ON BEING ANGRY WITH GOD

By A. Prentice

Creation is the child of imagination. Architects, novelists, musicians, artists, space engineers, all see possibilities, dream dreams, and bring the visions of their mind’s eye to reality. Why is it, then, that so many people cannot see in the reality of the universe the Divine Imagination which conceived it?

PROFESSOR RICHARD DAWKINS, Oxford University atheist, is greatly admired in Britain and other countries as a champion of unbelief.

Merciless in his condemnation of so-called ‘creationists’ and Christians in general, he is a destroyer of faith and the comfort it affords. I should not like to debate with him. His acerbic tongue is allied with a prodigious intellect, the product of years of British materialistic thought.

He professes astonishment that anyone should still believe in God, or, more to the point, that they should need to. He and others in his camp appear to be confident, self-possessed, and quite able to take on this world with its disappointments and challenges, with equanimity.

This astonishes me.

They cannot imagine living in a world with God. I cannot imagine living in this world without Him. No, more than this: it would not be enough to have God alone: I must have a Saviour! For to have a Saviour is to possess a Father who has anticipated my need and provided His Son to save me. Such a God is more than a ‘creator’ or an ‘intelligent designer’. Wherein lies the worth of those expressions? Should I be brought to tears merely by His intelligence, or exult over His genius for design? I would rather be warmed by the realisation that His far-sightedness, moved by His compassion for my sin-sickness, anticipated my need down the ages and sent One to perfectly reflect Himself, my God, my Father, the healer of souls. A God of Love.

Do the Dawkins’ crew ride so high above the rest of us that they never experience any doubt? Are they never visited in the dark of night, or when old age comes on, with a sense of regret, bitter disappointment, or fear of death? Do they not yearn for Something outside of, and bigger than, themselves? No One to thank for the sunset or the birds, no Benefactor to acknowledge for the kindness and justice that comes to us from the ministry of others? No Virtue. Only chemical, genetic, habitual responses to mechanical stimuli. Just flesh and bones, mortality, and eventual non-existence.

Atheists profess to hold all these joys without the mental burden of theology. Perhaps they merely take for granted the natural impulses that drive their pleasures and delights in the things of this world? Do they not ask how an un-thinking, blind force can produce the illusion of happiness? Do they thank the Process? For the Process is their God and are they its Disciples, sent forth to proclaim it with evangelical zeal. Listening to Richard Dawkins and reading what he says, it doesn't take long to discern that he is an angry man. ‘Indignant with the ignorant’ could be his motto. The Evolution god is wrathful toward the ‘infidels’.

Oh, for the gift to doubt! It is how the Lord draws each of us. Even our faith is strengthened by our doubts, for what is a doubt if not a question? And God answers our questions to our satisfaction. I don’t mean the trivial ones not where monkeys come from, or how big the universe is but Who and What He is, and how we stand with Him.

Above all, that we are Forgiven.

Were I an atheist I should want to leave a door open to Doubt. Despite his insults against God, Prof. Dawkins may yet be glad that the God he has spurned has not, for all that, any evil designs upon him.

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