IN Study 3 we considered materialism as a false view of God and presented seven arguments in refutation of it. We will now continue with more arguments which refute materialism:
(8.) Materialism denies moral responsibility. Materialists who are consistent with their beliefs deny that the virtuous man is any better morally than the vicious man. Materialists insist that difference of conduct is due to a different distribution and quality of one’s atoms, not to the varying degrees of people’s sense of responsibility and character status.
(9.) Materialism fails to account for religion as the highest practice and attainment of man. Strict materialism says that there can be no religion since it denies God’s existence. In less strict materialism there is a deifying and worshipping of nature. Thus, materialism not only leaves uncultivated the highest and noblest faculties of the human heart – the religious faculties – but degrades them as well.
Materialism and Theism Contrasted
A contrast between materialism and theism is unfavorable to the former and favorable to the latter in every way; and, therefore, proves the superiority of the latter to the former as to the creation, preservation and rulership of the universe. Theism is the doctrine that God exists as a Spirit Being independent of, but works creatively, perseveringly, and executively throughout, the universe. The eternity of God is a much more reasonable assumption than is that of the eternity of matter and its inherent forces, which at first could be only potential, but not active; for the first cause must be causeless and therefore eternal. But a motionless first cause cannot be the first cause; for something else had to cause it to move. But this objection does not hold against a conscious first cause; for it could start motion within itself and outside itself. The billions of proofs of order – the reign of law – in the universe imply that the first cause was intelligent, which God is. Inorganic matter and blind force are incapable of the gigantic job of creating, preserving, and ordering all nature animate and inanimate.
Materialism with its materials – matter and its inherent forces – cannot explain the origin of life. It has resorted to spontaneous generation as an answer to how life came from the lifeless. But no examples of spontaneous generation have ever been found. Moreover, the efforts of scientific experiments have failed to prove it in every case. Theism, however, beautifully explains it in plant, animal, and spirit life.
Materialism again breaks down in its attempt to explain the origin of the various species in plant and animal life. It has attempted to do so by the theory of evolution, but no evidence has ever been found to show that a change from one into another species has ever occurred. Efforts to breed between members of two species have always produced sterile offspring, for example, crossing the horse and the ass produces the mule, which lacks power of propagation. Theism completely solves this problem in the creation of “every seed after its kind,” “every beast after its kind” and “man after its kind.”
Materialism additionally breaks down in its attempt to explain the vast difference between brute and human beings. Although it has attempted to do so, too, by the theory of evolution, it has completely failed to produce any proof. Although there is evidence that brutes have intelligence, feelings, and volition, the powers of the human are immeasurably higher. Theism, on the other hand, explains that man was made by a separate act of God in His image and likeness.
In a word, materialism completely breaks down by failing to explain the riddle of the universe and its existence. Theism, on the contrary, solves every riddle of creation, as well as the preservation and rulership of creation, in which materialism also breaks down as a solution. Materialism’s exponents continually ridicule believers in theism, as credulous and superstitious, however, it is they who are the credulous and superstitious theorists, believing nonsensical and unprovable things, while theistic believers hold a theory both reasonable and efficient in explanation of all the involved questions.
(to be continued)