I asked Jerry to explain what he means by “the most amazing thing imaginable”. He replied:
By “the most amazing thing imaginable” I mean God as the omnipotent omniscient deity that has been posited as the explanation for everything that exists.
In other words, Jerry thinks it amazing that a necessary, maximally powerful and intelligent agent exists.
Huh.
I woulda thought the most amazing thing imaginable is a universe that springs into existence uncaused and produces persons able to blog and write music and paint their toe nails. And like countless others I have seen God as a plausible hypothesis to explain this otherwise most amazing thing imaginable.
As Richard Swinburne observed,
It is extraordinary that there should exist anything at all. Surely the most natural state of affairs is simply nothing: no universe, no God, nothing. But there is something. And so many things. Maybe chance could have thrown up the odd electron. But so many particles! Not everything will have an explanation. But as we have seen the whole progress of science and all other intellectual enquiry demands that we postulate the smallest number of brute facts. If we can explain the many bits of the universe by one simple being which keeps them in existence, we should do so–even if inevitably we cannot explain the existence of that simple being. (Is there a God, rev. ed. (Oxford UP, 2010), 44-45, emphasis in original.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to Luther Vandross singing “So Amazing”.
