by Father Robert Lauder
AS I WRITE this column I am trying to tie up some loose ends in a course I give at St. John’s University. The course deals with what we can know philosophically about the mystery of God.
At the beginning of the course, and indeed from time-to-time during the semester, I emphasize in my lectures it is a philosophy course, not a theology course. Certainly Christian revelation tells us more about God than any philosophy could discover. Still, I have found that philosophy has helped me to understand Christian revelation and theology more deeply. I am hoping that this will be the experience of the students.
One of the books that I use in the course deals with five different types of atheism:
1. scientific atheism,
2. psychological atheism,
3. social atheism,
4. moral atheism and
5. anthropological atheism.
In devoting a chapter to each of these atheistic philosophies, the author highlights influential atheistic philosophers. Some of the thinkers discussed are Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Jean Paul Sartre.
The reason I spend a third of the course on atheistic philosophers is that these thinkers were brilliant men who have had a strong influence on Western culture. Even though I disagree with all of them, I believe that indirectly these atheists can help the students understand the mystery of God more deeply.
One of the themes of the course is that our philosophical vision of God can greatly influence our philosophical vision of the human person, and our philosophical vision of the human person can greatly influence our philosophical vision of God. Understanding the philosophy of the human person that an atheist embraces can reveal just why the thinker embraces atheism rather than theism. Also, understanding the idea of God that a particular philosopher rejects can help in understanding why the thinker opted for atheism.
I think that every atheist that I discuss in class with the students was at least partly correct: The idea of God that was rejected should have been rejected. I no longer believe in the God that the atheists rejected, though at one point in my life, I may have had an idea of God similar to the one that the atheists rejected.
The philosophers that I study with the students were not only atheists but antitheists: They thought they had to kill the idea of God because the God they opposed made it impossible for human beings to develop, be creative and live fulfilling lives. The idea that they had of God was of someone who prevented human beings from being free. That can seem strange to those of us who believe that God is totally in love with us and that God wants us to be creative and develop as human persons.
In my early life as a Catholic, the image of God that was presented to me was not so much of a loving Father as of a just judge. In many ways in grammar school, high school and even college, a great deal of guilt was nurtured in relation to God. I am not blaming anyone because I know that those who promoted that view of God were sincere and were presenting the God in Whom they believed.
I no longer believe in that God, and I cannot help but wonder if the atheistic philosophers whom we study in the course had a richer and deeper image of God whether they would have chosen atheism. Of course, that is something that we will never know. I suggest to the students that if we think that some of the ideas that the atheists embraced are true, we should accept them. When we think that they have made mistakes, we should learn from those mistakes.
Though I believe that I have learned something from each of the atheists, I find Sartre’s thought the most profound and the one that challenges me to think more deeply about the mystery of God. Sartre believed that if we realize that human persons are free, then we should realize that there cannot be a God. If God existed, thought Sartre, then God would be the cause of everything, absolutely everything that happens, and we would not be free. We would be puppets, robots, machines or something other than free persons.
Sartre was thinking of God as one who controls and dominates. Rather, God frees us and helps us to take charge of our lives. The more we relate to God and allow God to influence us, we become more free, not less. The holiest person in the world is also the freest person in the world. God’s love liberates us.[hr]
Next week: Father Lauder gets readers ready for the new season of Reel Faith on The NET.[hr]
Father Robert Lauder, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn and philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica, writes a weekly column for the Catholic Press.