The courthouse bell tolled twelve times and then, at opposite ends of a now abandoned street, two men appeared. Everyone in town had taken cover; even the saloon’s honky-tonk piano was silent. The sheriff was there to make sure everything was done decently and in order, as the two men slowly approached one another. On one side, the physicist, his white lab coat hanging open and loose in the noontime heat. On the other side, the minister, his black robe unzipped and pulled back so he’d have easy access to the bible tucked into his belt.
For as long as anyone could remember, these two men had battled each other. The minister preaching “God exists,” the physicist shouting back “There is no God” until finally Miss Kitty always made them sit at tables at opposite ends of the saloon. But today they vowed to settle things once and for all. The sheriff, who had happened to have been a philosophy major at Princeton before heading west, knew that there was no way to absolutely prove or disprove the existence of God. It was ultimately a question of faith. But he wanted this to be a fair fight so he handed each of the two men an envelope, which contained the same question: Why is there something rather than nothing? The two men’s eyes opened wide in surprise, as they looked at the sheriff, who broke the silence and said, “Yes, boys; Leibniz’s paradox. Go ahead – give it your best shot.”
The minister cleared his throat and said, “I’ll start. Occam’s Razor – the simplest answer is always the best answer. If you have to choose between something and nothing, then of the two options, nothing is the simpler choice. This world of wind, dust, heat, horses, even the sheriff here is incredibly complex. We should logically expect for there to be nothing – no life, no universe, nothing. That would have been the simpler option. But life does exist – that’s the paradox. And it exists in a complex way, with electrons and nuclei, planets and suns, and humans living and dying every day. This complex, perishable world exists; and the simplest answer as to why it exists has to involve something imperishable and eternal, which I name ‘God.’ So God is why something exists rather than nothing.”
The physicist spoke next. “I’ll concede that nothing would have been a simpler choice. But since something does exist, I counter your Occam’s Razor with Everett’s “many worlds” quantum theory. The universe is immense, containing billions of stars, planets and galaxies, quarks and gluons, particles and anti-particles. The problem with you religious people is that you want to believe that this world is unique – that whatever has come to be was the result of a one-time event set in motion by God long ago. As physicists, we are comfortable imagining that this universe is only one of billions and billions of universes; that although you’re the minister with a black robe and brown hair in this universe, in another one you may have a red robe, or blond hair, or no hair, or perhaps you’re the sheriff. The point is, you believe the universe is simple and thus had to be created by a god; whereas I believe the universe’s simplicity is that it is uniformly complex and its deep laws allow for all possible universes to exist at once and therefore there is no need to believe in a God who long ago created this specific universe.”
The minister shook his head. “By logic, it is just as arbitrary to suggest there is an infinite number of invisible universes, of which ours just happens to be the only visible one, as it is to profess that an unseen Creator exists in the heavens. Both require leaps of faith. And if I’m going to leap anywhere, I’d rather leap into God’s arms than into a black hole of your multiverse.”
“Alright now, boys,” interrupted the sheriff. “It’s high noon. Each of you take ten paces back and then shoot from the hip, metaphorically speaking.” Scowling the minister and the physicist slowly walked backward, one muttering “Genesis, St. Augustine, John Calvin”, the other muttering “Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, Richard Feynman.” At the tenth step, they froze in their tracks as the sheriff yelled, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Quick on the draw, the physicist shouted, “The simplest explanation is that whatever does exist required no creator. Our universe is a random byproduct of a creative process that brought into being multitudes and multitudes of universes. And since it was a random process, ours more than likely is not the best, nor the worst universe, but one of the mediocre options somewhere in the middle of that range.”
(Okay, I have to break into the story at this point. I read Jim Holt’s New York Times bestseller “Why Does the World Exist?” and after 280 pages, that is the literal answer he came up with – that our universe is just one out of billions and billions of randomly created universes; and it is an indifferent mixture of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and chaos, which means that it is far from perfect – and in the end a somewhat mediocre universe in the grand scheme of things. I almost threw the book out the window when I read that. Now back to our story.)1
The physicist’s words were fired straight at the minister’s heart, but once spoken, they seemed to be quite off target. The minister was stunned and, looking at the scientist, simply said, “Really? That’s the best you can do?” Walking forward, he went to the physicist and put his hand on his shoulder. “We’ve had our arguments over the years. And I’m always amazed at how quickly people accept propositions from science which boggle the mind more than any of the bible’s miracles. Our minds can intuitively grasp the idea of a dead man coming back to life, since it is sort of like people coming out of a deep coma or what it feels like to wake up in the morning after a sound sleep. But to believe that the immeasurably vast universe was once compressed into a tiny pinpoint, that is in truth counter-intuitive and very hard to believe. I’m not saying I doubt the equations that back all this up; I’m just saying that it’s as much a matter of faith as it is a matter of science.”2
“So why is my position, believing in a Creator, so often viewed with disfavor? Perhaps it’s because your universe doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not, whereas my universe, my God, does care. Your universe is indifferent; the universe as I understand it cares and loves and wants us to respond in ways that are also caring and loving.” Reaching slowly into his belt, the minister flipped to Proverbs 8. He found a spot on the page and then looked up at the physicist and sheriff. “Maybe part of our problem is that we think about this whole question of God and the universe in male terms. In the Old Testament, the wisdom that created something rather than nothing was seen as being feminine. Hokmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek – both feminine nouns. Lady Wisdom was there from the beginning of creation. When Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel and did his drawing of God stretching out a hand towards Adam, under God’s arm he painted a woman. A woman, Lady Wisdom, is who God rested on when life was created. In the bible it says, ‘When God established the heavens, I (Wisdom, Sophia) was there; when God drew a circle on the face of the deep and made firm the skies above; when God assigned limits to the sea and marked out the foundations of the earth, I was beside God, like a master worker.’
“And here’s the great part. Verses 30 & 31: ‘I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting, playing, in God’s presence.’3 I can’t accept a random, mediocre world. There’s too much in it that delights me and fills me with joy and wonder. When I think of the something that exists, rather than the nothing that might have been, I too rejoice. I like a creation whose Creator takes delight in this world. I like a feminine face on God, giving birth to us as if from a womb. I like a feminine face on wisdom, playing and inviting us to join in the dance of life. I don’t mind being challenged to love and care for others and this world, even though that asks me to trust in a God who first loved and cared enough to create this world. To believe in a God who wouldn’t let this world grow indifferent, so God came in Jesus Christ long ago. To believe in a God who won’t abandon us ever, but calls us to play through the ever-present gift of the Holy Spirit. I accept that all by faith. I choose to believe, and in that belief, I find joy. To you, that may not be the same as certainty, but I think it’s a foundation sturdy enough upon which to build a life that adds up to something, rather than nothing.”
Miss Kitty had strolled over and joined the boys in the middle of the street. “You’re right, preacher. There’s been way too much testosterone in this conversation. C’mon, boys, listen to Lady Wisdom and get out the heat. I’ve poured two ice-cold root beers and you can sit at the same table and continue this conversation inside.” The minister blew some dust off the binding of his bible and tucked it back into his belt and walked with the physicist toward the saloon. And as he drew near, he was surprised to recognize the old hymn being played by the piano player, and even more surprised when the four of them began to sing as they walked, “Morning has broken, like the first morning. Born of the one light Eden saw play! Praise with elation, praise every morning; God’s re-creation of the new day!”
AMEN