I just saw this quote by George Carlin this morning:

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

Please forgive me for getting all analytical, but hey—it’s what I do. 🙂 I know it’s supposed to be a joke. But it’s rich with worldview issues:

1. Carlin is smuggling in an intelligent designer. He’s a victim of what atheist Richard Dawkins calls “the natural temptation to attribute the appearance of design to actual design.” People instinctively recognize that the universe, the world, and life itself looks like it was the result of a deliberate effort to make it happen and make it work. Carlin plays off this instinct to poke fun at the implied designer behind it all. But…

2. Carlin blames the universe. Inanimate objects don’t have intentions, so they can neither “aim” nor “settle”. If he’s going to play off a designer, the universe doesn’t pass as a candidate. Unless…

3. Is he mocking the idea of an intelligent designer? Maybe the thrust here is something like, “you mean mankind is the best God can do?” I could see Carlin going there, but I don’t think that’s in play here. I think this was just a pessimistic statement of how messed up mankind is. Which leads me to think…

4. Carlin left the best question unasked. That question is: “Why is mankind so messed up?” Carlin’s joke only works if the fact that mankind is a mess is both A) obviously true and B) utterly deplorable. A naturalistic worldview can’t make sense of that. A biblical worldview can: we are in rebellion against our creator and we are reaping the rewards of our rebellion.

5. Carlin wonders whether we are alone in the universe. It reminds me of a line from the movie Contact, in which Jodie Foster’s character muses that “I’ll tell you one thing about the universe, though. The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space.”

Perhaps… or maybe it’s just that life doesn’t just happen all by itself. Maybe it’s that, as far as we can tell, the universe is entirely inhospitable to life. Maybe the fact that there’s life in the universe at all is best viewed as evidence that a powerful, intentional act was wrought to create one life-sustaining planet and put life there.

And what do you make of the fact that one species is able to reflect on its own existence and say, “good” or “bad?” It strikes me as evidence that this species has something of its creator in it—let’s just call it what it is: the image of God.

Romans 1 makes it clear that our ability to recognize the Creator from the creation is evidence enough to convict us, His image-bearers, of our rebellion against Him. So not only are we messed up as a race of creatures—we stand guilty before the creator of the universe.

Thank God that He did not leave it there, but sent his Son to seek and save the lost… and to die in the doing. God neither “aimed low” nor “settled for very little,” to use Mr. Carlin’s words.

So you have two options: you can just curse the universe and mankind for underachieving—which sounds to me like aiming low and settling for very little. Or you can praise God that He aimed for righteousness equal to his own and bought it with the life of his Son: we get the benefits, and God gets the glory.