Evolution, the existence of God, Küng and his existential argument

Review of Küng’s Der Anfang aller Dinge, section D, part 5.

So, is it God who throws dice?

Küng is of course clear: Certainly it would be unfair to postulate God, as Monod insists, from molecular indeterminacy, or other such facet of the evolutionary process. This would merely project a ‘God of the Gaps’. However, Monod’s rejection of ‘creation-mysticism’ is also hardly ground for the rejection of a Creator and Director (Lenker) of the world.

Under the subheading ‘An existential alternative’, Küng presses his reasoning: Either a person says ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to an original foundation, and original goal (Urgrund, Urhalt, Urziel) of the evolutionary process. If a person says ‘no’, then he or she must also agree to the senselessness of the whole process, and the loneliness of humanity. If a person says ‘yes’, then this person may accept a sense in the whole process of evolution, even if it is not based on the process itself, but, trustingly presuppose it (cf. p. 163). Those saying ‘no’ must still answer, ‘Why is there something, and not nothing?’ - a question Küng himself addressed in part B (section 5) of the book. Indeed, there appears to be an unavoidable metaphysical element in human thinking, one that cannot simply be turned off. Metaphysics is not answered, proved or disproved through an acceptance of the physical and chemical nature of evolutionary development. And so the ball ricochets off the hard wall of evolutionary chance, and lands back on our court: Will we say a ‘yes’ or ‘no’?