God's Bonsai
The concepts of the “watchmaker-God” and the “best of all possible worlds” have been around for a long time, but I was recently considering ways of talking about God as creator, and stumbled on an interesting concept that sits fairly nicely with me so far, and I thought I would post it so that I could get some feedback on it.
Briefly, the watchmaker-God (put forward by William Paley in 1802) is the idea that orderliness and complexity are evidence of intelligent design in the universe that imply the existence of an intelligent designer, but is often criticised by Christians because the analogy suggests that God (who scripture reveals as both intimately interested and continuously involved in his creation) created the universe to function without further attention (a watchmaker doesn’t follow you around constantly tinkering with your watch to make sure it runs as it was supposed to).
The “best of all possible worlds” idea (which came from Gottfried Leibniz in 1710) was an attempt to answer the problem of evil. If you begin by assuming that God exists, then the three logical answers to the question of the existence of evil are that God can’t stop it from happening, he doesn’t care that it’s happening, or he simply didn’t see it coming. Scripture makes it clear that none of these are acceptable answers for a believer, because God has revealed himself as all-knowing, all-powerful, and unfailingly good. Leibniz’s idea was that God looked at all the possible configurations the universe could possibly take and chose the most desirable option available. This argument is generally criticised on the basis that anyone could easily imagine a universe that is at least marginally better than this one by simply imagining the same universe with one less war in its history.
My own analogy of God’s interaction with the universe is that he is like a bonsai grower. (I hear a gardener-God image was used in the book the Shack which I have yet to read.) The grower selects the species of tree for the environment - humidity, soil, container size, temperature and available lighting - and also modifies those same environmental factors for the chosen tree. Though the tree would be perfectly capable of growing on its own, the grower does not “set and forget” as the watchmaker idea implies, but rather comes back to the tree continually to prune and water it. Left to its own devices, the tree would certainly grow into a unique shape, but it would be an unpredictable and less beautiful shape than the one that the grower intends. The tree cannot be told what shape to be, it has no capacity for understanding the intended design, and cannot be left until after it is fully grown to be shaped. The tree must grow naturally, but the grower must also prune away the parts that are unnecessary or unhealthy – or simply the wrong shape. There are many possible shapes the tree can take, but a number of impossibilities as well. The tree cannot grow downward, or un-grow what has already grown. It cannot be a colour other than that which would be natural for the species of tree. In the case of God, we must imagine a bonsai grower who can literally see the eventual outcome of the whole process and then make decisions based on that information (rather than trying to imagine it pre-emptively). Thought of this way, one could imagine how God could look at the whole of human history from the perspective of the finished product (which we are as yet unable to see apart from the Revelation and choose the actions along the way which correspond.
One of the issues we encounter in talking about God, is that of omnipotence. The word essentially means all-powerful or “can do anything” but in hearing that, we ask questions like “can God create a rock that God can’t lift?” The assumption is that a God who can do “anything” necessitates an automatic yes answer to any “can God do X” question. If God can create the rock he can’t lift, then we have determined that he can’t lift the rock, if he can lift the rock, then he can’t create it. The flaw is in the understanding of omnipotence. The question could be re-framed as “can God choose to limit himself so that he can’t lift a rock he previously created?” The answer to this question is found in scripture when Jesus is born as a baby incapable of lifting even a fairly small rock. The issue is that we forget that there may be parameters that are in place that limit possibilities. Consider this question, “can the all-powerful God create our world with three-headed green elephants as the dominant species on the planet?” Obviously he hasn’t (unless they are all invisible and non-corporeal) logically, if he is all-powerful, then he should be able to do this, but we forget that his decision was to make this world as we now find it. If God were to make the green elephant world, it would be to the detriment of the world that we know. By choosing to make this world, he has also chosen to limit himself from making that one instead. By choosing to give us the capacity to ignore him, he has precluded himself from making us in such a way that we will simply do whatever he tells us to.
Some of the worlds we imagine are possible are probably not. Consider a science fiction writer telling a story set in our time in an alternate reality where the Germans didn’t try to take Russia, and won WW2 (a fairly commonly used idea, I’m told). What are the possible ramifications of that change in world history? Which countries would now be part of the German empire? Would Judaism have been totally wiped out? Would more Christians have opposed the Nazi regime, or capitulated? Would there have been a WW3? What effect would that have on current world economics? Would the world wide web exist or would there be purely national networks instead? There are infinite possibilities for things that could be affected by that change, and the further you look from the change the more unpredictable it becomes. Consider the character of James Bond -a British secret agent who spent a lot of his time dealing with cold war Russia. He would probably not be British, maybe German, and might be spending a lot of his time infiltrating America. It’s fine to speculate, but if we were put in the position of God to shape human history as we see fit, we don’t know what good things we might have to sacrifice, or what evil we might have to suffer to get the changes we imagine would make our world better. In the long run, this may actually be the best of all possible worlds.
My point is that perhaps when God looks at the possibilities for shaping world history, perhaps allowing us to have two major world wars prevents a much larger amount of suffering that would have to be endured over a much longer period. Perhaps the only way to prevent those wars from happening would be to deny human beings the capacity to harm each other, thereby reducing our capacity to think and make decisions for ourselves. There was a great comment in the movie Bruce Almighty in which Morgan Freeman who plays the role of God says “Triumph is born out of struggle, faith is the alchemist. If you want pictures like these, you'll need to use some dark colors.” Not to in any way diminish the suffering that some people go through in their life, it would be insensitive and arrogant of me to talk down people’s suffering when, to be honest, I’ve had it pretty easy, but looking back on some of the hardest and most painful times in my life, I see that God has used those things to help me to grow and to teach me to trust him.
I heard someone say once that the worst place from which to judge the size of a car is the front seat - we lack the necessary eternal perspective to see the whole of God’s bonsai and judge whether it could have been done better.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Briefly, the watchmaker-God (put forward by William Paley in 1802) is the idea that orderliness and complexity are evidence of intelligent design in the universe that imply the existence of an intelligent designer, but is often criticised by Christians because the analogy suggests that God (who scripture reveals as both intimately interested and continuously involved in his creation) created the universe to function without further attention (a watchmaker doesn’t follow you around constantly tinkering with your watch to make sure it runs as it was supposed to).
The “best of all possible worlds” idea (which came from Gottfried Leibniz in 1710) was an attempt to answer the problem of evil. If you begin by assuming that God exists, then the three logical answers to the question of the existence of evil are that God can’t stop it from happening, he doesn’t care that it’s happening, or he simply didn’t see it coming. Scripture makes it clear that none of these are acceptable answers for a believer, because God has revealed himself as all-knowing, all-powerful, and unfailingly good. Leibniz’s idea was that God looked at all the possible configurations the universe could possibly take and chose the most desirable option available. This argument is generally criticised on the basis that anyone could easily imagine a universe that is at least marginally better than this one by simply imagining the same universe with one less war in its history.
My own analogy of God’s interaction with the universe is that he is like a bonsai grower. (I hear a gardener-God image was used in the book the Shack which I have yet to read.) The grower selects the species of tree for the environment - humidity, soil, container size, temperature and available lighting - and also modifies those same environmental factors for the chosen tree. Though the tree would be perfectly capable of growing on its own, the grower does not “set and forget” as the watchmaker idea implies, but rather comes back to the tree continually to prune and water it. Left to its own devices, the tree would certainly grow into a unique shape, but it would be an unpredictable and less beautiful shape than the one that the grower intends. The tree cannot be told what shape to be, it has no capacity for understanding the intended design, and cannot be left until after it is fully grown to be shaped. The tree must grow naturally, but the grower must also prune away the parts that are unnecessary or unhealthy – or simply the wrong shape. There are many possible shapes the tree can take, but a number of impossibilities as well. The tree cannot grow downward, or un-grow what has already grown. It cannot be a colour other than that which would be natural for the species of tree. In the case of God, we must imagine a bonsai grower who can literally see the eventual outcome of the whole process and then make decisions based on that information (rather than trying to imagine it pre-emptively). Thought of this way, one could imagine how God could look at the whole of human history from the perspective of the finished product (which we are as yet unable to see apart from the Revelation and choose the actions along the way which correspond.
One of the issues we encounter in talking about God, is that of omnipotence. The word essentially means all-powerful or “can do anything” but in hearing that, we ask questions like “can God create a rock that God can’t lift?” The assumption is that a God who can do “anything” necessitates an automatic yes answer to any “can God do X” question. If God can create the rock he can’t lift, then we have determined that he can’t lift the rock, if he can lift the rock, then he can’t create it. The flaw is in the understanding of omnipotence. The question could be re-framed as “can God choose to limit himself so that he can’t lift a rock he previously created?” The answer to this question is found in scripture when Jesus is born as a baby incapable of lifting even a fairly small rock. The issue is that we forget that there may be parameters that are in place that limit possibilities. Consider this question, “can the all-powerful God create our world with three-headed green elephants as the dominant species on the planet?” Obviously he hasn’t (unless they are all invisible and non-corporeal) logically, if he is all-powerful, then he should be able to do this, but we forget that his decision was to make this world as we now find it. If God were to make the green elephant world, it would be to the detriment of the world that we know. By choosing to make this world, he has also chosen to limit himself from making that one instead. By choosing to give us the capacity to ignore him, he has precluded himself from making us in such a way that we will simply do whatever he tells us to.
Some of the worlds we imagine are possible are probably not. Consider a science fiction writer telling a story set in our time in an alternate reality where the Germans didn’t try to take Russia, and won WW2 (a fairly commonly used idea, I’m told). What are the possible ramifications of that change in world history? Which countries would now be part of the German empire? Would Judaism have been totally wiped out? Would more Christians have opposed the Nazi regime, or capitulated? Would there have been a WW3? What effect would that have on current world economics? Would the world wide web exist or would there be purely national networks instead? There are infinite possibilities for things that could be affected by that change, and the further you look from the change the more unpredictable it becomes. Consider the character of James Bond -a British secret agent who spent a lot of his time dealing with cold war Russia. He would probably not be British, maybe German, and might be spending a lot of his time infiltrating America. It’s fine to speculate, but if we were put in the position of God to shape human history as we see fit, we don’t know what good things we might have to sacrifice, or what evil we might have to suffer to get the changes we imagine would make our world better. In the long run, this may actually be the best of all possible worlds.
My point is that perhaps when God looks at the possibilities for shaping world history, perhaps allowing us to have two major world wars prevents a much larger amount of suffering that would have to be endured over a much longer period. Perhaps the only way to prevent those wars from happening would be to deny human beings the capacity to harm each other, thereby reducing our capacity to think and make decisions for ourselves. There was a great comment in the movie Bruce Almighty in which Morgan Freeman who plays the role of God says “Triumph is born out of struggle, faith is the alchemist. If you want pictures like these, you'll need to use some dark colors.” Not to in any way diminish the suffering that some people go through in their life, it would be insensitive and arrogant of me to talk down people’s suffering when, to be honest, I’ve had it pretty easy, but looking back on some of the hardest and most painful times in my life, I see that God has used those things to help me to grow and to teach me to trust him.
I heard someone say once that the worst place from which to judge the size of a car is the front seat - we lack the necessary eternal perspective to see the whole of God’s bonsai and judge whether it could have been done better.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your ideas.
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