WLC Reacts! to Physicist Brian Cox and Wanting More from Life

Dr. William Lane Craig watches and responds to a video of physicist Brian Cox on why humans would want anything more from life than the brief existence we have in the universe.

BRIAN COX: What more do you want? You know, when I see people go, "I want more than that. There must be more to it," what do you mean? The ingredients in our bodies were assembled in the hearts of long dead stars over billions of years and have assembled themselves spontaneously into temporary structures that can think and feel and explore. And then those structures will decay away again at some point, and in a very far future there'll be no structures left. So there we are; we exist in this little window when we can observe this magnificent universe. Why do you want any more?

DR. CRAIG: Now here Brian Cox expresses a rather optimistic view of an atheistic picture of the universe in which we come to exist accidentally, exist for a cosmically very brief twinkling of the eye, and then pass into non-existence for eternity. And he says why would you want anything more? Now I have to confess I've never understood this attitude. It seems to me obvious that we would want more. We would want objective moral values. We would want our lives to have an enduring significance and importance. We would want there to be a purpose for the existence of humanity rather than just eventual extinction in the heat death of the universe. I think that the hollowness of his worldview can best be seen by imagining that this interview was conducted, not with Brian Cox, but with the leader of a drug cartel or a sex trafficking smuggler, and he said exactly the same thing that Brian Cox did. In that case, it would not be beautiful and noble; it would be hollow and repugnant. We would say surely there's more to life than that, just living in the moment. Where is the worth of such an existence? What's the purpose and the significance of such a life? And yet in both cases the drug cartel leader and the human traffickers would say exactly the same thing as Brian Cox. The reason that we think Brian Cox's view is noble is because he is borrowing capital from a Christian world and life view that assumes that a life dedicated to the pursuit of science and the values of love and humanity is objectively good, and that there's genuine worth in such a life. He uses the word “magnificent” to describe the universe, which is a value judgment. Where does that come from on an atheistic view? In other words, you have a beautiful example here of what Francis Schaeffer called the leap to the upper story. Modern man lives in the lower story universe in which there is no God, but in order to find meaning, value, and purpose he leaps to the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose to his life even though he has no basis for it because he denies the existence of God. And so I think that what Brian Cox says is basically whistling through the graveyard; it's trying not to notice the darkness and the impending doom that is all around us and will surely bring us to destruction at last.