On God as the Cosmic Web and the Nature of Evil
One conception of evil understands it as the lack of good—and thus, the lack of God. When evil things happen, it is not the work of evil, but rather a lack of the work of good. This understanding is easily combined with a Brahman-like understanding of God-ness (which I will save a more detailed explanation of for another essay). There is divinity in all of us and in everything, and it ties the world together. It is then easy to perceive that certain moments in the world of spacetime have less God-ness than others. The presence of God-ness is not evenly distributed throughout the universe. This concept is easily found in Christian doctrine: we talk of letting God into our hearts, therefore acknowledging implicitly that He is not necessarily always there, and that we can experience God-ness in different concentrations.
The quickest objection to this conception of evil is that it invalidates God’s omnipresence. If God is truly omnipresent and all-powerful, then He should be present everywhere. To acknowledge that there are places where His light wears thin is to limit Him. However, I argue that something that is present in varying concentrations is not more limited than something that is evenly distributed. God’s grandeur can be clustered and yet still unlimited. To do this, I draw an analogy to the cosmic web.
In very loose astrophysical terms, the cosmic web is the structure of the universe. The universe consists of thin filaments of gas and matter. Matter clusters at the intersections of the filaments in galaxies. In between those filaments, the universe is empty. You can see this in Figure 1.
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Image courtesy of Andrew Pontzen and Fabio Governato.
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The key thing to understand is that the universe is clustered. Matter is not evenly distributed through the universe. This does not, however, mean that the universe is limited. The cosmic web stretches out as far as any observing equipment can see, and perhaps even extends to infinity. And it is constantly growing. The universe is clustered, but it is not limited. It is easy to conclude, then, that God’s grandeur could be similarly clustered. His light could be brighter in some areas than others, and yet still unlimited and infinite. This explanation of the nature of evil, then, does not actually call into question God’s omnipotence.
The obvious question that remains is: why? Why is it that some areas of spacetime are further from His light than others? Matter clusters because it is bound by the attraction of gravity, but God’s grandeur does not have to obey such laws. Why does it cluster?
It is fairly easy to answer this question for moral evils by calling upon the old explanation of free will. Some people lack God because they reject Him. They use their will to turn away from the light, leaving pockets of emptiness behind. It is less easy to answer this question for natural evils, which may not have a willed intent behind them. A possible explanation is that all evil stems from original sin—thus, fundamentally, all evil stems from a willing actor. Natural evils can be understood to be evil because they cause pain and suffering, but the experience of suffering itself arises from original sin. I am not sure how to evaluate this explanation as I have not had as of yet enough experience with the Christian doctrine, but I will continue to ponder on it.
It is perhaps plain to see that this understanding of God as the cosmic web does not do much in the way of solving the problem of evil, and I will not claim that it makes any progress in doing so. I simply find the idea to be beautiful, that the nature of God is reflected in and somehow can be understood through the nature of the universe and the cosmos. The clustered nature and yet the infinitude of matter in the universe is not a perfect analogy, of course, to the nature of God, but the similarities are striking and beautiful to note. It will be a common trend as I continue to explore my philosophical wonderings that I am drawn to ideas not necessarily because they serve a purpose, but simply because they are beautiful.
