The motion picture Atlas Shrugged - Part 1 was released in theaters last week, and coupled with the positively prophetic mapping of the plot of Atlas Shrugged to current events, Ayn Rand and her Objectivist Philosophy are front-burner topics. I know that many Christians read Rand and want to stand up and cheer, but at the same time are racked with guilt because of her atheism and decidedly anti-church professions. Can Rand be reconciled to the Gospel? Can Christians read and learn from Rand's writings? I say yes, and emphatically so.
The first thing we must do is approach this question from an adult perspective. It is patent absurdity to argue that atheists and other non-Christians have nothing to offer society or the Christian milieu itself. To argue that the work of atheists be dismissed is to argue for the dismissal of a large percentage of the advances and breakthroughs in mathematics, physics, and biomedical science that have been achieved over the last several centuries. Furthermore, any Christian worth his salt should be able to defend his beliefs, and should welcome honest challenge and questioning -- not run from it. Steel sharpens steel. Raw squid left out in the sun for six hours sharpens nothing.
One of the hallmarks of Rand's Objectivist philosophy is the supremacy of an individual's capacity for logic and reason. Those two words, logic and reason, appear over and over again in all of Rand's writings. Here is a quote from Rand herself, emphasis mine:
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
