#23. Ontogenetic Development

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I called my previous post (#22) "The Other Half of Person" to stress the point that there's more to the mystery of our selves than our individual consciousness.

The focus of many of my earlier postings has been the evolutionary and neurological perspectives of contemporary science which allow us to see that our individual consciousness is not something separate from, but an integral part of, the evolving universe-- and that each of us, as an utter unique expression of the cosmos process, is called to make a personal contribution to it.

In each entry I've also tried to show how I see these scientific findings about ourselves as individuals converging with some of humanity's core religious values.

Now I want to expand the context to include the social, communal and relational aspects of the mystery which we are, the "other half" of our reality as persons.

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Some readers may feel that seeing ourselves in a cosmic and evolutionary context is already a big enough challenge.

But that immense transition in human self-understanding, which began at the end of the 19th century and is essentially a shift from the static worldview of past centuries to the evolutionary perspectives of modern science, also includes the shift from a personal and private to a social and communal self-understanding.

Just as the words "science" and "religion" mean something more nowadays than they once meant, so does the word "person." So I want to look now at another area within the Biogenetic Structuralism perspective, one which especially helps us to understand the social and communal aspects of ourselves: cultural anthropology.

When we see person in the broadest possible scientific perspectives of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution, the resulting communal and social aspects of our self-understanding allow us an even richer sense of the convergence of contemporary scientific perspectives with the insights of humanity's core religious insights than we have if we are looking only at the individual aspects of the mystery of person.

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But the findings of cultural anthropology are even less familiar to the general public than those coming from contemporary brain and nervous system studies.

I'm often asked, for example, by persons who know of my interest in evolution whether I think evolution is still going on in human beings. When I answer, "Yes; it's called culture," I usually get blank stares. So the transition I'm making now in these blog entries, from an neurological to an anthropological focus, may not be clear to readers.

The problem is that we're just not attuned to thinking in terms of culture, let alone thinking of humanity's cultural development as a continuation of the cosmic evolutionary process that produced stars, galaxies, plants, animals and ourselves. It's tough enough for many to grasp the fact that human consciousness has emerged from the cosmic process; seeing cultural development as also part of the cosmic process is even more challenging.

But as I said in the previous post, it's only when we can see that the social-relational nature of personal consciousness is also a part of evolution of the universe-- from the Big Bang and the formation of galaxies and stars to the emergence of life on Earth and the development of the primate brain-- that it becomes clear why culture is such an important concept in the converging perspectives of science and religion.

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In moving from an neurological to an anthropological focus we need to keep in mind the distinction between the primal emergence of conscious awareness among our animal ancestors several million years ago and the growth and development of individual consciousness as it takes place in every human being today.

That first kind of conscious emergence is called "phylogenetic." It's what happened in that group ("phylum," in a broad sense) of mammals out of which primates and eventually humans arose. It's the transition from the second to the third stage of complexity in the cosmic process as it takes place on Earth.

To make sense of phylogenesis we need to think about primate brain structures in terms of things like the cognitive extension of prehension and cognized environment, and I have talked about those concepts in many previous blog entries. The key idea is an understanding of the neurological structures of the primate brain which allow for the adaptation of the individual and the species to the external environment.

Biogenetic Structuralist researchers use words like "assimilation" and "accommodation" to describe what's happening in the brain of individuals as they take in and/or adjust to what's encountered in their world. And they note that it's always for the sake of survival.

The second kind of conscious emergence, which the Biogenetic Structuralists refer to as "ontogenetic" development, has to do with the normal pattern in the development of self-awareness in individual human beings. ("On" and "ens" are Greek and Latin for "being.") It's this ontogenetic development-- ontogenesis-- that's a principal focus of cultural anthropology.

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While the findings of neuro-physiology help us to understand the phylogenetic emergence of human consciousness, the perspectives of cultural anthropology help us to understand the emergence and growth of self-awareness as it occurs in every human being.

That phylogenetic emergence was a transition from the second to the third level of complexity in the cosmic process, which first happened, probably in Northeast Africa, about two and half million years ago. In contrast, the ontogenetic development of human consciousness begins with the embryological development of every human child and continues throughout the life of each of us.

Biogenetic Structuralism sees three distinct stages to the ontogenetic development of consciousness. And, as I've said earlier, it's here-- in our perception of the growth and development of the "other half of person"-- that the convergence of understandings from the human sciences and from global humanity's religious insights begins to take on an even richer and fuller sense than previously.

So my focus in the next few blog posts will be on cultural anthropology, especially on how the Biogenetic Structuralist researchers see the development of human consciousness in terms of social and communal relationships taking place in three separate stages.

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To get a good sense of our communal and relational aspects we need to see something of how personal consciousness develops in each individual, of what ontogenesis is all about.

As I've said, the Biogenetic Structuralist perspective sees it taking place in three stages. And even from the brief descriptions of these stages which follow it becomes immediately apparent that they are of great significance in terms of global humanity's religious perspectives.

It might be better to call the stages "phases" since, while they are sequential, there's also a great deal of overlap.

And of course, as with everything connected with Biogenetic Structuralism-- or indeed with any specialized branch of science-- there's a lot of jargon to deal with. "Ontogenesis," as a term for the growth and development of personal consciousness, is a good example. And you may remember from earlier postings that these researchers like to use the Greek term, gnosis, for consciousness itself. They also use the term neuro-gnosis to emphasize that it's the structures and functions of the nerve cells in the brain which are the basis for our conscious gnosis.

So our topic here is ontogenetic neuro-gnosis-- or even neuro-gnostic ontogenesis. (It's no wonder these scientific findings haven't filtered down to the popular level!)

And even finding simple and clear names for the three stages seems to have been a problem.

Biogenetic Structuralists refer to the first phase of ontogenetic development as "received gnosis" but they also talk about it as "beliefs." The second stage of personal conscious development is simply called "experience" or "personal experience." And the third phase is referred to as "transpersonal" or "contemplative" experience.

Needless to say, that word "contemplative" will rings bells for anyone interested in religion and spirituality. I hope it can serve for now as a hint, at least, of the extent of the convergence of the perspectives which I think can be found in Biogenetic Structuralism's understanding of cultural anthropology and humanity's religious traditions.

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I will describe those stages or phases in the ontogenetic development of our personal self-awareness within the cultural context in the next few posts.

Meanwhile, I want to step back a moment to emphasize that we need to keep in mind that we're trying to see that ontogenetic development of each human individual in the very largest context possible: nothing less than the entire cosmic process as it takes place at three levels of increasing complexity.

I spelled out that long view in post #8 (Background to Biogenetic Structuralism) and more specifically in post #16 (Our Own Inner World). Here's a quick review.

The first level is that of matter: from the Big Bang and the evolution of galaxies, stars and planets. The second level is that of life: the emergence of life on Earth several billion years ago and the development by way of fish, reptiles and mammals, of the primate brain. And the third level of complexity is that of mind: the emergence of personal self-awareness several million years ago.

As I've said above and stressed in the previous blog entry, we also have to take into account the fact that there's an "other half of person," what we call it "culture"-- our social, communal and relational side.

And we need to keep in mind that, from the anthropological perspective, "culture" means whatever humans do that's not controlled by our genes and instincts.

It includes anything and everything that needs to be "passed on" from more experienced persons to the younger and less experienced for the survival of life: all the learning, skills and information which need to be passed on precisely because they are not part of our instinctual or genetically-based behavior.

My purpose in reviewing this "largest possible context" for human cultural development is to make the point that it's only when we can see ourselves in this very large cultural context that we can understand our place in the scheme of things specifically in terms of dealing with our contemporary concerns. I have in mind things such as equality, peace and justice issues and environmental problems.

The issue is still life's survival, just as it was in the original phylogenetic emergence of consciousness several million years ago.

When Al Gore acknowledged the Nobel Peace Prize, he observed that the ecological crisis is a spiritual issue. "It is," as he said, "a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity."

I couldn't find a better example of the need for an understanding of the contemporary convergence of scientific findings and humanity's core religious insights.

sam@macspeno.com

#22. The Other Half of "Person"

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I entitled my previous blog entry (#21) "Struggling with Words" to make the point that in sharing my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion, I continually feel the need to say that neither "science" nor "religion" mean today what they once meant. I also feel the need to say the same about the word "person." That's what this post is about.

The immense transition in human self-understanding which began at the end of the 19th century was essentially a shift from the static worldview of past centuries to the evolutionary perspectives of modern science. Thanks to it, we can see that personal consciousness is not something separate from, but an integral part of, the evolution of the universe.

I've devoted many previous blog postings to spelling out some of the details of this awesome fact, that each human person is nothing less than an utterly unique expression of the universe become conscious of itself.

But I still struggle with using the word "person." Like the words "science" and "religion," the older 18th and 19th century meanings of "person" still persist today in the conventional understanding of popular culture. The ideal of person as a "rugged individual," left over from America's frontier days, is clearly inadequate for our times. It leaves out the communal and relational aspects of person, precisely those perspectives which are needed for dealing with contemporary problems such as social equality, peace and justice issues and the ecological crisis.

So each time I say "person" I feel the need to add that, just as "science" doesn't mean rationalism and "religion" doesn't mean dualism, so "person" doesn't mean individualism.

There's another half to person.

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Readers won't be surprised to hear me say that in struggling to express a fuller understanding of person I've found the Biogenetic Structuralist view especially useful.

Just as the combined neurological and anthropological perspectives of Biogenetic Structuralism help us to see the place of individual persons in an evolutionary perspective, so it also allows us a much better sense of the communal and relational aspects of the mystery of personal consciousness. It attempts to understand persons in the broadest possible scientific perspectives of cosmic, biological and cultural evolution.

It's those cultural aspects that I find especially challenging here. Just as we don't yet have good words to talk about post-rationalist science and post-dualistic religion, so we also still lack an appropriate language to talk about the post-individualist understanding of person.

As I said in the previous post, "The communal and relational aspects of person are part of the perspectives of both contemporary science and contemporary religion, but in trying to express those converging perspectives well, the very words we do have available tend to get in the way as much as they are helpful."

Even with that statement I feel the need to add that by "contemporary" I mean a growing edge understanding, one that includes the communal and relational aspects of the mystery of person and not the conventional assumptions of the media where "person" seems to mean nothing more than the ego-centric personalities of politicians, sports figures and the celebrities of the entertainment world.

Ours is such an individualistic society that the very idea that there might be something beyond the ego-stage of personal development is incomprehensible to many. And yet if we don't have a good sense of the communal-cultural nature of person-- of our communion with others and of our inter-connectedness with all things-- we have only half a sense of our own personal reality.

So what I hope to do in the next few entries is to take the ideas about person which I've presented in the earlier postings to the next step: to emphasize, with help from the perspectives of Biogenetic Structuralism, our communion, connectedness and inter-relatedness with all things. It's here that I find the convergence of science and religion to be most explicit.

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A key idea in an understanding of this "other half of person" from the Biogenetic Structuralist perspective is that the development of human consciousness takes place in three clearly defined stages. Seeing these stages as Biogenetic Structuralism sees them is particularly helpful in understanding the communal-cultural aspects of our personal existence.

The Biogenetic Structuralist view offers insights which simply are not available in either the mechanistic-rationalist perspectives of 19th century science or in the static worldviews of dualistic religion.

I hope to spell out those stages of personal consciousness development as Biogenetic Structuralism sees them and to offer an interesting example of their convergence with the emerging sapiential-religious perspectives in the next posting.

Before that, I feel the need to say a few words about the term "culture" from an evolutionary perspective. It's a word we take for granted and one I've used frequently without trying to spell out its meaning, but a clear idea of what "culture" means as it's used in the human sciences is a big help in understanding the religious aspects of "the other half of person."

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"Culture" obviously refers to something more than attending operas or visiting museums. In the broadest sense, from the point of view of anthropology, "culture" refers to everything humans do that's beyond what's controlled by our genes and instincts.

The neurological basis of culture is the understanding which Biogenetic Structuralism expresses by its jargon term cognitive extension of prehension. I tried to spell out that concept in some detail in posting #12. The main idea is that because of the human brain's specific structural developments beyond that of other primates, humans can function in such a way that we have a certain amount of freedom, which the other primates lack, in our responses to whatever we encounter in our external environment.

It is a limited but real freedom from an automatic or instinctive response to the threats and opportunities encountered in our world. It accounts for our spiritual nature and for all of our specifically human characteristics such as language, technology and creativity. It also accounts for our relationships with one another and for our behavior in groups-- indeed, for all that's meant by human culture.

A traditional anthropological definition of culture is "passed on learning." It refers to skills and information needed for survival which older, more experienced persons pass on to the younger and less experienced. It has to be passed on precisely because it's not part of our instinctual or genetically-based behavior.

A common example is the fact that even as three-year-olds we seem to have a clear aversion to spiders; it's "in our genes." From a very young age we tend to be cautious about such potentially dangerous creatures in our external environment. But electricity is a recent technological invention and three-year olds don't have an in-born aversion to playing with electrical wires. They have to be taught to avoid them. That's culture.

And it's "culture" in this sense that's what I mean by the "other half of person." Even from that common example it's clear that culture involves communal relationships. What's easy to overlook is the fact that such communal relationships are biological components of the evolutionary process.

We need to see that culture evolves just as planets and stars do. The "other half of person" is this dynamic-evolutionary communal-cultural nature of human consciousness. It's only when we can see that the communal nature of personal consciousness is a part of cosmic evolution that it becomes clear why culture is such an important concept in the converging perspectives of science and religion.

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Everyone with a sense of history knows that culture evolves. We know, for example, that our early human ancestors learned to hunt cooperatively in groups, that Paleolithic hunting camps evolved (roughly eight thousand years ago) into settled agricultural villages, and that those Neolithic villages eventually evolved (roughly four thousand years ago) into the earliest cities of the civilization period. In this sense, we easily can see the developmental nature of global human culture.

But I want to say something more here, something even larger: we need to see humanity's communal-cultural evolution as itself part, and indeed a significant part, of the entire cosmic process-- from the Big Bang through the evolution of galaxies and stars to life on Earth and the development of the primate brain and the emergence of personal self-awareness.

And as I see it, it's only when we have this sense of human cultural development within the broadest cosmic context that the insights of the core of humanity's religious perspectives begin to make a great deal of sense. It seems to me that a contemporary understanding of the convergence of science and the sapiential religious perspective depends on our seeing human culture on Earth as part of the evolution of the universe.

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For example, there clearly are aspects of humanity's sapiential perspective, such as the pre-Christian idea of the resurrection of the dead, that make some sense in terms of a neurological understanding of our relationship with the physical universe. I offered an example in the previous blog entry (#20), where I pointed out the similarity between the Biogenetic Structuralist concept of cognized environment and theological understanding of Sophiologist Sergius Bulgakov with regard to the possible meaning of bodily resurrection. Even though they are coming from very different starting points, they seem to share a common insight into how personal consciousness is related to the rest of the material cosmos.

Scientific rationalists would, of course, dismiss the very idea of resurrection as childish wishful thinking. But even the fact that humans desire a life beyond the grave seems to make some sense when we understand humanity's cultural evolution as part of "the other half of person."

An interesting article about this desire, written by the award-winning Canadian scholar Charles Taylor, professor emeritus of philosophy at McGill University, appeared in a recent issue of Commonweal.

In his article,"The Sting of Death, Why We Yearn for Eternity", Taylor notes that a recent sociological study of unbelievers indicated that the point of their “creed” hardest for them to hold to is the thought that there is no life after death. He observes that even many rationalists-- with their often dismissive attitude which assumes that our desire for eternity is simply a desire not to have our lives stop-- frequently want to have religious funerals.

But it's not that we just want life to continue, says Taylor. Rather, it's the permanent loss of our relationships which is most difficult to accept. As he puts it: "Joy strives for eternity."

When we recognize "the other half of person" as the communal and relational nature of personal consciousness resulting from cosmic and biological evolution, it looks like our very "yearning" for the continuation of our communion and relatedness may be itself an aspect of the cosmic process-- rather than simply reducible to childish wishful thinking.

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The doctrine about resurrection isn't exclusively Christian, of course, nor is the desire for the persistence of our relationships. But there are also some religious ideas specific to the Christian tradition which seem to me to become especially clear when we see them in terms of "the other half of person."

Probably the most significant is the very nature of the Christian tradition itself which, in its formative period, saw itself precisely as the communal growing edge of humanity's cultural development. That dynamic ecclesial perspective was lost to the western world for a thousand years, but it emerged again in 20th century theological thought with the recovery of the sapiential core of the Judeo-Christian tradition and it makes good sense in terms of the dynamic-evolutionary and communal-cultural nature of our personal consciousness. I hope to share some thoughts along those lines in future postings.

There are also some "in-between" ideas which are much more clear in light of our awareness of "the other half of person." I have in mind things like symbol, myth and ritual, and related concepts such as shamanism and cosmology.

I call them "in-between" ideas because, while we don't think of them as scientific concepts and we know they're not religious doctrines, they are in fact perennial aspects of humanity's global religious practice and they are in fact objects of study in the human sciences.

Much like what Charles Taylor calls our "yearning for eternity," however, the very idea of things such as symbolic rituals or shamanistic cosmologies tend to be dismissed as belonging to an earlier and more immature stage of human development. But they all make some sense in terms of the "other half of person" and Biogenetic Structuralism's understanding of the stages of personal development.

I see them as nothing less than central aspects of the contemporary convergence of science and religion and it was my life-long interest in such things, along with my life-long interest in evolutionary science, that made my discovery of the Biogenetic Structuralist perspective so fascinating.

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I entitled my previous blog entry (#21) "Struggling with Words" to make the point that, as I said above, in sharing my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion, I continually feel the need to say that neither "science" nor "religion" nor "person" mean what popular culture takes them to mean. Even the word "culture" has a much more cosmic meaning than is clear from the term "popular culture."

This struggle to find good words is due to the immense transition in our human self-understanding which began with the 19th-century shift from the static to a dynamic-evolutionary worldview.

Today, we can see personal consciousness as an integral part of the dynamic cosmic process, and precisely for that reason we can see that there is an "other half of person"-- the cultural and relational aspects of the mystery of our personal awareness-- in a way former generations could not.

My whole purpose in writing this blog is to share what I see as the riches of these deeper perspectives with anyone interested, and to do so with that rather odd and mostly unknown branch of the human sciences which calls itself Biogenetic Structuralism and offers more help than anything else I know to spell out the convergence of science and religion.

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So that's where I'm going with all this. With this posting on the "other half of person" I feel that I'm at a turning point in these efforts. It's a good time to say "thank you" to all who have offered encouragement so far with this project.

Thanks, especially, for hanging in there when you repeatedly come across phrases like cognized environment and cognitive extension of prehension and see them linked up with things like myth and ritual. I see them, in terms of Biogenetic Structuralism's understanding of the stages of personal development, as nothing less than central aspects of the contemporary convergence of science and religion.

So... Thanks, thanks, thanks!

sam@macspeno.com

#20. Resurrection of the Dead

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I was especially delighted when I discovered the efforts of the Biogenetic Structuralists to understand our human condition in light of the scientific findings of cultural anthropology, neurophysiology and biological evolution because it brings together the two big interests in my life, science and religion. And it's a non-dualist perspective: it does not put humans in a unique category outside the rest of the natural world but sees us, rather, an integral part of the evolution of the universe. And it doesn't dismiss religion and ritual, as rationalist science does: it understands them to be a natural part of human life.

The Biogenetic Structuralist concept of cognized environment especially caught my attention because, among other things, it sounds much like what the Russian Sophiologist, Sergius Bulgakov, has to say about the relationship of personal consciousness to the external world.

Bulgakov was talking in the context of a theological understanding of the early Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, so it's an unlikely combination, to be sure. But I found it a remarkable convergence. In this blog post I want to share the two understandings. I'll just put them side by side, and you can see what you think.

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I've mentioned the Biogenetic Structuralism concept of cognized environment in many previous posts and it is the focus of entry #13. Unfortunately, these research scientists did not come up with better names for their ideas-- names which would be more clear-- and we have to deal with their scientific jargon.

The main idea of cognized environment is that personal consciousness, when understood in terms of the functions of the brain at the third level of the cosmic process, is seen to be nothing less than the matter of the Earth become alive and self-aware.

The great value of seeing the human spirit from this neurological perspective is that it doesn't separate us from the rest of the living world, as religious and rationalist dualism does, but helps us to see that the human spirit is rooted in the Earth and the cosmic process-- that the human mind and heart is, indeed, "the universe become conscious of itself."

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Here's a quick review of the main point. In trying to respond to the question, "What's going on in the brain?" the Biogenetic Structuralists distinguish between the operational environment and cognized environment. Operational environment is their jargon term for the external world outside ourselves: the physical universe as the environment (the world) in which we exist-- and within which, of course, our brain operates.

In contrast, they use the term cognized environment to refer to the inner world which is continually being created by the structural activities of the brain. That inner world is our personal awareness. These research scientists like to call it "neuro-gnosis", meaning personal awareness-- "knowledge" in a broad sense-- which arises from the activity of the brain's living cells.

We need to keep in mind that, as the most complex thing in the dynamic universe, our brain's neural cells and networks are a dynamic field of electro-chemical reactions, and that neuro-gnosis-- our personal consciousness-- is the result of that dynamic activity of the neuro-gnostic structures.

It also helps to remind ourselves that we're talking about the third level of complexity in the cosmic process.

Since we're not used to thinking in terms of levels of complexity, here's an easy example: At one level, the letters of the alphabet are only bits of colored ink on a piece of paper, or dark marks on a computer screen. When joined together in various combinations, however, meaning emerges even at a very simple level of complexity: the letters D, G and O, for example, can be put together to mean "dog" or "God." It's clear that meaning emerges via complexity. We can, of course, put those words together to make sentences and put the sentences together to make stories, so that at greater levels of complexity ever greater levels of meaning emerge.

Living things, including ourselves, work the same way. Chemical compounds make up cells, cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, organs make up systems, and organ systems combine to make up a whale or a maple tree. At each level of complexity, something "more" emerges.

In our brain-- the greatest level of complexity known to us-- the "more" that emerges is what Biogenetic Structuralism calls "neuro-gnosis"-- and the rest of us call conscious awareness.

The rudimentary gnosis-structure we're born with results from natural selection and the cosmic evolutionary process, and as we grow and develop, our personal consciousness grows by corrections and modifications based on data coming in from the operational (i.e., external) environment.

It's an evolutionary survival mechanism. The main idea is that the brain's primary function is to construct an internal version of the external environment, which it does in order to moderate input from and response to that external world. It allows us to recognize what's potentially hurtful or helpful in the operational environment.

It provides an evolutionary advantage because the sense data is processed in terms of how it fits with previous information already stored in the brain and nervous system. From a biogenetic (evolutionary) perspective, neuro-gnosis is the "informational content" of the neurological structures, and the neuro-gnostic structures are the media of nerve cells and their networks in which this information is "coded" and by way of which it can be modified.

And as I've said before, all this wouldn't sound so strange if it wasn't ourselves that we're talking about. But the point of it all is that personal consciousness is the "environment, cognized." Our consciousness is the world, internalized. We are the cosmos become conscious of itself.

And ours is the first age in humanity's cultural development in which we can understand ourselves this way, based on objective data from scientific studies of brain and nervous system. The main thing I want to emphasize here is that the mystery which we are as persons is the result of the physical matter of the universe; at the third level of complexity in the cosmic process, we are the matter of the cosmos showing itself as persons, each of us utterly unique in the history of the world.

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In his discussion of the resurrection of the dead, Sergius Bulgakov says something that sounds very similar. A little background will help show why what he has to say is important.

Bulgakov was born in 1871 into what was still the medieval culture of Central Russia. He became an atheist in early adolescence, studied law at the University of Moscow and eventually became a noted Marxist economist. At the age of twenty-four he began a religious conversion. It's of great interest that his conversion was not occasioned by any church-related experience but by an experience of nature: his first sight of the Caucasus mountains while he was driving with friends in a sleigh across the southern steppes of Russia.

In his autobiography, The Unfading Light, he says, "Suddenly and joyfully in that evening hour my soul was stirred. O mountains of the Caucasus! I saw your ice sparkling from sea to sea, your snows reddening under the morning dawn, the peaks which pierced the sky, and my soul melted in ecstasy.... The first day of creation shone before my eyes. Everything was clear, everything was at peace and full of ringing joy. My heart was ready to break with bliss." He describes this was "my first encounter with Sophia-Wisdom." (The autobiography is not yet available in English, but quotes from it can be found in Christopher Bamford's forward to Bulgakov's Sophia, The Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology .

He eventually rejected Marxism for the idealist philosophy of the famous poet of the divine feminine, Vladimir Soloviev. After he was ordained he was exiled from his homeland by the Communists and he spent many years as dean of the Orthodox seminary in Paris. He was well aware of the scientific developments of his day, had a special interest in cosmology and anthropology, and was on good terms with religious thinkers in the English-speaking world, including the United States. He died in 1944. He is considered by many to be the greatest Orthodox thinker of the 20th century.

His most famous and comprehensive work is his book on the nature of the church, The Bride of the Lamb. Because of his educational background in law and economics, he wrote in a heavy Germanic philosophical style-- and originally in Russian-- so his work is not easy reading. Only in the last few years has it been published in English.

He helped to recover the sapiential religious thought of the first thousand years of Christian history. It differs from the static, dualistic and rationalist worldview familiar to western Christians in that is sees the universe as one dynamic process, moving from creation to fulfillment. This includes our personal development and the persistence of our relationships. If he were writing today, Bulgakov would say something like: We have to see that there is a fourth stage to the evolutionary process, the final completion and fulfillment of all things.

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What Bulgakov has to say about the resurrection of the dead is found in the Section III, Eschatology, in his book on the church, The Bride of the Lamb. Eschaton means "last" or "end" or "final things."

He begins by noting that there are no defined dogmas concerning the eschaton, although four statements concerning the Last Things are familiar from the ancient creeds: "He will come again in glory... Of his kingdom there will be no end... We believe in the resurrection of the dead ... and life in the world to come."

Much of what Bulgakov has to say is commentary on the many scriptural passages which deal with these four articles of the creed. His first point is basic and he makes it strongly: the “end of the world” does not mean that the universe will be annulled but that it will be renewed: it will be transformed and transfigured. “It will be, but in a new way.” Our world and the world to come are one and the same world, but it will be in a different state. This, he insists, is what scripture means by a “new heaven and a new earth.”

Bulgakov notes that our language is “helpless in trying to describe the reality” of the New Creation. He nevertheless has a good bit to say about it, and much of it is commentary on various eschatological passages in the New Testament, especially in the Book of Revelations. Of these, Bulgakov says clearly, “the images of this symbolic language are not to be taken literally.”

The resurrection of the dead and the presence of Christ at the Second Coming are one identical thing; Bulgakov emphasizes that “All rise in Christ.” Just as our one human nature shared by multiple persons was assumed in the Incarnation, so it is resurrected in the Universal Resurrection. Here, once again however, Bulgakov acknowledges that we can’t get any “real ideas about all this on this side of death and resurrection.”

At the same time, he reminds us that the essence of the Christian faith is that the body will be restored and the person will be changed. This is “the hope” without which, as St Paul says, “our faith is in vain.” This means, says Bulgakov, that the risen body “will be proper to each person.” It’s our body. At the same time, he says, it will also be “the one universal corporality which is the entire natural world.”

His heavy language can get in the way, but what he's saying is that each of us will have the entire transfigured cosmos as our own risen body, and that it will be held in a way that it is personal and unique to each of us.

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Both Bulgakov and the Biogenetic Structuralists are speaking from within an non-static and non-dualistic context. And while the scientists are talking about one thing (a neurological understanding of consciousness) and the theologian about another (the "new way we will be" at the eschaton of the world), they both share the same insights within that evolutionary and post-rationalist perspective: that human beings are the universe become aware of itself and that each of us is a unique manifestation of it.

Bulgakov says, "The risen body will be the entire natural world, held in a way that it is proper to each person." The Biogenetic Structuralists say, "Personal consciousness is the external world uniquely cognized by each of us."

I find the convergence of these insights remarkable.

However, considering that we're just coming out of several centuries of rationalist positivism, it's understandable that even many New Cosmologists are somewhat reluctant to deal with the idea of a "fourth level of the evolutionary process." But if I'm understanding the neurological data correctly, as I mentioned in blog #8 about the functioning of the brain's neocortical lobes resulting in our need for endings as well as beginnings: "it would seem that our hope for a final outcome to the cosmic process is generated by the cosmic process itself."

And in that context, the promised resurrection of the dead doesn't seem so unreasonable.

sam@macspeno.com