God in Proof. Nathan Schneider
God in Proof
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the General Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.
God in Proof
THE STORY OF A SEARCH
FROM THE ANCIENTS TO THE INTERNET
Nathan Schneider
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEYLOS ANGELESLONDON
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
© 2013 by Nathan Schneider
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schneider, Nathan, 1984–.
God in proof : the story of a search from the ancients to the Internet / Nathan Schneider.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and tabular index.
ISBN 978-0-520-26907-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN 9780520957565
1. God—Proof. I. Title.
BL473.S362013
212’.1—dc232012033541
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.
After all, everything is a consequence of inconsistent premises.
JON BARWISE AND JOHN ETCHEMENDY
Language, Proof and Logic
CONTENTS
SKETCHES OF BABEL
1 · FIRST CAUSES: Ancient times and reasonable measures
2 · THE ISLAND: Muslims and Jews make proof safe for revelation
3 · GRAMMARS OF ASSENT: A comeback in Christendom
4 · ON CERTAINTY: Early modernity upends a familiar proof
5 · COMING OF AGE: From the all-destroyer to an Absolute Idea
6 · GRANDEUR IN THIS VIEW OF LIFE: Design and its discontents
7 · THE DEATHS OF GOD: Human progress and divine absence
8 · NOT DEAD YET: Theism makes a comeback in philosophy
9 · GOD, HYPOTHESIS: Proof sneaks into the latest science
10 · THE PROOF INDUSTRY: Old proofs turn into viral movements
GOD, ALONE
Acknowledgments
Notes
Timeline of Provers
Table of Proofs
SKETCHES OF BABEL
One almost-gone afternoon in November, as I stepped out into what sun remained in the day, a proof for the existence of God took hold of me. I was a freshman in college and had just finished a meeting with a teaching assistant. The department house’s heavy wooden door thudded shut behind me. Light; truth. A sensation flooded me with the semblance of logic, without the words to describe it or instructions to complete it. I still couldn’t even say if I believed in a God or not. Yet there it was: a promissory note, at least, for propositions and definitions and conclusions to come, with the vowel-y echo in my ear of the word proof.
Hurrying down the steps and across campus, past the buildings standing at attention all around, I had no idea how to write my discovery down. Over the days and weeks that followed, sitting at a desk in my dorm room or under a winsome tree, I would start to think through its steps in words and sequence but then get stuck. Stuck—that’s what I was, in more ways than one. The idea of a proof had caught me, or caught up to me. There was no turning back. After just a few months, I would be baptized a believer.
I didn’t tell anyone about this strange, problematic, unsatisfying thought then, nor would I know what to say if I had. But the germ of a proof was in me, somewhere, treasurelike—a blueprint for my own Tower of Babel. Dissatisfaction urged me on. Every once in a while I’d try again to spell it out and get a little bit further, and then get frustrated. Did it make sense, or not? Was it valid as logic, or even as a description of experience? I still can’t say. Perhaps this book, a decade later, is one more attempt to be done with it.
The premise of Laurence Cossé’s novel A Corner of the Veil is that someone discovers a proof of God’s existence—a real proof, finally. A priest who has just seen it walks through the streets of Paris and looks at the people around him, imagining what it will be like when they, too, see what he has seen.
Probably, for a time, everything would come to a halt. People wouldn’t go to the office anymore. The children would be sent to school, but they’d stop along the way, caught up by great circles of orators in tears.
People would talk on sidewalks, in the Métro, at church doors. Ah, the priests wouldn’t know where to start! People would talk for hours in the rain. Neighbors who had always eyed each other with suspicion would be talking to each other. Couples ten years separated would phone each other from distant places.
The post office would stay closed. There would be a notice on the gate: HALLELUJAH. On the other hand, the museums would never close again, nor the Métro, nor the public parks. The guards would never figure out where their caps had disappeared to.
For days it would feel like a kind of general strike, a huge drunken spree.1
Isn’t this what we should rightfully expect of a proof? To claim, as a proof of God does, such certainty and finality about so exalted a thing should warrant nothing less than ecstasy. And some people do say there is proof. So why does this scene only come in a daydream, in a work of fiction?
Some will object to talking about proof at all. They’ll say that any absolute or mathematical proof for God sets the bar too high, or too low. Instead, call it argument, or demonstration—or call it faith. But proof fits the story I’m trying to tell like no other word.
The Latin root is probare, which has to do with testing something to see if it’s any good. It used to be more common to speak about proving as a kind of experience, something one has to go through or even suffer—as in, to prove oneself. Proving meant becoming, or growing. A thing proved might be a trip that turned out well, or well enough, or even just with you intact and unsullied. That’s why we call a jacket waterproof when water can’t get through. And that’s part of what a proof for God promises to offer: a seal on every seam, an answer to every question, a rampart for every flank.
The remnants of these meanings have spread among the trades. Proofing dough is making it rise. Printers, engravers, and photographers all have their proofs, just as armies have their proving grounds. Lawyers look for proof in evidence. And distillers speak of proof as a mixture whose volume is 0.5727 pure alcohol—which would be an experience in itself.