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Immortality and Meaning

January 11, 2012     Time: 00:12:00
Immortality and Meaning

Summary

If humans discovered how to live eternally, would that provide objective meaning apart from God?

Transcript Immortality and Meaning

 

There was a scientist on the radio this morning; he was trying to explain what happened, how the earth had changed its orbit and is starting to move away from the sun and within one, two, or maybe three weeks at the most there wouldn't be anymore sun. We'd all freeze. [1]

Kevin Harris: Welcome. Thanks for joining us on the Reasonable Faith podcast with Dr. William Lane Craig. I'm Kevin Harris, and whether you're a regular listener or a first time listener, thank you so much for being here. We're going to discuss a question that we got today at ReasonableFaith.org. Dr. Craig has written and spoken extensively on this particular topic. We thought that the letter really spelled out the issues of immortality and objective meaning. What if man could achieve immorality? Would we then have objective meaning and purpose in the universe? Stay close for that.

In the meantime make sure you check out ReasonableFaith.org and download the new Reasonable Faith app if you haven't done it. It's available now. You can get it when you go to ReasonableFaith.org. If you don't have Dr. Craig's book On Guard you can read the first chapter as well when you go to ReasonableFaith.org. On Guard will be a valuable resource in your library. And for you budding apologists, The Defense Never Rests. It's a fill-in-the-blanks workbook that Dr. Craig and Joseph Tang have put together, suitable for children as young as eight years old. This comes with a workbook and a teacher's handbook, and it's never too young to start. So get it all when you go to ReasonableFaith.org.

Questioner says:

Dr. Craig, I've read you article “The Absurdity of Life Without God.” [2] In response to your article an atheist might argue that science and reason will inevitably unlock the secrets of existence through which man can achieve immortality. Therefore one could claim that man gains meaning, value, and purpose simply through his pursuit of immortality and godhood. How much more so upon achieving them? How would you respond to such an argument based on the examples below? An atheist could say that apart from the metaphysical, the sum of an individual – the experiences, memories, personalities, etc. – can be reduced to information chemically stored in the vessel of the brain. Science might one day allow for the transfer of this consciousness into another acceptable vessel such as a clone, or artificial mind. In doing so man would attain immortality. Once immortal the means to transcend our human form and become godlike may also be discovered. One of the themes in the science fiction series Stargate SG-1 was the advancement of a race of humanoids that over millions of years eventually discovered the means to 'ascend,' become eternal, ethereal beings with limitless power over the natural world. These imaginations are not new. Even in the Scripture Lucifer imagined becoming like God, and implanted the same idea in the heart of man in the garden. Human experience has revealed that existence without hope in something greater than oneself is a bitter pill to swallow. It is my conclusion that many prominent atheist scientists cannot accept the bleak implications of life without hope. I once heard a famous astrophysicist on the History Channel show the universe, state that the universe probably created intelligent life to explain itself. This manufactured hope of the atheist is not dissimilar, in my mind, to the hope one might have in the existence of God. Thank you for taking the time to read my inquiry.

Dr. Craig: Well, I would certainly agree with the listener, Kevin, that it's difficult to live with the conclusions of an atheistic worldview. The kind of nihilism that atheism implies, I think, is existentially unbearable. And therefore one will either be profoundly unhappy if one tries to live consistently, or, more probably, in order to be happy one will simply choose to live inconsistently, and one will grasp for these substitutes, these surrogates, for God and immortality. And I think clearly his suggestions are extraordinarily implausible on a number of counts. For one thing it's not enough for man some day to achieve immortality. That does nothing for all of the poor wretches who have died along the way to get there. Their lives remain meaningless and purposeless. It does no good for them that someday somebody in the future might discover immortality and godhood.

Kevin Harris: Fat lot of good it does me.

Dr. Craig: Yeah. Moreover, the idea that the information in your brain could be transferred to some other entity that would exist after you doesn't mean that you yourself continue to exist. [3] There's no reason to accept this reductive view that you are information. Just ask yourself the question: suppose you were confronted with a scientist who said, “Here's what I can do: I'll transfer the information from your brain into this robot, and then we will kill you and the robot then can go on living forever and it will have the same consciousness and sense of identity that you do.” Would you accept that bargain? I don't think too many of us would agree to do that because we'd have a sense that my existence would be ended, even if this information transfer took place into some other entity.

Moreover, mankind will never become Godlike with a capital 'G'. God, if he exists, is morally perfect, necessary, eternal, transcends space and time, and none of those qualities would be possible for finite beings to attain. What he's really talking about is just a sort of race of finite beings that perpetuate their existence indefinitely.

And then I think – and this is really the coup de grace – he fails to understand the finitude of the natural world. We're not talking about simply the death of a human body after eighty to ninety odd years. Rather the entire universe faces thermodynamic heat death in which the whole universe will become in all probability a dilute gas of elementary particles, nearly at absolute zero, with no bodies, no composite masses, ever expanding into the infinite darkness, no light, no life, no heat. The universe has its own destruction written throughout its frame, as implied by the second law of thermodynamics that says that a closed system over time increases its entropy. And so these futile jesters toward the prolongation of human existence are all ultimately futile because the universe itself is doomed to destruction in the thermodynamic heat death of the cosmos.

Kevin Harris: You've pointed out something similar, Bill. Even if someone were to achieve immortality, if there were no God it could be one being doomed to an eternal boredom, meaninglessness, that just would not be present were there not the loving, eternal, limitless God.

Dr. Craig: Boy, I think that point needs to be underscored, Kevin. Any finite good, no matter how wonderful, taken for eternity would become cloying, boring, noxious over time. There is no finite good that can satisfy for infinity, forever. So if we did exist forever it would be a curse in the absence of some infinite good, like God, to whom we could be related as finite beings to a source of infinite goodness and love.

Kevin Harris: And enjoy forever.

Dr. Craig: And enjoy forever, yes.

Kevin Harris: And, boy, if you were stuck in a universe that was slowly dying, even after eons of time, and all of a sudden there's no warmth, light, heat, and just nothing, just disseminating particles; you're stuck in that. Heaven help you.

Dr. Craig: You know, I've thought about that and reflected on it. This isn't science fiction. I mean, this is really going to happen someday unless God intervenes first in the cosmos. What would it be like to be those last human beings left in the universe facing oblivion and destruction? It's just hard to even imagine, and yet barring divine intervention there's going to be somebody someday in that situation–when the last robot functions, the last gasp of energy is available for prolonging your existence.

Kevin Harris: I've thought about it, too. I've thought about even if we advance by that time with some kind of self-sustaining dome with batteries that last millions of years, eventually that closed system is going to decay, and you've just prolonged it a little longer. Eventually, adios.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, it's so sobering it's almost unbearable to face. [4]

Kevin Harris: But I hear many trying to put their hope in that. What do I care if the future of humanity is extended or not? On atheism I'll be dead. I won't be here to see the future progress of humanity and that we somehow made it.

Dr. Craig: That's right. That's the other point, as well. It doesn't affect you on an individual basis to talk about the prolongation of mankind in general. So on multiple levels this is flawed.

Kevin Harris: It might be a nice gesture. But why? Why be even sacrificial like that? Sobering, sobering stuff. You've written on it and spoken on it as well, and there are debates that you’ve done on meaning and objective meaning. What are some resources for people to look at at ReasonableFaith.org?

Dr. Craig: Well, if you look at both Reasonable Faith, the third edition of the book, as well as On Guard,they both have chapters in them that deal with this subject of the absurdity of life without God. And then I've also done a little bit of writing on physical eschatology, the future of the universe and this dark, pessimistic scenario that is painted by astrophysical cosmology about how the universe will eventually end. [5] And I have an essay in, I think it's the Oxford Dictionary of Eschatology on this, for example, where one could read more about how the universe will come to an end. [6]

Kevin Harris: Thanks, again, Dr. Craig. And again go to ReasonableFaith.org. Be sure that you have our web community bookmarked and you go there often and get the updates, get the new podcasts, the Defenders class, and all these new resources that we have for 2012. ReasonableFaith.org, and we'll see you next time on Reasonable Faith. [7]