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Human Persons, Gratitude and Happiness

If I Read This Article, Then I Will Be Smarter

Whether we're engaging in scientific theory or just living everyday life, we all quite appropriately engage in "if-then" reasoning: If the barometric pressure drops to a certain point, then it will rain. If oil prices go up, then … you get the idea.

Just the other day I was browsing in Borders Bookstore and I came across a book by Laura Smith and Charles Elliot titled Depression for Dummies, and boy, did I find something interesting toward the end of the book. But before I tell you what it was, let's do a little "if-then" reasoning.

If This, Then That

Suppose that God does not exist, and evolutionary theory tells the correct story about how we got here. For our purposes, the important thing about that story is that all living things, all their behaviors and all their parts exist and are what they are because they were successful relative to (or at least were not a hindrance in) the struggle for survival.

More specifically, they were effective in contributing to the tasks of finding food, getting away from danger, fighting when needed and reproducing efficiently. If this is the correct story of our origins, then the human behaviors that are most conducive to human flourishing should be those that are closely connected to finding food, getting away from danger, fighting when needed and reproducing.

In fact, this "if-then" form of reasoning is the basis of evolutionary psychology according to which human behaviors — for example, male preferences for certain female body shapes — are what they are because somewhere in our past, they contributed to these survival-enhancing activities (e.g., these body shapes were most effective for producing healthy offspring so evolution selected for the associated behavioral preferences).

Now let's assume a different creation account. Suppose that the God of the Bible is real, He created us and, irrespective of how He did it, He put us here for a purpose. If this is the correct account of our origins, then, according to the Bible, certain things will be central to human flourishing: daily gratitude to God for the things of life, learning to give and receive love, seeking and learning to give forgiveness, finding ultimate meaning and purpose in life according to why we were put here in the first place.

According to the naturalistic evolutionary account, human flourishing should be achieved through behaviors associated with power, sexual attraction, physical health, social position and wealth (since wealth should make one less vulnerable to living conditions that shorten life). According to the biblical account, human flourishing should be achieved through spiritual and moral behaviors associated with living a righteous, loving, grateful life — a life that affords us objective meaning and purpose — all the while seeking forgiveness for our wrongs and offering it to those who have wronged us.

Vulcans and Human Flourishing

What we have here are two very different "if-then"s. If a Vulcan were coming to earth with no clue what he would find here, armed with these two contrasting theories, he could find empirical (observational) evidence for one and against the other by observing what factors are actually conducive to human flourishing.

Well, don't hold your breath for Vulcans to land on earth. Fortunately, we don't have to wait for them to do the empirical research regarding human behavior and human flourishing. And here's where Depression for Dummies comes in. Summarizing the findings of empirical psychology, Smith and Elliot note some very interesting facts relevant to our topic. Contrary to what you might think, power (money, education, success), health, sexual attractiveness, and being youthful are not all that important as factors conducive to happiness and human flourishing. This finding runs counter to what we should expect if the naturalistic evolutionary story were true. So these findings provide some disconfirming data for this evolutionary story. These data do not fully falsify that story, but they do provide some degree of disconfirmation.

But the findings of empirical psychology don't stop there. Smith and Elliot list the factors that are, in fact, conducive to happiness and human flourishing: At the top of the list is living in a constant spirit of gratitude — a sense of thankfulness in life. Next on the list were unselfishly caring for and helping others, learning to give and receive forgiveness, finding a deep and real sense of meaning and purpose in life by giving oneself to a larger framework than the individual's own life.

Two things about this list caught my attention. First, its contents are exactly what one would expect if the biblical account were true. Therefore, these findings provide some confirming data for the biblical account.

Second, several items on the list are absolutely absurd and irrational on the naturalistic evolutionary account, but they make rational sense on the biblical account. For example, most often, one is grateful for something (a new car) by being grateful to someone (the person who bought it for you as a gift) for that thing. And one expresses gratitude toward another intelligent, conscious being. One cannot be grateful to a fencepost, the moon, the universe itself or a collection of atoms. On an atheistic view, one can be happy that the sun is bright or the ocean is turquoise, but one can't be grateful for these things since there is no one to be grateful to. Unfortunately, the psychological data show that it is gratitude that brings happiness. Happiness does not create itself.

The same goes for meaning and purpose. If atheism is true, there is no ultimate, objective meaning and purpose. We and the universe in which we live are just here, that's all. None of us is here for anything. Since objective meaning and purpose are conducive to human happiness and flourishing, that flourishing is frustrated on an evolutionary naturalist view because the things that generate it (objective meaning and purpose) make no sense within naturalist limitations. But meaning and purpose are central to the biblical view.

Begging the Question

When evolutionists adjust their theory to accommodate the data cited above, they are wrong on two grounds. For one thing, these adjustments are entirely ad hoc, that is, adjustments for which there are no independent reasons besides the sole motivation of saving the theory from being falsified by data. If scientists constantly re-adjusted their theories like this in the face of falsifying data with no other intellectual reason to do so, science would be impossible, and the history of science would be a sham.

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Second, such adjustments are question-begging against the rival hypothesis of theism. You beg the question when you assume your own view is true in the premises you use to prove your view is true. This is especially egregious when your rival's theory (theism) has the resources to explain the data quite naturally without adjusting it to do so.