The god of Chance

To my non-Christian friends,

A parody:

Once upon a time, in the beginning, the god of Chance hovered over and under and behind the infinitesimal dense point of self-existence called the singularity—eternally inert since time immemorial—and patiently waited for the right time to bring his causal forces to bear. At the right time from eternity—14.5 billion years ago—the god of Chance, like Rumpelstiltskin in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, rose from his eternally deep slumber and using his great and magnificent causal power acted with mighty force upon the inert singularity to explode it into motion—the Big Bang.

Prior to this mighty act of causal power, the god of Chance had imbued this inert singularity with all time, space, matter, energy, and the universal inviolable laws of this newly beginning universe: laws of gravity, laws of element formation from lighter to heavier elements, laws of particle aggregation, laws of star and planetary formation, laws of star and planetary movement, laws of biogenesis from non-living chemicals to simple and complex life, laws of evolutionary progress through descent from a common ancestor, and the laws of thought and reason within man’s brain. To govern man’s reason, the god of Chance using his great and magnificent causal power ruled it necessary to bring the laws of logic into existence, especially noteworthy: the law of non-contradiction and its corollary, the law of the impossibility of the contrary.

So now, with things in motion, and because the god of Chance in his great and mighty wisdom had seen fit to pack all time, space, matter, energy, and all inviolable natural laws into the inert self-existent singularity, he needed only to sit back and watch the beauty unfold. Inflation superseded the speed of light, and time, matter, and energy spread out into the expanding space. Gases coalesced and became stars. The first stars exploded and produced the heavier elements. The heavier elements aggregated and became planets. Planets moved into stable orbits around stars, pulled in by the god of Chance’s supreme law—the law of gravity. This planet—earth—became the seedbed for life from non-living chemicals (any magician would be proud). Simple life became complex life and voila! man arose from his initial beginnings as an amoeba to house the most powerful organ currently in existence—his brain—with its desires for meaning, purpose, significance, its consciousness, and its rational powers of thought. Man would love and be loved, and this with real, true significance because the faculties of his most significant organ—the brain—was the god of Chance’s most prestigious accomplishment.

Men and women would live their lives from birth to death believing and trusting that their existence (an effect) was caused by Chance. Why? Because the scientists tell them so.

—End of Parody—

Some of you will not get this parody. It won’t make sense to you. You would rather bow down to the idol of Chance and irrationalism. You would rather bow down to the singularity as if it was the wizard behind the curtain. You would rather bow down to anything other than a morally perfect God who holds you accountable for your moral and ethical choices. It’s really an ethical decision for you, not intellectual. You would rather differentiate yourself “for Chance,” and against God, than “for God,” and against Chance, because you would rather hold on to your own autonomy to make moral decisions, good or bad, out of the judgment of your own mind. Intellectually, you know that God exists, morally, you do not want to be confined to that God’s moral law and don’t want to admit you have made bad choices in your life and need to ask God for forgiveness.

One of the reasons this is so hard for you, is because you have been inculcated throughout your life to believe in magic; a fairy tale of origins where Alice falls through a rabbit hole and meets the ever-smiling Cheshire cat disappearing and appearing at will, and Dorothy is carried away into a land of good witches and bad witches and Munchkins and talking scarecrows. Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat, you have been taught to suspend reason and believe the illogical. You have been taught by the brilliant men and women of science (and you have believed every word they have said, because of course, they are unbiased paragons of knowledge) that Chance is an entity with causal power and intentionality—that Chance has Being in the ontological sense with power and force to bring about an effect. “By chance” is the mantra you embrace, and the universe around you and your own existence all happened by the veracity of this mantra. With these two little words—by chance— you have been taught that the impossible becomes possible, and that magic replaces reason and logic.

There are really only two choices here, my friends, when it comes to the origin of this universe and the why of your existence; a self-existent impersonal singularity, or a self-existent personal God. You tell me you believe in evolution, and back of that the Big Bang, and back of that the self-existent singularity that in its infinitesimal dense point contained all the stuff of our universe: all laws. all space, all time, all matter, and all energy. The driving force, the power behind it all, you claim, was blind Chance. “By chance” becomes the means by which an effect (the universe) is produced. Chance offers you the rabbit without the hat, and even more, no magician; for not only is Chance blind, but deaf and mute as well.

Some of you will be offended at what you’ve just read. It is not my desire to cause offense, but to assail your logical powers of reason. Think deep, my friends. Logic should tell you that Chance is not an entity, that Chance has no Being, that Chance has no causal power, that Chance is not a force, and that Chance is therefore a no thing. To say that something happens “by chance” is to ascribe instrumental causal power to nothing, which is an absurdity. It is in this I plead with you, be reconciled to God. He is the only self-existent Being that satisfies the demands of logic. Chance can’t; he’s blind, deaf, mute, and totally and consummately impotent.

Aristotle is claimed to have once said, “in the minds of the brightest men often resides the corner of a fool.” Don’t be that fool. Don’t blindly follow other fools (the scientists) who defy logic by attributing causal power to a non-entity. Don’t be bright and successful in all the rest of your life, but the fool in the corner of your mind that counts the most.

All my love,

Your friend

Vaya con Dios!