I will begin this article with a quote from Claudia Pavonis: “How is it that a man borne from nature can use his intelligence to somehow come to the conclusion that the nature he is borne from is unintelligent? This is the very definition of an oxymoron,” and a quote from Isaac Newton: "In the absence of all other evidence, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence." As these quotes suggest, the evidence for God, Creation, and Intelligent Design is so apparent that denying it reduces one's worldview to absurdity. My main goal in this article is to demonstrate that for a naturalist or atheist to conclude that God doesn't exist, God must exist. Therefore, atheism and naturalism are self-refuting worldviews. In other words, atheism self-destructs, much like Islam, as I showed in my previous article.
Atheists often present themselves as being on neutral ground, inviting theists to board their "airplane" to argue for the existence of God. Many theists fall into this trap, and no matter how they argue, they ultimately end up at the unbeliever’s destination. The real neutral ground, however, is where both parties acknowledge the existence of God, because without that acknowledgment, no one can make knowledge claims or prove anything, as I will demonstrate.
It's clear that in order to reason or reach a conclusion, one must have the ability to reason, which is typically referred to as 'intelligence' or 'intelligibility.' If nature is all there is, with no intelligent design behind it, then our thoughts must be bound by the laws of nature. This would mean we can’t possess free will, intelligence, or the ability to reason. Our thoughts would be as insignificant as chemical reactions elsewhere in nature. If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. In this scenario, the difference between my thoughts and an atheist's thoughts would be no different than the difference between shaking a bottle of Mountain Dew and one of Dr. Pepper—you simply fizz atheistically, and I fizz theistically. This means that atheism isn’t held because it’s true or neutral, but rather because of chemical reactions in the brain beyond one’s control. Without God, everything becomes meaningless.
Many people instinctively understand this, even if they can’t fully articulate it. They get that without God, nothing has ultimate meaning, even if they struggle to express why. Rejecting this truth requires significant intellectual and emotional effort, which is unhealthy. Most atheists I’ve spoken with either acknowledge this truth or refuse to debate their epistemology, suppressing the truth to the point where they deny the existence of truth itself and claim relativism, while still making knowledge claims. This contradiction is common, and their reaction is similar to that of Muslims when faced with the self-refuting nature of their worldview; they either become angry or attempt to change the subject. People often feel threatened by arguments that challenge their deeply held beliefs, and instead of confronting them, they choose to ignore them. This is cognitive dissonance in action.
Atheists may respond with, "This is a strawman definition of atheism. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God, gods, or the supernatural due to a lack of evidence. Your argument is based on ignorance—saying, 'I don't know, therefore God exists'—a version of the god-of-the-gaps argument. You're shifting the burden of proof." This is a misrepresentation of my argument, but I will address it. First, it doesn’t matter how atheism is defined—an atheist is living according to a belief that there is no God, which makes it a worldview. They might claim their worldview allows for God, but they interpret all evidence through atheistic presuppositions, which always lead back to atheism. I’m not arguing from ignorance; I’m arguing for the impossibility of the contrary, to show that atheism is self-refuting. For an atheist to refute this, they must demonstrate how their worldview can account for intelligence or intelligibility. They can’t, and they know it. In fact, they argue from ignorance by assuming things that can never be justified within their worldview. If you press them, their epistemology will be revealed as a series of unsubstantiated assumptions that cannot be justified by their view of the world.
Finally, this is not shifting the burden of proof. The burden of proof presupposes truth and a method for knowing the truth, which requires intelligibility—something that an atheistic worldview cannot provide. If you're an atheist and you understand this argument, you have no choice but to abandon your current worldview and begin exploring deistic or theistic worldviews, acknowledging that God or some form of the supernatural is not only real but necessary for intelligibility. Without this, even your ability to reason would be questionable, and you'd have no reason to trust your cognitive faculties to seek the truth.
Another common atheist defense is: "Okay, fine. I can't account for logic, intelligibility, or rationality, but neither can YOU! I can't know the truth, but neither can YOU!" This is the tu-quoque fallacy, and in making this argument, atheists admit that debating is pointless because there’s no such thing as truth—or if there is, we can't know it—which itself is a truth claim. They don’t realize that they are contradicting themselves. By making these statements, they refute themselves repeatedly and intellectually dishonestly claim that an all-knowing Creator cannot reveal the truth to us in a way that we can know. They fail to see that appealing to an omniscient God doesn't lead to circular reasoning, which is based on question-begging assumptions and blind faith.
To recap, it’s easy to get atheists to admit that according to their worldview, morality is subjective; in fact, most atheists already agree with this. With a little more effort, we can show that everything in their worldview is subjective and a matter of opinion, and no one can prove anything. Psalm 14:1 says, "The fool has said in his heart: 'There is no God.'" Proverbs 18:2 says, "Fools find no pleasure in understanding but only delight in airing their own opinions." And Proverbs 26:4-5 gives us guidance on how to answer the fool, which is essentially what I’m doing here: rather than allowing the conversation to proceed based on opinions, I aim to demonstrate the folly of denying God.
I’ll conclude this article with a quote from David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics. His argument addresses atheists who try to justify their reasoning by appealing to Darwin's Theory of Evolution, random mutation, and natural selection. He argues, “Many atheists believe that argumentation can prove God doesn't exist. But if Naturalism is true, human reasoning ability is unreliable on a fundamental level and can’t prove anything, let alone theological or metaphysical claims. Hence, Naturalism is self-refuting, for it undermines any confidence we might have in our ability to defend it. If we are to trust our reasoning ability, it must be grounded in something other than random mutation and natural selection. Theism offers such a foundation.”
