Paul Kurtz

Does the name Paul Kurtz ring a bell?  Don't fret if it doesn't; it's not exactly a household name.  But it's fair to say that this man helped shape the world you live in.

Kurtz was a long time university philosophy professor, and is perhaps best known as the co-author of the Humanist Manifesto II, and editor of Free Inquiry magazine.  He was an atheist, and was widely admired by sceptics, scoffers, and "free thinkers" the world over.

Paul Kurtz died Saturday at the age of 86.

Not being a regular consumer of atheist propaganda, I had not heard of Paul Kurtz until I watched a debate a few years back between he and Norman Geisler, on the subject of secular humanism.  I later listened to another of his with William Lane Craig on the possibility of goodness without God.  I think Geisler beat him, but his performance against Craig was embarrassing (if you think I exaggerate, click here).

Now, Paul Kurtz was no ignoramus.  He held a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and authored or edited over 50 books.  But he suffered the same handicap from which all atheists suffer: the complete inability to account for the physical world without a Creator.  Or to give any compelling reason why your morality is binding on me (or vice versa), with no God to make it so. 

Atheists often congratulate themselves on their clear-headed, logical thinking, with dogged insistence that they are just following the evidence.  But the Biblical view is not so sanguine.  The atheist doesn't want God to exist; He can't exist.  That's why the atheist can look at the night sky, or the human body, or a thousand other wonders of creation, and solemnly declare that there's no evidence for a creator.

No, God does exist, and has made His existence obvious.  And that is why we do missions.  The world must hear that this God who made them loves them, and wants them to love Him in return.