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Will There Be Any Atheists in Heaven?
Examining the Evangelical Claim that Atheists Cannot Be in ‘Saving Relationship’ with God
I once read a statement that stopped me in my tracks and made me think. It was this. "Some of the best Christians I ever met are atheists."
What the writer was saying was that as far as the Christian qualities of selfless service to human kind, compassion and integrity went, in his experience some of those who best modelled these qualities had been people who did not believe in the existence of God.
This immediately raises the key question….
In the case of a person who, for what ever reasons, cannot bring themselves to believe in the existence of God, yet lives a life that is truly in accord with those lofty ethical imperatives contained in the great command ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, does God’s grace cover their failure to believe correctly and therefore does he regard them as being in the Kingdom of God and candidates for heaven on death?
The normal evangelical response to this question
Perhaps the first instinctive response among some evangelicals would be to foolishly try to deny that such genuinely good atheists exist at all or to declare that, even if they do, there are so few of them as to make such a question all but irrelevant. (My response would be that even if there were only one such person on the entire planet then this question is still valid and needs to be asked.) What must be faced up to, however, is that it is quite clear such highly principled atheists do exist and in larger numbers than most evangelicals would admit to.
The second response would be to vigorously deny that God would or could ever regard an atheist as ‘in the Kingdom’. In support of this view evangelicals would appeal to at least two Bible verses. These are the often quoted statements in Psalm 14.1 and Hebrews 11.6.
We will examine each of these verses in turn.
Psalm 14.1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”
Evangelicals will claim that this verse clearly shows that God would never accept someone who doesn’t believe in him and whom David calls a fool.
However it is not at all clear that the person being described here is an atheist in the sense that we today would class such a person. In fact it is most unlikely that anyone of this period in history would totally reject the idea of the existence of all deities/gods. The foolishness described here is far more likely to be that of a prideful rejection of Elohim, the God of the Hebrews, as the only ‘high God’ and their consequent choice of another god as the object of ritual focus. In other words, this is far more likely to be just another way of condemning the worship of other gods.
This raises an important related question:
To what degree did the Israelites embrace the concept of strict monotheism, as we now understand this?
The short answer is that right up to the period of the Exile into Babylonia in 587 BCE, the great majority of Israelites were not monotheists in the way that modern Christians, Jews or Muslims understand this. In fact it was Israel’s overall failure to properly grasp both this concept and its implications on life and worship that was behind their repeated sin of running after other gods. This failure was the major cause of their exile.
The revelation that God was the ‘only God’ understandably took a very long time to fully be accepted. Changing several thousand of years of deeply ingrained polytheistic beliefs does not happen in just a few years. And indeed it is clear that God is fully aware of this very point. He does not seem to be particularly interested in moving the Hebrews faster than they can handle into this totally radical idea that only one God exists.
A clear illustration of God’s patience with the process of change is seen in the very careful wording of the first commandment in Exodus 20.3, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Note, God does not say, “I am the only God who exists”.
To the ears of the people who heard this command, the message was that the great high God, Elohim, was the greatest of the gods and they were to worship only him. Shocking though it will sound to our centuries old Christian monotheistic mind-set, this first commandment is not a claim of monotheism as such.
This is further reinforced by the use of ‘Elohim’, the most common name used for God by the writers of the first five books of the Bible. Elohim is firstly a plural word and can rightly be translated as ‘the Elohim’, as seen in the well known statement by God in Genesis 1.26, “God [Elohim] said ‘let us make man in our image.” What is particularly pertinent to this issue is that the name ‘El’, on which Elohim is based, was the name most widely used by the peoples of the Middle East for the great ‘High God’, as in the top God among lesser gods. It did not at this stage imply the only God in the entire earth.
It would take many centuries for this great truth to finally fully engraft itself into the Jews’ psyche.
Not even the psalmists were one hundred percent monotheists !
It will also come as a shock to most modern evangelical Christians to realise that this ambivalence is clearly shown as late as David (1000 BCE), and even beyond, and appears regularly in some of the Psalms. For instance:
Psalm 95.3: “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all [as in, ‘all other’] gods.”
Psalm 97.9: “For you Lord [Elohim]… are exalted far above all gods.”
Psalm 136.2: “O give thanks to the God [Elohim] of gods…”
Psalm 138.1: “…. before the gods I will sing praises to you [O God].”
What is not in question is the obvious fact that those more enlightened Jews like the best of the prophets, priests, Levites and some of the more pious ‘lay’ folk, certainly regarded the other ‘gods’ as ‘evil gods’ and as ‘not god’ in the way Elohim was. In their occasional more revelatory moments both prophets and psalmists could declare sentiments like those expressed in Psalm 96.5, “For all the gods of the nations are idols but the Lord made the heavens.” But to imagine that any of them were monotheists in the strict way modern Christians, Jews or Muslims are, is to misunderstand the mind-set of the times.
In fact the verses quoted above show clearly the accepted majority belief of the Israelite culture that the God of Moses was ‘Elohim’ and as such was in fact the great ‘High God’ who was far above the lesser deities.
While they had all heard of Moses’ statement in Deuteronomy 4.35 where he tells the Israelites that “besides him [Elohim] there is no other”, their polytheistic blinkers were so strong they understandably could only interpret this as saying ‘there can be no other God, besides Elohim, for us.’ It was not until after the bitter lessons of the Exile that for the first time the Jewish nation, as a whole, finally accepted full-blown monotheism.
For the modern Christian, ingrained as we are with centuries of assumed monotheism, it is virtually impossible to quickly grasp the underlying beliefs in the psalmists’ mind that caused them to write as they did. We quite understandably make the mistaken assumption that the writers were merely being ironic and held precisely the same strict monotheism that we do.
The whole point of what been argued above is to suggest that the ‘fool’ in this Psalm 14 is not an atheist as we would define this today.
However, whether this type of fool is or is not an atheist in any modern sense is not the real point at issue in this Psalm. What is being condemned is not primarily either refusal to worship Elohim in favour of another god or ‘atheism’. Any reading of the entire seven verses will show that what is being condemned is the vast evil inflicted on what verse six calls ‘the poor and patient’.
This is an important point, as it shows that even if these were atheists, as we understand the word, then the particular atheists being referred to were evil people, certainly not ones living truly good selfless lives. Therefore the opening question of this article which asks “What about the ‘truly good’ atheist?” still stands!
Now to the next verse.
Hebrews 11.6: “But without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever would come near to God must believe that he exists and that he is the rewarder of those who earnestly seek him.”
There is one major question invoked by this statement, the answer to which can only be seen when the verse is interpreted strictly in the context of the entire chapter eleven of which it is a part. Sadly, it is all to common for this verse to be taken out of its biblical context and conclusions drawn which cannot be sustained.
The question is this:
What does God count as ‘faith’?
The answer to this question is plainly set out in the examples of faith described. The first thing that is abundantly clear is that all of those listed were Old Testament people and that not all of these heroes of faith were Jews under the covenant of Abraham. At least one was a Canaanite pagan and, as such, would undoubtedly have either given religious allegiance to ‘other gods’ or, at very best, given partial allegiance to the high God El.
Secondly, virtually every person described as a hero of faith would have, at best, only a very vague understanding of the finer points of monotheism. Most would have had no understanding of this concept at all. Clearly, as is the case throughout the Old Testament, God is happy to regard as people of ‘faith’ many who have decidedly fuzzy understandings about himself.
In this Hebrews 11 passage, the faith which pleases God has everything to do with responding rightly to the light one has, and probably very little to do with correct doctrines about the nature of God. We are here reminded that paranoia over ‘heresy’ has always been the response of God’s followers rather than God’s. Most times God has simply been too busy looking at people’s hearts to get upset over the sorts of things which set the teeth of many of his more orthodox followers on edge!
The final thing which soon becomes very clear is this. Not only did the things that caused God to regard these people as having ‘valid faith’ vary hugely; some of the people themselves seem, from our perspective, to be highly unlikely candidates.
For instance, the Canaanite pagan prostitute Rahab is named as one of these great heroes of faith. She is commended for her shrewdly calculated act of protecting two Hebrew spies. These spies had somehow ended up in her house in Jericho, where they are delicately and clearly euphemistically said to be ‘lodging’ – a most creative way of explaining how these two men just happened to be in the house of a lady of the night, at night!
In the story recorded in Joshua 2.1-21, Rahab acts with great bravery and proves to be a consummate lier on behalf of the spies. But she is also quite driven both by a strong sense of self and family preservation and by her wise estimation that the God of the Hebrews is one mighty powerful god not to be got offside with. It is clear that her motivations are at best very mixed, yet she is still said to among the great heroes of faith. This exalted title is given without embarrassment, despite scripture’s continuing to describe her profession as that of a harlot and never recording anything to suggest she actually gives up her profession even after she and her family are resettled in Israel following their rescue from Jericho. Understandably, this is not a story that is commonly or truthfully preached on from Christian pulpits or taught in the average Sunday School class!
We now come to a very important question, the answer to which puts this whole debate in correct context. The question is this:
Were there atheists, as we know them, in Bible times?
This question raises an often forgotten issue. Namely, that over the period of time covered by the books in the canon of the Bible, what we now call ‘atheism’ probably did not exist.
While there certainly would inevitably have been people who had grown decidedly disillusioned and filled with a practical cynicism towards the tired old deities of their tribe and/or nation, the sort of scientific atheism that we now know was, for obvious reasons, non-existent. This phenomenon did not truly arise until the age of western scientific enquiry, and was simply not an issue in the time covered by the Bible. Therefore, it is difficult to find anything in the teaching of Christ, the Apostles or elsewhere that specifically addresses the issue.
We have to be very careful, therefore, in reading verses like the two discussed above, that we do not read back into them answers to questions that they were not addressing, for the obvious reason that the issue did not exist.
We are left to try and discern just what Christ’s attitude and response might have been if he were confronted by the sort of caring atheist/agnostic we are discussing here. My own conviction is that exactly the same principles apply as those set out in the discussions on Matthew 7 in the other articles in this section of the web site. Namely if a person produces the ‘good fruit’ of right-heart goodness then they have to be a ‘good tree’, regardless of their sometimes questionable beliefs.
What influences drive people into atheism?
None of us can easily know the many and varied influences that may drive a person to the point of rejecting or doubting the idea of the supernatural and/or the existence of God. Without doubt, some who make this choice will do so on the basis of profound personal integrity and the very highest of motives. (Refer to the story at the beginning of the article What about the Heathen? as recorded from Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible)
Bob’s story
Some time ago I received a letter from an elderly friend who had only about three months to live. I will call him Bob. In the letter Bob asked me to take his funeral, but emphasised the fact, which I already knew, that he was not, as he termed it, ‘religious’. In fact he had on a previous occasion admitted that he struggled to believe in the existence of God at all.
I wrote back to him offering the opinion that the fact that he had difficulties in believing there was a God may not be such a huge problem. I suggested that the really important thing was that God certainly loved and believed in him. I told him that God saw his heart and was likely to regard him much more kindly than many of his more rigid Christian servants did. I felt a real freedom in saying this as I knew enough of Bob’s life over many years to be sure that if ever there was a truly ‘good man’ he was it.
When Bob replied to my comments shortly afterwards he said something that moved me deeply. “Bruce,” he said, “when I really think about it, my difficulty hasn’t been so much about ‘believing in God’. It has had much more to do with people’s claims - all the different Christian denominations claiming that they were the closest to God; and all the various religions claiming that their version of God was the only correct one and that they had the only true way to God. I simply got so confused that I shook my head, flagged the lot of them, laughed at their stupidity, put the whole issue of ‘God’ and religion in the ‘too hard’ basket, and determined to just try and live my life according to what I knew to be right and good.”
Bob, I knew, was not just making shallow excuses. Close to death, he was sharing honestly from his heart. Here we have a clear case of a man whose ‘atheism’ was based on perfectly understandable issues of profound personal integrity.
My conviction, based on spending the past sixteen years mixing on a daily basis with mainly non-Christian people, is that there are huge numbers of thoroughly decent and genuinely ‘good people’ whose rejection of ‘religion’ as they call it, and at times even the very idea of the existence of God, is based on reasons almost identical to those expressed by Bob. They have come to their conclusions after being presented with similar evidence of Christian foolishness and/or as a direct result of Christian sin and intolerance.
God looks on the heart
In closing I wish to remind us that God looks on the heart, understands the factors of every life and judges each person on this basis. As Christians we are not privy to this inside information, and we would do well not to play God and imagine that we can easily write ‘unsaved’ over the life of every person who somehow fails to measure up to our salvation formulas.
Over the years I have been dragged screaming and kicking to the conviction that……. if a person lives their life following those costly ethical imperatives which are closest to God’s own heart then the Bible gives us enough evidence to strongly suggest that they will have the righteousness of Christ ‘reckoned unto them’, despite the fact that they may have little or even no interest at all in questions about God or spirituality or ‘religion’, and may, in fact, even claim to be atheists.
See the other articles in this Inclusive Christianity section of the web site which address similar themes.
By Bruce Puddle
www.ists-spiritualschool.org
From section: Inclusive Christianity
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