Three Thoughts

The thought that the brain’s attempt to make sense of the universe is not something foreign to the universe, but is the universe’s attempt to make sense of itself. The universe cannot evolve anything from outside itself. Nothing foreign to the universe can enter the universe, and nothing in the universe is distinct from the universe. The universe has no outside. We can therefore gain understanding of the universe by studying ourselves.

 The thought that those facts that lead one to question the goodness of God—not the pervasive and easy “problem of evil,” not that alone, but the small, sneaky facts or incongruities we all must face, the unknown unknowns that appall when they are revealed, the ruinous or deadly effects of useful substances: sweet-tasting lead, useful mercury, painless radiation—that these are inherently parables and metaphors for other inescapable facts of our lives: how people can be ruined by love or good intentions. How they force us to be vigilant, how they push us forward toward more and better knowing toward Don Quixote’s unreachable star. Whether they can be forgiven for this, whether they payoff in good what they deliver in evil is an economic question beyond anyone’s scope. A known unknown.

 How the only justification of the omniscient and all-loving God comes down to this: that he had no choice.