ROBERT LAWRENCE KUHN: If God
exists, God must do things.
For God to be God,
God could not do nothing,
and because I yearn to know
whether God is real,
or just to know
whether God makes sense,
I need to inquire,
"What things would God do?"
Assuming there is a god
who created the universe,
then God should do things
with the universe,
relate to the universe.
So, I have two questions,
and they test
the internal consistency of God
as a hypothesis.
Assuming God exists,
does the universe, apart from
God, have independent existence?
And how would God
intervene in the universe?
I'm Robert Lawrence Kuhn,
and Closer to Truth
is my journey to find out.
How God relates to the universe
affects directly
the kind of god
that is supposed to exist,
and if I am serious
about seeking God,
then I must be serious
about discerning God.
So, how would God
relate to the universe?
I begin
with a systematic theologian
at the University
of Copenhagen,
an expert in science
and religion,
Niels Henrik Gregersen.
ROBERT: Niels, most people
who believe in God
believe that God actively
relates to the world
by some means, whether
intervention in our lives,
fulfilling or listening
to our prayers.
How do you see
God relating to the world?
NIELS HENRIK GREGERSEN:
In a sense,
I think that it is an all over
or not at all game
that we have to play here.
Either you have to think of God
as relating to each
and any creature at each moment,
that is, as caring,
or you have to see God
as simply just the first course
in a long process
which is just then maintained,
that is, that would be a more
external view of relation,
but I do think
that the most interesting part
of God's ways
of relating to the world,
as I see it,
is the possibility
that there will be a two-way
relationship between the world.
God is, in a sense,
relating to the world
in order to let the world
relate to God.
And how can this take place?
Well, in many
very simple pictures.
One is the picture of light.
God cannot be the light without
actually enlightening the world,
and from the Hebrew language,
the word for blessed, barak.
God is blessing the world,
but human beings thanking God
is also described as a barak,
so God is blessing
in order for humans to thank,
so we are part
of a divine-human circulation.
ROBERT:
So, this blessing that God does,
is it one enormous blessing
that God sends out
and we all bask in it?
Or is it individually related,
where God is focused
on innumerable numbers
of people and animals
and who knows what else?
NIELS: For me, in a sense,
it must be general in scope,
but it's like a morning.
Every morning is a blessing,
but it is not the same morning,
but this is, in a sense,
what religion is about.
It's a learning to appreciate
the different blessings of life,
but they are not individually
tailor-made blessings
because it is
an ongoing business,
but it is not the same business.
From moment to moment,
it is different.
ROBERT: That puts
more responsibility
on us as individuals
to relate to God
as God relates to the world.
NIELS:
Yes, yes, I think it does.
In earlier times,
also in my own tradition,
which is the Lutheran tradition,
was that God gives unreservedly.
Our own task is to receive,
and that is true,
but, in a sense,
by receiving properly we are
also giving God recognition,
so the very idea that
we have to give something to God
is something
which has become foreign
to our religious ways
of thinking of God
because many will say,
well, God is needing of nothing,
but we humans,
we are in need of everything,
but maybe we are living
in this sort of community,
but we are there as partners
and not just
as lazy, passive recipients.
ROBERT: The god that you see,
is that a god
who sees the flow of history
as something that that god
is involved in either shaping
or intervening
in any way whatsoever,
or is that god just watching it
and not knowing
where it's going to go?
NIELS: I don't think
that God is just watching,
and I don't think
that God is intervening
because I do think that God
is already part of the process.
There is no worldy reality in
which God is not already present
in, in a saturated way
that fills through everything,
so I think that God understands
things from within and without
so that we don't need a god
who is sitting up there
watching us passively,
nor do we need a god who is
just doing all the job for us
and just simply forcing us
to do this or that.
ROBERT: If God's relationship
with human beings is two-way,
each giving and receiving,
as Niels says,
then God seems especially
personal and immanent,
connected intimately
with the universe.
That would be comforting,
I suppose,
but I'd need to take
the next step--
how could God do it?
How could God connect
intimately with the universe?
I asked the professor
of systematic theology
at Martin Luther University
in Germany, Dirk Evers.
DIRK EVERS: First I would say
God is the ground of all being.
God is the one
who is responsible
for that there is something
rather than nothing.
He is responsible for the cosmos
as process which explores
opportunities and possibilities.
Then he is also referring
to the creatures
that arise in this process.
God is not the king
of the world, of reality,
but he lets reality
develop its own identity,
its own path of existence,
and then he relates
to what arises within creation,
so first we have this classical
creation activity of God
that he is responsible for,
that there is something
in space and time
at the basic fundamental laws,
and then we have his relation
to living beings,
then we have his relation
to the history of humankind.
ROBERT: You first started,
and I find this interesting,
by talking
about God's responsibility,
whereas most theologians
would begin
by talking about God
as the creator.
Do you make that
as a specific distinction
by, by emphasizing
responsibility
more than creation?
DIRK: If you compare that
to the deistic view,
then you would say God
is the creator,
he makes the world,
and then the world moves on,
and then maybe he interferes
by miracles or something,
but when he is responsible
for it,
from the very beginning,
he is in a relationship
to creation
that necessarily involves
these different ways
of relating to reality,
not only guaranteeing
space, matter, time,
and the fundamental laws
of reality,
but also in a very subtle way
interfering with life,
with the striving
of living beings,
with the search of human beings
for meaning and fulfilled
existence and so on.
ROBERT: Is this an active
process on the part of God,
this interfering,
or is it just setting the system
that the system itself
has an interfering process?
DIRK: I think it is both.
It is, on the one hand, just
setting and adjusting the system
so that it moves and strives
towards new levels
of meaningful existence,
but, on the other hand,
it's also an active involvement,
and that is where the core
of Christian theology comes in.
ROBERT:
Some theologians today would say
that when you have God
intervening in the world
in different ways,
God is like
a tinkerer coming in
and doing little things
here and there
and really shows
the impoverishment
of the original creation,
and more powerful would be a god
who set the system in motion
so that it could be
self-generating.
DIRK: Well, that's
a classical argument.
Gottfried Leibnitz, for example,
said that in opposition
to Isaac Newton
when Isaac Newton said the
planets revolve around the sun
until the system
needs a reformation,
as Newton writes,
and Leibnitz said
that's ridiculous.
The perfect creator
would have created the world
that is not in need
of interference from the creator
to correct or adjust anything
that happens in the world.
ROBERT: You disagree with that.
DIRK: I disagree with that.
I wouldn't stick
to the position of Newton
and say so there
are irregularities
that have to be readjusted,
but I would say this relation
between God and creation
is contingent.
It's not just a program.
It's not perfect world
that just goes on,
and you couldn't
give an argument
why there would be
reality at all.
Because if reality
would be perfect,
why then should it
take the burden to be reality
that God would think
about perfect reality,
and that's the end of it?
Creation has to be
a risky thing,
and only then it makes sense.
It's also risky for God.
I mean,
our lives aren't perfect.
Our reality isn't perfect.
God relates to reality
in order to inspire beauty,
in order to inspire goodness,
and not just he has
programmed it into creation,
but he's trying to inspire it
and to have us
as contributors to it,
and that makes creation
a risky thing,
and that is in opposition
to this idea
of a perfect plan of creation.
ROBERT:
To Dirk, creation is risky,
and reality is not perfect.
In fact,
if reality were perfect,
God would have no need
to create it.
God could have
just thought about it.
This means that
if a creator god exists,
the universe would have to be
a complex and uncertain place.
I like the insight,
though it seems to deny
traditional theologies of God's
absolute providential control.
But is the argument
a rationalization?
Believers do not see
God's actions and purposes
as clearly as they'd like,
and they need to explain why.
Or worse,
is it circular reasoning?
Because believers start
by assuming God exists,
yet they do not see
clearly God working,
so they further assume that God
created an imperfect world
in order to support
their original assumption
that God exists.
Two questions then follow--
Why is God hidden?
How is God involved
in this imperfect world?
I ask a believer,
an expert in the debate
between science and religion,
Chris Southgate.
Chris, how do we begin
to address
this question of our world
that seems to go on just fine
with a god that,
at best, is, is hidden?
CHRIS SOUTHGATE: Well, because
God is God and not a creature,
there's a sense
in which God will always be,
to a large extent,
hidden from our understanding.
As far as God's relating
to the world,
we understand that
in terms of God as creator,
the one who gave rise
to the laws and processes
which resulted in this world
and God as redeemer, the one
who will ultimately bring
healing and reconciliation
and peace to the whole cosmos.
Within that, there's
a sort of further question
about how God
from day to day
is relating to particular
individuals and situations.
It's the problem of Providence,
if you like.
ROBERT:
So, let's unpack all of this.
The first,
you have God as creator.
Now, there are two ways
of understanding creator.
One is literally
to create from nothing,
and the second
is to have an active role
in the continuous maintenance
of whatever is causing the world
in a sustaining nature,
so that's, you know,
creator part A
and creator part B
if, if that's not too profane.
CHRIS: No, well,
yes to both of those,
and there's nothing
in this or any other universe
which doesn't owe
its existence to God,
and it also means that's
a continual state of affairs,
that without
God's love and power,
nothing would continue
to exist either.
ROBERT: So, when God created
in the first place,
it, the creation was not
good enough to stand on its own.
CHRIS: It could only stand
on its own if it were God.
Because it's not God
but a creature,
it needs God's love and power
to sustain it.
ROBERT: So, God is unable
to create something
that has the capacity
to sustain itself
after God creates it?
God cannot do that.
CHRIS: God can't create God,
though,
in the Christian understanding,
the son is begotten
of the father in the spirit,
but any created thing will be
dependent on its creator.
ROBERT: And then you have
God as redeemer,
which is a specific theology
that will change the world
in some broad way,
but what does this all imply
about God's involvement
in what happens in the world?
CHRIS: There are many theories
as to exactly
how God is providentially
involved in the world.
The great difficulty
is to marry up
the very involved God that
we learn about in the scriptures
with the sheer extent
of suffering
and pain in the world
as we know it,
and the more you talk
about God's involvement,
the more intense the problem
of suffering and evil.
ROBERT: Chris exposes
the logical tensions
of the Christian worldview--
the more God is involved
in the world,
the bigger the problem of evil.
All monotheistic religions
must deal
with God's relationship
with the world
and the logical tensions
that result,
each with its own style.
To a get a traditional
Jewish approach,
I visit Rabbi David Shatz,
professor of philosophy,
ethics, and religious thought
at Yeshiva University.
DAVID SHATZ:
I got to start with a story.
This fellow's looking around,
driving, for a parking space,
and he's going crazy,
and finally he says,
"O God, please grant me
a parking space."
Two seconds later,
a guy pulls out.
He says,
"Oh, never mind, I found one."
It shows this sort of tension
people have between,
on the one hand,
believing that God
does things for them,
and on the other hand, saying,
"Well, it really happens
by natural causes."
We have a range of views.
Let me just sort of set up
two extremes
and then maybe something
in the middle.
One extreme is a view
that's called occasionalism.
What occasionalism says
is that nothing outside of God
has any causal powers.
For example,
I want to raise my hand.
Well, what happens is I have
this desire to raise my hand,
and then my hand goes up.
Now, what happens there is
that my thought is the occasion,
that's why
it's called occasionalism,
for God to raise my arm.
I didn't really raise my arm.
And if I throw a rock
against the window
and the window breaks,
what has really happened
is that on the occasion
of the rock hitting the window,
then God has brought about
the window breaking.
Objects have no causal powers.
Why are people occasionalists?
Well, partly because the view is
that to believe that something
outside of God has causal powers
is essentially a pagan view,
and, in that sense,
it's coming from a very, very
powerful religious sensibility.
Nothing can do anything,
except for God.
I've always found this view,
though, problematic.
First of all,
this issue of free will.
I mean, it seems to take away
people's free will.
On the other hand,
the thinkers who adopt it
want to make room
for free will,
and then obvious tension.
They have an uphill battle
in doing that.
ROBERT: Well, it sounds like
what they want to do
is amplify God's importance
and power--
DAVID:
Amplify God's importance, right.
What we call
laws of nature are simply
the usual patterns
that God adopts in the world,
but God can make exceptions
to the usual pattern.
He's really doing everything.
The other extreme is an extreme
I guess we can call naturalism,
which many people believe
is something Maimonides adopted,
and the position is
that God sets up
a system of laws
at the beginning.
The laws are amazing
in the following respect.
The world is set up
in such a way
that it's kind of user-friendly,
meaning things
tend toward a purpose
and the properties
of objects are such
and human capabilities are such,
human mental capabilities
are such,
that if people understand nature
and how it works,
they can protect themselves
and live fruitful
and enriching lives,
so the world is teleological.
It leads towards a purpose,
but people act
within this world.
Not quite deism.
It's not that God sets up
any old world.
He sets up a world
that's teleological.
That's the other extreme.
Why adopt that extreme?
Why keep God out of the picture?
Well, the primary reason
is to emphasize God's wisdom.
Occasionalism emphasizes power.
Naturalism
emphasizes his wisdom.
To give an example,
suppose that I have somebody
give me a computer program
and I keep
having problems with it,
and each time I call the guy,
he comes and he's able to fix
the problem, fine.
Then I get this other program
from somebody else,
and it just works perfectly.
Now, who's
the better programmer,
the one who can actually
fix everything
or the one who designed
everything in the first place
and it doesn't need fixing?
And that's the most powerful
intuition behind naturalism.
Naturalism also helps a bit
with the problem of evil
because if you see God
as intervening frequently
into the world,
the question will come up,
"Well, why does he save
this person,
doesn't save this person--"
ROBERT:
It's also more consistent
with a scientific worldview
that we have today.
DAVID: Right, exactly.
It's consistent
with the scientific worldview,
but I think
that most Jewish thinkers
opt for something
in the middle.
In the middle is simply the idea
that the world works essentially
according to natural laws,
but there are
occasional miracles.
This way you eat your cake
and have it, too.
You have the notion
of God's wisdom.
You also have the notion
of God's saving power.
ROBERT:
Although culturally distinct,
Jewish philosophy is similar
to Christian
and Islamic philosophy.
Most thinkers opt
for an intermediary position,
where the world works mostly
by natural laws,
which were created by God,
but which God can still modify
via supernatural intervention.
Taking intermediary positions,
avoiding extremes,
usually makes sense,
but when working with God,
I worry about balance
and compromise,
because with God in the game,
the rules change.
The problem may not be
that an idea is too radical,
but that an idea
is not radical enough.
What about ideas of how God
intervenes in the universe?
How radical must such ideas be?
I ask a philosopher of religion
who specializes in God's traits,
Edward Wierenga.
EDWARD WIERENGA:
There's a way of understanding
what the laws of nature are
that allows there to be a divine
or supernatural interference
in the laws of nature,
that theism, unlike deism,
doesn't say
that God just set up a world
and left it run on its own,
but that says
that God sets up a world
that he continues
to be involved in.
Not only did he make it,
but he keeps it in existence.
That's not enough to give us
that he interferes with it.
What he's doing
is he's making things happen
in regular ways,
making things happen
so that they accord
with the customary application
of the laws of nature.
Well, then it's a short step
from there to say
what the laws of nature are like
are not descriptions of how
things always, of necessity, go,
but they're descriptions
of how things go,
unless God
does something different.
So, if God
is making things happen
according to the regular
operation of causal laws
and that describes how
he regularly makes things go,
allowing for exceptions,
then he can interfere
in the world
by doing something
out of the ordinary
that is an interference
in the world.
ROBERT: The first premise
you have is a very big leap
because it says
that the physical laws
that you would believe
God created
are not such
that they can continue
without God having
some continuous relationship
with them,
so that if God decided
to just do nothing--
EDWARD: Right.
ROBERT: It wouldn't
just roll on its own.
It would fall apart
or disappear or something.
Is that right?
EDWARD: Right. The view,
that continuous conservation,
is a view,
according to which,
if God stopped keeping stuff
in existence,
it would just
pop out of existence.
He didn't, he didn't make stuff
that was indestructible
or immutable.
He made stuff that existed
as long as he kept it
in existence.
ROBERT:
If you take that first step,
then I think it's much easier
for God to interfere
in the affairs of molecules
or human societies
because they are,
at every moment,
dependent upon God for their,
their literal existence
or fields or forces
or movement in any way.
But that first step
is a very big one.
EDWARD: Right,
he could only interfere
in the affairs of the world
if he was constantly
upholding the world otherwise.
ROBERT: All right, so,
let's just say that it happens.
What kind of a world is it?
How often does God do that?
Does God interfere
in people's lives,
and does God heal people?
I mean, you hear stories about
people feel they were healed
of this wart or that wart,
but nobody gets
an arm that grows back.
EDWARD: Right.
ROBERT: Why does God
busy with warts
and not busy
with regrowing arms?
EDWARD:
I think people have no idea
how frequently God interferes
in the affairs of the world,
how frequently
he does a miracle.
ROBERT: Assuming God exists,
does God intervene
in the universe?
The question depends
on whether the universe
has independent existence,
and I see two possibilities.
One--God could create
the universe
and still need to sustain it,
such that if God stopped,
the universe would disappear.
This is classical theism.
Two--God could
create the universe
to have independent existence,
such that even
if God disappeared,
the universe would still go on.
Regarding God's intervention,
I have four possibilities.
One--God does not intervene,
allowing the universe
to develop independently.
This is classical deism.
Two--God has determined
all events so perfectly
in God's initial creation,
such that no intervention
is necessary.
Three--God intervenes
in the physical world
by affecting probabilities,
such that no physical laws
are apparently violated.
Four--God intervenes in ways
that seem to violate
what we call physical laws,
but true reality is far grander.
My judgment?
Each possibility has its own
kind of internal consistency,
but I do not even know
whether God exists,
much less how God would
intervene in the universe.
But when I lay out
the possibilities,
I feel closer to truth.
