The "Why" Matters

"The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything," G. K. Chesterton is purported to have said. (As is often the case with famous quotations, this one apparently has not been found in the written record.)

Was the famous writer and Christian correct? I would say: it depends.

Depends on what? On why a particular person stops believing in the existence of God. If someone stops believing in the Abrahamic God because it failed to fulfill what the person was--and still is--looking for in a deity, then such a person might well embrace a substitute god, even a worldly one like the state and especially the total state complete with a fuhrer. I think that probably describes many people.

If, on the other hand, a person abandons belief in God because of a commitment to reason, then that person will not be in the market for an alternative god, even a worldly one like the state or a fuhrer. He will understand that reason and logic simply do not permit contradictions in one's thinking,  Further, a commitment to reason demands that one look beyond the most immediate consequences of actions and ideas, and even to contemplate the limits to what reason as possessed by any single individual can accomplish. I have in mind here F. A. Hayek's case for why no person or small group of people, no matter how smart or well-intentioned, could possibly design a decent society or economy from the top down. Such things are too complex to be constructed the way an organization, say, is constructed.

Thus the one who gives up God in favor of reason is in no danger of believing in "anything."

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