The
options for the origins of existence, as Dr. Francis
Schaeffer used to say, are strictly limited. Here they are:
1.
Everything that exists has come from absolutely nothing
To clarify
this Schaeffer used to refer to absolutely nothing as nothing
nothing.
i.e. no energy, no mass, no motion, no personality. 
Schaeffer
used to explain this by saying, imagine a new blackboard. Draw
a circle on it in chalk – this represents everything that was,
but there was nothing in the circle. Now completely remove the
circle – that is nothing nothing!
However,
you CANNOT argue for this as a start, because with our human
mind it is impossible to conceive either nothing nothing,
or something coming from this.
Theoretically
this is a possibility but one beyond our comprehension.
Thus
it is NOT possible to uphold this meaningfully.
2.
Everything that now exists had an impersonal beginning
a)
What this means
This
'impersonality' may be energy, mass, or motion, but they
are impersonal.
Energy
is just as impersonal as mass or motion; there is no difference.
Whatever
follows, it means that anything that we now know of as existence,
any particulars that make up this existence – gas, water, solids,
whatever – are impersonal.
Now
we need to be clear about this:
If
we say something is non-personal it means "without a person,
without a being, without a personality."
Now
the difficulty in thinking here is that we all believe we
understand this concept because we are a person with personality,
we believe, and we interact with other people who have personalities.
b)
The problem with this - in us
We
think we understand the concept of personality.
But
personality has to do with ‘being' that is more than just
a bunch of chemicals with electrical charges responding to
each other in a certain way. A tree is not a person and does
not have personality, though it clearly grows and changes.
We
human beings live as beings with the sure belief
that we are more than merely electrically charged molecules.
Psychologists
tell us that a key requirement for a human being to carry on
living, is to have a sense of meaning and purpose
in life.
So
we human beings talk about concepts such as ‘meaning',
'purpose', ‘beauty' and
‘love'
BUT
for a mass of electrically charged molecules these are meaningless
words, unless they be used in a magical way to uphold our
needs by pretence.
c)
The problem with this - in life
Now
to come back to the impersonal beginning:
If
the beginning lacks any 'personality' involvement, then everything
that follows, all of existence, also lacks 'personality'.
Remember,
even the starting 'energy' is
impersonal, so NOTHING that follows can be personal
and nothing has any 'meaning'. Everything HAS to
be random chance.
If
you believe in this start, then life appears very bleak.
There
can be no ‘purpose' in life, for it is merely pure chance
plus time.
d)
Ducking the Issue
Richard
Dawkins in the preface of his book, Unweaving the
Rainbow, quotes the writing of a friend of his:
“My
colleague Peter Atkins begins his book The Second Law (1984)
in this vein:
We
are children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is
decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable
tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction.
This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply
and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe.”
But
now look at how Dawkins follows that:
“But
such very proper purging of saccharine false purpose, such
laudable tough-mindedness in the debunking of cosmic sentimentality
must not be confused with the loss of personal hope.”
In
other words both he and his colleague are aware of the consequences
of starting from this impersonal beginning, they are aware of
the nihilistic pessimism that is the logical
outcome of this beginning.
But
following that we find Dawkins appealing, and indeed writing
the book to counter that awful pessimism, to the feelings of
wonder that he has when he looks at the world that science reveals.
What
he is incapable of seeing, is that even those feelings of wonder
that he has, actually have no 'meaning' and are part of the
meaningless pessimism that this thinking leads to.
He
makes a massive leap out of the pit of despair up onto the sure
ground of thankfulness and wonder, yet refusing to see that
there is One to thank for the wonder.
It
would appear that his earlier life experiences (for what else
is there?) have blinded him to the possibilities that are infinitely
more real than the boggy ground of pessimism from which he wishes
to escape.
Later
in that same book he says:
“It
is the central tenet of this book that science, at its best,
should leave room for poetry.”
Do
you see what he's done? He's made a leap of blind faith because
poetry, for a bunch of molecules, has no meaning or feeling
beyond that which the electrical impulses give it.
You
can't deny sentimentality one moment and then turn round and
use it – it's meaningless in your world, accept it!
3.
Everything that exists began with a personal beginning
Again
there can be no mistakes here!
This
means that behind everything was a Being with Personality –
it is your only other alternative!
This
means that everything that is, reflects that personality.
A
personality has order (or they are insane!), and this
world has order.
A personality communicates,
and this world is all about communication.
A
personality conveys personality, and human beings have
personality as they reflect the image of the original
– this is the only reason that personality in us is
real and more than just electrical impulses (for considerations
about that see the previous page)
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