The Problem of Beauty

Never thought of beauty as a problem? Well, consider this: where does beauty come from? Beauty is defined in my dictionary as “that combination of qualities which is pleasing to the eye or ear." We often think of music and the visual arts as conveyors of beauty; the form and order of a musical composition or a sculpture are what makes for beauty. Disorder and chaos are not normally thought of as beautiful. We find beauty in nature because of the form and order that we see in it. The Grand Canyon or the ocean, an otter or a Gold Finch, have qualities that are pleasing to the eye. The chirping of a bird can be pleasing to the ear. The bursting colors and sounds of Spring are an annual highlight of natural beauty.

But, where did all this beauty come from? Is it a product of uncreated matter and uncreated energy? Or is there someone or something that created all things? This gets back to the syllogism of the second post:

1. If something exists,

2. something must be eternal, unless

3. something comes from nothing.

Since something quite obviously exists, there must be something (or someone) that is eternal. The best evidence suggests that the universe had a definite, if hard to pinpoint, beginning. What or who is the cause of the universe?

When we experience beauty in the arts, we can point to a creator of that beauty - an artist or composer. Doesn't it make sense that there is a creator of the universe, rather than believing that the world is the product of uncreated space, time, energy and matter?

One of the classic explorations of this issue is John Wisdom's invisible gardener. Wisdom taught at Cambridge University in England, and he posited two people finding a garden that had obviously been long neglected. The garden had observable form and order, but there were also weeds in it. One of the observers believed that there was an invisible gardener who brought form and order to the garden, while the other observer believed that no invisible gardener exists. Who is right?

When you observe the garden that is the universe, what do you see? Do you see order, form, human life, intelligence, morality and believe that there is a creator? Or do you see disorder in nature, human life and morality and believe that there is no creator? Maybe you can frame the questions better than I have here. Have at it!

Faith without Certainty

We live in a time when the only ones who have certainty are fundamentalists. If we can admit that up front I think that we can get to a good place with respect to faith. This is not to say that there aren't thoughtful fundamentalists, but it is to say that just about everyone else recognizes that none of us have a perfect hold on what we could call universal truth. Perfect knowledge is beyond all of us, but even so, faith is possible. The syllogism that I used in the second post about whether there is a God does not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God. But I hope that it does get us to a place where we can have an intelligent belief that God does exist. Faith makes sense in a world that is devoid of certainty, but faith in the intellectual environment in which we live still needs to be based on something more than personal desires or intuitions.

Christian faith, along with Judaism and Islam, is based on revelation. Christians, Jews and Muslims agree that God has revealed Himself (in the classical forms of these three faiths, God is rendered in the masculine gender). The test that intellectuals pose for these faiths is whether or not their beliefs make sense in the reality that we all experience. I believe that Christianity can measure up to the standards of reality as we experience it. What do you think?

This test by reality is what I will be writing about in subsequent posts.

Is There Any Proof for God?

It's interesting enough to note the reports of the famous atheist and intellectual Antony Flew becoming a theist. Flew has confirmed these reports and while he has not accepted the Christian view of God, he has come to believe on the basis of the complexity of DNA that there must be a divine creator. Others find other reasons for believing in the existence of God. A pragmatic basis for belief in God is that God, particularly the God of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures gives us a definite meaning for life. More than just meaning, the God of the Bible gives us hope. An atheist might argue, as Flew did for many years, that Christian faith gives people false hope. So, this might cause us to say that the pragmatic basis is insufficient for a solid faith. But there are other cases that can be made.

Another base for faith in experience. Millions of people throughout history attest to religious experience. The Bible gives several testimonies to direct human experience with the divine. There are two weaknesses that I see for the experiential base for faith. First, religious experience is not universal. Every man, woman and child cannot say that they have experienced the presence of God. Second, reported experiences of the divine are disparate. On the basis of religious experience alone, we would have to conclude that there are many different Gods. Maybe we should hold on to this possibility at this point. In popular forms of Hinduism there are many gods and goddesses. At this point in our conversation, we can't rule this possibility out.

A third foundation for faith is the cosmos. The universe in all its majesty, mystery and complexity raises questions concerning the big questions. For the ancient Greek philosophers the universe raised questions about metaphysics. Metaphysics is a field of philosophy that considers matters concerned with existence and ultimate significance.

Some scientists today wrestle with a theory of everything (toe, for short), and these kinds of big questions end up in metaphysics. Whether we consider the design of the universe, the human brain, the human body, or DNA, we arrive at levels of complexity that are difficult to explain from a non-religious standpoint. For example, where does intelligence come from?

If we are willing to concede that God is at least a possibility, then another big question is whether or not we can know God. If God is a reality, indeed the basis of reality, how can we know Him (or her, if we need to use gender terms to speak about this subject)? This is the topic for another post titled "The Human Problem."

The problem of evil

If there is a God, is this God good? This question rests at the base of the problem of evil. Most folks (I am guessing here) can look around and see much good in the world. The earth itself is beautiful, animals are fascinating, the produce of the earth in all its varieties is beneficial to humanity, and humanity has created many goods from the earth and from our own inherent creativity (like music and the visual arts). So, first of all, where did all this good come from? If we posit a supreme being that created good, then we have to ask about the converse side of things - where did evil come from?

Before we go any further, we better define evil. We could simply say that evil is the opposite of good, and then we are left with the work of defining good. Another approach would be to say that evil is that which is morally bad, but then we have to find a way to define what we mean by morally bad (I take a stab at this below). We could say that evil is that which is harmful to people or the natural world, but there are limitations to this explanation as well.

On the other hand, even if evil is difficult define, we know it when we see it. One kind of evil is called natural evil. If a hurricane, tornado or a tidal wave wipes out towns full of people, we recognize this as evil. The evil may be from nature, but it is still evil and if we believe that nature is the creation of God, then we are back to the problem of God and evil once again.

Another kind of evil is moral evil. Moral evil is the wrongdoing that human beings perpetuate against each other. Moral evil is another basis for questioning the existence of a good God. If God is good and we are created by God, as Christians, Jews, Muslims and others believe, why is there so much evil done by human beings?
Doesn't any kind of evil call into question the notion of a God, or at least, the idea that God is good?

If God is good it would seem to follow that either God would not allow evil, or that God is not powerful enough to stop evil. One answer to this dilemma is to say that what we consider evil is really good in disguise. This answer suggests that if we could see the big picture as we presume that God does, we would understand that evil really is part of a greater architecture that turns out to be good. What this answer does is ask us to suspend judgement upon evil based on our limited knowledge of all things. Many people do not find this suspension of judgement to be satisfactory, so we are pushed for another more satisfying solution.

The classical Christian explanation for evil grounds itself in free will. In this understanding, God is all-powerful and could decide to not permit evil, but to do so would violate the free will that He has given to His creatures. In order to give His creatures freedom, God has decided not to use His power to elimate the choices of evil that His creatures can make. This answer is also unsatisfactory to some, and so, we are left to say that while there are plenty of reasons to believe that God is good, for some, the problem of evil will always be a difficulty.

The biggest question of all

Is there a bigger question than whether or not there is a God? If there is, let me know and we'll look at it.

To think about whether or not there is a God, I start here:

1. If something exists,
2. something must be eternal, unless
3. something comes from nothing.

It is obvious that something exists, so the question is, did something come from nothing? I see no evidence that something ever comes from nothing, so I must posit that there is something that is eternal.

What is eternal? Not the world. Scientists tell us that the world is very old, but in most theories, there is a starting point for it. If the physical universe has a beginning, there must be something older than it (the eternal something). This something could be Aristotle's prime mover. The eternal something would appear to be the cause of everything else. I want to carefully use this next possibility because it carries some baggage that I don't want to carry myself, but this primary mover or cause appears to be an intelligent designer. The universe is a place of order rather than chaos with physical laws that govern it and can be discovered. I will suggest that the intelligent designer behind this order is who we call God.

Why is this the biggest of the big questions? Mortimer Adler, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century said, "More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question" (Great Books of the Western World, 2:561). He explained that there is either a supreme being above human beings or we are left to do as we please. God or no God is a question that affects how we live.

So, how do you answer the biggest of the big questions? Obviously, this is a short piece on a subject that fills library shelves, but I write it as a conversation starter. What do you think?

What are the big questions?

Good question, and if you have an answer to it, please respond via the comments section. Otherwise, I'll be presenting my thoughts for your reflection and comments in this space.