Some Anticlimactic Consequences of Atheism

One aspect of the atheist argument against religion does not hold for the very simple reason that according to the atheist's worldview, religion is the legitimate result of natural selection. Adaptation being a law of nature would make adaptiveness essentially self-justifying. According to the atheist's worldview, religion can and does exist merely because it is an adaptive trait, rendering religion justified on adaptive grounds alone.

There is therefore no truly reasonable ground for the atheist on his own terms to debate the religionist, because the religionist is simply operating according to historically adaptive traits,  i.e. consistently reproducing religionists. Neither from logic nor illogic, religion according to the atheist is the result of natural selection, of genetic and social Darwinism. There can be no blaming of religion in this case, for it is simply a competing complex of traits that proved adaptive. Thus whether religion is true or false can be of only secondary importance to the atheist, for the fact that religion exists and reproduces means it obeys Darwinian natural law and so does not need to answer to any additional bar of truth in order to justify its existence.

The atheist, on the other hand, is simply some other complex of naturalistic traits, traits he would like to believe are more adaptive simply due to the complex of factors to which he is enthralled. But whether or not atheism is adaptive is not determined through argument or rational discourse, but through reproduction. In reality, atheism may be utterly unadaptive and unsustainable, a fact which history would seem to corroborate. Even so, atheism according to its own consequences is not a matter of rational discourse, nor are any beliefs. Reproductive realism, which is to say the actuality of instances of reproduction, is the only relevant law. The atheist's argument is thus anticlimactically emptied of its force because ultimately even his beliefs are only passively retained due to social and genetic Darwinian determinism, and only the presence or absence of reproduction can in principle decide the case.

If freedom of belief, however, is granted over and against reproductive determinism (i.e. those who reproduce determine the case), then again the atheist fails because the religionist according to atheist belief must then also be equally free, belief no longer being about truth but about free competition for existence, truth again being relegated to secondary importance.

But if the argument is about truth, where atheism considers itself more adaptive because it is true, then the atheist would again have to betray his own worldview because truth would have to be shown to be an adaptive trait he uniquely possesses over against non-atheism. This would beg the question since it assumes the possession of the very thing in question, becoming "true" merely because he asserts it.

Moreover, if an atheist has truth as an adaptive trait, it would be in principle impossible to show non-atheists since they lack this trait, destroying rational discourse since only the atheist could rightly be said to reason. The ability to know truth is here reduced to a product of social and genetic Darwinism, and so if this is the case it again destroys the atheist's argument because his truth becomes merely the resulting consequence of his accidental traits, and thus not a function of truth. The knowledge of truth is just an accident of nature.

Worse, if knowledge of truth is merely the benefit of Darwinian adaptation, then it would never in principle be able to be known as truth because Darwinian adaptation equally produced falsehood  (i.e. religion). Thus, absurdly,  only the presence of atheism could demonstrate possession of truth, reducing atheist truth claims to rank tautology.

Conversion to Christ in the Orthodox Church

Are you a convert to the Orthodox Church?

There is a common way of discussing members of the Orthodox Church, a way which places them in two categories: cradle and convert.

The first group are said to be Orthodox “from the cradle,” which is to say from their earliest years, from the time they were still in diapers, still in a baby’s cradle.

The second group includes those who come to Orthodoxy later in life. They weren’t necessarily raised Orthodox, but come to the Church through what is called a process of conversion.

Are these categories helpful? Are they legitimate? In order to understand, it will be helpful to have a look at what Scripture says about conversion.

There is at least one instance where the term convert appears in English translations of the Bible: “Greet Epaenetus, my beloved, who is the first convert (ἀπαρχή) to Christ from Asia” (Romans 16:5).

This particular translation comes from the NASB, famous for being a literal translation. This choice of translation can also be found in the ESV, NET, RSV, NIV, and CSB, which is to say a lot of scholarship has gone into the choosing of this term as an appropriate interpretation of the Greek ἀπαρχή, which more literally translates as firstfruits.

Biblically, firstfruits means: “to take away the firstfruits of the productions of the earth which was offered to God. The first portion of the dough, from which sacred loaves were to be prepared. Hence the term is used of persons consecrated to God for all time.”

From the Latin convertere, meaning turn around or transform, the dictionary definition of convert includes: 1. To change the character, appearance, or operation of something. 2. Someone who is converted to something; is persuaded to accept new preferences or beliefs; someone who accepts a new religion or belief.

Taking all of this together, to convert refers especially to turning to Christ. It means turning from evil to Good, from self to God, from death to Life, from error to Truth, and not in a general or superficial way, but in a fundamental way. It is a firstfruits, not a refinement, a repair, or a retrofitting. Nor is it a transition. It is an offering, a consecration of self to God.

There is another relevant Biblical term, one which gets translated as conversion: “Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion (ἐπιστροφή) of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren” (Acts 15:3).

This translation choice is shared by all the major English translations of the Bible. The Greek ἐπιστροφή refers to the conversion of the Gentiles, and comes from the root word ἐπιστρέφω, which means to turn, in this case, to the worship of the true God, or to cause to return or bring back, say, to the love and obedience of God, and shares an interconceptual corralary with Biblical repentance, which is to say metanoia or the changing and transformation of one’s mind, as when Peter declares in Acts: “Therefore repent (μετανοέω) and return (ἐπιστρέφω), so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Both concepts go naturally together.

A dictionary definition of conversion includes: 1. change from one religion, political belief, viewpoint, etc., to another. 2. a change of attitude, emotion, or viewpoint from one of indifference, disbelief, or antagonism to one of acceptance, faith, or enthusiastic support, especially such a change in a person's religion.

Taking these together, conversion, like convert, refers to a fundamental shift, a turning away from evil to Good, from self to God, from death to Life, and from error to Truth.

Now, Good, Life, and Truth are a Person, not a thing, and so conversion refers essentially to the root movement towards God. The notion of conversion is essentially and substantially to Christ, as it says in Romans 16:5 quoted above. Other Biblical examples include:

“Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning (ἐπιστρέφω) to God from among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:19).

“Whenever a person turns (ἐπιστρέφω) to the Lord, the veil is taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:16).

“Let him know that he who turns (ἐπιστρέφω) a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

“For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned (ἐπιστρέφω) to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

Nowhere is there a Scriptural notion of conversion “to” the Church per se. Conversion is always to Christ. Although that may seem like a pedantic distinction, it is, however, a truism that no one is born Christian, because Christianity is not a hereditary trait. People convert to Christ. A Christian is not Christian through birth, but rebirth (John 3:3). It is therefore possible to be cradle Orthodox, to be born into the community of the faithful, receive baptism as an infant, identify with the Church, and yet not be converted to Christ, to have spent all of one's life in an Orthodox parish and yet never to have lived according to Christ, nor to have offered oneself as a firstfruits to God or transformed one’s thought or action so as to conform oneself to one’s baptism.

Problems arise, for the dual categories of cradle and convert are misleading and unhelpful. There can even be witnessed a disdain towards converts, the idea that one is never quite as Orthodox as the cradle Orthodox are. What is more, the category of cradle, which in no wise indicates whether or not one is actually converted, can give the impression that Orthodoxy is not essentially about conversion to Christ and His Gospel, but that conversion “to the Church” is instead conversion to a set of beliefs related to but distinct from Christ and the Gospel.

For example, many “converts” to Orthodoxy have been converted to Christ for decades, and then found the fullness of faith in the Orthodox Church. They came to the Church therefore not as a conversion to Christ, but as an entering into the fullness of the faith. To then equate their joining of the Church with conversion can trivialize sometimes decades of true conversion to Christ.

It is also entirely possible for a cradle Orthodox to be knowledgeable of Orthodoxy, well-versed in the Church's practices and customs, and yet still be unconverted to Christ.

What is worse, the cradle/convert dichotomy can promote a sense of having a two-tiered congregation comprised of, on the one hand, the cradle Orthodox, who may in fact be totally unconverted, and “converts,” on the other hand, whose late-coming to Orthodoxy may be predicated upon decades of conversion to Christ. Converts can sometimes even be treated by cradle Orthodox as if decades of conversion to, and training and education in, Christ are somehow neither legitimate nor significant, even suspect.

In light of the foregoing, “conversion” to the Orthodox Church is a dubious category. The dual categories of cradle and convert can thus be abandoned as neither helpful nor legitimate categories of Orthodox Christians. There are not different "types" of Orthodox Christian. One enters and joins the Orthodox Church, is grafted into the Body of Christ, but one converts to Christ. In reality, everyone who is truly a Christian is so by conversion.

That being said, within the Orthodox Church are both wheat and tares, and without conversion to Christ one can be in the building but not truly in the Church, which is to say one can be Orthodox in name only. One can be called, but not chosen.

To close with a warning from St. Gregory Palamas’ homily on Matthew 22:1-15, “On the Gospel of the Fourteenth Sunday of Matthew, On the Parable That Invites Us to the Son’s Wedding”:

“Why, therefore, did the Lord say, that many were called, but not all? [Matthew 22:14] Because at this point He was speaking about those who had come to Christ, which is why He put this statement later, after the parable. If, when someone was invited, he were to obey the summons, and, having been baptized, were to be called by Christ’s name, but were not to behave in a way worthy of his calling, nor fulfill the promises made at his baptism to live according to Christ, then, although he was called, he was not chosen” (St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Forty-One, pg 326).

Those of us who are baptized and yet do not “live according to Christ” he states are “evil people” that “are like who, having been called, drawn near and been baptized, have not undergone any change for the better, nor laid aside through repentance the filth that comes from wicked pleasures and passions” (ibid, 332).