'Where there are three doctors, you will find two atheists.' This old Renaissance proverb is borne out by surveys of the worldviews held by medical students. The predominant belief system in medicine is atheism. How can we tackle this stronghold of false belief?

A belief system at odds with reality

At its heart, atheism (the denial of the existence of God) is a faith. The statement, 'There is no God' is a metaphysical, not scientific, conclusion about reality.

At the tender age of nine, in a memorable conversation with my uncle, I asserted that science had disproved the existence of God. This was simply nonsense. It is easier to confirm existence (by positive evidence) than to exclude existence (by arguing from absence). For instance, to prove the presence of someone in the UK, I would only have to run a search until I achieved a positive hit. To conclusively demonstrate their absence, I would have to search exhaustively all registers available from councils, banks, telephone companies etc - and still could not exclude their presence outside my power to detect them.

Since even the most intelligent atheist has a finite mind and access to a mere fraction of the total human information and experience in the world, it is always possible that God might exist outside their knowledge or the power of their quest.

As Christians we rely on positive evidence that God does exist and that Christianity is true. If it is the ultimate reality, our faith should work coherently in practice and fully explain our human condition. This also challenges us to examine our Christian witness - are we living consistently with our claims?

Conversely, as atheists are at odds with reality, we should expect to find inconsistencies in their thoughts and lives. Exposing these 'pressure points' lays bare false beliefs.

However, we must remember that our goal is not to tear down a worldview with human argument, leaving people in a vacuum. It is God's power that will bring freedom as we point them gently away from their false mental prison and towards Christ.[1]

Pressure points in atheism

Pressure points hinge on six basic assumptions about our world, including questions of God's existence, life's origins, morality, human significance and value, truth and destiny.

1) God's Existence

Historical revelation

To discover another person, we could gain clues from their possessions, their writings, and others' opinions. But proper knowledge would mean them telling us about themselves through personal contact in varied situations.

If that holds true for fellow humans with whom we share a common experience of humanity, how much more true is it when discovering God? With our finite minds we depend on an infinite eternal God revealing himself to us.

We can examine God's possessions (creation) and writings (scripture) in which his rescue plan for humans is recorded. The continuity of salvation history over 3,000 years is shown by the fulfilment of over 300 Old Testament prophecies in the New Testament.

However, Christians believe that we have actually had a chance to meet God. He stepped into history 2,000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ - God in human skin. For the three years of Jesus' ministry, humans saw God face-to-face and heard him speak. He was an extraordinary figure who healed diseases, drove out demons, knew peoples' lives intimately, forgave sins and was crucified for claiming to be God. He then rose from the dead, reversing the laws of nature.

We can examine the evidence for these events. Since they are unrepeatable, a scientific method of proof is invalid. But a legal-historical method of proof used to weigh the truth of past events, such as in a court of law, is entirely appropriate. We can sift archaeological evidence, accounts of Jesus by secular historians and eyewitness testimonies in the Bible. The reliability of the New Testament exceeds that of all other ancient literature.[2]

Atheists, who believe the cosmos is a closed system, dismiss outside revelation - 'miracles don't happen because they can't happen'. However, if a personal God has made man in his image with powers of observation and communication, and the cosmos is an open system in which he can intervene, he could legitimately make himself known to us. Unless atheists can suspend their disbelief, they will forever fit new evidence into their own pre-existing framework. My first step was to recognise that I was locked into my atheistic mindset and ask God to help me in my unbelief.

Personal experience

The Bible tells us that God can be known by his Spirit 3 and experienced apart from human reason. This same spirit, who lives within us also testifies that we are God's children.4 Every Christian has a unique testimony of living as God's child and can bear witness to God's work in their life. Our corporate life as the family of God also points to his existence.[5]

The supernatural realm

The recent film release of 'Harry Potter' has highlighted our nation's fascination with the supernatural realm. However, the presence of supernatural evil is also a powerful argument for God's existence. Those with occultic involvement may have seen this operating. A Christian friend was in a dormitory where boys were dabbling in the occult. The entire dormitory witnessed a pencil levitate and snap in half, leaving scorch marks up the wall. All 23 boys acknowledged the presence of supernatural evil; 21 turned to Christ.

Such occult powers, which the Bible condemns as of evil origin, provide evidence of a supernatural realm, allowing the possibility of belief in a supernatural good God. Jesus' ministry was full of encounters where he demonstrated authority over evil spirits, culminating in the greatest miracle - his defeat of Satan at the resurrection.

Design (teleology)

William Paley suggested that design in the natural order points to the existence of a creator God. He argued that in finding a watch on the grass, one would not assume it had randomly self-assembled, but that it was dropped by the watchmaker. The argument that we can read God from his world [6] was challenged by evolution which claimed that any design appearance is merely a trick as we are a chance self-assembly product.

However, it is a tragedy to look at design and mistake it for chance. As an atheistic medical student in dissection, I was struck by the intricacy of human skull bones, fitting together, with foraminae for nerves. In the tendons and vessels of the human hand, I glimpsed the beauty of design. For an instant, I saw reality through larger eyes than mine.

Modern cosmology has revived the proposition of a cosmic designer. The conditions of the universe and the balance of fundamental forces are incredibly finely tuned for sustaining the universe.[7] For example, the balance between gravity and the weak nuclear force requires an accuracy of 1 in 10 40 - equivalent to a marksman hitting a 1cm target on the far side of the universe, 20 billion light years away.

These coincidences have led scientists to acknowledge that the universe seems tailor-made for our existence. Astronomer Fred Hoyle admits that there is a massive intelligence behind the universe, who designed it with man in mind. 'The universe is an obvious fix. The facts suggest a super intellect has monkeyed with the laws of physics.' Steven Hawking states, 'The odds of our universe emerging out of the Big Bang are so enormous that it has religious implications.'[8]

Cause and effect (cosmology)

In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas noted that everything in the world happens by cause and effect. Since you could not have an infinite chain, he argued that an initial cause must have set the process in motion, causing everything to happen without itself being caused. A first cause must be eternal and unchangeable, carrying within itself the reason for its existence - and being a sufficient reason for the existence of everything else. Of course, the Christian God is by definition an eternally self-existent and unchangeable being.

Many atheists now view the Big Bang theory as a first cause. However, the universe could only be self-caused if the matter of the universe was pre-existent. If we can demonstrate that the universe began to exist, then the Big Bang still demands a transcendant cause.

Crucial discoveries in astrophysics now indeed suggest that the universe began to exist out of nothing:

1. The expansion of the universe (red-shift effect). As one traces the expansion back in time, the universe becomes denser until a point of infinite density from which it began to expand. Around 15 billion years ago, the entire universe was contracted down to a single mathematical point marking its origin. This is remarkable when one reflects that a state of infinite density equates to 'nothing'. There can be no object of infinite density, for matter of any size at all could still become even more dense. Therefore, one reaches a point of regression where the universe was shrunk down to nothing at all. In the Big Bang, the universe began to exist from nothing. 
2. According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, processes in a closed system always tend towards equilibrium. Entropy always increases, suggesting that.21 the universe will reach heat death if given sufficient time. Why has it not done so if it has existed eternally? If the matter of the universe was pre-existent, it should now be in a state of equilibrium. According to the physicist Paul Davies, the universe must have been created a finite time ago and be in the process of winding down. Prior to this, the universe simply did not exist. The energy was somehow 'put in' at the time of creation as an initial condition.

2) Life's Origins

Without a Creator, atheists postulate the spontaneous blind origin of life from the matter of the universe. Darwin's theory of natural selection provided a mechanism to explain all biological diversity.

Defending theism

Category errors
The Bible is not a scientific account of the origins of the universe, but an explanation of the origins of man's relationship with God. To find out what is on TV tonight, I would flick through the TV Times. It would be a mistake to reach for a technical manual explaining how electrons leave the cathode ray tube to hit coloured pixels on the screen!

Even so, for a primitive text, Genesis is amazingly scientific. It addresses the crux of modern science - issues such as the origin of information. According to Genesis, God fed the energy/information/ code into the system from outside.[9] The world was created in a stepwise manner, with God's spoken word (eg 'Let there be light') moving each of six stages from complexity n ('darkness') to complexity n+1 ('and there was light'). Moreover, the sequence of creation mirrors that in geological strata - vegetation, sea life, land animals and finally man as the pinnacle of creation.

Interpretative errors
In the past, creationists strained the text of Genesis. One 17th century archbishop calculated that man was created on the 19th of October, 4004 BC, at 9 am in the morning! However, the Hebrew word translated as 'day' actually means 'age' - thus days could represent geological ages of time. Others suggest the account is poetic - with three days of forming expanses (heavens, atmosphere, land and sea) followed by three days of filling the expanses (with sun and stars, birds, then land and sea animals).

Questions about evolution [10,11]

A paradigm
Evolution has achieved the status of a paradigm - a general theory that has achieved acceptance in the scientific community. This unites and drives the various research specialities filling in details of the paradigm (zoologists, botanists, geneticists etc). Paradigm contortions are necessary to incorporate new facts. However flawed it may be, to abandon the Darwinian paradigm without a suitable replacement (ie not a creation hypothesis) would be seen as abandoning science.

A leap of faith
Evolutionary theory demands a giant leap of faith, an extrapolation from micro to macro-evolution. While we have limited examples of natural selection (eg the Kettlewell moths) there is no evidence for macro-evolution (simple species developing into complex species).

Imperfection of the fossil record
Darwin postulated gradual adaptive change, requiring transitional forms to bridge the gaps between species. In his day a fraction of the fossil strata had been examined and he silenced critics by suggesting that the missing links were still buried. However, 99.9% of paleontological work has been completed in the last century and virtually all new species are either closely affiliated to known forms, or are strange unique types on end twigs of the taxonomic tree. The absence of the predicted myriads of transitional forms is painfully obvious.

In addition, the first representatives of all major classes of organisms known to biology (invertebrates, plants, vertebrates, amphibia, mammals) were already highly differentiated and specialised when they burst into the fossil record. Transitional forms are absent from earlier strata. A huge problem for Darwinism is the Cambrian explosion around 600 million years ago. Nearly all animal phylla then emerge, without fossil precursors. As Richard Dawkins puts it, 'It's just as though they were planted there, without any evolutionary history.'

Failure of homology
The evolutionary argument from homology (eg pentadactyl fore-limb design) has not found a genetic or embryological basis. Homologous structures develop via different pathways - different genes, body segments and embryological structures. Homology is equally an argument for a designer. If you visited the many churches in London designed by Christopher Wren, the similar features would lead you to presume a common architect.

Irreducibly complex systems
Darwin knew his theory would collapse if any complex organ could not be formed by successive modifications. An irreducibly complex system is comprised of interacting components, which only function as a whole. Removal of any part causes system failure. To catch the mouse, a mousetrap (spring, board, catch, hammer and cheese) must function as an integrated whole.[12]

According to Sir Fred Hoyle, the idea of life originating by random molecular shuffling is as ridiculous as expecting a tornado blowing through a junkyard to assemble a Boeing 747. He calculated the odds of life self-generating as one in 10 40,000 - the chance that two thousand enzyme molecules will be formed simultaneously from their twenty absence of 'missing links'.[23] component amino acids.

3) Human Personality and Significance

Atheists reduce man to nothing but a clever monkey. Humans are complex machines, a poorly-understood interrelation of physical and biochemical properties. As Cabanis said, 'the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.' However, no one has ever shown how an impersonal beginning could produce personality.

An atheist must accept that personality is an illusion - a trick played by non-personality plus complexity. Yet no determinist can live like that. Human aspirations and affections surely transcend the sentence of complex non-personality. The way we are wired up, for example our ability to experience extremes of emotion, points to more than just a random bag of molecules.

Ironically, the atheist, who sees man as the measure of all things, reduces him to mere biologically complex dust, robbing him of meaning, purpose, significance and dignity. Only if man has a personal origin, in the character of a personal God, could we possess, like God, true personality. It is God's image that imparts man's true significance.

4) Truth

Most atheists believe that truth is determined solely by observation and experimentation. At the heart of science is an assumption of faith - that the universe has consistent rules, which human reason can correctly perceive. But, if the universe is nothing but a closed system, with no intelligent designer, there can be no intelligence behind my mind. My thoughts are nothing but the products of blind, irrational forces, the random motion of atoms in my brain. So why should I believe what they tell me about the universe?[13]

If I insist that there is no intelligent design behind my mind, I destroy the fundamental basis of trust in human rationality, and ultimately in science itself. As 18 th century scientific Christians began experimentation, they could trust the workings of human reason because man had been made in the image of a God of reason. Since God the creator and law-giver brought order from chaos, they anticipated law and order in nature and sought to describe this scientifically. Without God, I have no assurance that human reason can lead me into all truth.

5) Morality

God provides the only explanation for the reality of suffering and moral evil in the world. If God does not exist, then suffering and evil cannot be acknowledged and morality is meaningless.

Many atheists consider the problem of suffering and evil an airtight proof that God does not exist. However, having eliminated God, you cannot categorise right and wrong. For atheists, ethics and morality are man-made. However, making man the measure of morality renders it meaningless, for man has arisen from the meaningless matter of the universe and is therefore meaningless himself. In the absence of an absolute standard, for example a God who is good, there is no basis for distinguishing good and evil. Things may happen, but moral values cannot be attributed to them. Hitler existed and acted, but it is morally meaningless to evaluate his treatment of the Jews.

Thus, atheists can have statistics, but not morality. They can discuss how people act, but not how we should behave. They may discuss what harms other humans or is against society. But what's so special about humans and society in a meaningless universe? Who cares? And when people disagree on morality, who has the right to decide? Why not the psychopath? Why not the majority view in Nazi Germany?

This merely increases man's alienation. Our outrage at evil (eg the tabloid reaction to the Jamie Bulger murder) and our fear of people who are amoral both demonstrate that we recognise the objective reality of evil. Few people today would dare sanction Hitler's actions. Morality is a deep-seated instinctive experience for us. Mankind has always felt the difference between right and wrong, even while denying that morals exist.

This creates an unbearable tension between the way that man thinks, feels and lives, and the reality that from an impersonal beginning, these are merely a meaningless illusion, a trick played by silent atoms.

If the universe really was absurd, suffering and evil wouldn't seem an affront to humanity. However, because our universe was shattered by the Fall, suffering and evil are alien intruders into our existence. Our revolt against it demands, rather than denies, the existence of God.

The Christian alternative is that man has a personal beginning in the image of God, with the capacity for moral choices. Ethics are transcendent and morality is grounded in the absolute holiness of God's character. Evil and suffering are in the world not because God is cruel but because Man has rebelled. Our sense of morality is flawed by the Fall, and we can now only brokenly reflect true good. Our world is characterised by the paradox of man's horrible cruelty, co-existing with all his nobility. Man is estranged from himself and other men in the area of morals. Yet, our consciences constantly remind us that we are moral beings made in the image of God, and that we carry around the load of moral guilt for our rebellion against God. This is how humans across cultures have a sense of right and wrong.[14]

A common objection is this: why didn't God avoid evil altogether and create man such that he would never sin? But then man would no longer be man. He would merely be a programmed robot, lacking the capacity for moral choice.

Atheists also ask, if a good God exists, why hasn't he solved the problem of evil? God is dealing with the problem of evil, but progressively - first on the cross, dealing with our rebellion which is the root of evil, then in Christians by giving us the Holy Spirit to help us defeat sin in our lives, and ultimately abolishing it in the final judgement. There are only two ways of stopping a rebellion - to eliminate the rebels or to change their hearts. God is delaying patiently for the rebels to have a change of heart and turn back to him for forgiveness. If God wrapped up all the evil in the world at 8pm tonight, where would your atheist be at 8:01pm?

The cross is the only solution to evil that satisfies both God's love and justice. Ultimately there can only be justice in a moral universe, where God is the final judge.

6) Destiny

Atheists believe death is the end. Bertrand Russell captured it depressingly thus:

Man's origin, his growth, his hopes, his fears, his loves, his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collections of atoms. No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave. All the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspirations, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to end in extinction in the vast death of the solar system.

We can cope with death in abstract as reduction to dust, yet the touch of its cold shadow fills us with agony. Our yearnings for eternity revolt against extinction and highlight the absurd despair of existence. A patient of mine, dying of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, said, 'Something has to hold us together. I need all the help I can get. But who knows what happens when we die? Nobody has ever come back and told us about it.'

Here, atheism is on shaky ground. Jesus Christ is the only person in history who has come back from the grave and is qualified to tell us what lies beyond. 'God has set a day when he will judge the world by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.'[15] Christianity, and the truth about our destiny, stand or fall on the evidence for the resurrection.

Summary

Atheists are adrift and alienated. Having killed God, they are left with no reason for being, no meaning to life, no morality to espouse, no truth to trust and no hope beyond the grave. We can prayerfully and thoughtfully use these 'pressure points' to help them see the logical fallacies in their worldview and lead them towards the light.