Realities

Joe wasn’t sure. The words didn’t mean anything to him, but his knees were getting sore. The idea of crawling backward to the outside didn’t appeal to him either. So he thought, “I’ll just lay down for a while.” I think you can guess what happened next: he fell asleep. The next thing he remembered was waking up to a voice. It was a voice he recognized. Joe looked up and saw that the right door was opened, and Philo’s head was sticking out through the opening.

“Hey, Joe! Your snoring is really loud. Why don’t you wake up?”

“I am awake,” Joe replied, “hey! How’d you get in here? Well, never mind, I’m awake.”

“Are you sure about that? I mean there are people asleep who don’t really know it. You know, like that little kid in the movie. ‘I see sleeping people…All the time.’

“Yeah, I saw that movie. I don’t get it. Besides that’s not what he said. The little kid said, ‘I see dead people. All the time.’”

“Sleeping people. Dead people,” the old man shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. So, Joe, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of blind chance isn’t it? I might as well flip a coin. It’s just a leap in the dark.”

“Not at all, Joe. Listen; do you know what the words mean on these doors?”

“No,” Joe answered.

“Psalms are books in the Bible. You have heard of the Bible?”

“Who hasn’t? What do they say?”

“The one on the left, Psalm 14:1 says, ‘The fool says in his heart there is no God.’”

“Okay.”

“And the one on the right, Psalm 19:1” the old man continued, “says, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.’”

Joe thought about that for a moment, and then he asked, “So, are you saying that I have to choose between believing in God or being an atheist just to get down off this mountain?”

“You could look at it that way,” Philo explained, “but let me offer you another perspective. The two doors, the two thoughts in the Bible, represent two versions of reality. In one reality there is no creator and all life is the result of blind chance. In the other reality there is an intelligent creator who, in his infinite wisdom, brought us into existence. Both versions have profound implications.”

            “I suppose that that must be true,” Joe responded, “but it sounds risky.”

            “Risk! Joe, think about it. This is not some “Lady-or-the-Tiger” riddle! The two doors aren’t some kind of puzzle. We’re talking about the nature of reality. In one reality we are here by chance. In the other we are here by design.”

“How then do you know which one to choose? I mean, if there is a God, why is he so secretive? Why doesn’t he just step out and introduce himself to us?”

            “Oh, but he has, Joe! He has! I mean, what’s harder to believe, that the universe caused its own existence, or that God caused it?”

“I didn’t think about it at all, to be honest.”

“Okay, but think about it now, which seems more plausible?”

Joe turned that over in his mind for a while, but eventually he realized he was just putting off the inevitable. “Yes. It doesn’t seem plausible that something-anything-could cause its own existence.”

“That’s right Joey, boy! You get to go to the bonus round. Let’s move this thought a step further. When you were in school, did you ever see one of those little models of the solar system? You know, the sun is in the middle and all the planets move around it, and all the moons move around their planets?”

“Sure.”

“Well, let’s say you were out walking in the woods and you saw one of those sitting on a log, or a rock. Would you think it was manmade or that it ‘just happened’?”

“Nobody would be foolish enough to think it just happened,” Joe responded.

“Exactly! So why would anyone be foolish enough to think that the reality from which the model was made, which is infinitely larger and more complex, just happened? Wouldn’t that person be a fool? Isn’t that what Psalm 14 said? ‘The fool says in his heart there is no God.’”

They were silent for a few minutes. Then Philo asked: “Do you believe in the Big Bang, Joe?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Wouldn’t the Big Bang imply that the universe had a beginning? Think of it this way: the universe is expanding. If we could rewind the tape, so to speak, the universe would be contracting to a point. Wouldn’t that indicate that there was a point when it was not expanding? Wouldn’t that have to mean the universe had a beginning?”

“I suppose that must be true,” Joe said, “but I’ve never really thought about it that much.”

“That’s okay, but think about this for a sec. Everything that begins to exist has to have a cause. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause. In other words, it didn’t cause itself to exist.”

“Alright, Philo, let me think about it.” Joe was silent for quite a while, then he said, “I will accept that the universe has a cause, but how do you know there aren’t just an infinite number of causes going back through time?”

“Ah, good question, Joe. But an actual infinite number is impossible. It’s absurd.”

“Really? How so?”

“Let me use an illustration called Hilbert’s Hotel. Some math geek thought this up, but it’s pretty cool. Let’s say you had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and all the rooms are full.”

“Okay.”

“Now suppose a new guest arrives and asks for a room. The proprietor says ‘sure’ and he calls up to the rooms and asks the person in room #1 to move to #2, the person in room #2 to move to three, and so on to infinity. He now has an empty room and the new guest can check in. You with me so far, Joe?”

“I think so,” Joe replied.

“Okay. Now, the new guest checks in. Are there more people in the hotel now than before the new guest checked in?”

“Uh, yes?”

“No, Joe. There are still an infinite number of people in the hotel. It wouldn’t matter how many people checked in or out, the rooms would always be full. Infinity plus one is still infinity. So an infinite works fine in math theory, but it can’t exist in reality.”

“Alright, I get that, but how does that apply to the universe?”

“Think of the rooms in the hotel as moments in time, say years. You can’t have an infinite number of years in time past. It’s impossible.”

There was a long silence while Joe thought about this. After a couple of minutes he said, “Okay, so maybe there is a god of some kind out there. That doesn’t mean “God” is a person does it? Couldn’t the universe have come into being by some Force?”

“Another good question, Joe. But would you agree that no effect can be greater than its cause?

“Maybe.”

“Bear with me for a moment, Joe. Suppose that’s true. That would mean that we can’t be greater than the One who caused us. So if we have personality, intelligence, reason, and such, then the Creator must have those qualities to an infinite degree. He can’t be just a Force. He possesses self-identity, self-awareness and individuality.

“There is plenty of evidence that there is a God, Joe. People aren’t atheists because there is no evidence; they just don’t want to believe the evidence that is right there in front of them! Goodbye, Joe.” With that he shut the door and the tunnel was quiet again.

Joe turned off his flashlight to save the batteries, and lay in the dark. So what about this God stuff? He had never thought of himself as an atheist, but then he wasn’t a religious person either. He didn’t pray, or worship, or read the holy writings of some group. He hadn’t really thought about it at all. But what Philo said sounded reasonable. More than that, it sounded true. Plus, he couldn’t imagine actually choosing to be an atheist. No, that would never do. Joe turned on his light and opened the door on the right.
Questions:

1. What do you think the old man meant that there as sometimes no difference between sleeping people and dead people?
2. Why did he disagree with Joe that choosing between the two doors was not blind chance?
3. What did he mean that the two doors represent two versions of reality?
4. How did the old man respond to Joe’s questions: “I mean, if there is a God, why is he so secretive? Why doesn't he just step out and introduce himself to us?”
5. What was the point of the old man’s example of the model of the solar system?