H. J Mccloskey Response Paper

Response Paper

Liberty University Online

Kaitlin Camden Rose

October 12, 2017

In February of 1968, H.J. McCloskey published an article titled “On Being an Atheist” This short article skims the surface on the viewpoints of atheists and their beliefs that God does not exist. In this article McCloskey shares his opinions in which he believes that he has a strong response and defense against Christians by stating that Christians are unable to provide any solid evidence or any arguments that there is, in fact, a God. He goes on to judge and tears apart the Christian’s cosmological and teleological theories. McCloskey debates that the opinions, beliefs and faith of Christians are all erroneous and he powerfully approaches his arguments

This seems to be a bit hypocritical of his point of view considering he continuously argues against Christians not having any solid proof that God exist. However, there is no definitive evidence that the big bang theory or even the evolution of humans exists but McCloskey (1986) believes they did. McCloskey (1986) also claims that the presence of the imperfections and evil in the world argues against “the perfection of the divine design or divine purpose of the world”. With knowing that the teleological argument is not a hundred percent conclusive about God, it makes it a difficult subject to approach McCloskey about. However, God made the world and humans in hopes to follow and love Him. He has allowed freedom and makes it clear that those who not follow him will not have everlasting peace. Humans are not free from error, only as God is, thus creating evil acts in the world. McCloskey’s main topic of debate with theism is why would a perfect being create a word that allowed for evil, sin and suffering. However, the presence of evil does not necessarily go hand in hand with there being a higher power or a superior divine being (McCloskey 1986). When approaching the stance of McCloskey, theisms might point out the fact that what is considered right and what is considered wrong has to be set by a morally perfect being. No human is perfect and

He does not understand how God created the world allowing man to make their own choices, even though those choices could be evil and against what Christ stood for. This can be a hard subject to debate, even from the worldview of a theist who has a strong belief system. A point that could be made could be that even though God is perfect, he did not create the human race to be unrestricted from the evil that we see. God permits the human race to make their own choices regardless if those choices are harmful, evil, glorious or selfless. Whatever the action may be, God made the choice to allow the human race to choose how they behave. He allows them to see all the bad in the world so when they see him that can see what pure and holy love is (Evans & Manis, 2009). . One of the most shocking statements that McCloskey addresses in his article is that he believes that atheism is more comforting to the human race than theism is. However, without Christ there is no world. Without Christ, there is no mankind. There is no way that one can be comforted in knowing that without this merciful Creator we would not exist. (Craig, 2008). (Word Count