Evolution, be it of organism or of mind, of subatomic matter or of the cosmos as a whole, reflects the pervasive role of process which philosophers of this school see as central both to the nature of our world and to the terms in which it must be understood. Change pervades nature. The passage of time leaves neither individuals nor types (species) of things statically invariant. Process at once destabilizes the world and is the cutting-edge of advance to novelty. And evolution of every level, physical, biological, and cosmic carries the burden of the work here. But does it work blindly?
On the issue of purposiveness in nature, process philosophers divide into two principal camps. On the one side is the naturalistic (and generally secularist) wing that sees nature's processuality as a matter of an inner push or nisus to something new and different. On the other side is the teleological (and often theological) wing that sees nature's processuality as a matter of teleological directedness towards a positive destination. Both agree in according a central role to novelty and innovation in nature. But the one (naturalistic) wing sees this in terms of chance-driven randomness that leads away from the settled formulations of an established past, while the other (teleological) wing sees this in terms of a goal-directed purposiveness preestablished by some value-geared directive force. "Process Philosophy," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
As a follow up to the discussion in the previous posts about Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism here and here, I want to start fleshing out a theist metaphysic that makes sense for the postmodern mind. My resources for doing this are the tradition of metaphysics dating back at least to the time of Heraclitus, which carried on through Plato and Aristotle, and then through Augustine through the medieval period culminating in the thought of figures like Bonaventure and Nicholas of Cusa.
I accept the difficulties involved in trying to make anything with a sniff of Platonism seem even remotely plausible in the contemporary thought world, so my resources are not just premodern thinkers but others, who, following from Bergson, James, and Whitehead, have developed a way of thinking that is both compatible with theism and particularly with developments in modern physics and evolutionary biology. I reference the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article above for those of you unfamiliar with this stream of thought. I think that this stream, although not particularly well known or widely discussed these days, is pregnant with possibilities.
While I'm sure that a committed naturalist would not be convinced by the case that these thinkers (and I) want to make, I think that it can meet most of the objections that they pose. But beyond meeting their objections there is the positive challenge that comprises three fundamental tasks: first, to absorb the data the naturalist understands to be true without necessarily accepting his interpretation of these data; second, to absorb ideas from the Judaeo-Christian tradition about creation and the meaning of history; and third to bring it down to earth to provide a robust, compelling framework for practical living in the world--for personal as well as social ethics, for ideas that give human life its sense of joy, meaning, and purpose.
I would argue that any narrative that plausibly achieves all three has to be taken seriously, even by secularists. Taking seriously" does not mean acceptance. So for instance, while I am not a Buddhist, I take Buddhism seriously. I do so because I think I can learn from Buddhists. And while I have not the intention to convert Buddhists or secularists to Christianity, I would hope, some at least would enter into dialog in good faith, which means that they too would expect to learn or gain something from the exchange.
The merger of Hellenistic and Jewish worldviews in Christianity became the cultural "operating system" of the West. Thought systems that exhibit such longevity, persistence and which have had such a world historical impact should never be trivialized. And secularists often don't recognize how much they are indebted to that tradition. They might counter that they recognize what is valid and have rejected what is silly, superstitious, and otherwise retrograde. I would argue they are still blinded by Enlightenment rationalist prejudices that close them off to still-dormant possibilities that that lie within that OS.
I have no illusions that the kind of thinking that I want to promote here is marginal now and may very well continue to be. But one thing is sure, religion will continue to be a social force in one form or another into the distant future, and so even secularists have a stake in promoting good religion rather than the noxious kind that we see all around us today. Humans, being what they are, will always be attracted to bad religion. But my argument is that the best antidote is not the abolition of religion altogether some secularists argue is the only way forward and which is impossible anyway, but rather the promotion of good religion. And a good form of Christianity meets the three criteria listed above.
My argument since the beginning of this blog has been that as the habits of mind and prejudices associated with Enlightenment rationality continue to erode, an opportunity presents itself for a new presentation of a Christian metaphysics that is equal to any other plausible explanation about how the world works. The resources for presenting such an explanation are there; my purpose in this blog is to use those resources to present a narrative that non-academic specialists can understand. That doesn't mean that it will be easy; only that my goal will be to talk about these ideas in a more down-to-earth idiom striving wherever possible to use natural English rather than technical jargon, or when technical jargon can't be avoided to define clearly what it means. It remains to be seen whether I can do that effectively.
The Judaeo-Christian tradition is eschatological, which means it is future oriented; it sees history as having a goal or a telos. Most Christians think that the goal is to get off the earth and into the spirit world or heaven. I think that the Christian goal is to care for the earth, which is an organism, like a plant, which grows until it flowers, fruits, and seeds. The biblical metaphor for that flowering is the New Jerusalem, and fruiting/seeding the resurrection of the dead. I have no idea what either of those metaphors mean in concrete terms, so I chose to understand them by means of another metaphor: The earth as an entelechy, an organism which is both stable and in constant change, but the change has an underlying pattern, a logos with a telos, so to speak. Christianity is where Greek thinking and Jewish thinking converge.
That's the meaning of Christian eschatology for me. It's an organic conception rooted in Aristotle's idea of the entelechy: As the acorn grows to become the oak tree, so is the earth like a seed that has germinated and is growing toward that which it is "genetically" programmed to be. And we humans are the ones charged with the healthful development of the earth, to fight off the diseases that seek continuously to infect and to divert its growth toward its telos. All that should matter to us now is proper horticulture, not of the harvest. The harvest, whatever its nature, is too far off to worry about now.
For if we humans are the cultivators (stewards) of the earth--and fi the relative health or sickness of our human culture directly relates to the healthy maturation of the earth, then everything depends on our getting our house in order. For now more than ever the future of the earth is the future of human culture.