Scalar arguments

This is a sequel to my previous post on the same general subject:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/01/was-god-cooling-his-heels.html

Now I’m going to evaluate Nicholas Everitt’s argument.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, God decides to create a universe in which human beings will be the jewel. Although he will have a care for the whole of his creation, God will have an especial care for human beings. The Non-existence of God (Routledge 2005), 215.

I don’t see that traditional theism requires man to be the “jewel” of the universe. At most, man would be the apex of life on earth. That doesn’t make us the apex of creation in general. In some ways, angels are superior to man. For all we know, there are other intelligent life forms in the far-flung universe. And maybe our universe is part of a multiverse.

I’d add that I don’t feel the need to be the “jewel” of the universe. I’m perfectly content to be human, wherever that puts me in the cosmic pecking order. Because God made me human, I find fulfillment in my God-given humanity. I like being human. And I’’ll like it even better in the new Eden.

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 in general (215).

i) He’s piggybacking on a false premise–man as the jewel of the universe.

ii) But even if we grant the premise, I don’t see how the conclusion follows. Being the kind of creatures we are, we are adapted to a particular ecological niche. Even on earth, we’re not adapted to survive and flourish in a marine environment. We’d be a different kind of creature in that event. If the crater of an active volcano is inhospitable to human flourishing, does that undermine God’s existence?

Due to technology, we’ve been able to expand our habitat. But that’s by creating an artificial environment (e.g. climate-controlled buildings) within the natural environment.

But among the more likely scenarios is a universe somewhat like the one presented to us in the story of Genesis. 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 rationale?…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? (215).

Several issues:

i) Why assume that man would have a central role in the cosmos, rather than a central role on earth? Why assume that man supplies the rationale for the existence of the universe? That’s very reductionistic.

Why assume that animals must exist for the exclusive benefit of man? Everitt is caricaturing traditional theism. Overstating the opposing position.

ii) There are Christians who do think man appeared shortly after the origin of the world and lower life forms.  They subscribe to fiat creationism or young-earth creationism. Everitt could try to challenge their position, but given their position, his objection has no traction with them.

iii) What about theistic evolution? Proponents have a principled reason for thinking man appeared late in the process. For they think God employed a natural process to evolve man. A bottom-up process from simple to complex. Everitt could try to challenge their position, but given their position, the late appearance of man is a logical implication of their position.

iv) What about progressive creationism or old-earth creationism? They think man appears late in the process because God made things in stages, where earlier stages supply the preconditions for later stages. For instance, you must have gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, thermodynamics, &c., before you can have solar systems with habitable planets. You must have plants before animals, because plants filter out carbon dioxide, thereby creating a breathable atmosphere for animals that require oxygen. Everitt might try to challenge their position, but given their position, the late appearance of man is logical.

Further, you would expect the earth to be fairly near the centre of the universe if it had one, or at some similarly significant location if it did not have an actual centre (215).

Why would we expect that? He doesn’t say.

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 (215)?

Once again, why would we expect that? Are mountains on a human scale? Is the ocean on a human scale? Is the Grand Canyon 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 perhaps are incompatible with it, the greater part of the universe would be accessible to human exploration. If this were not so, what would be the point of God creating it? (215-16).

i) We may not be the only creatures in the universe.

ii) Even if we were, a big universe may be necessary for the possibility of life anywhere at all.

iii) The scale of the universe is a picturesque metaphor for God’s greatness, in contrast to our creaturely finitude.

So for something more than 99.999 percent of the history of the universe, the very creatures which are meant to be the jewel of creation have been absent from it. The question that at once arises is “What, given the hypothesis of theism, was the point of this huge discrepancy between the age of the universe and the age of humanity?” (216-17).

i) Of course, there are Christians who reject his timescales.

ii) However, let’s play along with his timescales. Does the discrepancy between the age of a redwood tree and a teenager cast doubt on traditional theism? How so? Does the discrepancy between the age of the Rocky Mountains and a teenager cast doubt on traditional theism? How so?

iii) From an eschatological standpoint, although the universe got a head start, the percentages will steadily narrow as glorified men and women continue to live on indefinitely.

Why does he need a sun that is 93 million miles from earth? Why wouldn’t 93 thousand miles have been enough? Of course the laws of physics would then have had to be different if the sun were to make earth habitable–but as an omnipotent being, God could easily have adjusted the laws of physics (217).

That’s confused. If you talking about physical laws, then, by definition, you’re limiting divine action to what God can do by natural means. That automatically imposes a constraint on divine omnipotence. An omnipotent God can do many things apart from natural means. He’s not limited to physical processes to produce a physical effect. If, however, you’re framing the counterfactual in terms of physical laws, then God lacks unrestricted access to his omnipotence. Your hypothetical confines God to whatever is naturally possible, not whatever is omnipotently possible. And natural means have inherent limitations.

If, moreover, you’re conjecturing a universe that operates according to a different set of physical laws, then that’s mutually limiting, for every law of physics must be compatible with every other law of physics. For the entire universe to consistently function at that level, for God to operate through physical laws alone, imposes many boundary conditions on what’s naturally compossible.

An omnipotent God can miraculously sustain life on earth if the sun is 93,000 miles a way. That, however, would be in spite of the sun’s proximity, not because of the sun’s proximity. Under that scenario, God wouldn’t be using the sun as a secondary cause to support life on earth. Rather, God would need to miraculously shield the earth from the sun.

Would it even be the “sun” as we understand it? Or would it have to be something very different than the sun? Clearly the sun, as presently constituted, can’t serve the same natural function in supporting life on earth if it were 93,000 miles away.

The Genesis story presents God’s actions as apt in relation to the non-human creatures who share the planet with humans: they all emerge at about the same time; and all the creatures which surround humanity in the story share a human scale–none are so tiny that it is impossible to detect them by the senses, and none are so huge (e.g. thousands or millions of times larger than humans) as to be unrecognizable as organisms at all. But again, modern science reveals this to be deeply wrong–not just in points of detail, but in almost every major respect. Life has existed on the planet for something like 3 to 3.5 billion years (217-18).

i) The fact that Genesis is silent on the existence of microscopic organisms doesn’t contradict the existence of microscopic organisms. Since microscope organisms were invisible to the original audience, what would be the point of mentioning them?

ii) What does he mean by organisms thousands or millions of times larger than humans? Is he alluding to dinosaurs? If so, the silence of Genesis on the existence of dinosaurs doesn’t imply the nonexistence of dinosaurs. Gen 1 isn’t attempting to present anything like an exhaustive taxonomy of life on earth. Rather, it discuses the origin of natural kinds.

Why would the narrator bother referring to animals which were extinct at the time of writing? That wouldn’t be meaningful to the target audience.

Is he alluding to whales? If so, that would be included in Gen 1:21.

iii) Suppose God really did make the world in the way Gen 1 describes–literally interpreted? Suppose God made a beach in one day. Less than a day.

Could you tell how old the beach really is? Even humans create artificial beaches.

Has Everitt ever bothered to read the best exponents of fiat creationism, viz. John Byl, Marcus Ross, Jonathan Sarfati, Andrew Snelling, Kurt Wise, Todd Wood?

iv) Of course, you also have progressive creationists who don’t interpret Gen 1 that way. They favor the framework hypothesis, analogical day interpretation, cosmic temple interpretation, &c.

They accept Everitt’s timescales. They accept the basic sequence of events posited by mainstream science. But they also think God kick-started the process at key junctures.

v) Perhaps Everitt would say that’s ad hoc.  However:

a) Progressive creationists would say that’s no more ad hoc than the alternation between miracles and ordinary providence in Scripture.

b) They’d say they believe in divine intervention on scientific grounds as well as theological grounds. They don’t think a stepwise process can jump the gaps. They don’t think unguided evolution can coordinate certain interdependent systems. Only divine intervention can bridge the gaps and provide necessary direction. They think the scientific evidence reveals discontinuities as well as continuities in the natural record. Novelties as well as emergent characteristics.

c) They think naturalistic evolution is ad hoc. Darwinians posit stopgap expedients to salvage their theory, viz., reversion, convergence, divergence, exaptation, ancestral homologies, derived homologies, coevolution, and parallel evolution.

In terms of their numbers, their longevity, their ability to exploit the widest variety of habitats, their degree of genetic variation, and even (amazingly, given how tiny they are individually) their total biomass, [bacteria] outstrip every other kind of life (218).

 

Yes, but there are tradeoffs for that adaptability. A vastly lower quality of life.