http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/
The above article should be read - so letting me off actually explaining process thought to you.
My first encounter with process thought was with a Christian process theology as developed by Hartstone, and Cobb in particular. I remain rather unconvinced of the process monotheism - a belief in a supreme individual mind - developed by these writers. However having learnt more about Whitehead's original thought, this is sufficiently far removed from traditional theism.
We only need to consider the absolute when perhaps we are seeking still a necessary first cause or a final cause.Indeed, it seems process philosophy provides for a pan-en-deism, a rationally arrived at belief in an absolute which is yet involved in the world providing at least a teleological purpose of creativity and individualisation. If we accept that one pole of the divine absolute is 'outide' of space and time in the conventional way and the other pole of the divine is a process within space and time, we don't have to suggest that the divine no longer exists transcendentally as pandeists claim. Actually, I think it is not necessary for the divine to be considered 'exploded' or 'dissolved' in creation, for true absolute transcendence is 'beyond existence' and is not 'in' space or 'in' time at all - the absolute pole of the divine is not experienced and it might as well 'not be there' for persons in space time, accept it provides a logical and metaphysical grounding for the process.
I think we can 'secularise' or 'naturalise' process philosophy even further away from conventional theism - such that existence is a process that is not necessarily teleological (having no eschantolgoical end, for perhaps the 'end' of any actual entity is simply its own manifestation and optimisation in space and time.) And is a personal deity needed, in the final analysis? Apparently process philosophy can take a secular or naturalistic direction and I am interested in learning more about this.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Sunday, 9 January 2011
New Directions, New Interests
Everything must now be empirically or rationally demonstrated, but I retain the following interests:
a. naturalistic spirituality - the celebration of one's aesthetic response to the wonder of nature
b. The concepts of an 'absolute' or 'ground of being', and uncaused first cause are at least meaningful and perhaps even required by the Big Bang model of cosmology.
c. I am interested in knowing more about and working with mythological archetypes - the 'gods in everyman'
d. I am an eco-humanist. I consider any sentient life in the universe as very important, as such sentience is the cosmic consciousness, a material universe's awareness of itself. I greatly value our consciousness even if it is emergent for what was primordially unconscious or non-conscious
e. I have to find a way to deal with fear and give my life a meaning. Certainly trying to make life better and easier for others, and protecting the environment provide meaning.
f. I have to live 'in the now' and try to enjoy the 'isness of being' rather than relying upon some metaphysical pie in the sky consolation
g. I will continue to naturalistically study religion and similar supernatural truth claims, but from a moderately skeptical viewpoint. I certainly expect all supernatural experiences to be the result of mechanical causes or have psychological/sociological causes.
h. I am open to the notion of a God, a heaven and so forth, but see no convincing evidence, and so such claims must be unlikely in probablistic terms. It is for him who asserts to prove. I would like there to be a benevolent deity etc, but there remains no adequate explanation for how any benevolence could allow such evil to exist. My emotive need for a kind god is all but eclipsed by my emotive reaction to the suffering, particular 'innocent' suffering.
a. naturalistic spirituality - the celebration of one's aesthetic response to the wonder of nature
b. The concepts of an 'absolute' or 'ground of being', and uncaused first cause are at least meaningful and perhaps even required by the Big Bang model of cosmology.
c. I am interested in knowing more about and working with mythological archetypes - the 'gods in everyman'
d. I am an eco-humanist. I consider any sentient life in the universe as very important, as such sentience is the cosmic consciousness, a material universe's awareness of itself. I greatly value our consciousness even if it is emergent for what was primordially unconscious or non-conscious
e. I have to find a way to deal with fear and give my life a meaning. Certainly trying to make life better and easier for others, and protecting the environment provide meaning.
f. I have to live 'in the now' and try to enjoy the 'isness of being' rather than relying upon some metaphysical pie in the sky consolation
g. I will continue to naturalistically study religion and similar supernatural truth claims, but from a moderately skeptical viewpoint. I certainly expect all supernatural experiences to be the result of mechanical causes or have psychological/sociological causes.
h. I am open to the notion of a God, a heaven and so forth, but see no convincing evidence, and so such claims must be unlikely in probablistic terms. It is for him who asserts to prove. I would like there to be a benevolent deity etc, but there remains no adequate explanation for how any benevolence could allow such evil to exist. My emotive need for a kind god is all but eclipsed by my emotive reaction to the suffering, particular 'innocent' suffering.
Empirical and Rational
I found myself lost in a metaphysical fog. I wanted desperately to believe in something, and at the heart of that desire for belief I found an urgent need for consolation for my fears and for someone to give me a part in some grand cosmic purpose. Each time I constructed a new theology, it soon collapsed. I had to keep the cosmology in my focus by an exhausting mental effort. It did not come naturally, I had to impose what I thought was the great pattern and meaning upon the world as its interpretation; Naturally these theologies ultimately failed to accommodate science or the evils of the world. I recently struck out with the idea that I should give some liberal Christianity another try. But I found i still had no mental resources to believe. I realised then that 'faith' is simply not questioning, and not looking for reasons, but simply accepting in a child like way, on the authority of someone else, a set of beliefs about the universe and life. However as adults we have a choice of authorities - of many different beliefs - so why do we choose one belief over another? This requires a reasoning process. If I accept things on faith, why do I believe in Jesus, but not in Zeus or the Sugar Plum fairy? How do I distinguish which 'authority' to believe in or even recognise it to be an authority? If we accept one authority over another we are reasoning. So reasoning is prior to faith after all.
Reasoning leads us to believe someone is authoritative and on the strength of that, we then believe their futher precepts. We probably do that with science - we don't do the scientific experiments ourselves to check them or peer review scientific abstracts. Thus in practice we accept much science 'on faith'. However we think the scientific method is authorative because we know it provides reliable data. What religious leader or holy book can be considered authorative, and if so, why is it authorative? I suspect that in my religious periods I have simply not traced my 'reasonings' backs to their foundations. My reasonings have all been based on untested assumptions. An assume dfact is used to support a reasoned argument, the conclusion of which is assumed in another case and situation, so I have built a self supporting 'plausibility structure' but I have never questioned the foundations.
Why would Jesus and the Bible be authorative? We know Jesus existed - at least it is very likely that Christianity is not an effect without a sufficient cause. Most movements have founders, and though the true founder might have been the Apostle Paul, it does seem apparent there were Christians before Paul got on the scence following his mystical vision. We have the mystery that Jesus clearly died, but his followers were convinced he had risen from the dead. This is indeed a conundrum up there with the Loch Ness Monster and Alien abduction - claims made in the last 30-40 years and believed by many (the period after Jesus' ministry when the gospels were first written i.e. none were exactly contemporary). Jesus does then seem an anomaly that provides some reason to think his ministry and life had some supernatural aspect. But is this mystery enough to hang upon it the whole edifice of Christian theology and all the stories in the bible? There is a tension, I agree, that while Christian theology and the bible is not coherent, nor does it make practical predictions or have great explanatory power, Jesus and the founding of Christianity remains unexplained. However we have no idea whether the New Testament is given a true account of Jesus' life. In particular the New Testament deals with just 3 years of Jesus' 30 odd years life. In other words it gives next to no useful information upon which to build up a character picture, any more than if people read a biography of just 3 years of my or your life.
I have resorted to removing from my thinking all ideas and concepts of a metaphysical nature that are not empirically or rationally demonstrated. Such an approach must lead to naturalism and non-theism. Faith is excluded for the reasons given above - faith simply means not questioning, which is absurd unless it is faith in authority that we have reason to believe is telling us the truth, and such reason must be empirically or rationally demonstrated. Some religious concepts are more purely rational than others: belief in an absolute ground of being, a first cause, a monism or deism are not demonstrated by reasoning - a contrary view is possible - but can find some support as the result of reasoning alone. However all these philosophical notions don't give us a living, breathing religion, and often create as many questions as they appear to answer. They don't answer a need for consolation or purpose.
I rather take the view that there is an 'absolute' or 'ground of being' but it's real nature is unknown, and one can only proceed down a via negativa, specifiying what it is not. Positive statements are hard to come by. I accept the likelihood of an absolute because the universe is cotingent; there appears to be a need for necessary being. The absolute need not be a person or mind or consciousness - it could be energy or a void of pure potential. Because of my nature mystic tendencies some Taoist concepts are appealing, also a hindu monism or even a Buddhist sunyata or 'emptiness' seem to point to the absolute.
There is some reason for me to tend toward 'deism' and a 'first cause', but such a Deus is not a full bloodied 'God of religion' but again the philosopher's supreme being. And if one imagines the Deus has a mind, this begs the question of the reason for the lack of disclosure to humanity and Deus' purpose. Again, there is no consolation or personal purpose offered. A deist's supreme being is only necessary if non-personal causes are insufficient explanations of the cosmos. But since such a Deity is not itself explained, and persons are the result of experiences and development, and are highly complex if they are anything like humanity, we are left with a first cause as deity 'answer' that is an entirely unsatisfactory explanation but is even more question begging. Indeed it seems more parsimonious to simply say the universe or some quantum vacuum that preceded the universe is a brute fact that suggest it came about because of the will of some person. Clearly if the first cause or absolute can be said to have 'willed' the universe, its nature cannot in any way be analogous with a human personality
So my religion remains a naturalistic spirituality, with a strong tendency to believe in a metaphysical 'absolute'. I have largely lost my animistic and panpsychic tenendies following my realisation that consciousness cannot be fundamental but must be a 'state' of something 'else'. This allow for acceptance that consciousness emerges in complex biological entities or a neutral monism, but rules out idealism. The fact we cannot sustain our consciousness even while alive (e.g. when in deep sleep) demonstrates to me the dependence of the mind on a body. Belief in supernatural entities is only possible if there are disembodied minds. We have no rational or empirical justification for such. Thus even the absolute cannot be a purely idealistic concept. Indeed the notion of the absolute may be a construct of our use of language, a pure abstraction, like 'numbers' and not separable from human consciousness. Perhaps even a physical singularity, the cause of the big bang functions as a materialistic absolute and first cause.
Reasoning leads us to believe someone is authoritative and on the strength of that, we then believe their futher precepts. We probably do that with science - we don't do the scientific experiments ourselves to check them or peer review scientific abstracts. Thus in practice we accept much science 'on faith'. However we think the scientific method is authorative because we know it provides reliable data. What religious leader or holy book can be considered authorative, and if so, why is it authorative? I suspect that in my religious periods I have simply not traced my 'reasonings' backs to their foundations. My reasonings have all been based on untested assumptions. An assume dfact is used to support a reasoned argument, the conclusion of which is assumed in another case and situation, so I have built a self supporting 'plausibility structure' but I have never questioned the foundations.
Why would Jesus and the Bible be authorative? We know Jesus existed - at least it is very likely that Christianity is not an effect without a sufficient cause. Most movements have founders, and though the true founder might have been the Apostle Paul, it does seem apparent there were Christians before Paul got on the scence following his mystical vision. We have the mystery that Jesus clearly died, but his followers were convinced he had risen from the dead. This is indeed a conundrum up there with the Loch Ness Monster and Alien abduction - claims made in the last 30-40 years and believed by many (the period after Jesus' ministry when the gospels were first written i.e. none were exactly contemporary). Jesus does then seem an anomaly that provides some reason to think his ministry and life had some supernatural aspect. But is this mystery enough to hang upon it the whole edifice of Christian theology and all the stories in the bible? There is a tension, I agree, that while Christian theology and the bible is not coherent, nor does it make practical predictions or have great explanatory power, Jesus and the founding of Christianity remains unexplained. However we have no idea whether the New Testament is given a true account of Jesus' life. In particular the New Testament deals with just 3 years of Jesus' 30 odd years life. In other words it gives next to no useful information upon which to build up a character picture, any more than if people read a biography of just 3 years of my or your life.
I have resorted to removing from my thinking all ideas and concepts of a metaphysical nature that are not empirically or rationally demonstrated. Such an approach must lead to naturalism and non-theism. Faith is excluded for the reasons given above - faith simply means not questioning, which is absurd unless it is faith in authority that we have reason to believe is telling us the truth, and such reason must be empirically or rationally demonstrated. Some religious concepts are more purely rational than others: belief in an absolute ground of being, a first cause, a monism or deism are not demonstrated by reasoning - a contrary view is possible - but can find some support as the result of reasoning alone. However all these philosophical notions don't give us a living, breathing religion, and often create as many questions as they appear to answer. They don't answer a need for consolation or purpose.
I rather take the view that there is an 'absolute' or 'ground of being' but it's real nature is unknown, and one can only proceed down a via negativa, specifiying what it is not. Positive statements are hard to come by. I accept the likelihood of an absolute because the universe is cotingent; there appears to be a need for necessary being. The absolute need not be a person or mind or consciousness - it could be energy or a void of pure potential. Because of my nature mystic tendencies some Taoist concepts are appealing, also a hindu monism or even a Buddhist sunyata or 'emptiness' seem to point to the absolute.
There is some reason for me to tend toward 'deism' and a 'first cause', but such a Deus is not a full bloodied 'God of religion' but again the philosopher's supreme being. And if one imagines the Deus has a mind, this begs the question of the reason for the lack of disclosure to humanity and Deus' purpose. Again, there is no consolation or personal purpose offered. A deist's supreme being is only necessary if non-personal causes are insufficient explanations of the cosmos. But since such a Deity is not itself explained, and persons are the result of experiences and development, and are highly complex if they are anything like humanity, we are left with a first cause as deity 'answer' that is an entirely unsatisfactory explanation but is even more question begging. Indeed it seems more parsimonious to simply say the universe or some quantum vacuum that preceded the universe is a brute fact that suggest it came about because of the will of some person. Clearly if the first cause or absolute can be said to have 'willed' the universe, its nature cannot in any way be analogous with a human personality
So my religion remains a naturalistic spirituality, with a strong tendency to believe in a metaphysical 'absolute'. I have largely lost my animistic and panpsychic tenendies following my realisation that consciousness cannot be fundamental but must be a 'state' of something 'else'. This allow for acceptance that consciousness emerges in complex biological entities or a neutral monism, but rules out idealism. The fact we cannot sustain our consciousness even while alive (e.g. when in deep sleep) demonstrates to me the dependence of the mind on a body. Belief in supernatural entities is only possible if there are disembodied minds. We have no rational or empirical justification for such. Thus even the absolute cannot be a purely idealistic concept. Indeed the notion of the absolute may be a construct of our use of language, a pure abstraction, like 'numbers' and not separable from human consciousness. Perhaps even a physical singularity, the cause of the big bang functions as a materialistic absolute and first cause.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Interior and Exterior
I have long looked for a God who is 'out there', and speculated (when I believed in God at all) that God 'dwelt' in some dimension encompassing or at least adjacent to, the physical universe even as while i accepted that God was supposedly omnipresent. Bececause presumably even a personal God has to have some 'head quarters' for if God was equally omnipresenteverywhere in the sense he is omnipresent in say this room in which I am sitting there would never 'see' God at all. I suppose I had held to the half-notion that there was some 'spot' in the universe where God was concentrated and a more dilute solution of Godness was present everywhere else as a subtle ether. Even if Omnipresence doesn't mean 'all pervasive' but is used in the sense that God is not limited by spatial bounds, then surely, a personal God had to be 'somewhere' able to intervene everywhere. But then long ago I read some classical theology and it was apparent God was conceived of as a being without spatial dimensions. I didn't think too much about this at the time, though the consequences are 'startling' to say the least. God is literally 'nowhere' if God is also 'everywhere'. I had generally conceived of God as 'separate' from physical creation in effectively a spatial sense. In many years I never thought to revise this very primitive idea, though many theological statements from learned persons and divines suggested my notion was wrong.
In the last few years I found I was unable to believe at all in a supernatural 'Self' and 'Mind' that directed or controlled the universe entire (which is surely a good as any definition of God in monotheism). The principle problem for me was the question of 'evil' or more particularly, why the divine would not intervene to prevent innocent suffering. Also though there was the nagging problem that surely a divinity that really existed would be patently and obviously knowable 'out there', something to be discovered by science if they kept searching hard and long enough.
As my religious beliefs have collapsed into a default naturalistic spirituality albeit with the tormenting doubt that there might, after all, be a God, I did at least come to value the physical aspect of nature more. Not that nature can be idealised - it is ridden with pain and competition for scare resources, 'red in tooth and claw' indeed. However nature became the focus of my spiritual contemplations and latterly my notion of 'transcendence' disintegrated. The notion of 'God' as at least a 'Ground of Being' and 'Absolute Spirit' has crept back into my naturalism. I find I am unable to swallow materalistic monism, prefering always a 'neutral monism'. Then this philosophical view, together with my new found 'immanentist' spirituality, and also combined with my preexisting animistic tendencies started to make me realise that I'd been looking for 'God' in the wrong place. The realisation dawned when I was reading something on the internet about 'consciousness' and mind-body relations (the latter have long been used by panentheists as an analogy of God-Cosmos relations, as the see it). If one could view the Cosmos from 'outside', then God would be nowhere to be seen. God would be utterly hidden, as God would represent the depths of being, not the surface.
I have also long used the analogy of waves on the surface of a vast ocean, to picture the physical world in process - constantly becoming and ceasing to be' - while the being itself is undisturbed. It has recently occurred to me that the analogy is somewhat question begging, in that while waves are part of the water, they are also a boundary layer for the ocean. But what is the 'other' which meets the ocean water at the surface. In other words, what 'existed' beyond the boundary. In a real ocean, the answer of course is air, the atmosphere. It occurred to me that in my metaphysical analogy, the space above 'my' ocean really denoted in my schema 'non being'. It then dawned on me that when we look at the physical world, in sum, we see the metaphysical boundary between being and 'non being'. Of course 'non being' is not a 'thing' that exists, even as a 'void' of absolute nothingness. However non-being is certainly a 'limit' on being, while 'limit' is necessary to give anything 'form' and indeed is necessary before there can be any 'plurality'. One puzzling question is how there can be any 'non being' if the ultimate is infinite being? We have necessary imported a metaphysical dualism of 'being versus non being' which it would seem, would have to be an 'eternal' state of affairs and rivalry. However perhaps I defined my terms wrongly - there is a duality at the heart of all reality, but the fundamental 'boundary' causing condition (which creates distinction) in conscious awareness and language is the 'Subject' and 'Object'. Implicit in all manifest existence is ability to distinguish between 'this' and 'that'. All human conception requires distinctions about the relations between distinct beings. But can this kind of duality be from all eternity while somehow retaining a fundamental unity? Well, perhaps if the 'subject' is ultimately conscious awareness and the 'object' the contents of that consciousness? or the subject-object distinction is analogous to a 'mind' and 'body' distinction or then again, what if the subject-object distinction is the distinction between 'will' and 'power'?. This seems to be the first and fundamental boundary. The distinction is not artificial and would seem to be what generate all other distinctions. For human beings, we have the very basic conscious awareness of an interior world (our mind) and an exterior world (the actions of the self in the world, our 'environment' and anything external to our mind that seems to impinge upon us). We might even say that our whole lives are lived in the form of a constant mediation between between that internal world and the external world. The 'self' only owns the interior world but does not control the exterior world - in relation to the latter the self comes up against limits. So do all other selves and all other objects.
[ More clearly we might also say the physical world is highly 'granualised' being, subject to separateness and distinction, so that A is not Not-A. There is multiplicity in the world because being consists of many many discrete bounded realities, and generally those realities are spatial (having extention) and temporal (existing for a discrete period of time). Thus my body exists in defined space A and time line B-C, but not in space B or presumably before B or after C (physical death)]
more another time....
In the last few years I found I was unable to believe at all in a supernatural 'Self' and 'Mind' that directed or controlled the universe entire (which is surely a good as any definition of God in monotheism). The principle problem for me was the question of 'evil' or more particularly, why the divine would not intervene to prevent innocent suffering. Also though there was the nagging problem that surely a divinity that really existed would be patently and obviously knowable 'out there', something to be discovered by science if they kept searching hard and long enough.
As my religious beliefs have collapsed into a default naturalistic spirituality albeit with the tormenting doubt that there might, after all, be a God, I did at least come to value the physical aspect of nature more. Not that nature can be idealised - it is ridden with pain and competition for scare resources, 'red in tooth and claw' indeed. However nature became the focus of my spiritual contemplations and latterly my notion of 'transcendence' disintegrated. The notion of 'God' as at least a 'Ground of Being' and 'Absolute Spirit' has crept back into my naturalism. I find I am unable to swallow materalistic monism, prefering always a 'neutral monism'. Then this philosophical view, together with my new found 'immanentist' spirituality, and also combined with my preexisting animistic tendencies started to make me realise that I'd been looking for 'God' in the wrong place. The realisation dawned when I was reading something on the internet about 'consciousness' and mind-body relations (the latter have long been used by panentheists as an analogy of God-Cosmos relations, as the see it). If one could view the Cosmos from 'outside', then God would be nowhere to be seen. God would be utterly hidden, as God would represent the depths of being, not the surface.
I have also long used the analogy of waves on the surface of a vast ocean, to picture the physical world in process - constantly becoming and ceasing to be' - while the being itself is undisturbed. It has recently occurred to me that the analogy is somewhat question begging, in that while waves are part of the water, they are also a boundary layer for the ocean. But what is the 'other' which meets the ocean water at the surface. In other words, what 'existed' beyond the boundary. In a real ocean, the answer of course is air, the atmosphere. It occurred to me that in my metaphysical analogy, the space above 'my' ocean really denoted in my schema 'non being'. It then dawned on me that when we look at the physical world, in sum, we see the metaphysical boundary between being and 'non being'. Of course 'non being' is not a 'thing' that exists, even as a 'void' of absolute nothingness. However non-being is certainly a 'limit' on being, while 'limit' is necessary to give anything 'form' and indeed is necessary before there can be any 'plurality'. One puzzling question is how there can be any 'non being' if the ultimate is infinite being? We have necessary imported a metaphysical dualism of 'being versus non being' which it would seem, would have to be an 'eternal' state of affairs and rivalry. However perhaps I defined my terms wrongly - there is a duality at the heart of all reality, but the fundamental 'boundary' causing condition (which creates distinction) in conscious awareness and language is the 'Subject' and 'Object'. Implicit in all manifest existence is ability to distinguish between 'this' and 'that'. All human conception requires distinctions about the relations between distinct beings. But can this kind of duality be from all eternity while somehow retaining a fundamental unity? Well, perhaps if the 'subject' is ultimately conscious awareness and the 'object' the contents of that consciousness? or the subject-object distinction is analogous to a 'mind' and 'body' distinction or then again, what if the subject-object distinction is the distinction between 'will' and 'power'?. This seems to be the first and fundamental boundary. The distinction is not artificial and would seem to be what generate all other distinctions. For human beings, we have the very basic conscious awareness of an interior world (our mind) and an exterior world (the actions of the self in the world, our 'environment' and anything external to our mind that seems to impinge upon us). We might even say that our whole lives are lived in the form of a constant mediation between between that internal world and the external world. The 'self' only owns the interior world but does not control the exterior world - in relation to the latter the self comes up against limits. So do all other selves and all other objects.
[ More clearly we might also say the physical world is highly 'granualised' being, subject to separateness and distinction, so that A is not Not-A. There is multiplicity in the world because being consists of many many discrete bounded realities, and generally those realities are spatial (having extention) and temporal (existing for a discrete period of time). Thus my body exists in defined space A and time line B-C, but not in space B or presumably before B or after C (physical death)]
more another time....
Sunday, 12 December 2010
The unfinished business of the universe
The Neo Platonists considered that the divine was perfect and unchangeable, for change implied that the divine was not perfect (on the basis that change implied something became 'better' or 'worse'. Better would imply that something was not perfect before, and 'worse' obviously is moving away from perfection also). I don't accept the notion that change must involve any value judgement of 'better' or 'worse' than the previous state of affairs. For example is liquid water 'better or worse' than ice? This is surely some category error...'better and worse' are value judgements.
Nevertheless there is a further problem with the notion that the divine is perfect and therefore change is not necessary and the divine is 'complete'. There is nothing for the divine to do. Creativity cannot have an end or purpose that is good in itself. If the supreme good exists from all eternity then any amount of creativity and action does not add to the sum of all good. I find such a notion repellant, because I believe to create, even to simply be, is a greater good than non existence. One might state there are states of being of extreme suffering where non existence is preferred. However while there are some states of being that don't involve extreme suffering, I cannot see how overall being is not more good than non being. Indeed if there was only non being there could be no good at all. So the concepts of good and being seem intertwined in a way non being and good are not.
So I think we have a 'reason' for the universe, indeed existence, namely, for the sake of good. We might go further and notice that even pain and suffering and the overcoming and transformation and liberation from pain and suffering produce new forms of good: courage, loyalty, wisdom. The process of universal creativity tends to good and to the overcoming of evils, which is also good.
Where does this leave divinity? Is the divine complete and perfect? Clearly if the universe is an unfinished process toward greater good, then the divine is not in its essence the supreme good or perfect. We might say though that the divine is seeking or tending toward the supreme good in all things. We arrive then at a point of confirming a basic notion of process theology. We also accept the notion it seems that creativity is part of the divine nature and eternally so. This does not necessarily mean that creativity extends eternally in time I suspect. But the universe, which contains all time from a human point of view, is the manifestation of the divine. And we are not just like waves on the ocean who's nature might appear to be futile. There is a development within the universe. And I suspect the evolution of intelligent conscious beings is not an accidental and chance phenomenon of development, though as such sentience need not be the 'purpose' of the universe. Consciousness and intelligence does give more opportunity for good, in particular the ability of creatures to reflect upon the universe, to make the value judgement 'this is good' is surely a great good in itself.
What I don't want to return to though is the anthropomorphic notion that the divinity is a big self that is making the universe by its best efforts. A deity which is simply a very big and powerful self is a conscious manipulator of the objects in the universe. Creativity does not necessarily imply a deliberative mind or plan. One might side with the naturalists to see creativity as our word for a general tendency for an increase in multiplicity of forms, and their complexity as a 'law of nature'. If there is a cosmic consciousness, even if this is simply a knowing awareness of itself, an interiority to the whole process of the universe, we are probably cut off from it by the fact and particularlity of our existence. The finite cannot grasp the infinite anymore than one could capture the ocean by dipping a thimble in the sea. Equally the infinite, the ground of being cannot operate as a supreme actor in the particular facts of existence (by analogy my mind cannot encompass the celluar events within my body - I cannot attain a cell's eye view of things, and indeed I cannot through my mind do microsurgery or reorganise my organs and tissues.)
Nevertheless there is a further problem with the notion that the divine is perfect and therefore change is not necessary and the divine is 'complete'. There is nothing for the divine to do. Creativity cannot have an end or purpose that is good in itself. If the supreme good exists from all eternity then any amount of creativity and action does not add to the sum of all good. I find such a notion repellant, because I believe to create, even to simply be, is a greater good than non existence. One might state there are states of being of extreme suffering where non existence is preferred. However while there are some states of being that don't involve extreme suffering, I cannot see how overall being is not more good than non being. Indeed if there was only non being there could be no good at all. So the concepts of good and being seem intertwined in a way non being and good are not.
So I think we have a 'reason' for the universe, indeed existence, namely, for the sake of good. We might go further and notice that even pain and suffering and the overcoming and transformation and liberation from pain and suffering produce new forms of good: courage, loyalty, wisdom. The process of universal creativity tends to good and to the overcoming of evils, which is also good.
Where does this leave divinity? Is the divine complete and perfect? Clearly if the universe is an unfinished process toward greater good, then the divine is not in its essence the supreme good or perfect. We might say though that the divine is seeking or tending toward the supreme good in all things. We arrive then at a point of confirming a basic notion of process theology. We also accept the notion it seems that creativity is part of the divine nature and eternally so. This does not necessarily mean that creativity extends eternally in time I suspect. But the universe, which contains all time from a human point of view, is the manifestation of the divine. And we are not just like waves on the ocean who's nature might appear to be futile. There is a development within the universe. And I suspect the evolution of intelligent conscious beings is not an accidental and chance phenomenon of development, though as such sentience need not be the 'purpose' of the universe. Consciousness and intelligence does give more opportunity for good, in particular the ability of creatures to reflect upon the universe, to make the value judgement 'this is good' is surely a great good in itself.
What I don't want to return to though is the anthropomorphic notion that the divinity is a big self that is making the universe by its best efforts. A deity which is simply a very big and powerful self is a conscious manipulator of the objects in the universe. Creativity does not necessarily imply a deliberative mind or plan. One might side with the naturalists to see creativity as our word for a general tendency for an increase in multiplicity of forms, and their complexity as a 'law of nature'. If there is a cosmic consciousness, even if this is simply a knowing awareness of itself, an interiority to the whole process of the universe, we are probably cut off from it by the fact and particularlity of our existence. The finite cannot grasp the infinite anymore than one could capture the ocean by dipping a thimble in the sea. Equally the infinite, the ground of being cannot operate as a supreme actor in the particular facts of existence (by analogy my mind cannot encompass the celluar events within my body - I cannot attain a cell's eye view of things, and indeed I cannot through my mind do microsurgery or reorganise my organs and tissues.)
A Spiritual Sun - some meditations
Our physical sun, our nearest star, is of course the provider of the energy that makes life possible on earth. Since ancient times it has been considered, if not a god in itself, the physical correlate of the divine, which is the Spiritual Sun.
It appears necessary to imagine the divine as 'out there' while we know philosophically that we subsist in the divine as our ground of being; the divine is not 'out there' any more than it is 'in here'. The Ground of Being is immanent and transcendent. Immanent in that it is closer to us that our own heartbeat, transcendent in that it is not identical to any beings or beings, not even the sum of all beings.
The relationship between process and the divine source is analagous to 'waves' on the ocean of being. Waves come and go... a transient disturbance of the surface that does not disturb the depths below, yet is not apart from the depths. And if the ocean is the ground of being in this analogy, then at the surface being meets non being, their dialectic results in 'becoming' (or coming and ceasing to be)
It appears necessary to imagine the divine as 'out there' while we know philosophically that we subsist in the divine as our ground of being; the divine is not 'out there' any more than it is 'in here'. The Ground of Being is immanent and transcendent. Immanent in that it is closer to us that our own heartbeat, transcendent in that it is not identical to any beings or beings, not even the sum of all beings.
The relationship between process and the divine source is analagous to 'waves' on the ocean of being. Waves come and go... a transient disturbance of the surface that does not disturb the depths below, yet is not apart from the depths. And if the ocean is the ground of being in this analogy, then at the surface being meets non being, their dialectic results in 'becoming' (or coming and ceasing to be)
Friday, 10 December 2010
Remainder
The occasional jitters continue...the wistful desire to believe and return to an innocence of the younger me, to its social world, its great hopes and ideals. Once again I reviewed the arguments, the reasons to believe and not believe.. The answer was the same, as far as it was in my own power to convince myself, I found that intellectually I cannot accept the biblical theism in which I was brought up. It is obviously impossible to lift myself by my own mental bootstraps to a position of intellectual belief. So why the emotional attachment?
Because naturalism alone does not satisfy. I am inescapably religious. No simple pure atheism can fulfill a longing within me for transcendence and the powerful intuition that there is some creative power and higher consciousness.
But what religiosity can possibly remain through the fires of extreme doubt?
Some 'remains' that I may never systematise into anything like a world view, but remain uncombustable jewels in the charred ashes of my religion.
Because naturalism alone does not satisfy. I am inescapably religious. No simple pure atheism can fulfill a longing within me for transcendence and the powerful intuition that there is some creative power and higher consciousness.
But what religiosity can possibly remain through the fires of extreme doubt?
Some 'remains' that I may never systematise into anything like a world view, but remain uncombustable jewels in the charred ashes of my religion.
- That the divine is the Ground of Being. The divine is not a being among beings but the source of being, and the ultimate concern. The experience of the Ground of Being is also the 'isness' of pure being. The Ground of Being is necessary being and prior to all beings, and eternally sustains all manifestation, but is not identical to it. All manifestation is the ever changing procession of creative will and creative power.
- That there is a Higher Consciousness. It is possible I think to experience a state of cosmic awareness of the most sublime intellectual and also spiritual peace and bliss. This Higher Consciousness involves the contemplation of pure ideas and the Eternal objects. It is also about love, and finding unity in plurality and plurality in unity, a true communion. I believe we have a 'higher self', by which I mean, an ideal state of consciousness, and an inner wisdom.
- The powers of nature are imagined as gods that we may relate to them, and in the ancient world, appease them. Gods are personifications and images of the powers that 'rule' existence. The Gods are also shaped by the archetypes of the collective unconscious, and they are parts of our selfhood speaking to our self hood. In psychological terms, but not as objective physical facts, the Gods are real. They are as 'real' as our own selves.
- We are exiled from our spiritual roots. We are cut off from the perfect. We fall short of the divine nature. The ego revolts against the communion of the all in all. We find ourselves in a mental hell created by our own desires and fears. True faith is an absolute dependence upon the Ground of Being yet this is a feeling of rooted-ness and not a surrender for the latter in practice only implies a smothering of our true goodness and ability to think for ourselves. Very soon the ego re-asserts itself if it is just quashed. Legalistic religion tries to do the latter - it is ultimately a failed attempted to control the ego self.
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