In his piece ‘No afterlife’ (August 5), John Guillaumier seems to suffer from tunnel vision in all matters of the ultimate questions of being human. He is so convinced of his intellectual superiority he is incapable of reflecting deeply on survival after death, a subtle and complicated issue.

According to Immanuel Kant, the ultimate questions combine all the interests of human reason. “What can I know?” sums up the questions about truth. “What I ought to do” questions the norm. “What may I hope” questions the meaning.

One thing can be conceded to atheists of substance. It is possible to deny God, to deny the afterlife. Atheism cannot be refuted rationally. In The Christian Challenge, Hans Kung states: “It is the experience of the radical uncertainty of every reality which provides atheism with sufficient grounds for maintaining that reality has absolutely no primal reason, no primal support or primal goal.”

On the other hand, according to the same author, atheism is also incapable of positively excluding the other alternative: as it is possible to deny Him, so it is also possible to affirm God as the primal reason, the primal support and the primal goal of one’s existence despite the ambiguities, the injustices, the contradictions of daily living. In essence, belief in God and survival after death is nourished by a substantial basic trust. This ultimate trust in God in no way isolates one from a deep commitment to others, to the environment and to all the fields of human learning.

What is needed is a genuine dialogue between believers in God and level-headed atheists. Atheism must be taken seriously, giving it its due weight to its causes and values. Believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism.