"If you were listening we did," Pendelton answered. "Elementary theology: if man's fate is determined there must of necessity be a Determiner whom we will call for the sake of convention, God. Determinism without a God, needless to say, is eighteenth century mechanistic twaddle. But suppose now that a man can determine his own fate? Run it through your machine again and again until he gets it down the way he wants it with all degrees of freedom and irrespective of his merit or karma or sinlessness or however our cosmic report cards are supposed to be made out? In that case man becomes his own determiner, the individual conscious mind becomes the deity and that which we have heretofore referred to as God becomes what is known as an outdated archetype."
"Good God," Shaheen said.
"But spelled with a small g," Pendelton replied. "That is the Great Implication."
"You mean to say he was proposing to disprove God's existence?" Dr. Freylinghuysen said to them that day. "And with university equipment? Don't you gentlemen realize I have trouble enough with the trustees as it is?" And Chaplain Rowan, who had long since lost the ability to react spontaneously—slipping back and forth almost on schedule between catatonia and St. Vitus dance—said: "Why are you sitting there doing nothing? Why isn't the city being scoured? If that dress isn't proof enough for you, that man is loose somewhere with colored motion pictures of the whole thing. What more do you want?" "A little illumination is all," Freylinghuysen replied. "All I've heard so far is some rather loose discussion about free will and determinism and it wasn't very convincing. Didn't anyone bother to point out to this Leopold Pendelton that you can't prove or disprove anything about your own determined existence since the proof or disproof itself could be determined?" "Yes," Blackburn answered.
Blackburn had thought over the Great Implication for about two seconds. "You have been wasting our time," he said. "You cannot actively disprove determinism because the disproof—the experiment itself—could be a part of your own determined existence, arranged by your Determiner. God might, for instance, allow the experiment to be successful merely to test your faith in Him, the same way he allowed you to get the idea in the first place."
An odd smile crossed Pendelton's face. "You really think so?" he asked. "You figure He'd try and cross me up like that? Let's go back and take this a step at a time. Specifically, why can't I play God with Caesar's life?"
"Wouldn't prove anything," Shaheen said. "God could have determined you in the selection of Caesar's name. The change would therefore be His doing, not yours, it would still be old God playing God with Caesar's fortunes."
"But it doesn't have to be Caesar. That was only an example, it could be anyone. Control anyone's destiny, anyone at all, and you've proven the point. We could select our man by means of a computer, by random sampling over which only the physical laws of the universe had control, thus eliminating determinacy in the selection."
"But God could alter the laws of chance. After all, they are His laws. A second-rate miracle would force you into selecting His man."