Jon Gary Williams
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If there were no God - - no eternal, intelligent being who created all things - - then several inescapable conclusions would face the atheist. What are these undeniably true and inescapable conclusions?

If there were no God and no creation, this means existence is nothing more than an accident.

Existence, in some inexplicable way, just came to be, which means that all reality is sheer happenstance. Though this concept defies any rational explanation, the atheist is compelled to accept it.

But there is an alternative view - - that existence has always been, that existence is eternal. This, of course, implies the metaphysical, something beyond the natural, something super-natural. Now while the atheist cannot accept the eternal nature of existence, he is forced to affirm the irrational, that it just somehow happened. For him this is an inescapable conclusion.

If there were no God who created everything, this means the material universe is an accident.

Matter just somehow happened. But is this rational? Is it believable? Since the atheist does not believe the universe is eternal he is forced accept the fanciful notion that in some unknown, ambiguous way it came to be.

But this leads to another difficulty. If the universe merely happened the atheist must believe it had a beginning, a starting point. (One popular term for this is the "Big Bang theory.") Yet, logic demands there had to be something from which it began, something to "Bang." But what was that "something" and where did it originate? This leaves the atheist at a crucial dead end. Unable to deal with this dilemma some atheists have ventured onto a radical solution -- that the universe came from nothing.

As far back as 1984, in describing a so-called Inflationary Model for the origin of the universe, Scientific American published the following: "The inflationary model of the universe provides a possible mechanism by which the observed universe could have evolved from an infinitesimal region. It is then tempting to go one step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing." Notice the unscientific, illusive terms: "possible," "could have" and "speculate." Problem solving for atheism is all guesswork.

As to the beginning of the universe, atheism swings on two opposing assumptions. Either the universe came from some unknown, purely natural something or it came from nothing, both ideas being absurd to the fullest.

If there were no God who created everything, this means that life accidentally came into existence from lifeless matter.

But what rationale is there in assuming that dead matter could produce life? Such a proposal is not only illogical it contradicts the law of biogenesis. This firmly established law says that life comes only from life.

Though attempts have been made to show that life could have come from non-living matter, science rejects this as impossible. Therefore, the atheist must face the only alternative -- that life can only exist through special creation by an intelligent being. Rejecting this and opting for a hypothetical, spontaneous generation of life from inorganic matter is another inescapable conclusion.

If there were no God and no creation, the human race would have no purpose and no reason for being.

If man is merely the result of some purely natural process he would have no objective, purposeful reason for existing. Apart from special creation by God man would have no meaningful function, no motive, no cause and, hence, his existence would be superfluous. Without such a creation man's purpose and reason for existing would be solely self-determined. And this inescapable conclusion leads to yet another obstacle for atheism.

If there were no God who created man, there could be no ultimate objective moral standards.

Without objective standards by which to live man would have no moral responsibility. Therefore, nothing could be prohibited, nothing could be labeled wrong or repulsive. All moral standards would merely be the brainchild of man and, hence, completely subjective.

Whatever pleased a person would be allowable with absolutely no restraints. Be it murder, rape, incest, torture, stealing, et. al., nothing could be objectively prohibited. The only deterrent would be what mankind's own subjective laws determine to be wrong. Otherwise, nothing whatever could be labeled gross or criminal which obviously means that nothing man did would make any difference, absolutely nothing. This inescapable conclusion demonstrates the ultimate futility of atheism.