sed etiam Naturae Paganis cognitam negligunt. Nunc enim non erubescunt de adulterio, proditione, periurio, furto, ceterisque flagitiis quae non Christianos doctores, sed ipsi pagani et barbari reprobaverunt. Falluntur qui dicunt 'Mundus iterum Paganus fit.' Utinam fieret! Re vera in statum multo periorem cadimus. Homo post-Christianis non similis homini pre-Christiano. Tantum distant ut vidua a virgine: nihil commune est nisi absentia sponsi: sed magna differentia intra absentiam sponsi venturi et sponsi amissi!''

Which means:

''What you say about the present state of mankind is true: indeed, it is even worse than you say. For they neglect not only the law of Christ but even the Law of Nature as known by the Pagans. For now they do not blush at adultery, treachery, perjury, theft and the other crimes which I will not say Christian Doctors, but the Pagans and the Barbarians have themselves denounced. They err who say 'the world is turning pagan again.' Would that it were! The truth is that we are falling into a much worse state. 'Post-Christian' man is not the same as 'pre-Christian' man. He is as far removed as virgin is from widow: there is nothing in common except want of a spouse: but there is a great difference between a spouse-to-come and a spouse lost.'' (The Latin Letters of C.S Lewis, pp.82-83).

J.R.R Tolkien never (to my knowledge) directly addressed the problem of Atheism, although he does say in relation to his work than an Ainu such as Sauron could not be a sincere atheist, since he has knowledge of God according to his stature - although he can, if he is evil, preach atheism, since it weakens opposition to himself. The only thing I can think of is this letter which he wrote to the daughter of Rayner Unwin (the son of Stanley Unwin, Tolkien's publisher) Camilla, who asked him: ''what is the purpose of life?'':

''Human curiosity soon asks the question HOW: in what way did this come to be? And since recognizable 'pattern' suggests design, may proceed to WHY? But WHY in this sense, implying reasons and motives, can only refer to a MIND. Only a Mind can have purposes in any way or degree akin to human purposes. So at once any question: 'Why did life, the community of living things, appear in the physical Universe?' introduces the Question: Is there a God, a Creator-Designer, a Mind to which our minds are akin (being derived from it) so that It is intelligible to us in part. With that we come to religion and the moral ideas that proceed from it. Of those things I will only that that 'morals' have two sides, derived from the fact that we are individuals (as in some degree are all living things) but do not, cannot, live in isolation, and have a bond with all other things, ever closer up to the absolute bond with our own human kind.

''So morals should be a guide to our human purposes, the conduct of our lives: (a) the ways in which our individual talents can be developed without waste or misuse; and (b) withour injuring our kindred or interfering with their development. (Beyond this and higher lies self-sacrifice for love).

''But these are only answers to the smaller question. To the larger there is no answer, because that requires a complete knowledge of God, which is unattainable. If we ask why God included us in his Design, we can really say no more than because He Did.

''If you do not believe in a personal God the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable. To whom or what would you address the question? But since in an odd corner (or odd corners) of the Universe things have developed with minds that ask questions and try to answer them, you might address one of these peculiar things. As one of them I should venture to say (speaking with absurd arrogance on behalf of the Universe): 'I am as I am. There is nothing you can do about it. You may go on trying to find out what I am, but you will never succeed. And why you want to know, I do not know. Perhaps the desire to know for the mere sake of knowledge is related to the prayers that some of you address to what you call God. At their highest these seem to simply praise Him for being, as He is, and for making what He has made, as He has made it.'

''Those who believe in a personal God, Creator, do not think the Universe is in itself worshipful, though devoted study of it may be one of the ways of honouring Him. And while as living creatures we are (in part) within it and part of it, our ideas about God and ways of expressing them will be largely derived from contemplating the world about us. (Though there is also revelation both addressed to all men and to particular persons).

''So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour.'' (The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, no.310, To Camilla Unwin, 20th May 1969).

Forgive the length of the letter, but it makes interesting reading. As for me, I pity atheists, and my sentiments are exactly those of Lewis'; that they are without God's Grace by their own choosing, and are therefore lost (perhaps even irretrievably so). It is heart-breaking reading their works, or reading about their merciless and cruel deeds - such as that incident with the friend of Richard Dawkins. I once had a conversation with someone I work with about God and the nature of things, and she was amazed when I said that God was more ''real'' to me than she was (at least in the philosophical sense that God is a Necessary Being). I'm afraid that I didn't manage to convert her by my own feeble means - I am exactly the wrong person for that purpose. But since Faith is a gift from God, perhaps conversion is impossible by purely human means?

I think that Tolkien has won the argument. Although Tolkien's letter was addressed to a young girl, it could well be used against the atheist and his foolish T-shirt. Tolkien has used a theistic argument from Design and has said plainly that knowledge of God is possible, one just has to look. I guess that atheists looked but didn't see, as Christ said in St Marks Gospel (8:18).