Here is Benjamin Jones� Faustian Bargain

The Age-Old Sophism

In his Guardian piece this week Atheist Benjamin Jones is spot on when he says that science works. Cosmology and evolutionary biology, Jones explains, have answered the question of how the world came to be. Indeed, evolution is a fact. What Jones misses, though, is why evolution is a fact. It makes all the difference.

Simply put, evolution is known to be a fact by theology. The empirical evidence, on the other hand, does not show that the world arose spontaneously. Quite the opposite�Epicureanism has not held up well. The empirical data do not support evolutionary theories.

This leaves atheists such as Jones in a bit of an awkward position. They gain their comfort from theology, but then claim it isn�t real. You can�t make metaphysical claims about God and creation, and then conclude that matter and motion is all there is. You can�t have it both ways.

Atheists like Jones have entered into a Faustian bargain. They reap a short term gain, but it is unstable. They have landed in John Lennon�s �Imagine� guilt-free land with �No Hell below us,� but they have arrived there by judging God. Their fallacy cannot endure in the long run.

Jones makes it clear as he bemoans the religious wars. For atheists, Jones explains, �religion is a force for ill.� What Jones does not explain, and no doubt has not understood, is that for atheists, there can be no such thing as ill in the first place. There can be no true knowledge of good and evil because, according to them, matter and motion is all there is. Such a world has no good and evil, only molecular configurations with no truth value.

It is the age-old sophism that we can never shake. The short-term gain is just too attractive.