Atheism is a challenge for Christians, not in an apologetical sense, but rather, in the way it represents the reaction many moral and ethical people will have against the bad actions (and theology) of modern-day Christians. Christianity, in many ways, has turned bad thanks to the way many Christians have not lived up to the praxis set up by Christ. As they defend their actions, they end up creating monstrous notions of God which no one should believe. To be sure, not all Christians are to blame; many faithful Christian philosophers and theologians have come to realize the problems which have arisen and recognize the issue is not atheism, but bad Christianity. The more Christians in positions of power and authority use Christianity to promote injustices, and do so in the name of the Christian faith, the worse the problem has become. Non-Christians (and even Christians) rightfully question this, indeed, rightfully question the existence of the God such Christians represent. This is why Gogol, among many others, have suggested the problem Christians need to deal with is hypocritical Christians and not atheism:
Atheists have not produced so much evil as hypocrites have produced, or even simply those who preached God without being prepared for Him, daring to pronounce His name with unsanctified lips. The world must be treated honestly. It is the highest gift of God to man. [1]
The terrible, indeed, evil, actions of many significant Christians throughout history, especially by those who have had power and authority and seem to represent Christianity because of it, must be acknowledged. They have used their authority to promote and establish a bad image (or representation) of God. Too many Christians have listened to them and accepted what they have said without question. But, when their notion of God is examined, what is promoted is far from the way Christ (and the Christian tradition) teaches about God; it is a God made in their own monstrous image, a God who is not loving but tyrannical, a God who seeks to destroy what has been wounded by sin instead of working to save it.
As these notions of God are found throughout history, even if they have been officially refuted, many pick up on them and presume them to be traditional, which is why many so-called traditionalist have become militant, thinking violence is how they are to obtain and maintain positions of prominence in the world. They follow after the worst parts of the Crusades, of the Inquisition, of the Witch Hunts, of the wars between rival Christian states, of colonialism, of Manifest Destiny, and of Christian nationalism. Gogol described such Christians as being “one-sided” people who, despite their claims of Christianity, fail to follow the Christian praxis:
One-sided people, who are also fanatics, are the ulcer of society; unhappy the land and state where any authority is found in the hands of such people. They have neither Christian humility nor self-doubt; they are convinced that the whole world lies and they alone speak the truth. [2]
Is it no wonder they end up embracing death cults, seeking the annihilation, and not the salvation, of all: “Do not be like those hypocrites who would like to wipe out everything in the world at once, seeing only the diabolic in everything. Their lot is to fall into the same crude errors.” [3]
Gogol, who to be sure, was often close to becoming one-sided in his approach at the end of his life, nonetheless tried to let the true teachings of Christ shine through him and his works. This is what allowed him to understand how bad Christians have been, and why he thought they had to deal with those problems instead of getting into ideological and philosophical debates with atheists.
He understood that, as Christians had not done what they should have done, atheism arose in the modern world. Atheists were right to reject monstrous images of God made by Christians. How could anyone believe God is good, loving, and to be followed, if God is shown to be an unreasonable immoral tyrant? Atheists, in many ways, stand up for God better than their Christian opponents, because they cannot believe in such a monstrous God and so will criticize what Christians themselves should reject. This is why Berdyaev suggests, while they might not believe in God (at least, on the level of nomenclature and the way they understand the classification of God), on another level, they might, and better than many Christians, because they believe in a higher truth and use it to purify all bad images of God:
Thus it is that atheism, in its higher, not in its base form, may be a dialectical cleansing of the human idea of God. When men have risen in revolt against God on the ground of the evil and wrong of the world, they have, by the very fact of doing so, presupposed the existence of a higher truth, that is to say in the last resort, of God. The rebel against God in the name of God; for the sake of purging men’s understanding of God they revolt against a conception of him which has been besmirched by the mire of this world.[4]
We should not going around telling atheists that they really are theists, because, on the level of explicit belief, they are not; we must trust them when they say they deny the existence of God. However, for a Christian, we can see those who love truth, the truth which they know and understand are one with God, as following God, even if they do not know it or name it as God (similar to the way Christ said many will be following him without knowing it). This is how many early Christian apologists like St. Justin Martyr understood philosophical atheists writing in the pre-Christian era: they were atheists because they rebelled against various pagan notions of God which they found monstrous, and they did it for the sake of truth. Because the truth is in reality God, and not different from God, many apologists implied such atheists followed God (unknowingly, to be sure).
Similarly, those apologists claimed such atheists (and other similar philosophers) did so because they embrace reason, which is the Logos; this, Justin said, made them followers of Christ, “Christians before Christ.” This is how Christians can understand the way God is at work with atheists, that they can be following God in their own way, in and through their denial of God, because they are asking questions and stating concerns which Christians must also ask and hold as well. But, to be clear, atheists do not see the connection between the truth and God, and that is where Christians and atheists differ. A Christian, one who believes in God, and believes God and the truth are one, can also believe those atheists who love and pursue the truth are pursuing the same thing as Christians, that is, the truth.
That their mutual love for truth brings them both into contact with God, and even to love God, albeit for atheists in an indirect way (that is, by the way they love the truth which Christians believe is God). Similarly, Christians can believe, because many atheists love the truth, they often speak on behalf the truth in a way Christians should listen. Christians need to study and engage their objections and use them to purify their actions and their notions of God. This is why Christian should not simply debate them, but rather, why they should honestly listen to atheists and learn from them how Christians have gone astray.
[1] Nikolai Gogol, “A Question of Words” in Selected Passages From Correspondences With Friends. Trans. Jesse Zeldin (Nashville: Vanderbilt University, 1969), 23.
[2] Nikolai Gogol, “On the Theater” in Selected Passages From Correspondences With Friends, 80-81.
[3] Nikolai Gogol, “On the Theater,” 81.
[4] Nicolas Berdyaev, The Beginning And The End. Trans. R.M. French (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952; 2nd. ed. San Rafael, California: Semantron Press, 2009), 152-3.
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