How This All Started
According to Wikipedia, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy contained this logical argument near the beginning of the book in association with the explanation of the universal translator, the babel fish:
“The book also explains that the babel fish could not possibly have developed naturally and therefore proves the existence of God as its creator, which in turn proves the non-existence of God. Since God needs faith to exist, and this proof dispels the need for faith, this therefore causes God to vanish “in a puff of logic”.“
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_translator#The_Hitchhiker’s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
At first glance, it has the shape of a logical argument, but with only a little examination, it’s more like complete nonsense strung together in a semi-logical structure. A reasonable equivalent would be: Black is purple, and water is purple, so naturally black water is the safest to drink. It’s shaped like logic, but it isn’t logical, never mind true.
Some Problems
As the creator of your story you are free to claim that the existence of a babel fish cannot be explained with the natural laws of your universe. Fine. It could be said that all an “impossible species” actually proves is that there exists some being with intelligence and the power to alter reality outside the ordinary laws of the world, or one who possess greater understanding of the natural laws than we currently do, but let’s just let the author have his way with his world, right?
But the central assumption here is that God needs faith to exist. Why? God exists, whether we believe it or not, or he isn’t God at all. A god dependent on the thought patterns of its own creations for existence could not possibly create those creations. That’s a bit like saying “I made this clay cup, but this clay cup needs me, therefore this clay cup caused me to make it.” It sounds kinda logical, till some consistent-C-student asks, “But how does a clay cup cause a human to do anything? And how does a clay cup cause anything to happen before it existed?”
Even if the central assumption were somehow logical, there seems to be a fundamental flaw in how the author understands faith. They seem to think that faith is only faith if it exists in the absence of evidence, but this is laughably shallow. Many have faith in trustworthy people, in the rigors of scientific enquiry and in their own ability to improve their own lives. Now, it is true that sometimes this faith becomes blind to evidence that would otherwise shatter it (think of all the scientific theories that have been thoroughly debunked over the years, that are almost universally protected against the counter-evidence for a period before finally being relinquished), but that does not mean that evidence in support of this faith somehow causes that faith to disappear. Usually, if you have faith that your friend is a generally trustworthy person, and then you catch them protecting you from a bad rumor, is your faith in that friend now destroyed? On the contrary, it is strengthened. Faith, therefore, is not something that exists only in isolation. It is no more or less than that which you choose to believe, which is often based on evidence of some kind, and it is then either strengthened by further evidence, or may be reasonably called into question with other evidence. That some people choose to cling to a chosen belief despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary does not change the meaning of the word.
Besides which, “undeniable proof” is a far shakier concept than “the existence of God”. Point out any “undeniable” reality, and I will direct you to the group of people who all sincerely believe that that reality is a falsehood. Think flat earthers (concerning the shape of the planet), transvestites (concerning their body), some psychopaths (concerning morals), and a fair number of actors (concerning a wide range of topics). Think about many of the divergent views that surfaced, and were rigorously defended, concerning covid during that first year. I assert that there is no such thing as “undeniable proof”, given the powerful effects of denial on the human mind.
The Real Story
Do you begin to see, now, why I say that Wikipedia’s statement is a string of nonsense with a logical structure? Yet I have encountered people who warned me off of The Hitchhiker’s Guide because it contained arguments against God. And maybe it’s reasonable to protect a child from malicious arguments designed to destroy their faith, but isn’t it better to use low-hanging fruit like this to teach them, even from a very early age, how stupid “logic” can be?
What’s truly astonishing is that, upon further research, this seems to be the true and exact aim of the author all along. The actual quote goes like this:
Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some have chosen to see it as the final proof of the NON-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.” “But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don’t.” “Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. “Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/God
This is, clearly, a very humorous take designed to poke fun at the logic of man, rather than the existence of God. Else, why does the man die in the end? Why does he jump from “proof of God proves the non-existence of God” to proving “Black is White”? At least we now know that the reason this god “needs faith in order to exist” is because the god character said so, and the book makes no attempt to make that statement seem logical in the first place.
It perhaps could be said by some that this quote also pokes fun at the design argument for the existence of God, but anyone who’s actually seen the design argument well presented (I would refer you to the way it was presented in “The Return of the God Hypothesis” by Stephen C. Meyer for an excellent example) knows that this quote from the book and the design argument have very little to do with each other, and certainly nothing said by this story presents any robust challenge. Really, the most offensive things about this and any other quote relating to God that I found in the hitchhiker’s guide was the generally laughable way that it presents its god (or gods, depending on which section you’re reading) as uncaring fools. It’s very hard to discern whether any genuine attitude of the author’s is behind this writing decision, given how rarely it comes up and the general tone of both the quotes and of the book as a whole, but it’s certainly irreverent and inaccurate. This is generally true of all humor, though. And again, there is something to be said for letting an author write their world the way they want to, especially in a book that is obviously fiction, like a fantasy or sci-fi, like Hitchhiker’s. What’s more, his god character(s) being uncaring fools actually represents a sensible explanation for the zany but tragic, and generally doomed, state of the world in which the tale takes place, so it makes sense within the story, and need not have any bearing on the reality we happen to occupy.
All of which to say… Do your research. That’s what I was reminded I should do whenever I read something on the internet, anyway.
With grins,
You must be logged in to post a comment.