Chapter One
It Always Begins with a Question
âOkay, Fly-boy. Hereâs one for you.â
Fly-boy. Eric winced. But it was a nickname Todd seemed determined to have stick. âIâm not trying to start anything with this, okay?â Todd continued, sincerely. âWeâve covered this ground before, you knowâyou and God and allâand we probably will again. And Iâm good with you believing what you believeâyour choice.â
Eric nodded as he folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in the desk chair, showing Todd he was taking him seriously and that he had his full attention.
âItâs from a book called The Pony Fishâs Glow,â Todd continued. âItâs for a philosophy paper I have to write. The author is a professor named George Williams. He taught at the State University of New York. And he said here that this California anthropologistâwell, let me just read you the quote:
[California anthropologist Sarah Hrdy] studied a population of monkeys, Hanuman langurs, in northern India. Their mating system is what biologists call harem polygyny: dominant males have exclusive sexual access to a group of adult females, as long as they can keep other males away. Sooner or later, a stronger male usurps the harem and the defeated one must join the ranks of celibate outcasts. The new male shows his love for his new wives by trying to kill their unweaned infants. For each successful killing, a mother soon stops lactating and goes into estrous.⌠Deprived of her nursing baby, a female soon starts ovulating. She accepts the advances of her babyâs murderer, and he becomes the father of her next child.
Do you still think God is good?1
Todd looked up at Eric with raised eyebrows as a way of putting the ball in his court.
Eric grew thoughtful. Through other conversations heâd had with Todd, he knew this was a crucial question for his roommate. Todd had experienced some raw things in his nineteen years, and this kind of thing was no small issue for him.
Eric shrugged and laughed quietly. âI wouldnât have a clue as to where to begin with a question like that.â But then something occurred to him, and he glanced at his watch. âBut I have a friend who might, and this is just the kind of question he loves. Itâs early enough. Why donât we give him a call?â
Todd agreed, and the call was made.
âMike Murphy!â Eric grinned when he heard his friendâs voice.
âEric Jennings!â Mike exclaimed. It had been months since theyâd last talked. âWuzzup??!â
Eric laughed. Mike was in a light mood.
âMy roommate has just asked me a pretty tough philosophical question, and I thought we might discuss it.â
Mike told him he was just finishing up making the family some homemade pizza and heâd have to call him back, but they agreed to Skype. When Mike got back to them and was introduced to Todd, Eric had Todd read the quote. He began but stopped after identifying the scientist who did the study. âI donât knowâŚmaybe the name of the anthropologistâHrdyâis a typo or something,â Todd said.
âActually no,â Mike said. âHrdy is the way her husbandâs name is spelled. I think he has or had a medical practice out in Sacramento. Itâs an eastern European nameâCzech, if I remember correctly.â
Todd nodded. Then he read the quote through, finishing with, âDo you still think God is good?â
Mike took a moment to collect his thoughts. He was familiar with Williamsâ challenge. Heâd dealt with it a few years earlier when he and a friend had done a study on the problem of evil.
âJust to be clear, Todd, Sarah Hrdy wasnât the one who asked the question; Dr. Williams was. And I think we can agree that his articulation of the infant monkeysâ deaths was intended to be provocative. Why else would he have asked this? Heâs not stupid, though. He canât indict the langur for murder. Murder involves moral obligation, something no monkey has. So whatâs he doing?â
The two boys looked at each other. âHeâs making a case against God, for one,â Todd then answered.
âExactly,â2 Mike replied. âHe wonders how this kind of macabre situation can be reconciled with the idea of a God who is all-good and all-powerful. Itâs an absurdity to him. And if you allow him to suck you into this shell game of his, youâll miss the massive problem heâs just created for himself.â
Todd laughed. âHeâs just stuck it to God. How has he created a problem for himself?â
âSticking it to God has and always will be one very good way to make problems for yourself,â Mike answered dryly. âAnd Iâll show you how that happened here, just from the standpoint of reason.â
Seeing he had the boysâ attention, Mike continued. âSo hereâs the question, Todd. Where does Professor Williams get his idea of murder?â
âItâs what happens when the lead ape is supplantedâŚâ
âTheyâre not apes; theyâre monkeys. And murder is precisely whatâs not going on in the harem, but weâll get to that,â Mike said. âWhat Iâd like to know, though, is where the concept of murder comes from. Thatâs an idea Professor Williams knows about; thatâs part of his world but not part of theirs.
âYou see, there is a moral threshold here. The ideas of should and shouldnât signify moral obligations. They are issues the professor had to deal with daily, but nowhere do monkeys have to deal with them. And thatâs the difference. So why would murder be a part of his knowing and not theirs? Where does the whole idea of moral obligations come from? Maybe Dr. Williams didnât realize it when he wrote this, but by raising the idea he brought the question back down on his own head.â
Todd was quiet. He hadnât considered things from this angle.
Mike then observed, âThereâs a second issue here, and it has everything to do with his rhetorical strategy: the application of murder to the langurâs actionsâkilling the infants when he takes over the harem. Williams was an evolutionary biologistââ
âWhy are you now using the past tense with this guy?â Todd interrupted.
âHe died in 2010.â
Todd nodded his understanding, so Mike continued. âWilliams, along with Peter Singer at Princeton, would be an example of, should I say, a militant or doctrinaire Darwinist. Iâm not using these terms in a pejorative sense, mind you. People like this are just committed to applying evolutionâs implications consistently. Evolution understands mankind as simply an extension of the animal kingdomâweâre not different in kind, only degree. So, for instance, if humans have rights, then animals have rights too. Peter Singer is a leading animal rights advocate.â
âYou disagree with animal rights?â Todd asked.
âNo, only the basis of them,â Mike replied. âAnimal rights is a very Christian idea, actually. William Wilberforce, the English statesman who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery, was an animal rights advocate, but his rationale was decidedly different from Williamsâ or Singerâs. To Wilberforce, mankind was truly different from the animal kingdom, not in degree but in kind. Man is made in Godâs image, but as such we donât own the worldâwe canât do with its creatures anything we like. We are, in fact, stewards of the world and, that being the case, have a responsibility to treat our fellow creatures humanely. The Bible speaks to the humane treatment of animals.3 So in raising and harvesting animals for food or clothing, we need to be aware of their basic needs and welfare. And if we are going to kill them as part of that harvesting we donât do it brutally or callously; we do it humanely. God will hold us accountable. So conserving habitats for manatees and owls and protecting dolphins and sea turtles from the tuna nets are all very Judeo-Christian ideas.
âWhere Williams got himself into trouble was when he conflated the idea of murder with the langurâs actions.4 He didnât mean to, but he brought up the other side of the coin. If humans are simply another animal, a mere extension of the animal kingdom, then why are we the only creature saddled with moral responsibility? Why arenât moral obligations or prohibitions part of the monkeysâ picture as well?â
âIâm not following you,â Todd admitted.
âIf weâre not different in kind, only in degree,â Mike continued, âand if humans have moral obligations and duties, then why donât they? Where does this moral threshold come from? Why donât we charge the cheetah with murder when it runs down the antelope and begins ripping it apart? Or the Orca when it terrorizes the poor seal before devouring it? If the Darwinists are taking their evolutionary worldview seriously, they have to admit, either the animals need to be held accountable for their actions, or we should no more be constrained by moral obligations than the langurs. Why are humans morally obligated while the rest of the animal kingdom gets off scot-free?â
Both boys were quiet and thinking. Then Todd shrugged and suggested, âMaybe our moral capacity is tied somehow to our advanced intellectual developmentâŚmaybe.â
Mike nodded quietly. âWell, letâs think about that.
âAt the end of World War II in Europe, the Western Alliesâthe United States and Britainârushed in to capture the chief engineers of the Nazi war machine before the Russians could get to them. Why? Because we knew the Germans were two to three years ahead of us from the standpoint of technology. Swept-wing fighter-jet aircraft, ballistic and cruise missiles, superior battle-tank design. In this regard, the Nazis were way ahead. But morally they had degenerated to the monstrous. We found that out when we liberated the concentration camps. So Iâm not sure the superior intellect idea flies.â
Todd was stumped.
Mike then added, âWhat the Nazis show us is that the intellect is necessary but not sufficient.â
âWhatâs the difference?â
âWell,â Mike responded thoughtfully, âfire needs oxygen to burn the forest down, so oxygen is necessary. But if it was also sufficient, every forest would automatically burn down in the presence of oxygen. That they donât shows it isnât. You need something more, something specific; a sufficient causeâa careless camper or a lightning strike.â
Mike then continued quietly and deliberately, so both boys understood his questions were not simply rhetorical. âSoâŚwhere do we come up with the concept of murder, and why should it matter? Professor Williams was disgusted enough about what went on in the monkeyâs harem to use it as an example, but why? Unless he believed he lived in a moral universe, he shouldnât have been. The fact is, he did believe in a moral universe; he couldnât have lived in a universe that wasnât. Youâd have seen that side of him for sure if heâd caught one of his students cheating, or his stockbroker if the good professor had found out his managed funds were being embezzled.
âSo hereâs the question: Do we, in fact, live in a moral universe? Do objective moral values existâmoral duties that are truly binding on all of humanity, in all human cultures, whether we believe them or not? Is the tin-horn dictator who reaches into his chemical stockpile and gases a village of civiliansâmen, women and children he feels pose a threatâa murderer, or was he just doing something politically or culturally unsavory? Was the holocaust a true evil or just something we believe was socially unacceptableâweâd have preferred it hadnât happened?â
Mike waited for a response, but there was none. âLetâs be clear. In a Darwinian world, might makes right; the strong survive. So where does this concept of evil come from, the whole idea of the moralâshouldnât or ought?â
Mike grew quiet again to see if there was an answer forthcoming. âToddâŚ?â
Todd looked at Eric sheep...