There’s a TED talk in which Alain de Botton said (in effect):  I’m not here to discuss whether there’s a God or not.  We know there’s no God.  Let’s also admit that militant atheism doesn’t really get us anywhere.  Instead, let’s move on and talk about how we’re going to live our lives in a world without God.

His primary objective, to restate the paraphrase, was to envision an entirely secular culture, one that might even borrow from the “good things” he had seen religion doing.  An interesting perspective, if you’re curious.

In a similar fashion, my primary objective in this series is not to prove that God exists.  I did say that I’ve been studying the question, with all of the focus and spare time afforded to a father employed in a field far from Philosophy.  I do say, so far as I can tell, that God’s existence seems to me more plausible than not.  And not just by a little, but overwhelmingly so.

Further, as an autobiographical aside, I don’t believe my purpose is to go about proving that God exists.  I think there are minds at work which fare far better than mine, and their arguments range from simple (as we have seen with the Kalam Cosmological Argument) to quite difficult to follow.

So, as de Botton looks at life in the absence of God, and seeks fulfillment, I now take a contrary tack.  There is a God, a greatest of all possible beings, a mind so powerful and intelligent as to defy all comprehension except His own.  Now what?

The proofs for God’s existence are instructive for my primary objective, and that is why they will show up from time to time.  I do hope to give my agnostic and atheist friends exposure to them, to observe a depth of mind not often found in popular culture.  (EDIT:  There are similarly deep and profound insights offered by atheists and agnostics as well, and taken together with the theists’ insights, these represent thought far beyond what our televisions typically showcase).  I also aim to discuss the subject in such a way that it is not too pious for my A&A friends, though I have been guilty of that charge from time to time.

The very tip of the point of this series, then, is this:  To explore the nature of God through the analogy of an author.  More broadly, this might be called a “conceptual analysis,” which we have already done in brief:  If conditions are such that X exists, then what can we know about X?

In this manner, we learned what we did in 3.0.  In later posts, we’ll introduce the concept of “God as author” and begin to explore what this can tell us about God and how to live our lives.

In our last exciting installment, I said that skeptics (and believers) often have a view of God which is painfully small, especially for human minds.  I noted that those human brains are often seen as bearing no significance at all, none to speak of anyway, when compared with the size of the Universe.  What, then, could set the Universe in motion?  How much greater must that intelligence and power be, compared even with our wild imaginations?

I submitted that this power (whatever its source) is something beyond comprehension, whether it comes from God or else a natural cause.  I think we must say the same for that intelligence – this is almost easier to recognize, though still beyond comprehension – though I do not necessarily mean that we must therefore admit a God.

I don’t know what else you’ll say could manifest that intelligence, but I’m listening.

Even with a view toward modern science (let alone “God”), I am looking through the glass dimly, and still can appreciate what a startling display of intelligence has been required to understand the cosmos, to draw conclusions about its origins and to sketch out what are the laws of physics.  There are people out there inventing mathematics to explain it, and talking about equations so difficult that we might never solve them.

What?

This does not compute with a Universe tumbling into existence on the same mechanics as a roulette wheel.  That Universe would not require or condone complex, logical equations.  It would require a deck of cards and a lot of time.

But that’s not what smart atheists are saying now, so let’s do away with straw men.

Smart atheists are trying to find a way around this:

Premise 1 – Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Premise 2 – The Universe began to exist.

Conclusion – The Universe has a cause.

Again, the conclusion is not:  ”God exists.”  It is rather, “The Universe has a cause.”

The Big Bang theory does not quibble with this, but some physicists do.  Other physicists say the Universe began to exist, but without a God.

William Lane Craig, the contemporary champion of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, rightly points out that, since the argument is sound, the burden is on atheists to refute one or both of the premises.  If the argument is successful, it would seem to demonstrate a cause which transcends those things by which we define the Universe – space, time, energy, and matter.  It is further suggested that this cause must be personal (that is, a person) because the act of creation would have been a choice, and only persons make choices.

If you would, how would you refute them?

Before wrestling with what it means for God to be all-loving, we might find some benefit by shifting the emphasis.

Namely, we’ve focused primarily on God, appropriately so, in consideration of the analogy of an author.  We have seen, for example, how the human author shows herself to be all-powerful in the context of the story; so, by analogy and at least to that extent, we may say that God is all-powerful in reality, and there is nothing impossible or incoherent about such a notion.

But what about the story?  What about creation itself?

The first word I would offer is a word of caution:  The analogy should not be applied too stringently.  It is more of a guide, a way, an open door.  It is not a complete map, much less the journey itself.

So, for example, I think it would be fun to ponder the notion of “elementary particles” within any given story, and what, if any, significance there might be here.  Indeed, I do think there could be some.

However, it is important to see two things:  Whereas the analogy is metaphysical, elementary particles are proposed as simply physical realities.  The analogy will not teach us physics – we cannot observe the world of “War and Peace” and discover something about the force of gravity.  (At least not anything which Tolstoy had not already discovered himself, from…observing the real world).

The second is also a basic distinction:  God is the greater mystery, the more fundamentally real subject of our discussion.  The author is not an exact analogue to God – even if we can confirm a truth about the author, it might not necessarily show us something about God.  Rather, God is the One we are groping for, as if in the dark and cavernous space of the entire Universe, and we are hardly able to leap off our own pale blue dot.  The analogy may give us an idea of what we are looking for, perhaps how the search should proceed, perhaps even correct our course from time to time – but it is not the same as contact with the living God.

There is, rather, something wild and lonely and exhilarating about that journey, and it is never enough merely to consider the map in comfort.

So with that arduous caution in place, we’ll take up creation in the next post.

And so, what can be said about the Kalam Cosmological Argument in particular?

Some rather intriguing things, if you ask me.  The following exposition is heavily informed by what William Lane Craig has to say about this argument, in support of it and in anticipation of possible objections.  You may, without too much exercise of the mind, still find an objection; you may also depend on the notion that Dr. Craig has fielded it, or readily will.

Premise 1 – Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

Another way of saying this is, “Nothing comes from nothing.”  In the last post, I linked to the Wikipedia page for Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist who authored the book, A Universe from Nothing.  In it, according to the NYT, he proposes a “deeper nothing,” from which even the laws of physics are absent, and out of this nothing the Universe was born.  But then, he doesn’t actually mean “nothing” – we might have been spawned by the multiverse, which even the layman realizes is a whole lot of something.

By “nothing,” Dr. Craig says, we actually mean “not anything.”

And this seems to be true, in the sense that Stephen Hawking (also linked last time) theorizes that there is a boundary to spacetime, beyond which there is really nothing…except that he also admits something, namely the laws of physics.  To these he ascribes potential creative power (namely, causal power) whereas they have usually been seen as descriptions of our observations, and not things existing as causal agents.

What’s interesting to note is that neither of these theoretical physicists deny Premise 1.  They have some strange ideas about nothing – which is to say, they identify something and call it “nothing” – and yet they try to extract something from that nothing in order to provide a cause for everything.

Premise 2 – The Universe began to exist.

Nevertheless, it appears there really is a hard beginning to the Universe, which theorem has stood against alternative explanations.  If the Universe began thus, and there is no explanation which space, time, energy, or matter can provide, what do we suppose could have caused it?

Nothing comes from nothing, after all.  We must therefore posit an “abstract” something, or as we have said, something which transcends the Universe.

Those last two links are tough.  I admit to reading only what appears to be standard English, having to look up some of the technical terms (geodesic!) and taking only a cursory glance at the geometry.  I admit that they appear less clearly stated than the way Craig employs them, but he understands the field better than I do.  Would love to learn more about this.

What I understand better are the philosophical arguments against an actual infinity, which we’ll look at next time.

The usual charge, against which we want to consider the existence of God, is that if the arguments for God’s existence were, at any point, all shown to fail, then belief in the existence of God would (should) also fail.

This charge requires a lot from the believer, because it is meant to suppose that if logic should cease to be logic, then we should be logical (who knows under which definition) and cease our belief in God.  Let me put the charge in an overly simplistic way.

If it can be shown that 4 + 5 = 10, and not 9, then we should all change our answers to that question from now on.  And not only to that question, but to every question which depends on that answer, and again, to every question which operates by the same mechanics.

In a word, we must question all calculations pursuant to the previously believed 4+5 = 9, and addition itself (how did we make that mistake before?  Have we been making it in more than one place?), and subtraction (is 9-5 no longer equal to 4?), division, multiplication..all of mathematics…and perhaps some logical assumptions besides.

But of course, 4 + 5 will never equal 10.  No amount of special pleading, or question-begging, or emotional appeal could ever change the answer, even if you wanted to sue me for it.

Now, the objection will be that the conclusion “God exists” is never as obvious as “9” is for the arithmetic above.  And that’s the start of another conversation.

As for this conversation, for the believer, it is about that obvious.  My contention in the last post is that logic is not central to one’s belief in God; that logic, in its academic forms, is not necessary for faith.*  Rather, the logical arguments for God are a kind of refuge or platform in a certain context, or an exercise in the breadth and depth of one’s mind, or even a devotional activity of those inclined to love Him with all their minds.

On the other hand, I have never bothered about the logical structure of my experiences with God in any academic sense.  I have tried to understand them, yes, and that with a gasping desperation.  In that case, however, I am more an adventurer than a thinker, more a disciple than a student.**

Those experiences seem to supersede human rationality.  For example, to feel you are in the presence of God is not something arrived at deductively, and so we are not afforded logical certainty.  It is, instead, something received, not arrived at.  If someone brings you a gift, you do not trouble with the logical certainty that the gift exists, nor with the existence of the gift-giver.  You simply receive it, and perhaps try to understand inasmuch as it helps you to appreciate the gift.

Indeed, it is tempting to have these rationalizations, to understand completely.  For skeptical minds, this gives us something to sink our teeth into.  Yet, it is important that the experience retains this flavor of being ultimately indescribable, or else, we are limited to what we can understand.  (This, really, is the downfall of skepticism, and to persist is to be a cynic).

It is better if we take the logic and the poetry together, a balanced meal of spiritual sustenance comforting to the soul.  We want the chicken with the breading, the salt with the asparagus.  This is what the analogy has offered me – it brings together a full meal, one I am still preparing, and often eating.  It seems like elven bread to me, the least nibble filling my stomach, nourishing me for days; better, it is like a multiplication of loaves and fishes.

I don’t promise it will do the same for everyone; this is not a sales pitch.  But if you are heavy on heart, and hungry for the meat of logic, you might find your protein here.  If your mind is weighed down with the complexities of argument, the leaven of a fanciful notion can lighten your spirits.

*Don’t forget the posts on Plantinga for a detailed reflection on this.

**This, of course, is not an unreasoning position, but simply an organic one, a less technical way of reasoning.