Father to the Fatherless
Photo by Juliane Liebermann (Unsplash)
Paul Vitz is an American psychologist who is a Senior Scholar at Divine Mercy University in Sterling, Virginia. He is emeritus professor of psychology at New York University.
His landmark book was a fascinating study of the role of parents in relation to the absence of faith. It was called Faith of the Fatherless, and it was about the psychology of atheism.
In the preface to the book, he notes that there is a widespread assumption that:
“… belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational, immature needs and wishes, where atheism or skepticism flows from a rational, grown-up, no-nonsense view of things as they really are.”
He then argues that from a psychological standpoint, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, his research found the exact opposite. He found that the average atheist’s rejection of a Father God is rooted in their disappointment in, and resentment of, their own father.
He then details the many ways a father can lose his authority or seriously disappoint his child; for example:
... he can be absent through death or abandonment;
... he can be present but obviously weak, cowardly and unworthy of respect;
... he can be present but physically, sexually or psychologically abusive.
He calls these determinants of atheism the “defective father hypothesis”. The idea is that whatever might weaken or harm the relationship of a child with his father or parents will, in general, predispose the child in adulthood to atheism or unbelief, or to spiritualist beliefs without a personal God.
He then backs it up with studies on such famed atheist intellectuals as,
... Nietzsche,
... David Hume,
... Bertrand Russell,
... Jean-Paul Sartre,
... Albert Camus,
... Voltaire,
... Sigmund Freud,
... and then all the way to such contemporaries as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.
Here’s the bitter irony of his research. The heartbreak of an earthly father can push some people away from embracing God as their Heavenly Father. If they allow themselves to go that route, without seeing how much of it isn’t tied to truth or reality, but instead to a dysfunctional home, they separate themselves from the only thing that can bring healing.
Because the truth about God the Father is that He is our Father. A Father full of love and grace, mercy and compassion, truth and guidance. And He wants to father us the way we need to be fathered. He knows how many of us were never fathered—or never fathered well. He longs to be that perfect Father we all need, no matter how good or bad our own father was.
This is why there is so much behind these words from the Bible—a single verse from the Old Testament book of Psalms, a single line that defines who God can be in your life.
“Father to the fatherless... this is God” (Psalm 68:5, NLT).
And in so many ways, what may be the simplest understanding of the gospel, at least in terms of what the cross-work of Christ allowed to take place in the life of any and every human, is encapsulated in one word:
... adoption.
James Emery White