Monthly Archives: January 2021

January 28, 2021 – Spirituality and Evolution

Leave a reply

      How can the phenomenon of spirituality be seen in evolution?

Today’s Post

Last week we introduced the concept of spirituality as a natural phenomenon, and saw how it can be understood as underpinning the continuation of human evolution as seen in the development of human ideas.  This week we will broaden our look to see the essential part played by spirituality in universal evolution.

The Spiritual Basis of Evolution

We have seen in our secular perspective of God how the principle metric of evolution can be seen as the increase in complexity over time, and how this increasing complexity has yet to be quantified by science but yet is critical to science’s understanding of how the universe unfolds.  As John Haught puts it

“The obvious fact of emergence- the arrival of unpredictable new organizational principles and patterns in nature- continues to elude human inquiry as long as it follows … naturalism in reducing what is later-and-more in the cosmic process to what is earlier-and-simpler.   A materialist reading of nature leads our minds back down the corridor of cosmic time to a state of original subatomic dispersal- that is to a condition of physical de-coherence.”

  We have also seen how the emergence of complexity in universal evolution underpins the principle by which “later-and-more” entities can emerge from those which are “earlier and simpler”.  Teilhard sees an energy at work by which this happens at every rung of evolution.  At the rung of fundamental particles, it can be seen in the effecting of electrons from bosons, then the effecting of atoms from electrons, and the effecting of molecules from atoms.  At the rung of the human person, it is the energy which unites us in such a way that we become more complete.  Teilhard recognizes that at the human level this energy manifests itself as ‘love’.

   Thus, as Teilhard see it, the essential process at work in the universe can be seen in every stage of its emergence as

 “Closer union from fuller being, and fuller being from closer union”

   It is at work, therefore, as we look backward in time at all previous steps of evolution.  While science does not yet have a term for this energy, the religious term is ‘spirit’.

As Teilhard points out, in the collection of his thoughts, “Human Energy”, therefore, the roots of this essential ‘complexifying’ energy of evolution are deeply embedded in the ‘axis of evolution’.

“Spirituality is not a recent accident, arbitrarily or fortuitously imposed on the edifice of the world around us; it is a deeply rooted phenomenon, the traces of which we can follow with certainty backwards as far as the eye can reach, in the wake of the movement that is drawing us forward.  ..it is neither super-imposed nor accessory to the cosmos, but that it quite simply represents the higher state assumed in and around us by the primal and indefinable thing that we call, for want of a better name, the ‘stuff of the universe’.  Nothing more; and also nothing less.  Spirit is neither a meta- nor an epi- phenomenon, it is the phenomenon.”

   As Teilhard sees it, this ‘secular’ approach to spirituality overcomes yet another dualism that is common to religion: spirit vs matter.

“Spirit and matter are (only) contradictory if isolated and symbolized in the form of abstract, fixed notions of pure plurality and pure simplicity, which can in any case never be realized.  (In reality) one is inseparable from the other; one is never without the other; and this for the good reason that one appears essentially as a sequel to the synthesis of the other.  The phenomenon of spirit is not therefore a sort of brief flash in the night; it reveals (itself in) a gradual and systematic passage from the unconscious to the conscious, and from the conscious to the self-conscious.”

   Teilhard is making an essential point about spirit and matter, the ‘stuff of the universe,’ here.  He sees matter evolving to higher levels of complexity (‘synthesizing’) under the influence of the energy of complexification (‘spirit’), and the increased complexity which results from such synthesis is therefore capable of more complex interaction.  This increased material level of complexity is a manifestation of an increased level of spirit.  To Teilhard, spirit is “nothing more; and also nothing less” than the energy of evolution.

Universal Spirituality and Dualism

He goes on to elaborate how the ‘spirit/matter’ dualism so endemic in religion is resolved by the realization that instead of spirit and matter in opposition to each other, they are simply co-operative aspects of the ‘stuff of the universe’ as it emerges and continues to evolve to levels of greater complexity:

“The problem of the world, for our minds, is the association it presents of two opposed elements (spirit and matter) in a series of linked combinations covering the expanse between thought and unconsciousness.  Now if consciousness is taken to be a meta-phenomenon, this dualism in motion is simply and verbally noted, without any attempt or even any possibility of interpretation.  If this dualism is pushed aside as an epi-phenomenon, it is conjured out of sight.  But it is simply and harmoniously resolved, on the other hand, in a world in which consciousness and its appearance are regarded as the phenomenon.  Everything then takes its natural place in a universe in process of changing its spiritual state…And hominization (the appearance of the human) merely marks a decisive and critical point in the gradual development of this change.”

   In Teilhard’s perspective, therefore, the basic process of universal evolution can now be seen as a process of matter “changing its spiritual state’.  ‘Spirit’ can now be seen as that which underlies the very axis of evolution, finally becoming fully recognizable in the human person and his society.

Science and The Agency of Spirituality

If spirituality is indeed an agency by which matter becomes more complex over time, it should be capable of being addressed empirically by science.  Richard Dawkins suggests that it will ultimately be found to consist of a simple process, a “’bootstrapping crane’ which raises the complexity of matter over time”.

As we saw in our look into ‘spirit’ as the ‘third person’ of the Trinity, Paul Davies notes that a new branch of science, ‘Information Theory’ posits a ‘quantum of information’ in each grain of matter which directs it toward connections with other grains which result in products whose characteristics are more complex than the original components.  He sees such activities in the capability of the complex molecule, DNA, to direct the production of the cell’s energy source, ‘proteins’ by RNA molecules.  In this action, the ‘blueprint’ of DNA amounts to a ‘software’ which guides the RNA’s enrichment of the ’hardware’ of the cell.

Teilhard simply extrapolates this process backward to the subatomic processes described in the Standard Model of physics and forward to the cellular complexification charted by the biological theory of Natural Selection, thence to the commonly observed interactions among human persons which stimulate both their personal growth and the development of their societies.

The Next Post

This week we took a look at the concept of spirituality from Teilhard’s secular perspective, and saw how spirituality is a phenomenon essential to the process of evolution as it lifts the universe to ‘its current level of complexity’.

Next week we will continue our exploration of Christian concepts by applying this perspective to the Christian concept of ‘grace’.

January 21, 2021 –The Concept of Spirituality

Leave a reply

         How can the concept of spirituality be understood empirically?

Today’s Post

Over the last several weeks we have taken our second approach to religion, looking at the fundamental Western concepts of God, Jesus and the Trinity from our secular viewpoint.  Starting this week we will begin to apply this same secular approach to the many beliefs and practices which make up the complex but often confusing tapestry of Western religion as found in Christianity, beginning with the concept of ‘spirituality’.

What is Spirituality?

Along with many of the premises of religion, spirituality is a difficult concept to grasp with the empirical tools of science.  At the same time the reality of spirituality can be seen to underlie human life in a universal way.  As John Haught addresses it

“Running silently through the heart of matter, a series of events that would flower into ‘subjectivity’ has been part of the universe from the start. So hidden is this interior side of the cosmos from public examination that scientists and philosophers with materialist leanings usually claim it has no real existence.”

   Thus Haught offers us a very rudimentary but nonetheless secular first approach to ‘the spirit, as the ‘interior side of the cosmos’.  How can his insight play out in the teachings of Religion?

One of the most fundamental dualities found in traditional religion divides reality into ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’.  From this perspective, spirituality exists at the level of the ‘supernatural’, above nature, and while this layer of reality can impinge upon the ‘natural’ world in which we live, it is nonetheless separate and unobtainable ‘in this life’ (another duality).

In following Teilhard in our secular approach, all of reality is understood as a single, unified evolving thing.  While there are indeed layers, such as Teilhard’s ‘spheres’ of complexity which unfold over time, at its basis Teilhard sees the universe as united in its basic principles, such as those articulated in the Standard Model of physics.  These principles are assumed by science to apply everywhere in the universe, in all phases of its evolution.  With Teilhard’s addition of the principle of increasing complexity over time (assumed by science but poorly addressed, as Haught points out above), these principles unite the three major stages of evolution (pre-life, life, life conscious of itself) and thereby account for everything that we can see.

Instead of them being understood as ‘super natural’ (above nature), in Teilhard’s perspective these principles become ‘supra natural’ (supremely natural).

If we define ‘spirituality’ as simply ‘supra-material’, we can begin to see spirituality as simply a milieu which surrounds us.  We live our lives enmeshed in intangible but very real fields of such spirituality.  These are reflected in our laws, the principles of behavior that shape our cultures, our financial systems and the everyday facets of relationships that inform our lives.  As we have proposed many times, the many historical theological concepts boil down to attempts to ‘articulate the noosphere’, to make sense of things.  At their root they are nothing more than attempts to articulate these principles so that we can understand and cooperate with them to make the most of our lives.

A secular example of such spirituality can be found in a fundamental axiom of our government.  It can be seen at the basis of the idea of a ‘representative government’, and often described as the ‘will of the people’ so essential to democratic governments.  While not finding articulation per se in the new American constitution and Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson was very clear in his concept of the validity of this ‘consensus in government’:

“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be other that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.  I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves.”

   Jefferson expresses a very revolutionary concept of the human person and his society with these views.  Hints of them can be found in earlier attempts to articulate how governance should be undertaken, such as in the Magna Carta, but none expressed as unambiguously as Jefferson’s.  At the time, the precedent for government was clearly to trust only in the provenance of royalty in the belief that if government were left to ‘the masses’, so the prevailing opinion said, chaos would result.  The belief that a consensus resulting from ‘the masses’ could result in setting the course of the ship of state in a positive direction was indeed very unprecedented.

This ‘will of the people’ is essential to our democratic form of government, but intangible and difficult to quantify.   Believing it to the extent that it is established as the basis for government has nonetheless resulted in a form of government that can be clearly seen to be more productive of human welfare than previous forms.

The Evolution of Spirituality

Seeing how such spirituality can be understood as underpinning our very concept of government, we can apply this perspective rearward in time to see the evolution of an idea without material substance:

–  the intuition that “we were made in the image of God” expressed around campfires over three thousand years ago

–  which evolved into ‘prophets’ with their intuition of ‘rights’ and  ‘justice’ against the wrongdoing of the establishment

– to one that recognized love as the energy of unity which effects the uniqueness of the person

– to the adoption of this principle as a way of insuring the cohesiveness of a highly diverse empire

– rising through the many ‘charters’ (contracts between rulers and ruled) of Western medieval and Renaissance society

– to an expression that “all men are created with inalienable rights”, ones not granted by birth, wealth, education, or good fortune, and established as a cornerstone of the constitution of the most powerful nation on earth.

The Next Post

This week we took a first look at the concept of spirituality from our secular perspective, and saw how spirituality can be seen to play a part in the evolution of human ideals and their incorporation into the processes of governance.

Next week we will take a look at the part that spirituality plays in evolution itself.

January 14, 2021 – The Secular Side of The Trinity

Leave a reply

Understanding the ground of being from three perspectives

Today’s Post

Last week we summarized the history of the last facet of the complex God that emerged in just a few hundred years after the death of Jesus: the ‘Trinity’.  We also noted how this concept emerged at the same time that the new church began to become part of Roman society and how it began to evolve into a hierarchical institution which became increasingly dependent on adherence to dogma.  As its teachings became more articulated, truth became more ‘an object of faith’ required to assure salvation than a collection of insights for living.  It didn’t help that the new church was now becoming an essential part of the Roman structure which in turn required a new level of adherence to dogma to insure a unified and therefore stable society.

Yet, as we saw from Karen Armstrong’s observation, the teaching of ‘Trinity’ was “simply baffling”, and from Richard Rohr that this teaching seems “furthest from human life”.

With all this, what secular sense can be of an assertion that God is “Three divine persons in one divine nature”?

The Secular Side of the Trinity

From our secular viewpoint, once the Trinity is put into Teilhard’s evolutionary context it becomes possible to see it as not only much simpler but more importantly, more relevant to human life.  From Teilhard’s perspective we have seen how God can be reinterpreted from a supernatural being which is the ‘over and against of man’ who creates, rewards and punishes; to the ‘ground of being’, the basis for the universe’s potential for evolution by way of its increase in complexity over time.  In applying this perspective to Jesus, we saw how he can be reinterpreted from a sacrifice necessary to satisfy such a distant judgmental God, to the personification of this increase in complexity as it rises through the human person: a ‘signpost to God’.  In the same way we can see a third manifestation of this ‘axis of evolution’, the ‘Spirit’, in the energy which unites the products of evolution in such a way as to effect this increase in complexity.

More specifically, we can begin to see how this ‘triune God’ can be seen to be ‘personal’.   The synthesized collaboration of these three principles of evolution effects what we know as the product of evolution that we refer to as ‘the person’.

Christianity puts names to these three aspects of the ground of being:

  • ‘Father’ as the underlying principle of the becoming of the universe in general, understood as the potential of the ’stuff of the universe’ to ‘make it make itself’
  • ‘Son’ as the manifestation of the potential for the products of evolution to eventually become ‘personal’; a potential which is active in every step of evolution in which increasing complexity emerges
  • ‘Spirit’ as the ‘energy’ by which particles of matter unite in such a way as to result in increases in complexity

As we have noted frequently, Teilhard describes this third ‘person’, this third manifestation of the ground of being as it exists in the human, as love:

“Love is the only energy capable of uniting entities in such a way that they become more distinct.”

   And, as he sees it, the essential function of the rise of complexity in the convergent spiral of cosmic evolution:

“Fuller being results from closer union and closer union from fuller being”

   In addressing this last agent of becoming, we can now see more clearly how John’s astounding statement begins to make secular sense:

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him”

  Thus, Teilhard locates the ’Spirit’ squarely in the axis of evolution, as the manifestation of the energy which powers evolution through its rising levels of complexity.  We have seen in Science’s ‘Standard Model’ how the energies which are manifest in forces such as the atomic strong and weak forces, electricity and magnetism, gravity and chemistry all collaborate in raising the universe from the level of pure energy at the ‘Big Bang’ to that of matter sufficiently complex to provide the building blocks of life.  With the concept of the ‘Spirit’ we can now see how this enterprise continues to raise reality into manifestations of complexity which are aware of their consciousness.

A purely secular approach to ‘spirit’ can be seen in the new scientific subject of ‘information’.  To Paul Davies, information is simply the quanta in each particle of matter which guides its unification with other particles.  His analogy is that this ‘quanta’ can be seen as the ‘software’ contained in each grain of matter, the ’hardware’.

An example of this dyadic action can be seen in the potential of Hydrogen to unite with Oxygen to form the molecule of water.  The ‘information’ of the Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms is not simply passed on to the new offspring, water, it itself is enriched by becoming more complex in the process.  The evolved quanta of information contained in the molecule of water has a new and enriched potential of unifying with many other molecules, and the resultant molecules also have new characteristics and potentials not found in their less complex components.  Thus, the three ‘triune’ aspects of evolution are evident in this simple example:

  • A component of matter has the potential to unite with other components (quantified by its ‘information or ‘software’’)
  • The process required to perform the connection is mapped in the ‘information’
  • The resultant new component (with new characteristics and potentials absent in its predecessor components) emerges with its new and more complex quanta of ‘information’

In this very simple but purely secular example we can see a reflection of the Trinity:

  • The ‘Son’ is reflected in the ‘information’, effectively the ‘software’ of the component
  • The ‘Spirit’ is reflected in the ‘energy’ necessary to effect unification according to the ‘information’
  • And the ‘Father’ is reflected as the ‘potential’ of the components to unite

In addition to how the Trinity can be seen in these examples, we can also return to Teilhard’s image of the ‘convergent spiral’ of cosmic evolution.   As we saw when we looked at Teilhard’s model of the structure of universal evolution, the three aspects of the Trinity can be understood as the human manifestations of the three basic steps by which the universe proceeds at all stages in its journey toward increased complexity.

We can also see how this energy continues to manifest itself in raising the complexity of living matter through the process of Natural Selection.  Natural Selection, first identified by Charles Darwin, offers a partial explanation of how species advance from one stage of evolution to another.  It does not address how the products of evolution at latter stages show evidence of increased complexity, but it does explain how the ramification of species offers many avenues of for ‘complexification’.

Human persons are clearly located on one of these avenues of evolution.  Understanding the ‘Spirit’ at the level of the human person is simply understanding how evolutionary products aware of their consciousness (human persons) can consciously cooperate with this energy to be united in such a way as to advance their individual complexity (their maturity) and therefore continue to advance the complexity of their species.

Last week we noted that Richard Rohr decried how the increasing hierarchy and dogmatism of the Christian church increased the distance between man and God by decreasing the relevance of its essential message.  From our secular perspective, we can now see how it is possible to understand the Trinity in terms now seen as relevant to personal life.  Rohr offers a reinterpretation of the traditional Christian trinitarian terms as an integrated understanding of the Trinity which is directly relevant to human life:

“I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust the visible embodiment (the Son), the flow (the Spirit), and the source itself (the Father). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it.  Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river.”

The Next Post

This week we saw that how adding the concept of ‘Spirit’ to those of the ‘Father’ and the ‘Son’ completes an understanding of the ‘the ground of being’, the basis of the universe’s ‘coming to be’ in general.  More importantly, we saw how we can begin to understand how this agent of evolution which has “raised the world to its current level of complexity” (Richard Dawkins) is active in our individual lives, as we begin to understand ourselves as personal offspring of the ‘axis of evolution’.

Over the past several weeks, we have addressed the three fundamental beliefs of Christianity: God, Jesus and The Trinity, from our secular perspective, showing how ‘reinterpretation’ can empirically refocus their relevance to human life.

Christianity, however, piles many layers of belief and practices on top of these three precepts.  In order to, as Richard Dawkins suggests, ‘divest them of the baggage’ that they carry, is it possible to use our principles of reinterpretation to achieve a similar refocus?

Next week we will begin to do this, first addressing the underlying concept of ‘spirituality’, and how it can be seen in the light of our secular inquiry.

January 7, 2021 – The Cryptic Concept of the ‘Trinity’

3 Replies

 What can ‘three persons in one God’ mean?

 Today’s Post

Last week we took a final look at Jesus from our secular perspective, noting how quickly the highly integrated understanding of John became a victim of the endless human trend toward dualism.  From our secular perspective, we saw how John’s vision strengthened the immediacy (immanence) of God in human life and how Teilhard sees Jesus as the ‘signpost’ for this spark of universal becoming.  From Teilhard’s insight, this spark, found in all the products of evolution, is only capable of being recognized as such by the human person.  In our final look last week, we saw how easily the labyrinthine statements emerging from the pronouncements of theologians can be ‘reinterpreted’ into statements about the human person, and by doing so increase their relevance to human life.

The evolution of the concept of Jesus and ‘the Christ’, did not end with the pronouncements of the Council of Nicaea, but set the stage for a following inquiry into the ‘nature’ of God.  This week we’ll take a look at this third stage of the theological evolution of the concept of God: the Trinity.

The History of the Trinity

As Bart Ehrman notes in his book, “How Jesus Became God”, unlike God, Jesus and ‘the Christ’, the Trinity isn’t addressed as such in any of the books of the Old or New Testament.  The idea of God as the supreme supernatural creator somehow intertwined in human life is a common thread of the Jewish scriptures (the ‘Old Testament’).   As we have seen, the understanding of Jesus and ‘the Christ’ evolves over time in the New Testament into the early days of the new Christian church, but the concept of a third ‘person’ wasn’t developed until late in the first three hundred years of its existence.

Richard Rohr relates the history of the idea of ‘the Trinity” as it began in the Eastern Church and later moved to the West:

“The Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century first developed this theology, though they readily admitted the Trinity is a wonderful mystery that can never fully be understood with the rational mind, but can only be known through love, prayer, and suffering. This view of Trinity invites us to interactively experience God as transpersonal (“Father”), personal (“Christ”), and even impersonal (“Holy Spirit”)—all at once.”

   The idea of something (or someone) involved in the formation of the universe, and in how this process is reflected in human life, shows up even in the Old Testament.  It is strongly suggested by Jesus, for example, in his statement to the apostles that a ‘Spirit’ (an ‘advocate’) would be sent after he was gone.

It wasn’t until the early days of the church’s theological development that this agent began to be considered ‘God’ in somehow the same way that the relationship between Jesus and ‘the Christ’ was being considered.

In a nutshell, the new church began to consider God as being ‘triune’, somehow composed of three separate but unified ‘persons’ whose agency in reality was reflected in three separate facets.  The most commonly used terms ‘Father’, ‘Son’ and ‘Spirit’ are of little use in making sense of this complex concept.  Thus in the same way that the church required belief without understanding (as we saw in the final determination of Nicaea that Jesus was both God and Man) as an ‘act of faith’ necessary for salvation, it was soon to follow with the statement that God was also ‘three divine persons in one divine nature’.

And, in the same way that the controversy over the nature of Jesus was debated up until the Nicaean council, that of the Trinity continued to be debated.  As the Arian controversy over the ‘nature’ of Jesus began to dissipate following the Nicaean council, the debate moved from the deity of Jesus to the ‘equality’ of the ‘Spirit’ with the ‘Father’ and ‘Son’.  A key facet of this controversy lay in the lack of scriptural clarification of the ‘Spirit’ as a person of God in the same way as was the ‘Son’.  On one hand, some believers declared that the Spirit was an inferior person to the Father and Son, emerging as a result of the ‘love between the Father and the Son’.  On the other hand, the Cappadocian Fathers argued that the Spirit was a third person fully equal to the Father and Son.

This controversy was brought to a head at the Council of Constantinople (381) which affirmed that the Spirit was of the same substance and nature of God, but like Jesus, a separate person. Gregory of Nazianzus, who presided over this council offered this erudite but ultimately vacuous explanation:

“No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Three than I am carried back into the One. When I think of any of the Three, I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me”.

  As Karen Armstrong concludes in her book, “A History of God”,

“For many Western Christians . . . the Trinity is simply baffling”.

   Richard Rohr agrees with Armstrong that of all the Christian statements of belief, that of the Trinity can seem furthest from human life and thus can tend to reduce the relevance of Christian teaching to human life.  The church didn’t make it easier with Nazianzus’ cryptic statement, or by declaring such statements to be ‘objects of faith’ which must be believed without understanding even though such belief was a prerequisite for salvation.  But as we saw last week, faith is much more than adherence to precepts, it is an essential aspect of human existence.

So, what secular sense can be made of this strange teaching?

The Next Post

This week we saw how the new Christian church expanded its concept of God from the Jewish ‘Father’ to a complex triune but difficult to grasp concept.

Next week we will consider this concept of a ‘triune’ God from the perspective of our search for ‘The Secular Side of God’.