Agnosticism, Atheism, Theism
Essay from scientist and priest Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J

Emmanuel M. Carreira, S.J.

Truth implies not only collecting data from a reality that is independent of prejudices or subjective preferences, but also finding sufficient reasons that will lead to an understanding, at least in part, of the object of our knowledge. Relationships of dependence, causality, finality, give meaning to what otherwise might be just a dry catalog of more or less interesting facts.

With an example from the field of Archaeology: it isn't enough to analyze the physical properties and the chemical composition of some strange object found in an ancient tomb, but we want to know why it was made the way it was, in order to infer its use and so explain why it exists for a concrete purpose.

Applying this way of thinking to the most basic realities, the existence of the Universe and our own human existence, it is logical to ask for a sufficient reason why the Universe has the properties that we observe and that resulted in its evolution up to the present, where there is at least one environment where life could develop and reach its highest point in human life. If we fail to address this essential question we will be guilty of renouncing our rationality at its most basic level.

The attitude described with the term "agnosticism" can imply either the conviction that it is impossible to find an answer and thus the effort to seek it is dismissed beforehand as useless, or instead to conclude -after a serious rational effort- that there is no clear and convincing answer.

The first position is basically irrational, because "a priori" it closes the way to deal with something as basically important as finding a meaning for our existence.

The second must be treated with respect and must be analyzed with care to see if arguments pro and con for each reply are properly evaluated, since it isn't automatically certain that the reasons given will have the same weight.

Let us begin with the fundamental question: Why is there something instead of nothing? The best scientists have acknowledged that this is the most important query, after studying the data about the structure and evolution of the Universe.

The prestigious physicist John Archibald Wheeler says it explicitly in his essay "The Universe as Home for Man" (1). In spite of skeptical utterances of an abstract discussion, nobody really doubts that the Universe exists, and this is not a cultural prejudice or a philosophical supposition. There must be a sufficient reason to explain the fact, and the reason cannot be the obvious statement that otherwise we wouldn't be here to state the question.

To remain in that implicit tautology would be equivalent to give as a reason for the Oxygen in our atmosphere that without it our life would be impossible: no scientist will be satisfied dismissing the question in those terms.

In different ancient cultures the primacy of matter as an ever present reality was taken for granted, without a cause and never to disappear in the future, even if constantly changing at all levels (perhaps with the exception of the heavenly bodies described as the "fixed stars"). In a scientific formulation this assertion became the Conservation Law: "In a Physical process, nothing is created or annihilated, just transformed". As a way to state what happens in an experiment this law is fundamental in every science dealing with matter, and it was applied to infer the existence of the neutrino and to accept the mutual conversion of particles and energy that Relativity had suggested and that is constantly experienced in our laboratories. In this sense, the Law is irrefutable. But the basic question still remains: Why is there something of a material nature that obeys this Law?

Still further: the fact that matter -at all levels- is changeable is a clear indication that it does not have in itself a cogent reason to exist in one form or another, in a concrete state out of an unlimited possible variety. Nothing can exist as an abstraction, but only in some state defined by properties that could have been different. The Universe we observe, with a certain amount of mass, with 4 forces of different and very concrete strengths, with particles that behave differently, cannot be attributed to a childish "just because".

The reply that avoids the logical emptiness of that answer by postulating infinite universes with every possible change of parameters, multiplies the lack of a sufficient reason by not providing any better explanation for them than their mathematical possibility. This becomes a non-scientific hypothesis by the fact that their very concept excludes the possibility of an experimental check, while no theory requires them in any convincing logical way.

A Universe that is its own cause cannot be seriously proposed as the reason for its existence, even if we try to disguise its impossibility by resorting to some supposed "quantum fluctuations" of a physical vacuum endowed with energy and ruled by quantum laws: such previous state must have also an explanation, a sufficient reason, for its existence and for those properties.

To accept a NOTHINGNESS ruled by gravity, as recently proposed by Hawking, is really an empty statement without any physical sense. The same must be said of hypothetical "branes" existing in other unknown dimensions, whose collisions would produce universes, all of them unobservable except the one we inhabit.

Time and again the effort is made to avoid the philosophical and theological inference to a non-material Cause, invoking in an arbitrary way all kinds of suppositions without any scientific basis and without real explanatory power. This is done out of a preconceived and atheistic position that accepts as its basic dogma that only matter can exist: an irrational tenet that no proponent would want applied to his person and work.

No scientist will want to be considered as a robot without rights and duties, with no ability to think and to freely decide what field of knowledge to work on. Those would be the logical consequences of describing Man as a biological structure ruled by physico-chemical laws.

But neither our thoughts nor our free desires have an influence upon an experiment through any of the four forces that define matter. To close our eyes to that undeniable fact of human experience is really to renounce our rationality.

The existence of a Universe without a temporal beginning -the scientific postulate of a century ago- implied as a logical consequence that all stars would have exhausted their fuel and no stars would be shining now in our sky. As a consequence, it was necessary to accept a non-physical concept, that of strict creation either of the whole Universe in a past that -in principle- could be calculated or in a continuing creation of H atoms that would form new stars taking the place of the old ones, already unable to produce energy.

Both solutions lead to a new concept, the step from nothing to something against the conservation law that must hold for any physical process, even to justify a single atom. We must go from Physics to Metaphysics, a new level of thinking that will offer a sufficient reason for the new existence.

With an analogy from mathematical symbolism, if the zero indicates nothingness (no real content of any kind), no multiplication by any number will change that meaning, except the multiplication by an Infinite that does not really represent any real number. The product can be equated to any arbitrary finite value, since the only meaning of the operation is to deny the infinitude of its result.

This might be the symbol for the creation of finite beings by the action of an Infinite Power of a different nature than the finite effects: only that Power can bridge the abyss from Nothing to Something that no Physics can explain. We then have a sufficient reason why, in fact, there are the things we observe and that include all levels of finite material structures. Further development of the concept of strict creation leads to the inference of selecting the properties and parameters of the created reality, knowing the multiple possibilities and the consequences of every choice that cannot be due to the nature of the finite beings, always limited and subject to changes.

This means that creation has to be a free act, not only to give existence or not, but also to choose the properties of that creation with a view to achieve some reasonable purpose. "Every intelligent agent acts for a purpose" that constitutes a sufficient reason to choose the means by which the end will be obtained.

Since the Infinite by its very concept cannot change or undergo further development, the creative act must be perfectly selfless, since it cannot be due to any desire of the Creator to obtain a benefit. But it must be in accordance with the Personal nature of the Creator endowed with Intelligence and free Will: an act of Love that must have as its purpose other personal beings who can respond with a relationship of gratitude to the source of their existence: there would be no adequate reason to create mindless stars or merely instinct driven animals.

Thus, through a convincing reasoning process, we come to accept a Creator -God- who is the only sufficient reason for all finite reality -material and human- that exists and that we experience in ourselves and we study in every science.

This is not an old-fashioned residue of ancient mythologies that imagined gods in every natural phenomenon or invented symbols of arbitrary superhuman powers, but a necessary inference for which the only alternatives are a "just because" disguised as "chance" or the "a priori" acceptance of an eternal existence for everything contingent. The idea of a Creator can now be analyzed further to develop its implications.

Modern science includes within the concept of matter the spatial-temporal framework where all physical activity takes place through the four forces that explain whatever happens in the realm of macroscopic and microscopic structures. A non-material Creator will exist outside those limits, with the consequent denial of any change (that can only happen with a temporal before and after) and with the positive assertion of knowing as present whatever we describe as occurring within a time flow.

The Creator will be eternal, not because we apply the concept of an infinite time in the past and in the future, but because we affirm an existence that does not include the idea of duration, just as it does not involve any spatial shape or any physical property.

In a boundless and unchanging knowledge the Creator "sees" whatever occurs in created reality at every time and place. The choice of initial conditions when creating necessarily leads to the perfect development of the Universe according to a plan that does not need repeated interventions upon the world: the initial choice of parameters is made foreseeing the attainment of the effects that are sought for all time.

For the Creator nothing can be a surprise, even if we attribute some happenings to a "chance" that has no explaining power but simply indicates the unforeseeable coincidence of unrelated events. Even free human activity is foreseen with certainty, without implying any kind of determinism: an a-temporal knowledge can be compared to a science-fiction TV that allows a viewer to tune in to a sports event years from now.

The TV will show the result of the game, but it has no causal influence to determine the winner. We must confess that time is the most mysterious concept in our description of our experience, and that we cannot imagine a kind of existence outside of it, but the spatial-temporal coordinates of material activity cannot be applied to a spiritual Being.

The logical need to admit a Personal Creator -intelligent and free- who creates Man as a responsive "other", allows us to find an answer to the question of finding a sufficient reason for a Universe that will finally destroy all material structures, something that modern science foresees as inevitable. In time spans of trillions of years all stars will have exhausted their sources of energy, no stars will shine, and there will be no basic matter (H and He) to form new ones.

All orbiting bodies lose energy through gravitational radiation, thus leading to the collapse of planets, stars and even clusters of galaxies to the center of mass of each system. The outcome will leave a variety of black holes of different masses, that will be the corpses of the structures we now observe. In a time of the order of 1050 years only super-galactic black holes are expected to remain within a dark and cold vacuum, while the Universe continues expanding: all available data deny the possibility of a contraction and rebound.

Extrapolation to an unimaginable age of perhaps 10100 years suggests that by the so-called "Hawking radiation" all black holes will evaporate through a tunnel effect, leaving an immense cold and dark empty space as the final outcome of material evolution according to physical laws. It finally seems that the depressing destruction of so much beauty leaves us with the negative conclusion that nothing ultimately makes sense: No wonder that eminent scientists admit that with just the activity of matter the Universe is absurd (Steven Weinberg (2))

Only in Man, endowed with new activities (abstract thought and fee will) that cannot be attributed to the forces proper of matter, do we find a sufficient reason to justify this entire evolution: the Universe has attained its purpose by making possible our existence, that joins spirit to matter. The conscious reality that defines Man as Person, rational and free, even if it exists intimately tied to the organic structure of our body, can -in principle- be thought of as able to continue existing without that union and without depending upon an environment suited for biological activities.

It would be difficult to still speak of "Man" with exactly the same meaning, but this survival would give us a reason to think of the finality of the material Universe as just a prelude for a new life without matter. Even so, we instinctively want to avoid that kind of loss, when our "I" is so obviously a concrete reality of body and soul with intimate mutual conditionings during our mortal existence.

Already in the most primitive cultures we find a level of belief in some survival after death, with funeral rites that led to a dignified burial and the offering of useful objects that would be appreciated in a new life imagined as basically similar to our daily experience. But only within the biblical tradition is found an explicit assertion of the future union of body and soul, without temporal limits, in a resurrection that is clearly expressed in the dialogue of the mother of the Maccabees with her sons who die for refusing to break the Law.

When Christ was preaching the Sadducees derided such belief, and He had to accuse them of ignoring God's power and his promise to bring to life again the entire human Person in its fullness of matter and spirit. It is Christ's own glorious Resurrection -not a mere revival to die again- the foundation of our Christian Faith and the model of our own existence in the no-time of eternity, where a physical environment no longer limits our life, beyond any evolution of stars and galaxies.

Today we find -even in theological writings- some confusing language denying a real body for each human being after the resurrection. Expressions like "a non-material body" twist the meaning of the word body; in other instances, it is explicitly stated that only the human spirit enters eternal life. Both opinions are philosophically and theologically wrong.

Man is not an angel temporarily imprisoned in an organic structure and destined to be freed from it. The reality of our "I" with undeniable mutual influences between body and soul defines us as human beings, forever. In the words of Benedict XVI, the soul can never lose its affinity for matter: its nature requires the union with the body.(3) This must be applied even to Christ: "The Word became Flesh" in a single Person, as the Word joined to his divine nature, forever, body and soul; even in the tomb the divinity maintained that union with the body placed there.

That same Body -identified by the wounds of the Passion- was seen and touched (by Thomas) as the most convincing proof of the total reality of the Risen Christ, eliciting the first explicit proclamation of His divinity. Christ underlined his bodily humanity denying that He could be a ghost and eating with his disciples, surely disinclined to accept as real that new and unexpected form of life. To speak of a resurrection without a body is nonsense: the only thing that can be resurrected is something that underwent death, and the soul does not die.

An "immaterial body" is a contradiction in words, just as a "square circle": body can only mean an organic structure, made from atoms and molecules with the properties of each element studied in Physics. This is also the necessary meaning to be used when we speak of the Eucharist, where we adore the Body and Blood of Christ, the same material realities present before the Apostles when Our Lord instituted the Sacrament at the Last Supper. Our Lord's Resurrection is the model and the vivifying source for our own resurrection.

As taught by the Church through the centuries, we are promised the definitive union of each human soul with its own body at the end of time. But my "own body" must be understood in a more exact way than the simple collection of particles at a given moment of my earthly life.

It is widely known that atoms, molecules and cells are discarded and substituted by similar components during our entire life, and it makes no sense to demand that my body be the ensemble present at any particular moment. I can only refer to "my body" as the biological structure adapted to my spirit, as its own corporal expression, and this is true at every time.

We thus understand that Carbon atoms, Oxygen, Calcium, and so on, remain exactly as they were before being assimilated in a nutrition process, but they become a part of my body when they are "incorporated" into the structure that being under the control of my spirit, is in a metaphorical way, "attuned" to it. Even full cells and complete organs can be used in medical transplants, becoming part of my body on an equal basis with those members present at birth.

Modern Physics teaches also that elementary particles of the same type -electrons, protons- cannot be identified as individuals, to know which one is doing something when they collide. All particles can be synthesized from pure energy, for instance when cosmic rays impact upon the atmosphere, and also in experiments with particle accelerators: hundreds of different particles appear when two protons collide with sufficient energy.

All this opens up unlimited possibilities to accept that "my body" will not require the detailed search for every material element I had either at death or at any other time. Neither the body buried in the sorry state of sickness and old age, nor the undeveloped body of a premature birth, nor the body afflicted by any deformity has to be the glorious body of eternal life.

The Risen Christ did show himself to his disciples with the clear marks of his wounds as a proof of his identity, and He died in his full human development, as a perfect Man. This same perfection -in an endless variety we can't imagine- will be present in every risen member of Christ, fulfilling St. Paul's metaphor: just as all stars are beautiful while being different, we all be individually perfect but not "mass produced", so that each one reflects in a unique way the image of Christ suited to the perfection of the soul that joins the individual body.

If all this still gives the impression of not being quite understandable, this happens because without being incoherent it certainly exceeds our daily experience, limited by our senses, even if aided by an imagination that can only expand what our sense provide. St Paul's words: "Eye has not seen nor ear has heard nor can a human mid comprehend what God has prepared for those who love Him" should suggest a panorama of a totally new way of existing "like spirits" even for our human bodies. God has raised matter to the level of the Trinity, where it is adored by angels as the Body of Christ.

When God has made it divine with that unsurpassable dignity, we can confidently proclaim as our Faith that our bodies will also partake of the glory that Christ shares with us and that allows as to say with the words of the Psalm: "My heart and my flesh will jump with joy with the living God".

The clay of Earth, made from ashes of stars, is destined to an intimacy with the God who redeemed us, taking for himself that same clay, and who gives us His life forever.

SOURCES

1- J. A. Wheeler, "The Universe as Home for Man" American Scientist", 1978
2- S. Weinberg, "The First Three Minutes", last paragraph.
3- J. Ratzinger, Eschatology