It is well known, and you
have seen it demonstrated by the astronomers, that beside the extent of the
heavens, the circumference of the earth has the size of a point; that is to
say, compared with the magnitude of the celestial sphere, it may be thought of
as having no extent at all.
– Boethius, The
Consolation of Philosophy, Book II, Section VII (Early 6th
Century)
The sheer size of the universe
hardly counts as new knowledge (as the quote from Boethius above
demonstrates). What is new, however, is
our ability to quantify, in some rough and general way, the size of the observable
universe in relation to the size of the earth. That is one of the great accomplishments of
modern astronomy.
Also new is the
fact that some have attempted to take the size of the universe to be evidence
against the existence of God. In
particular, Nicholas Everitt, who teaches philosophy at University of East
Anglia, presents an argument against the existence of God is his aptly named
book, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004).[1]
Generally, Everitt’s argument from scale seeks
to show that the probability of God’s existence is lowered by the evidence
drawn from the size of the universe and the fact that much of the universe is
inhospitable to life. However, there are
reasons to think that Everitt’s argument from scale does not succeed in showing
that the probability of theism is lower given such evidence.
What is the Argument?
– A Precise Formulation
In the text,
Everitt says that his argument “aims to show that the picture of the universe
with which modern science presents us constitutes evidence against the truth of
theism,” and he adds, on the next page, that “the nature of the universe
revealed by modern science gives us reason to reject traditional theism.”[2] To quote the text precisely, Everitt gives a
formal presentation of his argument:
(1) If the God of classical theism existed, with
the purposes traditionally ascribed to him, then he would create a universe on
a human scale, i.e., one that is not unimaginably large, unimaginably old, and
which human beings from an unimaginably tiny part of it, temporally and
spatially.
(2) The world does not display a human scale.
Therefore:
(3) There is evidence against the hypothesis that
the God of classical theism exists with the purposes traditionally ascribed to
him. (from 1 & 2)[3]
The argument, being a
straightforward instance of modus tollens,
is clearly deductively valid – such that if the premises are true, then we will
be constrained to accept the conclusion of the argument. It seems pretty clear, that the universe
doesn’t display a human scale (and that Everitt’s use of the term “world”
doesn’t refer to our planet, but to the universe as a whole) – so, the second
premise of the argument seems unobjectionable.
But what is one to make of the first premise? The premise isn’t exactly clear on its
own. What are the purposes “traditionally
ascribed” to God – and how are those purposes relevant to the scale of the
universe? Fortunately, for the reader,
the material he presents prior to his statement of the argument makes his
meaning relatively clear.
According to
Everitt, traditional theism – or classical theism – presents us with a
particular account of God’s purposes and properties. He writes:
Consider, first, the
account of God’s nature and purposes with which theism presents us. Theism tells us that God is a being who is omnipotent
and omniscient, wholly self-sufficient, with no needs, lacks, or deficiencies
of any kind. … God decides to create a
universe in which human beings will be the jewel. Although he will have care for the whole of
his creation, God will have an especial care for human beings. … Because humans
are the jewel of creation, the rest of the universe will be at least not
unremittingly hostile or even indifferent to human flourishing. Even if the universe will not make such
flourishing immediately and easily and painlessly accessible, it will make it
at least accessible in principle for humanity at large.[4]
He follows this with the claim
that such a description would naturally lead us to find a universe of a
particular kind. Specifically, Everitt
thinks that this should lead one to expect to find a universe created on a
human scale. By “human scale” Everitt
has the following in mind:
In particular,
traditional theism would lead you to expect human beings to appear fairly soon
after the start of the universe. For,
given the central role of humanity, what would be the point of a universe which
came into existence and then existed for unimaginable aeons without the
presence of the very species that supplied its rational? … But equally, you would not expect humans to
arrive very long after the animals,
for what would be the point of a universe existing for aeons full of animals
created for humanity’s delectation, in the absence of any humans? Further, you would expect the earth to be
fairly near the center of the universe if it had one, or at some similarly significant
location if it did not have an actual center. You would expect the total
universe to be not many orders of magnitude greater than the size of the
earth. The universe would be on a human scale. You would expect that even if there are regions
of the created world which are hostile to human life, and which are perhaps
incompatible with it, the greater part of the universe would be accessible to
human exploration.
Now that we see what Everitt
means by “human scale” and by “traditional” or “classical” theism, we can see
that the formulation that Everitt gives to his argument is incomplete. Given that by “traditional theism” or
“classical theism,” Everitt means a theism in which humans are the most
important thing in the universe (perhaps following God), we can give a complete
statement of Everitt’s argument as follows:
(4) If the God of traditional theism exists, then
God created humans to be the most important thing in the universe.
(5) If God created humans to be the most
important thing in the universe, then God would create a universe on a human
scale (that is, one that is not unimaginably large, unimaginably old, and which
human beings form an unimaginably tiny part of it, temporally and spatially).
(6) The universe does not display a human scale.
Therefore:
(7) The God of traditional theism does not exist.
(from 4, 5, and 6 by modus tollens
twice)
That this really is the argument
that Everitt intends is made plain by his use of the phrase – “the jewel of
creation” – in reference to humanity.
With an accurate statement of Everitt’s argument in hand, we have to ask
ourselves two questions. First, does traditional theism entail
that God created humans to be the most important thing in the universe? In other words, is premise (4) true? Second,
even assuming that God created humans to be the most important thing (or among
the most important things) in the universe – would it follow that the universe
need to be on a human scale? In short,
is premise (5) true? The answer to both of these question is "no" -- but in what follows we will be focusing solely on premise (4).
Does Traditional Theism Entail the Primacy of Humanity?
In discussing traditional theism, it
becomes rather clear that Everitt really has in mind something like Christian
theism or Biblical theism. For instance,
Everitt writes:
These expectations
are largely what we find in the Genesis story (or strictly, stories) of
creation. There is, then, a logic to the
picture of the universe with which the Genesis story presents us; given the initial
assumptions about God, his nature, and his intentions, the Genesis universe is
pretty much how it would be reasonable for God to proceed. Given the hypothesis of theism and no
scientific knowledge, and then asked to construct a picture of the universe and
its creation, it is not surprising that the author(s) of Genesis came up with
the account which they did.[5]
Moreover, as
we’ve already seen, Everitt seems to think that an essential element of
Christian theism is the view that humans are the most important element of
God’s creation – as he says, humans are the “jewel of creation.” However, this issue bears a little further
reflection. Nowhere in the account(s) of
creation in Genesis – whether taken in a literalistic fashion or whether
interpreted as conveying truths through symbols and images – does the text ever
say that humans are the “jewel of creation” or that humans are the most
valuable things in all of the created order.
One simply finds the text lacking in any such pronouncements. Everitt appears to be inserting claims into
the text that are not there. Given this,
there is no reason to think that premise (4) is true.
However, one might respond (to that fact
that that the text does not clearly state the claim of the superlative importance
of humanity’s place in the created order) by saying that the text suggests
strongly that humans are the most important thing in creation. After all, doesn’t the text say that humans
are created in God’s own image – and doesn’t the text say that the creation of
humanity was very good? The argument
could be stated like this:
(8)
According to Genesis, humans are created in God’s image.
(9)
According to Genesis, God calls the creation of humans very good.
(10) If, according to Genesis, humans are created
in God’s image and God calls the creation of humans very good, then humans are
the most important thing in all of creation (i.e., humans are the jewel of
creation).
(11) Therefore, according to Genesis, humans are
the most important thing in all of creation (i.e., humans are the jewel of
creation).
It is true that
the Genesis text (whether interpreted literally or not) claims that humans are
made in the image of God (see Genesis 1:27).
However, premise (9) is false.
According to Genesis, God doesn’t simply call the creation of humanity
“very good.” Rather the text states:
“And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good”
(Genesis 1:31). So, if the conclusion is
to be reached then it must be reached on the force of premises (8) and (10)
alone. But can these premises bear the
dialectical weight placed upon them? It
seems not. First, there is no reason think (based on the text alone) that
humans are the only creatures in all creation that are created in God’s image –
or that God’s creation is limited merely to what is described in the first two
chapters of Genesis. At no point in the
text is it stated that the accounts given there are exhaustive of God’s
creative activity. Second, even if humans are the only beings in all of creation with
the feature of being created in the image of God, being created in God’s image
may imply something other than primacy of place. For example, being created in God’s image may
merely imply that “human beings are not morally and spiritually neutral” rather
than implying that humans have first position in the pecking order of
importance.[6] In fact, the Apostle Paul, who certainly had
some familiarity with these passages from Genesis, instructively points out
that it is not only humans that are being reconciled to God by the work of
Jesus. Rather, Paul writes God has
reconciled all things in heaven and earth to himself through the blood of
Jesus’ cross (Colossians 1:28).[7] In short, it is consistent to maintain both
that humans are created in the image of God and that humans are not the most
important element of God’s creation (regardless of whether or not humans are created in the image of God). In other words,
it is consistent with traditional theism to say both that humans are created in
the image of God and that humans are not the most important thing in the material
universe. So, given the traditional
Christian view, does an appeal to the Christian scriptures support the claim
that humans are the most important element of God’s creation?. Given what’s been said, the answer to this is
question rather clearly appears to be “no.”
Even if (unknown to us) it happens to be true that humans are the most
important objects of creation, the texts appealed to by Everitt simply do not
give us any reason for claiming such a thing to be true or essential to
traditional Christian theism. The
upshot, then, is that Everitt has engaged in a rather cagey use of the straw man fallacy (that is, giving an
implausible account of something when there are more plausible accounts of that
position available).
While what has been pointed out thus far is alone sufficient to completely
bulldoze Everitt’s argument, there's more that can be said against the argument. Specifically, there are good reasons to reject premise (5) of his argument -- so that even if humans were the most important thing in all of creation, it still wouldn't follow that we should expect the universe to be created on a human scale. But that is a discussion for another time (namely, Part 2 of this post).
[1] Nicholas
Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004).
[2] Nicholas
Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004), pages 213
and 214.
[3] Nicholas
Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004), page 225.
[4] Nicholas
Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004), page 215.
[5] Nicholas
Everitt, The Non-Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004), page
216.
[6] Robert P. Vande
Kappell and John D. Currid, “The Old Testament: The Covenant Between God and
Man,” in Building a Christian Worldview,
edited by W. Andrew Hoffecker (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Company, 1986), page 18.
[7] Colossians 1:28
– “And [God], having made peace through the blood of his [i.e., Jesus’] cross,
by him [i.e., Jesus] to reconcile all things unto himself; by him [i.e., Jesus],
I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (KJV).
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