Theology and the Babel fish

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [as a Babel fish] could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching 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 proves you exist and so therefore you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Fans of Douglas Adams' wonderful novel will know that a Babel fish instantly translates any spoken language into the native language of the hearer when placed inside the ear. Regretably, the Babel fish only exists in Adams' imagination but could there be any truth in his jocular musings about the centrality of faith in theology?

Adams was a prominent atheist but I am sure he was more concerned here with entertainment than proselytising. However, ignorance of theology is extremely common among leading athiests. Here is Christopher Hitchens in a recent debate on religion with Tony Blair:

"Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well. I'll repeat that. Created sick, and then ordered to be well. And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy, exigent, greedy for uncritical praise from dawn until dusk and swift to punish the original sin with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place."

Hitchens is a supremely gifted individual and an extremely engaging speaker but his description here is about as far from Christian theology as it is possible to get. He repeats his phase 'created sick and commanded to be well' for added emphasis but the bible is clear that mankind was created not just good but very good (Genesis 1:31). Importantly, although created good, man was also created with the freedom to be bad, and that is exactly what happened. It was a choice. Adam and Eve had a choice, and we have a choice, but the fact is that we inevitably choose our own way. Original sin is our choice, not God's. According to Hitchens we are commanded to be well. However, God reconciles us to himself by his action, not ours. In a supreme act of love, not anger, God himself in the person of Jesus Christ satisfies perfect justice by paying the price for our rebellion himself. No command to be well again, just a free gift (Romans 6:23).

Returning to Adams, the suggestion is that faith is central to an intellectual analysis of the existence of God but I think this is to miss the point slightly. Certainly, faith is central to Christian theology but I would suggest choice, or free will, is equally important. If God were to appear before you now in a puff of smoke, the God that has existed for all eternity, the God that created the Earth, the stars, the universe, the God encompassing all the energy of the entire inverse, you would no longer require faith in order to accept his existence but neither would you have any meaningful free will. No doubt gripped with terror and awe, I think we would all unquestioningly accept anything he commanded! But, contrary to what Adams and Hitchens would have us believe, God seeks a relationship of freely given love, not domination. This is, of course, why the existence of God can never be proved. If God were a certainty, we would be completely overwhelmed, unable to defy him and, more importantly, unable to freely love him.

How wonderful it would be if the Babel fish really existed but sadly it does not and God does - I think!