Chapter 16.                                (continued) 

Thus it is rational to choose to see the universe as both coherent and conscious. But are these two choices added together enough to justify a further choice to embark on a path toward a personal theism?

The third big idea in this analysis of our background assumptions is the one that this book has labored long to establish. It is the assumption that says there is a kind of moral order in this universe, a moral order that is “real” in the sense that scientists mean—observably, empirically real.

The universe runs by laws that produce patterns in the flows of events, and our culturally acquired moral values guide us, as tribes, to navigate through those patterns. These values were learned through trial and error by millions of people over thousands of years. People learned that certain general ideas called values—large ideas like courage, wisdom, freedom, and love—work. In theory, many varied cultures can evolve that incorporate these values into a viable way of life. But across all of these cultures, large general patterns are discernible. If we go, as whole societies, in the direction toward which our most basic values point, we get useful results. The people who live by these values survive. Those who don’t, don’t.

Values have physically observable effects as real as gravity and magnetism. Gravity and magnetism are seen by how they affect the movements of clusters of particles. Values are seen by how they affect the movements of tribes of people.

Again we can ask about our third big idea in this line of thinking: “As opposed to what?” The usual opposing idea to moral realism in modern times is moral relativism, under which moral values are mere tastes, and right and wrong depend on where you are. What was right in Rome in the first century of the modern era is not morally right today, the relativists say; what is right in East Africa is not right in Western Europe. Under the moral relativists’ thinking, there is no peaceful way to resolve disputes between different cultures because there is no common ground on which to even begin the negotiations.

There are lots of forms of moral relativism being espoused in the twenty-first century. Some even claim, in convoluted arguments, that they do offer us ways to establish common definitions of “good” and to resolve disputes peacefully. But for the purposes of this book, moral relativism as just defined will suffice. In the end, moral relativism takes the position that moral values can’t be grounded in any specifiable, observable, physical phenomena.⁷ I claim that we won’t survive thinking like that and we don’t have to think like that.

The view of moral realism I offer in this book says of the relativists’ position that nothing could be further from the truth. Material reality is the common ground, and if we understand what our species’ history is telling us about values, we can infer that values are based on reality, then debate how to interpret that reality, and then test our various models against the evidence of history. Finally, we are driven logically to conclude that all of our disputes can be resolved peacefully. The things stopping us from creating and maintaining world peace are the anti-morals: cowardice, cupidity, laziness, and bigotry.

So let us now close in on our long-anticipated main point.

If, as a modern human being in touch with the basics of Science in all its forms, I believe the universe is one coherent thing—even if all its laws are not yet understood—and I further believe it is conscious—even if its consciousness is so vast and subtle that it can’t yet be comprehended by humans—and I further believe it is morally responsive—even if its moral quality is only discernible in the flows of millions of people over thousands of years—if I believe these three claims, then, yes, in my personal way I do believe in God.

What? That’s it?

Yes, my patient reader. That’s it. I do still believe in God. My view is a pretty lean one, but every instinct in me tells me that such is life. Adults have to get by on leaner fare than children who seek a bearded man in the sky. The best consolation of adult life is the firm belief that the patterns that we see in the flows of events in world – even patterns that only show in the evidence of centuries of human actions – are real. Your deep intuition that “good” and “right” are real is not naïve or crazy. It’s the sanest belief you have.  

And now, in a personal response to the logic presented so far, let me try to show that this case is enough to maintain my theism. And personal is the most honest way to describe my final chapter. It has to be so. Or, to be exact, it has to make the personal universal and the universal personal, as we shall see.

Notes

1. Dennis Overbye, “Laws of Nature, Source Unknown,” New York Times, December 18, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18law.html? pagewanted=all&_r=0.

2. Homer, The Illiad (c. 800–725 BC; Project Gutenberg), p. 91. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6130/6130-h/6130-h.html#fig120.

3. Nicholas Maxwell, From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution for Science and the Humanities (London, UK: Pentire Press, 1984), pp. 107–109.

4. http://www.wired.com/2013/12/secret-language-of-plants/

5. Joshua Roebke, “The Reality Tests,” Seed magazine, June 4, 2008. http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P1/.

6. Ibid.

7. Chris Gowans, “Moral Relativism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2015. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/.