As I
stepped into the restaurant, I saw that Lucas was already at our accustomed
table. That was pretty unusual, as
usually I was the one who arrived first.
As I approached the table, I could see that he appeared to be talking to
himself.
“Hey
Lucas,” I said, “who are you talking to?”
“Oh – hi –
I was just talking to God here,” he said, motioning to the empty chair.
I thought
about leaving, just to teach him a lesson.
“It’s an empty chair…”
“Why can’t
God be invisible?” Lucas asked.
“That’s so
childish. God could be a chair, too, but
that doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re
right, that is kind of childish on my part.
But last time you talked about God appearing to you in this chair and
said that would be enough to believe.
Isn’t that a little childish also – or at least a little selfish?” Lucas asked.
“What do
you mean ‘selfish’?” I asked, taking my seat.
“Well, it’s
seems like you’ve only answered the question as if you were the only person that God needed to worry
about,” Lucas said, drawing out the word ‘only’. “If God’s going to do a miracle so that you
will believe, doesn’t he have to do the same miracle for everyone else as
well? Otherwise, it’s just not fair and
I know that you’re very worried about God being fair.”
“Sure –
what’s the problem with that? God can
appear in chairs to everyone, and then everyone would believe in him and I
guess that would make him happy and you happy,” I retorted.
“But that’s
way too glib. You aren’t really
seriously thinking that through. That
whole concept just doesn’t work. You
think it is childish that I would say that God is in that chair but he’s just
invisible, and you’re right – it’s childish.
But so is saying that if God appeared in chairs to everyone, it would
make everyone believe in him,” Lucas said.
“Childish? You’re the one who believes in some God that
you’ve never seen!” I exclaimed.
“All I’m
asking is that you give your ‘appear in a chair’ a little more serious
consideration. God is not just concerned
about you. If there is a God anything
like the one I believe in, then he is concerned about everyone – and that
includes everyone who has ever lived and everyone who ever will live. So if he’s going to get people to believe in
him by appearing in chairs, he has to do it for everyone over the whole history
of mankind,” Lucas said.
“OK. I don’t see a problem with that.”
“You don’t
see a problem with creating some event that has always happened and always will
happen? Such an event would not be considered a miracle – it would
just be a ‘natural’ event – like the sun rising every morning,” Lucas stated.
“It’s not
natural for anything to just appear in a chair,” I countered.
“No, but it
would be if it had always happened
and always did happen. That is almost the very definition of a
natural event. What else could you call
it? I mean if your requested ‘miracle’
had been ‘I want a being to appear behind me on the ground whenever I walk
around’ and it was something that had always happened, then you would just call it a
‘shadow’, not a miracle,” Lucas said.
“But that
makes my point. A shadow is a perfectly
natural event. There is a clear
scientific, natural explanation for why a shadow appears. It’s not magic. It’s not a miracle. It’s nature.
Are you trying to prove the existence of God using shadows??” I asked, a
bit incredulous.
“Of course
not,” Lucas said. “I’m just trying to
point out that no event, no matter
how shocking, is going to be sufficient for you to believe in God if it is
something that happens all the time. You
will always have a ‘natural’ explanation for it.”
“Of course
I will. That is because there is only
nature. But if your God does a miracle,
then there won’t be an explanation for it,” I countered.
“What? Did you just imply that if there is something
that happens that cannot be explained by science, you would consider it a
miracle?”
I realized
I was on shaky ground. But Lucas
continued without waiting for my response.
“Then how about human consciousness?
It’s not explainable by science and it is something that has always
happened and probably always will happen.
It is something that every human being experiences. Seems like a perfect miracle to show God’s
existence.”
“You love
to bring up human consciousness, but that is hardly evidence for the existence
of God. We are close to understanding it
– we will eventually figure it out,” I said.
“Ah, it’s
an AYUNE,” Lucas said with a smile.
“There you
go making up words again.”
“As-yet-unexplained-natural-event,”
Lucas said.
“I know –
you told me before. But consciousness will be explained,” I said.
“Well, I
might debate that – I don’t think neuroscience is even close to explaining
human consciousness. But that’s not my
point. My point is that even if some
event were to be unexplainable, you would never consider it to be a miracle,”
Lucas said.
“You’re
right. And I think I’m being pretty
logical if I consider natural events to be natural events and don’t ascribe any
supernatural meaning to them,” I said with an air of finality.
“Right. So the point is that, if God wants to prove
himself to you, he cannot use any natural, repeated events, even if they are
completely unexplained by modern science.
Any kind of event that he might do to demonstrate his existence, if he
does it fairly for every person who has ever lived or ever will live, will be
relegated to being described as a natural event. So, as far as your views are concerned,
natural events are ‘out’ for God. You
will not allow God to use them to prove his existence,” Lucas said.
“I wouldn’t
use the term ‘relegated’, but, yes, I think you are summarizing my views pretty
well. Natural events are natural, not
supernatural…and you can’t try to turn them into supernatural events by saying
they are unexplainable. You Christians
claim that all sorts of natural events are signs of the supernatural, like when
someone recovers from cancer or something like that. It makes no sense. I don’t see how you can claim that natural
events are the evidence for any supernatural being,” I said.
“I get
you. I think there are Christians who
ascribe supernatural significance to natural events without good evidence. But a lot of that has to do with your
starting point. I don’t really want to
get into that. I want you to try to
think about your situation from God’s viewpoint,” Lucas said, looking for some
approval from me.
“Sounds a
bit strange – what do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean,
let’s say you were God and you wanted to get ‘you’ to believe – how would you
do it? If you, as God, attempt to
perform some supernatural event for every person for all time, ‘you’ would just
say ‘that’s a natural event.’ But ‘you’
also don’t accept that there is such a thing as a miracle, so God can’t do that
either. So what is left? You’ve blocked out every avenue for God to
show himself to you and then you stand back and say it is God’s fault for now
showing himself to you,” Lucas challenged.
I needed to
think that through a bit, so I tried to put him off for now. “OK, maybe that’s how it is. But if your God is so great, he ought to be
able to figure it out,” I countered.
Lucas was
on a roll, though. “It’s like you’re
saying to God ‘show yourself’ but then you cover your eyes. Or you say to God ‘speak to me’ and then you
cover your ears. If you were God, why
would you even bother? If someone doesn’t
want to know God with that level of intensity, then why would God bother? Seems to me that it’s your problem, not God’s problem.”
I didn’t
want to talk about this further.
“Fine. It’s my problem. So leave me alone with my problem and let’s
talk about something else.”
Lucas
nodded. “OK – let’s eat. All I’m asking is that you think about it
from God’s perspective. I’ll leave it at
that.”
And with
that he took a big bite of his sandwich.
Despite his goofy examples, I felt he probably did make a pretty good
point. But I didn’t want to think about
it too much – it was time for lunch.
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