Is unbelief logical? Is atheism logical? Are they rational?

THE LOGIC OF UNBELIEF

The Unbelief of St. Thomas by Andrei Mironov

Having surveyed the similarities and differences between believing and unbelieving knowledge of God, we shall now examine the general structure of unbelieving thought.  What does the unbeliever believe?  Well, obviously unbelievers differ among themselves about many things.  But is there anything they have in common?  Yes, they all disbelieve!  So we ask:  What are the implications for knowledge of unbelief in the God of Scripture?  Does that unbelief in and of itself impose any structure on a person's thoughts?

If the biblical God does not exist

Roll The Dice Painting by Jan Paulus-maly

If the biblical God does not exist, there are two alternatives: either there is no god at all, or something other than the biblical God is god.  On the one hand, if there is no god at all, then all is chance, all thinking is futile, and all ethical judgments are null and void.  I shall therefore call that the irrationalist alternative.  Irrationalism results not only when the existence of any god is denied but also when a god is affirmed and yet thought to be so distant or mysterious (or both) that he can have no practical involvement with the world.  Irrationalism, parasitically, lives off of certain truths: that man is mall, that the mind is limited, that God is far above us and incomprehensible.  Thus irrationalism often enters theology masquerading as a respect for God's transcendence.  We therefore described this position earlier as a "non-Christian view of transcendence."

The idolatry of man's mind

Moses Indignant at the Golden Calf by William Blake, 1799–1800

On the other hand, if the unbeliever chooses to deify something in the world, something finite, then a kind of rationalism results.  Man's mind either is the new god or is considered competent to discover it autonomously, which is the same thing.  This is what we earlier described as a "non-Christian view of immanence," and it too masquerades as biblical truth, trading on biblical language about the covenant nearness of God, about His solidarity with the world.

The result of this is that the mind turns out to know only its thinking

The Thinker in The Gates of Hell at the Musée Rodin

Both rationalism and irrationalism are futile and self-defeating, as sin must always be.  If irrationalism is true, then it is false.  If all thinking is the produce of chance, then how can it be trusted even to formulate an irrationalism?  Rationalism flounders on the truth that is obvious to everyone: the human mind is not autonomous, not suited to be the final criterion of all truth.  We are limited.  The rationalist can defend his position, then, only by limiting his rationalism to certain truths of which he thinks there is no question -- that we exist, that we think, and so forth.  Then he seeks to deduce all other truth from those statements and to deny the truthfulness of anything that cannot be so deduced.  But the result of this is that the mind turns out to know only itself, or more precisely, to know only its thinking.  Thought is thought of thinking.  Only that can be known for certain.  Once some more specific content is specified, certainty disappears.  Thus the consistent rationalist will deny that there is anything, ultimately, except "pure thought," "pure being," and so forth.  All else is illusion (but how is that illusion) to be explained!?).  But what is a "pure thought" that is not a thought of something?  Does that idea have any meaning at all?  It is a pure blank.  The knowledge of which rationalism boasts turns out to be a knowledge of ... nothing!

Rationalism gives us a perfect knowledge -- of nothing.  Irrationalism leaves us ignorant -- over everything

Edvard_Munch, Ashes (1895)

Thus in the end, rationalism and irrationalism, so contrary to one another in mood and style, turn out to be identical.  Rationalism gives us a perfect knowledge --- of nothing.  Irrationalism leaves us ignorant -- over everything.  Both are self-refuting for neither can give an intelligent account of itself.  The irrationalism cannot consistently affirm his irrationalism.  The rationalist, similarly, cannot affirm his rationalism; he can affirm only "pure thought," without specifying any content to it.


An so it is not surprising that rationalists and irrationalists borrow ideas from one another to avoid the destructive consequences of their own positions.  The rationalist, when he seeks to get some content into his "pure being," resorts to irrationalism.  The irrationalist can assert his irrationalism only on a rationalist basis -- the basis of his own autonomy.

Unless this destructiveness is replaced by the truth, our witness will be no help

The Fall of the Damned, alternately known as The Fall of the Rebel Angels is a monumental religious painting by Peter Paul Rubens.

Thus these positions destroy themselves and one another, and yet they also need one another.  They provide many tools for the Christian apologist, and it is quite proper for the Christian apologist to confront the rationalist with his dependence on irrationalism, and vice versa and to show how each position is self-destructive.  But of course, unless this destructiveness is replaced by the truth, our witness will be no help.

Source: Frame, John.  The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God.  New Jersey: P&R Publishing.  Pages 60-61.  1987.