His Simple & Majestic Universe
By Nito Gnoci nitognoci@yahoo.com
What does the universe tell us about its Creator? The universe is beautiful (hillsides are often dew-pearled, skies tend to be an ethereal blue, etc.) which leads us to think that God values beauty, but specifically what does the universe say about God’s aesthetic priorities? I suggest that God esteems simplicity and majesty, austerity and grandeur – the beauty we see in mountain peaks and the Taj Mahal. God is less than enthusiastic about the cramped and cluttered. God appreciates that which is both beautiful and sublime (all due respect to Edmund Burke).
Mount Kilimanjaro
I Teilhard de Chardin
The towering Jesuit thinker Teilhard de Chardin wrote of transcending energy: “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” De Chardin envisioned the development of the noosphere – a planetary mind which grows in awareness, in organization, in complexity, in unity until we reach the Omega Point – the point where the universe meets God. De Chardin saw the whole of evolution as a continuous process, an ascension towards greater complexity and consciousness.
What does modern biology have to say about de Chardin’s claims? Does modern science buttress de Chardin or does it undermine him? Here’s biologist Stephen Jay Gould: We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction. Here's biochemist Nick Lane: "No, the secret of complex life lies in the chimeric nature of the eukaryotic cell - a hopeful monster, born in an improbable merger 2000 million years ago".
Consider:
· Over 100 million years of stasis: Evolution of the army ant syndrome: The origin and long-term evolutionary stasis of a complex of behavioral and reproductive adaptations
· Darwin noted that parasites regress. They are also very successful: Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries
Cyanobacteria
So perhaps de Chardin was mistaken, at least regarding complexity. Disagreeing with de Chardin should not set us on the path to atheism. Some apologists for atheism insist that God could only build a universe that leads inevitably to complex life, but maybe God, like many great artists, values simplicity.
I should mention that some biologists like Simon Conway Morris see complex intelligent life as inevitable. However, Morris has also described various scenarios wherein life arises but never progresses to complex life (see chapter 5 of his Life’s Solutions Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe).
Also consider:
· An unlikely event such as a 'snowball Earth' may have been necessary to produce complex life: We hypothesize that a demographic and ecological effect of Neoproterozoic ‘snowball Earth’ glaciations was to increase the fitness of group-level traits and consequently the likelihood of the evolution of macroscopic form.
II A Vast Universe
In an attempt to refute the fine-tuning argument, some atheists have pointed out that most of the universe is uninhabitable. They have claimed that a universe designed by God must be crammed with life at any given point in time, but couldn’t God have created great empty spaces because they were beautiful or awe-inspiring or because they provided a challenge for some of His more adventurous life forms? Or perhaps, given God’s appreciation of simple unicellular life, the universe must be big so intelligent life has time to evolve.
…the very name ‘Space’ seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it ‘dead’; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and all their life had come?
– Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
III The Problem of Evil
A Divine appreciation for simplicity can help address the problem of evil.
The most challenging argument against theism is based on the existence of evil. Much evil is caused by sinful humans. God gives us freedom, which is good, but some of us misuse our freedom and do evil. Thus God is not to blame. But what of natural evil – like earthquakes, floods, spiders eating moths and lions eating zebras? This can be explained by blaming Satan.
God also gave Satan, and angels in general, freedom. Satan and the other fallen angels misuse their freedom and do evil. Again God is not to blame. Far from being responsible, God gave His Son to die a cruel death, allying Himself with those who suffer.
What would the world look like if Satan did not exist? God made a universe fine-tuned to produce life, but this life can take many forms. Without Satan maybe there would be no livings things that could suffer – and hence no natural evil. Absent any of the complex animals that feel pain, the world would be a sort of paradise: pre-Raphaelite, prehistoric, prelapsarian, earlier still a Precambrian paradise. Cyanobacteria and archaebacteria would glide and drift in the currents, the whole vast ocean innocent of suffering.
Perhaps God arranges for life on other planets to remain on the single cell level. An atmosphere with a generous portion of oxygen is associated with complex life. Maybe such an atmosphere is unlikely. Life may usually stay on a prokaryotic level. Only with Satan’s intervention does evolution go awry.
Stromatolites
God has created all living creatures. Animals and plants (and fungi too) are wonderful! Humans are created by God in His own image. Suffering helps us to achieve redemption.
IV Math
Scientists employ simple elegant beautiful equations to describe reality. How is that possible? Why can reality be so described?
V An Objection
We cannot say the universe is beautiful because human judgments regarding beauty are not absolute. We think Botticelli’s Venus is lovely, but a warthog would disagree. Therefore our notions about beauty are species-specific.
However, not all our judgments are suspect. Any intelligent life-form can appreciate, for example, the mathematical beauty of a nautilus shell or the fractals of a branching tree. Aristotle, among other philosophers, contended that beauty is objective.
Underlying simplicity
VI Another Objection
Should we give Evil credit for Good? For example, should we give Evil credit for the coming of Christ or the rise of complex organisms? Duns Scotus would object.
God brings forth good out of evil. Catastrophes can produce heroism.
The Exsultet speaks of the "truly necessary sin of Adam".
VII Conclusion
God likes:
· The timeless, the classic rather than the gaudy, shocking for the sake of shocking, Grand Guignol sensationalism, the frantic pursuit of novelty born of insecurity (The Solar System is, for example, fairly stable)
· Truth and Harmony together with Beauty
· Basic black
· Radiant gems of simplicity set in a spacious black background
He is the ultimate fashion designer to the stars. If celestial bodies clothed by the Heavenly designer took a spin on the catwalk wouldn’t they be better received than the creations of Oscar de la Renta or Coco Chanel? Even the most fanatical atheist activist guy on the internet should acknowledge that God has very good taste in universes.
Should the rest of Creation joyfully genuflect to complex, big-brained organisms like ourselves? Will said organisms speed amongst the stars at such velocity that hundreds of light-years seem like nothing? Maybe not. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5
God is the source of all beauty. He loves us so much he provides us with a splendid home: l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. – Paradiso by Dante