I am not familiar with A.N. Wilson, but I guess he was a fairly prominent atheist. He has since returned to faith, and has a written a beautiful article about it for the New Statesman.Wilson says that the main reason he "reconverted" was his dissatisfaction with atheism. As an atheist he found some comfort in the writing of David Hume. But, he now writes, "Attractive and amusing as David Hume was, did he confront the complexities of human existence as deeply as his contemporary Samuel Johnson, and did I really find him as interesting?"
Wilson makes a great point. One of my major hang ups with atheism is atheists. Perhaps they can point out weaknesses in the Christian worldview, but can the offer a satisfying alternative--one that makes sense of the human experience? Wilson writes about them:
I couldn't agree more.When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion – prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.
Read the whole article here. (HT: Scot McKnight)
2 comments:
That's really well put. Reason and logic are great, as far as they go, but they never go far enough. For most of us, Why? is a very important question.
I've met atheists with a remarkable sense of wonder and feeling... although I agree with the article, that I've never met one who really offered a tangible alternative to the deeper questions of human existence than what is provided through Christ.
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