Materialism, the worldview that claims that only material things exist [i.e., atoms and the physical things they compose], is common in our Western culture. However, we should be ready to point out that it does not offer as plausible an explanation for human consciousness and rational thought as the Christian worldview.
Below are two quotes from CS Lewis from a book entitled C. S. Lewis and the Christian Worldview by Michael Petereson:
If minds are wholly dependent on brains and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.
Thus, a strict materialism refutes itself for the reason given long ago by Professor Haldane: 'If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms" (Possible Worlds, p. 209). . . . [Naturalism] discredits our processes of reasoning or at least reduces their credit to such a humble level that it can no longer support Naturalism itself."
