Are we alone?

SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is searching for something for which there is (as yet) no material evidence and in fact may not exist. They are searching for creatures fundamentally like humans, who happen to be from other star systems. Their instrument of choice is the radio telescope. But there is another search for extra terrestrial intelligence, it has been going on longer and makes only passing use of the radio telescope. Its object is not merely extra terrestrial, but extra cosmic, and it is not a creature but Creator. This Being is commonly referred to as God.
For philosophers the instrument of choice for seeking God is the mind. The Philosopher St. Anselm demonstrated this with his ontological argument. It states “God is that which no greater can be conceived”. Thus one cannot conceive of God as not being, for then one could conceive one that is greater, the God that Is. Is this evidence for God’s being? Well I for one cannot conceive of Being as not being, but then my powers of conception may be limited. Indeed is not Anselm limiting God by our powers of conception? At any rate this is not material evidence, for that we must turn to St. Thomas Aquinas’ cosmological argument. According to it God put the cause in cosmos. That is every thing in the cosmos has a cause and those causes have causes etc. Going back to the cosmos itself which itself must have a cause, God being the “first cause”. The cosmos itself thus becomes evidence for God’s existence. Is this true? It avoids an infinite regress of finite causes, by giving us finite regress to an infinite One. But important, is this One necessarily a theistic God, that is, is It a conscious, intelligent, being? To answer this question it looks like we must turn elsewhere.
The teleological argument (as the name suggests) seeks to verify that the cause of the cosmos (God) is purposeful and intelligent by pointing out characteristics that show evidence of design. William Paley made the comparison of the cosmos (particularly biological entities) and a pocket watch. But can we compare the design done by humans in a certain paradigm with creating the cosmos out of nothing? God did not merely have to design the eye, He had to design light. Paley’s watch may keep time, God had to create time. So can we glean anything of the mind of God from his creation? There one thing at least. All these fundamental characteristics do seem to be “finely tuned”. That is if they were but slightly different this cosmos would not be accommodating to life and intelligence, as we know it. So this could be seen as evidence for some One that is a purposeful Intelligence at the helm in the initial creation.
But if God tuned the cosmos this precisely, could He have not done even better? If the cosmos has a purposeful, intelligent, Creator, why is there evil? St. Augustine tried to answer this by pointing out that the creation is necessarily inferior to the Creator and thus lacks pure goodness. It is this necessary lack of pure goodness that leads to evil, or as Leibnitz put it “we are living in the best of all possible worlds.” But is this not rather unsatisfying? How can we be living in the best of all possible worlds if we can imagine a better one? Or can we? John Hick suggested we really try to imagine this world and follow it to its logical conclusions. Suppose my neighbor and I had identical houses, identical cars, identical possessions, even identical wives (not just looks but disposition etc) would there be any meaning in the proposition “I”? Furthermore suppose we could not be hurt either by each other or anything else, so that our actions became meaningless. Would this really be an improvement? And what of our thoughts in such a world, would they still be free? Could hate my neighbor (though there would be no cause) divorced from any consequences? Would this be good?
Man has been striving for such a world little be little since the industrial revolution, yet even as early as the nineteenth century the existentialist Søren Kierkegaard was wishing to return to the “Old Testament” when being a human meant something. And the existential leap of faith had more immediate consequences.
Similar to the existential “leap of faith” is William James’ “will to believe”, where he postulates that when we are faced with a living, forced, momentous choice, for which reason gives us no conclusive guidance, then we must choose based on our non rational of “passional” assets. Indeed one could say that the choice to use reason is such a choice.
One such extra-rational asset may be the mystical or numinous experience. The numinous experience is not irrational but it cannot be communicated through normal rational means because of the lack of a common reference point. It is as if the released prisoner returning to Plato’s cave tried to explain color to those who had seen only gray scale shadows. He simply would not have the tools to do so. Even if they wanted to understand what he meant, his words would be gibberish to them, or convey no real understanding. You have to experience it for yourself. But is even the numinous experience a direct experience of God? Perhaps it is just a slightly higher floor in an infinitely tall building.
Or perhaps we are looking at wrong as Paul Tillich suggests. Perhaps God is not at the top of the building but is its foundation, even the building itself. God is not a Being, according to Tillich, but the ground of being. So we cannot have a direct experience of God because God is the ground of experience. Or does this mean that every experience is a direct experience of God? Is the ground of inelegance Itself intelligent? What does it mean to be the ground of being? Getting back to Anselm, if God is that which no greater can be conceived, then I am clearly not God for I can conceive of greater, and that greater, being greater than me can conceive of one still greater. Is God then the ultimate conceiver? Would this be what Tillich means by the ground of conception? Or are we just making monkey noises about what for use is ultimately inconceivable?