by Henry Piper (all rights reserved)
The Theory of Evolution
The Theory of Evolution
In distinguishing the respective fields of science,
religion and philosophy we have noted that science is about understanding the
physical causes of physical events in the material world using the physical
senses; it employs the “scientific method,” which produces reliable results,
based on observation and experimentation, the reliability of whose results is
based on their verification and repeatability.
There can be no reasonable dispute that the scientific theory
of Evolution, as a general theory of life on earth, has proven to be
substantially and even overwhelmingly reliable and accurate in its account of
life and how species change and develop over time. This theory itself, like all scientific
theories, continues to “evolve” as additional observations are made and
additional technologies developed, enabling more precision in dating methods,
for example; and the science of genetics has revolutionized evolutionary
science, without however affecting its basic outline. In short, Evolution, as a general explanation
of life on earth, is about as “true” as a scientific theory can get. But let’s not omit to remember the
limitations of science which we have discussed above: the very fact that
Evolution continues to progress reminds us that no scientific “truth” is
absolutely and necessarily true in the way that 2+3=5 is true, for
example. Although there is overwhelming factual evidence that
supports it, and no meaningful factual evidence that questions its basic
conclusions, as a scientific theory it is fallible and thus can never be perfect and will forever be subject to
revision and adjustment.
However, since Evolution first gained acceptance in the
scientific community, over a century ago, many religious groups have felt it to
be a challenge to their faith. Notably,
it is fair to say that most religious groups do not feel that way: most religious people who are interested in
science have considered the overwhelming evidence supporting Evolution, along
with the rationality of its explanations, and accepted it on the basis of the
facts and the reasoning. But in recent
decades in The United States, the attacks on Evolution by some religious groups
have become fierce and have gained substantial political exposure. More recently, moreover, some scientists have
themselves become fierce in their defense of Evolution theory and, not content
to defend Evolution on its own terms, have ventured further to declare overtly
that science establishes that God is not needed in the universe at all or, more
extreme yet, that science establishes positively that God does not exist.
But does religion have any place in the purely scientific
study of material nature? And does
Evolution really threaten or demean religion, and is science competent to
consider the existence of God? I believe
it is clear that the answer to these questions is no, and it is the purpose of this essay to explain why. Thus in what follows I shall first consider
why certain arguments against Evolution made by some religious groups are
needless and unfounded; then I shall do the same for the scientists, as I shall
explain why science is not competent to engage in matters of religion and
moreover that science can never
definitively prove the negative―that God does not exist―no matter how much it
might ultimately tell us about the physical world. We shall see, I hope, that both sides are
making the same general mistake, which might be called a “category mistake”:
both sides are foisting the categories of their own area of expertise onto an
entirely different field to which their categories and methods have no
application. Thus, seizing upon the
vagaries and gaps of physical facts, the religious Evolution opponents are blurring
the distinction between religion and science, sometimes claiming that
scientists are engaging in religion, on the basis of the fact that scientists’
conclusions are not absolute; for
their part, some scientists claim, on the basis of science’s having exploded
superstitions and myths of the past which we can now attribute to scientific
ignorance, that all belief in
supernatural or spiritual reality will be exploded as well.
I mean to explain that both these points of view are simply wrong: they cannot reasonably
be supported by the available facts and good reasoning, and both points of view
betray fundamental misunderstandings of the respective subjects and
methodologies of science, religion and philosophy. In brief, I shall try to explain how science
and religion occupy separate realms of human experience and endeavor—in brief,
though overly-simplistic terms, the realms of the physical and the spiritual,
respectively. Both science and religion
have brought great benefits to humanity, and both have also at times caused
severe harm; but both deserve the respect of being understood on their own
terms, and in the case of both
prudence insists that we learn to exercise a reasonable degree of
skepticism. Moreover, it is frequently
the case that, where religionists claim to be doing science and where
scientists intrude upon religion, they are both in fact engaging in philosophy, and both sides would have a
great deal to offer, in philosophical terms, to each other and to the world at
large, if they would be willing to recognize the philosophical nature of what
they are doing.
We all, presumably, would like to live in a world where we can
confidently seek, accrue and rely upon scientific knowledge of the physical
world, while at the same time pursuing a spiritual path if we so choose, which
might afford us a kind of personal and communal truth that science is powerless
to provide. Consider, for example, that
in matters of mental health science might reasonably prescribe chemical medication; however, we might be
well-advised also to consider spiritual meditation,
which has been scientifically proven to be medically beneficial.
Religion v. Evolution
For decades now, the politics of Evolution and religion
have largely taken the form of whether Evolution should be taught in the public
schools, and whether or not “creationism” or “creation science” should also be
taught. Creationism took various forms,
but it was consistent in explicitly invoking religious themes, especially
Christian, Biblical ones, and thus has been uniformly disallowed by courts as
violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, which prohibits the government (through for example the public
schools) from “establishing” (through a school curriculum, for example) any
religious viewpoint.
More recently, in response to these setbacks in the
courts, religious opponents of Evolution have rallied behind an idea known as
“Intelligent Design” (“ID”). In order to
protect it against court challenges to religious doctrine, ID puts itself forth
as a “scientific” theory and typically avoids use of religious language or
references (though many of its proponents readily admit that it envisions a
Christian God as the “intelligent designer”).
One issue to consider is whether it qualifies as “science,” or rather
whether it is not simply religious creationism in a new guise. But first we should examine its philosophical foundations, which are
substantial.
The Argument for the
Existence of God from Design
Over the centuries, many proofs for the existence of God
have been put forward, and one of the most venerable is the argument from
design. In essence, it asks us to
examine the natural world and to observe the extraordinary degree of harmony and
order often manifest there, especially in the intricacy of life forms. From there the argument asks, could such
harmony and order have come about by random, blind natural causes? No, the argument asserts, the movements and
patterns and complex inter-workings of natural phenomena and living organisms
manifest a conscious, intentional purpose, or design. Thus some entity, invisible to us, must have
set the universe in motion and governs its movements to create the harmony and
order we are all witness to. Further,
many things in nature, especially living things, seem clearly to be motivated
to achieve a specified goal or end, as an acorn seems peculiarly and
ingeniously “designed” to become an oak tree, even though these things clearly
are incapable of formulating such a goal for themselves.
Thus, in short, there must be some force in the universe,
with intelligence, will and power comprehending and exceeding all of nature
itself―a supernatural
power―responsible for all this, and this is the very definition of God, thus
God must exist. To be sure, although we
can discern the various goals and purposes in many natural things, and the
physical mechanisms that cause them, we are presumably incapable at least at
present to discern whatever overall purpose the universe may have; therefore,
God may well be utterly transcendent and unknowable to us, and therefore there
may be strict limits to what we can know of God. Still, the existence of God, according to the argument, must be evident to us,
for there clearly seems to be an intelligent mover in the universe even if we
cannot clearly discern His purposes and ways.
A famous example of the design argument asks us to consider
a watch, washed up on the beach, say, discovered by a girl shipwrecked and
orphaned as an infant and brought up on a desert island by wolves. This girl has never seen another human being
or artifact and for all she knows none exist.
But on examining the watch, notably the complexity of its works, gears,
wheels and springs intricately interconnected to produce a steady, uniform,
circular motion, she cannot fail to infer, upon rational reflection (which
nature has outfitted her to engage in, though she lacks all formal instruction)
that the watch was constructed on the basis of some design and must have some purpose,
though she would have no way to know who that designer is or what that purpose
might be. But suddenly, upon reflection,
she could well be expected to be able to conclude, “I am not alone!”, that is,
there must be some other like me who can think.
The argument
suggests, of course, that the watch is like the intricate design of nature, and
any of us, looking at the unspeakably complex and wonderful intricacies of the
uniform motions of the earth and planets and stars, galaxies and the universe
itself, must inescapably conclude that there is something behind it all, even
if that something exceeds our powers of comprehension and observation.
The Contribution of
Intelligent Design: “Irreducible Complexity”
The proponents of ID take the argument from design to a
new level with the addition of a fundamental addition known as “irreducible
complexity.” This idea is clearly an
interesting one, and may well substantially advance the philosophical value of the argument, though whether it thereby
qualifies as “science” is another matter.
In brief, ID observes that certain living structures
involve an interrelation of distinct parts.
In such structures, each part serves a very narrow and specific purpose
in the context of the whole of which it is a part. ID claims that there are numerous cases of
this sort in nature when such individual parts, which are complex in
themselves, would be extremely unlikely to evolve individually, along the lines
of Evolution theory, unless they were previously conceived as playing their
unique role in the greater structure of which they eventually form a part—there
would simply be no reason for them to develop.
Though in principle anything that is possible could theoretically
develop randomly given sufficient time, ID asserts that the mathematical
probabilities are such as to make it functionally impossible that such complex
structures, and their formation into the living, functioning wholes of which
they are a part, could form with the natural randomness proposed by Evolution
theory.
Does ID Qualify as Science?
ID is clearly a direct outgrowth from the traditional
philosophical argument from design, but adds significantly to it conceptually
as well as potentially adding a dimension of mathematical rigor. From a scientific point of view, however, it
is problematic.
First, it is unspeakably difficult, indeed at present
surely impossible, to fix reliably what the mathematical probabilities of
certain natural phenomena may be. ID
often purports to accomplish such probability equations, but the overwhelming
body of scientists, when applying reliable methods of observation and mathematical
analysis, uniformly reject such ID claims on a purely mathematical or
scientific basis: we are far from being able to ascertain how improbable
certain complex structures might in fact be.
In short, though there is no disagreement that countless living
structures are extremely complex, we can hardly conclude that such complexity
is “irreducible,” that is, incapable of being “reduced” to the natural,
physical causes of science.
Moreover, the “explanation” that ID offers for life on
earth is overtly non-scientific, for this “explanation” is of course an
“intelligent designer” (obviously God and often a recognizably Christian God to
boot) who by definition is inexplicable. In other words, the “explanation” is
effectively that “there is no explanation.”
But science, by definition, is about discerning natural, physical
causes, and thus it is simply not science
to resort to a supernatural non-explanation.
Science has proven time and again, through the ages, that
natural phenomena that are highly improbable and deeply mysterious can nonetheless
ultimately be accounted for by the natural, physical causes which it is the job
of science to investigate. Unlike ID,
science is committed to finding such causes for
everything, and is never content
to surrender, so to speak, to inexplicability: for the scientist, there must be an explanation, although
admittedly this is arguably itself an article of faith, since we do not have
all the explanations yet. And scientists may be wrong: there may not be a scientific explanation for
everything; but ID simply does not,
and can not, give us sufficient
reason to conclude that.
Various Versions of ID
It is important to note that there are different versions
of ID. The “Young Earth” IDers assert
that the Bible is literally true as to the dating of life, based on the six
days of creation in Genesis and the
various genealogies which appear throughout the Bible. Apart from being overtly based on religion,
however, the Young Earth view is utterly at odds with extremely reliable
scientific dating methods.
A less radical version of ID is known as the “Old Earth”
view because it agrees that scientific theory may well be correct that the age
of the universe is much older than the literal interpretation of the Bible
espoused by the Young Earthers would insist; however, many proponents of this
version of ID insist that “the intelligent designer” is the exclusive force at work in the creation
and development of life on earth, and thus that Evolution theory (and for
example its conclusion that humans are descended from apes) is wrong. The problem with this view, again, is that
the physical evidence in support of Evolution, including for example our
descent from apes, is overwhelming, so we might ask, even if there is a God who
is responsible for life, why would He make it so convincing that certain
natural forces are at work in the evolution of the species? That God is intentionally misleading or
deceiving us would seem an unlikely charge to make against a perfect,
all-loving God, even on theological
terms.
ID as a Philosophical Theory
The least radical version of ID is one that applies the
Old Earth view of the time before
life to the time since the beginning
of life as well. It asserts that, while
the complex structures of living things could not have evolved without the
motivation of an intelligent design, nonetheless the overwhelming evidence
supporting Evolution theory cannot be ignored either; therefore, this version
of ID concludes, Evolution is basically correct as a scientific theory, but
Evolution itself is the work of the intelligent designer―Evolution is true, but
it is God’s own invention.
This is a reasonable, philosophical point of view. It is not theological
because it makes no religious assumptions and is based strictly on rational
argument while paying due regard to
the empirical, scientific evidence
and reasoning; but it is philosophical and not scientific because it goes beyond purely empirical verification to
engage in rational speculation—i.e. philosophy—about matters beyond the purely
physical domain of science. As we have
seen, it adds to the traditional philosophical argument from design the
additional, specific consideration of complexity, making the claim, as we have
seen, that certain natural complexity is “irreducible,” that is, not capable of
being explained by purely physical, evolutionary means alone.
This
philosophical view of ID is rejected by many if not all IDers, however, first
because it affords inadequate deference to God, and second, because IDers want to claim scientific legitimacy for their ideas, and not just philosophical, in order to justify its
inclusion in public school curricula alongside of, if not in place of,
Evolution.
So we can conclude of ID that it could have an invaluable contribution to make to philosophy and
theology, but as science it is not credible.
However, as we shall see shortly, substantially the same can be said of
certain of ID’s opponents on the scientific side, whom we can refer to as the
“atheistic evolutionists”—those scientists who, not content to stick to the
proper domain of science, venture to assert the non-existence of God, which, as
we shall see, they are in no reasonable position to do.
Before getting to that, however, one more philosophical
note about ID is in order, which will provide a transition to the philosophical
contribution that scientists might make as long as they don’t insist on
exceeding the bounds of science itself.
Intelligence and Design,
or Randomness and Chaos?
Though it seemed reasonable to the ancients that lightning
could only be explained by the
caprice of a Zeus, since no known, scientific explanation seemed even remotely
likely, we now perhaps chuckle at their perceived naiveté; so the ID movement
should perhaps reflect that the history of science has in substantial part been
a process of “explaining the inexplicable.”
But quite apart from the current scientific shortcomings of ID, it also
faces certain philosophical questions as well, which it inherits from the argument
from design.
As for the “design”
that the universe appears to manifest, it does seem obvious as we gaze at the
heavens or at the intricacies of the veins in a leaf—not to speak of the human
brain—that the universe displays an extraordinary (and for the design argument
and ID, an unaccountable or “irreducible”) degree of order. But the miniscule snapshot of which our
perception consists may be profoundly misleading, for in the context of cosmic
time, the little bit of order we perceive may be but a brief, passing accident
in what is otherwise a great whirl of random physical events. Indeed, living things, which seem obviously
to contribute order to the universe, to the contrary may be effectively engaged
in breaking up ordered systems,
serving ultimately, in the cosmic scope of things, to perpetuate chaos and
randomness. In other words, life on
earth may represent but a brief and fleeting ordering which is in fact a simple
accident within a far greater universe of disorder. One obvious way we humans could contribute to
disorder is by blowing up the earth and ending all life on earth, which we seem
well able, and perhaps even inclined, to do.
As for the “intelligence” of the grand “design,” this may
simply be a function of our own narrow and self-centered perspective, combined
perhaps with wishful thinking. Frankly,
I for one am strongly inclined to think there’s more to it than that, and that
there is some meaning in all of this, but mine is a very particular, limited
and narrow perspective indeed.
Philosophy is a vital endeavor that gives me the ability to extend my
otherwise radically subjective perspective toward more objective boundaries,
but in any event it seems unreasonable to conclude that the order and
intelligence that we may be inclined to take for granted is really what it appears
to be. Again, science has made a mockery
of the ideas of many very smart and reflective people before, and there is
every reason to believe that it will continue to do so.
Having said that, we must reiterate that, as long as the
ID proponents are true to the facts of science and the laws of reason and
mathematics, they have a valuable philosophical
contribution to make, and, to be sure, their ultimate conclusion may be right: God may exist and work
through the wonders of nature we experience every day. Sound philosophical reasoning gives us many
reasons to respect the idea of a grand designer, in principle; it only loses
our respect when it calls itself science and then proceeds nonsensically to
ignore the factual record, which is what science is all about and which
confirms the scientific reliability of Evolution.
However, ID may also be wrong, and there are good reasons
against it as well; there may be no God, indeed the world may be entirely
material and science may at some future time explain absolutely everything that
is according to experimentally
verifiable, physical laws. Who knows?
The proponents of ID do not, I suggest.
But neither do the scientists, notwithstanding claims to the contrary
that some of them have, in recent years, felt moved to advance.
How Far Can Science Go?
We have already noted that, as a scientific theory, Evolution is universally accepted because of the
overwhelming evidence that supports it.
This means that scientists are in agreement, based on the verification afforded
by repeated observations over time (which all of us can observe for ourselves
if we are so inclined), as to the natural process by which species have
progressed through genetic mutation and natural selection, which means that as
genetic changes in individuals and species occur, those changes in species and
individuals are likely to continue through succeeding generations to the extent
that they help individuals and species survive. Recently, evolutionary theory has focused
increasingly not on species and individuals, in fact, but on individual genes,
the likelihood of the survival of which through successive generations is tied
to the success of the individuals and species of which they are a part. In any
event, though Evolution theory develops all the time, with much discussion and
debate as new theories within the overall theory are advanced and new
experimental and fossil discoveries are made, Evolution theory itself forms the
basis of all modern biology.
Some biologists, however, a well-known contemporary
example being Richard Dawkins, have gone beyond exploring and explaining
Evolution (which Dawkins, for one, does very
well, in my view) to claim that Evolution has done away with the need for God,
and moreover that God does not exist.
These of course are two different things: one can believe that life does
not need God and still believe that
God exists, or that God has played a role in some aspects of life while
generally overseeing the evolutionary process, or that God designed Evolution
and got it started but is now content to let it play out naturally, etc. Again we must say, “Who knows?” Anything is of course possible (as
scientists today, especially quantum physicists, seem continually to
assert). To assert positively that God does not exist, however, is simply,
I suggest, not reasonable, and we should by now already have a sense of why
this is so.
Recall that science is the study of the material world
using the physical senses, along with reason, logic and mathematics; notably it
is not concerned with the
“supernatural,” because it is the mission of science to observe the physical
causes of material phenomena, things that can be physically observed, and since
by definition the “supernatural” (including God), if it exists, is invisible, science has no choice but to
proceed as if it did not exist. But this is merely a methodological
assumption that science makes, one that can be neither proven nor
disproven. So to assert positively that
God does not exist is to treat an assumed, unproven proposition as a conclusive
truth, which is not logically valid.
A Simple Logical Mistake
In effect, what scientists who reject God are engaging
in, when they speak of God, is not science but philosophy; moreover, they are
making a fairly elementary logical mistake when they claim that God does not
exist, as theirs is essentially an argument
from ignorance, which claims, “because we don’t see it therefore it does
not exist.” This is particularly evident
in the case of an argument about God, since God, if He exists, presumably can not be seen! They add the twist that all is explained by
science (the converse of the ID theory of irreducible complexity), therefore
God would be superfluous, yet they are a very far way indeed, as they would be
the first to admit, that they have
explained everything, and moreover, finally, even if they could explain everything this would do nothing to exclude the
possibility that it’s all the work of an all-powerful (and invisible) God.
In other words, when scientists meddle in religion, they
are claiming to use scientific observation and reason to draw a conclusion
about what is in essence non-scientific. Now, there is no reason why a scientist
should not do philosophy, but scientists, like their counterparts who attack Evolution science with ID, want
to claim scientific legitimacy rather than admit to doing philosophy. This is important to the IDers, as we have
seen, because they want ID to stand
alongside Evolution theory in school curricula; as for the scientists, they
want to preserve the special claim to universality that empirical verifiability
affords them.
To scientists, the assertion of the non-existence of God,
ironically, may well be a religious
argument, an “article of faith”; but since such scientists tend to reject faith
as mere “superstition” or “delusion,” they would of course not be quick to
admit that they are guilty of it.
However, though they don’t want to dabble in religion, and the subject
of God cannot be a matter for science, the atheists still might take a
philosophical stand against God, as follows.
A Philosophical Argument Against God: The Problem of Evil
Probably the most ancient and famous of philosophical arguments against the existence of God is the
problem of evil. It rests on the traditional
Western conception of God as omnipotent, omniscient and
omnibenevolent—all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good or all-loving. The argument asserts that God could not have all three of these characteristics since
there clearly seems to be evil in the world, and it would seem that God can
only reasonably exist alongside evil if He is either not all good, or lacking
the power to stop it, or lacking the
knowledge of it. But if God lacks any of
these qualities, of course, God would not be God. Therefore God does not exist.
An ancient response to this argument is the doctrine
known as Manicheanism, which remains widely popular today even if its adherents
are unaware of the fact that it contradicts the idea that God is
omnipotent. The specifics of Manicheanism
are elaborate, but all we need to note here is that this doctrine asserts that
there are two great forces in the universe, those of good and of evil. Thus God is not the only power in the universe, rather there is also a power of evil, and
all of history represents a cosmic struggle between these two great forces;
thus when evil happens it is because evil has won a victory over God, so to
speak. But again, this cannot be
consistent with the traditional, Western notion of God, since it proposes that
God’s power can be overcome, that God is not
omnipotent and the world not “all
good.”
How Might We Reasonably
Account For the Presence of Evil, Human and Natural?
This is not the place to set forth the detailed response
to the problem of evil that it demands, but let me offer a few general
remarks. One part of that response is
the doctrine of free-will, as
advanced by St. Augustine
This leaves the problem of “natural evils”: why, the
atheist might ask, does God permit good people to suffer natural tragedy? This issue is also beyond the scope of this
chapter, but I offer the following.
Something on which both believers and scientists can agree, presumably,
is that we human beings are not entitled
to life, much less a life free of pain and death: life is a mysterious gift, either of nature or of God, that
we have done nothing to deserve. Thus, we can see that if God does exist, the
realities of pain and death do not deprive
us of anything to which we can reasonably claim entitlement. Moreover, all mature adults can agree,
surely, that it is frequently through the experience of pain and disappointment
that we grow and improve as human beings, and it is the awareness of the
inevitability of our deaths that motivates us to make something of our lives—if
we knew we’d never die, why would we do today what we could always do (perhaps even do better)
tomorrow, indeed it would seem that all personal accountability would substantially vanish. In short, apart from the unfathomable mystery
that the transcendent being of God must remain to us, there may be some very
good reasons for the trials of life, even those that seem, from our human point of view, to be most
cruel.
Conclusion
If both IDers and atheistic evolutionists would
acknowledge that they’re both doing philosophy, we could expect a spirited and
fruitful debate, though it would offer neither the conviction enjoyed by the
religious believer, nor the empirical verification on which scientists hang
their hats. Given the elusiveness of the
subject matter, both sides have no choice but to abandon any prospect of
absolute certainty, for the present and perhaps in principle. If both IDers and atheistic evolutionists
would do this, I suggest, we would all be able to leave behind the tremendous confusion and political acrimony the
“debate” (or non-debate) between science and religion has become, and we would
also gain immeasurably in clarity of
thought.
We can all observe and agree that all of us, religious or
not, scientifically curious or otherwise, have much more in common than not:
scientists will acknowledge that all human beings are genetically alike, and
religionists will acknowledge that all human beings are created in the image of
God. Moreover, how many scientists can
fail to admire deeply people for whom religion was fundamental to their lives
and works like Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bishop Desmond Tutu,
even Jesus for that matter? And how many
religious people can fail to acknowledge their deep reliance on and enjoyment
of the fruits of scientific progress and technology? If we could put aside the ego and acrimony,
we would surely find that we have a lot to learn from, and enjoy in, one
another.
Epilogue: Why Faith
Might Be the Rational Choice
Since science can prove neither the existence nor the
non-existence of God, and since religion is reserved to the believer, how, on
the basis of what all human beings share—namely our physical senses, the one
material universe we all live in and observe with those senses, and the
universal human faculties of reason and logic—can we decide and choose how to
live?
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously asserts, “il faut parier”—that is, “it is
necessary to wager,” or one must
choose, one must decide on some
course of life. His suggestion seems to
be, at its simplest, that all human beings are free and we cannot avoid
choosing some principles by which we
live as long as we live, even if we
choose to let others choose them for us.
Indeed, Pascal goes on to assert that we are already “in the game,” so to speak, however reluctant to
acknowledge it we may be: to live as a human being is “to wager.” (See my
chapter, “A Philosophy of Freedom: Sartre’s Atheistic Existentialism,” where I
discuss Sartre’s claim that we are “condemned to be free.”)
If we choose “to wager” on atheistic philosophical
materialism, then we are assuming that the motions of the world, and of
ourselves, are dictated by physical laws, a view that seems to leave little if
any room for the notion that life has some meaning,
some ultimate purpose (again see my
chapter on Sartre as well as my chapters on Hobbes and Rousseau, Freud and
Fromm, Augustine and Socrates). Of
course, the materialist view may be correct, and there may be no God and no
point to any of this. But, in that case,
what we believe, and how we live our lives, does not ultimately matter: in the
end “we’re all dead” and so are our kids and so presumably human being and the
universe itself. Is there really nothing
but the stream of events, is all existence the equivalent of a long row of
falling dominoes, is there really no point to it all?
So may it be.
But what if that’s not the way it is? Since, if we’ve learned anything by now, we
must acknowledge that we don’t know
that there is no greater meaning behind the stream of events unrolling before
us, we might well choose to believe,
as a matter of faith, that there is some meaning to it all, and then make
it our life’s mission to try to figure it out.
Of course, we may be wrong, and we may be wasting our time; but if we’re
wrong, and there is no meaning, have we really lost anything? Can there really be anything of substance to
lose if there is no meaning to begin with?
So even if we’re wrong, and our faith in some greater meaning is
illusory, we lose nothing, as Pascal argues, because with the elimination of
meaning there is nothing to gain or
lose. And we may be right, and we may
through faith win some small measure of understanding that would otherwise have
been inaccessible to us. Moreover, I
suggest that we would still be winners by looking for some meaning, even if it
turns out that there is nothing ultimately to find. For by seeking a greater meaning and purpose
in our lives, we may well discover ourselves,
that is, we may find satisfactions and fulfillments the likes of which we could
never have anticipated—a life “beyond
our wildest dreams.”
We lack conclusive evidence
for either God or no-God, meaning or no-meaning. But surely choosing meaninglessness would
seem to guarantee nothing but meaninglessness. By contrast, by choosing to believe that
there might be meaning in the world, apart from enjoying the virtue of
open-mindedness, we might reap rewards that we are utterly incapable of
anticipating.
So,
suggests Pascal, by believing in
ourselves and the prospect of a purpose
before ourselves, we have nothing to
lose, and everything to gain.
