Is There God?

As part of a study on the theological problems of accepting the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving being — God — in the face of pain, even significant pain, of both the physical and emotional kinds, a member of the group provided a link to an article written by Roger Ebert, the film critic, posted on the Chicago Sun-Times web site on March 30, 2011. The link is here.

For approximately 1,700 words, Ebert ponders the existence and purpose of man, and concludes that he finds “the Theory of Evolution a great consolation.” Following are a few of the passages and my comments and questions.

What we are left with are the cosmic shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. Ultimately the images from Hubble will give us a glimpse of conditions that existed an infinitesimal instant after the Big Bang. There will never be an image of the Big Bang itself, because it had no image. There was Nothing, and then there was Something, and all we can hope is to see that Something as soon as possible after it became.

And with this, evolution, the principle of taking what is and morphing it into something else that is, but was not before, is set in motion by an event that took Nothing and made that Nothing into Something. That is an insufficient explanation.

If the matter in the universe has organized itself into you and me and Stephen Hawking, I can think of no reason why the same organizational principles wouldn't apply everywhere. In the night sky we look at the suns of a multitude of planets that might harbor forms of intelligence that look back at our sun. Astronomers search for "earth-like" planets because they know life is possible on a planet like ours. They start with what they know. Every day we read speculation about new forms of life. I don't know why it cheers me to learn that a buried sea on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, could harbor "a form of life," but it does.

But isn’t it understood that from the first organization of dead matter into living matter, into the next level of living matter, each step was a process of random error that survived? Isn’t an underlying principle of life that like begets like, therefore virtually everything that is created by one thing is a perfect reproduction of itself and only some anomaly in that process even gives evolution a chance to either select or reject it? I know that some will consider all the permutations of genetic qualities, but are they truly a new thing, or rather the result of combining millions of possible combinations of existing features within DNA of the one thing with its alternate combination at conception? Are these the changes of evolution, or merely the expression of the virtually endless way that the existing entity — without evolution — can be expressed without any evolutionary trend toward some altered species? Isn’t evolution the process whereby something not previously found as possible within DNA erroneously comes to be and there is a possible combination of traits with this new quirk which natural selection will either duplicate and keep, or cause to be rejected and disappear?

But what good does it do me to think of the universe as an unthinking mechanism vast beyond comprehension? It gives me the consolation of believing I conceive it as it really is. It makes me thankful that I can conceive it at all. I could have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas. In this connection I find the Theory of Evolution a great consolation. It helps me understand how life came about and how I came to be. It reveals a logical principle I believe applies everywhere in the universe and at all levels: Of all the things that exist, animate and inanimate, some will be more successful than others at continuing to exist. Of those, some will evolve into greater complexity. This isn't "progress," it is simply the way things work. On this dot of space and in this instant of time, the human mind is a great success story, and I am fortunate to possess one. No, even that's not true, because a goldfish isn't unfortunate to lack one. It's just that knowing what I know, I would rather be a human than a goldfish.

And there you have it. I am consoled that I can conceive of the universe as it actually is rather than simply existing within it and not knowing. “Knowing what I know, I would rather be a human than a goldfish.” I console myself that it isn’t important. But I’d rather be the superior being that can contemplate its nothingness than a goldfish that doesn’t even think about it. A cat that rushed to avoid catastrophe, then takes a nap.

I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail.

On every planet where a sufficient degree of intelligence has developed, the Theory of Evolution must eventually be discovered. It helps those beings understand how they are. It doesn't explain why they are. There is no reason the universe "needed" to evolve intelligent beings, but it has. It might have been inevitable because of the fact of Natural Selection.

My curiosity leads me to science, my admiration for logic leads me to the Theory of Evolution, my pride rejects simplistic fables to describe the facts I observe.

“It might have been inevitable because of the fact of Natural Selection.” I find this quite disturbing. The unending need for the right combination of random errors in replication to slowly send some of the errors toward plants, reptiles, fish, mammals, and ultimately the one being that can think about it — and is “inevitable” and must be happening in the same way everywhere. The chances of that are much worse than the chance that it happened once. And those chances are slim to none.

That is unless there is something outside of nature that directs this process. That took the Nothing and made it into Something.

And, oddly, while looking at a series of blogs without this discussion in mind, I come across one that sets the mind of the scientist in place. Paul Copan posted to the Parchment and Pen blog, part of the Credo House Ministries web site, the following (read the full post here):

Dawkins takes for granted that science is the study of all reality — not merely the study of nature, which would leave open the possibility of a non-natural realm, say, to explain the universe’s beginning. . . . When skeptics demand of theists to “prove God/the soul/miracles/whatever scientifically,” they are taking a scientistic stance, not a scientific one.

One big problem here: Dawkins’ belief that only science can give us knowledge turns out to be incoherent and self-contradictory: How can we scientifically prove that all knowledge must be scientifically provable? We can’t validate science by appealing to science. This position isn’t the result of scientific observation, but a driving philosophical assumption.

While this does not refute Ebert’s claims that it is effectively without meaning and that gives him consolation, it does put a different light on the conclusion. The conclusion that there is nothing else is as unable to be scientifically proved as the existence of God. It is a supposition concerning what cannot be evidenced that simply says it happened and that is that. It is a position within philosophy. It is, for lack of a better term, a religion. And it skips its own demand for proof that it is anything more than a philosophical consideration of how it all began. It cannot be proved.

On the other side is a supposition that there is something outside of our observable universe that directs it, and that caused its unexplained — more truly unexplainable — aspects to come to be. You can try to apply some kind of “simpler proposition” rule like Occam’s Razor, yet it is not evidence, but rather a basis to avoid further consideration. In short, a cop-out. And, admittedly, it can be used to temporarily decide between two alternate propositions where a clear conclusion cannot be made, at least within the parameters of the decision. In this case, the parameters are being given as a scientific explanation of the origins of the universe, and of man.

This leads me back to the last of Ebert’s statements that I quoted above. “My curiosity leads me to science, my admiration for logic leads me to the Theory of Evolution, my pride rejects simplistic fables to describe the facts I observe.” I really need someone to explain this to me. Pride is given as the reason for accepting the conclusion that you are just a random accident that survived rather than that something more powerful than the nature you can observe chose to cause you to be as you are.

And this makes you feel better because . . . ??

Is it because you don’t want to consider that such an all-powerful being could find cause to allow something less perfect than you would demand? And this cause could not be just because it is you that is experiencing this less-than-perfect state? It is easier to understand that being an accident makes the imperfect acceptable but being created by a God does not? Do we presume that if there was such a God that He might find better reason in the totality of facts and events even though you personally experience some kind of pain, and as often as not, pain that is the result of the mind? Why do you care enough to experience pain if it is only random chance? Why does your experience cry out that it is meaningful and therefore painful? Doesn’t that deny the consolation that you claim comes from Evolution?