Things Are Indeed What They Seem

Most of us have been brought up on such adages as, “things are not always what they seem to be,” and, “never judge a book by its cover.”

While not disputing the need for caution, the need for prudent skepticism, there is also a need not to completely trust those who tell us not to completely trust.  Those people sometimes tell us, quite convincingly at times, that we should trust them, or at least their methods, and that we should disbelieve our lying eyes.

A major example of this involves the physicalist explanations of why the universe, and everything in it, seems to be intelligently designed.

For us lesser beings, the simple, straightforward answer to the question is that, the universe seems to be intelligently designed, because it is (intelligently designed). 

Intelligent design explains why life is not an unlikely outcome of blind, indifferent forces (or an accidental feature) of nature.  Rather, the universe is intentionally designed to support life.  Consciousness does not arise from those same happenstance features of that same unguided nature, but if anything, it is the other way around:  consciousness (like life) is a fundamental basis of nature.  Free will is not an illusion, an illusion that forces us to believe it is not an illusion.  Free will is the ability to choose, an ability that is forbidden if we are to regard nature as a chain of cause and effect.

All of these are what seems to be.

Physicalists, however, dispute intelligent design of nature.  They admit that the universe is intricately suited to support life, civilization and technology (even if it turns out to be the case for only our one planet).  They deny, however, that all of this came about by intentional design.  Instead, they assert, it all came about by random chance.

Now wait a minute, they say, random chance is too unlikely a cause, if there were only one universe.  It would become much more likely, they tell us, if there is an unlimited supply of universes, what they call a multi-verse.  An explosion in a print shop is unlikely to produce an encyclopedia, but if you have unimaginable kazillions of explosions in unimaginable kazillions of print shops, night and day for unimaginable kazillions of years, then the chance of such an unlikely encyclopedia (universe) as ours, occurring by chance, approaches one hundred percent.

At first, their theory seems plausible, until one examines it further.

Their explanation does not, and cannot, explain the origin of their supposed multi-verse.  It cannot explain why the multi-verse is configured so as to produce what they call, “bubble universes,” one of which is ours.  It does not answer the question of why there is a print shop, and why there are letters and words and sentences for the shop to utilize in printing.

Therefore, even if there is a multi-verse, it, too, must be intelligently designed.  You simply cannot escape the inescapable conclusion that, in this case at least, things are indeed what they seem to be.

 

Why, then, do physicalists so adamantly deny that the universe is intelligently designed?  What evidence could they have that makes them ignore that even a multi-verse must be designed?

Their denial of intentional design is motivated, in my opinion, by what they feel is a necessity to deny the Designer.  Physicalism does not, per se, deny God, but rather, simply denies that there is any compelling physical evidence for God.  Physicalism could endure a revelation that God is the Creator of physical reality, but only so long as God, having created nature, thereafter stays out of the picture.  Albert Einstein seems to have taken up this view of a “clockwork” universe, a view in which God (the clock-maker) designed, built, and “wound up” the universe, set it into motion, and then stepped away from it, allowing it to follow its own course.  Einstein disavowed an interventionist or intercessory God.

If God intervenes, or if we intervene via our power of free will, then physicalism collapses; it ceases to be a reasonable explanation for physical phenomena.  If consciousness does not arise from lifeless atoms, but from a source outside of (or above) physical nature, then physicalism cannot explain what it purports to explain (everything).  If life is a foundational purpose of physical nature, then physical nature is not entirely physics.  Indeed, if physical nature has a plan, purpose and meaning, then physics becomes a secondary reality—a creation of a higher reality—a subordinate science, not the “king” of all science.

If there is a God, then no longer can natural philosophy hold that, “man is the measure of all things.”  Instead, the measure of all things, of good, of evil, of morality or immorality—is set for us by God.  If so, then we are obliged to obey Him, indeed, to worship Him. 

Atheist secularists are aghast at such concepts.  They cannot accept them.  They will not.  Worship?  Never!  Subordinate our desires to His will?  Over our dead bodies!

Physicalists do not merely deny God, they do not merely defy Him, they dread Him.  This was displayed when Hubble first announced that the universe is expanding.  While today, that is considered a scientific fact by physicalist atheists, it was initially denied by them—not on the basis of objective evidence, but on the basis of an atheist bias.  How so?  Prior to Hubble’s announcement, the prevailing theory in cosmology was the Steady State Theory, a theory which declared that the universe had no beginning.

Hubble destroyed that theory.  It was because the undeniable implication of an expanding universe is that, tracing backward through time, all the galaxies were, at one time compressed into one place.  From that one place, they began the expansion which we see today, a beginning known as the Big Bang Theory.

But wait.  If the universe had a beginning, that seemed to validate the opening three words of the (English language) Bible, “In the beginning.”  And how else could there be a beginning except for the first five words of that Bible, “In the beginning, God created . . .”?

In other words, physical evidence can be denied by physicalists, at least temporarily, if it does not uphold their previously established beliefs.  This is called, bias, and it is rampant in society, including too often, in science.

The universe seems to be expanding.  It seems to have had a beginning.  It seems to have been intentionally designed to support life, civilization and technology.  It seems to be founded in life, consciousness and free will.  It seems to have planning, purpose and meaning.

Things are indeed, what they seem.