Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger as a new contributor. The following is excerpted from his essay, “How a Skeptical Philosopher Becomes a Christian” at LarrySanger.org. See also, “Wikipedia Co-Founder Blasts ‘Appallingly Biased’ Wikipedia Entry on Intelligent Design.”
As I found myself returning to the old arguments for the existence of God, I did not slap myself on the forehead and say, “Oh! It turns out that this is a great argument! I guess I believe in God after all!” Even today I deny that, individually, the traditional arguments for the existence of God are particularly persuasive. But I began to examine them in new versions. I was impressed by a lecture by philosopher of science and well-known apologist Stephen Meyer, who presented versions of the cosmological argument and the fine-tuning argument. Science says the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. But whatever had a beginning has to have had an explanation. As this is the beginning of matter itself, it cannot have a material cause; thus it must have an immaterial cause (whatever that might be like). Similarly, certain features of the universe that are absolutely necessary to explaining how fundamental natural laws operate are physical constants. Physicists tell us that if the values of those constants were different, then various things could not have happened; for example, atoms could not have formed, or stars could not have ignited and given off light and heat. But scientists have never offered an explanation for these constants.
I had a renewed appreciation for these arguments, but something still bothered me. Philosophers such as Meyer and William Lane Craig had seemed to depend on what skeptics call “the God of the gaps”: the force of the arguments depends on there being no explanation other than design by God. The routine response to this is: Perhaps somebody will eventually come up with explanations of these things. Making the inference that God exists depend on our ignorance does look like an argument from ignorance (a fallacy): “We cannot understand how this might be the case, and therefore God intended it, and he made it so.” That just doesn’t logically follow.
Consider This
But on further consideration, the force of the latter response, familiar to skeptics, seemed to evaporate. Consider this (I thought to myself): There are, of course, an infinite number of values for the universal constants, and since there are quite a few such constants, a multiplicity of infinities of combinations. There might well be an explanation, indeed: but even if we had an explanation in hand, it would not remove our sense of awe and wonder in examining the outcome.
Yet we may get the same awe by inspecting any of the purported works of God. I urge you to follow this, because it is what made all the difference for me.
From the structure of galaxies to the orbits of the planets, from the movement of waves to the fates of mountains, from the origin of life to the complexity of man — there might well be an explanation of these things. Indeed it seems unsatisfying to say, “God flipped a coin” or “God picked a number” or “God just decided it would be that way.” But of course that is unsatisfying. That is hardly the point. Here is the real point: Even if we had a perfect scientific explanation of each of these things, the conjunction of the facts in our explanations seems to be driven by a purpose. If we could not state what these purposes were, then this would seem to be a merely superstitious, biased, religiously-driven claim. But the purposes are clear: The universal constants permit the existence of spacetime and the coalescence of matter, then stars and planets; certain unlikely chemical facts are absolutely necessary in order for life to exist; certain incredible leaps seem designed to lead life on earth ever onward to greater awareness and knowledge, culminating in man. If the very emergence of order seems to exhibit ends or purposes or designs, we may hypothesize a designer. Such a designer would not work against or within the order of the universe. That is not the point at all. Rather, such a designer would create the order of the universe. With the possible exception of miracles, there are no glitches in this created matrix, glitches that somehow make it more likely that the designer exists. The emergent scaffolding of order in the universe is the miracle.
On this view, the presence of mysterious “gaps” in the causal matrix that can only be understood by arbitrary, in themselves unaccountable, human-style “choices” would cheapen our idea of what a designer is like. As Einstein said, God does not play dice; rather, all the physical laws and constants, as well as the initial conditions of matter and energy, were chosen with the purpose of bringing about the incredibly rational universe we see before us. The designer is the source of the rational order of the universe. If this being may be said to have a “will,” this will is not in place of rational physical explanations; rather, he willed all the physical explanations, and they are rational because they are the handiwork of the logos of the universe.
No Fewer than Four
There are no fewer than four aspects both of scientific constants and of natural laws that suggest that, if they have any cause at all, then the cause must be spiritual or mind-like.
First, both constants and laws are as it were ideas or things subject to ratiocination. We have experience only of minds producing ideas. Second, if we are to suppose that constants and laws have causes, those causes would again not take the form of events, but rather supporting (timeless or eternal) states that explain them. But that suggests that their creator would be timeless or eternal after the same kind—again, as ideas may be said to be timeless. Third, whatever caused the covering laws and constants would have caused the existence of matter as well. So now we have an eternal creator, outside of space and time, with idea-like ratiocination of the universe it creates.
Fourth, there are analogical arguments in terms of the apparent purposes that a mind might have in producing these things. So we say: If we are already supposing a vaguely (unknowably) mind-like entity to explain the origin of matter and the laws and constants it operates under, then it does seem to make it more likely that this entity might have purposes and, it seems, that it has designed not only an existing universe but beautiful and evolving biological systems which seem particularly well suited to the flourishing of human life, if we live wisely. That suggests a fifth argument, then. One might well ascribe benevolence to this purposing, eternal, but unknowable (i.e., fundamentally mysterious) divine mind, considering that life on Earth can be pretty great if it is well lived.
This is a greatly condensed summary; I developed these ideas in much greater depth. But beyond such details, what I dwelled upon more than anything is the fact that the arguments taken together are far more persuasive than I had understood. Individually, the arguments might seem relatively weak. As I said, the Argument from Contingency only shows that a necessary being exists. The Argument from Causality shows only that the universe had a cause outside of itself. The Argument from Design shows only that the universe has some sort of designer or other. An Argument from Morality might add that the designer is benevolent, to some degree, in some way, but not even necessarily personal. But what happens when we combine all the arguments to make a unified case for the existence of God? I’m not sure the idea had ever dawned on me, certainly not with its present vividness. Taken together, the arguments point to a necessary being that exists apart from space, time, and matter. This is the very cause of the universe, which was designed according to orderly abstract laws. Ever more complex properties emerge, one from another, with great beauty and rationality—rationality that exhibits various mind-like features. This order can even be described as good, a cosmos indeed, because life and its preservation seem to be part of the plan, and life is the very standard of value.
Argument to the Best Explanation
Such were the arguments I considered. And what if these arguments could be developed with some rigor? I asked myself. The result would be an Argument to the Best Explanation: consider all of the premises of all of these arguments as data to explain. Might “God exists” be the best explanation? It might, I conceded.
About the same time I began seriously weighing these ideas, I posted another essay to this blog: “Why God Might Exist: A Dialogue Concerning Unnatural Religion.” It concludes this way: “If world-building technology might exist someday, God might exist today. And frankly, this rejection of my earlier Humean argument gives me more reason to re-examine other arguments about God.”
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