#127. On The Frontiers of Science & Spirituality

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ARCHIVE. For a list of all my published posts: 

http://www.sammackintosh.blogspot.com/

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Blog entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them with all who are interested.

If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com

Post #127 is a essay, originally written for three friends, about what I think is one of the most important books in our time dealing with the convergence of science and religion.

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Dear M, D & M,

This is my review of Belonging to the Universe, Explorations on the Frontiers of Science & Spirituality, by Fritjof Capra, David Steindl-Rast and Thomas Matus. (HarperSF, 1991).

The book simply may have appeared a few years too soon. It is a highly edited record of conversations between the physicist, Frithof Capra and two monks, Br. David and another, Thomas Matus, whose name was not previously familiar.

Their main idea is that there are strong parallels between the paradigm shifts occurring in science and religion. It provides a compendium, I called it a "catechism," of basic religious insights that fit well into the new story of the world unfolding from the post-Newtonian scientific perspectives.

I like to call the paradigm shift the Immense Transition. But by whatever name, it involves a new understanding of the physical universe, of humanity's place in it, and of the creative source.

This "essay" (review) is an attempt to bring together and summarize in an easily readable form the main ideas suggested in the book.

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There are five major components to the paradigm shift in science. The first two concern nature: a shift from focusing on parts to seeing the whole picture, and seeing the whole not in terms of structures but as a vast net of relationships.

The other three components have to do with a change in human understanding precisely of human understanding. It includes explicit consciousness that our understanding and expression of reality is at best an approximation, always tentative and never exhausting. As Thomas Aquinas says, "In the end, all things fade into mystery."

The shift in science from parts to whole is described well in Mary Conrow Coelho's book in the section called "We have found no primal dust." The parallel shift in religion is from dogmas (truths and beliefs) to seeing all reality as revelation. It is stated clearly by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme as the first principle of the new cosmology: "the world itself is the primary revelation."

It is important to note that "the world" here includes not just the natural world but also human history and especially personal experience. The emphasis in both science and religion is on process, and a major aspect is the shift in human awareness away from the only-rational or logical way of knowing to include other forms of consciousness.

While the participants in these conversations do not mention the Jungian understanding of the four-fold functioning of consciousness, that Jungian perspective is extremely helpful in dealing with these issues.

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What follows are some main points about the five major components of the paradigm shift.

1. In terms of purposes, science is described as systematic knowledge, whereas religion is more concerned with praxis and inner experience. A major problem is that historically, both science and western religion quickly became patriarchal and institutionalized (religion long before science); a primary component of the paradigm shift is movement out of that hierarchical-institutional mentality.

All the participants agree, with regard to organizations, that anything new and/or inter-disciplinary is squelched; science does it via without holding grant-money, religion by withholding authorization to function as teacher or preacher. Any form of difference or diversity is a threat to the patriarchal mindset.

David emphasizes that religion is like language in that it only exists in specific forms; he says that whatever form it has, it comes originally from the encounter with mystery and meaning.

He describes religion as essentially the sense of belonging to the whole of reality, and seeing reality as participatory. I.e., the basis of religion is precisely our experience of mystery: the meaningfulness of our belonging to the whole of the universe. Thus the basic context of religion is, therefore, the scientific worldview.

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2. In terms of methods, science means collecting information and looking for patterns. The participants agree that the method of theology is less clear, and they move almost immediately into a discussion of faith which they agree has to do with intuition. (Right at the start, the limitations of discussing the paradigm shift without reference to the four-fold way consciousness operates becomes apparent.)

Religious faith is described as trust rather than intellectual assent to conceptual propositions. Frithof emphasizes that science also involves trust, specifically in the validity of non-rational perception. David emphasizes that religious faith is trust that "we have a future."

I think it would be correct to say that faith, in both cases, is trust that the intuitive and sensation functions of consciousness "work," that they have validity. My wording for religious faith is something like: trust in the cosmos as manifestation of the Mystery; trust, specifically, that in fashioning and guiding cosmos and anthropos, Divine Wisdom does not give up, that creation is not a failure. Religious faith is more "whole person" oriented than scientific faith.

The participants agrees that both religion and science use models to describe the patterns discerned, and that those models must be internally consistent and recognized as approximations. This gets them into a discussion of revelation. David emphasizes that because belonging is the basic common experiential ground of all religions, the Ultimate must then in some sense be personal and that our existence and essence is, then, gift. I.e., that the world, cosmos and anthropos, is the self-revelation of the Ultimate.

Important to recognize is that this understanding of revelation does not mean that the Ultimate intervenes from outside the world, but that what changes is our awareness. This is what anamnesis is about: remembering what really is the case: consciousness coming to a better or fuller understanding of how things work, that the Ultimate unveils itself in the luminosity of the world.

As I've put it: revelation is awareness of our creation via kenosis. We need a name for awareness of our fashioning as participants in the divine kenosis. This is what Sergius Bulgakov and Pavel Florensky were so good about: the understanding of cultural evolution as itself revelation, specifically resulting from, as well as caused by, the synergy of the divine human inter-activity. This is good stuff, and needs far more exploration that is offered here.

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3. With regard to theological paradigm shifts, Thomas emphasizes that Christian theology had for the first 1000 years a Gnosis-Wisdom orientation, focused on mystical (peak or transformational) experience, and that this is still the case in Eastern Christianity. But in the West, after roughly 1200 AD Aristotelian-Thomistic scholasticism took over (1200-1500), followed by total fragmentation with Counter-Reformation emphasis on "proof texts theology" centered on polemics and apologetics.

David sees today a rebirth of focus on inner experience, and stresses that much that is new is in fact a recovery of the older gnosis-wisdom perspective: a whole-person centered focus on transformative experience.

Both Thomas and David have very good things to say about Cipriano Vagaggini's work in promoting the paradigm shift: "A key person in our theology, who influenced hundreds, even thousands, of students."

In terms of 20th century European theologians and contemporary experience, the new synthesis of thought and experience, the personal-anthropological component began around the mid-1800s; an outstanding (and surprising, for me) example is John Henry Newman.

Thomas also pays tribute to the Belgian monk, Lambert Baudoin, OSB, who "almost single-handedly founded the RC liturgical movement and the ecumenical movement between RC, Protestants and Orthodox. He was imprisoned and silenced by the church authorities. His focus was ecumenical and mystery-focused liturgy, theology and pastoral practice."

Thomas also makes an important point about the slowness of the paradigm shift; he says that even though large numbers were turned off by the old forms, they clung to them because they saw no alternatives other than total secularism.

Today, of course, there are plenty of alternatives. An updated theology simply isn't a big issue anymore for large numbers, but people still need authentic mystery-focused liturgy, which, alas, remains unavailable. It is the global emergence of the New Cosmology which makes clear the need for a new paradigm in Western religion.

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4. With regard to the Christian paradigm. David makes the important point that there is nothing specifically Christian about religious experience, as it emerges within the global religious context. What is specific to Christianity is the person of Jesus (and of course the Jewish context out of which he comes) and the tradition or community of persons influenced by him in such as way as to consider themselves his followers. Note that in our day many non-Christian religious persons also consider Jesus to be of significance.

David says "It is a relationship to Jesus that defines a person as Christian." He calls it "decisive" but says there are many degrees of it. So Frithof asks, "Well, then, what makes Christianity Christian?

David says: It is the religious experience of Jesus. I.e., Jesus' own religious experience, not his follower's experience with Jesus as the focus.

Jesus comes across as a person with a particularly intimate and extraordinary (even "new," says David) relationship with ultimate reality. And that closeness to the divine is what others pick up and enter into.

This means that contemporary persons who would claim to be Christian are persons who seek the kind of religious experience Jesus exemplified: intimate relationship with the Ultimate.

Note that this unitive, non-dual experience is not that of union with an external and only-transcendent God but of a union simultaneously with "all my relations." It is an intimate relationship with the Ultimate and All.

That's a pretty good definition of "Christian," I think, in that it does in fact focus on Jesus as model or exemplifier, and thus savior in that sense.

The Kingdom of God is a central term in the New Testament. It is Jesus' term for the social implications of non-duality, the saving power of God present in human history and available to all, not just to the Jews of Jesus' tradition.

David says: Today, a good way to say what Jesus meant by "the kingdom of God is here" would be something like: the Ultimate's power and presence is manifest in our inner (deepest, peak) experience of belonging to the universe. It is a "saving" experience precisely because it saves us from alienation from the universe. Salvation means to not be alienated from "all my relations" and the material cosmos.

What about Christian love? David says, "Love is saying yes to belonging." To love someone or something is to affirm it/him/her. To be in love is to joyfully affirm who and what is loved.

Frithof asks if there is a difference between feeling connected to the cosmos and having a sense of belonging to it, "whether we call it peak experience, mystical experience, or religious experience." David calls these experiences of unitive non-duality "Kingdom moments."

On analogy with the animal kingdom and plant kingdom, the Kingdom of God is an "anthropos-cosmos-theos kingdom. David says there is a difference: "it is living accordingly." And this is what conversion (metanoia) means. He also adds that this moral thrust, of living accordingly, of not only giving our fiat to our non-duality but also of acting on it, is stronger in (and is perhaps a distinguishing mark of) Christianity than it is in most other religions.

While the three don't spell it out, I think that this understanding of "living according"-- work (task, opus, liturgia) of acting on the fact of our belonging to the universe and being related to all things-- presents an important alternative to patriarchal understanding of manhood.

Patriarchal manhood is one of exploitation and suppression of "others," based on fear of all that is "not-I." I.e., the essence of patriarchy is alienation from others-- the world, persons and God-- and responding to that alienation in terms of control.

What's the alternative? If not fear: not being afraid. If not control, suppression and exploitation: living in accordance with all things as "my relations." (I remember David once saying, the real question is "How big is my family?")

This perspective is the very opposite of, and alternative to, patriarchal masculine; it is a much needed post-patriarchal gnosis-wisdom, and is central to the New Cosmology.

Patriarchy "suppresses the image of the person," as Bruno Barnhart expresses. David emphasizes that while Jesus and Buddha are historically very different, at the deepest level both were faced with the same formalization and institutionalization of religion.

He says that a new thing in Christianity is the building up of a person's inner authority, whereas external institutional religion (Jewish or Christian) puts it down. David emphasizes that this new understanding of authority goes back to Jesus; he calls it the very starting point of Christianity. It is the religion of Jesus, in contrast to what comes later, a Christianity about Jesus.

The very essence of Christian religious experience is of the presence and power of belonging to the All, to the whole cosmos of "all my relations."

Note that it is not an external worldview but an inner experience. And not an experience of the Thinking function alone, but of the Intuitive, Feeling and Sensation functions together. (Not just of head, but of eye, hand and heart, together.)

This seems to me a really key understanding in the immense transition: the shift from hierarchical-institutional suppression of persons to recognition that "person" is central to the cosmic process. The implication is a shift from external authority to internal: being responsible for oneself. It is the opposite of fear of world and of dependence, therefore, on a only-transcendent divinity to save us from the world.

The new understanding of person and salvation go together: salvation is from alienation (fear, anger, hatred of world and of self and others within it). The gospel says, "Fear not. " And this is only possible if one accepts one's inner authority. This is the great new thing of Christianity, says David.

Thomas adds immediately, that that the main thing to keep in mind about theological statements about Jesus is that they must also be understood as being statements about us. Whatever we say about Jesus must also be said about you and me. He asks, "Even that Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity?" And responds, "Definitely!" That's what Athanasius and the Council of Nicea were all about: "The Divinity becomes human so that humanity may be divine."

Frithof asks, What about resurrection? From our perspective, all we can say is that Jesus' death is not the last word. And this inner experience is not just that of his disciples but of all of us who have been exposed to and influenced by and thus experience within ourselves the presence and power felt in earliest times and is encapsulated in the acclamation "Christ is risen!"

The whole point is that his and our non-duality persists. One of the participants makes that point that just as with the Nicene statements about the divinity of Jesus, so resurrection is ours too, no less than that of Jesus. Otherwise, it makes no sense, as St Paul says. Just as we are non-dual as was Jesus, so all that resurrection means can be said of us as well.

This is precisely what the presence and power of God means. This is what salvation means: the persistence of our non-duality with all, even and especially beyond death and all that threatens.

David points out what is often overlooked: that for this "there is no evidence." Christ is hidden in God. "Our life is hidden with Christ in God." It's not a scientifically collectable fact. But it is an experience. We need to accept our own inner authority for it.

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5. The place of person in the paradigm shift. The book contains a small but significant section on this critically important idea of the movement away from the mechanistic viewpoint of earlier science to one which takes into account human self-awareness; its focus is not just nature but also personal consciousness and human culture which results from it.

One of the most significant developments in contemporary science is that of Systems Theory, the foundations of which started in the 1940s with the beginnings of cybernetics and which emerged in to contemporary consciousness with the coming of the computer revolution in the 1980s.

Systems Theory emphasizes the place of the human person in the scientific perspective and indicates values quite different from those of the patriarchal mindset; these values include relationships, cooperation and creativity.

When Systems Theory first emerged, based on the systems philosophy of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, two schools resulted: a mechanistic school coming from the mathematician and inventor of the computer, John von Nuemann; and another, dealing with understanding of living things as self-organized systems, from Norbert Weiner.

The mechanistic school was dominant in the 40s and 50s; the self-organization school emerged at the beginning of the 60s. There, the emphasis is on autonomy (subjectivity or autopoiesis) as the hallmark of living things. It has been explored at various levels from the cell to the family and whole societies, with the largest self-organizing system seen to be the Earth itself, the well-known Gaia Hypothesis.

The new awareness and new values associated with this paradigm shift is a movement from self-assertion to integration. The shift is human consciousness moving from an only-rational focus: from analysis (compartmentalizing, distinguishing, categorizing) to synthesis; from reductionism and linear thinking to wholeness and non-linear (intuitive) awareness.

In the discussion, Br. David objects to describing the contrast as "rational vs. intuitive." He doesn't want to say intuition is ir-rational. They suggest "conceptual vs. non-conceptual," but David emphasizes the "intuition" means "looking deeply into" something so as to see its inner coherence; they eventually settle for "discursive" in contrast to intuitive.

The emphasis here on finding the right words to talk about this change is consciousness is indicative of the on-going struggle anyone concerned with these things has in being able to express well an awareness of the paradigm shift. Again: the key is our awareness of the shift in our awareness about human awareness. Complicated, indeed!

The accompanying shift in values is from self-assertion (competition, expansion, quantity and domination) to integration (conservation, quality and partnership). These are opposite and seemingly contradictory values.

Thomas notes that in the Middle Ages, society lacked the self-assertive tendency; the coming of the Renaissance and experimental science brought an over-emphasis on individuality. The contemporary task is to arrive at a dynamic balance.

For the record, I note that Frithof wants to call the assertive values masculine or patriarchal; he does not distinguish between a patriarchal masculine and a more rooted, alternative form of the masculine. I think that distinction, as I noted in the section on "living accordingly" (above), is a crucial aspect of the Immense Transition.

David also makes the point that, in the paradigm shift from the discursive to the intuitive in theology, movement is away from stating polemical or apologetic propositions and to an emphasis on story telling; originally, he says, "all theological insights were stories."

A story is a synthetic whole, greater than the sum of any of its propositional parts. We can also say the shift is away from abstract statements to poetry, metaphor and experience. Frithof mentions that a key figure in systems theory, Gregory Bateson, had story telling as his "preferred mode."

This section ends with an emphasis by David on the fact that much of what's new in the new paradigm "is really recovery of very old intuitions."

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6. Tidbits from the discussion of the five major aspects of the paradigm shift.

1) With regard to the shift from emphasis on the parts to the whole. Frithof notes that the new paradigm holds through all the physical and social sciences. While the old paradigm puts humans outside and above nature, since the 1970's the emphasis in "deep" ecology has been on humans as an intrinsic part of nature.

David makes the point that the idea that humans are made in the image of God doesn't mean we have an immortal soul (separate from our physical being); he notes that that is a Greek idea which he calls "cultural baggage." A new (and really, very old) way to say what image of God means is that "All things live by the breath of God." The divine spiritus (air, pneuma, chi, the very breath of God) fills the whole universe.

Frithof asks for a reformulation of the place of humans in nature from a Christian perspective. David offers the one from Isaiah: "The lion shall lie down with the kid." He says the human project within nature is play, delight and curiosity.

He offers the "gardener metaphor" for our role in the natural world. The gardener is not separate from the garden but an integral part of it and responsible to and for it. We nurture it, and we are to enjoy it. We are to hear its call and respond to it. Responsibility and responsiveness go together. "We damage the garden if we treat it as a machine."

The conventional idea of freedom as elbow room is Newtonian. The "systemic" understanding is of freedom is not pushing others aside but mutual enhancement. David adds an important related idea: that the diminishment of others also diminishes each of us. We are capable of not just manipulating nature but of living in harmony with it: we are capable "not only of science but also of wisdom."

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2) With regard to the shift from structure to process. The old scientific view saw reality as a whole made up of parts, and the new view sees that the parts as patterns in the whole web of relations. Similarly, the old view saw structures acted on by forces which result in processes, while the new view sees process as revealed by structures.

It sounds confusing, but an excellent example is offered: a tree, as a structure in connection between sky and earth, is shaped in a certain way to get sun via leaves, and nutrients via roots; the tree is an epiphany of the life-process.

David offers an important example from religion. In contrast to the old opposition between matter and spirit, we can now see that spirit or mind is revealed by matter. David emphasizes again that there is "no such thing as pure mind or disembodied soul." He mentions 20th century theological heavyweights, Raymundo Panikkar and Karl Rahner, in support of this radically new (but, again, really very old) understanding.

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3) With regard to the shift from objective to 'epistemic' science. With regard to how we know anything, Frithof notes that while there is no consensus yet, thinkers are moving in direction of seeing the world as being created or brought forth by our consciousness.

He notes that this does not mean that we materialize matter and energy, but that what we call objects are patterns that we see by omitting the rest of what's there. I.e., we "order" our experience of reality. He refers several times to Chilean thinkers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, whose efforts have been toward an understanding of knowing from a biological point of view.

David makes the point that "rational animal" is not a good translation of the Greek definition of human (zoon logikon) and that a better translation would be "pattern-reading animal." He says logos has the meaning of the "pattern that makes cosmos out of chaos."

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4) With regard to the shift from building to network as metaphor of knowing. Frithof notes that buildings, foundations, bricks and construction blocks are persistence images in science. But in a web or net of relationships there is no up or down, no hierarchal structures. The participants agree that the same is true in the shift in religion: "basic beliefs" are much less important than awareness of our interconnectedness.

This brings up the question of God as divine architect. In the old paradigm (in both Newtonian-mechanistic science and theology), God got things started. Even Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant scientists of our day, uses it, Thomas notes.

"God is on every page of Hawking's Brief History of Time," says Thomas, "but his theology is at the level of a grade school catechism."

Still today in religious fundamentalism, God is the architect of the building, and science is the discovery of God's building blocks. Thomas notes that the new paradigm talks of God as "horizon" of our understanding, by which he means "mystery" in the sense that things reveal ultimate reality. They "speak to us" and "tell us something," but it is in no way exhaustive.

David emphasizes that "It's like a dialogue." We are active partners in creation. Frithof mentions the Hindu idea of lila (divine play) and Thomas says say the same understanding is found in Proverbs 8, where the Wisdom of God is described as at play and delighting to be with human persons. He also distinguishes play and work: "we work to achieve a purpose, we play to arrive at meaning."

Frithof says old time science was about domination and control of mechanical nature, whereas the new scientific paradigm is about dialogue with a living reality. "With the deepest source of everything," David adds.

Frithof also mentions, with regard to tolerance and pluralism, what the scientist Geoffrey Chew calls "bootstrap physics." I.e., being able to view different models without prejudice. This is a major aspect of the new paradigm in science, says Frithof.

David observes that intolerance of pluralism in RCism is "doctrine made subservient to power, a tool of power." He offers as an example, the exclusivist understanding of the eucharist: "When it is seen as celebration of belonging, it has to be inclusive; everybody has to be welcomed at the table."

He emphasizes that the very meaning of the eucharist "explodes the Christian tradition to include all traditions." And again emphasizes that such thinking in theology is a return to "very old, original thinking about the Christian mysteries."

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5) With regard to the shift from absolute truth to approximations. Frithof says that in science it is now recognized that we simply can not take into account all the interconnections. Much has to be left out. That is, in fact, the scientific method; it is what experiments are all about.

David talks about religious dogma in this context. He says that dogma is a response to issues, where a great deal of effort has been expended. The term "dogma" comes from dokein: "that's the way it seems to us."

The problem is that religious dogma is always expressed in language of the time. A serious task of theologians is to figure out (in contemporary language) what the old dogmas were trying to say.

Dogmas use philosophical language. They were not expressed in literary forms, but are in fact based on poetic forms. Thomas adds that the even the Nicene Creed contains "poetry." "God of God, light of light." David says It's like a story or a play. The whole play or story expresses the meaning, the pattern of relationships.

David stresses once again that all this goes back to awareness of belonging, of being in relationship, as the essence of religious experience.

Thomas spells out this important idea very well: science and religion converge in the realization that the "objective viewpoint" is illusory. There can be no "detached observer." You're part of it all and what's being told is your story.

The paradigm shift from part to whole is realization that I (this part) belong to the whole universe, that this part (this "I") is a vital participant in a living cosmos. And this realization is both the context and the condition of God's self-disclosure.

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7. The final section of the book deals with social implications of new-paradigm thinking. The central idea is personal freedom.

Thomas notes that liberation is the main theme of Christian revelation. David adds that what set it all in motion was the Exodus. All the biblical books, even Genesis, were written after and in light of the exodus experience.

Liberation is the key of Old Testament: God's judgment always means God's helping people to be liberated from oppression. Liberation is also the key to New Testament. It is Jesus' main point. His was essentially a revolutionary message, and it caused an authority crisis.

David says Jesus does not stand on his own authority nor on God's authority behind him, but the divine authority people experience in their own hearts, the common sense we share with all humans, animals and plants and the whole cosmos operating from its divine ground. "What's more liberating than common sense?"

His point is that people are intimidated by public pressure and external authority, and Jesus is all about empowerment against that authority which puts down the inner authority of common sense.

Even the Gospel of John, which contains most highly developed teachings about Jesus, makes it clear that every one should be able to say with Jesus, "I and the Father are one."

Authority originally means "having a firm basis for knowing and acting."

David says that the purpose of external authority is to use its power to empower others. To empower means to give others inner authority, to give them personal responsibility.

Frithof adds that the main issue is parenting. "All over the world," he says, "people learn about power, authority and responsibility via the parenting process." David says, And this is what Jesus did. He empowered his hearers; he authorized them to trust their own innermost awareness. Of all the aspects of the paradigm shift, this is probably the most important: giving full weight to our personal experience of the divine.

And how nicely this ties in with Mary Conrow Coelho's work! She is the only writer I know pointing out the crucial role of parenting for the acceptance of one's personal inner authority, a perspective absolutely central for the New Cosmology to catch on and flourish.

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#103. "Nature's Magic"

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ARCHIVE. For a list of all my published posts: 

http://www.sammackintosh.blogspot.com/

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This is the third in my series of blog entries beginning with #101. It's a collection of notes and essays from my files all dealing in one way or another with the emerging new religious consciousness. They are mostly things I've written over the last decade or so to clarify my own thoughts but which I now want to make available for anyone who might be interested.

This post #103 is about an especially significant book.


If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com

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Some thoughts I wrote out in July '04 for a friend; a review of Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, by Peter Corning ISBN: 0521825474 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

As I’ve already said, this is the most interesting book about the evolutionary worldview I’ve seen since I first read Teilhard’s Phenomenon Of Man forty years ago. Corning calls synergy “magic,” and if “the working together of things to produce results otherwise not possible” isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. The cooperative relationship between things, or more correctly, the creative results produced by such cooperation, is what makes evolution happen: “The synergies produced at one level become the building blocks for the next level.”

It seems to me that the very appearance in our time of the idea of synergy is itself an example of synergy. Such a concept isn’t even possible in a static worldview. We are, indeed, in the midst of an “immense transition.”

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the awareness of synergy is that it is also, among many other things, the discovery of creativity. In the evolutionary process, the new forms that emerge were previously unpredictable, so that, as Corning says, “the whole process of cosmic evolution is profoundly creative.” In a static perspective, we were able to use the passive tense to say that the world “was created.” But then we came to see that creation “is still going on.” And with an understanding of synergy as a central aspect of the evolutionary process, we can now say something even more significant: the world itself is creative.

We’ve come a long way from saying creation “happened six thousand years ago.” But there’s still more to this synergy perspective. Not only is creation creative, we now see ourselves as the central agents of that creative process. Human persons have a major role in the cosmic process of things “working together to produce results otherwise not possible.”

If the transition from static to dynamic cosmos is a great challenge to many, the transition from what Bruno calls the “suppression of the image of person” to seeing that image located at the very heart of the evolving universe is far more challenging.

The British scholar (and now-retired Orthodox bishop Kallistos of Patmos), Timothy Ware, said in a talk at Princeton a few years that the great task of the 21st century is that we should finally come to an adequate understanding of ‘person.’ The synergy-perspective helps tremendously. It sees persons called both to their individual uniqueness and to communion with others. And called to bring about-- precisely via those cooperative relationships-- new things at new levels of complexity.

What a contrast from “the suppression of the image of the person” that prevailed through most of the history of Western culture.

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Corning asks at some point, “If synergy is everywhere, why are we not more aware of it?” His response is that “it seems to have to do with the way our minds work.” We can perceive parts or wholes fairly easily, he says, but not the relationships between the parts.

To put it in Jungian terms: the Sensation function allows us to perceive parts and the Intuitive function lets us perceive wholes, but our consciousness apparently does not operate in such a way that we can directly perceive relationships. Certainly the Feeling function focuses on relationships, but it’s an evaluative activity: we don’t so much “perceive” as judge relationships (in terms of whether or not they are agreeable to us). In dealing with the relationship of parts to wholes, it looks like conscious awareness “skips a step.”

That thought got me wondering whether something similar might also be true about the Thinking function. Do we skip a step there, too? I think we do. What the Thinking function evaluates seems to be the agreeability of words (spoken or visual) with data (facts). If that’s so, it explains why there can be many different versions of what’s considered to be the truth about something. It looks like we don’t directly “perceive” thoughts (and their verbal expression) any more than we directly perceive relationships.

Most of us readily accept that “we can not dispute taste.” But we are very far from accepting that, similarly, we can’t dispute what people hold to be true, either. If nothing else, this perspective lets us see why pluralism is an acceptable, and indeed necessary, contemporary attitude. De veritas, non disputandum.

In any case, so what if we can see parts and wholes but not relationships? From an evolutionary perspective, the Thinking and Feeling functions of consciousness are thought to be later developments than Sensation and Intuition (which functions it’s understood we share with pre-human animals). With the emergence of the synergy perspectives, we would seem to be not only witnessing first hand, but indeed experiencing within ourselves, a newly emerging aspect of consciousness. I.e., We have first hand experiential evidence of the evolution of consciousness.

My point is that whether my thoughts about the Thinking function are right or not, the emphasis of synergy on cooperative relationships seems to be, in itself, a further evolution of human awareness. And, in this sense, consciousness of synergy really is a very big step away from the rationalism of the patriarchal worldview, which so neglects (and indeed suppresses) of the Feeling function.

We not only can know by inner experience that the universe is evolving but also that, as personal centers of consciousness, we humans are at the creative heart of it. The book by Mary Coelho, Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood, is precisely about this dawning emergence of our understanding of the central place of ‘person’ in cosmic evolution. We are well on our way to fulfilling the task Bishop Kallistos spelled out so clearly.

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The immense transition also has a third important aspect. It’s not only movement from a static to a dynamic cosmos and from the suppression of the image of person to recognition of our central participatory role in the cosmic process. The immense transition also includes movement from a dualistic understanding of God to a non-dual or unitive sense of the divine mystery.

When Corning says synergy is “a fundamental property of the universe and of human societies” [italics added], it’s clear that he intends no dualism between nature and culture: the synergy perspective moves us well beyond the patriarchal alienation of anthropos from cosmos. And it is equally clear, when Corning makes the point that synergy is the creative source of the world’s evolution, that it sees no dualism between the creative mystery we call theos and the manifest world of anthropos at the heart of cosmos.

Synergy offers us a worldview that is just the opposite of patriarchal dualism. Corning describes synergy as “the wellspring of creativity which makes evolution happen.” In older (if, alas, still unfamiliar) language, that same thought would sound something like, “Synergy is the manifestation of eternal wisdom.” Synergy is nothing less than the inner wisdom of God, the divine Sophia, manifesting in the workings of the universe. The early 20th century Russian Sophiologist, Sergius Bulgakov, even uses the same word, synergy, when he talks about the results of what he calls Bogochelovechestvo, the cooperative inter-action of the world and God.

A fascinating aspect of Corning’s book is its emphasis on economics (“in a broad sense,” as he says) with regard to how the world works, and Bulgakov began his career as an economist.

Corning’s economic perspective is that the “payoff” of synergy at the biological and anthropological level is “simply” those results which contribute to life’s on-going survival and reproduction. This is a radical change from the patriarchal perspective. It puts fairness and cooperation, rather than competition and violence, at the center of human life and cultural evolution. It’s no small thing to recognize that what causes evolution to happen on the biological level is “simply” life itself working at keeping itself going. It’s even more significant to see that this understanding of synergy-- as yielding an economic payoff-- is valid at the cultural level as well.

Life makes use of the helpful new things that result when at one level things join together to become parts of a more complex new thing at the next level. And what promotes the on-going survival of human life is nothing other than cooperation. What a positive outlook! And, in our troubled times, what an extremely hopeful one! As I mentioned in the review, the synergy perspective provides us with a straightforward ethics and morality, a way to be human based on the clearly observable fact that what succeeds is cooperation: on how the universe works.

So, here we have a “rationally-based norm for human life in an evolutionary world: cooperation rather than competition, creativity rather than conventionality, awe and wonder rather than dullness and boredom.” But also-- and especially-- a non-dualistic and participatory (person-centered) understanding of the workings of the world. This is realistic and down-to-earth view couldn’t be more different from those of competition and alienation on which patriarchy is based.

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I have a half-dozen or so other thoughts about Nature’s Magic which I need to mention. I don’t know how to put them into any meaningful sequence.

1. While it results from the serious study of the scientific worldview of the last few centuries, the synergy perspective would seem to be a validation of the intuitive wisdom of Israel and early Christianity (and also of India). The emergence of the synergy perspective is the beginnings of a rational understanding, from the “science of history,” of the intuitions of those ancient cultures about “how the world works.” That’s real progress.

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2. The whole idea of creativity is much clearer from the synergy perspective. We humans create, in a literal sense. By our cooperative interaction with others, increased complexity allows newness to emerge.

At its deepest level, this creative newness seems to me to be what Meister Eckhart meant when he talked about “releasement” (sometimes translated as “waiting”). Eckhart’s understanding seems to be an intuitive sense of the synergy process precisely in its aspect of allowing newness to emerge via the cooperative synergy of anthropos and theos.

To put it in obviously inadequate language, our cooperative inter-action with God (via Eckhart’s “waiting”) allows what’s in the divine unconscious to seep out (leak out, be released) into the world.

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3. With regard specifically to Christianity, the evolutionary-synergy perspective allows us a deeper understanding of traditional ecclesiology and eschatology. If synergy is the creative source of the dynamic evolutionary universe, and if the relationships between things is that out of which newness emerges, then relationship is the very essence of cosmic creativity: the world creates itself, precisely by forming relationships. If human persons are that world become conscious of itself and, now, with the synergy perspective, we see ourselves as the world become conscious of itself as self-creative, then ecclesia would seem to be a name for that segment of humanity that is aware of humanity’s central self-creative role in the cosmos.

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4. The evolutionary-synergy perspective also opens up once again the long-neglected area of eschatology. Thomas Berry names the ultimate goals of the universe to be “differentiation, subjectivity and communion.”

In response to a question about these abstract terms, Brian Swimme said once in a note that the ideas are Teilhard’s, although the terms themselves are Berry’s. The synergy perspective offers us a much less abstract but still conceptual expression of the ultimate eschaton: something like “the on-going cooperative relationships between (uniquely differentiated) persons.” Swimme expands on Berry’s terms nicely: “the fullness of differentiation, the deepest subjectivity and the most intimate communion.” Personally, I like Bruno’s Teilhardian phrase even better, “eucharistic omega.” But, in any case, being able to talk about the eschaton in terms of creative personal relationships in an evolutionary cosmos is a delight. And it makes clear, as nothing else I know does, the traditional understanding of the ecclesia as already the beginnings of the eschaton.

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5. Thomas Berry repeatedly describes patriarchal culture as being under a spell with regard to its alienation from the natural world. One of the best things about Corning’s work is that it makes clear how we can break the spell. The means by which we can step out of the patriarchal prison is nothing other than our awe and wonder at synergy’s magic. We need only look and see the real world as it is, see that we are active participants in the creative evolutionary process, to replace patriarchal dualism’s feelings of anger and rage at not being wanted by Mother Earth.

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6. Personally, it’s a delight for me to realize that helping others experience that awe and wonder at the natural world is the essential task of the shamanic personality. I find the understanding of complexity and synergy to be a profoundly liberating and validating affirmation of my life-long focus on both science (nature, evolution) and religion (spirituality, shamanism).

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7. Finally, a thought that keeps impinging on me is that while the focus on cosmic evolution is a tremendous breakthrough for human culture, these synergy perspectives of the New Cosmology need artistic expression. Science education is obviously essential; so is a serious understanding of the nature of religious ritual (although that would seem to be still a long time coming). But the invitation to awe and wonder seems to require something else, something “earlier” or prior to such things. I’m thinking especially in terms of fiction. Since I retired, I’ve been reading several contemporary works of fiction weekly; that’s hundreds of books in the last four years. Not once did I ever see a reference to humanity’s creative role in cosmic evolution. I wish I could write a novel.

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#93. The Home Stretch

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I began writing this blog about the convergence of science and religion late in 2006. I didn't expect, then, that over the next five years I would end up writing almost a hundred mini-essays. I didn't know I would have so much to say. I've learned a lot in five years!

As the number of posts continued to grow, I had the feeling that I should stop before I reached the one hundredth post. That's still my plan. I hope to end with #99.

The need to stop before post #100 has the feeling for me of the old Zen story about the novice who was assigned to swept a littered garden path but each time he thought he was finished, the chief gardener said "Not good enough." When, after a half-dozen attempts, the young monk finally asked in frustration to be shown what more he needed to do, the old gardener picked up a handful of leaves and scattered them on the path.

Not going to the nice round number for the blog posts feels something like leaving a few leaves scattered on the path. So, at this point (June 2011) I'm in the home stretch and I've been looking back at my earlier entries to see what thoughts I feel I still want to share. I've found several; that's what this post is about.

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I need to begin with a few words about how this blog got started in the first place.

It was an invitation, in the summer of 2005, from the alumni committee of my high school's fiftieth anniversary reunion which originally got me started in sharing my thoughts about the contemporary convergence of science and religion. "Send us a note," the committee said, "telling us what you've been up to in the last few years. We'll publish the responses we get in a booklet for the reunion."

When I retired in June 2000-- after 40 years of teaching high school science and college level theology-- I finally had the time to think about the links between those two big areas of human endeavor. Since that was, in fact, "what I'd been up to over the last few years," I wrote a brief report about my reflections for the reunion committee.

It was my earliest attempt to share my thoughts about the connections between science and religion. With an introduction and a few additional comments, that reunion report was eventually published in February, 2007, as post #3 ("High School 50th-Anniversary Report"). It's still on-line, if you'd like to look at it. (It's brief.)

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When I first considered the reunion committee's request, it felt important for me to send something less conventional than the usual comments in such reports, like "living in Florida now" or "had our third grandchild." I felt the need to say something about my efforts to understand the connections between science (specifically, evolutionary science) and religion (specifically, Western culture's Judeo-Christian tradition).

I mean it quite literally when I say that "I felt the need." I experienced a strong sense of being urged or called to say something of significance about how cosmic evolution and the spiritual side of life are related. I felt as if I was being given a "calling"-- a "vocation" in the old-fashioned sense. It seems I was. It turned out that this was, indeed, a major start for a new phase of my life.

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The task I felt was being assigned to me was to make use of my many years of teaching experience along with my background in science and religion (I have masters degrees in both) to share with my fellow high school graduates something about where my life-long interest in science and spirituality had taken me over the half-century since we graduated together from high school.

It wasn't until a year after I wrote the report for the reunion, however, that the idea of writing a blog about the convergence of science and religion came to me. It was originally my daughter's suggestion.

While many in our society tend to back away from any serious interest in science and math, and many more remain amazingly (to me) uninformed about the religious traditions of the world, Rosemary knew that I was comfortable with both areas and she obviously thought that I had something to say.

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I have, in fact, been fascinated by these two areas of human endeavor all my life. But in contrast to many who think of science and religion as incompatible perspectives, I always saw them as complementary and converging ways of understanding human life and our existence in the world.

I'm not alone, of course. In reviewing my earlier posts to see what thoughts I still felt wanted to be shared, I was surprised to see how many of the names of the thinkers-- scientists and religious writers-- who I mentioned in the first few posts are mentioned in many of the later posts as well.

Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry top the list, as might be expected, since Teilhard was a prophet and Berry a pioneer of the integration in our culture of science and spirituality. But many other less well-known names are also mentioned frequently: Sergius Bulgakov, Bede Griffiths, Brian Swimme, Raimundo Panikkar, Michael Dowd, Mary Conrow Coelho, and Bruno Barnhart, for example. All of them are mentioned in my first few posts.

These are persons who I see as being on the growing edge of humanity's present cultural development. And, as I said in the high school reunion report, "Although they each use very different words, they all seem to be saying something similar."

What they are saying, in one way or another, is that "we humans are an integral part of the evolving universe and that we thrive in dynamic relationship with the cosmic Mystery."

That last sentence is from post #3. It's a pretty good summary of what the "new cosmology" is all about and why the contemporary convergence of science and religion is so important in our day. For the most part, in recent centuries, Western religion has denied that we humans have any place in the material universe and Western science has denied that there was any mystery for us to relate to.

That's the context, thanks to that high school reunion committee's invitation, for my "calling" to help make the insights of the new cosmology available to others who might be interested but who, for one reason or another, do not happen to have the background or experience I do. In a word, my teaching career wasn't over, it just took on a very different form.

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There was a second event, in addition to that high school reunion committee's invitation, which helps to make sense of my "calling." In the spring of 2006 I attended a symposium at the University of Pennsylvania, co-sponsored by a number of medically and spiritually concerned groups, on the place of belief, "religious and otherwise," in the healing process.

It was attended by a large number of medical people, as well as hospital chaplains, pastors, persons involved in religious education, and the curious-- like me.

It was very exciting to be part of that symposium. When I returned home and reflected on my experiences, I had such a strong desire to share with others what I'd learned that I wrote a report about it which I e-mail to friends. That report also became a blog post, and it, too, is still on-line, if you'd like to read it. Look for post #2 ("Spirituality Research Symposium").

Unlike the high school reunion committee's request, I had not been invited to write about the symposium. I wrote it simply because I had a strong inner need to "share my thoughts."

So that's how this blog came to be. And, as I've said, it did, in fact, begin a new phase of my life.

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Now that it is five years later, and I'm in the home stretch, in looking back I see something else which quite unexpectedly stands out. It's how frequently I express frustration at the lack of adequate words for communicating the thoughts I want to share.

I see that I have complained repeatedly about the available words being just not good enough; I've even entitled one of the posts (#21) "Struggling with Words."

My teacher-instincts rebel at the inadequacy of good tools, in our culture, for communicating new ideas about our place in the world and the presence of mystery in our lives. There's a good example in post #2 where I end a brief description of the cosmic and biological basis of our human origins with the words, "And we started out as stardust."

I don't have the talent to express well the awe I experience when I reflect on our origins and destiny seen in the context of evolutionary science and the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. As I've said many times in the blog, I'd really like to be a poet!

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Another fact which stands out in my home stretch blog-review is how consistently I have made use of the four-fold or "quaternary" understanding of human consciousness in trying to put my thoughts into clearly understandable words.

That sentence I just wrote provides another example of the frustration I mentioned above about the lack of adequate words. The fact is that I can't count on every reader knowing what I mean by the "quaternary understanding of human consciousness." Few people in our culture are yet aware that our conscious awareness functions in four distinct ways.

So we don't just need a better understanding of our religious instincts and of how the physical world works. We also need a better understanding of how our own minds work!

I've found my understanding of the four-fold workings of our conscious minds to be a big part of what I've had to say with regard to the new cosmology. More accurately, it's a big part of how I've tried to say what I have to say. I've come to see that the quaternary perspective provides us with a basic set of "tools" for our understanding of the new relationship between religion and science which emerged in the 20th century.

My genes didn't give me any poetry-writing talents, but they certainly have provided me with strong thinking skills and teaching instincts!

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In my home stretch reflections I have also recognized something about the quaternary perspective which I hadn't seen before: how useful it is precisely for understanding the details of the great cultural shift that's happening as we move away from the static worldview of patriarchal civilization.

Knowing that conscious awareness operates in four distinct ways is tremendously helpful for understanding the many details involved in global humanity's movement to the dynamic-evolutionary perspectives of the new cosmology. And some of those details about that great shift in human consciousness are still calling to me to be shared.

If I was writing about it for an academic journal, I'd name that article something like "Understanding the Contemporary Immense Transition in Terms of the Four Jungian Functions." That wouldn't work as a title for a post, of course, but it is a good expression of what would be the main thoughts I'd be sharing.

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Perhaps what stands out for me most in the review of my five-year-long blog effort is the inadequacy-- or maybe, more correctly, the incompleteness-- of my attempts to express well my thoughts about the depths of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

With regard to the spiritual side of the science-religion convergence I often say, "There's more to religion than it seems."

By that "more" I mean precisely the inner core of wisdom at the depth of the religious tradition that got lost over the centuries due to the body-soul and matter-spirit dualism which has dominated western culture and religion for so long.

Even though the Judeo-Christian tradition originally gave the world its evolutionary viewpoint, the static-dualistic outlook of classical philosophy and patriarchal culture gradually replaced the dynamic and unitive perspectives at the base of the Judeo-Christian religion.

So, in talking about the convergence of science and religion, to indicate that I don't mean "religion" in the static-dualistic sense-- as it's still understood by fundamentalists-- I often use the words "religion at its best."

I say "at its best" because I can't assume that all readers know what I mean by Christianity's "dynamic and unitive perspective"-- any more, unfortunately, than I can take for granted that every reader knows what I mean by "quaternary consciousness."

For me, religion "at its best" specifically includes all those concerns which are outside the competence of the rational-empirical awareness of science and which, for that reason, are dismissed as non-existent by those lacking the quaternary perspective.

We need that four-fold outlook to recognize that there is "more" to our lives than just the details. A good example of the "more" is our deep, if usually unspoken, wonder about the end of the world.

Even those words-- without an understanding of our minds' intuitive-rational functioning-- are usually misunderstood!

I mean "end" in the sense of purpose. At the level of intuitive rationality-- where we focus not on empirical details but on the big picture of our lives in the world-- our consciousness asks questions like, "Why does the universe exist at all?" And, "What's the place of conscious creatures such as ourselves in the vast scheme of things?"

Those who are still stuck on the bottom rung of the Great Ladder laugh at such thoughts. (If the idea of the "Great Ladder of Being" is new to you, see posts #74, #75 & #82.)

While I have already written many posts about the four-fold capacities of our minds, in this home stretch I still feel the need to spell out more clearly my thoughts specifically about the dynamic and unitive perspectives which are part of what I mean when I refer to "religion at its best."

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One more concern is closely connected with the world's purpose or end. 

Since we can't remain indifferent to it, we have the question of what kinds of responses our awareness of the world's end might take.

I think that topic-- of how we respond to our conscious awareness of the purpose of the world-- must be the most difficult of all the thoughts I feel called on to share.

Just as my "academic" title for a post on a quaternary view of the shift 
away from patriarchy wouldn't work well as the name for a post (it was, you will remember, "Understanding the Contemporary Immense Transition in Terms of the Four Jungian Functions"), neither would the title appropriate for an academic journal work well for what I want to say in the blog about "religion at its best."

In an academic context, that post would have a title like "Evolutionary Eschatology and Eucharistic Ecclesiology."

As you can see, at this very moment-- even after five years of writing these posts-- I'm still "struggling with words"!

In any case, the fact is that an awareness of world's purpose is at the heart of Judeo-Christian tradition, and my thoughts about how we can most humanly and authentically respond to it are ideas about which I still feel urged to share my thoughts. I hope to do it in the next few posts.

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The final topic I still feel called to write about-- even after more than 90 posts-- will not come as a surprise to long-time readers. Yes, it's ritual.

From the time I first started the blog, I've felt a very strong need to share my understanding of the explanation of ritual presented in what's now a more than 30-year-old text, The Spectrum of Ritual: A Biogenetic Structural Analysis (Columbia University Press, 1979).

I think the insights coming out of that early neurological research-- done completely in the context of biological and anthropological evolution three or four decades ago-- are by far the best perspectives yet available on the nature of religious ritual.

I feel, in fact, that I won't be able to die in peace if I don't share with others at least some understanding of the ideas offered by the early Biogenetic Structuralists. I hope to do it.

If nothing else, I would like to write at least a brief book review-- so I can rest in peace!

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Well, that's my agenda as I move into the home stretch of the blog. If you would like to add something to my list, let me know.

sam@macpeno.com

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