Confusing Atheism For Naturalism

Sometimes the consequences of atheism are dramatically overstated by Christian apologists.  I am not speaking about atheistic consequences for values, for there can be no reference point for morality, beauty, or meaning in an atheistic cosmos.  Instead, I am referring to the idea that atheism in itself is incompatible with human free will--as if free will and atheism or theism have any inherent link at all.

This idea usually is phrased something like the following (this is a paraphrased version of what Frank Turek might say): "If God does not exist, then we are just molecules in motion, and there is no soul or free will."  The problem is that this is a straw man of atheism and it commits a variety of logical errors.  Since the soul is just another way to refer to consciousness, the existence of my own soul is directly apprehended by me on a constant basis.  And even if there was no deity, it would not be logically impossible for my consciousness to control some of the outward activities of its material shell.

Even if atheism were true, it is not as if consciousness--the soul--and free will could not exist.  Naturalism, not atheism, is incompatible with consciousness and free will.  The existence of immaterial things like consciousness (and logic, space, and time) does not prove theism because it does not disprove atheism.  It only disproves naturalism.  An atheist could believe in a thing like sorcery or reincarnation without directly contradicting his or her atheism, since none of these things have anything to do with theism in themselves.  Reality contradicts naturalism at every turn, whereas atheism is a more narrow ideology that must be refuted with truths that are far more specific than those that refute naturalism.

Atheism only holds that there are no deities of any kind, whereas naturalism denies the existence of anything immaterial at all, or, in its softer forms, holds that immaterial things only exist as a byproduct of physical things.  For instance, an emergent naturalist would say that consciousness is generated by a certain arrangement of matter that we call a brain.  Even if this is the case, and consciousness cannot exist apart from a body that houses it, human free will can still exist; free will is logically compatible with even emergent naturalism.  No one can ultimately prove or disprove this idea about the origin of human consciousness, yet nothing about it contradicts the existence of free will.  There is nothing impossible about matter creating consciousness and that consciousness then dictating the actions of its body.  As an aside, even if emergent naturalism was true with respect to human consciousness, other immaterial things would still exist: logic, space, and time.  Of those three, the first two cannot fail to exist.

Atheism is false, yes, but for reasons totally unrelated to the mere existence of consciousness [1], the appearance of design, the existence of conscience, and many of the other things Christian apologists usually argue from.  It is false solely because the existence of things that must have a beginning--namely matter and time--necessitates the existence of an uncaused cause that preceded them [2] (and not everything is created; logic, truth, and space are not [3]).

I have noticed that contemporary Christian apologists rarely, if ever, even address the immateriality of logic, space, or time, much less how the first two do not depend on matter or a deity for their necessary existence.  Each of these things refutes naturalism, yet to refute strict naturalism does not mean that one has simultaneously refuted atheism.  Since many of these apologists are just echoing the unsound, fallacy-filled arguments of previous apologists, I wouldn't be surprised if they had never contemplated the ramifications of these things--or even discovered them to begin with.  Thankfully, the veracity of theism and the high probability of Christianity being true have nothing to do with their often incompetent arguments.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/refuting-consciousness-argument-for-god.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-impossibility-of-absolutely-nothing.html