Chapter 9: God Evident Through Consciousness

My most basic and obvious observation is that “I am me.” I have been “me” my whole life, even though every molecule in my body is probably different than what I started with. I remember events before kindergarten, but it was still the same “me” as today. I have a physical body and a brain, but the “me” in there is different than the physical parts. Inwardly, every one of us perceives an array of things that say unmistakably that we have consciousness, that we have minds, and that we are selves.

Take a minute to think carefully about the nature of consciousness, personhood, and the mind:

• Inside is your “mind’s eye:” You have an ability to see things without seeing them, whether real scenes you’ve seen before, or completely imaginary scenes you create out of nothing.
  
  
• Symbolic language: Not barking, screeching, or wailing an emotion due to some stimulus (although we can do this too), but ideas encoded into elaborate sound sequences that can be received and decoded by another with a high degree of accuracy. Shapes on paper can describe the sound sequence in letters for reading. Our language is not just simple requests or warnings; we commonly exchange elaborate abstract concepts (like this book) with other humans. People without hearing learn to speak with finger and hand motions. Those without sight can read using the sense of feel.
  
  
• Creativity and artistic appreciation: As humans, we find ourselves enchanted by music, art, cinema, and other types of aesthetic creations to the extent that we often spend hours every day dwelling on them. How strange that only humans engage in this type of activity, which creates neither food nor shelter, and might actually work against survival in many situations. Even the most primitive peoples are no different than the most modern in this regard.
  
  
• Morality: In spite of some people’s efforts to deny it, we all have an undeniable awareness that some things are just plain wrong. We may not agree on moral questions, but everyone uses moral thinking and knows moral motions within. The evidence is strong that people’s sense of what is moral derives from their culture. But here we are not referring to the content of moral norms, but the existence of a moral sense itself.[1] This is exclusively human, and all humans know that animals are not capable of moral or immoral behavior, because they are instinctual rather than free-choosing moral agents.
  
  
• Love: Again, some try to deny it, but when we are honest with ourselves, we know that love is something special. It is neither the breeding instinct nor the herding instinct, but a uniquely deep experience that remains elusive in a fallen world.
  
  
• Decision making: Every one of us knows what it is to weigh evidence, consider alternatives, compare costs and benefits, and then to make a decision (not that we always make decisions this carefully). Weighing alternatives, judging the relative validity of arguments—these require unfettered freedom. If we weren’t able to freely analyze, sift, and appraise information before making a decision, we wouldn’t really be making rational decisions. None of our conclusions could be trusted. But most people are shocked to learn what Harvard mind science expert, Leonid Perlovsky says: “Most contemporary philosophers and scientists do not believe that free will exists.”[2] We’ll see why this is below—all the features on this list are incompatible with naturalism.

When we consider these obvious traits found in humans, and connect the dots on how they came into being, they end up pointing directly to the existence of an infinite, personal creator God.

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Belief in freedom

Consider this claim from atheist, Stephen Hawking: “The molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets... so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion."[3] He’s right. Material objects are incapable of freedom. They behave as the laws of physics dictate.

Yet most of us, including naturalists, act and think in ways that imply we believe people are free in their choices. For instance, when we criticize rapists or tyrants for doing terrible things, we imply that they are able to freely choose to do differently. Otherwise, why criticize them for doing only what they are compelled to do in a deterministic system? When we feel such outrage, it shows that we believe people are making free choices and that they (and ourselves) are not marionettes on strings.

The same is true any time we try to persuade someone. If Hawking really believed what he said above, why would he write a book designed to persuade people to think differently? According to his own statement, their thinking is as fixed as the orbits of planets. The fact that he thinks people can be persuaded to change their minds implies that he really believes they have free choice, even though his worldview cannot account for freedom. He is no different than the man on the train suggesting they change their currency.

Anyone who acts as though people are free-choosing beings, rather than determined ones, needs to account for why we would have such freedom. The idea that we are free contradicts key assumptions of both naturalism and postmodernism (which holds that we are determined by our culture and language rather than by physics). If we believe in freedom, we also must believe in a creator God. Let’s see why this is so.

Matter + energy + chance ? freedom

When you pour vinegar over baking soda, it foams. It’s a physical event—a chemical reaction. There is no freedom involved. The chemicals don’t “decide” to react this way, they do precisely what the laws of nature prescribe under those circumstances. Each and every time we put the same chemicals together under the same conditions, they will behave exactly the same way.

Likewise, according to the naturalistic worldview, our thought processes are nothing but chemical reactions and electrical impulses in our neurons. Such reactions are much more complicated than soda and vinegar, but they are also determined by the same conditions and laws of physics and chemistry. If this is so, then, according to naturalists, what we perceive as free thinking is actually caused by the environment and is beyond our ability to control. But if our thought processes are not free, then any naturalist who treats others as though they were free is being inconsistent, like the man on the train. When an atheist goes on to try to persuade or change someone’s thinking, he gives himself away. His worldview is so untenable he can’t be consistent with it. Actions speak louder than words.

By contrast, as theists, we argue that the basis for real freedom is the eternally free and sovereignly choosing Creator God who has made humans in his image. Our thoughts may involve chemical reactions, but we also have an immaterial mind, or a soul, which lies outside physical law. Our will can govern our thoughts and make decisions when we want it to. Our thoughts have meaning and importance because they are substantially free, and this is perfectly consistent with a personal creator.[4]

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Back to Discovering God

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1 From a biblical point of view, humans’ disagreement over what is morally right or wrong is the result of our fallen state, which caused humans to launch off into independent views on such questions. This is what Genesis means when it refers to “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). But the presence of a moral sense is something built into humans as part of their nature as free choosing moral agents.

2 He goes on, “The reconciliation of scientific causality and free will remains an unsolved problem…. Let me repeat the fact that most scientists do not believe in free will.” Don’t believe claims that science has shown how thinking or choice works. Perlovsky (himself a naturalist) describes the true current state of mind science: “Physical biology has explained the molecular foundations of life, DNA and proteins. Cognitive science has explained many mental processes in terms of material processes in the brain. Yet... cognitive science is only approaching some of the foundations of perception and simplest actions.... It is not a tautology that we have no idea of nearly 99% of our mind’s functioning.” Leonid Perlovsky, “Free Will and Advances in Cognitive Science,” 2010 1, 3, 6.

3 Stephen Hawking, and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, (NY: Bantam, 2010) 32.

4 Today naturalists try to argue that quantum theory has provided an explanation for how people can be free in a material universe. However, it has only demonstrated randomness and uncertainty, not freedom in the sense of free choice. Such freedom requires intent, which quantum physics do not explain. Besides this, the mechanisms of thought and brain function are not subatomic. They are molecular reactions governed by the same principles of chemistry and physics that govern other mechanistic reactions in nature. Only a non-material soul can account for true freedom as seen in consciousness.