Ten Ways God’s Creation Might Have Been Different

Atheist Richard Carrier wrote a provocative piece entitled Ten Ways The World Would Be Different If God Existed (which I’d encourage you to read). I should think most Christians would spot the primary issue running through the whole piece: that it really amounts to Richard Carrier subjecting God’s existence to a probability estimate, and concluding:

P) The world isn’t what I’d expect it to be like if God exists.
C) Therefore, God probably doesn’t exist.

Now, to be fair to Richard on two counts; 1) Subjecting God’s existence to a probability estimate is a quite natural and necessary thing to do – so there’s nothing inherently wrong with that approach, if it is undertaken with humility, and as long as it is understood that the probability of God can't be answered quantitively like we do with probability theory, where the probability of x is the ratio of cases favourable to x to all possible cases (although both of which are sorely lacking in Richard Carrier’s work). And 2), Even we Christians can all look at the world and ask ourselves why the world is this way instead of that way, and why it isn’t significantly better than it is, given God’s omnipotence, omniscience and omni-benevolence.

But even brief exposure to Richard’s work shows that he does not have much humility when considering the Christian faith, he has a weak understanding of probability theory, and he habitually begins with a desire to create arguments that back up his already existent position that God does not exist and that Christianity is not the true path to knowing God. It doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind that his “The world isn’t what I’d expect it to be like if God exists” is a bad argument for God’s probable non-existence, is riddled with hubris, and is blind to the realisation that the main reason that is probably the case is that God has ways and power and intellect that are far above and beyond Richard Carrier’s grasp.

For all of Carrier’s audacious mental contortions, with which he looks to explain why his interpretation of created reality is superior to God’s, he seems to have missed the most obvious truth about the Christian God; that our Lord is so much higher and better than Richard Carrier that a universe created by such a God is one in which we should expect a vast epistemological gulf between Creator and created, even if we are created in His image, and endowed with astounding cognitive fecundity relative to the rest of creation. What should be the most obvious starting point, and the one that drives the appropriate epistemic humility necessary for such a consideration, is the one to which Richard Carrier has given the least amount of consideration – and by least, I mean next to zero. It’s a bit like beginning an exploration into marriage and giving no consideration at all to the nature of love.

My book on God’s genius presents a very different perspective on creation to the one Richard Carrier offers, so I won’t say any more about his Ten Ways in this post. But as a Christian who knows God exists, there are still plenty of ‘What if?’ elements to creation that are puzzling to Christians, so I thought I’d consider some of the more prominent ones in a piece I’ve entitled 10 Ways God’s Creation Might Have Been Different.

 1~ God might have created a world with far less natural suffering in it, and over a far shorter duration.
It does surprise me quite how much suffering there is in the world, especially in the animal kingdom, and for how long it has endured. The earth has been subjected to hundreds of millions of years of ‘red in tooth and claw’ evolution, replete with animal pain, injury, starvation and death - most of which has been going on for millions of years before humans even existed, and even longer before God made Himself directly known to creation through the scriptures in an ancient part of the Middle East. It does seem an excessive amount of precursory suffering in the build up to the creation story revealed in scripture.

2~ God might have made His presence and accessibility much more obvious than He has.
Let me say, I believe that there is more than enough evidence available for any who want to know God and have a relationship with Him, through Christ and the Holy Spirit. But there’s no question that for many people, they feel it is harder to be convinced of God’s existence than they might expect it to be – and that for a loving God who wants a relationship with us, He could have created a world in which He does more to facilitate thart. A development of this idea was made famous by philosopher John Schellenberg, with his ‘divine hiddenness’ problem – in which he asks why God's existence is not more evident or obvious, particularly to those who seek God sincerely but fail to find convincing evidence of His presence.

3~ God might have made Christians somewhat more outstanding than they are.
I get that we are all imperfect, flawed, fallen, and that we Christians are all a work in progress. I also get that a typical church has all kinds of people with different backgrounds and experiences, who are on different stages of their journey. But it could be seen as peculiar that people who have a direct relationship with God, the Creator of the universe, are not more tangibly different than those who do not. I’m not saying there is no difference at all – but when a typical atheist or agnostic sees some of the absurd things that Christians believe, the strange behaviour, the half-hearted commitment to full truthseeking, the in-house squabbling, and the consistent inability to grow and progress with the passion and grace that one could expect, it’s conceivable that God might have created alternative conditions under which becoming a Christian has an even more radically, almost superhuman, enhancing effect on believers’ lives that most other people are hungry to have what they have.

4~ God could have created a reality in which all creatures, including us, began in some kind of blissful state, and things just kept getting even more blissful.
Now, ok, I can conceive of most of the benefits of living in an imperfect world, and the exhilaration of a ‘work in progress’ creation story like the one we live in. But God might have created a world without sin, fallenness, and where life is just blissful, yet with enough potential further bliss to keep being more and enhanced through His supreme power. I don’t really know to what extent such a world would even be possible, but I’m sure we can imagine the idea of a world that could be a lot better than this one, but still compelling enough to contain healthy degrees of freedom, growth and development.

 5~ God might have allowed a creation story without the need for hell, or where everyone is saved in the end.
Perhaps an alternative creation story without hell was a possibility. And some Christians do believe in hell but believe that all will eventually come to see the error of their ways, and eventually get to spend eternity in God’s presence. I trust God knows what He’s doing in that regard, and that His outcomes will be just and merciful – but perhaps it’s possible to at least consider a creation story without hell (either on earth, or as a final state of being) – especially as God created all the initial conditions in which the cosmic story brought about people who had the capacity to end up in hell.

6~ God could have created a world in which physical pain sensations weren’t quite so severe.
I get why we need pain fibres and sensitivity to physical pain to guard against further damage to our bodies. But it seems that God could have created pain sensations that weren’t quite so excruciating. You know the feeling you get when you’re holding fairly hot cup, and you know that within the next 5 seconds you’re going to have to put it down otherwise it will really burn – perhaps He could have created an upper limit on physical pain whereby it hurts enough but not as much as it does when it’s excruciating.

7~ God could have made scripture even more unmistakably and unambiguously His word.
God could have imparted information about physical reality that only God could know to the writers of the Old and New Testaments. If the Bible had information in it that would be impossible for ancient civilisations to have known without Divine revelation, then people would be more reluctant to claim that God has provided no proof for His existence.

Summary and conclusion
Let’s be clear; on balance, there is more than enough evidence for anyone seeking to know God to find Him. And while the seven points above are little more than flawed thought experiments from a mind unable to fathom more than a hint of God’s splendour and majesty, I must say, having written a book about God’s genius in creation, and having spent years in a relationship with Him, I have faith, trust and confidence in His choice of creation story, His Divine plan, and His perfect knowledge of what He is doing. I believe that an honest and sincere enquiry will reveal that God has made His presence as accessible as we need. As I advised a friend recently; keep seeking the truth about every proposition in the world, prioritise love, and follow where it leads, and you will find God.