Tolle Lege

Earlier this week, I attended a lecture hosted by Dartmouth’s Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy, Marcelo Gleiser. His talk was called “A Tear at the Edge of Creation: Cosmos, Life and the Search for a Final Theory,” which is also the title of his latest book. I am thinking of writing a more complete review of his book for Apologia, so I won’t go into great detail here, but I would like to address one point of his argument in this post. According to Professor Gleiser, when science examines the universe, it doesn’t find order and perfection. Instead, it finds that the existence of life and of the universe itself is due to asymmetries and accidents. But though there is no “big plan,” as Professor Gleiser puts it, for Earth or for humanity, this should not underscore our insignificance. Rather, Professor Gleiser ended his lecture with the conclusion that because intelligent life is so rare, our responsibility for preserving our environment and human life is that much greater.

In the question and answer period following the lecture, I asked Professor Gleiser how he reasoned from the rarity of intelligent life to the normative claim that it ought to be preserved.  Didn’t that assume that life was intrinsically good or valuable? This question actually elicited laughs from some people in the audience. Professor Gleiser answered, “Yes, I am assuming that life is intrinsically good.” I believe that this assumption reduces the majority of his lecture, which focused on the scientific evidence for an asymmetric universe, to irrelevancy with regard to his conclusion. His conclusion is justified on the basis of two assumed premises, and the rest of his talk was unnecessary for the conclusion that he reached:

1. Life is intrinsically good. (Assumption)

2. What is intrinsically good ought to be preserved. (Assumption)

3. Therefore, life ought to be preserved. (Conclusion)

On the other hand, Professor Gleiser could assume that what is rare ought to be preserved, but I doubt it. Polio is rare, but we don’t think that it ought to be preserved. Serial killers are rare, but they too are not a protected species. Rarity itself is not normally a criterion for preservation, so I will assume that he is arguing from the premise of life’s inherent goodness.

In any case, Professor Gleiser and his audience seem to have missed my implied criticism of his argument. I have found in other debates about morality, purpose, and value that Christians often come off as somehow denying the basic, fundamental values of society. It seems that by questioning why rape or murder are wrong or why we consider life to be intrinsically good, we are assumed to be rejecting these values. In reality, however, our purpose is simply to identify unjustified assumptions. Behind those assumptions is a society that is profoundly influenced by a religious or philosophical tradition that assumes those same positions. It is not as if these assumptions are visible by the light of nature or that they are undeniable. One could make the assumption that life is not intrinsically good or that murder is not objectively wrong, and it could be an equally logical, reasonable assumption. Some philosophical schools have assumed that life consists of suffering, or that it is better to die than to live—for example, in The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche writes that the best thing for a man is to die soon. Similarly, in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes that of all people, the stillborn child is the most to be envied. So one can assume things contrary to these notions, and many people have.

According to the view of the world that Professor Gleiser gave in his talk, all of life is accidental and purposeless. If there isn’t some higher purpose or meaning for conscious beings, however, it is certainly possible to conclude that on some level the world would be better off without them. The universe would be better off without conscious suffering, or indeed without suffering of any kind. Professor Gleiser’s conclusion that we have an obligation to preserve life and our planet is flawed if the only thing we have to offer to outbalance the suffering and bloodshed that we cause is achievements that are destined to be erased. In the end, even those achievements will become suffering as they are being torn from our grasp by the passing of time or by death. What the opponents of Christians in these debates need to realize is that Christians aren’t trying to reject these ideas. Rather, we are merely pointing out that it is inconsistent for our opponents to deconstruct our philosophical and religious foundations while continuing to assume the premises that belong to those traditions. Those who wish, like Professor Gleiser, to argue that life ought to be preserved, must logically justify the assumptions that they use to reach such a conclusion apart from the meaning and purpose that derives from belief in God.