Life on Purpose
The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God
by Dan Barker
Ulysses Press, 2011
(240 pages, $14.95, paperback)
Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things
by Alister E. McGrath
Westminster John Knox Press, 2011
(144 pages, $17.00, paperback)
reviewed by Logan Paul Gage
Following the New Atheist tomes of 2004–2007, a host of atheist B-teamers capitalized on the newfound enthusiasm—so many that most bookstores now house an “Atheist” subsection. These authors include physicist Victor Stenger, professional “skeptic” Michael Shermer, and former Evangelical Dan Barker.
Barker, who ministered in traditions as disparate as the Assemblies of God and the Friends Church, has not only turned his evangelistic fervor toward atheism but also put his Christian songwriting skills to use writing such ditties as “No Gods, No Masters” (a tribute to Margaret Sanger) and “The Stay-Away Pope Polka,” which, according to the Freedom from Religion Foundation, was “played by radio stations and sung by protest groups across the country when the pope visited America in 1987 and 1993.”
Barker’s latest work, The Good Atheist, unfolds in two stages. In the first stage, Barker plays the foil to Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, arguing that Christianity is loathsome because “you have no say in your own purpose.” Being mere actors in God’s play rather than autonomous agents free to set their own purposes, Christians are—as the apostles themselves admit—slaves. Barker finds this “forced or mandated subjugation of ‘inferior people’ by a ‘superior person’” morally odious.
Yet in the opening verses of Romans, Titus, James, Jude, and 2 Peter, one sees willing slaves of Jesus Christ, not forced subjects. Having been slaves to sin, the apostles believed they had found true freedom in Christ. Barker forgets that Scripture speaks with equal ease of believers as a beloved wooed by God, as adopted children, and as co-heirs with God’s Son.
Problems with Purpose
Dismissing Rick Warren’s claim that life itself must “have a purpose,” Barker nevertheless argues that atheists need not eschew purpose altogether, for “your purpose is how you choose to live your own life.” Barker is unclear here, but let’s suppose he means to distinguish human-made purposes from transcendent purpose. He leaves readers wondering why we desire a transcendent purpose if there isn’t one. Having a human-made purpose—a way “you choose to live your own life”—does not seem to be enough. Thieves, murderers, and even trial lawyers have that.
Barker simply does not take the human longing for transcendent purpose seriously. If we want a purpose-filled life, he says, we should find a problem to solve, such as “inequality, oppression . . . sexism, cruelty to animals, pollution . . . exploitation—these are all worth fighting.” Yet we are given no justification for fighting these rather than their opposites.
Here Barker strikingly shows little awareness of the long-standing problems with naturalistic ethics. If John Smith sets as his purpose the promotion of animal cruelty, on what basis could Barker argue that John has a moral obligation to abandon that monstrous cause? In a theistic universe, goods can be known through the purposiveness of nature, and moral obligations can be rooted in authoritative divine commands. But (despite some valiant efforts) it is extremely difficult to see a basis for objective values and moral obligations in a Godless universe.
Logan Paul Gage is a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Baylor University. He and his wife Elizabeth attend St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Waco, Texas. A version of this essay appears in the recently released book God and Evolution (Discovery Institute Press), edited by Jay W. Richards.
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