Philosophical Suggestions Regarding the Origins of the Universe

Philosophy and Origins

Jim Berge

I hope most Christians agree that we ought to use our brains and trust our senses, but I see a curious phenomenon when origins of the universe is the topic. Suddenly, many Christians compartmentalize this particular corner of science and refuse to apply knowledge. They insist that somehow if given the choice between believing our senses and believing the words printed in the bible, we must choose the bible. How is it that we are allowed to pick and choose which aspects of life we will apply knowledge to and which we won't.

Does Knowledge Exist?

Is there such a thing as knowledge or isn't there? If the answer is yes, then we as Christians must be willing to accept the consequences by using our brains in the manner God intended. If we deny objective knowledge, then we must deny all that our senses and therefore science has to offer us, since science is nothing more than interpreting by means of our senses of the universe we inhabit.
The whole contest between modern scientific thought and young-earth creationism is based on a disagreement about what the bible says to be true, what the observed facts about the universe mean, and what our interpretations and responses ought to look like. While it is certainly noble and intellectually healthy to pursue such bodies of knowledge, I would like to point out that the whole debate is actually built on an entirely fictitious foundation. Asking which opinion about the origins of the universe is true - biblical literalism or modern scientific theory - implies that one of the opinions must be wrong. This is a completely faulty assumption which has permeated the debate and has become the bedrock on which the debate is founded. If there is to be any real advancement in knowledge, we must destroy the faulty assumptions upon which the debate has been founded. Rather than searching for pure knowledge, each camp expends all its energy defending its pre-canned assumptions.
If we truly love the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge, if we believe that God gave us rational minds possessing the capacities of intelligence and reasoning, if we are interested at all in truth for its own sake because truth allows us to grasp at a fragment of God's perfection, then we will put aside all our pre-conceived notions and pursue facts with an empty slate. This article attempts to wipe the slate clean, beginning with the assumption that this is not a contest between the two aforementioned views, but that biblical literalism and modern science can be in full agreement.

A Philosophical Approach

Let us take a philosophical approach to creationism. I have seen and heard literally nothing that addresses the topic of creationism from a philosophical approach, which disappoints me, since the word “philosophy” is taken from the root words “love” (sophia) and “wisdom” (phil). The love of wisdom and its pursuit are valuable, since God purposely gave us brains that can speculate, reason, and discover facts. To pursue knowledge about the origins of the universe is one of the most extraordinary events one can participate in because it shouts volumes about the God who created us.
My mind began the philosophical challenge of origins upon reading a book by Simon Blackburn entitled Think. On page 46 he begins a discussion of skepticism, and he just happens to use the controversy concerning the age of the universe as an example. He states that:

“Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) considered the example of time [as an illustration of skepticism]. How do I know that the world did not come into existence a very few moments ago, but complete with delusive traces of a much greater age? Those traces would include, of course, the modifications of the brain that give us what we take to be memories. They would also include all the other things that we interpret as signs of great age.”

This argument represents a common tactic in philosophy to take assumptions to the extreme to discover why certain things are or are not true. An example of this tactic is Descartes's Evil Demon, whose job it is to deceive him about absolutely everything. In such a case, he argued, how can one ever discover the real truth? This is skepticism - an assumption which states that we have no knowledge and we are simply deluded about everything. We may dismiss such arguments as silly or useless, but they challenge us to determine why we believe what we believe.
After these philosophical meanderings have run their course, we must eventually admit that what our senses tell us is true. If we deny even this fundamental truth, then our very denial is also meaningless. So we will reject Russell's vision of a universe which came into being a few minutes ago, complete with the illusions of age and millions of memories planted in the minds of people. We call it a silly idea, choosing rather to believe our senses. So why do many Christians still reject what their senses tell them about the age of the universe?
If we trust the inputs coming from our five senses, we must trust them always - or at least most of the time. In addition, when many thousands of people receive similar sensory input and most of them come to the same conclusions about that input, then it may be quite safe to assume that the conclusions are at least close to the truth. Of course there are exceptions, for example when a majority of teenagers believe that a particular grungy rock band actually has talent.

Fact vs. Opinion

Before going further, we must pause to make an important distinction between facts and opinions (or preferences). In the case of the grungy rock band, we have several dynamics at work, which we might speculate about. I may argue that the music stinks, but I will be accused of simply fostering an opinion. This brings up the question of whether there is an objective standard for good and bad music. Is beauty really only in the eye of the beholder? Perhaps we should demand that good music is that which requires talent to create and perform. If I were to try the gesticulations and stage presence that the members of the band possess, and tried to play the blistering guitar riffs they effortlessly spew forth, I will surely be outclassed. By this standard, they truly are talented. Perhaps I hear them perform in a venue with very poor acoustics, which would deceive me about their true sound and the quality of their performance. Or perhaps their live music is horrible, but when recorded the music is actually very good.
     Now we are getting a picture of facts versus opinions. The genre of music may be offensive to me, but if it requires some special talent, achieved by years of practice, then we may agree that the band has talent. We are addressing objective talent on the one hand, and subjective preference on the other. At the same time, we have issues which cloud the actual discussion at hand, such as acoustics or the talent of those working in the recording studio, issues which may not have any bearing on the actual matter being discussed. These peripheral inputs which contribute nothing to the discussion are called “noise.” To gain any type of closure between the two origins camps requires that we (1) eliminate the noise, (2) distinguish fact from opinion, and (3) eliminate pre-conceived ideas and agendas.
     To eliminate noise, we must be completely honest and forthcoming about every discovery and every fact and what they tell us about the universe, and also about every anomaly which may contradict the current body of knowledge, recognizing that further discovery is bound to shed more light. We must end the practice of rejecting certain inputs solely on the basis of how well they fit into our pre-conceived notions of how things ought to be, and must simultaneously learn to recognize inputs which originate from those notions and how to eliminate them from the data.
     To distinguish fact from opinion, we must be consistent in the methods we use for scientific discovery, and apply them in every aspect of science, even when our current paradigm is challenged by those facts. Jesus Christ himself emphasized the dangers of spiritual tradition, and the same applies to scientific traditions which impact our Christian world views.
     To eliminate pre-conceived ideas and agendas, we must take the time and expend the effort to examine every idea, every discovery, every opinion, every hypothesis thoroughly and without bias. This is far easier said than done. Many scientists on both sides of this issue will reject an idea or opinion immediately because it doesn't fit into his or her mold, or it hints of another theory that is repulsive to his or her world view. By accepting all inputs, especially those which on the surface appear to challenge our personal beliefs, is very healthy and can reduce the effects our pre-conceived conclusions have on discovering truth.

Application

Let us apply this thinking to the origins debate.
If we reject Russell's possibility that the world was just created a moment ago, complete with memories and a history, then we are forced to accept what our senses tell us about the universe in which we live. This eliminates the noise. If we deny the evidence from space and earth of an ancient universe, we then open ourselves to criticism from our opponents alleging that we pick and choose which truths we want to believe. If we trust science to tell us how much a sack of potatoes weighs, or to assure us that the airplane I am sitting in can actually get off the ground, or that when I flip the light switch on the lightbulb will actually glow, then we must trust certain other inputs from science, such as the approximate distance to other stars and galaxies, or the amount of time it took their light to reach earth. This separates fact from opinion.
If we do not accept the information gleaned from our senses, then we have become inconsistent and random as we choose which inputs we trust to our sense and which we don't. If we begin to question the validity of scientific discovery and advancement, then we must also question other vital notions about the age of certain biblical artifacts, the authenticity of historical documents, or even our ability to trust that the reports we see on television about starving children in third world countries are true. By trusting the senses God gave us, we can discover so much more about him. This is putting away pre-conceived ideas and trusting the inputs, no matter where they lead.

The Bible as a Science Textbook?

Young-earth creationists are quick to point out that regardless of what our senses tell us might be true, the bible ought to be our ultimate authority. They see any attempt at re-thinking traditional biblical interpretations as heresy. While it is obvious that the bible must be taken at face value as the inspired word of God, we must be careful to remember that God never intended the bible to be a science textbook. If he had, it would contain such valuable information as the speed of light, the formula for a circle, and the chemical composition of aspirin. One may argue that it's silly to expect that kind of information from the bible, but this is no different than the information needed to estimate the age of the universe.
God gave us scientific minds, and knew that we would use these minds to discover facts about his awesome creation. In discovering incredible truths about the universe which surrounds us, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the Creator is an awesome God, with an intellect beyond description, a creative talent beyond imagining, and love without end. We must use our minds, and trust what our senses discover about God's universe. The bible clearly states that God is responsible for creating and holding together the universe and everything in it. This is all we really need to know about God. Anything else simply addresses the “how” and is much less important. These thing are simply a bonus, the icing on the cake.
The consequence of ignoring our senses leads to Blackburn's opinion about young-earth creationists:

“Victorian thinkers struggling to reconcile the biblical account of the history of the world with the fossil record had already suggested much the same thing about geology. On this account, around 4,000 years ago, God laid down all the misleading evidence that the earth is about 4,000 million years old (and, we can now add, misleading signs that the universe is about 13,000 million years old). This was never a popular move, probably because if you are sceptical about time, you quickly become sceptical about everything, or maybe because it presents God as something like a large-scale practical joker.”

This, unfortunately, is the predicament many scientists find themselves in today. Abundant evidence exists to suggest that there are stars and galaxies in this universe that are hundreds of millions - even billions - of years old. They cannot reconcile this with the insistence by many Christians that the universe is a few thousand years old, and that all the apparent evidence of age has been deceptively put in place by God. This would lead them to the conclusion that either God is not the kind of God deserving of affection and submission, or that God simply doesn't exist.
I want to encourage all Christians to look at the evidence. Approach the topic of origins just as you would the topic of chemistry or physics. No one questions what will happen when you shine white light through a prism which possesses certain calculable characteristics, or what will happen when a car runs into a brick wall at 60 mph, because science has taught us fundamental truths about these circumstances. So let's not be so ready to condemn scientific discoveries that challenge our traditional Christian beliefs. Perhaps our beliefs or interpretation or traditions were not so accurate to begin with, and are in need of updating. Perhaps, even, the very biblical translations we use are not as accurate or as timely as we thought!
Imagine the advances science would make if every discovery in every field of science were scrutinized with the goal of learning how exactly God accomplished that particular miracle of creation. Leaving all our intellectual and spiritual baggage behind, we could look at something like red shift coming from distant galaxies, or the speed of light, or the characteristics of certain types of stars and other heavenly bodies and make decisions based on an ever-growing body of scientific knowledge, constantly being refined and corrected to give us a clearer and clearer picture as time passes of God's creative ability.

The Philosophical Conclusion

We cannot pick and choose our truths. If we decide we will trust science for certain aspects of our existence and not for others, we suffer a philosophical trainwreck. Nothing, then, holds true and we are left in the lap of Descartes's Evil Demon, being deceived about everything, not knowing what is true, randomly selecting those things to believe which conveniently fit our views of the way things ought to be, but not able to prove to anyone the validity of why we chose what we did.
I believe that the universe is very old, but I don't condemn young-earth creationists for believing the way they do. I believe that most of them have a sincere faith in Christ, which is in the end the only important thing. I only hope we all will learn to rely on the results of honest intellectual and scientific pursuit, rejecting tradition and clinging to truth, without fear that our discoveries may short-circuit God's will or derail his plan for mankind. God's wisdom is much greater than that, as is his power to reveal and preserve truth.
Men like Hugh Ross, who believes in an ancient universe, and Henry Morris, who believes that the entire universe is a few thousand years old, both love Christ dearly and do more good in the kingdom of God than a lump of a Christian who goes to church like a saint on Sunday and lives like hell the rest of the week. Our lives ought to show forth the love of Christ first and foremost, evidenced in every aspect of our existence, including how we use our brains and reasoning powers to learn about God's magnificent creation. If we live like this, then how does our opinion about the age of the universe matter at all?

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