This blog post is part of our ongoing series responding to The Problem of God by Mark Clark—a book widely promoted in Christian circles as a thoughtful defense of faith. Here at The God Question, we examine Clark’s arguments critically, engaging each section with honesty, clarity, and presence. Our goal is not to deconvert anyone, but to challenge assumptions, sharpen thinking, and invite deeper reflection. This post addresses the final sections of Chapter 1, pages 37-39: “The Myth of the Secular Society” and “The NOMA Principle.”
🛰 “Star Trek Got It Wrong”: A Straw Man Secularism
Clark opens with a familiar tale: the confident prediction that modernity would erase God. His example? The original Star Trek series—a future imagined without faith, where science had seemingly made religion obsolete. He contrasts this with The Next Generation, where some characters express spirituality.
The point he wants to make is that secularism didn’t win—and perhaps it never truly had the upper hand. But what’s missing here is nuance.
Yes, some futurists once imagined that religion would wither. Yes, belief in God remains widespread. But the assumption that scientific progress ought to lead to a rejection of God is itself a caricature—not a serious secular argument. Most critical thinkers today don’t argue that science automatically eliminates religion. They argue that science offers a better, evidence-based process for understanding the world—and that many religious claims fail under its scrutiny.
The “myth” here isn’t secularism; it’s the straw man version Clark has created. He reduces complex sociological trends to an oversimplified failure of prophecy, as if disproving one cultural prediction somehow validates theological truth.
🔬 The NOMA Principle: A Line in the Sand
Clark then tackles Stephen Jay Gould’s well-known concept of NOMA—Non-Overlapping Magisteria—the idea that science and religion occupy distinct domains. Science handles the natural world; religion deals with morality, meaning, and metaphysics.
Clark doesn’t attack NOMA directly so much as work around it. He says, essentially: sure, science can’t disprove God, but it can still point us toward him. He quotes scientists and theologians who believe the complexity of the universe suggests design, and he appeals to Paul’s letter to the Romans as evidence that the real issue is not a lack of evidence, but a willful suppression of the truth.
This is where Clark doubles down on his theme: people don’t reject God because the evidence is weak—they reject him because their hearts are darkened. They see the signs, but prefer to believe something else.
But let’s be clear: this is not an argument. It’s a psychological accusation. It bypasses any meaningful engagement with the critiques raised by science or secular thought and instead assumes what it needs to prove—that God exists, that his signs are everywhere, and that disbelief is rebellion.
🧠 Science Isn’t Silent — It’s Honest
Clark’s treatment of science is selective. He quotes Allan Rex Sandage, the Christian astronomer, to suggest that the greatest minds are driven to belief. But he glosses over the fact that most leading scientists—especially in fields like evolutionary biology and cosmology—are not theists. Even when he mentions that belief is higher among natural scientists than among social scientists, he stops short of reckoning with why that distinction might exist, or what kind of “God” is being affirmed.
And while he rightly notes that science can’t disprove God, he misses the larger point: science doesn’t need to. It simply withholds belief until evidence emerges. That’s not rebellion—it’s integrity.
What Clark ultimately reveals is the apologetic impulse to reframe science as not only compatible with faith but actually confirmatory of it—to use its discoveries as indirect evidence for a divine mind. But in doing so, he avoids addressing why so many scientific findings undermine traditional religious claims: a young Earth, a literal Adam and Eve, a global flood, and even the special creation of humans all collapse under the weight of evidence.
📌 The Real Problem: Not a Lack of Evidence, But a Lack of Honesty About the Evidence
Clark ends with Paul’s words in Romans: “For although they knew God… they became futile in their thinking.” He says the real issue is suppression, not skepticism.
But the real issue is this: Science has changed our understanding of the universe in profound ways. And for many of us, the gods of ancient texts no longer fit that universe. It’s not that we suppress the evidence—it’s that the evidence leads us elsewhere.
We didn’t darken our hearts.
We opened our eyes.
God or Delusion? 