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Kurt Baier : The Meaning of Life. How does the rise of science affect religious belief? How does it affect the meaning of life?. The medieval worldview. Tolstoy was afraid that life was meaningless. Baier comments that no one in the Middle Ages had such thoughts.
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Kurt Baier: The Meaning of Life How does the rise of science affect religious belief? How does it affect the meaning of life?
The medieval worldview • Tolstoy was afraid that life was meaningless. • Baier comments that no one in the Middle Ages had such thoughts. • In the Medieval period: “The universe was made for the express purpose of providing a stage on which to enact a drama starring Man in the title role….created by God in 4004 BC…” Humans were made “in the likeness of God…The universe revolved around the earth, there was a paradise after death…Christ was sacrificed to make this heaven accessible to the sinner. • The reason for human beings and the purpose of an individual life was perfectly clear. • [But he is wrong to suppose that people never had doubt.]
Science alters the picture How much does science threaten faith? On the one hand, you have a huge number of believers in this day of science. Baier says it is a threat because we found (through Copernicus) that humans are not at the literal center of the universe. We found that our earth is just one of millions. We found that the universe is billions of years old. (13.7 billion years old/Earth is 4.5 billion years old.) Science: We are just one accidental result of a bunch of undirected random causal processes.
God as playwright • According to Baier, the religious wordview was the best explanation of things. It gave people a reason to be cheery about their lot in life, to worship God, to be grateful or in awe of anything and everything. God writes the play, we are the characters. • We needed this explanation. We don’t need it anymore. • Science: EVERYTHING is explained through natural processes. There is nothing that is supernatural. The universe is without purpose and devoid of meaning.
Explanation: How in conflict are science and religion • This is still hotly debated. • For a certain religious outlook, there is an obvious conflict because the holy books, read literally, would be false. But for the religious outlook itself, it is not so clear. It does not require a literal interpretation of whatever the holy books say. • Baier says “when we look at the world in this scientific way…there seems to be no room for a personal relationship between human beings and supernatural perfect being…” (84) But people continue to believe in both science and religion---so the question is: Are they fundamentally incompatible?
Are science and religion compliments? • One way to reconcile the 2 that B considers is: Science explains much of the universe, but not all of it. Science can tell us how things are but not why they are. • Newton’s laws tell us how the planets move but not why the planets move as they do. • Socrates in the Phaedo says that there are two ways to explain: A necessary condition and a real, ‘final’ cause. [The teleological view.] • Baier: There are not two explanations of everything. Both explanations are sufficient. We don’t need a big ‘why.’ E.g., if we found a bunch of empty houses, etc. the cause would be that people lived there. We don’t need a big ‘why’ to know why the houses were there.
Sometimes there is no ‘why’ • Science might often tell us only ‘how.’ But sometimes a ‘why’ is not necessary. Some things might not have a purpose. But that doesn’t mean we need more explanation. • The objection that will be made by the theist, according to Baier, will be: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is the world the way it is? Etc. • Can science answer these questions?
Model v. unvexing explanations • Let’s say science is our model. Is there some reason we have to get ‘outside of science’ to understand the ultimate questions we have? • Baier doubts this. • We don’t have “an all-embracing theory” of the universe “which unifies all theories and explains all phenomena...Nevertheless, theories may be tending towards it…” • There is a worry though about an ‘infinite regress.’ Does science involve this? If you answer a scientific question do you always have to go back infinitely. E.g., if you say animal X is the way it is because of evolution, then you have to look at how evolution works, then you have to look at the DNA, chemistry, physics, then you have to ask why is there matter, etc. And you don’t get a ‘final’ answer.
The Big Question • Why is there anything at all? Why does the universe exist. • Smart quote p. 94. • We feel awe and wonder at the existence of the universe. But maybe that’s not necessary. • What’s the big problem with the universe existing? • Everything has a cause/an origin. [Remember Aquinas’s cosmological argument that everything has a cause so there must be an uncaused cause [God]. • The origin of something cannot be nothing. So what is the origin of the universe?
Maybe the universe needs an explanation • But it doesn’t need an ‘unvexing explanation’ [outside the model/science.] • Baier says—just because every THING has an origin doesn’t mean the totality of things has an origin. The universe is the totality of things. • Or we could give up the principle that you can’t get something out of nothing. • But “There is no reason to assume the universe has an origin.” (97) • Maybe the universe is eternal.
From NPR website • The best answer we have at this point is that the Universe emerged spontaneously from a random quantum fluctuation in some sort of primordial quantum vacuum, the scientific equivalent of "nothing." However, this quantum vacuum is a very loaded nothing: it assumes the whole machinery of quantum field theory, the modern description of how elementary particles of matter interact with one another, was already in operation. • In the quantum realm, even the lowest energy state, the "vacuum," is not empty. Even if the energy of a quantum system is zero, it is never really zero due to the inherent quantum fluctuations about this state. A zero energy quantum state is as impossible as a perfectly still lake, with absolutely no disturbances on its surface. This quantum jitteriness amounts to fluctuations on the value of the energy; if one of these fluctuations is unstable it may grow big, like a soap bubble that blows itself up. The energy remains zero on average because of a clever interplay between the positive energy of matter and the negative energy of attractive gravity. This is the result that physicists like Stephen Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, MikioKaku and others speak of when they state that the "universe came out of quantum nothingness," or something to that extent.
The Purpose of Man’s Existence • Baier: “[S]cience is in principle able to give complete and real explanations of every occurrence and thing in the universe. There are two important corrolaries (1) Acceptance of the scientific world picture cannot be one’s reason for the belief that the universe is unintelligible and…meaningless.” (2) “It is not in accordance with reason to reject this pessimistic believe on the grounds that scientific explanations are only provisional and incomplete.” (99) • [But his argument cannot show that science refutes religion—only that we don’t need religion to understand the universe.]
The scientific worldview seems incompatible with life having meaning • E.g., There’s nothing special about earth. There’s nothing special about our species. • None of these things are permanent. • The only reason human beings exist right now is that they evolved and they were fit. (p. 100) • [He builds in a discussion however where he brings in suffering and futility.] • The scientific worldview is demolishing the medieval worldview by demolishing the view there is God.
Two senses of purpose • (1) One applies to people and what they did. “Did you have a purpose in leaving the ignition on.” • (2) One applies to things. “What is the purpose of that gadget?” (100) • We constantly act for all kinds of purposes. Science actually helps us achieve our purposes. “Instead of praying for rain…we now use ice pellets…” (101) • For a thing to not have a purpose is not a bad thing. A row of trees may have no purpose but that’s OK. • But we don’t seem willing to grant that it is OK for a person not to have a purpose. But if we say they have a purpose like a thing has a purpose, then we are insulting the person and treating him as a means.
Conflation • Baier thinks people are conflating two things—they are thinking there is no purpose IN life because there is no purpose OF life.
Religion doesn’t work to give life meaning • We might think it does, Baier says, because we worship God and He is like a father to us. We are there to serve, obey, etc. • But what is God’s purpose? Why did God create humans? • One answer: “He desired to enjoy for ever the society of a fellowship of finite and redeemed spirits which have made to His love the response of free and voluntary love and service…” (103) • Baier: “Could a God be called omniscient and omnipotent and all good who, for the sake of satisfying his desire to be loved and served, imposes (or has to impose on his creatures the amount of undeserved suffering we find in the world?”
What could the theist answer? • (1) God did not create companions, God created the universe because it was good. • It depends on whether it is good thing that the universe exists. • Is it better to exist with suffering than not exist? • (2) Is suffering an inevitable part of existence? Should beings like humans exist without suffering? • (3) Could God have minimized suffering?
Another question • Why did God make people so they could do evil? • Why is sin so bad?(p. 104)
Final Objection • Christianity (or other forms of monotheism?) demand human beings take “a morally repugnant attitude to the universe.” (104) • Humans are supposed to regard themselves as totally dependent on a divine being. This is inconsistent with free will. Christianity tries to resolve this problem with the idea of grace. • [I’m not clear what he’s getting at. But I think it might be the idea that God decides how everything goes for us?] • Also, B. thinks that the Christian view is that “earthly life is worthless.” (106)
The Meaning of Life • Some of the ‘crisis of meaning’ arises when there is a loss of faith or when people contemplate the loss of faith (Tolstoy/Dostoevsky) • But Baier says the worthwhileness of lives is on a spectrum. • We can’t say the only worthwhile life is the life a person living eternally in paradise. • Death is irrelevant to a life’s worthwhileness. • We evaluate people’s lives based on what they did for others also—if someone contributed to others’ happiness. • Morality can give life meaning. • Just because there is no purpose to capital ‘L’ Life does not mean there is no purpose to small ‘l’ life—your life.
We should try to make others’ lives worthwhile • But what does make life worthwhile? • How could you make your own life worthwhile?
