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This post is about re-situating the Christmas story in the context of the new Universe Story.
Back in post #28, when I talked about "Where I'm At," I described the three different directions I wanted to move in (all at once!) in sharing my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion. In that post I offered "snapshots" of those three directions. In this post I'm finally getting to share my thoughts about the third one. It's the Christmas story from a dynamic rather than static perspective: what the story of the coming of Jesus looks like in the updated context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution offered us by modern science.
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In the previous post, Convergence? (with the question mark), the main point I made was that "When we see that the real world is a dynamic process, and that the emergence of new things from previous things is the basic pattern to the process, we can see that the convergence of science and religion in the dynamic worldview of western science frees western religion from the centuries-old prison of static dualism."
My main thought there, and indeed in all my blog efforts over the last two years, is that far from being in opposition to religion, contemporary science serves the religion of the western world by rescuing it from its thousand-year prison of static dualism. Modern science greatly enriches western culture's religious tradition.
After the Dark Ages, western religion got trapped into thinking that the world is a prison. It lost its original understanding of reality as a dynamic process. For many today, it still comes as a surprise to know that evolution is at the core of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and the evolutionary perspectives of modern science can help western religion re-discover its own dynamic heart and soul.
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As I spelled out in post #38 (Exodus), the western world owes its dynamic understanding of reality to the Hebrews. It began with the experience of the Great Escape from Egypt, and it continued in the subsequent reflections of the Hebrew sages in the Bible's Wisdom literature. I've spelled out those thoughts on Wisdom/Sophia in a number of recent posts (#40 to #45).
I've also frequently referred to the French philosopher of science, Claude Tresmontant, author of A Study of Hebrew Thought. As I noted in post #39, he makes the point that this dynamic-evolutionary perspective is in the greatest contrast to the static worldview that had previously prevailed for countless generations. As he puts it in the language of philosophy, "being itself is dynamic rather than static." It is the nature of whatever exists to be continuously evolving.
Tresmontant refers to this breakthrough in human awareness occasioned by the Exodus event as an "evolutionary metaphysics" and notes that, in humanity's cultural development, the Hebrew idea of creativity and newness is as significant as the discovery of fire.
I've also mentioned many times Teilhard's statement that the dawning of the dynamic-evolutionary worldview "is the biggest change in consciousness since consciousness first appeared on Earth several million years ago."
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One of my main points in the previous post is that "it's not quite correct to say that the Judeo-Christian tradition began in the context of the dynamic-evolutionary worldview." Put more accurately, the dynamic worldview is the very essence of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
I noted in that post that the reason this still sounds like such a strange claim is "because we're not yet comfortable with the idea of a dynamic-- in contrast to a static-- worldview." So we need to keep in mind just what "dynamic" means. It is a synonym for the Latin word spiritus and comes from the Greek word dynamis. Both words mean power and energy. The first chapter of Genesis describes the divine spiritus-- "the dynamis of God"-- as "hovering over the surface of the waters at the beginning" and in the Psalms it is said to "fill the whole world, giving life to all living creatures."
The Psalms and Genesis were written long after the Hebrew experience of the Exodus. Those stories and poems are part of the wisdom perspective that pervades the Hebrew Bible. The entire wisdom tradition speaks of the dynamis-- energy and power-- of God creating us, guiding us, gathering us, providing for us. The whole history of the Jewish people is understood as being brought about by this holy spiritus.
And as Tresmontant notes, this dynamic-evolutionary perspective is the down-to-earth worldview of a people who were farmers and shepherds. Their Wisdom literature sees Divine Sophia, the Wisdom of God, not only delighting in the creation of the Earth and its children-- delighting in the world of human persons-- but also calling us to participate in her creative work in the world.
One other aspect of Hebrew thought which Tresmontant notes also is important to keep in mind here. Not only is the world going somewhere, there is also a unique type of personality in Hebrew culture who is especially able to see the direction in which the world is moving: the nabi (prophet). And the direction is peace, pax, shalom. "The wolf will lie down with the lamb," says the prophet Isaiah. Today we would call it social justice.
This is the dynamic evolutionary context in which Jesus was born and in which the first communities of his followers were formed.
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That dynamic context is quite explicit in the gospel stories. We easily miss it, because, as I've said, "we're not comfortable yet with the idea of a dynamic-- in contrast to a static-- worldview."
The dynamic consciousness, for example, is the focus of the story of Jesus' baptism. Christians nowadays don't pay much attention to that story, but in the early days of Christianity Jesus' baptism in the Jordan was considered the central event in his life. It was of tremendous importance to his followers.
And although this will sound very odd, it is the baptism of Jesus, not his birth, that was the original Christmas story.
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The second century Christians in Alexandria-- the cultural center of the Mediterranean world at that time-- selected the Egyptian date of the winter solstice and the start of the new year to celebrate the baptism of Jesus. The date was January 6, a high point on the old pre-Christian Egyptian calendar celebrating the manifestation of divinity as the Alexandrians saw it. So it was good choice for the celebration of the manifestation of the divine spiritus in Jesus.
Except for Easter, January 6 was the only feast day on the Christian calendar at that time. A day to mark the birth of Jesus came later. That was added by Christians in Rome-- the political rather than cultural center of the empire-- and they also selected a pre-Christian winter solstice festival, which in Rome was understood to occur on December 25.
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Even today, January 6 is a major date on the Eastern church calendars, and it still has the original word "manifestation" in its name; they call it Theophany. The western churches call it Epiphany. The "phan" (or "fan") part of those words literally means "showing"-- just like what a fan-dancer does.
In the Western tradition two other events were also understood to be epiphanies of the dynamic spiritus manifesting itself in Jesus: the visit of the Magi from the east and Jesus' first "sign," as the gospel calls it, his turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. On the western calendar the story of the Magi's visit eventually became more important than the baptism, but for many centuries the baptism continued to be celebrated on the octave, eight days later.
Today, on the Roman calendar used in English-speaking countries, the feast of the Three Kings has been moved to a Sunday near January 6 and the baptism is still remembered eight days later, on the following Sunday. (But the wedding feast story is read as a gospel only every third year.)
The Eastern churches, however, both Catholic and Orthodox, still celebrate the baptism of Jesus on January 6. And there is one national church, Armenia-- the very oldest Christian nation-- that never got around to adding December 25 to its calendar. They still celebrate Christmas on January 6.
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I've given all this seemingly trivial information because it helps us to see that the original Christmas story is the baptism, rather than the birth, of Jesus. If we're still functioning in a static and dualistic rather than dynamic worldview, we can easily miss its significance.
That the baptism of Jesus was about the manifestation of the dynamic spiritus which fills the whole world is clear from the ancient Eastern church custom of blessing a body of water each year on January 6. (The Roman church also had a blessing of water on that date, but it had been unused for centuries and was dropped from the books around 1900.) The blessing of water is still a central event in many Eastern churches, Catholic as well as Orthodox, when on the morning of January 6 parishioners go to the nearest stream or river or ocean to bless the waters of all creation.
Water here is understood to be the primal element-- the very substance of the world-- filled with the Dynamis of God. Jesus' descent into and immersion in the waters of the Jordan is an image of the divine energy filling the whole cosmos.
The fact that these customs have been lost to western Christianity is a clear indication of the extent of the loss of the dynamic worldview which prevailed for the first thousand years of Christian tradition. My point in all of this is that, with the help of modern science, the evolutionary perspective at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is being recovered once again in our day.
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When we see the world as a dynamic process, then the core of western religion makes good sense. But to see the Divine Dynamis as the cosmic evolutionary spiritus it's important to keep in mind the basic pattern of the evolutionary process: when the material of the world reaches a certain level of complexity, new things emerge. "Matter, life and mind" is the underlying structure to the entire cosmic process as we Earthlings experience it.
In a static context, individuals feel themselves imprisoned in an alien world from which they need to escape. In an evolutionary context, we experience ourselves quite differently: we experience ourselves as related to all things and blessed to be free participants in the cosmic process.
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There is one more point, one which western culture still finds difficult to accept: that the evolutionary process doesn't stop with the emergence and development of individuals. There is what I called in post #22 "The Other Half of 'Person'." It's the idea that our personal relationships and our communion with all else is also an aspect of the evolutionary process.
With the strong sense of individualism that's part of western culture, it's not easy for us to see that the evolution of the universe continues not just in the development of conscious individuals but also in the emergence of communities of persons.
The essence of the New Cosmology is that the developmental sequence of the cosmic process is matter, life, mind and communion. Biological evolution continues beyond the personal level in our connection with all things and specifically in our relationships on the human cultural level.
The fact that humanity's cultural development is an aspect of the cosmic process has become much clearer in our day with the growing awareness that we live in one world, "spaceship Earth," where all of us are mutually inter-dependent.
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When we look at western religion from that dynamic perspective, we can see not only that humanity's awareness of the process began with the Hebrew slaves' escape from Egypt and that it continues in the teachings of the sages and the sayings of the prophets, but also that it continues right into the new testament stories of Jesus and his early followers.
The early Christians saw the world as a process; they also saw Jesus as the embodiment of the divine dynamism of that process; and they saw themselves as the embodiment of Jesus.
To make clear what I mean about "re-situating the Christmas story in the context of the new Universe Story" I need to say a few words about each of the three parts of that sentence.
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They saw the world as a process. Obviously Jesus and his early followers didn't know anything about DNA or natural selection, but the very essence of his teaching was that something was in process in the world. When his followers asked him how they should pray, he told them to say, "thy kingdom come!"
We still call it "the Lord's Prayer" and it's said a million times each day on the Earth. But the words are so familiar that, understood in a static worldview, we miss their meaning. In a dynamic perspective, "the prayer that Jesus taught us" is clearly a prayer for the success of the cosmic process at the level of human relationships.
"Thy kingdom come" is a prayer for the coming of justice and peace-- pax, shalom-- when "the wolf will lie down with the lamb." It's a prayer for communion of persons and for personal relationships-- for the new creation which, thanks to the divine dynamis, emerges at the communal level of human development.
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They also saw Jesus as the embodiment of the divine dynamism of the process. The early Christians saw Jesus as the embodiment of the wisdom and the power of God. While the words sound unfamiliar in a static context, they are stated as explicitly as possible in the earliest Christian writings. At the beginning of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, for example, Paul describes Jesus as "the dynamis of God and the sophia of God." (Those Greek terms aren't a translation; they are the words used in the original.)
We still hear this understanding of Jesus as the dynamis and sophia of God at Christmas time-- in readings and stories, verses from Isaiah on Christmas cards, for example-- but once again it's easy to miss if we hear it in a static context. One especially good example is found in Paul's letter to Titus that is still read, as it has been for centuries, at the Midnight Mass of Christmas. "In him," says Paul, "the charis (grace, love) of God has been manifest to us." The Greek for "has been manifest" is epephane. In a non-evolutionary context, we just don't hear it.
A much more familiar example is the ancient Advent hymn, "Come, O come, Emmanuel." The very first verse begins, "Come, O come, thou Wisdom from on high." In a evolutionary context, we would hear something like, "Come, O come, Sophia from on high."
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And they saw themselves as the embodiment of Jesus. The communities of Jesus' followers understood themselves to be the continuation of his work. They saw themselves as a new kind of community in humanity's cultural development-- at the very growing edge of the cosmic process-- helping to bring about the coming of the kingdom-- the reign-- of divine Sophia.
In the previous post I emphasized the importance of the idea of emergence in understanding the cosmic process. It's also the key to understanding the story of the coming of Jesus and the founding of the communities of his followers in the dynamic-evolutionary context.
A contemporary Jewish source expresses this understanding of the emergence of new communities well. The prophetic American rabbi Arthur Waskow captures precisely this sense of the formation of new communities in the dynamic process of human cultural development. In a letter about the 2008 presidential elections, he says the world is in such a mess that it's like living in an earthquake-- "God's earthquake," he calls it-- and that we have to learn "to dance our way to a new world from the earthquake of the old."
"Modern' civilization is devouring itself," says the rabbi, "turning its towering control of the world, of the earth itself, into self-destruction. The certainties of Modern life are quaking, and our country as a whole does not know what to do." He notes that while some seek to hang on to the old certainties, it "takes even more courage than in the past to renew the ancient bubblings of Truth and Transformation." It means, he says, "jumping off into a world we cannot remember."
"To shape these new communities, broader and deeper than we have known, will take not force of arms but hearing of the heart. Maybe only 'YHWH,' the Interbreathing of all life that appears in every human language and in the lives of every life-form, can do it."
Rabbi Arthur's main point is that "God's Great Dance is between Control and Community, A great leap forward in Control must be followed by a great deep warming of Community." And that, he says, "is what happened when the West-Semitic tribes faced the power of Imperial Egypt and Imperial Sumeria: They went deep into the Spirit, and arose with Torah, a new form of community. That is what happened when the conquered Jews faced Imperial Rome: they went deep into the Spirit, and arose with Talmud and New Testament, two new forms of community."
Notice where those new forms of community come from, when we're caught in the earthquake of patriarchy suppressing everything new for the sake of power and control. Rabbi Arthur says it twice: "They went deep into the Spirit." New community emerges from the dynamism (spiritus) of the cosmic process. (It is a good letter. If you'd like to be on the rabbi's mailing list, you can send him a note at The Shalom Center: www.shalomctr.org.)
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Once again, it's the idea of emergence that's the key to understanding what the coming of Jesus and the founding of the communities of his followers looks like in the evolutionary context. In the emergence process we see that at the biological level, DNA can do things that its chemical components can't; and at the neurological level, a human being can do things that brain cells can't. In exactly the same way, at the cultural level, human communities can do things that individuals can't.
Historically, communities have used words like "gathering," "assembly" and "meeting" to name themselves as something more than individuals. Buddhists still use the Sanskrit word sangha. Greek Christians used the word ekklesia.
The main point of this post is that the formation of such gatherings is the growing edge of the cosmic process on Earth, and that, in the context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution, the essence of the Christmas story is our awareness of the Growing Edge.
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The very earliest Christian communities saw themselves this way. At first they were exclusively Jewish. (Remember their question I mentioned in post #37: Would non-Jewish males who wanted to become Christians have to be circumcised first?)
But those Jewish communities fairly quickly opened themselves to anyone of good will who wanted to join, women and men, circumcised or not. And it wasn't long before they began to use the Greek word katholic to describe their gatherings; they saw themselves as world-wide or universal. Probably the best words today to express what they intended by katholic would be "global" and "all-inclusive."
And at their best, the contemporary expressions of those communities still understand themselves as a generative force in the world. At their best, they still see themselves, as the early Christian communities saw themselves, as continuing the work of Jesus in bringing about the new creation of peace and justice. At their best, they exclude no one. (At their best.)
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So, here's the Christmas story in the context of cosmic evolution:
Once upon a time, long ago, the growing edge of the cosmic process was the formation of galaxies, stars and planets. Later, when planet Earth was new, the growing edge was the formation of living things and their development-- from sponges, worms and fish to birds, mammals and primates-- by way of natural selection.
Two million years ago, the growing edge was the emergence among the primates of self-reflective consciousness. And twenty-five centuries ago, the growing edge was the emergence among the Hebrew people of an awareness-- "as significant as the discovery of fire"-- of the cosmic process itself; their sages saw it as the manifestation of the energy and wisdom of God.
Two thousand years ago, the earliest followers of Jesus saw him as a personal embodiment-- and saw themselves as the communal embodiment-- of that same wisdom and power.
And today, we are coming to recognize that every gathering of good-willed persons working for peace and justice-- even if it's just two or three, as Jesus himself said-- is an embodiment of that Energy of God which moved over the face of the waters at the beginning of creation.
I think the best thing about re-situating the Christmas story in the context of the New Cosmology is seeing that it's not something that happened long ago. It's going on right now.
sam@macspeno.com
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
#47. The Growing Edge
Sunday, June 1, 2008
#37. What's Next
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"Behind every blade of grass is an angel telling it 'Grow! Grow!' "
That's a Medieval Jewish saying. A messenger of God is standing behind every living thing in the world, urging it to grow. It's a good image of the dynamic-developmental worldview seen within a religious context: the Mystery behind the universe desires each of us to become all that we can be.
The fact that it's a Medieval saying makes clear that the developmental worldview isn't all that new; what's new in this time of the Immense Transition is that the evolutionary perspective is entering into the conscious awareness of everyone.
My efforts with the blog to share these kinds of thoughts about the convergence of science and religion were mentioned in an article in the May 2008 issue of This Active Life, the National Education Association's magazine for retired members. The cover story is on the use of technology by retired teachers, "Retirement in the Digital Age."
As a result of that NEA article, an 85-year-old retired teacher sent a comment asking if I would explain how the people of early times could live, as the Bible says, for 700 or 800 years. I used the opportunity to talk a bit about the early Christian practice of understanding Bible stories in four different ways rather than only in a literal sense. (That ancient idea of the "four senses of scripture" is yet another-- and important-- example of the quaternary perspective.) You can read her comment and my response at the end of post #34.
The main point of my response was to say that "the Bible stories about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit," as the questioner put it, are about the same thing science is: the evolutionary development of the world.
It's a big claim-- not one that people still living in the context of a static worldview can hear easily or take seriously. But I think it makes good sense in terms of the Immense Transition. I hope to spell out some of the details of it in the next few posts.
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Many of my earlier posts are devoted to the ideas about human consciousness that we have today thanks to modern brain studies.
In the dynamic-evolutionary perspective, we see that the world shows itself at the three levels of cosmos, life, and mind. That's been a neglected area of religious thought. I offered some ideas about how mind shows itself via the biological brain in posts #10-#20.
As I see it, those findings of contemporary neurological studies which can help us most to become comfortable with this view of the human spirit (soul, person) is the understanding that consciousness is a naturally emergent result of cosmic and biological evolution. I've emphasized the ideas of Biogenetic Structuralism which calls itself "Anthropology Plus" in its attempts to understand the mystery of personal consciousness. It looks at biological evolution, neurophysiology and cultural anthropology together.
It's not an easy perspective to grasp, to be sure. My efforts to spell out basic neurological ideas in posts #12 and #13 on the Cognitive Extension of Prehension and the Cognized Environment are a challenge for many, but those concepts are essential aspects of the Immense Transition humanity is currently experiencing. The main idea is that soul (spirit, person, mind, consciousness) is the natural next step in biological evolution after the appearance of our primate relatives. And saying that in no way denies, of course, the existence of an incomprehensible source standing behind the whole evolutionary process telling us "Grow! Grow!"
In a recent op-ed piece, "The Neural Buddhists," in the New York Times (13 May 08), columnist David Brooks writes that the science-religion debate is now shifting to a focus on neuroscience. He says, "The revolution in neuroscience is having an effect on how people see the world." (Indeed! It's been described as "possibly the most important cultural issue of our time.") Brooks notes specifically that "The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible."
I don't often agree with David Brooks; one of my earliest posts, #5, has some very negative things to say about his science-religion views. But I agree with his main point here, although I'd put it a little differently. I don't think the cognitive revolution is "going end up challenging faith in the Bible" so much as that it's going to end up challenging a static understanding of the Bible.
When we look at the Bible stories from the dynamic-evolutionary perspectives of contemporary science, we can see that what they are all about is nothing less than early versions of the same dynamic-evolutionary perspectives which contemporary science is making known to us. As briefly as I can say it: The evolutionary worldview is precisely what the Judeo-Christian tradition is all about. And that is the convergence I'm referring to when I call this blog "sharing thoughts about the convergence of science and religion."
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Back in post #28 ("Where I'm At") I presented three "snapshots" of where I wanted to go next with these blog efforts. The first "snapshot" had to do with spelling out the four-fold nature of the mind. For me, the quaternary perspective is of tremendous value in understanding the stages of personal and cultural development; it provides us with what I think of as the essential tools we need for understanding the Immense Transition. I've shared those thoughts in seven recent posts: #29-#31 and #33-#36.
The second "snapshot" in post #28 has to do with what I called "re-situating the Christmas story." By that I mean understanding the Judeo-Christian tradition in the context of that new Universe Story which has become available to us thanks to modern science. As I said in that post, "I'd like to share my thoughts about how different-- and indeed exciting-- the story of the coming of Jesus looks in the context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution."
So that's "What's Next" in these blog efforts.
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I often refer to the "Judeo-Christian tradition"-- as if Jews and Christians are parts of one single religious tradition. They are, in two senses. One is that all western culture-- which until recently was the dominant culture of the world, and out of which arose major human cultural endeavors such as the quest for democracy and for an understanding of the natural world-- has its roots not only in Greek philosophy but also in the Bible stories found in what Christians call the Old and New Testaments.
C. G. Jung says that if we westerners are to understand ourselves, we have to know the Bible stories. They're in our blood. We are influenced by their images whether we're conscious of them or not.
A good example is the Adam and Eve story. It has had a tremendous impact on how almost everyone in the western world understands our human origins. A better example, in the sense that its influence is less obvious, is the story of Jonah. Everyone in the world-- at least everyone in Europe, North and South America, and all those parts of the world which were influenced by European colonization-- knows something about the ancient story of a man who was swallowed by a whale. We may not know what it means, but we all know the story.
The second sense in which the Judeo-Christian tradition is one tradition is that Christianity really is a branch of the Jewish religion. Jesus was Jewish, of course, and so were his early followers in the first few decades of the Christian church. It was a major event when those early Jewish-Christians were confronted with non-Jews wanting to be part of their communities.
We can see just how Jewish those early Christians were in the question that arose which sounds very odd today: Did a non-Jewish male have to be circumcised if he wanted to become a Christian? (Luckily for generations of European males, the answer decided on was "no.")
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My plan with regard to looking at the Judeo-Christian tradition in the context of that New Cosmology is to start at the beginning by asking: What is the origin of the dynamic-developmental worldview? Where did the idea of evolution come from in the first place?
The answer is not "Darwin" but "the Bible." It turns out that monotheism and evolution go together. They characterize the Hebrew perspective. The developmental worldview began with the Jewish Exodus, with reflections by the Hebrew sages on the Great Escape from Egypt.
So that's going to be my starting point. I want to look first at the stories of the Jewish Bible within an evolutionary worldview context, then look at the New Testament stories about the coming of Jesus in that same context, and eventually look at the understanding of his followers in that same evolutionary worldview.
I don't intend to introduce any new ideas or images, but rather to look at those stories on their own terms-- but always in a dynamic rather than static context. It will seem to many like new ideas.
The briefest overview I can offer is to say that from beginning to end-- Old Testament, New Testament and early church-- it's all one consistent picture. "One single design," as the early 20th century theologian Henri de Lubac put it.
I wish "one single design" didn't sound so much like "intelligent design"! But once again, we're stuck with the words. We have to make do with less than ideal terminology.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
#28. "Where I'm At"
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"There has never been a more exciting time for the intellectually curious."
The quote is from a Yahoo news article of 30 Dec 2007 about courses being offered free on the internet by big name schools. When I first read it I thought to myself, "But who's not intellectually curious?"
It seems curious to me to categorize some people as "intellectually curious" but others not; it's almost feels like a denial of the essential nature of human consciousness.
Certainly some of us are more intellectually curious than others. But when we think about ourselves in the context of cosmic and biological evolution, it's obvious that gnosis (knowledge) is what personal consciousness is all about. We seek to know, we seek to understand the world and our place in it: intellectual curiosity is one of our most essential human characteristics.
And "thinking about ourselves in the context of cosmic and biological evolution" is precisely what the great shift in human awareness called the "Universe Story" is all about. It's still not easy for many of us to see ourselves in that broad evolutionary context-- let alone begin to intentionally function within it. But like it or not, that's the transition we're in. It's an Immense Transition, a Great Turning; indeed, as Teilhard de Chardin said, it's the biggest change in human self-awareness "since awareness first dawned on our planet several million years ago."
That's why the evolutionary perspectives of modern science are so important. They allow us to see the world and ourselves more correctly than was possible in previous generations. We have a far better understanding of the world and of ourselves today than was possible in past ages when the world was thought to be static and human beings were considered something apart (and superior to) the natural world.
Here's an example of just how significant the change is: In the static perspective, God is thought of as a being who either exists apart from the world or simply doesn't exist at all; in a non-evolutionary context, the rationalist worldview writes off God while the fundamentalist worldview writes off the world. In either case, however, it's not God or the world but the essential dignity of persons as the conscious part of the universe that gets negated.
And the result? Exploitation of both humans and the natural world. Damaged persons and destroyed environments are direct results of the static-dualistic world view. It's not just a coincidence, for example, that those who object to biological evolution don't object to environmental damage or to human torture.
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Religious dualism and patriarchal rationalism were the basic heritage of Western culture until around the middle of the 20th century. It took a long time for the significance of the evolutionary perspectives to dawn on us! But we are finally coming to see that we humans are both part of, and responsible for, nature. And as the findings of contemporary science begin to impact the Western mind, it becomes clear to us that it's the modern scientific perspective, not institutional religion, which marks the end of the static-dualistic world view.
I've referred to "The End of Dualism" a number of times in these blog entries; it follows from that neurological understanding of the relationship between the brain and the mind which, in Biogenetic Structuralist jargon, is expressed as the cognitive extension of prehension. Posts #11 and #12 focus on those ideas.
Science offers more hope for the future than does institutional religion because science belongs to everybody; it's available to anyone willing to learn about it, while religious institutions continue to be as static and exclusive as big industry, big oil and big politics.
Religious experience, on the other hand, is as personal as scientific knowledge, so it's especially important to keep in mind that the contemporary convergence of science and religion isn't happening primarily at academic meetings or church conferences but in the minds and hearts of individuals-- of you and me-- in everyday life.
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It's also important to keep in mind that when I say "science is available to everyone," I don't mean only the physical sciences such as astronomy and geology or nuclear physics. I mean also-- and especially-- the biological and human sciences. Areas of study such as psychology and anthropology are even more important than the physical sciences for a better understanding of ourselves and of our place in the world.
But we've been especially slow in coming to see the significance of the human sciences. The static-dualistic outlook lasted for so many centuries in the western world that we can't expect it to fade away as quickly as we'd like. But the results of the lack of intellectual curiosity, specifically in our political leaders, has recently become much more apparent than previously; and that kind of dawning awareness on the part of people in general is no less significant than is the availability of the world's knowledge on the web.
So I want to give a big "Yes!" to that Yahoo news article. Indeed, "There has never been a more exciting time for the intellectually curious." I only want to add that it also means that "there's never been a more exciting time" for all of us.
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The thoughts that I've been sharing in this blog "on the convergence of science and religion," as I've called it, have focused in two areas: one is the dynamic (rather than static) nature of the world and the unitive (rather than dualistic) nature of human awareness; posts #12 to #16 especially deal with all that. The other is the social-communal nature of personal consciousness, what I've called "the other half of person;" posts #22 to #25 deal with those ideas.
In a comment sent in by "Mollie" (it appears at the end of post #25), she notes that I haven't said much about God. She's right. I avoid using the word "God" as much as possible, primarily because everyone feels that they already know what the word means. And if we still have a static worldview-- whether rationalist or dualist-- all we would be doing in that context is proving (or disproving) that a static supreme being exists. That's not very interesting!
I'm much more interested in thinking about what the word "God" can mean in a non-static and non-dualistic context. But we don't seem to be too comfortable-- yet!-- talking about God in a evolutionary and unitive world view. It involves a change in our understanding which is simply unthinkable for many. I don't mean "unthinkable" in the sense that it's unattractive or repulsive, but that it's literally an idea which for many doesn't ever reach the level of conscious thought. (This is one place where Brad Blanton's understanding of radical honesty, as the way out of the childhood belief stage of human development, would be especially helpful.)
At the end of her note, Mollie said: "I think God must be something/one different from religion itself-- maybe the question is left over again from old thinking, but it still remains my question."
It's a good question and I don't see it at all as "left over from the past." I think we're just getting to it. It's only when we have a good (that is, non-dualistic and non-static) sense of the physical world and our conscious selves within it can we then give serious attention to contemporary reflections about "God." I'm not in any way saying we shouldn't think about what "God" can mean, but only that, if we are to do it well, we have a lot of preliminary work to do first. (See "Snapshot #3" below, for an example.)
I see three major needs. 1) We need a good understanding of the cosmic process: that it is the universe showing itself at three levels of complexity (matter, life and mind). 2) We need a good understanding of mind (soul, personal awareness) as the activity of the universe showing itself at its most complex level (the human brain). And 3) we need a good understanding of human culture as the on-going activity of the evolutionary process.
That's the dynamic context in which I want to think about God. So, Mollie: Hang in there! I'm getting to it, and as I said above, "there's never been a more exciting time for all of us."
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And it's precisely that excitement which I would like to share with readers. I've often said that I would need to be a poet or writer of fiction to do a good job at it, and I don't have those skills.
In his book, Radical Honesty, Brad Blanton quotes the words of e. e. cummings about a poet being someone who is "abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement." Blanton notes that "communicating honestly about events is hard enough, without even trying to communicate our feelings." But he also says that "being descriptive of one's own feelings in so precise a way as to evoke feeling in another is the heart of the creative power of poets." And, he adds, "of honest speech."
So my hope is that I can do something like what poets do simply by offering my honest thoughts. And to do so, at the same time, in trust that my impulse to share my thoughts is itself an expression of the cosmic evolutionary process.
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When I started this blog at the end of 2006 I saw myself setting up a basic structure, a kind of scaffolding, for the numerous bits and pieces of an overall picture which I've put together over my forty-plus years of working, thinking and teaching in the areas of religion and science. I had the idea that, at the rate of two or three postings a month, it to take about two years to spell out the basic thoughts I want to share. More than a year later, I still think "two years" is a pretty good estimate.
The question is: "Where should I go next?"
The first post of 2008 is #27 on Radical Honesty: The How-to of Ontogenesis; it follows directly from three of the previous posts (#23, 24 & 25) on the stages of personal development as it's understood to happen within in a cosmic context. And #27 deals with what may hold us back from growing as persons and what we need to do if we are to move through the developmental stages of belief and adolescent ego-experience so that we can eventually arrive at that mature contemplative-participatory level which many cultural traditions call "wisdom consciousness."
So "Where I'm at" now is that I have no less than three big areas of related thoughts that I'd like to share. Each follows from and extends the ideas of the previous posts. And they all seem to "want out" via me at the same time.
In my planning notes at the end of December, 2007, I said to myself, "just now I'm thinking that maybe a post about all three together would make good sense.... Maybe I should try for a combo?"
So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to briefly describe each of these three-- quite different but related-- sets of ideas which seem to be calling for creative expression via me just now. I'm not going to write exhaustingly about them, but merely offer a snap-shot of each. They can easily become full postings in the near future-- if it seems that that's what the cosmic process is asking.
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Before I offer those snapshots, I want to say a word about the idea that the cosmic process may be asking something of me. Despite the fact that I think I'm comfortable with "the age-old religious idea of vocation" (as I said in posting #18, Called by the Universe), I also find it embarrassing.
I don't mean that I'd much rather be out playing golf.
In my very first blog entry, I said that it "was sparked by three significant media articles about the connections between science and religion which appeared in Oct-Nov 2006 and helped me spell out what I think of as my 'cosmic vocation'." I also said in that initial posting that it was "Thanks to Andrew Newberg's book [The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience] that 'I have finally-- in my 69th year!-- found my 'field' or 'area of interest' or 'vocation, my calling from the universe'."
So I'm not about to turn my back on that calling. But in keeping with Brad Blanton's ideas about not letting shame, guilt or embarrassment hold us back, I want to acknowledge my feelings of embarrassment at having such a cosmic calling. (And to acknowledge that even saying that is embarrassing!)
Anyway... Here are my three snapshots:
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Snapshot #1: One set of ideas I have in mind has to do with the integration of consciousness at the third stage of maturity. It would be a direct follow-up to the previous post (#27) about Blanton's understanding of honesty at the different stages of personal development.
As I said in that post, "If you are familiar with the Jungian idea of the four-fold functions of consciousness or with the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, you may have noticed that the progression in the levels of honesty goes from Sensing (in the belief stage) to the judgment functions of Thinking and Feeling (in the ego-experience stage) and to the image-making Intuitive function (in the most mature stage)."
That four-fold "quaternary" perspective allows us a wholistic understanding of conscious awareness that is invaluable for our self-understanding. It's one of the "treasures" found in Radical Honesty. It's something I've been collecting thoughts about for many years. And I'd be delighted to share it with readers.
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Snapshot #2: A second direction in which I'd like to move is to expand on the idea of creative enactment as the means by which we participate in the evolutionary process at the third stage of our personal development.
I mentioned in post #26 (Help from Uncle Louie), that "enactment" is used with exactly the same meaning by both Thomas Merton and Biogenetic Structuralism, and I recently came across an identical use of the term in a very different context: an understanding of Buddhist meditation as "enacting the universe."
It's contained in a fascinating essay by Paula Hirschboeck, a professor of philosophy and former Catholic nun become Buddhist, entitled "A Zen Way into the Buddhist Story". It's available on the internet and easy to read, so I hope you might take a look at it.
I think her understanding of zazen as an enactment of the universe also is true of tai chi, as I've described briefly in post #6. Both of these traditional Asian practices are becoming fairly common among contemporary western spiritual seekers and they relate to my life-long interest in ritual. So I'd like to share my thoughts about how they make good sense in terms of the human sciences and as, in Merton's words, "a means of communion with cosmic reality at the deepest level of our being."
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Snapshot #3: The third direction I'd like to move in (at the same time as the other two!) will seem at first a bit more unusual: it has to do with re-situating the Christmas story in the context of the Universe Story.
On Christmas Eve of 2005 I attended the service of Lessons and Carols at a fashionable church in downtown Philadelphia. The music was sung beautifully and the lessons were proclaimed powerfully, but the content was dreadful. It began with the story of Adam and Eve eating the apple, how death was the punishment for their disobedience and that it was all the woman's fault; and the carols seemed to focus on the need for bloodshed to save us from that inheritance.
Two years later I attended a Christmas eve service in a church where great effort is expanded on incorporating everyone into the liturgical rites and on following through on the implications of those rites in terms of inter-religious dialogue, gender equality and social justice.
But that Christmas Eve service could have been held 100 years ago. It began with a procession in which a plaster statute of a baby, carried into the church by a young couple, was solemnly placed into the Nativity scene, and was followed by prayers that we might be saved from our disobedience. The sermon was about the birth of the baby as the world's greatest love story.
We can do better.
I don't mean just with rituals on Christmas eve but with our whole understanding of the Christmas story. We need to look at it in an updated context, that of the New Cosmology which modern science makes available to us. I'd like to share my thoughts about how different-- and indeed exciting-- the story of the coming of Jesus looks in the context of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution.
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Ultimately, at least at one level these three sets of ideas are all about the same thing. My quandary is that I can't move in all three directions at once.
That's "Where I'm at."
sam@macspeno.com
