A G K Y R A

No attempt to define the specific features of human behaviour can disregard the fact that man, as we know him in history, appeared on the stage of this world as a religious being. (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, 41)

Pannenberg got me wondering this evening how atheistic evolutionists explain the fact that humans have been religious since the very beginning, so far as we can tell. Many atheists like to claim that babies are atheists by nature and will remain so unless they are taught otherwise. This, of course, requires an explanation of how humans became religious in the first place. It is especially problematic since beasts, from whom we are alleged to be descended, are not religious. If the first humans were more advanced than their irreligious beastly ancestors, and if it is now the case that babies are born atheists, then where did religion get its start, and why was it universally adopted? The facile response from the atheist catechism is “out of fear of the unknown.” Unfortunately, this raises as many problem as it solves. If the beasts don’t fear nature or the unknown, why would the more advanced humans? I hope that serious-minded atheists will give this constellation of problems the thought it deserves.

Naturally, this is no problem at all for theistic evolutionists since they hold that evolution is directed toward an end, i.e., that nature has a teleology. The rise of religious consciousness in humans is part of God’s purpose in bringing them into person-to-person relationship with himself. What’s more, this end point provides a reference from which theistic evolutionists can justifiably call the rise of humankind an advance. Atheistic evolutionists can’t do that since there is no goal, no teleology, no purpose. The most they can do is say that it’s an advance from our (human) perspective, which lands them in a whole ‘nother morass: why should that be our perspective? “Should” is such an important word. The inescapable reality of normativity is the most serious problem atheists face. They can’t explain it and don’t know what to do with it. They can’t find a reliable source for it, but they can’t live without it.

As for evolution, I take no position on it. How could I? I’m far from having the specialized knowledge to come to an informed judgment on the subject. I will tell you, though, what I know and what I affirm. What I know is that evolution as a theory about the rise of humankind is not testable and is the product of a lot of speculative inductions. This means that it is liable to being wrong, and so I put no confidence in it. It’s of no practical significance to me, so that’s an easy position for me to take. My interest is less about the process by which humans came to exist than by whom they came to exist, which leads me to what I affirm. The universe was created ex nihilo, and humans were made in God’s image. Whether in a single instant out of dust or through a long process of evolution, I don’t know, and I don’t think Scripture is concerned for us to know.

Pannenberg, incidentally, does apparently believe the theory of evolution with respect to human origins.

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How is it the case that the world exists? If I’m not mistaken, three alternatives exhaust the possibilities: (1) it is necessary that the world exist; (2) the world was created by a being or beings whose existence is necessary; (3) the world came into being out of nothing through processes that could be described as natural. Only in the third case is the concept of chance meaningful (in a limited sense).

Even in the third case, though, chance is not an explanation. At best, it is a shorthand way of saying, “I don’t know.” Imagine that you leave home to do a bit of shopping and when you come back, there is a 100-pound jack o’ lantern in the middle of your living room. What’s more, you live alone, and you haven’t given anyone else your housekeys. “How,” you ask yourself, “did this gigantic jack o’ lantern come to be in my living room?” You go to your next-door neighbor to see if he saw anyone hauling an enormous pumpkin around in the vicinity, but he swears he hasn’t, and when you ask how it could have gotten into your living room, he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Chance!”

Obviously, chance is not an explanation for the jack o’ lantern’s being in your living room. Some other explanation is required, natural or supernatural, personal or impersonal–you need an explanation, and invoking chance won’t do it.

This observation is leading to a well-worn argument against a naturalistic theory on the origin of the universe. Where did the stuff come from that allegedly became the universe? Whence the primal matter that formed the first stars? How did that stuff come to be? Sure, scientists can theorize about how all the complex objects in the universe came to be formed once they assume the existence of some thing, and then the notion of chance becomes meaningful, even if not an explanation. We can describe the conditions and processes that together would lead to a state of affairs such as we find in the universe. We cannot specify exactly what the conditions would have been or give an explanation why they were that way. Hence, we chalk it up to chance.

My point, however, is one that has been made so many times in the past: you’ve got to start with the existence of some thing. And where did it come from? Chance in this context not only has no explanatory power, it is meaningless. If you have a six-sided die, each side being numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, no matter how many times you roll it, you will never roll a 7. A roll of 7 is not within the range of possibilities within which chance is meaningful. Likewise with “chance” in regard to first physical things. Something can’t come from nothing.

If you do roll a 7, you had better abandon your beliefs about your die’s (a) being six-sided or (b) marked with only the numbers 1-6 or (c) both. Maybe it was an eight-sided die after all. Since something can’t come from nothing, if you prefer to avoid believing in God you would do well to reconsider the “eternal matter” theory represented by (1).

The conclusion is that possibility (3) isn’t a possibility at all, and not even dancing around in a circle while waving hands and chanting “Chance! Chance! Chance!” can change that fact. It is either necessary that the world exist or necessary that a creator exist. This, of course, leads to an even greater problem, one that was articulated by G. E. Lessing in the 18th century: accidental (non-necessary) truths cannot establish necessary truths. Science is a great help at discovering non-necessary truths but can never establish the necessity of the existence of the world. It can only proceed from the fact that the world does exist.

In the context of (3), “chance” can’t possibly mean anything except, “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. And even though it is illogical, I nevertheless believe it.” Very well. But, if that’s not a sacrificium intellectus, I don’t know what is. The only rational alternative available to those who don’t believe in God is (1), necessarily existing physical stuff. Chance has nothing to do with it. You either believe it or you don’t.

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