The Indifferent Universe

I'm a bit of a naturalist at heart. As I've said earlier in this blog, I'm convinced there's a god (and it's God) mainly because of historical evidence. But naturalism is kind of cool, and in the absence of satisfactory evidence for God, I'd probably be one. Here's a nice quote by Terry Goodkind

To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us.

I prefer Camus. In The Stranger (or The Outsider), when Mersault is about to be executed, he gets mad (for the first time in the book), and then stops, and says

As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

I can identify with this guy a lot. I remember Ally and I having a big argument (discussion?) with someone (my dad? I'm think it was Dad, but I don't want to mis-represent him, so I'm unwilling to commit) about this idea of intrinsic morality. We argued that for someone who is not a Christian (not anything - a naturalist), there is no such thing as intrinsic morality. There's no reason why murder is wrong and generosity is right. And what makes something good or bad is how well it works out for you. In our society, it works well for you to be nice to people, because they'll be nice back, and you can have companionship. And it works well to not kill people, because a bunch of us agree that we ourselves don't want to be killed, so we have mutually agreed to lock killers in rooms for years at a time. And so on. 


This is a common argument, and Atheists don't tend to like it. They think it's barbaric to argue that there is no such thing as morality if there's no God, and that it's good that Christians are Christians because they'd be doing terrible things if they weren't. (True)


I suppose I like Camus because he engages with this. I understand that he did think there was meaning (He says so in Letters to a friend? Something like that). But his understanding of The Absurd is spot-on.


Schaeffer talks about similar things as arguments for God. In, I think, the second? in his trilogy... God.. something. The End of Reason! He presents philosophical arguments for the existence of the personal, triune God. The two that I found quite compelling were these: 


The existence of personality, implies a personal god. We can't have personality unless whatever started the world off also has personality. He says that if one lake fills another lake (seriously, he uses lakes) then the filled lake cannot have a higher water-level than the filling lake. That's pretty obvious. You can't get something from nothing.


Personality may be fake though, right? It's not fool-proof. It may be a consequence of our complexity, the simulation of personality. But anyway, I like it none-the-less. 


The other argument I found quite compelling was the dignity, yet inability of humankind. This basically says that we know what's right, but we're unable to live up to our own standards. And this is an argument for sin, and the worldview that explains sin the best is the Christian worldview. I really like this one. As far as I know it is true, that the Christian worldview is the best explanation for our inability that there is. It's one of the reasons why non-Calvinism annoys me.


When faced with the apparent absurdity of the universe, but unable to accept it, it's a shame that Camus didn't infer the necessity for God. Necessary not because it provides relief, but because it explains our understanding that there is meaning in life (or personality), and that this concept can't spring from a meaningless beginning.


Secondly, when faced with the latter, Camus said 

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

It is a shame that Camus didn't find the Christian worldview to be the best explanation of this universal fact. In fact, I'd be surprised if he was ever presented with it. It's nowhere near as common as I'd like.


Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature. I just learnt that off Wikipedia. It's a shame that someone so brilliant, was so blind.