The Inclusive Christian Blog: Asking the Right Question

Asking the Right Question

18 I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. 19 For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

-Ecclesiastes 3:18-20 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

“Is there a God,” is not the right question.

“Does anything we say or do ultimately matter and, if so, why?" is the right question.

Whether we ask as individuals, as societies, or as cultures spread throughout the globe and the entirety of human history, does anything we live and work and fight and die for, at the end of the cosmic day, when time and space come to an end in the heat death of the universe, will it matter that the Holocaust occurred? Or that doomed first responders entered the Twin Towers, despite the risks, in the attempt to rescue civilians? Or that I enjoy classical music, politics, religion, and - most of all - arguments?

In the end, doesn’t it all add up to nothing?

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

-Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

I say it DOES ultimately matter and I use the word “God” (specifically, “God in Christ”) to answer the second part of the question regarding WHY it matters

Perhaps it can be answered adequately in other ways that do not use the “G” word - but that’s a SECONDARY issue.

And I’ll happily (even gratefully) entertain THAT secondary issue with someone who adequately addresses the PRIMARY issue.

As I see it, we BELIEVE our thoughts, feelings, speech, and actions ultimately matter.

They either DO actually matter or they merely APPEAR to actually matter.

Maybe that’s a false choice. Maybe SOME ultimately matter and SOME do not. [If so, why?]

Maybe they matter but they do not ULTIMATELY matter. [But if they don’t ULTIMATELY matter, why should they matter AT ALL?]

If they DON’T ultimately matter, then our experience of them as appearing to matter is easily explained: complex biological systems such as ourselves survive via blind, evolutionary selection because “appearing to matter” gives those who have that capacity to be - on average - more successful at passing their genetic inheritance on to the next human generation than those lacking that capacity..

If that’s the case, all of human history and biography - in fact OUR OWN autobiography - is, despite appearance, nothing more than part of the software operating our biological system in the same way that instincts operate the biological system of a rabbit.

It has no significance beyond that.

But at least, thanks to evolutionary biology, we understand why. :-)

But if our thoughts, feelings, speech, and actions DO ultimately matter, then from where does that “mattering” come?

Possibly values (things that “matter”) can be bootstrapped into being in a completely naturalistic system but, until I see the argument, it seems to me that naturalism can only explain why things APPEAR to ultimately matter - not why they actually DO ultimately matter.

So it seems that if one believes the human experience across the ages ACTUALLY matters (that is, it is ACTUALLY and positively meaningful, valuable, and purposeful) than that “mattering” MUST originate from something transcending naturalism.

I call that “something” God in Christ (for reasons beyond the scope of this essay) but I’m certainly willing to entertain discussions regarding other “somethings.”

But if one DOESN’T believe that human experience ACTUALLY matters, but only APPEARS to matter, then one CANNOT EVEN MEANINGFULLY POSE THE QUESTION.

Because the question, as well as ANY POSSIBLE answer to the question, along with all other elements of the human experience, does not ultimately matter.