I take book recommendations seriously, especially those from my favorite podcasters. When Parker Settecase of Parker’s Pensées recommended David Chalmers’ Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy as a good introduction to simulation theory, I hit that ‘add to cart’ button real fast.
My interest in the simulation hypothesis goes way back, thanks to a plethora of weird YouTube videos. When I was in college, I read the Upanishads and fixated on this phrase as a spiritual admission that we live in God’s dream - or maybe our own?:
“We are like the spider.
We weave our life and then move along in it.
We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.”
We all have an innate sense that there is some design to this whole ‘reality’ thing. No matter how reality is defined, it seems we cannot escape the presence of a prime mover: a detached god, a frog-headed god, a simulator coding on a supercomputer. All our discoveries seem to have a shadow on them, a power watching from the corner.
REALITY+
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David Chalmers argues that “virtual reality is genuine reality.” Yes, says Chalmers, a simulated world of our own creation is just as real as the experience of reality we are engaged in right now. I won’t, and can’t, faithfully regurgitate Chalmer’s positions for you, so I recommend perusing his landing page of books and articles on the subject. This book is mind-bending in the best ways and it’s taken me since January to get through a quarter of it.
In chapter 7, entitled “Is God a hacker in the next universe up?”, Chalmers explains how simulation theory has shifted his belief in the probability of God. A self-described atheist, Chalmers resembles something of a deist or agnostic, open to the possibility of someone somewhere flipping the switches. The chapter is overall quite generous to the idea of intelligent design, positing for our imaginations the simulator as a woman conducting reality through a supercomputer. The conclusion, however, takes a rather fascinating turn:
And if she does, does she really deserve our worship? To paraphrase Len's personoid Adan 900: Any god that demands our worship doesn't deserve it.
Even if our simulator is a benevolent being, why should we worship her? She may be working to create as many worlds as possible with a sufficient balance of happiness over unhappiness in order to maximize the amount of happiness in the cosmos. If so, we might admire her and be thankful to her—but, again, there's no need for worship.
I find myself thinking that even if our simulator is our creator, is all-powerful, is all-knowing, and is all-good, I still don't think of her as a god. The reason is that the simulator is not worthy of worship. And to be a god in the genuine sense, one must be worthy of worship.
For me, this is helpful in understanding why I'm not religious and why I consider myself an atheist. It turns out that I'm open to the idea of a creator who is close to all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. I had once thought that this idea is inconsistent with a naturalistic view of the world, but the simulation idea makes it consistent. There remains a more fundamental reason for my atheism, however: I do not think any being is worthy of worship.
The point here goes beyond simulation. Even if the Abrahamic God exists, with all those godlike qualities of perfection, I will respect, admire, and even be in awe of him, but I won't feel bound to worship him. If Aslan, the lion-god of Narnia, exists as the embodiment of all goodness and wisdom, I won't feel bound to worship him. Being all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and entirely wise aren't sufficient reasons for worship. Generalizing the point, I don't think any qualities can make a being worthy of worship. As a result, we never have good reason to worship any being. No possible being is worthy of worship.
I'm sure many religious readers will disagree, but even they may agree that a mere simulator would not be worthy of worship-and therefore that a simulator is not a god in the full-blooded sense. If so, we can at least ask the question: What could make a being worthy of worship, and why?
These final paragraphs are so fascinating to me. Why not settle the chapter at, “We might be intelligently designed?” Why the rumination on worship? I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few weeks and have decided that the “problem of worship,” as I’ll call it, is a starting line to articulating complicated truths of the Christian faith.
THE DEMAND
Let’s break down Chalmer’s conclusion line by line:
And if she does, does she really deserve our worship? To paraphrase Len's personoid Adan 900: Any god that demands our worship doesn't deserve it.
Even if our simulator is a benevolent being, why should we worship her? She may be working to create as many worlds as possible with a sufficient balance of happiness over unhappiness in order to maximize the amount of happiness in the cosmos. If so, we might admire her and be thankful to her—but, again, there's no need for worship.
Does God demand our worship? Yes.
This idea is like the sound of nails meeting a chalkboard at first. Who does God think He is to demand worship? At the outset, Chalmers makes a fair point. Anyone who demands our love for the sake of the demand meets appropriate refusal. "Um, no. That is not how love works," we'd say. This is not how worship works, either.
According to Scripture, we were created to worship God (Ecc. 12:13, Ps. 16, Ps. 119:14, Phil. 2:9-11). This is the highest purpose of the human soul. Assuming it’s true that God made us to be worshippers and worship is the thing we’ve been created to do– the uttermost zenith of all human enterprise –then it would be the best possible good for the highest demand on us to be the thing that we were created to be.
Early Christians Worship in the Catacombs of Saint Calixtus / From image: "Fig 8: 'Divine Service in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, A.D. 50."
As St. Augustine famously confessed, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” If Christian anthropology is right, then complete fulfillment is manifested in our worship of God.
Of course, “What are we created for?" is predicated upon the question "Who is the God who created us?" The purpose we've been given depends greatly on the personality, attributes, and motives of the god who fashioned us into worshippers.
We could look at this from the full spectrum of morality: If God is evil according to our general conception of evil, then yes, this demand might be twisted. But most don't consider the Judeo-Christian God evil, even if they have never read His scriptures or encountered Him personally. At worst he is irrelevant, at most he is restrictive and gives arbitrary, outdated rules.
If He is neutral, from the deist perspective-- not interested in human affairs and benign in His judgments of them-- then the demand for worship feels unbalanced. Why does He demand personal engagement when He Himself does not personally engage? Why does He require spiritual intimacy if the only intimacy He's interested in is vague weather control?
But as Francis Schaeffer insisted, we aren't dealing with an impersonal god. We are dealing with “The God Who Is There - and He is not silent.”
Then, it behooves us to ask, who is this God? What is He like? What does He want? How can we know Him?
These are dangerous questions. Asking them, we knock on the door of eternity.
Sometimes we don't want the door to open. We'd rather pace on the front porch with our preconceptions of a vague, evil, or impersonal God than actually ask, seek, knock. I love the way Tim Keller phrases this:
“Describe the God you've rejected. Describe the God you don't believe in. Maybe I don't believe that God either.”
Reader, you not only have a personal invitation to ask, seek, and knock -- you have a guarantee along with it:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
HAPPY, OR WHATEVER
Even if our simulator is a benevolent being, why should we worship her? She may be working to create as many worlds as possible with a sufficient balance of happiness over unhappiness in order to maximize the amount of happiness in the cosmos. If so, we might admire her and be thankful to her—but, again, there's no need for worship.
I agree. The invention, cultivation, and preservation of happiness are not enough. If personal happiness is the grand plan for the cosmos, it's a paltry mission, poorly executed at that.
No serious ethicist or philosopher calls happiness the highest zenith of human good. Instead, meaning, agency, and human flourishing are the worthier pursuits. These things are more fulfilling alternatives to mere happiness and mood. We may worship our own happiness, but we know better than to trust in it. And if we don’t distrust our emotional whims, that's a matter of poor taste.
Would you give Norman Bates his happiness? I shudder to think what states of happiness occupy some personalities.
We might be thankful for happiness, but we don't worship for happiness. Christians especially do not worship God for happiness. On the contrary, Christians worship God especially when they are not happy. Not even God tells us to worship Him solely because He lifts our moods!
Saint Job. Line engraving by L. Vorsterman after Sir P.P. Rubens. / Iconographic Collections
Consider these few Scriptures (I encourage you to experience their contexts):
“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’” (Job 1:20-21)
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habbakuk 3:17-18)
"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.” (Psalm 63:1-4)
Worship, despite state or circumstance, tends to make us not happy, but peaceful, contented, transcendent. The Westminster Confession of Faith says the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If we were created to glorify God, it makes sense that glorifying him and enjoying Him is our highest good. The God who is there invites deep intimacy. That, not happiness, is worthy of worship.
For those who grew up in Christian homes, worship may feel like a given. Sit through too many emotionally manipulating worship nights at Bible camp or youth group altar calls and worship can feel more like a rote performance than spiritual intimacy. We may see worship as something for us, dependent on our stylistic preferences and the feeling of transcendence afforded by a hive switch.
The problem of worship, articulated well by Chalmers, can function as the stick of dynamite needed to turn over the calcified soil of our hearts. Ask yourself, “Why worship God?” and see what comes out of your heart. Then, go to the Scriptures, and ask the same. Let God teach you about what, and Who, you were made for.
He is The God Who is There. Ask, seek, knock.