The Greek Tradition

The Greek Tradition    

In the Greek tradition, Homer depicts gods and goddesses who were supremely powerful and beautiful and who controlled events on earth from weather conditions to the outcome of battles. These deities were clearly the projection of what humans aspired to or at least wished to be. Most especially, they were immortal. The notion of the gods and goddesses reveals that human consciousness had developed to where people were aware of the tragedy of their mortality, their imperfections, and what they would be if they were not so limited. Significantly, the gods and goddesses did not exhibit a superior morality, and for humans, morality consisted primarily of keeping the deities happy.

            The philosopher Xenophanes (570 - 478) exhibited a breakthrough in the development of consciousness when he was appalled by the depictions of sleazy morality among the deities and in their treatment of mortals. First, this criticism shows a moral awareness that is not dictated to by mythology. Secondly, it shows belief in a non-material consciousness. The gods and goddesses were made after our own image and likeness. Not only were they made to look human, but each ethnic group depicted the deities as looking like those who made the images. Xenophanes argued that God has no body nor is He multiplied according to the multiplication of nations. Aristotle writes of Xenophanes: “with his eye on the whole heaven he says that the one is god.”

In the Republic, Plato (428 - 438) described “The Good” as the source of all good and beautiful forms, which in turn were the source of good and beautiful images in the physical world. The Good is not only above material things; the good is “beyond being.” Plato’s view represents the complete inverse of any materialism. In the Platonic understanding, the non-physical and invisible reality serves as the source and model for physical reality, which is being called out of chaos into cosmos. In the dialogue Timaeus, the title character explaining the reason for creation states:

God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest, and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole could ever be fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole and again that the intelligent could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul.

Timaeus makes it clear that his story should not be taken as an exact account of how the world was created, but only as a probability, which is the most a mortal could hope to achieve. Plato’s view of creation, as expressed in Timaeus, while not exactly the same as that of a Christian theologian, has much in common with it. Further, Plato’s view would fit compatibly with a contemporary religious view of evolution, bringing order out of chaos and seeing intelligence as an essential component of order. The materialist of course sees the ideas of Plato as an illusory invention rather than a discovery of reality.

Aristotle understood God as being above and beyond the natural world, hence the term “metaphysical.” For Aristotle, thinking is the highest form of being. Therefore, he describes God, who is pure, fully actualized being, as pure thought thinking of itself. We, as rational animals, are born with the potential to develop the power of rational thought. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle set out to define the highest good for human beings and the means to attain it. At the beginning of the Ethics he stipulated that the good is that at which all things aim. Some things are good because they are a means to a higher good; but the greatest good is that which is sought for its own sake. The good of any being consists in achieving its specific telos – fulfillment, and since humans are rational animals, our telos consists in fulfilling our potential of rationality. In Book X of Nicomachaen Ethics, Aristotle recaps the meaning of the best way of life. In Book I, he had identified the good as happiness, defined generally as living well and doing well. Some identify happiness with pleasure, others with honor. But Aristotle contends that the highest happiness consists of contemplation. To the extent that we actualize our potential for thinking and living rationally, we become friends of God; and acquire a virtue that survives the death of our bodily nature.  Leaping ahead to the Christian Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas absorbed much of the Aristotelian philosophy and integrated it with Christianity. His synthesis remains a strong force in Catholic thought up to the present.

Continuity Between Religion and Modernity

The case for continuity between religion and modernity

The next several posts will make the case for a continuity between traditional religion and modern thought by showing an evolution that moves continually, although not smoothly, from primitive religion to the theological ethical, and scientific thinking of our own time. This continuity includes an intimate connection between a world-forming consciousness and the notions and experiences that human beings have with such a consciousness. At first sight the anthropomorphic notions of the Creator, and the religions that have developed around these notions, seem to be so far removed from any feasible scientific explanations as to be useless. In fact they may be worse than useless in that they stand in the way of rational understanding. But the status of traditional theistic religion deserves and requires a further look, beginning at the beginning. Generations educated with an acceptance of physical and biological evolution should at least be open to the possibility of spiritual evolution.

            Our remote ancestors faced mysterious phenomena that far surpassed their understanding and ability to control. These phenomena included things that are no longer mysteries to us, such as the sun moving across the sky, the change of seasons, lightening and thunder, and natural disasters. As consciousness developed, our forerunners projected consciousness on things that we look on as inanimate such as the sun, a holy mountain, or the unseen source of thunder and other phenomena. People faced these seemingly higher realties with a sense of what Rudolph Otto, in his classical work The Idea of the Holy, called Mysterium tremendum and fascionsum. The mystery appeared to them as overwhelming and at the same time fascinating. They were not yet ready to think philosophically about whatever is the highest power in the universe, but it struck them as extremely powerful and also as fundamentally good. Therefore they approached and avoided it with a combination of fear and reverence.

            In trying to understand the notion of God that has come down to us through the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have to look at the development among the Greeks and the Hebrews. In Western culture, both the popular and the theological notions of God descended primarily from these two sources. A scanning of the development of consciousness in each of these traditions will show the continuity between the early notion of the power behind the universe and an understanding of a divine being that can serve as a live option for scientifically educated people today.

Evolution of the Religious Tradition

Evolution of the Religious Traditions

            We have reflected in the previous posts on whether consciousness is a rare product of an otherwise unconscious process of physical and biological evolution or whether consciousness is a real power that propels and guides the whole process. The previous posts described these polar opposites as the materialist and the teleological views. We could simplistically assert that the conflict comes down to atheism versus religion. But unfortunately – or better, fortunately, the range and depth of possible interpretations is more complex by far. Those who ponder the deeper meaning of reality can move away from the stark materialism of writers like Dennett and Dawkins, and still see the whole structure and practice of religion as false and illusory. They may accept the notion of purpose in the process of the evolving universe but still be secularists and even atheists in that they see the notion and name of God as false and misleading. For example, Christof Koch, whose writing I drew from in the previous posts, sums up his position as a “romantic reductionist” saying: “I do believe that some deep and elemental organizing principle created the universe and set it in motion for a purpose that I cannot comprehend.”(165) Koch had rejected traditional religion and affirmed the principle of reductionism, and yet, the above quote affirms a teleological principle.

The discontinuity between modern spirituality and religion

            An often heard phrase states “I am spiritual but not religious.” The metaphysical notion of a purpose in the universe can be compatible with science, but does it have any connection with traditional religion? The belief in an anthropomorphic god who cares about and enters into human history seems to be an outdated and outlandish superstition compared to the sober reflection of a contemporary scientists musing on a possible meaning to the universe. As early as the 17^th century, regarding the ultimate meaning of the universe, a chasm opened between traditional views on the one hand and rational views on the other. For example, in 1786 future American president John Adams, who had learned of William Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus, and the forty-foot long telescope with which he peered into deep space, visited Herschel at his observatory in England. Adams pondered the newly discovered vastness of the universe, the relative insignificance of the earth, and the probability of countless inhabited worlds. He drew the conclusion that the notion of “The Great Principle” becoming human, dwelling on earth, being spit upon and crucified, is absurd, and so Calvinism or any orthodox form of Christianity is a blasphemy that we should get rid of. (Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder, 67) 

In the context of the gap between the religious world-view before the enlightenment and the science of the last three hundred years, can traditional religion have any standing in the 21^st century? I will make the case that it can, based on the premise that, as we human beings evolve, physically, chemically, and biologically toward greater consciousness, our understanding of the highest consciousness also evolves, and that we can discern a continuity between earlier and later stages. To state this approach in popular theological terms, we gradually come to understand God as revealed over time. As we move toward higher stages of religious awareness, the older and lower stages appear to religious believers as idolatries, and to non-believers as preposterous superstitions. In tracing the development of religious consciousness, the focus here will be on the Western tradition. While religious consciousness developed independently among people all over the world, and a fruitful encounter among traditions is taking place relatively late in history,  my posts will concentrate on the development that took place, and is still taking place in the Biblical and philosophical traditions of the West. 

Musings on the Soul

Musings on the Soul                                                                            January 17, 2018

            My reflections on consciousness conger up ideas of the soul. I do not use the term “soul” much because I do not have clear idea of what it means. I understand and like the idea of the soul as described by St. Thomas, but I think it is incompatible with contemporary science. In the introduction to my 2007 book, The Soul of Classical American Philosophy, I wrote that the issues that were treated under the name soul in traditional philosophy included: “the meaning of whatever we call our ‘self,’ especially in regard to our bodily existence, free will, moral values, community, and our relationship to the Transcendent.

            In the world view that I have been describing as a “teleological view” as opposed to a “materialist view,” these issues would have a definite meaning. But is the human soul an entity that must be taken into account to explain these things. Right now, I don’t know. Josiah Royce, who was no materialist, advised that we do not use the term “soul” to explain spiritual realities, because it is just a word and does not explain anything. In the following I will briefly describe the soul as found in St, Thomas, first explain why I like it and then why it is not compatible with modern science. Can we rethink the idea and keep its valuable insights while making it compatible with modern science?

            St, Thomas, following Aristotle, believed that every material object was composed of matter and form; matter is the indefinite stuff of which all physical things are composed, and form is what makes a thing what it is. In the case of a living thing, the form is called a soul, in Latin, anima. Plants have a vegetative soul, animals have a soul that is sensing as well as vegetative, and a human is an animal whose soul is also rational. The soul of an individual human being provides his or her body the structure that it has as, as well as making it living, sensing, and rational.

            Our rational soul enables us to comprehend universal ideas and thereby know thing that do not exist in our world of immediate sense. This ability enables us to love and choose things differently from what is given to our sense, and hence, free will. For example, while we can only see and talk to a relative small number of people at any given time, we can think realistically of more universal communities such as our local geographical community, the community of those who share our history and our hope for the future, our nation, and the whole human race. The sharing of non-material ideas and values makes community possible. We can gain some understanding of the actual conditions as well as possible desirable and undesirable futures.

Also, we can reflect on our own consciousness and thereby have a sense of self. We can understand our current habitual way of living, discern our best potential, and work to achieve it. St. Thomas, again following Aristotle, held that a human being is essentially a rational animal. To achieve our purpose in life we must each become the best rational animal that we can be. We do this by developing habits of living rationally; temperance, courage, prudence and justice. St. Thomas called these habit virtues and living a life of virtue enables us to be the best that we can be. In short, we can think of a better self and a better world and therefore nourish moral values. The ability described here requires that we possess the qualities of reason and free will. The unity of the soul enables us to develop virtues, which provide for a healthy body, control our senses and appetites, and allow us to work for social harmony

Also, we can yearn for whatever we think of as the Transcendent, something not given in our senses, although signs of it are. I don’t know if St. Thomas ever said this, but Josiah Royce and Charles Peirce describe thinking as the ability the ability to read signs. Glimpses that we have of love and understanding in our own lives can serve as signs. I will leave the issue of the Transcendent aside for now except to make one observation. As we live our lives we can see that our consciousness expands. For example, there may be people whom we once despised, hated, or feared because  they differed from us in such things as skin color, religious practices, birth place, or sexual orientation, but whom we have since learned to tolerate, understand, and appreciate. We can imagine a consciousness who understands, appreciates, and loves everyone. Such a consciousness would be what most religions and philosophes would mean by the Transcendent, or God. The ability to think of and imagine an infinitely expanding consciousness was traditionally attributed to the soul.

As stated above there are problems with the notion of the soul as the principle of life. One problem that I think is insurmountable is the reality of stem cells. (To avoid veering off into the controversy of pre-natal life, we can think of adult stem cells.) These are alive and human, but I don’t think anyone could argue that each one has what is traditionally called a rational soul. If the cells can be injected into an accident victim to restore muscle function, they become part of that person. To emphasize the conclusion, we can have human life at the cellular level without a rational soul. So to think consistently of a rational and spiritual soul, we have to think of the soul, contrary to St. Thomas, as something different from whatever makes a living thing alive.

We might think of the soul as the organizing principle of consciousness in a unique biological individual. Consciousness in this case would extend from the most basic sensation to the highest flights of reason, aesthetic awareness, and contemplation. The only consciousness that we are aware of can be found in living things. Whether there is a non-material consciousness on the one hand, or a consciousness in non-living matter on the other hand, is beyond our knowledge.

            I can think of three models to explain the relationship between consciousness and our biological make-up – there are probably many more besides these three. First, we can think of the dualistic model in which consciousness is immaterial, matter is unconsciousness, but when a living material being reaches a level of complexity it becomes conscious and thereby overcomes the dualism by uniting matter and consciousness in one organism. According to the second model, the materialist model, matter is unconsciousness but at a certain level of complexity, consciousness arise briefly but without power to influence the flow of material processes. The third model would hold that consciousness is present in all material things, at least in a rudimentary form, and becomes manifest only in living animals. A sub-set of three is that there is a non-material consciousness toward which living things are evolving, and the consciousness found in matter is a dimmer expression of that consciousness.

            Neuro-biologists can find correlations between brain states and states and conscious experience, but it is and error, an error often made, to conclude that conscious experience is “nothing but” brain states.  As living organisms evolve to higher levels of complexity, the range and depth of consciousness also expand until we come to the human mind that can be consciousness of realities not given in immediate senses experience. This give rise to science, art, language, and everything that makes up our human culture.

Whether there is an incipient consciousness in all matter, there is certainly consciousness at the level of animals. We humans know that our consciousness can be affected by such things as fatigue, illness, injury, and drugs. If consciousness is simply a product of brain states, then the death of the brain implies the death of consciousness. But consciousness might be greater than earthly biological matter. And the little bit of consciousness that our human brains pick up may be a participation in something infinitely beyond what we can grasp at this stage of our evolution. The organization that permits this participation may be what we mean by the “soul.”