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A friend sent me an e-mail a while back, in response to a couple of my entries. I found the discussion so interesting and valuable that I asked if I could post the exchange. She said yes, but wasn't so keen on me revealing her identity on the wild-wild web. So I'll call her Spock (read her comments and you'll see why). This sort of conversation is important, for atheists and Christians and those in-between. I'd like to set up a place where this sort of thing could go on, independant of my input, since the semester has rounded the corner and I'll soon be too busy for extra writing. I could probably set up a forum, here on aaronorear.com, that allowed people to exchange thoughts. I'm not talking about a "board," where posts are short and unsubstantial. It would be laid out like my blog entries, so that a post could go into considerable detail. If anyone would like to see this, send me an e-mail or leave a note in the guestbook (link under the blog window). And now, the conversation... Spock I am interested in the recent topic of the existence of God, since it is an issue with which I have grappled most of my adult life and continue debating internally. (Who hasn't, huh?) I doubt that I will ever resolve it, but it's good mental exercise. I sense a contradiction (maybe two) between two recent blog items, notably we mortal humans' ability to comprehend (or even imagine) a supreme being. In one blog you state, "we're finite beings and finite beings can't entirely understand an infinite reality. Can't be done, no matter how intelligent we are or how clever a metaphor we arrange...you can't measure an infinite with a finite." Then in enumerating Anselm's argument, you note, "1. Persons have the idea of a greatest possible being." and "4. Therefore, we can conceive of a being greater than the imagined greatest possible being, that is, a being that also exists in reality." Aaron Indeed, the inability to adequately imagine God is one of my primary problems with Anselm's ontological argument. It's a flaw pointed out by one of Anselm's contemporaries, a monk named Gaunilo. Anselm answered that while we can't completely understand God we can know enough about God to know, at very least, that God must be the greatest possible being. Technically this is all that is required for the ontological argument to stand. NOTE: Here's Anselm's ontological arument... But this leads to other problems. Gaunilo reasoned that one could then imagine the perfect island, and therefore it must exist. This is dicey, since a perfect island is a matter of opinion, and no matter what amount of perfection (miles of clean beaches, scads of palm trees and mango groves) that one could picture, you could always add a few more. Perfect qualities of God, on the other hand, are less quantitative and therefore can be imagined as perfect. I think that these two criticisms together is what brings down the theory. If we needn't entirely conceive or explain what makes God perfect then we needn't entirely conceive or explain what makes the island perfect. The idea that imagining a perfect island means that it exists is, of course, absurd and thus runs the criticism of Anselm. My other issue is that the formula makes God contingent. It's possible that nobody would ever imagine a greatest possible being. According to Anselm's argument this would mean that God would then not exist, since the whole thing starts with imagining. If God's existence depends on our imagination then God is contingent upon us and thus not the greatest possible being. Note - I'm obviously not an Anselmian, at least so far as proof of God's existence is concerned! One detail, not vital to the discussion but of interest - the Bible doesn't actually set out to comprehensively describe God, though some fundamentalists use it that way and consider it the final word on God. The Bible is, rather, a witness to God's work. If I gathered a hundred people and had them write what they knew about you and what you did, it still wouldn't be a comprehensive description of you. Without your interior thought there could be no final and ultimate description, and even if you wrote a chapter the reader could never entirely understand you without being inside of your mind and soul and body. Likewise, any religious tradition that is being intellectually honest won't dare to proclaim ultimate knowledge of God or God's mind. Regarding the soul, there should be a distinction between eternal and infinite. Eternity measures a temporal reality only. Our souls are eternal, everlasting, but not all-powerful. We are still created, incapable of independent creation and beholden to God for our life. Besides this, whatever the capacity of our souls, we are currently saddled with this very limited body which happens to include a limited mind. As Paul says, now we see in a mirror, dimly. Spock I recall from an anthropology class a finding that some prehistoric people buried their clan members with personal items, and the suggestion was that even at that point in human evolution there was a concept of an afterlife, and therefore (perhaps), a supreme being. Although this is a big leap, as there could have been many reasons for burying the items with the person, it is interesting that even the underdeveloped human mind may have conceived of something beyond this physical world. Does this suggest an innate ability to imagine God--perhaps because he is our creator, or is it perhaps humans' desire to attribute some kind of meaning to themselves and their lives, or simply a need to explain what we do not understand and gain comfort in that as a belief? Aaron I worked for a while at the Milwaukee Public Museum, as a visitor assistant in the Quest for Immortality exhibit. It was the largest collection of artefacts ever to leave Egypt - made the King Tut dog-and-pony back in the 80's (70's?) look puny. One particular piece captured my attention...a small statue of Osiris, laying on his stomach, lifting his head in the first moments of resurrection. The thing that was so arresting was the smile. A smile of complete contentment, which spoke more of eternal happiness than of a man who will die again that night and have to pass again through the underworld. It was a statue made by non-Christians, obviously, but to Christian eyes it spoke of the hope to come. I guess meaning is in the eye of the beholder, right there with beauty. The watch model of creation comes from William Paley (1743-1805). It's interesting to hear it turned against theism, since Paley originally used it in support of a created universe. It's a limited argument in either direction, since the analogy could hardly be adequate. It also assumes that matter cannot organize itself, which Darwin's work disproved. What still remains a question is the initial moment of life. Evolution (which I do believe is the method by which life arrived in its current state) moves from complex being to complex being and doesn't even attempt to describe the first spark of life. I somehow think that animals, and babies, have a better idea of who God is than adults ever could. Maybe it's that free will, the eating of the apple (which no, I do not think literally happened) that has clouded our vision. Tomato plants? Well, there are plenty of people who insist that plants feel pain, even scream. People talk to their plants all the time. Who's to know whether or not God also talks to them? The basic laws of the universe...there really aren't all that many, and even the ones we do have are more like guidelines. They say "this is what happens every time we try it," but they can't say what will happen in every case and every condition. Most astronomers operate under the assumption of the Big Bang which, again, I think happened. (The Steady State and Oscillating models don't explain the current speed of the universe's expansion or the necessary gravity to pull things back together.) But what made the Big Bang bang? They talk about what existed before the explosion, the Singularity, a point into which all matter and energy were compacted. So where did the Singularity come from? If we accept that the universe is contingent, that it needn't have happened, then we must look for a non-contingent (necessary) cause. God is as likely an explanation as anything else. Regarding the "societal lottery," and its application to what theologians call the Problem of Evil. Yes, there are extreme inequalities in the world, but does it follow then that God must either be to blame or be non-existent? Isn't the disparity between wealth and poverty our problem? Aren't the actions of Hitler and, more importantly, the people who supported him and followed him, the responsibility of those people? I'll go with you on natural disasters, because there seems to be no free will in action. (Although I have heard an interesting case made, not by a Christian, that the tsunami wouldn't have ravaged SE Asia so badly had the region been left to the fishing-village culture of its origin and the coasts not deforested by construction of western-style cities and resort hotels. Speaking of Star Trek, it's the Prime Directive on our own planet...) But when it comes to human actions, we do have free will. The argument is then made, why didn't God create beings who would have free will, but always chose what was right? My answer - is that really free will? |
