Humanity at the "Center" of the Universe:
A Defense of Moderate Anthropocentris

The Stradivarius violin is an outstanding example of the often disproportionate relationship between a physical object’s size and its inherent degree of value. Although it is a tiny object in terms of its physical dimensions and its ability to influence its immediate environment, it is disproportionately huge in terms of its overall value. Weighing in at just a pound or two, a single Stradivarius can be worth more than an entire neighborhood of homes!

It is the often disproportionate relationship between an object’s size, power, and value that we will focus on in the remainder of this article, because it clearly demonstrates that there is no necessary, or even likely, relationship between humanity’s size, location, or power and its ultimate degree of importance in the universe.

According to the longstanding Copernican dogma, the human race was actually "dethroned" from the center of the universe when Nicholas Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves around the sun, and not vice versa. The extreme powerlessness of the human race, coupled with its profound sense of existential aloneness in the universe, only served to reinforce the validity of the Copernican dogma, as have many of the assumptions of modern science itself.

Remarkably, however, the logical foundation of the Copernican Principle has turned out to be inherently flawed, as I pointed out in God and the New Cosmology in 1993.[1] Simply put, there is no necessary—or even likely—relationship between the physical size, strength, or location of an object and its inherent degree of value. In the words of Dennis R. Danielson,

Danielson calls this pervasive error in reasoning the great Copernican cliché, and he believes that it "is premised upon an uncritical equation of geocentrism with anthropocentrism. It presumes that, by removing earth from a physically and geometrically central location in the universe, Copernicus removed humankind….from its metaphysically central place in the cosmos."[3]

Danielson goes on to discard this cliché altogether because it:

Copernicus’s own religious beliefs strongly support this contention, as Copernicus himself was a devout theist and anthropocentrist who based his heliocentric theory on the way he imagined that God would have created the solar system. Indeed, according to Barrow and Tipler, Copernicus was actually "a little reticent about relinquishing even the physical centrality of Man," so he took some degree of solace from the fact that "Man’s displacement [from the cosmic center] is really only very slight, given the immense size of the cosmos."[5]

Recent cosmological findings strongly support this reinterpretation of the Copernican dogma, because we now know that a series of wildly improbable "coincidences" have actually made the universe fit for life. Even more remarkable is the fact that this life-supporting arrangement has been in existence from the very birth of the universe itself. For as Barrow and Tipler have pointed out, the values of nature’s fundamental constants did not gradually evolve over time by a process of natural selection. Instead, they emerged fully formed and ready for action at the very moment of the Big Bang itself.[6]

This is a monumental realization that compels us to reorient our ideas as far as the origin of life is concerned. In fact, it is nothing less than a bona fide miracle that nature’s fundamental constants spontaneously emerged from the Big Bang in an exceedingly fine-tuned biocentric configuration. To better illustrate this point, imagine the shrapnel of a bomb spontaneously organizing itself into a coherent statue of Abraham Lincoln within seconds of the bomb’s detonation. It would be self-evident to even the most critical of skeptics that the statue’s building blocks had been programmed or front-loaded into the bomb from the very beginning.

Incredibly enough, the very same conclusion can be drawn about the biocentric configuration of nature’s fundamental constants immediately following the Big Bang, some 15 billion years ago. For insofar as the various ingredients for life (in terms of the underlying laws of nature) spontaneously emerged from the Big Bang, fully formed and ready for action, it is clear that they had to have been front-loaded into this primordial event from the very beginning. Otherwise, there would have been no compelling reason for them to spontaneously coalesce into a perfect biocentric arrangement at the precise moment of the Big Bang itself.

Even critics of this perspective, such as physicist Lee Smolin and cosmologist John Gribbin, readily admit that the underlying recipe for life had to have been inherent in the Big Bang itself. However, instead of attributing this element of design to the actions of a preexisting supernatural Being, they have opted to attribute it to a preexisting process of natural selection amongst the fundamental constants prior to the Big Bang. But this is a physical impossibility if our current cosmological understanding of the Big Bang is accurate, because according to the Space-Time Theorem of General Relativity, both time and space had to have begun with the Big Bang itself. Insofar as this assertion is valid, it necessarily means that time and space could not have existed prior to the Big Bang.[7] This is the consensus position of the vast majority of cosmologists and astronomers, and for good reason—it is very strongly supported by virtually the entire range of empirical data. But if we agree that both space and time could not have existed prior to the Big Bang, then the fundamental constants of nature couldn’t possibly have evolved by a process of natural selection prior to this primordial event, since there wouldn’t have been a physical arena in existence in which this trial-and-error process could have transpired.

The faultless nature of cosmic evolution following the Big Bang strongly supports this contention as well, because there doesn’t appear to have been any "errors" at all on the way to life. Instead, the scientific record reveals a near seamless progression of cosmic events that ultimately culminated in the origin of life itself on this planet. While non-theistic evolutionists nevertheless contend that life’s development here was ultimately a contingent phenomenon, this is merely one interpretation of the empirical facts (whatever they happen to be). It is by no means an empirical fact itself.[8] For even though there may have been many ostensibly "contingent" events on the way to life (such as the comet-induced extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago), this is, again, only one interpretation of the basic facts themselves. For all we know, an all-powerful Creator could have prearranged for such seemingly contingent events to occur from the very beginning, in order to set the stage for the rise of human intelligence several billion years later.

We can, of course, object to this contrarian interpretation of the facts on the grounds that an all-powerful Deity would never have created human life in this fashion, but how can we possibly know this for a certainty? We obviously cannot. To the contrary, precisely the opposite state of affairs may have actually been the case; namely, that an all-powerful Creator might well have been motivated to create the biosphere indirectly through the putative process of "contingent evolution," the purpose of which would have been the enhancement of human freedom through a temporary increase in the "epistemic distance" between humanity and God.

As I explained in The God Hypothesis, there are very compelling reasons why an omnipotent God couldn’t have been too direct, and therefore too obvious, in His creation of the world—because the more obvious His creative activity would have been, the more convinced we would have therefore become that God Himself was actually responsible for the whole affair.[9] However, this awareness would almost certainly have compromised the integrity of human freedom in the end. After all, how could we possibly be free, particularly in relation to God, if God’s existence were totally unambiguous to us? We would, in this case, be compelled to submit to His Will by an unavoidable process of divine intimidation, because we would then be overwhelmed, far beyond our power to resist, by the subjective perception of God’s infinite power and great glory, as John Hick originally pointed out in Evil and the God of Love.[10]

The solution to this problem, I submit, is for God to have created the world indirectly through the "contingent" process of cosmic and biological evolution. For by appearing to render the origin of life ambiguous (at least for the time being), God would have actually accomplished a much higher purpose; namely, that of maximizing the range and scope of human freedom to the greatest possible extent, particularly with respect to our allegiance to Him. It is certainly no mark of genuine love to be forced into loving someone else by the insidious threat of power. True love by its very nature requires that we have the free choice to love the person in question (or not to), and it makes sense to suppose that this same principle applies equally to our love for God. But if God doesn’t want us to be intimidated into loving Him, then the human race necessarily had to have been created at a substantial epistemic distance from Him, and this remains true regardless of the amount of power that God is believed to possess. Moreover, since the instantaneous creation of the human race by miraculous fiat would have made the existence of God self-evident to all, it stands to reason that He would have wanted to create the biosphere through the indirect process of biological evolution, in order to provide just enough ambiguity regarding the origin of life to optimally enhance our freedom.

It is sometimes countered that this epistemic distance stipulation is theologically incoherent, because it seems to necessitate a permanent degree of epistemic distance between humans and God in order to preserve our freedom. This fortunately isn’t the case, however, because the epistemic distance stipulation is itself predicated upon the various ontological requirements that are naturally associated with the human developmental process. It follows from this that in our present state of ontological immaturity, our capacity to be free is exceptionally vulnerable to any Divine Influence that is directly perceived as such. Why? Because at this relatively early stage in the developmental process, we are still far too immature to be able to "handle" the direct perception of our Creator without the immediate and inadvertent loss of our free will, particularly in relation to our allegiance to God. At some point in the future, however, we will presumably grow to the point that we will be ontologically (and therefore psychospiritually) mature enough to be able to handle a direct perception of our Maker without a concomitant loss of our own freedom. This is one of the principal reasons why it is imperative that our developmental progress be optimally enhanced and facilitated whenever possible.[11] It is also why we will eventually be able to directly perceive our Maker someday without experiencing a simultaneous loss of our freedom—because at this point in our ontological development we will finally be mature enough to be able to tolerate the direct perception of God without becoming unfree in the process.

Empirical Support for the Cosmic "Centrality" of Humanity
The following seven empirical facts strongly support the centrality of the human race in the grand cosmic scheme of things:

1. The human structural "recipe" in fact permeates the entire known universe. In this limited structural sense human beings do indeed seem to occupy the foundational "center" of the universe after all.
2. The universe is exceptionally fine-tuned for the support of life. If any of nature’s fundamental constants were to be altered in the least, the universe would be incapable of supporting life. Roger Penrose has calculated the odds that this biocentric arrangement could have been due to chance alone. It is approximately 1 in 10 to the 10¹²³ power. This is an unimaginably huge number that couldn’t possibly be written down on a piece of paper the size of the entire visible universe.[12]
3. The earth itself is also exceedingly fine-tuned for the support of life. A vast number of causally independent factors work together on this planet to make it the ideal home for terrestrial life forms, including such seemingly unrelated items as the mass of the moon and the presence of a large planet like Jupiter further out in the solar system (whose function is to protect the earth from the potentially destructive effects of cosmic debris). This realization is all the more remarkable because such an ideal terrestrial arrangement is almost certainly not commonplace throughout the cosmos, precisely because of its exceptionally fine-tuned character. This has become known as the "Rare Earth Hypothesis," and a growing number of researchers are beginning to acknowledge its remarkable validity.[13]
4. Although the massive size of the universe could plausibly make it a home for thousands of intelligent civilizations, it is also true that the universe would have to be as big and as old as it is just to support a single race of carbon-based observers.[14] This is due to the necessary time frame for heavy element synthesis, and it means that the vast size and age of the universe is empirically consistent with the possibility that we are the only race of intelligent beings in the entire universe.
5. The human brain is widely acknowledged to be the most complex physical structure ever discovered. In terms of sheer structural complexity, then, the human brain is one of the most "centrally important" features of the entire cosmos. Moreover, since the complexity of any given object appears to be directly proportional to the importance and sophistication of its intended function, it would seem to follow that the human brain’s unprecedented degree of complexity therefore renders it the crowning achievement of cosmic evolution.
6. The ostensible uniqueness of human intelligence further corroborates the preceding conclusion. Indeed, the evolution of intelligence is now recognized to be so incredibly difficult that not even non-theistic evolutionists themselves believe that it is likely to be found anywhere else in the entire visible universe.[15]
7. The profound functional sophistication of human consciousness is the ultimate empirical factor that supports the putative centrality of Homo sapiens in the cosmic scheme of things. Our capacity for conscious, self-reflecting awareness is widely believed to be the most advanced functional property ever discovered, and this correlates well with the ostensible uniqueness of its function within the larger cosmos; namely, that of enabling the universe to become consciously aware of itself through the agency of human beings. In terms of pure functional sophistication, then, human consciousness does indeed appear to exist at the "center" of the known universe after all.

This line of argument actually represents a moderate anthropocentric point of view, insofar as it allows for the possible existence of other intelligent beings in the universe besides ourselves. Two above-mentioned factors, however, add considerable support to the possibility that we may turn out to be unique in the grand scheme of things. First, both the size and age of the universe are consistent with the exclusivity of human intelligence, for as we have seen, the universe has to be as big and as old as it is in order to "support one lonely outpost of life."[16] This is because it takes billions of years for the carbon and other heavy elements in our bodies to be synthesized within dying red giant stars, and this, in turn, entails the simultaneous expansion of the entire universe during this seminal time period. So, whereas the universe’s temporal and physical dimensions are both consistent with the possible existence of other intelligent life forms, they also represent the bare minimum that would be required to support a single oasis of life in the cosmos.

The second factor that supports the possible uniqueness of the human race centers around a remarkable consensus position within the non-theistic evolutionary community. Ironically, most non-theistic evolutionists now believe that the evolution of intelligence is so inherently problematic (and therefore unlikely) that it probably hasn’t happened anywhere else in the entire visible universe.[17] This astonishing consensus can be traced, at least in part, to the realization that the forces of selection would naturally choose against the evolution of intelligence, for two reasons: 1) the production of intelligent offspring inherently requires a notably longer gestational period (to generate a more complex nervous system), and 2) a significantly protracted childhood is also required for the development of intelligent progeny, since it naturally takes longer to raise them.[18] Both of these factors, as C.O. Lovejoy points out, are strong reproductive liabilities, because they over-expose both the mother and young to potentially deadly environmental influences. In short, "intelligence has no a priori advantage, but it is a clear and unmistakable reproductive hazard."[19]

This realization implies that human intelligence would have probably never gotten a foothold on this planet unless it were somehow "intended" all along by a larger teleological power.

This is an immensely revealing position within the modern evolutionary community, because it demonstrates both the value and exclusivity of human intelligence from an entirely naturalistic point of view. That is to say, if the rise of intelligence is so inherently improbable that it probably doesn’t exist anywhere else in the entire visible universe, then by all accounts it shouldn’t have appeared here either; that is, unless an unseen teleological power has somehow guided its development from the very beginning (either through biocentric natural laws that have been operational since the Big Bang, or through an ongoing process of active creative direction).

In order for this moderate anthropocentric perspective to "work," however, the existence of evil-prone human beings must turn out to be sufficiently desirable to at least partially justify the instantiation of our "anthropic" universe. This is the ultimate "Achilles heel" of our moderate anthropocentric perspective, because it raises the thorny issue of the problem of evil. However, as Alvin Plantinga and others have duly pointed out, the presence of evil in our world doesn’t necessarily constitute a contradiction to the possible existence of a perfectly good and all-powerful Deity.[20] To the contrary, the reality of both moral and natural evil could turn out to be logically entailed by a greater cosmic good that could not have been obtained in any other way, even by an omnipotent Designer.

Insofar as this is actually so, evil would not then be a function of the Divine Power per se, because in this case it wouldn’t matter how much power God actually possessed, as long as He desired to instantiate beings like ourselves who inherently possessed a certain ontological vulnerability to moral evil. Similarly, the most appropriate environment for "growing" such individuals could very well turn out to be necessarily tainted with a wide variety of physical evils, as I explained at length in Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil.[21]

Of course, these assumptions beg the question of why God would have wanted to create beings like ourselves who are inherently prone to moral evil, instead of other types of beings who are less prone to it, or not prone to it at all. There are several reasons why this might be so. First, God’s underlying motive here could be the instantiation of finite beings who mirror certain aspects of His own spiritual image, as Genesis 1:24 suggests. In this case, the Human Essence itself could turn out to be the only logically possible essence that finitely mirrors the most relevant spiritual properties that are contained within the Divine Spiritual Essence. Insofar as this is so, the creation of bona fide humans would then be necessarily entailed, at least to the extent that God would have truly desired to instantiate finite beings like ourselves in His own spiritual "image."

Secondly, God may have also desired to instantiate the most ontologically sophisticated end product that was logically possible for Him to create. This end product, which would naturally inhabit the shadowy border zone between the logically possible and the logically impossible, could conceivably revolve around the instantiation of intelligent, free-willed, and self-conscious independent identities, such as ourselves. The unprecedented complexity and functional sophistication of the human brain provides further evidence that this may actually be the case. It is in this manner that the instantiation of fully developed human souls would appear to qualify as one of the most ambitious tasks that an omnipotent Designer could possibly undertake.[22]

It is therefore conceivable that the instantiation of Homo sapiens could actually lie at the ontological interface between the logically possible and the logically impossible, i.e., it could turn out to be the single most advanced—and therefore the most inherently difficult—creative project that is logically possible for an all-powerful Deity to attain.[23] The existence of evil in the world would at least partially seem to substantiate this possibility, because such a maximally "difficult" creative project would naturally seem to entail a whole host of unavoidable "side effects," even for an omnipotent Creator. This assertion isn’t as counterintuitive as it may initially seem, because all logically possible events are not equally probable or likely in fact, even for an all-powerful Deity.[24]

Insofar as this is so, the reality of evil in the world could be a testimony, not to the inherent limitations of the Divine Power as such, but rather to the extreme ambitiousness of God’s creative intentions in the universe. But isn’t this precisely what we would expect of an all-powerful Designer? Wouldn’t we naturally expect Him to "push the envelope" of the logically possible as far as it can possibly go, so that the best possible outcome in the universe can eventually be obtained? To the extent that this speculative hypothesis is accurate, the instantiation of Homo sapiens could turn out to be the single most ambitious task that is logically possible for God to accomplish, no matter how much power He is deemed to possess. For not even Omnipotence itself is capable of accomplishing the logically impossible, not because it represents a genuine limit to the Divine Power, but rather because it is an incoherent non-entity (and hence an ontological "zero") in and of itself.

Seen within this context, the reality of evil in the world could plausibly be one of the unavoidable side effects of an omnipotent God "pushing the ontological limit" in this fashion. This possibility is further supported by the realization that not even an omnipotent Deity could have created fully developed, free-willed human souls instantaneously by miraculous fiat. Why? Because this would have logically entailed the total preprogramming of their minds; and this would have inevitably transformed them into preprogrammed automatons, which, in turn, would have made genuine free will impossible, no matter how much power God is deemed to possess.

But if this is so, it follow that there is only one logically possible way for free-willed human beings to be created, and that is through an inherently difficult and protracted process of self-guided development, which necessarily begins at the earliest possible starting point (a fertilized egg) and continues on through the hazardous process of self-directed development, until an ontological state of full character development (or self-actualization) eventually obtains.

This hypothesis has the added benefit of explaining the origin of moral evil as well. For insofar as human beings are created in a partially-assembled ontological state, they will necessarily be prone to behavioral malfunctioning (e.g., moral evil) as a direct function of their own partial assembly, in much the same way that a partially assembled automobile will inevitably wreck if it is taken out onto the highway before it is structurally completed. If, however, this ontological requirement is a logically necessary consequence of genuine freedom, and moreover, if the long-term desirability of free will inherently outweighs the temporary existence of evil in the world, then a perfectly good and all-powerful Deity might well have opted to instantiate such ontologically "flawed" beings despite their temporary proclivity to moral evil.[25] Best of all, this creative action would have to be classified as being "morally good," despite the many evil side effects that would temporarily be generated during the developmental process itself. It would be morally good for two compelling reasons: 1) because the final end product (namely, the existence of fully developed, free-willed human entities in the finite image of God) would be so inherently valuable that it would naturally justify all of the necessary evils that led up to it, and 2) because such an ontological feat would be logically unobtainable in any other way, no matter how much power God is deemed to possess.

The present existence of evil in the world thus doesn’t have to be considered to be a function of the amount of Divine Power per se. Indeed, there is no conceivable amount of power that would have made it possible for God to have created free-willed human souls instantaneously by miraculous fiat. This is because of the necessary metaphysical limitations that intrinsically apply to freedom itself, as we have seen. To the extent that this hypothesis is accurate, one needn’t constrain the Divine Power beyond the limits of the logically possible, simply in order to account for the reality of evil in the world. For insofar as the existence of evil is understood to be a function of the Human Essence itself, and not a function of the Divine Power per se, it is no longer necessary to constrain the Divine Power simply to make room for evil in the world.

Conclusion
I would like to conclude this article by asserting that the human property of conscious awareness must be a "fact of fundamental significance in the universe," as Paul Davies and others have asserted.[26] For it is only through the agency of self-reflecting human beings that the universe has somehow become aware of itself, and it is hard to imagine a more important or sophisticated ontological property than this.[27] And since the unprecedented complexity of the human brain only deepens the power of this speculative hypothesis (since the exceptionally sophisticated property of human consciousness naturally seems to require an exceedingly complicated physical structure like the human brain to support it), it no longer seems like such a stretch to suggest that human beings may ultimately be a central factor behind the existence of the universe itself.

Moreover, the extreme powerlessness of the human race, vis-à-vis the occurrence of both moral and natural evils, doesn’t have to count against this privileged cosmic status, either. Our lack of power could instead be a logically required constraint that is inevitably associated with the process of human soul-building, as John Hick and others have pointed out.[28] In any event, it isn’t necessary for our powerlessness to be seen in a totally negative light, because we can scarcely imagine how much more destructive we would naturally be if we possessed any more power. We’re far too destructive as it is, so perhaps God was being merciful when He didn’t bestow any more power on us. Had we been given any more power at all, we probably would have blown up the entire solar system by now!

But if our lack of power over evil in the world doesn’t necessarily count against our privileged status in the universe, then what does? It is difficult to find a coherent answer to this question, and this only adds to the nagging suspicion that there may indeed be something uniquely special about the human race, despite our structural fragility and our overall propensity to moral evil. The ancients intuitively realized this, and the empirical data of modern science has only served to strengthen the persuasiveness of this conclusion.

Is it possible, then, that we actually reside at the "center" of the universe after all? It all depends, of course, on precisely what is meant by the term "center." If we are to understand this term in a geo-centric or power-centric manner, the answer is obviously "no." However, if we understand it in terms of our functional importance in the universe, the answer could very well be "yes," because we are the only beings we know of who have the marvelous capacity of conscious awareness.

The concept of "centrality," then, appears to have much more to do with an object’s intrinsic degree of value (relative to its own specific functionality) than it does with its size, location, or intrinsic degree of power in the universe. Accordingly, the "centrality" of the human race in the cosmic scheme of things probably has very little to do with our astronomical location in the cosmos, or with our relatively small size and lack of power as such. Instead, it appears to have far more to do with one specific function only; namely, that of our capacity for conscious awareness (coupled with the underlying structural conditions that are required to make this awareness a reality).[29] Insofar as this is so, humanity’s self-reflecting consciousness might well turn out to be a "fact of fundamental significance" in the universe after all.

In lieu of this very real possibility, I believe that the concept of moderate anthropocentrism should be taken seriously once again. For as Michael Denton has aptly pointed out, anthropocentrism is "one of the most extraordinary—perhaps the most extraordinary—of all the presumptions of humankind. It is the ultimate theory and in a very real sense, the ultimate conceit. No other theory or concept ever imagined by man can equal in boldness and audacity this great claim—that everything revolves around human existence—that all the starry heavens, that every species of life, that every characteristic of reality exists for mankind and mankind alone. It is simply the most daring idea ever proposed. But most remarkably, given its audacity, it is a claim which is very far from a discredited prescientific myth. In fact, no observation has ever laid the presumption to rest. And today, four centuries later after the scientific revolution, the doctrine is again reemerging. In these last three decades of the twentieth century, its credibility is being enhanced by discoveries in several branches of fundamental science."[30]

To say that these ideas are shocking, particularly in light of the misguided Copernican Principle, would be a tremendous understatement. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that they are untrue. It therefore behooves us to follow the empirical evidence wherever it chooses to lead us, even if it happens to be in the general direction of moderate anthropocentrism.

This is the same conclusion that Paul Davies appears to be hinting at when he says that our capacity for self-conscious awareness is a "fact of fundamental significance" in the universe. It is a fact of fundamental significance because it is the mysterious process by which the universe has become aware of itself (through the agency of human beings) that appears to be the only property that is intrinsically sophisticated enough to justify the instantiation of an entire universe "for."

Perhaps it isn’t merely a figure of speech, then, when the Psalmist suggests that the entire universe has been created for the sake of human beings. But why does this possibility have to be so unimaginable? It didn’t seem to bother the "ancients" in the least, because the majority of thinkers prior to Darwin were thoroughgoing anthropocentrists themselves, including Nicholas Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton. Moreover, as Michael Denton reminds us, not a single empirical observation has ever discredited this anthropocentric point of view. This being the case, why should we find it to be so unbelievable? Humility as a psychological virtue is fine, but it certainly doesn’t follow from this that the human race is therefore unimportant or irrelevant in the cosmic scheme of things.

The primary reason why we find moderate anthropocentrism to be so unimaginable might have something to do with our own inability to imagine how we could possibly be so important to the universe. Like the unimaginably tragic events of September 11, 2001, many people simply cannot bring themselves to imagine how we, of all creatures, could possibly be of central importance to God Himself.[31]

We should do our best, then, to try to "imagine the unimaginable" in this particular cosmological context, because this is the conceptual arena in which our true place in the heavens is likely to be found. That is to say, we should do our best to try to visualize, in our mind’s eye, a particular manner in which the human race could possibly be a vital ingredient in the cosmic scheme of things. It isn’t enough to note that we are the most complex and functionally sophisticated entities in the entire known universe, nor is it enough to realize that the entire cosmos has been structurally "centered" on the same fundamental "recipe" that is required for human existence.

We must instead try to find a way to qualitatively imagine a unique human property that is sufficiently valuable in and of itself to subsequently justify the instantiation of the entire universe "for." The unprecedented human capacity for conscious awareness is a good start, but this in itself probably wouldn’t be enough to convince most people, because it states a cosmic truism that we already know to be true; namely, that the universe has somehow become aware of itself through the agency of human beings. Insofar as this is truly a "fact of fundamental significance" in the universe, there must be a deeper reason why it would be so. One school of thought, as we have seen, states that human beings are this important to the universe because they are the only beings whose underlying definition is based upon a finite representation of God Himself.

But even if this speculative hypothesis turns out to be true, there still must be a deeper why our conscious awareness would be "worth" the creation of the entire universe itself.[32] One possibility has to do with the many subjective experiences and creative capacities that are intrinsic to self-conscious beings such as ourselves. The human arts provide an outstanding example of this type of extreme intrinsic value. Take Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for instance. Is there a metaphysical "value" that can possibly be placed on this transcendent masterpiece? Or, going one step further, is the realization of such a profound artistic feat "worth" the creation of the entire universe, simply to make it actual?

I submit that the answer to this question is likely to be "yes." Anyone who has subjectively experienced the soaring genius of a musical masterpiece, or the undiluted brilliance of a Mozart or Picasso painting, will have a good idea about how to best answer this question. Of course the realization of these properties is "worth" the instantiation of an entire biocentric universe, particularly with respect to an omnipotent Designer, who has more than enough power "on Hand" to make it a reality. This possibility is greatly strengthened, and not weakened, by the most recent cosmological evidence, which indicates that our entire universe is based upon the same structural parameters that are required for our own existence. This is precisely what we would expect if our moderate anthropocentric theory turns out to be true.

We’ve all heard the question about whether or not a tree that falls in a forest will make a sound if there’s no one around to hear it. The answer to this question is highly illustrative for our purposes, because even though the falling tree does indeed generate sound waves, these acoustic reverberations are clearly meaningless if there isn’t anyone around to hear them. In the same way, the entire universe would appear to be meaningless as well if there are no self-conscious individuals in existence to be aware of it.

This realization in itself sets the property of human consciousness apart from all other known properties, because it demonstrates that this property is different in kind, and not simply in degree, from all other finite existential properties. It is this realization that makes the property of human consciousness maximally significant from a cosmic point of view—perhaps even to the point that its real-world instantiation inherently justifies the creation of our entire biocentric universe, just to make it actual.

This conclusion stands in stark contrast to Steven Weinberg’s oft-quoted phrase that "the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."[33] Indeed, the very utterance of this phrase is self-contradictory by its very nature, because Weinberg’s ability to draw any such authoritative conclusion actually presupposes the very meaning that Weinberg himself is trying to deny, which again is the exclusive human capacity for rational self-consciousness. Accordingly, if the universe were truly as meaningless as Weinberg wants us to believe, he wouldn’t be able to draw any such sweeping conclusion in the first place!

Albert Einstein would have agreed with this general conclusion, insofar as he believed that "the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." In other words, it is the universe’s very comprehensibility that confers a tremendous amount of importance and meaning to human existence; so much so, in fact, that Einstein actually believed that this property was "incomprehensibly" significant for this very reason.

The London University geneticist J.B.S. Haldane would have agreed that there must be something more than just blind physical atoms in the universe to give our words and conclusions deeper meaning. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be capable of asserting anything with authority:

Another way of phrasing Haldane’s conclusion is that it is our very ability to authoritatively state any conclusion that actually presupposes a certain degree of underlying meaningfulness before it’s validity can be trusted. This meaningfulness, according to Haldane, extends to the very interior of our minds; and since this internal degree of meaning is itself predicated upon the underlying meaningfulness of the larger natural order, it follows that our life-supporting universe must itself be infused with a pervasive degree of meaningfulness before we can trust any of our conclusions to be independently true.

It is precisely here that we can see how utterly unique our minds really are in the cosmic scheme of things, because it is the human mind alone that is capable of drawing such grand conclusions about the underlying nature of reality. Richard Swinburne concurs that it is our mental life that makes us so unique in the cosmic scheme of things:

In conclusion, it is the remarkable conjunction of three distinct qualities—the cosmic ubiquitousness of the human structural "recipe," the unprecedented complexity of the human brain, and the functional uniqueness of human consciousness—that seems to decisively indicate that the universe has indeed been organized around human existence after all. We would never expect the cooperative interplay of so many independent variables towards the same transcendently meaningful goal (namely, that of facilitating cosmic self-awareness through the agency of human beings) if these factors weren’t part of a larger "cosmic conspiracy" to produce the same end result.

A brief example may help us to better understand the immense power of this conclusion. Imagine what we would think if the Hubble Telescope happened to discover a far-away planet whose very structural design turned out to be inherently necessary for the existence of stupendously complex, computer-like machines. Imagine further that these same computer-like machines are in fact carrying out the single most important function on the entire planet. Wouldn’t we then be justified in concluding that the entire planet itself had somehow been deliberately set up to support the existence (and functionality) of these machines? Of course we would, and the same basic logic also seems to apply to our universe as well.

Why, after all, should the fine-tuned structural recipe for human existence be ubiquitous throughout the cosmos, and the human brain be the most complex mechanism ever discovered, and the property of human consciousness be unprecedented in its underlying functionality within the larger cosmic scheme simultaneously, unless all of these qualities were deliberately intended to work together in a grand cooperative effort towards the attainment of the same higher goal (namely, that of enabling the universe to become aware of itself through the agency of human beings)?

Indeed, it is this very cooperativeness towards a common higher goal, along with the fact that each successive step of this interlocking functional chain is predicated upon the prior existence of all previous steps, that further seems to corroborate the validity of this moderate anthropocentric point of view. No wonder a growing number of physicists are coming to the conclusion that human consciousness is a "fact of fundamental significance" in the universe. It is the remarkable confluence of so many disparate physical parameters towards a single all-encompassing functional goal that makes this conclusion almost irresistible. Insofar as this speculative hypothesis turns out to be valid, human intellectual thought will have come full circle once again to its anthropocentric beginnings in ancient Greece.

[1] M.A. Corey, God and the New Cosmology (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), pp. 78-98. [back]
[2] Daniel R. Dennison, “The Great Copernican Cliché” Am. J. Phys., Vol. 69, No. 10, October 2001, p. 1030. [back]
[3] Ibid. [back]
[4] Ibid., p. 1034. [back]
[5] John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 49. [back]
[6] Ibid., p. 288. [back]
[7] Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), p. 67. [back]
[8] We must be careful here to distinguish between a hard-core empirical fact, on the one hand, and its subsequent interpretation, on the other. Empirical facts themselves are thus not identical with their own subsequent interpretation. [back]
[9] Michael A. Corey, The God Hypothesis (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2001), pp. 144-145. [back]
[10] John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 281. [back]
[11] The diminution of our inner propensity for moral evil is yet another benefit to be gained from the process of psychospiritual growth. [back]
[12] Michael A. Corey, The God Hypothesis (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, pp. 220-221. [back]
[13] Peter Ward and Don Brownlee, Rare Earth.
(New York: Copernicus, 2000). [back]
[14] Barrow and Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, p. 3. [back]
[15] Ibid., p. 133. [back]
[16] Ibid., p. 3. [back]
[17] Ibid., pp. 133. [back]
[18] Ibid., pp. 131-132. [back]
[19] Ibid., p. 131. [back]
[20] Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1974), pp. 164-195. [back]
[21] Michael A. Corey, Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), pp. 281-333. [back]
[22] Ibid., pp. 273-276. [back]
[23] For a more thorough discussion of this tantalizing possibility, please refer to Evolution and the Problem of Natural Evil, pp. 273-276. [back]
[24] Ibid., pp. 274-276. [back]
[25] This ontological “flaw,” however, ends up being a positive asset in the end, because it is a logically required precondition for the eventual “revealing” of fully developed human personalities. [back]
[26] Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 231-232. [back]
[27] The pioneering physicist John Wheeler has touched upon a similar
theme with his idea of a Participatory Universe, in which living observers are required in a quantum sense in order to collapse the various wave functions of the universe in order to make them “real.” George Greeinstein’s idea of a “Symbiotic Universe,” in which the universe is constrained to be life-supporting so that it can maintain its own observer-dependent reality, also touches upon this same theme, except for one caveat. In the very beginning, there were no physical observers in existence to impart a concrete reality to the universe. This is where Barrow and Tipler’s idea of God as the “Ultimate Observer” comes into play, for only a self-existing Being could have possibly observed the primordial universe into being at the Big Bang, because this is the only type of “observer” whose existence could have possibly transcended
the metaphysical limitations of the Big Bang itself. [back]
[28] John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, pp. 284-276. [back]
[29] This is where the seven previously mentioned empirical factors regarding our privileged status in the cosmos are able to give us important clues about our true place in the heavens. Point Number Seven is a reference to the unique functional property of conscious awareness which, on our moderate anthropocentric view, was inherently valuable enough for God to instantiate an entire universe “for.” Point Number Five, by contrast, gives us the proximate physical conditions that are thought to have been necessary to make this extreme functionality possible (e.g., a physical brain that is complex enough to support a range of profoundly sophisticated neurological tasks), whereas Points Two and Three give us the underlying cosmological conditions that are necessary to support the existence of self-conscious human beings on this planet. [back]
[30] Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny (New York: The Free Press, 1998), pp. 3-4. [back]
[31] I am reminded here of the Psalmist’s probing question to the very Creator of the universe: “What is Man, that thou art mindful of him?” [back]
[32] This task isn’t nearly as “ambitious” for God as it might superficially seem. For insofar as God is truly omnipotent, then the creation of a universe that is half the universe’s present size, or ten trillion times its size, is essentially the same thing. Therefore, the actual size of the universe, relative to the size of human beings, turns out to be ultimately irrelevant after all. [back]
[33] Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes (London: Fontana, 1983), p. 149. [back]
[34]Haldane, John B.S., “When I Am Dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays (London: Chatto and Winduw, 1927, p.  209. [back]
[35] Richard Swinburne, “Argument From the Fine-Tuning of the Universe,” in Physical Cosmology and Philosophy, John Leslie, ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), pp. 155-156. [back]