Humans do not like uncertainty, and people tend to feel they are
certain about some things even though they really lack certainty
about such things. Moreover, there is a large and important list of
things that we can never be certain about, no matter what knowledge
and experiences we may have in the future, before or after our
deaths. Below are some of the more interesting items on this list.
We can never be certain that we are alone in the universe
It is easy to imagine how we might have some experiences that
would confirm that there is other intelligent life in the universe,
such as the appearance of a giant spaceship in orbit around the
Earth. But there are no experiences we could ever have that could
justify certainty that man is alone in the universe. If the universe
were small and easy to explore, we could imagine how we might have
experiences that might justify certainty about our uniqueness in such
a universe. You can imagine, for example, a ten-year spaceship voyage
that might visit and explore all solar systems in such a tiny
universe, verifying that none had intelligent life except Earth. But
our universe is vastly too big for even one percent of it to be
explored by a single planet in a million year time frame. Even if one
imagines a vast fleet of space-warp starships that could travel
instantaneously anywhere in the universe, it would take hundreds of
millions of years or billions of years for such a fleet to explore
all of the solar systems in our actual universe of billions of
galaxies, most containing billions of stars (which gives you a
totality of something like 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars
capable of supporting life). By the time such a fleet returned to its
home planet, it would then still not be certain that the home planet
was the only planet with intelligent life, because there would still
be the possibility that intelligent life had evolved on some planet
during the millions of years that such a universe-spanning mission
was undertaken.
We can never be certain that a being we encountered in this
life or the next is the Supreme Being of the universe
It is entirely possible that we might one day encounter some
mysterious Higher Power, a mind far greater than ours with
supernatural power. Such a being might appear some day in the sky, or
we might see such a being when we experienced some kind of life after
death. For example, to follow a scenario suggested by near-death
experiences, after you die you might travel through some tunnel and
find yourself in some radiant heaven-like surroundings where you meet
relatives you knew before they died. You might then see some glowing
figure or light, and might be told by others that this being is God.
However, while you might be justifiably certain that such a being
is some Higher Power with superhuman knowledge and power, you could
not justifiably be certain that such a being was actually the Supreme
Being of the universe. For there would always be the possibility that
there existed some other being unobserved by you who had even more
power and knowledge than this Higher Power you encountered, and who
existed before that being.
Now you might think that you could gain certainty by talking to
this Higher Power, and asking him if he was the Supreme Being of the
universe. If such a Higher Power answered affirmatively, would that
not justify certainty that this Higher Power was the Supreme Being of
the universe?
No, it wouldn't. The reason is simply that there would always be a
reasonable chance that this Higher Power was mistaken if it asserted
that it was the Supreme Being of the universe. There might still be
some higher, more powerful, and wiser being unknown to this Higher
Power, and that being might be the Supreme Being of the universe.
We can never be certain that there does not exist some deity
Much as atheists might like to imagine some experiences that might
prove there is no deity, there is no possibility of such experiences.
We might conceivably find some evidence that might completely
undermine faith in earthly revealed religions, but such evidence
would at worst merely show that the most popular conceptions of God
were in error. They could never disprove that some type of deity
exists. Even if we were to explore the universe and find that it was
an endless ocean of sorrow, pain, and confusion, we could never
disprove the idea that it was created by some deity of limited power.
We can never be certain that matter exists independently of our
perceptions
In his philosophical masterpiece A
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,
the philosopher George Berkeley argued powerfully that all that
really exists is perceptions, and that matter exists only to the
extent that it is perceived by minds. We can never be certain that
Berkeley wasn't correct. The only way to prove that matter can truly
exist independently of mind would be to kill everyone in the
universe, and then verify that the universe was still around. But
that would be impossible, because if everyone in the universe died,
there would be no one around to do such a verification.
We can never be certain that we will live forever, no matter
what experiences we have in this life or a next life
You might think that once you survived death, you could be certain
that you will live forever. For example, imagine if something like a
near-death experience happens to you. After a tractor trailer
flattens the car you were driving in, you find your soul drifting
above your body, and you travel through a tunnel. You then find
yourself in some radiant realm where you see relatives you know are
dead. Would you not then be justified in believing with certainty
that you are going to live forever?
No. You would then presumably be justified in concluding that you
are going to survive much longer. But you still would not know
whether the afterlife you had started would last for a finite length
of time or an eternal length of time. Your soul, newly liberated from
human flesh, might fizzle out after a million or a billion years. You
could not be certain that you were going to live forever.
You might think that you could gain certainty of eternal life if
you encountered some powerful godlike Higher Being who assured you
that you were going to live forever. But there is a reason why you
could not be certain about living forever, even in such a case. It
would be entirely possible that in the eons of time ahead you might
do some terrible thing or commit some bad sin that might make you
unworthy of eternal life. In that case you might be spurned by some
Higher Power, and your post-mortal existence might end up being only
finite in length. Presumably no free moral agent can ever be certain
that he will perform morally throughout eternity.
We can never be certain that we will not have an afterlife
Looking at one of the more extreme depictions of life after death
advanced by conventional religion (such as the type of depictions
imagined by the American preacher Jonathan Edwards), an astute moral
critic might say that he is certain that such a scenario will never
occur. But no one can ever be certain that he will not experience any
type of life after death. It is always possible that some reasonable
and fair type of afterlife does occur. As there is no way to
experience a non-experience, there is no experience or knowledge you
could acquire that would justify certainty about the non-existence of
life after death.
We can never be absolutely certain that the universe is older
than any one of us
This is a startling assertion, but it is easy to justify it. Let
us consider the fact that an omnipotent God could create any type of
universe that he wants, including universes other than universes
which have that “just created” appearance. An omnipotent God
could instantly create from nothing a universe exactly like the
universe that existed in 1000 BC or 100 AD or 1000 AD or January 1,
2000. Consider if God wanted to create a universe exactly like the
one that existed on midnight Eastern Standard Time at January 1,
2000. God would merely need to will into existence an expanding
universe of billions of galaxies, a universe that would include at
least one planet with billions of people. God could instantly will
into existence those people existing at that date, having them
suddenly come into existence with various memories and various states
of motion (some walking, some driving, some sleeping, some
celebrating the new year in Times Square). Under such a scenario,
billions of people would suddenly come into existence, convinced they
had lived for years. But they would actually just be recently
created.
My point is that we cannot be certain that such a thing did not
happen any length of time ago-- one hour ago, one day ago, one year
ago, or one decade ago. Or perhaps one century ago or five hundred
years ago. The fact that you may have memories of having lived for 20
years does not make it certain that you actually have lived for
twenty years. You and everything else in the universe could have been
created ten years ago.
About the only argument I can think of against such a possibility
is the argument that if God were to instantly create a universe that
included people with various ages and memories of the past, it would
be rather like a deception (causing people to think they had existed
for years when they had really been just recently created); and
presumably God would not deceive us in that way. But I'm not sure
this argument is very strong. According to conventional theology,
earthly life gives us the impression that we are mortal beings with
short lifespans, but we are really immortal souls. If a deity could
create a universe in which there is such a mismatch between
appearance and reality, he might also create a universe in which our
memories of how old we are does not match the reality of how old we
are.
I am not seriously suggesting that there is even a 1% possibility
that the universe was only very recently created. I merely submit
that we cannot be absolutely certain that the universe was not very
recently created. My own guess about the age of the universe
corresponds to the 13.8 billion year age postulated by modern
science.
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