The following story was passed on to me by a friend, who was quoting from a letter from his brother, a Japanese linguistics professor who had received it from his own friend, an American linguistics professor.  The “he” in the anecdote is the American.

“He was invited to give lectures at Loyola, his alma mater.  Having explained Chomsky's theory of linguistic universals, which, to put it simply, claims that all human languages have the same fundamental ‘grammar,’ he opened the floor for questions and comments.  One of the students objected that the theory was obviously ‘racist.’  When my friend, somewhat taken aback, asked what might suggest this, the student said it was an imperialistic denial of language differences, of multi-culturalism. My friend tried to explain that Chomsky's theory is, in fact, anti-racist.  No one, he said, is denying the richness of language diversity, but the deeper point is that all human languages (plural) are a manifestation of, well, human language (singular).

“'No,’ grumbled the student, ‘it's still racist.’

“‘But against whom,’ my friend protested, bewildered but also exasperated.

“‘Against the dolphins!’ came the reply.”

“The tests put upon candidates for the [Druidical] priesthood are immensely severe.  For example, there is a test of poetical composition.  The candidate must lie naked all night in a coffin-like box, only his nostrils protruding above the icy water with which it is filled, and with heavy stones laid on his chest.  In this position he must compose a poem of considerable length in the most difficult of the many difficult bardic metres, on a subject which is given him as he is placed in the box.  On his emergence next morning he must be able to chant this poem to a melody which he has been simultaneously composing, and accompany himself on the harp.  Another test is to stand before the whole body of Druids and be asked verse-questions in riddling form which must be answered in further riddles, also in verse.  These riddles all refer to obscure incidents in the sacred poems with which the candidate is supposed to be familiar.  Besides all this he must be able to raise magic mists and winds and perform all sorts of conjuring tricks.”  --  Robert Graves,Claudius the God

Atheism, capital “A,” the denial of the creator God, capital “G,” always defaults to some form of theism, small “t” – I mean the embrace of a false god, small “g.”  It doesn’t even seem to be possible to deny every unconditional commitment.  Everyone bends the knee to something, whether or not he knows what it is.

In this sense, although there may be such a thing as Atheism, capital “A,” there is no such thing as atheism, small “a.”  In fact, deep down there is probably not even any such thing as Atheism, capital “A,” because when we do deny the creator God, capital “G,” we aren’t simply mistaken; we are deceiving ourselves, pulling the wool over our eyes.

Before the lovely Augustine passage, a quick note:  Two links have just been added to my Listen to Talks page.  You can hear highlights from my recent talk to the Stanford University Anscombe Society on the meaning of the sexual powers, and if those seem interesting, you can listen to the whole talk too.

But now for Augustine.  He’s commenting on Romans 1:19-20, where St. Paul exclaims, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.”

I suspect that St. Paul himself is alluding to Wisdom 13:5-9:

“For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.  Yet these men [who are ignorant of God] are little to be blamed, for perhaps they go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him.  For as they live among his works they keep searching, and they trust in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful.  Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things?”  (RSV-CE)

Here is St. Augustine’s comment:

“How did those philosophers know God?  From the things which He had made.  Question the beautiful earth; question the beautiful sea; question the beautiful air, diffused and spread abroad; question the beautiful heavens; question the arrangement of the constellations; question the sun brightening the day by its effulgence; question the moon, tempering by its splendor the darkness of the ensuing night; question the living creatures that move about in the water, those that remain on land, and those that flit through the air, their souls hidden but their bodies in view, visible things which are to be ruled and invisible spirits doing the ruling; question all these things and all will answer:  'Behold and see! We are beautiful.'  Their beauty is their acknowledgment.  Who made these beautiful transitory things unless it be the unchanging Beauty?”  --  Sermon 241, trans. Mary Sarah Muldowney, RSM

Professor:

I believe in God, but several questions bother me regarding His existence:

1.  Why is humanity confined to such a tiny portion of the universe, and a small fragment of the universe's time?

2.  I see how human acts of evil can be reconciled with existence of God, because of free will, but why is do evil things like earthquakes and childhood cancer arise?

3.  Why does increasing intelligence correlate with increasing development of atheism?

Response:

Your third question is the easiest, because the premise is mistaken.  There is no direct correlation between intelligence and atheism, although there are some spurious correlations.  The intellectual culture of our own time is in effect atheist -– it doesn’t deny that there is a God, but proceeds as though there isn’t -- and if you select your data just from this period, you may seem to find a correlation between intelligence and atheism.  The intellectual culture of the middle ages was Christian, and if you selected your data just from that period, you would seem to find a correlation between intelligence and Christian faith.

Very quickly, with no discussion, I might add four more brief points.  (1) In my opinion, philosophically speaking, the arguments for the reality of God knock the stuffing out of the arguments against.  (2) This makes less and less difference to most people, because the intellectual culture of our time is rapidly losing its aspiration to the truth, and therefore its claim to be considered an intellectual culture at all.  (3) Although intellectuals are supposed to be persons of independent mind, in my experience most intellectuals are conformists.  If the smart people they know are indifferent to God, they are ashamed to take questions about God seriously.  There arises a kind of groupthink.  (4) I also remember that when I was an atheist, I didn't want God to be God; I wanted J. Budziszewski to be God.  Insofar as intelligence is correlated in this fallen world with intellectual pride, and intellectual pride with atheism, we have another spurious correlation between intelligence and atheism.

Your first question is the next easiest.  What difference does it make whether the physical habitation of humanity occupies a small or large part of the physical universe?  Would it be more reasonable if we filled it up more completely?  But why?  C.S. Lewis used to say that we humans are too easily worried by sheer numbers, and too ready to abase ourselves before them.  All those square light years of space disturb us because they seem so huge and empty.  But why should we imagine them to be empty?  Presumably God has uses for the rest of the physical universe; the fact that we don't know what these uses may be does not create a presumption against them, and in the meantime the best counsel is to admire its beauty.  What is truly great is the Creator’s love; in what He has made, the greatest thing is not a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies, but a rational soul, made in his image, small though the body to which it is united may be.

As to the time the universe existed before God brought us on the stage -- that is nothing.  To God, the passage of ten billion years is as the tick of a clock.  Besides, we were made for eternity.  We will be living, some eternally united with Him, some eternally alienated from Him, long after the suns of this universe have burned out or been replaced by the new creation.

Your second question is the most difficult, though it has an answer too.  Allow me to begin with the observation that Christian philosophers and theologians have offered a variety of sophisticated responses to the problem of evil.  I highly recommend Joseph Pieper, The Concept of Sin, which focuses on intentional evil, and Charles Journet, The Meaning of Evil, now out of print, which surveys all sorts of evil.  The most important point, I think, is that God is under no obligation to make a world in which evil cannot happen; what He is impelled by His own goodness to do is make sure that evil will not have the ultimate victory, and that in the meantime, even those evils that He permits can be turned by His providence to good.  Indeed it seems that a universe in which evil could never happen would be morally inferior to this one.  How, for example, could one learn the great and angelic virtue of courage, unless there were things that we needed to be courageous about?

On the other hand, although these ‘blackboard’ solutions are very good, they may not be what the suffering soul is asking for.  But there is another kind of answer too.  Although God has not revealed to us all of the reasons why he permits our suffering, we know His attitude toward it, because He took the worst of it upon Himself for sheer love.  It is this God who promises that in the New Jerusalem, He will personally will wipe the tears from the eyes of those who were afflicted, and for such a God, we can wait.