Month: August 2006

Previously we saw that a major difference between a strictly scientific or naturalistic worldview and a supernaturalistic or theistic one is whether or not personal existence is taken to be a derivative and ultimately reducible facet of non-personal existence. Another way of putting it might be to ask which is a more fundamental form of explanation: teleological or mechanistic? Are some events only explanable in terms of purposive goal-directed action, or are these only apparent and essentially the result of blind, efficient causation?

The same question can be posed at another frontier of scientific explanation, namely, the very existence of the universe itself. Or, as Leibniz asked, “why there should be any world rather than none,” or why the particular world we’ve got rather than some other? Is the ultimate explanation for the world to be sought in a personal or non-personal cause?

Ward thinks that a personal explanation, though beyond what science can tell us, is more satisfying for several reasons. First, even if there is only one consistent set of natural laws, such that only one world is physically possible, we still can ask why that set of laws was realized in an actual physical world. Without some kind of personal agency “there seems to be no way of ‘breathing fire into the equations,’ of accounting for the physical existence of a contingent cosmos from purely mathematical facts” (p. 130).

Second, it seems strange to think of the laws of nature, expressed in mathematical form, as just existing on their own. Better, he says, to think of them as existing in some fully actualized mind or consciousness:

We can then say that mathematical truths can exist even before the existence of the physical universe, if they exist as products of a supreme mind. So we can frame the idea of a consciousness in which all mathematical structures exist. That consciousness could select one axiomatic system and construct a physical universe that was patterned on that system. The hypothesis of such a consciousness exactly fits the bill for something that might be an ultimate explanation of the universe. (p. 131)

I’m not sure that Ward has given us sufficient reason here to think that the mathematical truths that make up or describe the deep structure of the universe must exist prior to the actual physical universe. Perhaps they simply describe the structure of the universe without existing independently in their own right. Of course, the question would remain why the universe exists at all and why it exhibits the particular structure that it does. So I’m not sure the business about mathematics is even a necessary step in the argument.

Ward goes on to hypothesize, a la Leibniz, that “this ultimate consciousness might be able to conceive of every possible state of affairs — every possible world — that could ever exist”:

We can posit that there necessarily exists a complete array of every possibility of any kind, something like the Platonic world of Forms. This array is necessary, for every possibility is exhaustively expressed within it. No other possibilities exist, and the possibilities that do exist are necessarily what they are. No question arises of why this consciousness is as it is, since it includes all possible worlds and states exhaustively. No reason needs to be given why one state exists rather than another, since all these states exist, though only as possibilities. But it is plausible to think that possibles can only exist if there is some actuality that sustains them in being. That actuality is mind, which conceives them, and is necessarily what it is, the actual being that is necessary to give these possible worlds real existence as unactualized possibilities. (p. 131)

The crucial premise here seems to be that “possibles can only exist if there is some actuality that sustains them in being,” but I’m not sure how to evaluate that claim. Couldn’t it be that possible states of affairs are simply logical extrapolations from what does exist? Why must they have a kind of shadowy existence in their own right? Or to be more precise, I’m perfectly happy to admit that all possible states of affairs are contained in the mind of God, but that’s because I already believe in God. I’m less sure that the need for them to exist somewhere can be used as a premise in an argument for God’s existence. At the very least, the ontology of possible worlds is sufficiently murky that I’d be hesitant to put too much weight on this premise.

But, leaving this aside, let’s suppose that there are many ways in which the world could’ve existed, regardless of the ontological status we might ascribe to these possible worlds. This seems a plausible supposition in light of what we think we know about the world. Ward is still right, then, to ask “why some possible states should be selected for actuality” (p. 133) or why does the world have the particular order it does.

Here he reintroduces the concept of value as the key to providing an explanation. Clearly we think some states of affairs are preferable to others:

Imagine God trying to decide between creating a universe in which all conscious beings suffer terrible pain and frustration for ever, and another universe in which all conscious beings are happy, wise and loving. It is obvious that the second universe is better, more desirable, than the first. (p. 134)

Obviously neither of those descriptions fits our universe. But it’s not unreasonable to suppose that a purposive intelligent agent might choose to create a world in which great goods were capable of realization, even if accompanied by certain evils. “Then we could say that the reason a universe exists is because it is a possible universe that God makes actual for the distinctive sorts of goodness it contains” (p. 134).

In short, Ward thinks that a personalistic explanation for the existence of this particular universe, rather than some other or none at all, is more satisfying on the whole than an alternative non-personal explanation. It seems to account for the beauty and intelligibility of the cosmos as well as why the universe appears fine-tuned to bring into being conscious agents capable of realizing great goods. This is not, I think, intended to be a demonstrative argument, but one that appeals to the desire for an explanation, even one that goes beyond what is strictly observable or verifiable. “[T]he existence of brute matter, which just happens to be the way it is for no reason and yet gives rise to such a fine-tuned, utterly improbable and beautiful universe, terminates the quest for understanding in a way that is repugnant to any scientist” (p. 130).

I would say that the existence and order of the universe at least should open the question of God to someone who might’ve previously dismissed it without necessarily compelling an answer in one direction or another. And these kinds of considerations may well contribute to a cumulative case for God’s existence, even if not dispositive in themselves.

In part one of Pascal’s Fire Keith Ward emphasized the ways in which the best contemporary science is consistent with, and maybe even suggestive of, belief in God. In part two he goes one step further to look at the ways in which science falls short of offering an exhaustive description and explanation of reality.

The success of science in providing precise and law-like explanations of phenomena, Ward says, owes a lot to the fact that it abstracts away aspects of reality that don’t fit its model of explanation. Things like subjective conscious experience, values, purposes, and meaning are all part of our everyday experience of the world, but they aren’t publicly observable, quantifiable, and measurable like the physical aspects of reality are. “Modern science begins with the ejection of purpose, value and significance from the universe. This is one main reason why the ‘scientific worldview’ fails to deal with all aspects of reality” (p. 116). To say that consciousness, value, purpose, and meaning elude scientific explanation is not to show that they aren’t real. At best science seems to offer us reductionistic accounts of these phenomena: consciousness is just brain function, values are subjective, purpose is an illusion, etc.

It’s possible to argue that we should take experimental science as the sole avenue to truth. This might seem to be the most economical approach to forming beliefs. But, Ward says, part “of a reasonable account is that it should cover all the different sorts of data there are in as coherent a way as possible” (p. 118). Our experience of consciousness, purpose, value, and meaning is in many ways more certain than any theory that would purport to explain them away, as reductionist accounts do. And by excluding that which isn’t publicly observable or able to be established by experimental methods, science doesn’t show that such things don’t exist, only that it’s incapable of accounting for them. If such things are real, they would of necessity not be reducible to more basic constituents that can be explained in a thoroughly physicalistic way.

There are personal experiences, known to all of us in a direct and natural way, that do not fall within the domain of the natural sciences. The scientific domain is that of publicly observable objects in shared public space. Since science does not deal with personal experiences, it cannot itself give an account of what they are or how they relate to objects in physical space. Science itself cannot provide a comprehensive worldview, because there are aspects of reality with which it does not deal. The most obvious aspects of this sort are personal experiences. It is precisely in such experiences that such notions as value and purpose have their home. (p. 123)

What’s going on here, it seems to me, is that we have a fundamental difference in worldviews. One takes personal reality and all that it encompasses to be in some way fundamental to the constitution of the universe. The other takes personal reality to be ultimately reducible to some non-personal reality. Since personal existence seems to involve features which elude quantification, measurement, prediction, and public observability, any worldview that takes science to provide the key to an exhaustive account of reality will have to offer a reductionistic account of personality. But this will only be as plausible as the initial decision to treat quantifiable, etc. aspects of reality as the really real aspects of the world. Science as such can’t show us that those things it is methodologically incapable of dealing with aren’t real.

But, if personal existence is a non-reducible aspect of reality, and given that humanity is a latecomer on the cosmic scene, this rasies the question of whether there is a personal reality that underlies the entire phenomenal world. Which is the subject of the next post…

David Bentley Hart’s The Doors of the Sea is, in large part, a sharp rejoinder to any “theodicy” that would seek to make evil – physical, natural, or moral – a necessary means to the acheivement of some good. As such, it provides a useful counterpoint to the kind of account offered by Keith Ward.

Hart’s view is that Christians should by no means reconcile themselves to the existence of evil, suffering, and death as somehow necessary parts of the order of nature. Ivan’s diatribe against a world redeemed at the cost of the suffering of innocents in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, Hart says, refutes any variety of “metaphysical optimism” that might view the sufferings of the world as necessary concomitants of the process by which rational, finite, and free beings are brought into existence. But it also clears the space where we can glimpse a more authentically Christian view.

That view, he argues, is that “nature” as we know it is not to be identified with “creation.” The God of Christianity is a God of perfect self-giving love, and creation reflects its creator in being peaceful, harmonious, and beautiful. “Nature,” by contrast

is everywhere attended — and indeed preserved — by death. All life feeds on life, each creature must yield its place in time to another, and at the heart of nature is a perpetual struggle to survive and increase at the expense of other beings. It is as if the entire cosmos were somehow predatory, a single great organism nourishing itself upon the death of everything to which it gives birth, creating and devouring all things with a terrible and impressive majesty. Nature squanders us with such magnificent prodigality that it is hard not to think that something enduringly hideous and abysmal must abide in the depths of life. (p. 50)

Death, suffering, and predation are, for Hart, not necessary features of a natural process that will bring about some greater good. Rather they’re signs of a creation shattered by some primordial cataclysm. Hart takes the cosmology of the New Testament quite seriously on this score and says that creation is in bondage to “principalities and powers” who have marred the image of God’s good creation:

Perhaps no doctrine strikes non-Christians as more insufferably fabulous than the claim that we exist in the long melancholy aftermath of a primordial catastrophe: that this is a broken and wounded world, taht cosmic time is a phantom of true time, taht we live in an umbratile interval between creation in its fullness and the nothingness from which it was called, that the universe languishes in bondage to the “powers” and “principalities” of this age, which never cease in their enmity toward the Kingdom of God. (pp. 61-2)

Though Hart doesn’t go into specifics, he seems to have in mind a fall which isn’t strictly speaking historical, but in some way “preceded” historical time as we know it:

[C]osmic time as we know it, through all the immensity of its geological ages and historical epochs, is only a shadow of true time, and this world only a shadow of the fuller, richer, more substantial, more glorious creation that God intends; and [we are required] to believe also that all of nature is a shattered mirror of divine beauty, still full of light, but riven by darkness. (p. 102)

At this point I start to worry that Hart is getting a bit too cozy with Gnosticism, which he admits to having some sympathy for because of its affinity with the “qualified dualism” of the New Testament. It starts to look like the created world as we know it bears very little relation at all to the “real” creation. After all, if the natural world, in its most fundamental features, is compromised by death, struggle, predation, and suffering, in what way does it resemble the “real” world? For instance, all living creatures are products of that enduringly hideous and abysmal something that seems to lie at the heart of nature. In what way, then can they be said to be God’s good creations rather than the monstrous offspring of a creation gone badly wrong?

I agree with Hart that there’s something unsatisfying, from a Christian viewpoint, about affirming a world of predation, suffering, and death as “good,” but his view seems to risk denying that there’s much goodness at all in nature as we find it.