Are There Really No Atheists?

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Are There Really No Atheists? (1996)
Michael Martin

Some Christians maintain that there are no atheists. They believe, of course,
that some people profess to be atheists. But according to them these people
suffer from a form of self-delusion. The doubters insist that in their heart of
hearts people who profess not to believe in God really do. Cornelius Van Til
held this position and so did Greg Bahnsen.[1] Thus, for example, Bahnsen
accused me of begging the question when on the first page of my book on atheism
I asserted that there are millions of atheists in the world. [2] According to
Bahnsen I should only have said that there are and have been professed atheists.
In fact, according to Bahnsen, there have not been and are not now any atheists
in the world.[3]
In this paper I will evaluate the claim that no atheists exist. I will begin by
distinguishing the strong form of the claim put forth by Christians like Van Til
and Bahnsen from weaker or at least different forms that might be confused with
it. I will then evaluate the support for the claim.
The Strong Claim Distinguished.
Make no mistake about it. Christians like Van Til and Bahnsen are asserting a
very strong and controversial claim. Let us call their claim the No Atheists
(NA) thesis:
(NA) There has not been and never will be any atheists.
To see the controversial nature and breath takingly wide scope of NA it is
useful to distinguish it from other theses that might be confused with it:
Some professed atheists have really not been atheists.
It is sometimes difficult to tell whether or not someone who professes atheism
is really an atheist.
It does not follow logically that if someone professes to be an atheist he or
she really is.
It is never possible to know for certain that a person who professes to be an
atheist is or is not an atheist.
It is foolish to profess atheism.
It is foolish to be an atheist.
Thesis (1) is hardly controversial. Surely there have been people who for
various reasons have professed atheism but have not been atheists. Moreover, it
is extremely doubtful that their profession has always been the result of
self-delusion; indeed, sometimes it seems to be the result of deliberate lying.
Be this as it may (1) does not entail NA since statements of the form "Some A's
are B" do not entail statements of the form "All A's are B."
Thesis (2) is also noncontroversial. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether a
person who professes being an atheist really is, but this problem is not unique
to atheism. It is also can be difficult to tell what beliefs people really hold
about politics, laundry soaps, and their spouses. For various reasons --fear,
spite, confusion -- people sometimes profess one view and hold another.
Nevertheless, it is one thing to hold (2) and quite another thing to claim that
is always impossible to tell whether anyone is an atheist. In any case,
advocates of NA do not hold (2) since they seem to assume that it is easy to
determine that NA is true.
Thesis (3) is also noncontroversial and, once again, the general principle
involved is hardly unique to atheism. For example, it does not follow logically
that if X professes to be a Christian, X is. Indeed, it seldom seems to follow
that if X professes to be Y, X is Y.[4] In any case, (3) is different from NA.
Advocates of NA are making the much stronger claim: if X asserts that X is an
atheist, X is not.
Depending on what one means by "certain," (4) is also noncontroversial. If by
"certain" one means "could not be wrong ," then one could not be certain (no
matter how good the evidence) that someone, say, Bertrand Russell was an
atheist. However, not being certain in this sense does not preclude the
possibility that the probability for the hypothesis that Russell was an atheist
is extremely high and that because of this we have excellent grounds for
believing that he was. Again there is nothing unique to this context. No
evidence for any hypothesis is certain in this sense. In this sense it is not
certain that the present Pope believes in Catholic doctrines or that Karl Marx
believed in communism. In any case, (4) is different from NA. Advocates of NA
seem to assume not only that they know for certain that Russell is not an
atheist but that they know that no one is.
Thesis (5), on the other hand, is controversial. It is, however, very different
from NA. Indeed, there is no logical relation between NA and (5) in that one
might accept (5) and reject NA. Many Christians believe that (5) is true but
hold that there are lots of atheists (thus denying NA). Moreover, it is possible
to affirm NA and deny (5). If society were controlled by militant vindictive
professed atheists, professing atheism might not be a foolish thing to do even
for believers.
Finally (6) is different from NA. Atheism may well be a foolish view but there
may be lots of fools. Questions about the foolishness of a view and questions
about the existence of people who hold that view are completely different.
Why Hold This Strong Thesis?
One needs good reasons for NA since initially it seems so implausible. In fact,
even most Christians implicitly seem to reject NA. For example, fundamentalist
Christian preachers rail against the spread of atheism, not professed atheism;
The World Christian Encyclopedia details the number of atheists in world, not
the number of professed atheists; famous contemporary Christian philosophers
such as Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga assume there are atheists, not
professed atheists, whose arguments they purport to refute. Even Bahnsen and the
Southern California Center for Christiant Studies (SCCCS) seem at times to
assume that there are real and not just professed atheists. In his taped lecture
"How to Argue with Atheists" Bahnsen apparently begged the same question he
accused me of begging: according to his own scrupples he should have entitled
this lecture "How to Argue with Professed Atheists."[5] SCCCS begged the
question when it referred to me in its advertisements as an atheistic scholar,
not a professed atheistic scholar.
Could NA be supported? I know of only three ways. The thesis could be supported
by empirical evidence of the social sciences and psychology, it could be
supported from Scripture, and it might gain support from philosophical argument.
Construed as an empirical hypothesis the evidence for NA is weak, to say the
least. Indeed, the negation of NA seems to be extremely well-supported by the
evidence.
(~NA) There have been and there are some atheists.
Not only have many people professed atheism but they have devoted their lives to
atheistic causes and the fight against religion all of their lives. Using every
criterion of scientific hypothesis evaluation, for example, simplicity,
explanatory power, variety of the evidence, the claim that such people are
atheists is better supported than its opposite claim. However, since no
empirical claim can be known to be true with certainty, it is possible that such
seeming atheists do believe in God. But by the same token the same thing is true
of Christianity. Consider the No Christian (NC) thesis:
(NC) There has not been and never will be any Christians.
The probability of NC in terms of the evidence is just as low as that of NA.
However, considering NA as a hypothesis that is supported or refuted by the
evidence is perhaps beside the point. One strongly suspects that defenders of NA
do not consider it as such. Indeed, it is plausible that NA is construed by its
advocates as what the philosopher of science Karl Popper called an unfalsifiable
theory--a theory which no empirical evidence can overturn.[6] Although evidence
may be used to support such a theory, no evidence will be accepted by its
advocates as counting against it.
If NA is construed in this way, recourse to empirical evidence is irrelevant and
there is no scientific way to evaluate NA. However, NC can be interpreted in
precisely the same way. Atheists could argue that, appearances not withstanding,
there are no Christiansand all professed Christians are self-deluded. Construed
in this unfalsifiable way both NA and NC are scientifically unacceptable
theories.
2. Could NA be supported by reference to Scripture? The problems of supporting
anything from Scripture are specified in detail in my debate with John Frame on
the Secular Web and readers are referred to my discussion there for details.
First, there are alternative and conflicting alleged sources of revelation.
Second, there are conflicting interpretations of the revelation from the same
sources, for example, the Bible. There seems to be no objective way to decide
between these conflicts. Appeal to historical investigation does not support
Christian revelations over alternatives and Christians fight among themselves
over the interpretation of Christian Scripture without any clear way of
reconciling their differences.
Does the Bible support the view that there are only professed atheists? Perhaps
a scriptural argument can be given since one can be given for almost anything.
But there is no doubt that scriptural arguments can be given for the opposite
thesis as well. For example, in Psalms 14 and 53 one finds:
"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"
Here it is seems clear that the Bible is saying that there are atheists but they
are fools. It certainly implies that the fool does not just profess atheism
since he says there is no God in his heart. The fool really believes it. This
passage was used by St. Anselm in his notorious Ontological Argument and
Anselm's reading supports my interpretation. Anselm argued that the fool's
denial of God was not conceivable; that is, it was inconsistent, since a Being
such that no greater being can be conceived must exist. Anselm was not saying
that the fool was not an atheist. Rather he was saying that atheistic belief is
inconsistent.[7] Although few Christians today uphold Anselm's Ontological
Argument and the argument has serious problems in all its various forms,
Anselm's reading of the passage from Psalms is surely correct: Psalms assumes
that there are atheists.
3. Could philosophical arguments support NA? The only such argument that I can
think of is The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (TAG). It is
not accidental that Van Til and Bahnsen used TAG and affirmed NA for both men
supposed that TAG establishes NA. However, the serious problems connected with
TAG that surfaced in my debate with John Frame and in my exchange with Michael
Butler should make any rational person suspicious that TAG can be used to
support anything. TAG did not show that logic, science and ethics presuppose the
Christian world view and thus that atheists who use logic, science and ethics
presuppose the Christian God. For the details of my arguments readers are
referred to these discussions on The Secular Web.
But even if TAG were a sound argument it would hardly show that NA is true. TAG
is meant to show that logic, science and ethics presuppose the Christian God. In
one sense of "presuppose" X presupposes Y if X entails Y. But why does it follow
from this that professed atheists really believe in God? It is not true that
everything that a person presupposes he or she actually believes. Indeed, there
are countless things that are presupposed by people that they don't believe.
Suppose Mr. Jones believes the proposition that 2+2 = 4. This proposition
entails proposition q (Either 2+2=4 or space is finite but unbounded or Mickey
Mouse is President.) However, it is extremely unlikely that Mr. Jones believes
that q.
In another sense of "presuppose" X presupposes Y if Y is a precondition of X.
For example, in order for a gardener to have prize winning orchids there must be
water in the soil and carbon dioxide in the air surrounding the orchids. Water
and carbon dioxide are preconditions for prize winning orchids. But it does not
follow that the gardener believes that there is carbon dioxide in the air.
Indeed, she may never have heard of this substance. To repeat: p presupposes q
does not entail that if X believes that p, then X believes that q.
The upshot is that even if TAG is sound it would hardly support NA. However, it
is not sound.[8]
Conclusion
Are there really no atheists? No good reason has yet been given for NA and,
until one is, we professed atheists have every reason to suppose that we really
are atheists.[9]
Notes
[1] See Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (New Jersey:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. 1969), p. 13, Cornelius Van Til, The
Defense of the Faith (Philadelphia, PA.: The Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Co, 1955), pp. 171-175. See for example, the taped debate between
Bahnsen and George Smith, A Case For/Against God, (Nash, TX: Covenant Tape
Ministry), audiocassette.
[2] Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press, 1990), p. 3.
[3] See Greg Bahnsen, Michael Martin Under the Microscope, tape 1, (Nash, TX:
Covenant Tape Ministry), audiocassette.
[4] One possible exception is if X professes to exist. If X professes to exist,
does it follow that X does exist? If one is inclined to say "yes," what about if
X is a fictional character? Another possible exception is when X is described in
a certain way. Suppose Bob Dole, a candidate for President, professes to be a
candidate for President. Does it follow that he is? Certainly not from the mere
assertion of the fact!
[5] Greg Bahnsen, "How to Argue With Atheists," (Edmonton, Canada: Still Water
Revival Books) audiocassette.
[6] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (NY: Basic Books, 1959)
[7] St. Anselm, "St. Anselm's Ontological Argument," The Ontological Argument,
ed. Alvin Plantinga (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1965), p. 3.
[8] The Christian philosopher D. Z. Phillips in Faith After Foundationalism
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 102-106 raises specific objections to
Van Til's arguments.
He criticizes Van Til's analogy of atheists as being like people who see the
world though yellow colored glasses. (A Christian Theory of Knowledge, p. 259)
He argues that Van Til begs the question against nonbelievers by using this
analogy. In the case of the person with the yellow glasses the assumption is
that the person's perceptual conditions deviate from reality. But in the case
of atheists this is what is at issue.
He criticizes Van Til's claim that a person who denies the existence of God
shows knowledge of God by the presence of a troubled conscience (A Christian
Theory of Knowledge, p. 292). Admitting that this has sometimes happened
Phillips denies that examples of troubled conscience always shows belief in
God.
Van Til argues that professed nonbelievers who do good works are deceiving
themselves and are implicitly relying on God's teachings (A Christian Theory
of Knowledge, p. 225). Again admitting that sometimes professed nonbelievers
who do good work are implicitly relying on belief in God Phillips denies that
this is always so.
[9] Although I will not develop this idea here, the very existence of millions
of atheists in the world can be construed as grounds for nonbelief. For this
argument see Theodore Drange, "The Argument from Nonbelief," Religious Studies,
29, 1993, pp. 417-432. Drange argues in detail that if there were a Christian
God, then very probably there would not be so much nonbelief in the world or
even so much professed nonbelief.
"Are There Really No Atheists?" is copyright � 1996 by Michael Martin. All
rights reserved.
The electronic version is copyright � 1997 by Internet Infidels with the written
permission of Michael Martin. All rights reserved.

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