Does the Universe really point to a loving God?

[Kurieuo]

Consider the following thoughts:

• Look at the universe we live in. By far the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold. The bodies which move in this space are so few and so small in comparison with the space itself that even if every one of them were known to be crowded as full as it could hold with perfectly happy creatures, it would still be difficult to believe that life and happiness were more than a by-product to the power that made the universe. As it is, however, the scientists think it likely that very few of the suns of space— perhaps none of them except our own— have any planets; and in our own system it is improbable that any planet except the Earth sustains life. And Earth herself existed without life for millions of years and may exist for millions more when life has left her. And what is it like while it lasts? It is so arranged that all the forms of it can live only by preying upon one another. In the lower forms this process entails only death, but in the higher there appears a new quality called consciousness which enables it to be attended with pain. The creatures cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die. In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason, whereby he is enabled to foresee his own pain which henceforth is preceded with acute mental suffering, and to foresee his own death while keenly desiring permanence. It also enables men by a hundred ingenious contrivances to inflict a great deal more pain than they otherwise could have done on one another and on the irrational creatures. This power they have exploited to the full. Their history is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror, with just sufficient happiness interposed to give them, while it lasts, an agonised apprehension of losing it, and, when it is lost, the poignant misery of remembering. Every now and then they improve their condition a little and what we call a civilisation appears. But all civilisations pass away and, even while they remain, inflict peculiar sufferings of their own probably sufficient to outweigh what alleviations they may have brought to the normal pains of man. That our own civilisation has done so, no one will dispute; that it will pass away like all its predecessors is surely probable. Even if it should not, what then? The race is doomed. Every race that comes into being in any part of the universe is doomed; for the universe, they tell us, is running down, and will sometime be a uniform infinity of homogeneous matter at a low temperature. All stories will come to nothing: all life will turn out in the end to have been a transitory and senseless contortion upon the idiotic face of infinite matter. If you ask me to believe that this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotent spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction. Either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit

I've heard many say such things, friends in real life, discussions online; leading Positive Atheists like Sam Harris and company use such arguments to great effect. In my experience, I believe such thoughts are the main reason people give little credence to God, even if God exists so what? Sad.

[PaulSacramento]

Depends on how one defines Love I guess.
What greater love is their than "a being" that brings forth and sustains ALL life?
What greater love than "a being" that shares in the universe He created? shares the joy and the pain?

I think when we have a very mortal and very limited understanding of the universe that things like death and suffering amy suggest a lack of love, yes.
Of course that is a myopic and self-centred view, a view that comes from believing that if there is a God that he somehow
"owes" us a life like WE wanted it to be WITHOUT any interference form Him other than making our existence every thing we want it to be.

[Jac3510]

Paul is right to point out that it depends on how we understand love. I'd press just a bit further. The inanimate universe doesn't point to a loving God in and of itself, nor does the non-rational universe (e.g., animal behavior). "Love" is a fairly meaningless concept in all but human beings. On its face, then, the fact that humans have a real notion of love and tie love to good notions like justice--indeed, we put love at the center of whatever our notion of morality happens to be--points to a loving God. In fact, the whole idea of challenging God as being loving based on the way the arational and non-rational universe operates presumes a loving God. When people ask that question, they are taking a uniquely human idea and externalizing it, imposing it upon the world. When they see that the world does not match their own perspective on love, they then apply that judgment to God. But notice in this reasoning the objective (which is to say, essential, in the philosophical sense of the word (meaning, pertaining to an actually existent essence)) reality of love as a constituent part of reality. Love, on this whole line of thought, demands a cause beyond the humans in whom it dwells. Here we're treading towards the nominalism v realism debate, but I hope without going into that the implications are clear enough. If love does not really exist, or if it only exists within the context of human relationships (which is to say, it has no meaning when applied to the arational or non-rational world), then it is meaningless to ask if the world is "loveless" and denies the existence of a loving God! You may as well ask about the written word where there is nothing to write on. So the question is only meaningful if love really transcends human existence, if it makes sense beyond our own context. But in that case, love becomes as much an objective constituent of reality as anything else and thus demands to have a source grounded in some transcendent reality. And thus the very question itself proves that a loving God exists on the one hand or else that love doesn't exist at all (in the sense that, on a nominalistic interpretation of reality, nothing really exists) on the other.

[PaulSacramento]

Indeed, the simple fact that love exists does point to a loving God.

Add to that what is, arguably, the greatest expression of love- compassion- and a lot of what bothers us in the world starts to make more sense.

[Kurieuo]

I was rather hoping some non-believers would weigh in, but I guess the quote above doesn't leave much else to add? Lewis did I suppose put it quite sharply, covering many bases, when he wrote it in The Problem of Pain (recommend).

[PaulSacramento]

The problem of pain and suffering has always been and will always be an emotional one and not an intellectual one.