[1] I don’t know exactly how it happened, but one day I realized that
you can 'derive' our universe from God (from an existence/characteristics
standpoint), but not vice versa. You can 'start with' God and produce the
rest of created reality by making sub-sets of His character/nature/whatever…but
you cannot go in the other direction…
[2] If I start with God and remove some of the omni-attributes, I can
get angels…If I take angels and remove some of their 'freedom' from material-relations
(i.e., they can appear and disappear, implying some relative freedom from
optics--or at least freedom from perception by sentient creatures such
as humans and animals) I can get humans…if I remove the more transcendental
functions of humans (e.g., ethics, language, vastly symbolic existence,
massively recursive consciousness, total community dependence) I can get
the animals…if I remove various levels of mobility and adaptive behavior
from the animals, I can get plant life…if I remove the capability of identity-preserving
regeneration (i.e., life), I get rocks and such.
[3] Another way of looking at this might be 'levels of freedom'. God
would have absolute and unconditional freedom--in all areas and directions.
The angelic beings would not be free to create from nothing (presumably)
but be free to not have to terminate a material relation (e.g., be one
endpoint in a gravitational attraction with the Moon)…the human would not
have this latter freedom, but still live in complex organizations (as apparently
the angels do) and live lives totally permeated by symbols, transcendentals,
creativity (for good or ill), and contact with the spiritual aspects of
existence…animals would have the capacity for group organization/life,
emotional lives, play, functional communication, but lose the radical
freedom of choice that comes with massively recursive self-consciousness
and symbolic existence…
[4] a note on this last point: we do know that animals are clearly sentient,
and that they do have internal 'maps' of their histories and selves…and,
in the research at the edge of animal communication, we know that a couple
of the higher species can be taught reasonable language skills…the more
public and impressive of these projects have simians that can express emotions
such as sadness or jealousy, make up jokes, and put together novel word
combinations to express ideas new to them…they can map existing vocabulary
to get 'close enough' analogues to what they are confronted with…these
specialized training programs cost gazillions of dollars, require immense
amounts of specialized planning and work, and in some cases, expensive
equipment…human children who could not survive even a week in the wild
learn this "automatically"---the difference is staggering and systemic…
[5] The human's freedom of choice (as higher than that of the animals),
can be found in (at least) three elements: (1) the power of oppositional
thought; (2) massively recursive self-consciousness; and (3) the power
of symbol processing.
[6] Oppositional thought is that ability to consider a course of action,
a possible decision, a value, or simply another thought and 'negate it'…(I
have discussed aspects of this more fully in the Linguistic Wall)…I literally,
as a human, can feel a compulsion, an 'instinct', a 'drive', a pattern
of behavior learned from my parents or peers, a virtue demanded by my religion,
or a duty demanded by my community, and say "NO!"…just "NO"!…for no reason,
or any reason, or some reasons…if I can think it (at any level of conceptualization),
I can reject it and run the other way…If I don’t want to fly south for
the winter, I don’t have to…
[7] By massively recursive self-consciousness, I am referring to that
strange ability I have (and share with others, of course) to be aware that
I am aware that I am being aware that I am aware…and so on until I pass
out and lose awareness…grin…This vastly transcends simple self-maps of
higher primates and the 'appearance' maps of other animals, and the internal
physiological maps of babies (i.e., how they can mimic with their facial
expressions what they see an adult do). I can literally watch how I respond
internally to other internal 'thoughts'…and "they" seem to "watch back"…when
you couple this with the capability of oppositional thought, you get a
freedom-generator of extreme power…
[8] By symbol processing, I am referring to that ability to abstract
some 'concept' or 'image' or 'aspect' of something and then play with that
abstraction…generating transformations of it…evaluating those…recreating
them…morphing them. I can construct a notice of 'justice' and then probe
that for implications…I can "see myself" and tweak that, visualizing an
alternative me…and I can do the same for my history, my present mental
states, and even my value sets…I can soar with the angels and touch the
edges of the Forms…
[9] but to return to the hierarchy of freedom…the animals have varying
levels of freedom over plants (e.g., social organization/life, locomotion),
and plants have a freedom over matter, in that life forms have a freedom
over entropy (via regeneration--they are subject to decay, but 'outrun
it' by renewal processes that preserve core-identity over time). I am personally
convinced that the 'spiritual dimension' is present in all life, although
I will have to explore this further…the fact that a single-celled paramecium
(without the benefit of a single brain cell, obviously!) can 'learn' where
an edge is, and avoid it in subsequent movements, suggests to me that the
spiritual "dimension" which seems to be related to higher levels of organization,
freedom, patterns, and goal-oriented behavior, made be the single defining
characteristic of life…
[10] the hierarchy is one-directional: you can get simpler forms out
of more complex, but not vice versa…I can produce individuals out of societies,
but not the other way around…I can only make a society out of an agglutination
of individuals if the individuals are already 'socialized'--and, in the
case of humans, who unlike the animals do not have the ability to survive
from birth for many years and are dependent upon the community to feed/nurture
them, we carry this already in our developed souls…
[11] this hierarchy is the basic reason why reductionism cannot work…the
whole is always greater than the sum of the parts…if the parts do not already
somehow 'carry' the whole (or enough of a template for it), then you cannot
construct a whole from the parts--you only get a group of interacting parts…
[12] non-linear systems (often thought to support the notion of "complexity
from simplicity") are no exception to this…super-cooling a random mixture
of atoms of iron, silicon, neon, and helium wouldn’t produce non-linear
system effects…you have to super-cool a very, very specific mix…and the
interactions between the particles are what constitutes the non-linear
effect--not necessarily the elements themselves.
[13] in addition to this, of course, is the rather obvious fact that elements exist in a massive context of physical "laws" and initial conditions that produce the individual behaviors to begin with…this is why the phrase "a self-organizing nothing" is so absurd…
[14] this hierarchy has a major implication for theology--where do we
get our initial paradigm model for God? The biblical model of God is supremely
personal…God is a living, caring, emotionally robust, volitionally powerful,
wise, good, relationship-oriented Mind that we have 'to do business with'…to
map this biblical God to something like a rock, and analyse Him/Her/Them/It
as matter or 'essence' is strangely backward…
[15] The highest complexity we know as creatures so far (with the possible
exception of quantum effects) is that of human and human group behavior…our
models of God (which we use in theology to explore the implications of
the biblical statements about God) must accordingly start there and
not lower.
[16] If the biblical witness reveals a God who is a "Person" first,
and a "nature" second, then theology has to start there in exploring the
implications of its God.
[17] To illustrate how critical this might become, consider the contrast
between a "Perfect Being" philosophical theology, and a "Perfect Person"
theology…
[18] the older "Perfect Being" theology, would use the dignum deo
principle: only those ascriptions could be made of God that were in accordance
with His dignity and greatness…in other words, whatever the theologian
thought was 'worthy' of God could be ascribed to God, and anything less
that worthy of God could not be ascribed to Him…this is sadly subjective,
as you can probably tell…
[19] but the kinds of things that got said about God were descriptions
of 'being'--immutable, impassible, simple, eternal…and over the centuries
even the more personal attributes of God got mapped away…God's knowledge
of His creatures became God's knowledge of Himself (He could know nothing
external to Himself, or else He would be 'dependent' on it); God's love
for us became either His love for Himself ( a perfect being could only
love a perfect being, they said) or disappeared altogether into the "effects
on us" of our actions of worthiness or unworthiness (to be subject to passions
such as love or grief, was to be subject to change, and a perfect being
could not change…)
[20] of course, a timeless, unchanging, passionless Being presents huge
challenges to those who believed that God became a human and suffered (really)
on the Cross of Shame…still does…(that's part of the reason the majority
of the Christian philosophical community has abandoned the "classical"
view of God)
[21] A main problem, of course, was how to define 'perfect' or 'worthy
of God'…a perfect rock would be indestructible, immovable, prior to all
other rocks and forces, unable to decay (and therefore, ontologically 'simple'),
eternal, without internal competing forces, not dependent on other things
for its position in space/time, and unable to experience changes in relationships
or state, etc…
[22] and some think that is the kind of theological "god" we inherited
from classical/traditional theology.
[23] If we turn to "perfect Person" theology, what would that look like?
Again, we would be making some king of dignum deo type argument,
but would we on better ground this time? Do I have a better sense of what
a 'perfect person' would be like, that what a 'perfect rock' would be like?
Do I have more insight into persons (via my social nature) that I do into
rocks (via my physical nature)?
[24] what would Perfect Person characteristics look like? Would they
be detachment from suffering, or immersion into the suffering of others--with
true, heart-clawing empathetic capabilities? Would it be heightened sensitive
to pleasure and joy and art and music? Would it be higher experiences of
parent-love, or of lover-betrayal, or of teacher-fulfillment? Would it
be love more constant and 'unchangeable' than any experienced on earth?
Would it include higher levels of commitment and integrity? Would it involve
higher levels of respect for personal worth and personal freedom? Would
it take more personal relationship risks than other persons? Would it be
supremely responsive to the needs of others? Would it include ultimate
freedom to befriend and come along side to help?
[25] would it include the same mixture of power and weakness, self-worth
and other-focus, tenacity and responsiveness, that we find in Jesus, the
express "etching" of God?
[26] before we pursue this further, we have to go back to the issue of complexity…as we moved 'up' the ladder of freedom, we also moved "up" the levels of social organization/life/interaction…atoms exist in a 'society' of sorts, simple chemical and physical organizations (compounds), that evince higher-order characteristics as a unit…hydrogen and oxygen make a water molecule, radically unlike the 'parts' of which it is composed…organic compounds 'work together' in living organisms…fertilization exists in plant life…animals display a wide range of social organization patterns (e.g., bees, wolves, birds)…humans organize in cultures than grow and shape the individual humans…angels apparently have extensive hierarchical arrangements as well…and God is a Trinity…
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