What Is a "Human" in The Walking Dead? [season 1 spoilers only]

Rick Grimes rides into Atlanta, now a zombie wasteland.

I'm addicted to The Walking Dead. 

The Walking Dead is AMC's unconventional but hit drama that depicts the lives of a small band of people in Georgia who have (so far) survived a global zombie apocalypse. The vast majority of the global population has not. [1] In this post-apocalyptic world, zombies (mindless, flesh-craving corpses) roam the cities, open roads, and country-side looking for a fresh human meal. The drama that ensues (among the living) is fascinating, compelling, and addicting.

Because a fair number of Christians (in my circles anyway) are watching The Walking Dead, it is a topic worthy of Christian reflection. There are a number of aspects of the show that deserve Christian analysis. This analysis is limited to the worldview of the Walking Dead universe and how it answers the question, what is a human being?

[Spoiler alert: There are spoilers from season 1 only.]

What is a human being?

a "walker" from Season 1, episode 2

Any worldview must address a handful of questions, and arguably the most hotly debated one is "What is a human being?" [2] The one thing that is clear from the very first episode is that the zombies (called "walkers") are not "human." The viewer doesn't get the impression that there is any moral dilemma for the living when they kill the walkers--a task accomplished solely by shooting, smashing, or stabbing the zombie's head, thereby destroying the brain. The distinction between the living and the zombies is made clear when Rick, the unofficial group leader, refuses to allow the group to kill a member who is known to be "infected" but has not yet "died" and become a zombie. Rick says, "We don't kill the living." Once zombies, however, Rick leads the pack in hunting them down. (see the infographic below)

an amusing infographic on Season 1 zombie kill ratios

In the Walking Dead universe, what does it mean to be "living," or to be "human"? It is nearly unanimous among the characters that the zombies are not human. Why not? As a Christian, I kept listening for some clue words, such as "conscience" or "soul," which might indicate some sort of theistic dualism. The person dies, the soul leaves the body, and then the body, by some mysterious mechanism, rises from the dead without a soul. This is dualistic, because it assumes that the human is both body and soul. When just a body, the human would essentially become a soul-less animal, bent on the pure instinctual drive to eat living flesh--human and otherwise.

To my dismay, this is not the direction that the producers took. In the final episode of season 1, the viewer is given an entirely naturalistic explanation by Dr. Edwin Jenner of the Atlanta Center for Disease Control (CDC). Essentially, the individual and the entire brain dies. Then, within a short period of time, the brain begins to reboot due to some kind of still-unknown virus, bacteria, or parasite. Jenner calls this the "second event." But, Dr. Jenner explains, only the brain stem reactivates, leaving the rest of the brain, "the part that makes you 'human'," dead. Jenner's explanation for what makes us human (emotions, desires, experiences, morality, memories, personality, love, etc...) all lie within the function of the physical brain.

While zombies can be a useful, if fictional, metaphor for what a human would be like without a soul, the writers have gone naturalistic. Season 2 will depict a bit more religious dialogue, but the essence of human-ness remains uncontestedly naturalistic. While it really doesn't take away from the story, such a naturalistic assumption does present some serious philosophical problems.

Problems with naturalism:

First, in a purely naturalistic worldview, there can be no free will, a consequence that is not even hinted at in the show. [3] The reason there can be no free will is that human actions would be determined entirely by the brain's electro-chemical state. It leads to hard determinism.

Secondly, it is impossible for objective morality to exist if morality is merely the chemical functioning of the brain to make us nice, whatever that would mean. What makes the show a drama is the constant moral conflict, particularly between alpha males Rick and Shane. What is the right thing to do given our present, incredible circumstance? If brain chemistry is all there is, moral dilemmas are merely an illusion.

Thirdly, if the physical brain is all there is, then Dale's and others' insistence upon Andrea that suicide would be a "cop-out" is baseless. Why does it matter? If to be human is mere brain function, then life is without any meaning or purpose. The show's insistence to hang on to hope (a message with which I absolutely agree) is in contradiction to its own philosophical moral foundation, or lack thereof. In a purely naturalistic worldview, there can be no objective moral law. There can only be a Darwinian drive for survival.

Though I'm compelled by the human drama of the story, there is not sufficient reason given in the show to believe in human-ness. When it comes to the question of what makes a human, the worldview of The Walking Dead is inconsistent and even contradictory. In the end, there really is no difference between the zombies and the living, except the amount of brain function. [4]

The biblical view of humanity.

The Christian worldview sees a human as a dualistic being, comprised of both body and soul. Humans are a spiritual-physical unit, the elements of which are only meant to be separated temporarily at death. (2 Cor. 5:8) When humans die, their souls are separated from their bodies, but they are eventually reunited in the great resurrection. (1 Cor. 15:42-44) This hope of perfect resurrection is central and necessary to Christian eschatology. Without such a doctrine as a fully, restorative resurrection, the Christian religion would be reduced to a pitiable social activity. (1 Cor. 15:16-19) This soul, which is immaterial like God himself, is what guarantees full human-ness, and it is what makes the human being transcend to a higher, objective moral reality. Humans can know a moral code, not only because it is wired into our brains, but because it was written by the One who wired them. (Romans 2:14-15)

Perhaps the zombie is a metaphor for what a human would be if it was stripped of its soul. Without a soul, arguably, humans lose their conscience. This is precisely what a zombie is. It is a soul-less and conscience-less being. It is completely void of personhood, morality, and self-awareness, essentially reduced to the status of a rabid animal.

It is the soul that separates us from rabid dogs and zombies. Is that what atheistic naturalists would have us believe? Can we really be nothing more than living bodies? [5]

(Keep watch for the forthcoming post on Nietzschean ethics in The Walking Dead.)

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[1] In motion picture, zombies have historically been the subject of outright comedies (Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead) and campy horror flicks (such as The Evil Dead trilogy). The zombie genre is not generally treated with the seriousness that it is in The Walking Dead.
[2] According to James Sire's excellent work The Universe Next Door, there are 7 essential questions that must be answered in order for a belief system to constitute a fully-formed worldview. What is a human being? is one of them.The reason that I suspect this is the most hotly debated one is that it is central to debates regarding abortion and euthanasia.
[3]  I, of course, don't fault the writers for this omission, because a long philosophical aside on the merits and limitations of naturalism simply wouldn't make a very good show.
[4] If a higher level of brain function is what makes us human, then the unborn, the underdeveloped, and those with severe cognitive disabilities are subhuman. This type of naturalistic thinking will inevitably lead to a society as ready to kill them as Rick is willing to kill a zombie.
[5] This should not be taken as an argument against atheism. It is merely a question that atheists have failed to adequately answer.

Will Science Someday Rule Out The Possibility of God? (Part 2)

(In Part 1 I argued that the occasion of Dr. Carroll's claims can be a useful call to authentic Christian faith. In Part 2 I will address the philosophical claim that there could potentially be a theory of everything so encompassing that God is rendered totally useless.)

All philosophical views of the universe can be broken down into two distinct categories--"closed" universes and "open" universes. Dr. Carroll's naturalistic view of the universe is necessarily closed. This means that there are no transcendent forces or beings (i.e. God, Allah, Hare Krishna, Zeus, etc...) that may intervene in the universe from the outside. Therefore, an explanation of this universe must be self-contained. For instance, any explanation of the beginning and/or existence of the universe must be entirely naturalistic--without any appeal to the supernatural (that which is outside of the material realm, such as God, Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, etc...).

Open views of the universe, however, allow for outside intervention from the supernatural (meaning, above the natural) realm. This view permits the existence of a transcendent God who is the creator and even sustainer of his/its universe. Some form of this open view is held by orthodox Christianity, as the Scriptures reveal that Jesus is the pre-existent creator and sustainer of the universe. (Colossians 1:15-17).

Dr. Carroll is suggesting that the universe is in fact closed but that humans have postulated the existence of God, because we are yet to discover an entirely self-contained theory of everything. Humans have imagined this "God of the Gaps" in order to fill in our knowledge gaps. If this is the case, then it is conceivable that, as science advances, religion will retreat. According to this "secularization thesis," as it has come to be known among historians, there is an inverse relationship between human religiosity and the state of scientific knowledge. More science equals less religion.

There are two problems with Dr. Carroll's assumption however. First, the secularization thesis as a historical model has proven to be a false prophet and is increasingly discredited for historians. Secondly, on a philosophical level, the concept of a closed universe is self-defeating, because it fails to account for why the universe exists and fails to account for knowledge itself.

Secularization Theory

Up through most of the 20th century, intellectual historians came to argue that progress in science would eventually replace religion. This came to be known as the "secularization thesis" and, in the 1950s, it would have been very difficult to refute, because the Church had sunken into cultural irrelevance. However, in the 21st century, this thesis faces some major hurdles--most notably the ubiquitous religiosity of American society. If the secularization thesis is true, why is the most modernized nation in the world one of the most deeply religious? Christian apologist and intellectual Dinesh D'Souza writes, "If secularization were proceeding inexorably, then religious people should be getting less religious, and so conservative churches should be shrinking and liberal churches growing. In fact, the opposite is the case." [1]

Globally industrializing nations, such as India and China, are exploding with religious belief. In these and other countries in South America and Africa, religious belief, especially Christianity, is expanding beyond all expectations. While the center of gravity is clearly moving to the southern hemisphere, global Christianity is advancing inexorably.

Today, secularization thesis is in shambles, because its predictions simply didn't come true, except maybe in Europe, which is arguably an exception to the rule, rather than the rule itself. [2] Dr. Carroll's apparent assumption that religious belief and scientific progress/modernization are inversely related has simply proven to be historically false.

But, what may we make of his claim philosophically? The concept of a closed universe presents a couple of philosophical problems--one ontological (philosophy of being), the other, epistemological (philosophy of knowledge).

The incomplete ontology of a closed universe

There are many cosmological models as to how the universe started and continues to exist, but, for the sake of brevity and at the risk of creating a straw man, only the "standard model" will be dealt with here. [3] According to the standard model, the universe, as we currently observe it, is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Given enough time, it seems, the universe will die a cold, dark death. If that is the case, then the universe must have had a singular starting point about 13.7 billion years ago, because expansion in reverse is recession toward a central point. This point is what physicists call the "singularity"-- a point of near-infinite density, gravity, and energy. Imagine all of the mass in the universe (and the fabric of space-time itself) squeezed down to a point smaller than the head of a ball-point pen.

Here's the problem, as it stands now--mathematics and physics only makes sense back to one Planck time (10^(-43) seconds) after the big bang, the point before which all rules of physics necessarily break down. This means that science can't possibly describe the singularity itself. It is a complete mystery that lies outside the bounds of known physics.

However, let's assume that some yet-to-be-discovered theory could enable scientists to penetrate this infinitesimal temporal barrier of 10^(-43) seconds after the big bang. This hypothetical theory could tell us something about the singularity and how it exploded and rapidly expanded to the universe as we know it, but it can't tell us why the singularity itself exists. This is the grand unanswerable question for advocates of the closed universe--why does the universe exist rather than nothing at all? By definition, there can be no natural (or what Carroll calls "self-contained") theory for where nature came from.

The faulty epistemology of a closed universe

The question of why the universe exists is an ontological (related to being) question. There also lies a fundamental epistemological problem within a self-contained naturalistic theory. This has been argued by both Christian analytical philosopher Alvin Plantinga and surprisingly by well-known atheist philosopher, Thomas Nagel. If nature is all there is and the human mind is the accidental development of some sort of blind Darwinian process, then there is no reason to believe that the human brain (or mind?) is a tool that is aimed at determining what is true. For example, belief in God would have to be explained as some sort of genetic mutation within the human species that was naturally selected for its life-preserving qualities. It's not that God's existence is true but that believing it somehow contributes to the prolonged survival of a species. If this is true, then all knowledge that humans possess must be the result of the same survival-seeking process. Therefore, the brain is merely an organ aimed at survival--not truth. If that is the case, how can the statement "Nature is all there is" (a belief) be accepted as a true statement? At best, one can only claim that holding that belief makes one more likely to survive. Naturalism is logically self-defeating. If true, we can't know anything, including the proposition that nature is all there is. What this means for Dr. Carroll is that his acceptance of some unifying theory of everything is nothing more than chemical reactions in his mind aimed at his own survival. The belief may or may not correspond to actual reality. In fact, it seems that the chances of a belief generated by the natural chemical-electrical stimulation of the brain actually being true are extremely low.

Conclusion

In the end, it seems that the problem is that Dr. Carroll is a gifted physicist making unsubstantiated metaphysical claims. While his credentials as a physicist are unimpeachable, his philosophical claims lack any warrant. There logically cannot be a "self-contained" (or naturalistic) theory of everything, because, even if a theory could describe the singularity and how it inflated, this theory could not answer the question of why anything exists at all. And, any purely naturalistic theory would be logically self-defeating.

Appendix in footnote [4]


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[1] Dinesh D'Souza, What's So Great About Christianity (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007) 6-7.; Christian denominations that in the 20th century embraced a liberal ideology that essentially agreed with secularization thesis have died quite abruptly. The Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ are all roughly at half the membership they were in 1960. In addition, conservative denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Church, which grew from 8.7 million in 1960 to 16.4 million in 2005, have doubled in size.
[2] The one area of the world that might support secularization theory is Europe whose native religious belief has clearly receded as it has modernized. But, this makes Europe a statistical outlier, an exception to the rule. This being the case, there is likely another cause for the recession of religious belief in Europe other than the advance of science.
[3] For an excellent overview of each of the competing cosmological models with an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses from an informed Christian perspective, see pages 126-138 of William Lane Craig's Reaonsable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics or Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time.
[4] No part of Christian belief conflicts with the claims of hard science (physics, chemistry, etc...). For instance, if the Bible claimed that the sun was made of gold or that the Earth was flat or that center of the Earth was occupied by Fraggles, I would have to either reject Christianity or at least my belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures. To borrow Plantinga's thesis in Where the Conflict Really Lies, there is only superficial conflict with the forensic sciences (i.e. evolutionary biology and cosmology). It would seem that most evolutionary biologists and cosmologists reject belief in a transcendent God, because they are committed to entirely naturalistic explanations of origins, even if they don't know what those explanations are. The problem that forensic sciences (as opposed to hard sciences) have is that they are trying to establish the likelihood that some past event (e.g. the big bang) happened in some particular way. It is impossible to recreate that actual event in a lab for empirical observation. Scientists can recreate what they think the variables were at the time and then try to recreate what they think happened, but they can't recreate the original event itself. It already happened. It's over. Forensics is only about probabilities, which can be high or low. I would argue that evolutionary biology and origins cosmology are not nearly as scientific as, say, physics or chemistry, because, in order to count as scientific knowledge, a phenomenon must be repeated and observed in an experiment. No one can observe the big bang or Darwinian evolution. Any evolutionist or cosmologist who claims that his view rules out the existence of God has bitten off more than he can chew.