Irreligion: Everything happens for a reason
Irreligion
Courtesy photo
“Everything happens for a reason.”
But does it?
Seems like there is quite a bit of chaos out there. I am not referring to war in the Middle East, the southern border, or the weather. How about the daily commute up Highway 82? The City Market parking lot? Your workplace?
Part of my problem is that I am not sure what people mean by “reason.” The philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote a 669-page book, “The Critique of Pure Reason,” trying to define reason. He pointed out there are different ways to use the word reason, some better, some worse. As near as I can figure, people who like to use reason — as in “Everything happens for a reason” — equate reason with purpose. It’s like saying, “Everything happens for a purpose.” (Since all words are polysemous, you can pick your own interpretation.)
Some people have a sense of purpose, some don’t. Having a sense of purpose helps one face the madness, like getting groceries at City Market gives you a purpose for navigating the chaos of the parking lot. Getting better at X,Y, Z (skiing, mountain biking, etc.) gives you a purpose for living in the Roaring Fork Valley. Having children will definitely give you a sense of purpose, no matter what.
Purpose in some ways is what keeps the world turning around and our own little valley popping and buzzing. Our elected officials are overrun with purposes: straightening out the S curves into Aspen, expanding the airport, fixing the RFTA transit center in Snowmass, building more employee housing, amending the land use code, and don’t forget we are going to need to six-lane Highway 82 soon. Fixing and improving things is the black hole of purposes. Doesn’t your house need a new paint job?
The pre-occupation with purpose goes all the way back to Aristotle 2,500 years ago. He thought that the starting point for all scientific inquiry was about searching for causes and purposes. For him, purpose (entelechy) is encoded into the universe, and it is the job of inquiring minds to find out what those purposes are. In fact, in the “Metaphysics,” he says this is a task “worthy of a god.” (Aristotle had high self-esteem.) When people ask, “Why is there night and day?” One might answer, “Because the earth rotates.” A follow-up question then might be, “Why does the earth rotate?” At this juncture, a lot of people will jump in and say, “The rotation of the earth helps moderate temperatures and makes life possible on our planet.” Life is the answer! (See having children above.)
In the thirteenth century when Acquinas picked up on Aristotle’s idea of means and ends, cause and effect, and the purposefulness of nature in general, he called it “natural law.” In other words, God uses nature and its “laws” to achieve his purpose here on earth — perpetuating life. (Reader alert: The reason why abortion is bad for God-sayers is it doesn’t perpetuate life).
Is life the answer? This is a glass half-full/half-empty quandary. Sure, the glass can look half full. But it can also look half empty. Death always follows life. Using Acquinas’ logic, I can say death is the reason for life. That would be more in accord with Buddhist philosophy whereupon emptiness (sunyata) is the key to awakening (satori). Nothing-ness is more important than being-ness. As the Bhagavad-Gita teaches us, we are all born to die.
Whenever someone tells me, “Everything happens for a reason,” I hear echoes of an unholy alliance of a Greek philosopher and a Christian theologian. I suppose for some people this cliche helps them cope with all the chaos around us, like Kant’s “things in themselves,” Einstein’s “hidden variables,” or astrophysics’ “dark matter.” What exactly are those things supposed to be? Whenever faced with an inexplicable object, event, or process, how does giving it a name or a label help in any way? Our obsession with names and labels helps to hide our ignorance of the world around us.
I agree with the philosopher David Hume. If God’s whole purpose in the universe is to create and perpetuate life on our little planet, then the proper imageof God is a great big vegetable because there is a lot more vegetation than there are human beings (“Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” 1779).
I wonder what our purpose is here on this little corner of the big vegetable? In other words, what’s the plan? Build more publicly-financed housing, which will in turn create a greater demand for services, which will in turn create a greater demand for more employee housing? It’s all a part of life — right? At least we know it all happens for a reason.
David Hale has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, Religion, and Cultural Theory from the University of Denver. He teaches part time in philosophy at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction and works fulltime as a contractor in Snowmass.
