The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [17]
I think that’s right. There are gaps and there are Gaps. Gaps that science can fill with natural explanations don’t need a God. But gaps that could never be filled with a natural explanation lend themselves to a supernatural explanation. They cry out for one. And that is where God comes in.
In The Science of Good and Evil I argue that the moral sense evolved within us because we are a social primate species and we need to get along with one another and therefore we are pro-social, cooperative, and even altruistic at times. And not altruistic in a game theory tit-for-tat calculating way, in which I help you and you owe me one, but in a deeper genuine sense of feeling good about helping others. That “small inner voice” of our moral conscience is something that evolution created. From a believer’s perspective, why couldn’t God have used evolution to create the moral sense within us, just like he used evolution to create the bacteria flagellum or DNA, which you argue did evolve?
I’m totally with you on that. My thinking has evolved on this question since writing The Language of God, where I was more dismissive of the idea that radical altruism could have evolved. I now think that is a possibility. But that wouldn’t rule out that God planned it, since for a theistic evolutionist like myself, evolution was God’s awesome plan for all creation. If God’s plan could give rise to toenails and temporal lobes, why not also a moral sense? And if one tries to dismiss altruism as purely naturalistic, there is still the question of why there are principles of right and wrong at all. If our moral sense is purely an artifact of evolutionary pressure, hoodwinking us into believing that morality matters, then ultimately right and wrong are an illusion. To say that good and evil have no meaning—that’s a very hard place to go, even for a strict atheist. Does that bother you, Michael?
Sometimes, yes, it does. If I were faced with that question from that dying woman you encountered in the hospital, I’m not sure what I would say. But I’m not an ethical relativist—that is a dangerous road to go down. I think that there really are moral principles that are nearly absolute—what I call provisional moral truths, where something is provisionally right or provisionally wrong. By this I mean that for most people in most places most of the time behavior X is right or wrong. I think this is as good as it can get without an outside source like God. But even if there is a God who objectifies right and wrong, how are we to learn what that is? Through holy books? Through prayer? How?
Through that still small voice within.
Yes, I hear that voice as well. The question is this: what is its source?
Right. For me, the source of that inner moral voice is God.
I understand. For me, the voice is part of our moral nature that evolved.
Sure, and maybe God gave us that moral nature through evolution.
So it really does come down to some ultimate unknown?
Yes, it does.
* * *
I like and respect Francis Collins. He is a man who has bravely faced life’s deepest questions, edged himself up to the cliff, looked over, and did what he thought was right. His path is not mine, but to thine own self be true. This is where belief is ultimately personal—belief-dependent realism. There are no ultimate answers to these eternal questions.
Where is the meaning of life under such elemental uncertainty? Whether you are a believer or a skeptic, the meaning of life is here. It is now. It is within us and without us. It is in our thoughts and in our actions. It is in our lives and in our loves. It is in our families and in our friends. It is in our communities and in our world. It is in the courage of our convictions and in the character of our commitments. Hope springs eternal, whether life is eternal or not.
Reason’s Bit and Belief’s Horse
A common myth most of