•Recommended
book:
•See
www.hgtaylor.net/
book.htm
Christianity, Philosophy and Science.
God.
The Soul,
Life,
The Atom,
The Universe.
Physical Matter (the material) is studied by science.
Physical matter is everything we can see, hear, touch
or smell.
Even very small things like the cells of our bodies
which can be seen through a microscope are
physical matter.
Or very large things like stars & galaxies.
Or very complicated things like the human brain.
The spiritual = the soul (or perhaps God) is not studied
by science.
World Views.
• Materialism:
– Only the material exists. Therefore science can tell us
everything that is real.
– The Soul is nothing.
• Idealism: Only the spiritual (our souls) really exist.
– The physical world is our imagination or dream.
• Dualism:
– Both exist and are fundamental and affect one another.
– Many theists are dualists, but not all. (not all theories about
body and soul are dualist)
– If dualism is right, can the soul survive the death of the
body or does it depend on having a new heavenly body?
My hands, my happiness and my thoughts.
Worldviews (cont), Science and Philosophy.
Under each of these headings there are many sub sections not
mentioned here.
• The material universe is an illusion or a dream. Only the
spirit or mind is real. (Some versions of Eastern Religions
are Idealism.)
– Now the opposite view:
• The material universe is all that there is – the whole story.
(Materialism.)
– Combining them together:
• Both the material and the spiritual are real, basic
(dualism) and interact. However the spiritual may give
rise to the material world. (Theism.)
With which worldview does science and philosophy fit most
comfortably?
World Views: Materialism.
Francis Crick: “You, your joys and your
sorrows, your memories and your
ambitions, your sense of personal identity
and free will, are in fact no more that the
behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells
and their associated molecules.” (The
Astonishing Hypothesis page 3)
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can
have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying
principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour
in art and in science.... He who never had this experience
seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense
that behind anything that can be experienced there is a
something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty
and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble
reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am
religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and
to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of
the lofty structure of all that there is.
Albert Einstein (Speech in Berlin, Germany 1932).
A Common Mistake.
• Because science studies physical matter religious belief
is only about the ‘spiritual’ in humans and God.
– Wrong!
– If God exists He is relevant to all things – spiritual
and physical.
• If God exists He created the material, physical world –
not just the spiritual world.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.” (The first words of the Bible).
“And God made ‘man’ in His own image.” (Near the
beginning of the Bible)
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1)
Brain - Mind - Consciousness - Soul.
The Brain - extremely complex.
Prof. Ambrose (Emeritus Professor of Biology in
London University) in his book 'The Nature and
Origin of the Biological World' page 152 ,
describing the complexity of the brain says that it
is like 500 million telephone exchanges all
connected properly. The connections possible are
101,300,000,000,000. (To write this number out in the
normal form l,000,000 . . . etc. would take about
one hundred thousand years to do.)
Could a brain scientist of the future know ‘you’
or ‘me’ by examining our brains?
•Our thoughts?
• Not the results of our thinking, but our actual
thoughts? (Leibniz’s argument.)
•What you and I see when we look at something red.
• Not the results of red light on the brain, but the
actual experience of that colour?
•Could he know my experience of ‘me’ as ‘I’?
•Could he know what it feels like to be a cat, a snail etc?
If the answer to these questions is ‘no’ then science can
examine the brain but not our thoughts (the mind).
Therefore brain and mind are not the same (not
identical).
Physical forces just exist. They are not true or false. It does not
make sense to ask whether they are true or false.
Thoughts can be true or false.
Therefore thoughts are not merely physical forces.
They interact with the physical. They are the main reason for
decisions about the physical. We can’t understand the physical by
itself.
Thoughts, decisions and intentions are basic to human history.
If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for
falsehood in such a world, and although it would contain what may
be called ‘facts’, it would not contain any truths, in the sense in
which truths are things of the same kind as falsehoods. In fact,
truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements:
hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or
statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.[1]
[1] Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, page 70.
If we imagine a world of mere matter, there
would be no room for falsehood in such a
world, and although it would contain what may
be called ‘facts’, it would not contain any
truths, in the sense in which truths are things of
the same kind as falsehoods. In fact, truth and
falsehood are properties of beliefs and
statements: hence a world of mere matter,
since it would contain no beliefs or statements,
would also contain no truth or falsehood.
(Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, page 70.)
Participants and speakers at the ‘Out of Body’ ‘Near Death Experience’ (NDE) lecture:
• David Lorimer, Scientific and Medical Network;
• Dr Olaf Blanke, Dept. of Neurosurgery, University
Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne;
• Dr Pim van Lommel, Consultant Cardiologist, Rijnstate
Hospital, Arnhem, Netherlands;
• Dr Peter Fenwick, Institute of Psychiatry, University of
London;
• Professor Bob Morris, Koestler Chair of Parapsychology,
University of Edinburgh.
• For more on the scientific research see: ‘The
Lancet’ December 15th 2001.
Interesting results of research reported at the April
2003 Edinburgh Science Festival.
NDEs are reported by 18% of resuscitated patients (a very
much higher proportion for children) often involving:
• Seeing the old body from above and watching the medics at work.
• One example given was of seeing way beyond the hospital to
distant places where the mind focussed.
– Many of such things seen produced verifiable knowledge.
• A review of earlier life including childhood.
• Travelling down a tunnel to a beautiful light where deceased
family members and religious figures are there to welcome.
• An awesome experience of peace, unconditional love, beauty and
freedom.
• Finally seeing a ‘border’ beyond which there will be no return.
• Not all experience all of these phases. Many return to their
body after the first one or two stages.
Attempts have been made to explain these experiences from
the consequences of the body closing down and starving the
brain of oxygen. It is alleged that this lack of oxygen would
produce illusions including an illusion of light.
•However those addressing the Science Festival said this
could not provide an explanation because:
– The experiences happened when the brain had
become completely inactive (no electrical activity at
all).
– The reported sensory experiences (visible, audible
and tangible) were clear and coherent and could not
come from a failing brain.
– What was seen of the hospital room (and beyond)
was verified as true.
– People born blind who had never seen anything
report seeing clearly as the experience progresses!
In answer to questions afterwards we were told:
Previous culture or religious practice are not relevant to
the experience/non-experience of NDE.
• There was no statistical difference between reports
from religious former West Germany or from nonreligious former East Germany.
– Types of illness/accident, or drugs used in treatment, are
not relevant to the experience/non-experience of NDE.
– NDEs usually (but not always) lead to:
• belief in the after life; transformed attitudes to other
people; a belief in purpose for life on earth; a loss of
fear of death.
– The religious content experienced does not always
correspond with the person’s previous religious
beliefs.
Two days after attending the presentation I received this
message from a friend in Malawi (who did not know about
the lecture I had attended). It is about a former Moslem. I
quote it verbatim:
“He is a man who used to be a Moslem but is now a
Christian. His testimony was unusual to say the least. He
had a ‘near-death’ experience (some describe it as a
‘post-death’ experience!) and during that time, although
he was a follower of Allah he heard God saying to him
that ‘Jehovah is the true God and Jesus Christ is His
Son’. He recovered to life, found himself clear of the
disease that he had had, and became a Christian. He says
that his Christian faith has brought him liberation and a
joy unimaginable beforehand.”
After the meeting the two of the presenters told me:
Typically the person feels that his/her new life is
(a) embodied AND ALSO (b) clothed.
• The clothes are not those worn in the hospital bed, but
clothes associated with life when he/she was in the
prime of life.
– My comments:
• The NT teaching on the nature of resurrection is that the
resurrected self is not a disembodied soul but an embodied
self - in a transformed ‘spiritual body’.
• Jesus left the grave clothes behind but did not appear
naked to Mary Magdalene.
• The day after the presentation was Easter Day
but, not surprisingly, the presenters did not
mention this.
• Near death experiences almost always convince
those who experience them that God exists.
• There are some known exceptions e.g.:
• A.J.Ayer, during his middle years was one of the
most famous 20th century atheist philosophers.
– But late in life, he had a `near death’ experience.
– In his article `What I saw when I was dead’, he wrote:
"The only memory that I have of an experience, closely
encompassing my death, is very vivid. I was confronted by
a red light, exceedingly bright, and also very painful even
when I turned away from it. I was aware that this light
was responsible for the government of the universe .."
• What kind of response and
evaluation of his experience did A. J.
Ayer make?
"My recent experiences have slightly
weakened my conviction that my
genuine death, which is due fairly
soon, will be the end of me, though I
continue to hope that it will be. They
have not weakened my conviction that
there is no god."
Animal and human consciousness - the differences?
• Higher animals are conscious but not selfconscious?
• They don’t think universally or abstractly.
• They don’t ponder their own existence?
• Language and signals.
• Human personhood dependent on interpersonal
relationships. - Ultimately the relationship with
the Person of God?
Dark side of human self-awareness.
• Contemplating pain and death.
• Self-worship - the foundation of human sin.
A Word from the Bible:
1 Cor 2:11.
11 For who among men knows the
thoughts of a man except the man's
spirit within him? In the same way noone knows the thoughts of God except
the Spirit of God.
Fundamental to Christianity is that, not
only does God know us from the outside
looking in, but also - through Christ who
became one with us - He knows us from
the inside looking out.
He is thus the Redeemer of the whole
person - body and soul.
Now to life and evolution.
The Mystery of the Origin of Life.
(Biological evolution can only get going once life has
begun to exist).
A common theory:
In the early earth there was a ‘cosmic soup’ of
gases and liquids.
Electricity from lightening produced, in the
cosmic soup, amino acids - the building blocks
of life.
This can be replicated in the laboratory today.
How did life originate? (Cont)
• However it is one thing to know how stones (say)
were formed but another to know how an intricate
stone palace was built from the stones.
• Energy and an mind are needed to work on the
stone.
• Simple proteins involve many amino acids in
correct sequence.
How are proteins actually made?
In the cells of life.
In each cell of life there is a chemical factory
(cytoplasm) for making the proteins, a computer
program (the DNA) and a translation system (the
RNA)
Cytoplasm for making proteins. It
receives its instructions from the DNA
via the RNA translation system.
RNA
Nucleus of cell
made up of DNA
Professor Francis Crick, who received the Nobel
Prize for discovering the structure of DNA (the
famous double helix), writes: “The origin of life
appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the
conditions which would have had to be satisfied
to get it going” (italics added).
Professor Harold Klein, chairman of the U. S.
National Academy of Sciences committee that
reviewed origin-of-life research, writes: “The
simplest bacterium is so damn complicated that
it is almost impossible to imagine how it
happened” (italics added).
American Spectator magazine (May 2005) says:
IMAGINE A NANOTECHNOLOGY MACHINE far
beyond the state of the art: microminiaturized rotary
motor and propeller system that drives a tiny vessel
through liquid. The engine and drive mechanism are
composed of 40 parts, including a rotor, stator, driveshaft,
bushings, universal joint, and flexible propeller. The
engine is powered by a flow of ions, can rotate at up to
100,000 rpm (ten times faster than a NASCAR racing
engine), and can reverse direction in a quarter of a
rotation. The system comes with an automatic feedback
control mechanism. The engine itself is about 1/100,000th
of an inch wide - far smaller than can be seen by the
human eye.
And then goes on …
Most of us would be pleasantly surprised to
learn that some genius had designed such an
engineering triumph. What might come as a
greater surprise is that there is a dominant
faction in the scientific community that is
prepared to defend, at all costs, the assertion
that this marvellous device could not possibly
have been designed, must have been produced
blindly by unintelligent material forces, and
only gives the appearance of being designed.
How did life originate? (Cont)
•
•
•
•
•
•
The chemical factory receives its instructions from
the very complicated DNA code.
The DNA is a code written in a four letter ‘alphabet’.
(Each letter is a different nucleotide.)
The DNA code even for a simple bacteria may be a
thousands of ‘letters’ long.
These letters have to be in a particular order to
provide the information necessary for the
manufacture of the proteins.
The DNA sends its instructions to the cytoplasm via
the RNA which ‘translates’ the instructions so that the
cytoplasm can ‘understand’.
The DNA, cytoplasm and the RNA are themselves
made by the very cells of which they are a part!
Some say that life’s beginnings may have been
much simpler than this.
However we still have the problem of the
origin, not just of complexity, but of
information.
How did life originate? (Cont)
The Atheist Richard Dawkins writes:
What lies at the heart of every living thing
is not a fire, warm breath, nor a 'spark of
life'. It is information, words, instructions
. . . Think of a billin discrete digital
characters . . . If you want to understand
life, think about information technology.
How did life originate? (Cont)
In his award winning book ‘Consilience’
Edward Wilson the eminent non religious
science writer who has recently won many
prestigious prizes tells us that cells use
“very modern technology involving digital
logic, analogue-digital conversion and
signal integration.” He tells us that this
complexity exceeds that of “supercomputers and space vehicles.”
How did life originate? (Cont)
Encyclopaedia Britannica:
The origin of the code.
A critical and unsolved problem in the origin of life
is the origin of the genetic code. The molecular
apparatus supporting the operation of the code the
activating enzymes, adapter RNAs, messenger
RNAs, and so on are themselves each produced
according to instructions contained within the code.
At the time of the origin of the code such an
elaborate molecular apparatus was of course
absent.
How did life originate? (Cont)
Douglas Hofstadter, (a world famous and non
religious artificial intelligence expert) writes:
"A natural and fundamental question to ask, on
learning of these incredibly, intricately interlocking
pieces of software and hardware is: 'How did they ever
get started in the first place?'..... from simple molecules
to entire cells is almost beyond one's power to imagine.
There are various theories on the origin of life. They all
run aground on this most central of central questions:
"How did the Genetic Code, along with the
mechanisms for its translation originate?" For the
moment we will have to content ourselves with a sense
of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.'
Michael Polanyi's gave his reaction to the claim that the discovery
of the DNA double helix is the final proof that living things are
physically and chemically determined.
No said Polanyi it proves the opposite. No arrangement of
physical units can be a code and convey information unless
the order of its units is not fixed by its physical chemical makeup. His example is a railway station on the Welsh border
where an arrangement of pebbles on a bank spelled the
message - "Welcome to Wales by British Rail". This
information content of pebbles clearly showed that their
arrangement was not due to their physical chemical
interaction but to a purpose on the part of the stationmaster ...
The arrangement of the DNA could have come about chance,
just as the pebbles on that station could have rolled down a
hillside and arranged themselves in the worlds of the message,
but it would be bizarre to maintain that this was so ...
But how did self-replicating
organisms arise in the first place? It is
fair to say that at the present time
(2006) we do not know.
No current hypothesis comes close to
explaining how …….. the prebiotic
environment that existed on planet
earth gave rise to life.
(Francis Collins, head of the human
Genome project)
Messages, languages, and coded information ONLY come from
minds. (Minds are conscious.) - minds that have agreed on an
alphabet and a meaning of words and sentences and that
express both desire and intent.
If we analyze language with advanced mathematics and
engineering communication theory, we can say:
Messages, languages and coded information never come
from anything else besides a mind. No-one has ever
produced a single example of a message that did not come
from a mind.
Languages etc can be carried by matter or energy (eg sounds,
ink, electronic and radio signals) but they are none of these
things. Indeed they are not matter or energy at all. They are not
‘physical’.
The physical universe can create fascinating patterns snowflakes, crystals, stalactites, tornados, turbulence and
cloud formations etc. But non-living and non-conscious things
cannot create language. They cannot create codes.
Retired professor of Mathematics in Oxford
Roger Penrose FRS (making no religious
profession – but calling himself a Platonist,
in his book ‘Shadows of the Mind’ ) claims in
his more recent book ‘Road to Reality’ that
there is a transcendent truth, a
transcendent beauty, and a transcendent
goodness and that they are one.
So for him mathematical truth is to be
discovered, not invented. (Bertrand Russell
held this position until his ‘escape from
Pythagoras’, as he calls it.)
A hierarchy of mysteries:
The nature of:
•Conscious life (human) that can:
•reason (think abstractly and universally),
•ponder its own life, death, and possible life after death.
•be aware of good and evil,
•know that it is responsible (partly) for its own behaviour.
• Conscious life - such as the higher animals have.
• Life - anything that is alive - such as plants.
• Matter - material or physical existence.
The Argument from Design.
Bertrand Russell (sceptic though he was) greatly
respected the argument from design especially as
expounded by Leibniz. (He regarded Leibniz, in whom
he specialised, as "one of the supreme intellects of
all time") BR writes: "This argument contends that,
on a survey of the known world, we find things which
cannot plausibly be explained as the product of blind
natural forces, but are much more reasonably to be
regarded as evidences of a beneficent purpose."
He regards this familiar argument as having no
"formal logical defect". He rightly points out that it
does not prove the infinite or good God of normal
religious belief but nevertheless says, that if true,
(and BR does not give any argument against it) it
demonstrates that God is "vastly wiser and more
powerful than we are".
(See his chapter on Leibniz in his History Of Western
Philosophy.)
How do we arrive at a scientific theory?
By inferences.
Are these inferences or reasonings themselves
physical? The materialist says ‘Yes’. Because he/she
believes the physical is everything.
One person makes one inference and another makes
another based on the same data.
How do you decide which is right? By reason.
But that too would be the result of physical
processes.
But evolution is a physical theory. It can’t therefore
explain the human capacity for reasoning and making
scientific theories.
It can’t explain human attributes that have nothing to
do with survival in the future. E.g. music.
“How did natural selection
prepare the mind for
civilisation before
civilisation ever existed?” He
goes on: “That is the great
mystery of evolution: how to
account for calculus and
Mozart … Natural Selection
does not anticipate future
needs.” (E. O. Wilson: Consilience)
Harvard to Investigate Origins of Life
Mon Aug 15 2005.
Harvard University is joining the longrunning debate over the theory of
evolution by launching a research
project to study how life began.
The team of researchers will receive $1
million in funding annually from Harvard
over the next few years. The project
begins with an admission that some
mysteries about life's origins cannot be
explained.
(This is an admission that the origin of
life remains a mystery.)
But how did self-replicating organisms
arise in the first place? It is fair to say that
at the present time (2006) we do not
know.
No current hypothesis comes close to
explaining how …….. the prebiotic
environment that existed on planet earth
gave rise to life.
(Francis Collins, head of the human Genome
project, and author of ‘The Language of God.’)
Science has been v.
successful in explaining
much (but not all) in the
physical world.
It does not follow that nonphysical does not exist or is
not needed to explain the
behaviour of the physical
world!
How did life originate? (Cont)
My comment:
We can add to the mystery of the `miracle' by noting that
the DNA, by itself, is useless; it must be translated via the
RNA so that its `message' can be put to use by the
cytoplasm `factory'.
The problem is that the RNA that links the DNA with the
factory, itself is manufactured by that very factory which
cannot function without the RNA and the DNA! Indeed
each component depends on the other for its manufacture.
Try to imagine a factory for making computers - the factory
itself being run from the beginning by the very computers it
alone can manufacture!
This is only one of the enigmas of the origin of life even in
its simple forms.
An individual life form is more complex than
the DNA codes in his cells.
I am more complex than even the cell of life from
which I grew.
Just consider one of a thousands of possible
examples
• the brain.
Writing about the brain Richard Dawkins in his preface
to `The Blind Watchmaker', tells us:
"The brain with which you are understanding my words is an
array of some ten million kiloneurones (ten thousand million
neurones). Many of these billions of nerve cells have each
more than a thousand `electric wires' connecting them to other
neurones."
Where does this greater complexity come from?
An individual life form is more complex than
the DNA codes in its cells. (Cont)
The Plot thickens - differentiation!
Research Chemist Ernest Lucas tells us:
"The single fertilised egg does not have miniature
arms and legs. These new structures appear later as
the cells multiply and divide.
• If every cell in my body contains the same DNA code,
how, at the beginning of my life, does each new cell
know whether it is to be part of a nose, my liver, etc?
•How does this mystery of differentiation happen?
•Who or what tells it?
An individual life is more complex than its
DNA codes. (Differentiation Cont)
Paul Davies writes:
If every molecule of DNA possesses the same
global plan for the whole organism, how is it
that different cells implement different parts of
that plan?
Is there, perhaps, a `metaplan' to tell each cell
which part of the plan to implement?
If so, where is the metaplan located?
In the DNA?
But this is surely to fall into infinite regress.
An ancient belief in Evolution?
St Basil, the 4th century Archbishop of
Caesarea in Cappadocia: ‘Why do the
waters give birth also to birds?’ he asked,
writing about Genesis. ‘Because there is, so
to say, a family link between the creatures
that fly and those that swim. In the same way
that fish cut the waters, using their fins to
carry them forward, so we see the birds float
in the air by the help of their wings.’
(Quoted in the Spectator:25th October 2003)
EVOLUTION.
Random mutations (changes) in the DNA sometimes
produce improvements which make the species more
able to live in its environment.
• So it then survives better and passes on its new
characteristics to succeeding generations - and so on.
• This process is called: Natural Selection or The
Survival of the Fittest.
• However it would have to be the result of an
aggregation of very small steps:
• "…Natural selection acts only by taking
advantage of slight successive variations; she can
never take a great and sudden leap, but must
advance by short and sure, though slow steps.”
(OOS page 162)
A note about Mutations. (Summary of Denis Alexander’s
explanation).
‘Point Mutations’ involve the change of a single ‘base’ (the letter in
the ‘genetic alphabet’).
Other mutations may happen because of a loss or gain of a whole
sequences of DNA. If such a gain happened it would be DNA that
had been added inappropriately from some other chromosomes
in the same cell.
Such events occur quite often during the process of cell division.
The copying process is extremely accurate, but the enormous
rate at which cell division occurs in some tissues leads to
errors in replication.
Many of these are rectified by the DNA repair enzymes, which
are constantly on the look out for mistakes. However some
mutations may still be passed on to daughter cells.
Evolution (Cont)
Micro evolution - non controversial.
• Small changes and adaptations do occur within a
species but they do not produce new parts of the plant
or new organs for the animal - such as leaves, bark,
petals, wings, eyes, livers, lungs, blood streams,
brains, nervous systems, etc.
• Micro evolution alone cannot explain how bacteria
changed into elephants, oak trees, spiders and
humans etc. So is there macro evolution?
• Macro evolution (controversial) says that evolution
can bring entirely new organs into being and thus
explain the whole process from bacteria to tiger,
swallow, rose and human.
Barrow, Tipler and Carter have calculated the
chances of bacteria changing to a human being
given the alleged time allowed.
They calculate the possibility as 1 in 1024,000,000.
(See “The Anthropic Principle and Its
implications for Biological Evolution” by
Brandon Carter in The Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society
A370 1983: 347-360; and Tipler and Barrow,
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle page 510573.)
Darwin's Finches on the Galapogas Islands.
The finches on different islands vary by the shape of
their beaks and what they eat - some eating seeds
and others eating insects.
• Their beaks vary in accordance with their diet.
• They seem suited to the environment on their
respective islands.
• The Ground Finches eat ticks they remove with
their crushing beaks from Tortoises.
• The Sharp Beaked Ground Finch jumps on the
backs of other birds pecking at their flesh and
feeding on their blood.
• Woodpecker and Mangrove Finch use small
twigs and cactus spines as tools to dine on the larva
stored in dead tree branches.
Though they have adapted to allow for specialised feeding
most finches are generalised eaters.
Their different beaks come into their own in times of drought
and what is left on their respective islands during the
droughts.
Then these specialised beaks allow the birds to better
compete for food sources with other birds and animals.
Certain kinds of beaks and diet are suited to certain islands.
Those that had suitable beaks survived and those that
didn't died out. (i.e. Natural Selection.)
Therefore each island had finches suited to its
environment.
Not that God created this finch for that island.
The fittest to survive did survive and then it passed on its
characteristics to its offspring.
Some important questions.
1. How did the initial change in the shape of the beak come
about? - before Natural Selection could begin to work?
2. Does this relatively small change give us solid ground for
believing that creatures without nerves, brains, blood streams,
bark, petals could change into the many life forms we see
today? (It is spoken of as if the evidence is clear.)
But is it clear?
3. Isn’t the belief that these developments took place solely by
random mutation and natural selection based on the
assumption that only physical causes exist?
•But what is the evidence for that assumption?
•In principle there can be no such evidence.
Evolution (Cont)
In response to a claim in late 2001 by Eugene Scott of
the (US) National Center for Science Education that
“virtually every reputable scientist in the world”
supports (Darwinian) evolution, a list of over 100
reputable scientists was published in an advert in the
New York Times - entitled “A Scientific Dissent from
Darwinism.” Signatories included 5-times Nobel
nominee Henry F Schaefer, University of Georgia
chemist, and other research scientists who are faculty
members at Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, MIT etc. These
are not arguing for creation in 4004 BC, but scientists
who dare to doubt Darwinism on the basis of the
evidence itself.
Evolution (Cont)
• Darwin did not believe that Natural
Selection could provide a full explanation
for the origin of species.
• Many modern evolutionary biologists (such
as Steven Jay Gould) agree with Darwin
that there must be more to it than that.
• Militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins
insist that natural selection alone will one
day provide sufficient explanation.
• What is the evidence for their prophecy?
That is the question.
Evolution continued:
Irreducible complexity.
(This is one of the points made by the controversial
Intelligent Design movement.)
Challenge from Darwin:
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ exists
which could not possibly be formed by numerous
successive slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break down.
Michael Behe’s ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ responds, claiming there
are many irreducibly complex organs in nature. He uses the
workings of a mouse trap to illustrate his point. If just one of
the eight parts of the mouse trap is missing the mouse trap
will not trap fewer mice - it will trap none at all. See Handout:
Behe Defends ID.
Others dispute this claim (see for example Forrest and Gross's
Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, (OUP) the debate continues.
Two statements from cell biologist Franklin Harold in
his 2001 book (OUP) titled The Way of the Cell.
1. “We should reject, as a matter of principle, the
substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of
chance and necessity.”
(Chance = random mutation; Necessity = Natural Selection.)
This statement (1 above) is immediately followed by:
2. “But we must concede that there are presently no
detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any
biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful
speculations.”
(I have adapted this from an article by Bill Dembski: Unintelligent Evolution.)
Evolution (Cont)
Problems for the view that natural selection alone
can account for the origin of the species of life:
– If the mutations were truly random then one would
expect harmful changes to be common and
improvements to occur very rarely indeed - if ever.
• A common answer is to say that there were billions of
forms of primitive life - so improvements are not all
that unlikely.
• A response says that this does not explain alleged
evolutionary changes in bigger species where their
numbers were relatively small.
– If the changes in DNA code are not random - what
or Who guides them?
Evolution (Cont)
Perhaps a clue to the development of life
could come from the underlying quantum
physics in the cell - the ‘language’ at the
subatomic level.
• Lothar Shäfer's quantum view of evolution.
• However that only pushes the question
about the source of life’s developing
information, one stage further back.
Evolution (Cont)
My Comment:
I do find it difficult to believe that purely accidental
processes and random changes, even given billions of years
of the `survival of the fittest', could change a single cell
(without brain, nervous system, liver, eyes, ears, blood,
lungs, leaves, feathers, bark, roots, petals, etc. etc.) into all
the wonderful forms of animal and vegetable life we see
around us.
However this process could have occurred if the process of
mutation was not random but guided by an overarching
purpose that transcends the universe.
That could happen only if the universe itself were an open
system.
The Biblical view is that God is overflowing
love.
• His Word and Spirit creates and upholds
all things and moves them towards their
purpose.
• Can this help us to understand the
existence of life in its countless and
marvellous forms?
• Fundamental to God’s purpose is the
redemption of the world from evil through
the death and resurrection of Christ.
Daniel Osmond (Prof of Physiology and Medicine – (Toronto):
I do not wish to build a "God of the Gaps" argument built upon
gaps in evolutionary knowledge. This would be dangerous because
science has a habit of filling gaps, sooner or later. Nor would I
wish to predict that, because these particular data are either
unavailable or very difficult to obtain, evolutionary gaps will never
be filled and use this prediction to argue in favour or Creatorship
and Purpose. My point is simply that, in the presence of such huge
gaps in knowledge concerning their most important theory
pertaining to biological origins, all scientists should exhibit a more
realistic, humble attitude. With such huge gaps staring us in the
face in the empirical domain, we should refrain from usurping
other domains, not accessible to empirical study, with an air of
arrogance of super confidence.
What evidence is there that physical effects must have physical causes?
Common descent
• Behe, Origin of Life and Then TE. His latest view.
• We share much of our DNA with animals.
•Bananas.
Or
Common Creator.
=======================
Cambrian explosion. (500 million years ago.) In a
relatively short time most major groups of animals,
fully formed, appeared in the fossil record.
Junk DNA and Vestigial Organs.
It is commonly claimed that present day creatures
have useless parts of their DNA or anatomy which
are left-overs from their distant ancestors.
However as time goes on, what was once thought
to be useless, is, after all, discovered to have
function. E.g. Tonsils and Appendices. Also it is
not completely clear that our all our supposed
ancestors did have these extra parts. Since our
science is in its infancy in this area, we should
hesitate before using this as evidence for or against
evolution.
But how did self-replicating
organisms arise in the first place? It is
fair to say that at the present time
(2006) we do not know.
No current hypothesis comes close to
explaining how …….. the prebiotic
environment that existed on planet
earth gave rise to life.
(Francis Collins, head of the human
Genome project)
TE verses ID
ID is proposing an extra miracle to creation.
• ID is saying that the creation of life exhibits one aspect
of creation.
Creation is ‘one seamless whole’ (DA).
• Creation was in several steps, each not reducible to the
former.
Physical effects must have physical causes.
• What about thoughts and their physical effects?
God of the gaps. (Nature does this and God does that.)
• It is the advance of knowledge that has led to ID, not
ignorance. The advance of knowledge reveals a code
and information, not just complexity.
AE; (Intellectually fulfilled atheist.)
Weak TE; (Fruitful potentiality)
Strong TE; (ID)
OEC; (ID)
YEC. (ID) Universal Flood, Catastophism, Dating Methods,
No suffering before the Fall.
Fallen Time and Redeemed time.
We could never get back to God’s time.
Jewish year commemorates Adam, not Creation, because
Genesis 1 is God’s time unknown to us.
What is the alternative to Evolution? It does not bear
thinking about. Hence the passion. Much is at stake.
TE crits of ID
1. Behe and Dembski. Parts of nature exhibit Design.
No, all do.
2. The word ‘Designer’ is inadequate. (Beauty & goodness too).
ID Crits of TE
1. The natural world is ‘One Seamless Whole’ say TE.
No, it comes in a series of stages – each stage needing creative
input.
2. TE is guilty of dualisms.
Spiritual/Physical. Gen 1 is ‘Theology’ – (mere?) Theology..
Creation/Redemption. Miracles are allowed in Redemption but not
in Creation.
3. Dishonesty about the difficulties. All sown up.
The Atom.
Two of Bertrand Russell’s questions without
answers:
1. What is mind (where your thoughts are)?
Leibniz’s mill or mountain.
2. What is matter?
Leibniz’s monads or souls.
We know consider this one – What is matter?
What is matter? Or What is energy?
Since the time of the Greek philosophers, (before Christ)
there have been two different theories as to the
fundamental nature of matter/energy. Also the first
Buddhists asked ‘What is everything made of?’
•Atomist:
•Matter is made up of tiny particles. (Molecules, atoms, etc)
•In differing combinations they make up the physical
world as we experience it.
•When school science teaches us about atoms &
electrons etc., we get an ‘atomist’ picture of reality.
•Plenum:
•The whole of space is filled with a ‘field’ which
manifests itself as matter.
•When school science teaches us about fields of force
(like magnetism) we get the ‘plenum’ picture of reality.
A Mystery.
If matter is made of particles
- what are the particles made of?
If matter is a wave
- a wave in what medium?
Consider a message in a letter or a formulae in a mathematical
treatise.
You receive a letter written by hand in a foreign language.
It gives you instructions as to where to find the hidden money
and a mathematical formula you have to follow as well.
Would you take the letter to a laboratory to analyse the
chemistry of the ink and paper to understand the message?
No!
The message does not come from the ink or paper (they only
carry the message).
The message comes from of the mind (the thoughts) of the
person who wrote the letter using the ink and the paper.
The information is not explained by the chemistry of the ink
and paper, but the mind who wrote the letter/treatise?
Information and Word? (1)
If we think of matter/energy as a wave or field
(plenum) we find that it is a wave we can
understand by Mathematics.
Galileo: “Mathematics is the language with which God
wrote the universe.”
In one of his non-religious books on Quantum
theory, Sir John Polkinghorne (Professor of
Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University and
also Priest) says it is intelligibility from which all
physical existence emerges.
So information or ‘language’, (in the form of
mathematics?) lies in and behind all physical reality.
John 1
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God.
All things were made through
Him and without Him nothing
was made.
Information and Word? (Cont.)
• The theoretical physicist Paul Davies in ‘The New Scientist’
recently wrote: "Normally we think of the world as composed
of simple, clod-like, material particles, and information as a
derived phenomenon attached to special, organised states of
matter. But maybe it is the other way around: perhaps the
Universe is really a frolic of primal information, and
material objects a complex secondary manifestation.” (New
Scientist, January 30, 1999, Pg. 3),
• (Rather than the other way round: information
emerging from mindless particles and energy.)
• If Paul Davies is right then it resonates with the Bible’s
teaching that ‘Word’ is the foundation of all things.
Bertrand Russell (atheist/agnostic) believed the most powerful
argument for God’s existence comes from Mathematics.
Pythagoras: Numbers: 1. have properties; 2. don’t exist in our
space-time.
Penrose:
Numbers exist in a transcendent world. (So does beauty
and goodness). All three are One.
Human consciousness accesses this transcendent world
and can therefore make discoveries about numbers.
But Is Mathematics discovery or is it merely invention?
Russell and ‘The Principals of Mathematics.’
Godel.
(Electrons etc are not picturable as ‘things’ in space-time. Some say it is
consciousness that gives them the property of particles in space-time.)
Consider this from Bertrand Russell’s ‘Study of Mathematics’:
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme
beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal
to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of
painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection
such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the
exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, … is to be found in
mathematics as surely as in poetry.
And consider this from Paul Dirac (Nobel Prize: Quantum Theory):
.. fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical
theory of great beauty and power … One could perhaps describe the
situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order and
He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.
Eugene Wigner, (Nobel Prize for Maths) and Dirac’s brother-inlaw, wrote of the unreasonable effectiveness of Mathematics
in understanding nature. He said: “It is a wonderful gift which we
neither understand nor deserve.”
A hierarchy of mysteries:
The nature of:
•Conscious life (human) that can:
•reason (think abstractly and universally),
•ponder its own life, death, and possible life after death.
•be aware of good and evil,
•know that it is responsible (partly) for its own behaviour.
• Conscious life - such as the higher animals have.
• Life - anything that is alive - such as plants.
• Matter - material or physical existence.
TE crits of ID
1. Behe and Dembski. Parts of nature exhibit Design.
No, all do.
2. The word ‘Designer’ is inadequate. (Beauty & goodness too).
ID Crits of TE
1. The natural world is ‘One Seamless Whole’ say TE.
No, it comes in a series of stages – each stage needing creative
input.
2. TE is guilty of dualisms.
Spiritual/Physical. Gen 1 is ‘Theology’ – (mere?) Theology..
Creation/Redemption. Miracles are allowed in Redemption but not
in Creation.
3. Dishonesty about the difficulties. All sown up.
The Beginning and the Big Bang.
In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
Father of the Big Bang Theory
• Georges-Henri Lemaître (Catholic priest and scientist) was
born July 17, 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium. Lemaître is credited
with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the
universe, although he called it his 'hypothesis of the primeval
atom'. He based his theory, published between 1927 and 1933,
on the work of Einstein, among others.
• Einstein did not, at first, like the theory because it was too
much like the teaching of the Bible.
• However in 1935 Einstein, after having travelled on a long
train journey with Lemaitre, applauded a lecture on the
subject, given by Lemaitre himself, and said, "This is the
most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to
which I have ever listened".
• Against much opposition from the scientific community,
Lemaître’s theory finally triumphed from the sheer weight of
evidence. (In the second half of the 20th Century.)
• He estimated the age of the universe to be between 10 and 20
billion years, which agrees with modern opinions.
The Beginning and the Big Bang.
In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
Did the universe (in one form or
another) begin or is it eternal?
• Steady State or Beginning?
• Evidence for beginning.
– Stars still burning.
– Not fallen in on one
another.
– Anti-Gravity?? No!
• Hubble discovered that the
universe is expanding as if
from an explosion.
• Big Bang of ‘light’ fifteen
billion years ago.
• Seemingly from nothing!
• From this Big Bang hydrogen
and helium eventually
formed.
• The hydrogen clouds
contracted and heated up and
stars were created.
• The inside of stars created the
heavier elements from which
planets are made.
• Background radiation - as if
from the Big Bang’s echo confirmed the theory.
• Did this confirm the Biblical
teaching that God created the
cosmos out of nothing?
Robert Wilson, one of those who discovered
the background radiation was asked by
journalist Fred Heeren if
the Big Bang indicated a Creator.
Wilson said, "Certainly there was something
that set it all off. Certainly, if you are
religious, I can't think of a better theory of
the origin of the universe to match with
Genesis."
At this moment it seems as though science will never be
able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the
scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason,
the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the
mountains of ignorance; he is about the conquer the
highest peak; as he pulls himself up over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting
there for centuries.
Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a
biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but
the essential elements and the astronomical and biblical
accounts of Genesis are the same; the chain of events
leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a
definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.
God and the Astronomers, Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow.
Will the Universe contract again to a Big
Crunch?
• Did the Big Bang come from a Big Crunch?
• An oscillating universe? Probably No!
• But even if the universe is oscillating
between crunch and bang, the series could
not be infinite.
• We still have the problem of the genesis
(beginning) of everything.
Could Quantum fluctuations in a vacuum have caused the Big Bang?
• What are and why are there quantum fluctuations?
• Colliding membranes and eleven dimensions creating the ‘Big
Bang’?
• The Wave Function of the Universe?
• If that exists why does it exist? Where did it come from?
The end of the universe - heat or cold death?
The Biblical Teaching is that there has been, is, and will be a
New Creation.
Not a creation out of nothing but out of the ashes of the old.
When evil and decay have done their worst to this world, God
intervenes in New Creation.
The link between the Old and New is the Death/Resurrection
of Jesus Christ in whose Person, God and the world are held
together and humanity is forgiven and nature healed.
Too good to be true?
Perhaps, but we are faced with the reality of our universe.
Where did it come from?
Why should anything exist at all is surely amazing - but
here we are - too good to be true?
The Universe is finely tuned!
• If the properties of the universe had been a tiny bit
different:
• the stars would not have formed
• or if they had, they would have not lasted long.
• there would have been no sun, no planets and no
earth.
• the universe would either have been black holes or
gas.
• there would have been complete darkness.
What are the variations in the initial conditions of
the universe that would have made it dark and
lifeless?
Rate of expansion from the big bang. (1 in 1060)
Strength of gravity.
Dark Energy.
Initial conditions together 1/10 to power 10 to power 30!
Origin of materials that go to make up earth:
Elements (e.g. carbon) were made in the centre of stars.
However the process is a very very delicate one.
The Whole Universe seems very finely tuned!
Earth’s position in the solar system for liquid water.
Jupiter, Position in the galaxy.
The recent theories about ‘Dark Energy’
have strengthened this point.
In their paper "Disturbing Implications of
a Cosmological Constant" two atheist
scientists from Stanford University stated
that the existence of this dark energy term
"Would have required a miracle...
An external agent, external to space and
time, intervened in cosmic history for
reasons of its own."
Blaise Pascal (d.o.b.
1623) and the
Meaning of Life.
I owe the material in
these slides to Thomas
V. Morris and Peter
Kreeft.
His accomplishments:
He
• invented the precursor of the
calculator,
• founded Probability Theory,
• designed the first system of
public transportation in
Europe.
Pascal accepted the metaphysical proofs for God.
For example the argument from the objective
reality of numbers.
However he cautioned as follows:
The metaphysical proofs for the existence of God are
so remote from human reasoning and so involved that
they make little impact, and, even if they did help
some people, it would only be for the moment during
which they watched the demonstration, because an
hour later they would be afraid they had made a
mistake. (190) and in (449) he says:
Even if someone were convinced that the
propositions between numbers are immaterial,
eternal truths, depending on a First Truth in which
they subsist, called God, I should not consider that
he had made much progress towards his salvation.
Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher and
Mathematician 17th C.)
He wrote about the human condition. He said we are
both glorious and wretched.
• We are capable of advanced mathematics,
reasoning and science and great goodness. We are
made in the image of God.
• We are capable of evil and we are all moving
towards death.
We are all seeking but not finding happiness and
truth.
This is a sign that we have lost something.
Pascal’s Illustration. Two labourers.
1. The first used to be a prince. He has
lost his royalty and so feels unhappy.
2. The second was never a prince and so
he has not lost anything. He is not
unhappy.
===========================
Humans are like the first. We have a
collective memory of something that we
have lost. That is why we are seeking,
but not finding, happiness and truth.
Pascal’s Ideas – continued.
God made us for glory but we lost it because of sin.
We need to be restored to God as His children
(princes).
So God, who loves us all, suffered the pain of our sin
for us and then lifted us up back to Him.
This is the meaning of the cross of Jesus.
The cross shows us how much God loves us – our
glory.
It also shows us how bad we are now - our
wretchedness.
Only the cross links our glory with our wretchedness
and makes sense of our human lives.
However men hate religion because they are
afraid it may be true. (Said Pascal)
(They prefer to live lives independent of God.)
They use the following to try to avoid God:
1. Indifference. They pretend they do not care.
2. Diversion. They are too busy with other things.
We go on to consider:
• The Meaning of Life.
• The Human Enigma.
Indifference.
A realisation that religion is one cause of
dispute is a widespread excuse for
indifference among many people.
Pascal describes such people as persons
“who do not love the truth”. An object of
love is not a matter of indifference. When
you have it you embrace it. When you
lack it, you pursue it.
People who are indifferent about
ultimate questions neither embrace nor
pursue truth.
Indifference (Continued)
There are only two classes of people who can be called
reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because
they know him and those who seek him with all their heart
because they do not know Him. (427)
There are only three sorts of people: those who have found God
and serve Him; those who are busy seeking Him and have not
found Him; those who live without either seeking or finding Him.
The first are reasonable and happy, the last are foolish and
unhappy, those in the middle are unhappy and reasonable. (160)
Indifference (continued).
There are people who avoid religious and
philosophical thinking out of fear. Often it
is just fear of the unknown. Others fear
what they suspect to be true and wouldn’t
want to face head-on. (TVM)
(In my early years) I began to write out
of vanity, self-interest and pride. I did the
same thing in my writing that I did in my
life. In order to acquire the fame and
money I was writing for, it was
necessary to conceal what was good and
to flaunt what was bad. And that is what
I did. Time after time I would scheme in
my writings to conceal under the mask
of indifference and even pleasantry
those yearnings for something good
which gave meaning to my life. And I
succeeded in this and was praised. (Leo
Tolstoy, Confession.)
That man is the product of causes that had no
prevision of the end they were achieving; that his
origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his love and
beliefs, are but the outcomes of accidental
collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no
intensity of thought and feeling can preserve
individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours
of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all
the noonday brightness of human genius are destined
to extinction in the vast death of the solar system,
and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement
must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a
universe in ruins – all these things if not quite beyond
dispute are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy
which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within
the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm
foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s
habitation be safely built. (B. Russell, Why I am not a Christian.)
Pascal applies the context principle.
Our behaviour is a function of its
context. People attend to every
context they find themselves in
except the ultimate context.
Since in this life there are often
more rewards for vices than for
virtues, few would prefer what is
right to what is useful if they
neither feared God nor hoped for
an after-life. (Descartes,
Meditations.)
Pascal wanted to shock us out of our
indifference.
Imagine a number of men in chains, all under
the sentence of death, some of whom are each
day butchered in the sight of others; those
remaining see their own condition is that of
their fellows, and looking at each other with
grief and despair await their turn. This is an
image of the human condition. (434)
After Indifference comes Diversion.
Being unable to cure death,
wretchedness and
ignorance, men have
decided, in order to be
happy, not to think about
such things. (133)
Woody Allen wanted to make a
story about:
people in Manhattan who are constantly
creating these real unnecessary neurotic
problems for themselves ‘cause it keeps
them from dealing with more unsolvable,
terrifying problems about the universe.
Pascal is not against all diversion. It is the constant use of
diversion to stop us from ever thinking about ultimate
issues that he warns against.
That is why men are so fond of hustle and bustle; that is
why prison is such a fearful punishment; that is why
pleasures of solitude are so incomprehensible. That, in
fact, is the main joy of being a king, because people are
continually trying to divert him and provide him with every
kind of pleasure. A king is surrounded by people whose
only thought is to divert him and stop him thinking about
himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy
as soon as he thinks about himself. (136)
We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting
something in front of us to stop us seeing it.
(166)
Why do we pay medical doctors so much?
Because we want to keep death from our door.
We want them to keep death and the troubling
questions it raises as far away as they can. We
want this badly and we are willing to pay.
But have you noticed that we pay the best
entertainers even more, in fact much more – the
cinema and television stars, the sports heroes?
Maybe it is because we know, deep down, that
the doctors will ultimately fail, and the
entertainers keep us from thinking about that.
This might also explain why we pay philosophers
so little: they make us think about it. (TVM)
There are two striking human
passions, the passion for
uniqueness and the passion for
union. Each of us wants to be
recognised as a unique member of
the human race. We want to stand
apart from the crowd in some way.
We want our own unique dignity and
value. But at the same time we have
a passion for union, for belonging,
even for merging our identities into
a greater unity in which we have a
place, a role, a value. (TVM)
The Meaning of Life.
Tolstoy: Five years ago, something very
strange began to happen to me. At first I
began to have moments of bewilderment,
when my life would come to a halt , as if I did
not know how to live or what to do; I would
lose my presence of mind and fall into a state
of depression. But this passed, and I began to
fall into a state of depression. But this passed,
and I continued to live as before. Then the
moments of bewilderment recurred more
frequently and they always took the same
form. Whenever my life would come to a halt
the question would arise Why? And What
next?
Tolstoy: I did not even want to discover truth anymore because I
had guessed what it was. The questions seemed to be such
foolish, simple, childish questions. But as soon as I laid my
hands on them and tried to resolve them, I was immediately
convinced, first of all, that they were not childish and foolish
questions but the most vital and profound questions in life, and,
secondly, that no matter how much I pondered them there was
no way I could resolve them. Or in the middle of thinking about
the fame that my works were bringing me I would say to myself,
"Very well, you will be more famous than, Pushkin and
Shakespeare - so what? And I could find absolutely no reply. My
life came to a stop. The truth was that life is meaningless . . .
The only thing that amazed me was how I had failed to realize
this in the very beginning. All this had been common knowledge
for so long. If not today, then tomorrow sickness and death will
come (indeed, they were already approaching) to everyone, to
me, and nothing will remain except the stench and the worms.
Why, then, do anything? How can anyone fail to see this and
live? That's what is amazing! It is possible to live only as long
as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing
that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion! Nor is there anything
funny or witty about it; it is only cruel and stupid.
If we never died would that solve the problem of
meaning?
A few thousand years in front of a TV set would
answer that!
An infinitely long life is not necessarily endowed
with meaning.
However the reality of death does focus the
mind on the ultimate questions.
Something has meaning if and only if it is endowed
with some purpose by a purposeful agent.
Meaning is never intrinsic, it is always
derivative.
What about a ‘Do it yourself’ approach to meaning?
Then there would be no objective meaning to life.
Make up your own meaning (subjective meaning) for your own life.
Find out what you can do best and do it to the full.
John is good at curing diseases and it brings him pleasure.
Bill is good at torturing people and he enjoys it.
Fred is good at collecting match boxes and he is happy focussing
his whole life on this hobby.
They devote their whole lives to these pursuits.
If there is no objective meaning then there is no way to
distinguish, from one another, the value of these different
‘meanings’.
Only One who is Eternal and
has an eternal purpose for our
lives can give our lives real
meaning.
Thus there is nothing more
important than the search for
God, and nothing more foolish
than the neglect of God
through indifference or
diversion.