Blind salamanders. Dennis Rodman. Too-tight jeans. For items and beings that exist but did not need to, we ask an obvious question: WHY?
I have found myself directing this query toward our canary, Cricket, especially when he starts warbling the melody line from my latest Death Cab for Cutie album without warning. Why does such a soloist exist? He adds humorous nuances to our apartment's atmosphere, but he certainly doesn’t need to—to sing spontaneously or exist. So why does he?
It is equally appropriate to ask this question about one’s locale, one’s favorite tree, one’s inexplicable taste for dark chocolate, and other obvious subjects of radical curiosity: Aardvarks, Elephants, Spouses, etc.
This curiosity about causality is ingrained in all of us. It’s hard to miss. “Why is Grandma coming over?” asks the child. “And why do I have a grandma?” The harried parent is the first to admit that a necessary cause for Grandma is vital. And short of such a reason, “just because” is not an answer!
Apply this line of reasoning to the universe, and I’m not convinced that materialist reasoning can make a coherent case. Why does the universe exist? Why does my canary exist, or my wife? In a naturalistic framework, these questions ultimately become one and the same; and without a creator, they are equally unanswerable.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Questions about Causality
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4 comments:
Wow, we were really thinking along the same lines today. I was watching a NOVA the other day about how the body naturally shunts heat to the head, heart, and lungs to keep you alive when your core temperature drops too low (it was a perfectly natural thought on a cold morning like we had today). And it occurred to me how very specialized our body is for survival. Without even thinking about it, our heart pumps blood, our lungs gather air, our stomach lets us know when its lunch, and breakfast, and second breakfast, and... well you get the idea. And yet, at the core of it all there is some part of us that wants to survive so badly that even without thinking about it, it will sacrifice an arm or a leg to keep the body alive for as long as possible.
We humans have created a few things in our lifetime, but I'm fairly certain we've never created anything this complex before - except, of course, the old fashioned way. In fact, life is so complex and so beyond our understanding that there can only be one answer to any question about why we are here, and that is that God wanted us to be here.
And even if you were to say something like life on earth was started by aliens, you'd still be left with the question - who created the aliens? Ultimately, no matter the particulars of the story, God is at the beginning, and at the end.
This very topic has come up in my bible reading and bible study of late. The whys to the things that we can know are so important.
Specifically, we've been discussing why God calls himself Father. Why does he call male progenitors the same thing? What does it mean for fathers and sons in general? What does it for specific things like education, discipline, etc? (Are we, as American's raising deists by our examples? i.e. does a father who has almost no involvement in a child's life, teach the child that God has no involvement. Is the father/son, God/son connection that implicit)
Anyway, good post as usual. I've still got a lot of digesting to do.
Ohhh, Good question. You make me smile. Thanks for blogging.
Thanks for the thoughts.
I like how you elaborate on the complexity of life, Will. And you definitely have this right: "Aliens" does not answer the question any more than "matter" does.
Gymbrall, from the sounds of it, the depth of your Bible study group would make most of them look like plastic kiddie pools. Wish I'd been on hand for that discussion.
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