"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith" Romans 3:28a
"It's all a big nothing." Livia Soprano
If we drew a relationship Atheism->->Deism->->Theism->->Jesus Christ, then what Paul has to say to the Romans here must be what bridges Theists to Jesus Christ. While the overwhelming majority of Theists that lived never have read these words, its nonetheless the most important philosophical piece of information in the New Testament and, I would argue, human history.
But what about those that never progress to Theism? Kant's third of three questions that need to be answered in any thinking person's life, as illustrated in the seminal "The Critique of Pure Reason", is "what is the purpose of our existence"?
For a young Atheist, there should not be a problem. Young Atheists have their lives to look ahead to write their own history; knowing many, and fortunate enough to call many "friend", they seldom think about this through anything but a glass darkly, if at all. Particularly in cultures like America and Japan, where, upon drawing the morning shades, any urge to take a morning stroll in the crisp, Autumn morning is usurped as soon as we remind ourselves our smart phones have not been checked since the prior night.
But for Atheists in their twilight, it is a much different story. When they look back and realize, if their worldview is correct, it is, and has been, all just sound and fury. Machines (us) reacting to chemical reactions, coming from a Big Bang, leaving when the sun burns out or most likely much, much sooner, with no record of our existence, our universe leaving not even shadows of existence. Atheists on their way out must admit, if their worldview is correct,
then there is no truer words then from the old hag from the Sopranos --
"It's all a big nothing". Or, perhaps a tad more elegantly, as the great Catholic writer GK Chesterton
penned, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it asserts a
universal negative."
The great movie director Sydney Pollack, before his recent death, was asked if he ever would stop making movies. His answer was no, for if he stopped, he would lose purpose in his life. Of course, he is not alone, by any stretch. When others are pressed for the purpose of their life, some talk about their kids, and assert that their life serves plenty purpose so long as their kids are happy and healthy. As nice as that sounds, its for all the same reasons as above, nonsensical, and, as an aside, is almost always actually utterly selfish. When Leo Szilard told his friend Hans Bethe, two nobel laureates of Physics, that he was thinking of keeping a diary to record information for God, Bethe replied by asking Szilard didn't he think that God already knew the facts. Szilard replied, " Yes, He knows the facts, but He doesn't know this version of the facts." Justified fully by kids, work, charity, or, in Szilard's case, by making incredible strides in understanding the materialistic backbone of this universe -- these are totally incoherent concepts, clutching at existential straws, in every way, nonsensical. Indeed, even the most influential and thoughful modern philosophers, even the secular Atheists, like Alexander Rosenberg, Richard Rorty and Thomas Nagel, understand the rational purposelessness and persistent human need for justification for the Atheist based on their worldview.
I cannot imagine a more somber setting then the deathbed of the Atheist with even the most celebrated lives. For even the most thoughtful and contributing Atheist, to look back at all the wonderful things they have done for the human race -- the great movies and pleasure Sydney Pollack brought to many, for example -- and to realize it was all meaningless chemical reactions.
For the Theist, death can also be quite horrible, but for very different reasons. To look back at all the terrible things we have done, all the things we failed to do, and how terrifying it should be to anybody to give an account of our lives to the personal Creator of the Universe. If we as Theists are being honest, our deathbeds should be exponentially more disturbing and worrisome.
But then we get to Romans 3:28. Why God stays ostensibly behind the curtain crosses paths with our greatest and deepest needs. We understand what Kierkgaard meant and what millions of Christians mean, when they utter, "the proof of Christianity is in the following". But we must understand precisely where that still fails. As modern psychology has revealed, our behaviors and societies are as important to inform our beliefs as the other way around. When we surround ourselves with a community of believers, when we live our lives by serving our secular and non-secular neighbor, we still only realize our deathbed is tragic, disturbing and worrisome. Christianity has been plagued for 2000 years with people whom have justified themselves by something far worse than jobs or kids or great intellectual achievements. They have attempted to justify themselves by themselves, and, in their wake, disaster. We must admit to Dr. Dawkins, Yes sir, Religion is often horrendous, and religious people, particularly dressed up in the righteousness of Christianity, are the most accountable, because they have the most information.
But then we get to Romans 3:28.
If only every Aztec "believer", every Native American "believer", every Babylonian "believer", that died in fear and despair that they were simply not good enough for whatever they thought was out there, or up there, or down there, could have read these words, then they would have had a much different ending. Death becomes not death, but a shadow and an echo of death.
When the question mark is replaced by grace, it is only then that the universal veil is lifted.
