INTRODUCTION
God’s
motive for Creation is the potential production of another entity similar to
God. While God can only create
creatures, an intelligent created entity could possibly create additional
aspects of its own being that could make it similar to God. To open this possibility God initiates Time,
Energy and a number of mathematical Cosmic Constants in the Big Bang. These interact to produce both Matter and
Life, each with appropriate laws of nature.
Matter freely self-organises and produces at least one life-friendly
planet. Life begins on Earth and evolves
in complexity and intelligence. Some
members of an evolved intelligent life form – Homo sapiens – eventually begin
to make themselves similar to God, in aspects of their being such as creativity
and goodness.
ABSTRACT
The
search for God’s motive for creation begins with Aristotle, who almost solves
the problem but considers he has developed an antinomy. God’s motive becomes clear when Samuel
Alexander’s and Bernard Lonergan’s understandings of the Cosmos as an Emergent
process is applied to Aristotle’s original conclusions. God’s motive appears to be to make possible the
self-development of other entities to enable them to become similar to
God.
Samuel
Alexander identifies the Emergent stages of the process of cosmic
development. Bernard Lonergan proposes a
cosmic process that develops from stage to stage, with each stage of the
process exhibiting greater freedom than the preceding stage, leading to the
freedom of humanity to restructure both itself and the world.
The
complex form of the cosmic process, beginning with the Big Bang, is
understandable once the purpose of the process is understood. This purpose is to make possible the free
self-creation of new aspects of the being of a created entity, to enable
members of that entity to make themselves similar to God in creativity and
goodness.
God
cannot create an entity that is similar to the self-existent God, as God can
only create creatures. However God can
provide the means, in the Big Bang, to initiate the self-organisation of a
series of freely operating cosmic processes, which could lead to the evolution
of intelligent animal species. Members
of such a species could eventually develop themselves in goodness and
creativity, making some members of the species, such as Jesus, similar to God
and an appropriate subject of God’s love.
Recognition of this purpose leads to the resolution of Aristotle’s
antinomy.
God
is necessarily “hands-off’ the cosmic process once it has been initiated. The Big Bang provides the Energy, the Time
and the mathematical Cosmic Constants that make planet Earth, life and the
process of evolution possible. The cosmic process is self-organising at the
Emergent Stages of Matter and Life, and self-creating at the Emergent Stages of
Mind and at the Human Moral-cultural Emergent Stage. Humanity thus becomes the original “Do it
yourself” kit.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GOD’S MOTIVE FOR
CREATION
Understanding
God’s motive for Creation is important because God’s motive, once it is
understood, provides a criterion against which doctrines that were formulated
in a more primitive context can be tested and if necessary reconsidered. This reconsideration could apply equally to
Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
One
other possible way of approaching the question of God’s motive for Creation
would be to consider the kind of God that is presupposed by some of the
doctrines of some present belief systems.
Could God be an exponent of the mass killing of people of other races or
faiths, of everlasting torture or insatiable carnality? Thanks to Aristotle we do not need to
continue with this form of thought-experiment.
ARISTOTLE
In
his “Christian Revelation and the Completion of the Aristotelian Revolution”
(1988) Patrick Madigan outlines the discussion of God’s motive for Creation
from Aristotle to Aquinas and beyond.
Aristotle initiates the discussion when he establishes two apparently
contradictory conclusions. (1) God is necessary, as first mover, to
explain the existence of the world, and (2) God is not able to be the cause of
an entity that is significantly different from God.
As
Madigan says: “Aristotle establishes simultaneously
two very strong points: first, that God must exist as a necessary first cause
to explain the world, and secondly that God, if he exists, could not cause a
world significantly distinct from himself.
Both conclusions are demonstrated as necessarily true, and the one
contradicts the other”. (1988, 16)
The
apparent contradiction between these two conclusions relies on the Cosmos being
complete, as Aristotle understands it, and not in process, as Alexander and
Lonergan understand it. Aristotle’s only
understanding of process is based on the circular, repetitive, biological
process. Aristotle does not possess the
category of linear process, in which the outcome can differ radically from the
inputs. The lack of this category makes
Aristotle think he has developed an antinomy.
I argue that there is no real contradiction between Aristotle’s
conclusions.
While
God cannot directly create an entity that is not significantly distinct from
God, God can open the possibility of the self-creation of additional aspects of
the being of a created entity, which could eventually make that entity, or some
of its members, similar to God. God
cannot intervene in such a process without frustrating its self-creating purpose. This is why God is “hands-off” the process
that follows the Big Bang. The Big Bang
provides everything necessary for the cosmos to develop by self-organisation
until a series of intelligent animal species evolve. Any further development can only be through a
process of self-creation by members of such an intelligent species.
THE BIG
BANG AND THE COSMIC PROCESS
The
Big Bang is the initiation by God not only of Time and of Energy, but also of a
number of mathematical “cosmic constants”.
Cosmologist Martin Rees, in “Just Six Numbers” (2000), shows that a
series of mathematical “cosmic constants” are embedded in the Big Bang. Rees states:
“Mathematical laws underpin the fabric of our universe, not just atoms,
but galaxies, stars and people. And everything takes place in the arena of an
expanding universe, whose properties were imprinted into it at the time of the
initial Big Bang.” (2000, 1) Rees
identifies six of these mathematical cosmic constants as particularly relevant
to the present state of the Cosmos, stating: “These six numbers constitute a
‘recipe’ for a universe.” Subsequent
development is sensitive to their values, as: “if any one of them was to be
‘untuned’, there would be no stars and no life.” (2000, 4)
Rees
does not accept the obvious implication that the cosmic constants are evidence
of design. Instead he postulates a
multiplicity of universes with different cosmic constants. In adopting this
position Rees multiplies entities beyond necessity, in defiance of Occam’s
razor. I consider and reject Rees’
argument in “The Intelligent Design of the Cosmos” (2006).
I
argue in my Thesis “The Process of the Cosmos” (1998) that both matter and life
develop by self-organisation. I am
indebted to Rees for showing that the Cosmic Constants are responsible for this
self-organisation. The Cosmic Constants
provide the laws of nature that apply to most new Emergent Stages when the
basis for a new Emergent Stage develops.
Thus Life emerges when an appropriate form of Matter, in a favourable
environment, make it possible for the Cosmic Constants to initiate Life.
ALEXANDER’S EMERGENT EVOLUTION
In
“Space, Time and Deity” (1920), Samuel Alexander shows that the Cosmos develops
through a series of Emergent Stages.
Each Emergent Stage introduces something completely new into the world,
but the new Emergent Stage is still able to be affected by the laws of the
Stage from which it has emerged. This is
the essence of any Emergent. Thus when
Life emerges from Matter it is completely new, has its own new laws and still
affected by the laws of Matter.
Most,
but not all, Emergent Stages occur when an existing Stage provides the material
and the environment that are necessary for the Cosmic Constants to initiate a
new Stage.
Alexander
identifies four Emergent Stages: Matter,
Life, Mind, and Moral Personality.
Matter emerges first, then Life.
Alexander considers Mind constitutes an Emergent because it manifests
consciousness. I regard Mind as an
Emergent because of its mode of origin.
The development of the human mind is not a function of the Cosmic
Constants. It is the first product of
the process of human self-creation. I
identify Alexander’s fourth Emergent Stage, his “Moral Personality”, as the
Human Moral-Cultural Stage. This Stage
only begins within the last 2,600 years, when some humans begin to think
critically and begin to develop an awareness of the natural moral law.
LONERGAN’S “EMERGENT PROBABILITY”
For
Lonergan there is a cosmic process that develops from stage to stage, with each
stage exhibiting greater freedom than the preceding stage, leading to the
freedom of humanity to restructure both itself and the world. At the root of this cosmic process Lonergan
affirms a directed dynamism, parallel to the detached and disinterested human
desire to know.
This
pure desire “heads for an objective that becomes known only through its own
unfolding in understanding and judgement, and so the dynamism of universal
process is directed, not to a generically, specifically or individually
determinate goal, but to whatever becomes determinate through the process
itself in its effectively probable realization of its own possibilities.”
([1958] 1983, 450)
Lonergan
draws a parallel between the incomplete human knowing that heads towards fuller
knowing and an incomplete Cosmos that is heading towards fuller being. While there is such a thing as finality, it
is not “some pull exerted by the future on the present” but is an affirmation
that the Cosmos “is not at rest, not static, not fixed in the present, but in
process, in tension, fluid.” ([1958] 1983, 445) the principle of finality
provides “an upwardly but indeterminately directed dynamism towards ever fuller
realization of being.” ([1958] 1983,
452) Lonergan does not explain what might constitute the ultimate end of this
process of “ever fuller realization of
being”. I suggest the only credible end
of this process is the self-creation of entities similar to God.
COSMIC AND
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The
Big Bang provides the Time, the Energy and the Cosmic Constants which together
provide the foundation of Matter and allow for its development. Matter develops into a number of Galaxies,
Solar systems and planets. The extent of
the Cosmos, the random interaction of laws of nature and the unlimited time
available, ensure the eventual production of at least one life-friendly planet
– Earth.
Life
emerges on Earth, where evolution produces a number of increasingly
intelligent, but instinctive, animal species.
Members of one such species - Homo sapiens - eventually develop their cognitive
capacities beyond the capacities provided by instinct. They begin to recognise and utilise
information other than that which they recognise instinctively. This self-development initiates the human
mind, and makes Homo sapiens human. As
Lonergan notes: “Man’s development is a
matter of getting beyond himself, of transcending himself, of ceasing to be an
animal in a habitat and of becoming a genuine person in a community.” (1974, 144)
With
the self-development of a mind Homo sapiens cease to be mere animals and become
human. They are no longer simply bound by their instincts, but become free to
develop other characteristics, such as creativity and goodness. These characteristics, when sufficiently
developed, could make them similar to God and appropriate for God to love. To understand this self-development, from the
animal level to the human level, we need to consider what it is that
distinguishes the various levels of life.
INFORMATION AND LIFE
The
difference between the various levels of life is closely related to the type of
information that is able to be detected at each level. Every living species recognises and reacts to
the information that is essential to the species survival. Different forms of life react to different
information, in the sense of relevant detectable differences. As Andrzej Chmielecki notes in “What is
Information”: “information – defined
here as any detectable difference of physical states - (is) the determining
principle of all animate systems, one which determines both their architecture
and their operation.” (1998, 1)
Plants
react to differences in soil temperatures and to other physical factors. These provide the plant with information
relevant to the survival of its species.
Animal species are not limited to detecting information that relates
solely to the survival of the species.
Their instincts can enable them to detect and react to information that
could relate to their individual survival.
This capacity to detect a wider range of information is the beginning of
intelligence. For some species this
perception of information extends to the recognition of natural items that can
be used as tools. All Hominid species
display this capacity.
THE HOMINIDS
There
are many Hominid species during the million years before Homo sapiens evolve,
with their significant linguistic capability, some 160,000 years ago. Initially Homo sapiens hunt and gather just
as earlier Hominids had over the previous million years. There appear to be no significant material differences
between their activities and those of earlier Hominids during their first
100,000 years as a species. However some
time before the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution of 45,000 years ago, they begin
to develop a mind, and thus to recognise and utilise a range of information
beyond that which other Hominid species were able to recognise. This development of a mind is demonstrated by
the beginning of human cultures.
The
development of the human mind does not appear to be a function of the size of
Homo sapiens’ brain. Neanderthals evolve
some 230,000 years ago, well before Homo sapiens. They are physically stronger
and have a larger brain, but they die out when Homo sapiens begin to form
cultures. With the development of a
mind, Homo sapiens may have become able to out-compete the Neanderthals, just
as the Dingo was to out-compete the stronger and fiercer, but less intelligent,
Thylacine or “Tasmanian Tiger”, when the Dingo arrived in
Some
human hunter-gatherers eventually recognise that the regular annual die-off of
edible plants that leave dormant seeds or tubers provides the information that
enables them to begin agriculture. This
insight takes a further 35,000 years to develop, from the initial formation of
human cultures in the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution to the beginning of the
Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. The
human mind continues to develop in the process of making connections of this
type. The development of the mind
constitutes the third Emergent Stage in the process of Emergent Evolution.
The
most recent Emergent stage, the Human Moral-Cultural Stage, only begins to
develop within the last 2,600 years.
Only humans are able to be moral. Principled morality is still rare, as
Lawrence Kohlberg has shown. A person’s
innate morality, as distinct from the moral criteria of their culture or
religion, is a measure of their humanity.
The Human Moral-Cultural Emergent stage involves the perception and
application of the natural moral law.
THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Both
Bruno Snell in “The Discovery of Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought”
(1953), and Julian Jaynes, in “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of
the Bicameral Mind” (1976), show that the present form of human moral and
critical consciousness, involving both logical reasoning and moral awareness,
took Homo sapiens millennia to develop.
Snell and Jaynes offer quite different explanations of the present form
of human consciousness, in which humans have insights into their own mental
life and the mental life of others.
Jaynes proposes the prior existence of a bicameral mind, on the model of
the bicameral brain, while Snell traces the development of the present form of
human consciousness through Greek literature.
As Snell comments in his preface to “Scenes from Greek Drama” (1964):
“the rapid development of Greek thought in the fifth century B.C. is a
fascinating spectacle . . . And since these new ideas became a possession of
Western Civilization, we can observe ourselves growing.” (1964, 6)
Jaynes
suggests that in the bicameral mind one part of the brain became aware of moral
commands which were then “heard” by the individual human, and to hear was to
obey. Jaynes’ ideas are applied to the
pre-logical Hebrews by Rabbi James Cohn in his:
“The Minds of the Bible: Speculations on the Cultural Evolution of Human
Consciousness.” (2007) Cohn regards the
Biblical Abraham as pre-logical, saying: “Abraham is not a model of faith. .
. He is a product of his times. He hears and obeys. He cannot not
obey the voice once he hears it.” (2007,
21)
Both
Snell and Jaynes see the beginning of morality as linked to the beginning of
the present form of human consciousness.
Snell’ s analysis of the gradual development of the present form of
human consciousness over a considerable time appears more reasonable to me,
but Jaynes’ approach supports Plato’s
idea that values constitute an objective realm of essences, which humans become
aware of a priori. The “voices” heard by
bicameral minds appear to be intuitions of Plato’s realm of essences,
particularly as the voices focus on moral behaviour.
Homo sapiens’ mind may have begun to
develop as a by-product of sapiens’ linguistic capability. Individual words would have initially had a
limited application but most words have an inherent flexibility. As Phil Eklund notes in “The Jaynesian”: “A word is a communication that can be stored
in memory in a versatile verbal format, which allows learning in one area to be
metaphorically applied in other areas.” (Summer
2007, 3) This potential for language to
lead to an increase in understanding appears to first become a reality some
30,000 years ago when: “As suddenly as a light switch being turned on, people
were leaving grave goods, making idols, painting cave walls, the full gamut of
bicameral authorisations.” (ibid)
HUMANITY AS
A DO-IT-YOURSELF-KIT: HOMINID TO HUMAN
Humans
are thus products of a continuing process of self-creation, through which they
cease to be just another animal in a habitat and begin to make themselves fully
human. The first step in this process
is the self-development of the human mind.
The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution is generally accepted as evidence of
this initial development. The physical
evidence of further development is traceable through technology, but if the
purpose of he cosmic process is the production of a communal entity similar to
God, the most important human changes will be cultural, both intellectual and
moral. These would constitute the human process
of self-creation towards divinity.
As
an eminently moral product of the moral context of Judaism, Jesus can be
understood as a proleptic success of this process of human self-creation. The phenomenon of Jesus provides support for
the argument that the motive for Creation is the potential production of other
entities similar to God, as does the intellectual and moral creativity of
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in the Classical Greek context.
While
Jesus provides the clearest example of the success of the cosmic process, other
members of various intellectual and moral cultures who have been recognised as
Saints, will have created aspects of their own being that make them similar to
God in goodness
IN A NUTSHELL
Some
intelligent created entities can create additional aspects of their own being
that can make them similar to God. To
open this possibility God initiates Time, Energy and a number of mathematical
Cosmic Constants in the Big Bang. These
interact to produce both Matter and Life, with appropriate laws of nature. Matter freely self-organises and produces our
life-friendly planet. Life begins on
Earth and evolves in complexity and intelligence. Members of an intelligent life form – Homo
sapiens – can make themselves similar to God in creativity and goodness. Jesus and Socrates appear to be proleptic
products of this process of human self-creation.
REFERENCES
Alexander,
Samuel (1920) Space, Time and Deity
Chmielecki,
Andrzej (1998) What is Information? Web, Paideia Archive
Cohn,
James (2007) The Minds of the Bible Web.
Jaynes,
Julian (1982) The Origin of Consciousness, Pelican, 1982
Kelly
A.B. (1999) The Process of the Cosmos Dissertation.com
(2006) The
Intelligent Design of the Cosmos
PHILICA.COM Article No.50
Lonergan,
Bernard ([1958] 1983) Insight
(1974) A Second Collection
Madigan,
Patrick (1988) Christian Revelation and the Completion of
the
Aristotelian Revolution
Rees,
Martin (2000) Just Six Numbers
Snell,
Bruno (1953) The Discovery of the Mind
(1964) Scenes from Greek Drama
