The following is a quote from Ernest Becker’s book “The Denial of Death” and shows us if naturalistic materialism (atheism) is true, then there are paradoxes about ourselves with which we must grapple. I do not believe, based upon Becker’s work, that he was a Christian holding to life after our deaths, however, I do think that he points to paradoxes in humanity that cannot be explained from a purely naturalistic viewpoint. Here is Becker:
“The prison of one’s character is painstakingly built to deny one thing and one thing alone: one’s creatureliness. The creatureliness is the terror. Once admit that you are a defecating creature and you invite the primeval ocean of creature anxiety to flood over you. But it is more than creature anxiety, it is also man’s anxiety, the anxiety that results from the human paradox that man is an animal who is conscious of his animal limitation. Anxiety is the result of the perception of the truth of one’s condition. What does it mean to be a self conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self expression – and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax…Culture is in its most intimate intent a heroic denial of creatureliness.”
Ernest Becker from “The Denial of Death”
Here are a few thoughts I have on the quotation above by Becker:
- We do tend to deny our “creatureliness.” We want to deny that death is coming. We want to pretend that this current life, on planet earth, will carry on forever. We deny that we can get sick and die since, as we think, “Today I’m healthy as an ox!” Yet, the ox can get hit by a truck and die instantly.
- We are conscious creatures. If naturalism is true, then how did pure matter, biological slime, evolve to obtain “consciousness”? We are aware today. We are alive. We are going about our days, thinking our thoughts, experiencing our feelings, yet how can this be if we are simply stardust that is soon to extinguish? The irony of all this is that we are not merely conscious, but we are conscious that we WILL die. We are conscious of our own limitations, which produces fear and anxiety in us.
- Notice that Becker calls us a “defecating creature” and that once we admit that we “invite the primeval ocean of creature anxiety” to “flood over” us. We are reduced to “defecating creatures” if we are simply cosmic accidents of nature. We live, we eat, we defecate, and we eventually die. This can lead to a “primeval ocean of creature anxiety.” Who are we? What are we? We are, as Becker says, “defecating creatures” who will all perish. Yet, why is there anxiety over this? If death is where it all ends, then why such toil and struggle over this prospect? Why do we fight so hard against death and resist it so much?
- “It seems like a hoax,” says Becker What is the hoax? That we, who have a name, are conscious of ourselves (and of others), we have deep inner feelings, we yearn for “life and self-expression,” yet in the end “all this yet to die.” Indeed, if we only live here, and then die, it all seems like a set-up of sorts. It seems like “the Universe” is playing this cruel joke on all of us to give us existence, to give us a longing for meaning and purpose, to give us a desire to “live on,” yet all of this will end in our deaths.
- “Food for worms,” says Becker. He asks, “What does it mean to be a conscious animal?” He says the idea is “ludicrous” and it is “monstrous.” Why? Because our end is “food for worms.” Whether we are conscious or not, have hopes or fears (or not) does not matter. We are worm food in the end. How about that for the self-exaltation of humans: “Food for worms”?
Does any of this sound right to you? Does any of this above “ring true” to you? Certainly, it is within the realm of possibility that this is true (for ANYTHING can be possible), but given our existence and our desires, does any of this “feel” right? Becker, at least in my mind, does seem to be on to something whenever he looks at the reality of death from a purely naturalistic point of view and calls it “ludicrous” and “monstrous” and a “hoax.” Indeed, I would argue that we know, deep within, that we are created for more than this life. We still maintain, at least within a secular culture, a “faint echo” that we believe we were meant to live forever. We know that while death is natural, it is still quite unnatural to us. Whenever we go to a funeral, we know that there is something “not quite right” about that event. If naturalistic atheism is true, then we are assured that we will never see our loved one again once the coffin closes. There is unspeakable horror thinking that people we have known and loved are gone forever, and that we will be gone forever one day as well.
I want to agree with C.S. Lewis here: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” The prospect of death is an unsatisfying reality that is permanent on this planet. Death takes from us so many hopes and dashes many desires. The logical explanation, says Lewis, is that since death disgruntles so many desires, we must be made for another world beyond death where those desires are fulfilled. Our disgust of death, our fear of death, the threat of death, is all a pointer that we were made to live beyond death. All of this points towards God, Jesus Christ, an Empty Tomb, and a guarantee to live with Him forevermore, if we will but trust in Christ to save our souls. While our secular age may scoff at the prospect of an empty tomb, it will find no cure from the ills that death bring apart from that empty tomb.
“17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. 19 If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone…[But] Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:17-19; 54b (bracket emphasis is mine)