The Universe

Today I am going to discuss a topic which has become increasingly distressing to me over the past few months.  This is a trend I see quite often in the modern speech of agnostic and even atheistic people, especially those seen on television and in movies.

This is the trend of personifying "the universe" as some sort of higher power.  It always seems to be the same particular entity- the universe.  The most recent depiction I have seen was on a sitcom where one of the main characters says that "the universe rewarded [him]" for persevering during a hard time in his life.  Toward the end of last year, I was listening to a podcast in which the person being interviewed said that even though she doesn't believe in God, she feels that it is all right for her to say that she has been "blessed by the universe."  She is wrong.

Manifest Authorship

I totally understand where these people are coming from.  They have felt, like I often feel, that something in their life has taken place because something bigger than themselves has directed it.  That is to say, that there were multiple paths their lives could have taken, but for some reason one of those paths won out over the others.  If they merited this turn of events, "the universe" rewarded them, if not "the universe" blessed them.  Perhaps "the universe" punished them, or revealed something to them, or warned them, or spared them.

There is something about our lives that seems to scream written to us.  When we read fantastical stories about people who were cursed, misled, prophesied about, or guided by some being of authority, we enjoy them not because they seem so different from us, but because we can identify with them in some way or another.  Anyone who has ever "fallen" in love, found their "calling," or discovered their "dream" home knows that these experiences involve actions which are almost as easy as breathing, because they just feel like the right thing at the right time.

And maybe these people are right.  Maybe fate really is a thing.  Perhaps things sometimes feel right because they are right.  I'm not saying that just because something feels good it is the right thing to do.  But the right thing to do sometimes feels good.  We Christians certainly believe that our lives are directed.  The psalmist cries out to God to "Direct my steps according to your word." (Psalm 119:133)  Paul tells the Romans that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28, bold added for emphasis)  This divine direction is, in fact, one of the main reasons why we pray: for instance, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." (Matt. 6:13)  By all accounts, it certainly seems that someone or something is behind many of the events that take place in our lives.

Do We Matter to Matter?

But that something cannot be "the universe."  At least, not in the sense in which an atheist or an agnostic uses the term.  For they must necessarily mean the collection of all matter, or some similar definition.  What they cannot mean, by virtue of being atheists, is a sentient and (furthermore) moral being which is capable of punishing, blessing, correcting, or even acting.

The universe they claim to interact with is incapable of interaction, at least in a human or even animal sense.  Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says it pretty well: "Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence." (Neil deGrasse Tyson at UB: God and Science, YouTube.com)  When looking at the universe as an impersonal conglomeration of matter, it is readily seen that the universe is quite incapable of any of these acts of authorship.

What these modern atheists have succeeded in doing is reinventing the nature-worship practices held for thousands of years by groups of people the atheists themselves would call antiquated.  It is impossible to talk about the universe in this sense without personifying it as a rudimentary deity.  What you wind up with is not some sophisticated version of post-modernism but the mythology of Ancient Greece, Egypt, Native American and African tribes, and so on. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

True Divinity

As Christians, we have the ultimate answer to the dilemma.  For the atheist, there is no recourse but to stop using these baldly ignorant phrases.  The Christian, however, need not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  We are quite happy to keep the purity of science by denying any sentience in the material universe, while maintaining that our lives truly are written for us, by one much more capable than "the universe."  G.K. Chesterton spends quite a lot of time discussing a topic very much like this freedom of Christianity in his book Orthodoxy, which I finished recently and would highly recommend that everyone read.

One last thought needs discussing.  Why has the media been so keen to pick up on this turn of phrase?  I believe that they think it is a way of maintaining the prevailing guise of atheism, while throwing a bone to their viewers who happen to belong to some kind of faith.  And it worked on me for a while, but ever since I realized the implications of these phrases, they have brought me only heartache for the condition of this world.  This treatment of a semi-divine universe is at best a misunderstanding of the concepts of religion and fate and at worst a mockery of both science and faith.  I implore Christians and atheists alike to stop deifying the universe.  While it seems like a happy compromise, it only breeds mutual confusion between us.