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.”