Questions for Faith: Are We the Center of God’s Universe?
Of all the errors of the church in time past, its refusal to acknowledge the heliocentric model of the solar system is a favorite for those who would de-legitimize the church ad-hoc. Such an unforgiving spirit wears poorly when we are forced to think about what it would require of our own mistakes; none of us would accept having our entire lives dismissed on the basis of even the most serious of mistakes we have made. If as individuals we can not learn from our mistakes and change, then as a country and a species what we deny individually will certainly not be possibly corporately. For those, myself included, who look for such missteps of the church only in an attempt to throw away any truths the church may have at its command is to commit the most serious of errors in what we wish to say is a life spent searching for truth.
Having said this, bringing up past doctrinal errors of the church is not without some reasonable purpose. Seen graciously (as we would ask to be seen when reflecting on our own mistakes), the point should be to learn from this mistake and to adapt our worldview to one that builds on this error and projects a more authentic means of understanding the world. Wrestling with this mistaken statement of Christian dogma, and others like it, should rightfully give pause to our collective willingness to allow sacred scripture, tradition or their interpretation by any pontifical authority have the final word concerning ultimate meaning. But if we peer more deeply into the church’s wrestling with accepting the heliocentric model of the galaxy, refusing to settle for shallow name-calling where deeper truths can be illuminated, we begin to see a more complex issue present itself, namely, the question of our place in the universe. I would like to propose that nested within our collective realization that the earth is not the center of the universe lies a deeper question that skeptics have not adequately articulated to believers, namely, what confidences do we have that we are some special creation of God, and that we similarly hold a privileged position in the cosmos?
Making this question that much more complicated is our acceptance of the relative accuracy of Darwinism which presents a reasonable explanation for the initiation, formation and progression of biological life. God’s visible place and purpose in creation has noticeably shifted from being the literal progenitor of all biological life over several days of creation to the explanation of what came before the singularity that has given birth to Big Bang cosmology. These changes in the accepted role of God to explain the origins of life and the universe are not in and of themselves proof of the non-existence of God; but, one can rightly point out that God’s role in explaining the meaning and cause of life is becoming more distant, and with it the inevitable implication that our idea of God is perhaps no more unique than His idea of us. It is also significant that this additional knowledge of the universe is changing not because of any divine revelations but because of the science man is discovering on his own at the resistance of those who claim to be closest to Him.
The implications to accepting that we are, as a species, not unique in creation and are a natural product of the advancement of innate biological processes again does not serve as an explanation that God is not real. Fair minded modern day people are, for the most part, willing to accept the limitations of this science to completely eliminate the question of God; however, what they do object to is not being willing to change our view of the role God plays in the universe. The common markers of identity believers ask those they have just met – the requisite “do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” is actually less helpful and less insightful than the much deeper question of “do you believe we are the center of the universe?” In what is a particularly interesting implication to the line of reasoning modern science suggests is inevitable, this response by modern faith is that “yes” somehow we are unique, and we are in some way a centering purpose of God’s creation. Christian answers to this question revolve around God creating us in His image (meaning God is in some way is a 31 year old pot-bellied want-to-be writer in Starbucks with a jittery leg and spastic colon); that somehow our being loved is the point of God’s creative act in the universe. This is a beautiful idea, but is it helpful?
Agnostics as to the question of God will respond, as do many modern people, that this idea is not only unhelpful, but is potentially damaging and inevitably discriminating. The idea that somehow we are a unique creation to God breaks apart on the rocks of our shared reality, being unable to explain suffering, and being equally unable to explain the reasonableness of a literal heaven without suffering – something the life of faith must have as an all encompassing solution to that which does not make sense on this plane of existence. To be fair, the ideas of a personal God who loves me, and who made this world as an expression of His creative power, majesty and love contain a certain poignant poetic beauty. But again, are they the best explanations of our world? The worldview of those who choose to, having weighed the evidence, remain agnostic as to the question of God has a certain symmetry to it: do the convoluted ideas of God’s unknown purposes best explain suffering, or can suffering best be seen as the natural product of a world where life advances of its own pathways, pathways that encounter difficulties with resulting morbid mortalities, but do so naturally? The latter view elevates tangible means of coping with suffering (and yes, prayer, meditation and other similar spiritual practices have a rightful role to play here) and hard science to alleviate suffering as opposed to the hope that somehow prayer will make the suffering go away or serve a purpose we do not understand. Our understanding of the immense size of the universe has played a role in an increasing sense of aloneness we all feel, which I would suggest has more than a little to do with man no longer experiencing a personal God. The dawning that occurs for many after viewing pictures from Hubble is not only of the grandeur and beauty of the universe, but a sense of aloneness, a sense that faith is powerless to fight back unless it makes its beliefs serve the purpose of inner transformation.
What are the implications to being alone in the universe, to believing that we are not a unique creation of God’s? I would suggest that some of the greatest truths humanity has ever encountered have come in the last two-hundred years and that they owe their revelation more to men and women who embraced an agnostic or deistic view of God which put God at a distance but put our responsibility for making the world better on our own shoulders. No meaningful history of the founding of America can overlook the enormous impact the British and French Enlightenment’s had on America’s Founding Fathers, and it is no coincidence that almost, but not entirely, were these men characterized by deistic views of God. The life of faith and its related theologies point to prayer, and a belief that all our questions will some day be answered in the after-life, and in doing so invariably take our eyes off of this world and point them towards some other. This answer held out for some future date, what Christians call heaven, will be a topic I write on soon in an essay called “The Problem of Heaven.” The idea of Heaven at best hopes to elevate our emphasis from our own needs to those of our community in this world, but as a consequence does not address the underlying ego problem we all admit we need to deal with, instead transplanting it into a time (heaven) yet to come. Forthcoming works by people such as Brian McLaren will engage the question of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom in an attempt to get Christians to take their eyes off of the next world and put them firmly into this, an attempt that owes itself much more to the realities this essay is struggling with than with the ideas of cutting-edge theology.
To say any of these implications make you feel insignificant is not wrong, and as I have wrestled with them my own emotions have ranged from helplessness to frustration to resignation. It has been only very recently that I have seen how so many of my beliefs center around my own ego and to what an extent ego is being given primacy in the worldview I advocate. The test for the role ego plays for you is if, in reading this essay, you have had the thought run through your mind that “if this life is all there is, then why bother being moral.” If you have had such a thought you are still caught up in ego, being unable to picture a world where shared obligations, mutual toil and communal living elevate our very longevity, prosperity and human potential to a utopian ideal. If this denial of self causes such fear, it is no coincidence that fear and threats of certain forms of damnation play a role in your theology. Ego is perhaps one of the distinguishing and elevated means of getting into the heart of this matter. Are we the sole purpose of God’s creation? Do we do good works in this life so that we can have a better life in the next, or because we recognize and can articulate why, the right things we do make sense for their own reasons?
It seems to me that much common ground could be found between those who deny a personal God, but do not deny the potential for personal transformation when we encounter certain teachings of our great traditions. Many deny being the purpose of God’s creation because such a position inevitably takes our eyes off our own responsibilities to make this world better on our own. Faith says “pray and act”, agnosticism says “think and do”; it is time for people from both communities to recognize they hold much in common and to discover that what we hold in common, in most cases, is more powerful than that which we do not hold in common.
previous post: Competing Truth Claims
next post: Blowdown: Part 1 – Scarcity of Natural Resources
3 Responses to “Questions for Faith: Are We the Center of God’s Universe?”
Leave a Reply
About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
Themes
Now Reading
Search
Favorites
Personal Writing
Theology
Categories
Meta Data
July 16th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Actually, rather than us being the center of the universe - the way I see it is that God is the center, and all else revolves around Him …
whaddy think? (by the way, I’m looking forward to your buying my lunch some time soon - smile..)
July 24th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
My friend Rich Vincent at Theocentric.Com and I unwittingly posted articles on this topic at the same time. His post can be found here and is well worth your time in reviewing.
July 24th, 2005 at 11:55 pm
But, Ben - in all your wisdom, you’ve missed the main point (see above) … I need someone to buy my lunch!