Belief in God and Atheism

QUESTION: Belief in God – The Re-Conversion of a Sojourning Atheist

ANSWER:

Discussing his re-conversion after a 20-year sojourn in atheism, English writer A.N. Wilson confesses “I was drawn, over and over again, to the disconcerting recognition that so very many of the people I had most admired and loved, either in life or in books, had been believers.” What’s more, the complexities of our humanness forced him to reassess, on an intellectual basis, the materialistic dogma that love, music, and language are artifacts of unguided, unintelligent evolutionary processes.

Wilson recounts a conversation with a fellow materialist that underscored the uncritical, unexamined tenets of the “faith.” After chatting about their common difficulty in remembering people’s names, Wilson’s friend offered, “It is because when we were simply anthropoid apes, there was no need to distinguish between one another by giving names.” Wilson writes, “This creedal confession struck me as just as superstitious as believing in the historicity of Noah’s Ark. More so, really.”

Belief in God – The Return of A.N. Wilson
Turning back from the sirens of atheism, Wilson returned to the faith he had left decades ago, with the conviction that “we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.”

After years in the wasteland, A. N. Wilson has rediscovered the one worldview that lines up with the way things really are. In his words, “It fits!” And that is an intelligent discovery.

“I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there exists an incomprehensible power or force with limitless foresight and knowledge that started the whole universe going in the first place.” (C.B. Anfinsen, 1972 Nobel Prize for Chemistry)

Compliments of Regis Nicoll. This article first appeared on BreakPoint at www.breakpoint.org.

Regis Nicoll is a Centurion of Prison Fellowship’s Wilberforce Forum. He is a columnist for Breakpoint, Salvo Magazine, and Crosswalk and writes for Prison Fellowship’s blog, The Point.He also publishes a free weekly commentary addressing the pressing issues of the day.