Letters

Atheism

John Gallagher

Contents - Mar 2012 - Buy a copy now Homily: Benedict XVI: the Annunciation and Mary's virginity - Pope Benedict XVI Year of Grace: can Australian Catholicism recover its unity? - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World The global financial crisis and the West's fertility decline - Babette Francis Extraordinary life of new Czech Cardinal, Dominik Duka - Peter Westmore Campion College's Summer Program on Christian leadership - Br Barry Coldrey Fulton Sheen Cause: progress report - Msgr Stanley Deptula The Immaculate Conception and the development of doctrine - Bishop Peter J. Elliott John Henry Newman on the Immaculate Conception - John Henry Newman Missions: Bringing hope to Nigeria's abandoned children - Madonna Brosnan Letters: Abortion silence - Frank Mobbs Letters: Social get-together - Richard Congram Letters: Atheism - John Gallagher Letters: Gay peril - Robert Bom Letters: Defending marriage - Mark Szymczak Books: Streams of Grace, by Bishop Julian Porteous - Fr Ken Barker MGL (reviewer) Books: The Spiritual Legacy of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, by Rev. Charles P. Connor - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT, by Thomas Howard - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: MISSA CANTATA: A Chant Mass for the Assembly, Accompaniments by Geoffrey Cox - Christopher Trikilis (reviewer) Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflection: The wonder of the Incarnation: Pope Benedict's Nazareth homily - Pope Benedict XVI

In his criticism of atheism, Paul Fitzgerald writes: "Any reasonable person can clearly see that there must be some intelligence that existed for all time. We call it God" (December-January AD2000).

Mr Fitzgerald is here referring to the traditional argument of order in the world, from which order we can conclude to an orderer who is Himself unordered. However, his preceding statement, "Everything must have a cause", is not correct. God is not caused. He is the Uncaused Cause; all other causes are caused causes.

In his book Why I am not a Christian, the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote: "If everything must have a cause then God must have a cause."

The Catholic response is that everything that does not contain within itself sufficient reason to account for its own existence must have a cause apart from itself. The material universe is a collection of finite, dependent mutual elements. It is not self-explanatory and reason cannot find within it an explanation for why it is there. The universe must owe its existence to a self-existent Being who is the cause of all things other than Himself.

Readers interested in this topic can find an excellent exposition of the rational arguments for the existence of God in The Scope of Philosophy by John Young. (Editor: This book is available through Freedom Publishing).

JOHN GALLAGHER
Armidale, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 25 No 2 (March 2012), p. 15