A recent post by me on Stephen Law's blog :
A debate on whether the universe points to God is pretty much guaranteed to be a waste of time. Philosophical 'proofs' for the existence of God were never intended to be 'proofs', only to prove that God isn't necessarily an irrational hypothesis. The 'proof from design' was the weakest of the lot, and discredited within decades of Paley's death.
The fundamental thing that theology addresses is not how the universe came to exist, how it works etc. It puzzles over the fact that it exists at all. For some people this is a pointless question - it just does, and that's all that needs to be said. Bertrand Russell asserted this in a famous debate in the 50s, I seem to recall. That the universe exists at all is not a question science is interested in - the point is to understand what we've got. Evolutionary theory, cosmological theory are fascinating and can add to a sense of wonder at the universe's ordered complexity, but ultimately they are irrelevant to the deeper wonder that there is anything at all.
Some of us think that the question is not pointless. I would go so far as to say that wonder and reflection that anything exists at all is probably the most fundamental human experience, and we would do well to construct all our thinking from that starting point. That is because the existence of this universe is a 'miracle' (by definition : it necessarily comes 'before' the physical laws of nature, which are intrinsic to the universe). If this universe (with its laws) is possible 'ex nihilo' what else is possible? The fact that this universe is rationally understandable by science makes it more miraculous rather than less. This is not to argue that 'God exists' - a god that existed would be by definition a created thing. When theologians talk about 'mystery' they're not talking about 'the God of the gaps' as a way of avoiding good scientific enquiry, they're talking about something that science simply cannot address because it is necessarily outside the physical laws of science.
Theology is not an argument for the existence of deities - there are plenty of 'deities' around (money, sex/Aphrodite, power/Ares, Dionysus etc) and there's nothing remarkable about that - theology is an attempt to respond to the fact that there is anything (including 'gods') at all. Some people don't see any point in doing that. Fine, up to a point. The danger in that is that it limits truth to measurable existence, and since the physical universe is morally neutral that ultimately anchors all truth and morality in human mind (Kant - Stephen's baseline). But we are beginning to realise that our anthropocentric (human-centred) models are not serving us well. Theology is starting to make a serious comeback in philosophy, political science and several of the Humanities. It is - always has been - 'queen of the sciences', but (as Mr Spock might say) "not science as we know it, Captain."
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2 comments:
Hi Dick
There may well be varieties of theology that concentrate on "why is there something rather than nothing" but that is by no means a defining characteristic of theology. There are plenty of theologians who do see arguing for the existence of God as a wothwhile part of theology.
Alister McGrath, Dinesh D'Souza and Ray Comfort all argue for the existence of God and all trot out the fine tuning argument. As you say the argument is not cogent. I think this partly explains the virulence of some of the comments on Stephen Law's blog. Other things that contribute to McGrath being called an "inane repeater control" are:
1. It's the internet
2. People like Ray Comfort are "inane repeater controls", many of the people who visit Stephen Law's blog have had their fingers (and braincells) burnt even trying to relate to people such as Ray Comfort. As McGrath uses a similar, discredited argument, people tend to think that he's similarly irrational.
A post by me in response to Stephen Law's suggestion that the implication of what I'm saying is that the difference between an atheist who wonders 'that there is anything at all' and a theist who calls 'whatever was in the beginning' God is "semantic" and "trivial" :
In one sense - the 'rational scientific' sense - I guess there isn't much difference at all between the (Christian) theist and the atheist who nonetheless finds themself amazed 'that there is anything at all'. Perhaps just that the Christian theist who sees the universe itself as a miracle may be rather more open to the possibility of 'miracle' than the 'rational scientist' who has ruled miracles out.
But I don't think the difference is just semantic or trivial, because for me it's about the starting 'platform' for all human thinking : the departure platform on which all other thinking and response to the universe sits.
I've just joined the Green Party, and my reason for doing so is that I believe we are entering an era when the ground platform for all political science can no longer be e.g. class analysis or rational liberal democracy. Those things may be necessary too, but the basic platform needs to be the relationship between a (humanly-speaking, morally neutral) planet and the human race. I have lost the hope that anthropocentric thinking will save us. "Those who would save their life will lose it", I suppose. But as a Christian theist, I'm always wanting to push the thinking back even beyond the planet, even the physical universe : it's a matter of always reaching for a better perspective.
The practical, spiritual, behavioural difference is that I want to give my life to God and serve God, who is 'why anything exists' in the first place. The fact that this God is so utterly transcendent (I have a Calvinist background!) as to 'not exist' creates problems inasmuch as humans find it hard to resist the urge to 'put God in a box' of religion, and reduce God to a god - the superstitious nonsense that Richard Dawkins rightly criticises. But on the other hand, Christianity and Judaism contain within them such a powerful sense of the corruptibility of religions and deep scepticism about the gods (that resistance to idolatry) that sooner or later they continually reinvent themselves : as Jesus said, new wineskins are found for the new wine (which bursts the old wineskins). How it is that Christians worship an utterly transcendent God in an utterly contingent human being (Jesus) will have to wait for some other time! (But certainly Jesus's obscurity doesn't present a problem - rather, a necessary reminder to Christians not to put Jesus in a box too readily either!)
You're not entirely wrong to say the difference is semantic. But a word of caution here : the whole language of Christian theism is a vast interlocking symbolic language field that holds in one 'language' questions of transcendence, immanence, ethics, spirituality, rational thought ('wisdom') etc. etc. Rational scientific language has to restrict itself to what can be physically measured; that's its power, but also its weakness : in spiritual and aesthetic terms it's very arid. To one, like me, who inhabits a religious thought-world, much of the discussion I find on blogsites feels arid and rather pointless, sometimes negative and cynical, lacking in hope.
So although the difference may be semantic, in the end it is absolutely not trivial for the human race.
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