Question of the Week: Can Hypothetical Questions Help Us Study the Bible?
The question of hypothetical scenarios usually come in the form of “What if?” This can be entertaining to pass the time in long car rides, but at the end of the trip the fact remains that everything talked about didn’t actually happen. When people ask how would everything be if God had done things differently, it’s important to clarify two things;
1. He didn’t do things differently.
2. What is the reason this question is being asked?
Example: What if God had made mankind more durable? (Teflon lined arteries and titanium bones for example)
The first thing to clarify is that God didn’t make us that way. The reason this needs to be brought up first is because it brings the conversation back to reality. Imagination can make mincemeat of anything practical and lead to every possible conclusion. The includes the wrong one. We don’t want to end up wasting time on a question that has no answer, because by the time we realize that’s the case there may be a temptation to justify the time with a conclusion that’s based on something that wasn’t true to begin with. That is why the second clarification is also key. Why is this being asked? This example in particular was taken from the book “The Panda’s Thumb” by Stephen Jay Gould. The reason this hypothetical question was being asked was to challenge the idea of intelligent design by suggesting that God could have done a better job according to Gould’s hypothetical and imaginary scenarios. A response was given by Frank Turek and Norm Geisler by drawing attention to two key facts. Stephen Jay Gould wasn’t our Creator, therefore didn’t know what that Creator had in mind when He made us. Using the example of a car or iphone, there are certain things in designing something that require tradeoffs. Making an iphone small and light requires there to be less room for data storage and battery life. Likewise, making a car safe and able to carry more people requires the tradeoff of small size and light weight. In order to be practical in the universe we live in, certain things had to be true about us that excluded the possibility of the other things Gould suggested could have been done “better.” They also make several side comments to make the issue more light-hearted. What exactly did Gould intend to do with his body that would require the Creator to make him so durable? This is what brought the whole issue back to reality. The reason Gould wrote his book was to demonstrate through the inferior design of the Panda’s Thumb that there was no designer. It doesn’t function like Gould’s thumbs. The only purpose it serves is to strip bamboo. This is the real problem with these kind of hypotheticals. “What if God doesn’t exist since I could think of more things a Panda could do with a thumb?” can be responded to with “What if God does exist since the only thing He intended for the Panda’s thumb than what they’ve always done with it?” It never gets us anywhere and is therefore unproductive.
The only positive that could potentially be produced from hypothetical questions and scenarios is to test bad thinking. Like math problems train thought to take place in multiple steps within a set structure, logic problems can also train these “mental muscles” for where they’ll be needed in real life. What needs to be in place before this happens is a complete understanding of reality so at the end of the exercise you can still tell the difference between what was thought about and what actually is.
Hypothetical questions do not aid us in studying the Bible. What needs to be studied is what actually happened. Not what number of infinite possibilities could have happened were things different. The only use hypothetical questions have in any productive sense is to learn how to test good thinking. The person who spends all of their time thinking needs to ask themselves what they’re thinking about. Are they examining reality or exploring everything apart from it? That’s the difference between good and bad thinking. Does it lead you away from or closer to the truth?
A Reason For Hope is a ministry of Calvary Christian Fellowship of Tucson
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