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September 16, 2007
Psalm 14The Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
“When Everybody’s an Atheist”
My sister Nancy operates a fly fishing shop up in the Adirondacks, near Lake Placid. She had mentioned that me how things had slowed down in the summer months. The temperature was hot. The water was low. Not many were walking in for supplies or to arrange for a guide. Nancy never really has trouble making conversation with strangers, but on an August weekday, after hours in the store alone, maybe she was bit eager. The man walked in with some kind of Princeton-wear. I don’t know if it was a hat or a T-shirt or something else. “Hey, I have brother who lives in Princeton. Are you from Princeton or are you an alum?”
The conversation started innocently enough with the fly fisherman from Princeton. Nancy told me the conversation went along just fine (good streams, kinds of flies, places you’ve fished) until the visitor inquired as to whether or not her brother worked in Princeton. “He’s a pastor at Nassau Presbyterian Church there on Palmer Square.” Apparently, it all went down hill from there.
The customer in the fly shop called “The Hungry Trout” launched into a summary of Richard Dawkins’ bestselling book The God Delusion. In a bit of an argumentative tone, and apparently with quite a bit of disdain, he offered his thoughts and opinions on God and religion and the church for the next thirty minutes. At some point my sister concluded that he must have been looking for a bit of a break from extended family or something. Finally, she said, “Hey, I’m not going to argue with you. I just told you what my brother did for a living. Can we just leave it at that.” I didn’t think to ask if he bought anything.
As my sister reported the annoying diatribe to me, the irony was that I had, in fact, been reading The God Delusion. I had decided earlier in the summer that I would read both The God Delusion and god is not great: how religion poisons everything. The second book is authored by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens’ is a journalist. Dawkins an evolutionary biologist. Both are recent books. Both have been on the New York Times Bestseller List. Both have been received with quite a bit of enthusiasm, caused a bit of stir in places. Lots of reviews, NPR chat, stuff like that. When you put those two books in your shopping cart at the same time at Amazon, the computer generated “recommended list for Dave” becomes very interesting. There’s quite a zest for the topic, for the anti-god, anti-religion argument, for evangelical atheism.
“Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” The words of the Psalmist here in Psalm 14, repeated again in Psalm 53. To be honest, there’s not much “foolish” in the two books, at least when it comes to how you and I would define “foolishness.” Although one of the authors does admit in the acknowledgments that he has been writing this book his whole life. I’m not sure that’s a good thing for a book, certainly not for a sermon; one you have been working on your life. It tends to take away from any focus. And the tone of the other book, well, as a reader and a person of faith, I felt like I was being yelled at for a couple hundred pages. But the content itself, the treatment of history, the approach to science, the assessment of the faults of the church and the misuse and abuse of religion, the portrayal of God, I’m not sure I would call it “foolish”, even if I disagree with much of what they argue, even if I am pretty sure I wouldn’t want to sit next to them at a long dinner party. I’m not sure foolish is how I would described the argument.
The argument. It’s all about the argument. Every now and then, I have come upon a colleague, a teacher, a theologian, a friend, a writer, who honestly thinks that if you listen to him or her long enough and hard enough, that of course, you will come to agree with them because they’re smarter, more eloquent and more persuasive. Now I can add two more writers to that list of mine. A journalist and a biologist. Atheists and the genre of argument.
“Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” And with a casual reading, or a proof-text, or a memory verse, with a text even Presbyterians can quote, someone looking to rise to the argument, someone wanting to join the debate, someone wanting to take the bait, someone can simply quote Psalm 14, the words of the Psalmist, and toss them down like a gauntlet. “You want to go…let’s go, because only a fool says in the heart, there is no God.” Some just love the argument. It must have been that kind of argument that was wearing down the writer of II Timothy in the New Testament. “…warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling with words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening (II Timothy 2:14)”.
Psalm 14 and the God delusion. Arguing about the existence of God. A couple of best selling books. A university town. Late night dorm room fodder. Some armchair theologians, some public intellectuals and some warm beer that would make Martin Luther proud. Let the argument begin! And somewhere in the kingdom of heaven, the psalmist shakes his head when he thinks about the church taking on the atheists. He shakes his head and opens up his hands and says, “different argument, different day. That wasn’t my bone to pick, my battle to fight.”
Psalm 14. It isn’t about the mind. It’s about the heart. It’s not about argument. It’s about action. It’s not about theory, or philosophy, or the classroom. It’s about life, and people, and behavior, and how people respond when it could appear that God is nowhere to be found. Not just in a class studying Darwin but up on Wall Street where profit is king and share price rules. When God is seemingly not here. Not just when some want to debate church and state in the public square, but when the topic is globalization, or immigration, or national security. The absence of God. The question comes amid horrible suffering, or when hatred and violence seems to get worse with the next generation, or when trying to wrap your head around a war that has no end in sight. When God is hard to find. Not just then, not just when the darkness is so bright, but whenever you find yourself surrounded by those who live and act like God’s isn’t here, that God is irrelevant: in the boardroom, in campus life, in relationships and in portfolios, when life comes to a grinding halt or when life is one wild, exhilarating ride. There is little discrimination when it comes to humanity assuming there is no God.
Psalm 14. Fools say in their hearts, “God is not here.” They are corrupt and do horrible things. No one does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind, to see if there is anyone who is wise, if there is just one who will seek after God. But they have all wandered off, they all seem the same, driven by their own sinfulness, choosing to live like it just doesn’t matter. There is no one who does good, no, not one, not one single person. No one. Don’t they know? Look around at all the people inspired by everything, everything but God. Those who do what is wrong, they stomp, they crush, they consume others, they have my people for breakfast, they feast on my children as if they were eating bread. Not one is calling on the Lord.
They ought to be awestruck, they ought to be filled with fear, they ought to come to their senses and be scared to death because God is with the company of the righteous, not those who are right, but those who yearn to be just. God is with the remnant of the just. God is with those who suffer unfairly at the hands of others. God is with exactly those whom the fool chooses to oppress. You would confound the plans of the poor. You would make it even harder for them to live, let alone flourish. Confound the plans. Regressive tax. Cut rate mortgage. Health benefits gone. Pension lost. An ever widening gap between rich and poor. You would confound the plans of the poor but the Lord is their refuge. God is their strength. God is with them. God is there. God is here.
O that God would save us! That God would restore, that God would make things right, that God would bring about the kingdom here and now, that God would again make all things new, that God could remind us now of our future, then the children of God could look around, then we could observe all that is around us in life and in the world, and instead of assuming God is not here, we will rejoice and we will be glad.
Someone may want to take on Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God. But it’s not going to be the psalmist with Psalm 14. One scholar describes the concern of the psalmist as much more of a practical atheism. Patrick Miller, in his work with Psalm 14, he suggests that the comment that “there is no God” is not intended to address the very being of God, to deny the reality of God. For Professor Miller, it is like reaching into your pocket and concluding “there is no money” or looking in the cupboard and finding that “there is no food.” It’s not that money and food don’t exist. They’re just not here, now. God is not here. God is not present, just now.
To put your hand deep into your pocket, to look into the pantry of all the resources that you have, to put your hand to the plow of the daily tasks, to put your arms around someone you love, to fix your eyes on a goal that is set (a management objective, a higher price, a greater volume of sales, another position, a graduate degree), to place your feet on a new campus, to set your feet toward a new semester, to pick up pencil or tap at your computer for yet one more year of class, to write the first of many college application essays, to hold the hand of your kindergartner on the way to the bus, to hold the hand of your father in a hospital bed down the street, to stare at the gravestone of the one who was by your side for 45 years, to get on your knees praying for your grandson in Iraq, to use your voice in a conversation on the playground, in the lunchroom, at the watercooler, to find yourself surrounded, hemmed in, and up to your eyeballs, immersed, drowned out by those who would conclude that it just doesn’t matter…..
To do all of that, or any of it, and to do conclude that God is not here, not present, that God is not with us, well, according to the psalmist…..that’s just foolish.
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