The Purpose of Man – part I

“The chief end of man,” says an old catechism, “is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.” Yet atheists and agnostics abound and every man seeks his own pleasure. So, as those who are called to “make disciples of all nations and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded,” we have a bit of a problem. Now what is really fascinating about the modern world (and the problem it presents us with) is that it used to be the Christians who were considered to be atheists. They had no representations of their God in their places of worship or in their homes. Now it is those we might have formerly called pagans and idolaters who are the real atheists.

That, being the case, perhaps we should define what we mean by the two terms above. An atheist, for our purposes, is someone who denies that there is any supernatural being who created the world, who has spoken to man in the Bible and to whom mankind is supposed to owe allegiance. If you checked the dictionary definition you will see that all I did was make the word God more specific. There’s a reason for that which we’ll come to below. There are at least two types of atheist, the practical atheist who is really an agnostic but lives as if he is an atheist and the theoretical atheist. One who has arrived at his conclusions by his reason and is prepared to defend his beliefs by logical debate is a theoretical atheist. The practical atheist is often likely to retreat to an agnostic position if pushed.

An Agnostic is one who either is not prepared to be committed to any belief in, is sure we can ever know for certain whether or believes it is impossible to know if the God of the Bible exists. That’s using the phrase “God of the Bible” as shorthand for the same definition we used for him above. By the definition we can see there are about three types of agnostic. The first is indifferent to the whole debate often because he can see no use in belief or disbelief in God. The second believes that since God is supposed to be a spirit and we have no proven way of measuring or interacting with spirits we can never know for certain whether God exists, it remains a matter of conjecture. The last believes it is impossible to create any test the will prove the existence of any type of being we might call God it is a waste of time and effort to find out if God exists.

There do exist a number of ways to “prove” (read “demonstrate”) the existence of God. So, when you read of scientists who have discovered wonderful things about the way the universe operates and attempt to persuade an atheist or agnostic their view is flawed, you are using one of these “classical proofs for God’s existence,” usually the cosmological argument. See the proofs outlined here and here. In all these proofs the best that can be expected is proof that a “God” exists. It is then necessary to show that such a God is, in reality, the God of the Bible. Even then it may not persuade the hearer.

One is reminded of the ancient philosophical paradoxes of Zeno where an aspect of reality is used to describe a situation and other aspects (which are also important) are ignored. The atheist or agnostic usually argues rationally from a set of premises which are incomplete. If you prefer a non-philosophical view it’s a little like learning physics. I remember learning about the motion of an bullet in flight and being told to ignore gravity and air friction in my calculations. The problem is (as anyone knows) we can never ignore gravity while we are on the earth and the air does resist the passage of anything through it. So why ignore them? Surely all aspects of reality are important and we can only ignore them at our peril. We were told “because they are constant” – which is mostly true and was insignificant in the problems we were given. When it comes to the existence of God ignoring some aspects of reality can have eternal consequences.

So, how can we hope to make a reasonable (please note the word “reasonable”) “defence of the faith” when dealing with atheists and agnostics? The Bible gives us some important details we need to remember about mankind. Romans chapter 1 tells us that the hidden things of God are clearly seen in creation, being understood by those that are made – even his eternal power and Godhood. God’s purpose in this is so that they are without excuse because, recognizing God in creation they ought to worship and glorify him – but they don’t. That means there will be flaws in the atheist and agnostic points of view which we can use to show they are inconsistent and must, therefore, be trying to hide from the reality of God which they know.

It’s like catching a liar. It’s much easier if you know the truth and test their statements by that truth. You can imagine this will require knowing your Bible really well and knowing your society and science well also. This is part of the reason why reformation and literacy go hand-in-hand. We become students of the Word (the Bible) and the word (language and how it relates to reality) when we become Christians just because we take the Great Commission seriously.

What has this to do with our opening statement? The chief end (or purpose) of man is to glorify God so it is our responsibility to call on all men everywhere to do so. If as Paul says they really know that is true then we have an ally in the conscience which is constantly excusing or accusing them. It is possible to use reasoning to help even the theoretical atheist see their flaws in logic but we should not expect to convince them of their errors. As sinners they will attempt to continue in denial unless God (our second ally) intervenes. And he does. He tells us he has chosen to use the foolishness of preaching (speaking up on God’s behalf) to save those that believe. Paul presented a strong case for worshiping the true God before the crowd on Mars Hill in Athens. And the general response was he was a babbler, unimportant and possibly ignorant. Yet, even in Athens and as a result of that presentation there were some that believed.

We are responsible to glorify God in our speaking and leave the rest to him. The wonderful thing is that, if we do, we will see his working and this leads to joy as sinners come to know him and joy which will last until forever.