Imagining Creation

Many thinkers insist that the universe cannot be eternal, that it must have been caused to exist by some previously existing power or agency. Many secular scientists affirm a version of the ‘big bang’ that purports to “explain” how the universe “got here,” while religious thinkers hold that the universe is the product of some conscious act. I have not adopted either of these views or anything comparable to them. 

My view is that the universe is eternal – because existence is eternal. ‘Universe’ in my view is essentially the sum totality of everything that exists, whatever that happens to be. On this view, if something exists, it is part of the totality of everything that exists, which means it must be part of the universe. This is not to say that every particular thing in the universe exists as-is eternally – the leaves on the tree outside my window will eventually fall off and decompose into something else, but the matter that makes them up continues to exist in some form. But this view does entail that one cannot postulate the existence of something outside the universe – such as some agency allegedly responsible for bringing the universe into existence. This instance of the self-exclusion fallacy invalidates such a proposal. 

Another way to frame my position is to recognize that reality is eternal. To say that reality was “created” could only mean that something must have created reality, but then the question becomes: is not whatever is that supposedly created reality, itself supposed to be real? Or are we to accept the view that the unreal created the real? Even the most hard-core theist is not going to allow this. But he will resist conceding the fact that the universe is eternal and thereby likewise avoid discussing the implications this has for reality as such. “Such a person,” writes Leonard Peikoff, “does not contest the need of an irreducible starting point, as long as it is a form of consciousness; what he finds unsatisfactory is the idea of existence as the starting point.” (Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, p. 21). For the theist, it’s sacrilegious to suppose that the universe is anything other than the product of supernatural wishing.

 

I do not think my position should be difficult to grasp, but some thinkers seem to have a hard time grasping it. I do think that the theist-atheist debate ultimately hinges on the question of what the proper starting point is. It is difficult to elicit direct responses from theists on what exactly they consider to be their ultimate starting point unless it’s just “God.” If existence is irreducible, however, then claiming “God exists” – which makes use of the concept of existence – borrows from Objectivism without recognizing the implications that the primacy of existence has for theism.

When I explained these points to a Christian some time ago, I got in return a slew of the usual obfuscations, such as “you don’t seem very open-minded” (as we saw in my previous entry), “you just hate God,” “dismissing alternatives out of hand is not scientific,” etc., all of which suggest an unwillingness to engage the points that I had actually made. In response, I was careful to explain that I am very mindful of the distinction between what is real and what I might imagine to be real, and that I recognize my need for a reliable principle to guide me in knowing the difference in particular cases, such as the claim that the universe was created by a supernatural consciousness. As I’ve pointed out on this blog numerous times before, all theistic arguments that I’ve examined suffer from the same fatal deficiency, namely that by the time I get to their conclusion, I have no alternative but to imagine the god whose existence they are purported to prove. Since at the very least the universe predates all of human history, surely there was no one who could have witnessed its creation; indeed, any witness would have to be part of the universe and thus a product of said creative act, so no one could have witnessed it. I can imagine the planets and stars being wished into being, but then I’d be imagining. 

The Christian then had several questions, beginning with the following:

In our conversation, you gave an example of imagining creation. And by the fact that you were imagining it, and knowing that it was only imagination, it must be, by observation, that a conscious cause of the universe is imaginary. Did I understand your reasoning properly?

I answered with the following: 

There’s more to it than this of course. My argument is not, “I imagined it, therefore it can’t be real.” On the contrary, my position is far more principled than this. Here are a few points to consider: 

1) There’s a fundamental relationship between consciousness and its objects – it is in fact the most fundamental relationship in all of knowledge, and that relationship is called the primacy of existence, which can be summed up as the fact existence exists independent of conscious activity. All examples of consciousness that we find in nature, whether it’s human consciousness, dog consciousness, cat consciousness, rodent consciousness, etc., summarily demonstrate that existence is not a product of conscious activity. We recognize this implicitly when we’re toddlers: when we roll a ball and it goes under a couch, it disappears from our eyesight. Yet we still recognize that it still exists, so we look under the couch to find it. Psychologists have called this stage of recognition object permanence. It is our first grasp of the primacy of existence principle, though it still remains only implicit at that point. But it crops up in simple truisms even children readily grasp, such as “wishing doesn’t make it so” and “believing something doesn’t make it true.” In short, reality does not conform to conscious activity. 

2) The very concept of truth rests exclusively on the primacy of existence principle. To say “X is true” is to acknowledge that the state of affairs so affirmed is what it is independent of one’s own wishes, preferences, presumptions, denials, evasions, misunderstandings, imagination, etc. Even if we’re mistaken in our statement about X, this obtaining independent of conscious activity is still intended when we say “X is true.” Notice how your own statement – “Imagining creation has no bearing on whether or not creation actually took place” (see below) – is close to as explicit an application of the primacy of existence as possible. If we ask: Why does imagining creation have no bearing on whether or not creation actually took place? How would we answer if not by yet another expression of the primacy of existence? Quite simply, we implicitly realize that existence is what it is independent of conscious activity, including the conscious activity we denote as imagination. And every time we affirm something as a fact presupposes this orientation between consciousness and existence. 

3) It is possible to performatively contradict oneself vis-à-vis the primacy of existence in a single statement. Here we need to distinguish between (a) the act of affirming and (b) the content of the affirmation. 

On the one hand, as we saw above, by affirming “X is true,” one makes use of the primacy of existence by presenting a claim which is supposed to be true regardless of what anyone thinks, believes, hopes, wishes, prefers, denies, imagines, etc. In other words, the very act of affirming “X is true” rests on the recognition that existence exists and things are what they are independent of conscious activity. 

On the other hand, the content of that claim can itself be incompatible with the recognition that existence exists independent of conscious activity. The claim “Existence depends on consciousness” would be just such an example of a performative self-contradiction, for it would be affirming that “X is the case” as a state of affairs that obtains regardless of anyone’s wishes, hopes, preferences, evasions, beliefs, imaginings, etc. while claiming that all states of affairs in reality are what they are because of conscious activity. Such a contradiction becomes immediately obvious once one fully grasps the principle of the primacy of existence. 

4) Creationists (if I can use that term to include everyone who believes and/or claims that the universe was created by a supernatural consciousness), whether they realize it or not (I don’t think they do), are performatively contradicting themselves when they claim that existence is a creation of conscious activity. On the one hand, by affirming “the universe was created,” they’re conveying that this is the case regardless of anyone’s conscious activity – whether anyone believes it, approves of it, denies it, hopes or wants otherwise, etc. On the other, the content of their claim can only mean that all existence depends on conscious activity as its metaphysical source, which is the diametric opposite relationship between consciousness and its objects implied in their very act of affirming the universe as a creation of consciousness. (You should note that by ‘universe’ here I essentially mean all of existence – i.e., everything that exists, regardless of its nature, both actual and postulated – considered as a whole; I do not find qualifiers like “physical” as in “physical universe” to be at all helpful when it comes to fundamentals.) 

5) Creationists provide no alternative to imagination as the means by which I can “know” that the universe was created by a supernatural agent. I recall one Christian who was trying to witness his beliefs to me. I asked him how he knows there’s a god. He replied: “the same way you know it!” (He was referencing Rom. 1:18 which implies the claim that everyone knows the Christian god.) Well, I explained, I already know that when I contemplate his god, I’m using my imagination. And from what he presented, he did not provide any alternative to imagination as a means of “knowing” his god or any of the other religious claims he was pushing on me. Again, I suspect people habitually use their imagination without recognizing that they are in fact imagining. This is why I stated elsewhere that “I read what you say about the creator you assert, but I observe that I still have no alternative but to use my imagination to consider what you’re describing” and that “We never observe consciousness conjuring things into existence, but we can still imagine this. The problem is that there is no alternative to imagining it.” 

When a theist insists that a god exists and expects me to accept this claim as truthful knowledge, I have a number of options. For example: 1) I can accept what he claims on his mere say-so. That seems rather imprudent. 2) I can ignore what he claims. Often these days I do just that. 3) I can probe his claims with some critical questions. 

If I decide to pursue with questions, the first question might be: Is the theist claiming to have direct awareness of this god? Either he does or he doesn’t have this direct awareness. Even if he says “Yes and no,” then we can focus on the affirmative horn and ask: By what means do you have direct awareness of this god? Here it is on the believer to identify the means by which he allegedly has direct awareness of a supernatural being and to distinguish it reliably from his imagination. Now, it’s hard to believe that he would say he has awareness of it by means of sense perception, since religious adherents typically tell us that their god is invisible, incorporeal, imperceptible, etc. And yet it is by means of sense perception that I have direct awareness of extramental objects. Whether it’s the book on my table, the floor fan in my room, my cat, my wife, my daughter, my car, my home, the floor I walk on, the sandwich I’ve prepared for lunch, the office towers in the nearby city, the clouds in the sky, the trees in our backyard, etc., when I have direct awareness of these, it is by means of sense perception. Theists typically say their god is “immaterial” and even the Christian bible says it’s invisible. Romans 1:20 says that “God’s invisible qualities… have been clearly seen,” which strikes me as rather confused at best – if these qualities “have been clearly seen,” how then can we call them “invisible”? Maybe it should really say they’ve been imagined. So I cannot see his god. Then by what means, if any, can I have direct awareness of what he’s calling “God”? I’m just asking for the how here. 

If the theist fails to identify the means by which he allegedly has direct awareness of his god, I can ask for clarity. E.g., does he have direct awareness of his god by looking outward (as I do when I look for my car keys or review an essay my daughter wrote for her history class), or by looking inward (as I do when I examine my emotions, memories, conclusions… and yes, fantasies and imaginations)? In my experience, theists are reluctant to address these questions without enlisting circuitous disclaimers, vague metaphors or tedious analogies. But all of this just underscores that he doesn’t really have a serious answer here. 

If he says he does not have direct awareness of the supernatural agent he claims to believe in, then what are the options here? Did he infer its existence from things that he does have direct awareness of? This is kinda-sorta what the Romans verse cited above suggests when it says that “God’s invisible qualities” are “understood from what has been made.” If its existence is discovered by means of inference, then for sure we must have a really powerful guide (and I don’t mean emotions here, but in terms of solid, comprehensible epistemological standards), for inference is not infallible – we can and do make mistakes in drawing inferences, which is why we need reason as our standard. And ultimately the starting point must be facts which are perceptually self-evident. 

But there are problems for the theist here. One, I already know that the primacy of existence is true, while the believer is trying to rationalize his belief in a supernatural agent whose career is distinguished by express opposition to the primacy of existence. Second, the believer has the unsavory task of trying to infer the existence of something that is supernatural, infinite, incorporeal, immaterial from things that are natural, finite, corporeal and material. How does he start with X and conclude non-X? We can also ask how he can be sure that his course of reasoning leads to the god he champions and not to some competing deity? Lastly, how does his argument distinguish itself from all the others which I’ve examined in which by the time I get to the conclusion, I still have no alternative but to imagine the god whose existence is said thereby to have been proved? 

Usually I don’t even make it half-way into this kind of dialogic investigation that the theist starts evading, changing the subject, even insulting me. But I think these are all reasonable questions given the nature of what is claimed and what is supposedly at stake, so why get sore at me if they’re inconvenient? 

The Christian then asked:

Then, let us say that you imagine a giraffe being chased by a pride of lions. Has this ever happened in reality? Does your act of imagining suddenly make all such instances imaginary and no longer a part of physical reality?

No, that is not what I am saying at all. My act of imagining doesn’t make real things become imaginary just as it does not make the things I imagine real. Again, existence holds metaphysical primacy over conscious activity. Imagination does not have the power to make what is imagined real just as it does not have the power to make the real no longer real. Again, what alternative do I have other than imagination to contemplate the believer’s god and other religious claims? 

Now even with lions on the Serengeti chasing giraffes, there is an important distinction to be made here. Yes, lions exist, giraffes exist, and some giraffes do get chased by lions. I accept this. But as I close my mind and imagine a giraffe getting chased by a lion, what I am imagining is not actually taking place: the giraffe I’m imagining is not real, and neither is the lion that I’m imagining. Moreover, there is no causal relationship between what I am imagining and what might actually happen to be taking place in the world. And this should not be difficult to grasp. Recently my daughter expressed apprehension about a major math test she was scheduled to take in the coming days. She was very worried and it was clear to me that she was imagining that it was going to have really tough questions, questions that might very well best her abilities. I encouraged her to study the subject thoroughly and do her best to prepare for it; I even tried to help, but I was pretty useless – it’s been close to forty years since I took math courses like hers. At any rate, test day finally came, and she came home and said it wasn’t as hard as she expected it to be. In other words, what was actual and what she imagined were in fact very distinct, and that’s necessarily going to be the case with anything in reality. 

We took a trip to New York City back a few months ago. In the weeks and days prior to our trip, I imagined a lot of things that we would see and do there. But what actually happened was not what I imagined or how I imagined it. We went because we were not content to simply sit at home and imagine New York City – we wanted to experience the real thing firsthand. There’s the old Motorhead song, “The Chase is Better Than the Catch.” In other words, what we think we’re going to get and what we actually get are two very different things, no matter how much care we put into curating our imagination to conform with what we think is coming. Sometimes things are not as good as we imagined them. But regardless, the giraffe I’m imagining simply does not exist. 

The Christian continued:

This is the logic I’m struggling with, for it seems you have cause-and-effect a bit backwards, or perhaps skewed on a tangent. Imagining creation has no bearing on whether or not creation actually took place. Your mental prowess in recognizing your own imagination when it is active can be completely at odds, or in agreement, with reality. There is no conclusion to be derived on the verity of existence by you imagining that existence.

Yes, I understand what you’re saying. And you’re very right when you say: “Imagining creation has no bearing on whether or not creation actually took place.” As I pointed out above, this statement is a direct expression of the primacy of existence – it’s essentially saying that regardless whatever conscious activity I perform, reality is what it is and continues to be what it is. And it is because existence holds metaphysical primacy over conscious activity that I reject any claim that existence is a product of conscious activity. Your very own statement contains the key to unlocking the mystery here – you use it all the time, but you may not have realized how universal its implications are for all knowledge. The question is not whether or not thinkers grasp this, but whether or not their worldview is entirely consistent with it. 

Again, why is it the case that “imagining creation has no bearing on whether or not creation actually took place”? If X took place, it took place whether anyone imagines it or not; it took place even if no one knows it took place; and it took place even if we wish or pretend otherwise. I’m sure you grasp this. These basic recognitions are rooted in the fact that existence is not a product of conscious activity, nor does existence conform to conscious activity. I can wish that the pizza slice I had for lunch was not 800 calories till the cows come home, but if it was 800 calories, it was 800 calories regardless of what I wish, hope, believe, accept, pretend, prefer, desire, want, or imagine. All these types of conscious activity – wishing, hoping, believing, accepting, pretending, desiring, wanting and imagining – they do not have any power over reality. Existence exists and is what it is independent of consciousness. This can only mean that the notion of supernatural creation is a notion whose content is incompatible with fundamental orientation between existence and consciousness assumed when affirming it. And yet, we can still imagine it nevertheless. It is possible to imagine things that are not true. I can imagine that I’m 25 again, that I’m only 180 lbs, that I can run up the stairs of a 20-storey building without getting winded, that I make $500k a month, etc. But reality remains unimpressed all the same. 

Where I’m drawing a conclusion, then, is from the following recognitions:

1) even if something isn’t real, we can imagine it (see above); 

2) people often imagine things without realizing that they’re imagining (cf. buried signposts); 

3) it is possible for human thinkers to ignore the distinction between the real and the imaginary; 

4) I know that I am imagining when I contemplate the theist’s god-belief claims; 

5) theists provide no alternative to imagination as a means of having awareness of what they claim to know; 

6) theists ignore the fact that they performatively contradict their theistic claims in the very act of affirming them as truths.

I think my views on these matters are straightforward and not difficult to grasp. The difficulty tends to arise when theists try to evade one or more of these observations and the implications they have in regard to their theism. 

by Dawson Bethrick