Re: creation through travail

Peter Ruest wrote:

 "I sympathize with your concept
of "partnering", although I don't yet see what it (and "collaboration")
would mean in this context or in the one of animal life."

Thanks for taking this seriously.

Yeah, God's spiritual interaction with animals, cells or molecules is certain to be a stumbling block to hard-headed scientific types. But it's not something I haven't given a lot of thought to. Fact is, no one knows what consciousness is or where it comes from, so to say lots of entities other than humans have it is something that science cannot disprove. David Chalmers a number of years ago in a Scientific American article proposed that consciousness is a fundamental, irreducible feature of reality, like space-time. I like the idea and lean heavily on it.

Everything may be conscious at some level, but not everything gives evidence of being so. Furthermore, we can say without fear of contradiction that levels of consciousness vary greatly, even in humans who are known to be conscious some of the time. In a long essay I wrote on this a few years ago, I speculated that consciousness is highest in organisms that most effectively unify the largest diversity of components, each of which has the highest possible level of freedom. The organism's components have lower levels of consciousness than the organism itself. When the organism relaxes, it unifies its components less effectively than when it is alert, so its consciousness diminishes and diffuses among its components.

A brief quote from my essay: "Let us postulate that the highest consciousness results from the fullest possible unification of a great many component parts of great diversity. Each component part has some level of consciousness of its own that is lower than that of the unified being. The level of consciousness of each part depends partly on the nature of its interactions with other entities in its environment: From introspection I judge that, if the interactions are conducive to freedom and spirituality, consciousness is high; if not, it is low. Complex molecules moving relatively freely in cell endoplasm among a great diversity of other molecules have higher levels of consciousness than molecules immobilized by rigid bonding in solids. Entities made of components with high levels of consciousness have higher consciousness themselves than entities made of less conscious components. Living cells consequently have higher consciousness than comparably sized grains of rock."

This essay is included in my book. When a few of my atheist colleagues at work read it, they all agreed that the book would have been better if I had deleted this chapter. But I told them, "No way!" Without some such concepts as these, I cannot account for my spiritual perceptions.

In mammals the brain presumably is what makes the high level of unification of components possible.

Anyway, it's scientifically acceptable to assert that all creatures are conscious at some level. It's theologically acceptable to assert that God can interact spiritually with all creatures. But how does God interact with creatures?

Back in November I wrote the following in response to something George Murphy said: "Jesus as a man is the Word, but the Word is of no effect for us without the Spirit. Likewise, the Spirit could not operate on us without the Word. Both are essential." On contemplating this I started thinking that maybe it applies universally. That is, not just to God's interactions with humans but to his interactions with all creatures. The Word for creatures would be evidences of God in nature. Creatures with low levels of consciousness would have great difficulty perceiving the Word, so presumably it would take a long time for God to get anywhere with them. With us at our high levels of consciousness it should be relatively quick and easy for God's creative power to work among us.

The crucial thing for creativity then is not travail per se but apprehension of the Word. I called it "creation through travail" because I suppose creatures as a rule are more likely to perceive the Word when they are in crisis than when they are fat and happy.

The picture of God consistent with this model is that of a person who doesn't arbitrarily impose his will on his creation but acts upon it when it calls upon him. This picture of God meshes very well with my personal perception of him, and the model of the creation as a thing that needs help from time to time meshes very well with my perception of the world.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Peter Ruest<mailto:pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>
  Cc: Howard J. Van Till<mailto:hvantill@sbcglobal.net> ; asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 9:51 PM
  Subject: Re: creation through travail

  Don Winterstein wrote:
> ... Actually, a robust world that could do it all on its =
> own would fit quite well into key elements of my personal theology, and =
> it's possible that one day I'll come to embrace that view. Right now, =
> though, I choke on it, and I can't really say why. It's just not how I =
> see either God or the world. =20

  Like you, I feel like choking on Howard's RFEP, having both theological and
  scientific problems with it. I have discussed this with him in PSCF and on
  this list, but without our reaching any kind of agreement.
   
> My inability to accept your RFEP in no way detracts from my respect for =
> your use of it as a tool against materialists. =20
>
> HVT: a) Does your version of "interventionist" entail the idea that God =
> is both willing and able to act on the world in such a way as =
> occasionally to impose new forms on material systems, forms that the =
> universe was never (by divine choice, presumably) equipped to actualize? =
>
> DW: The universe of course was physically capable in principle but on =
> its own would not have done in a finite time.=20

  This is also my conviction, based on the amount of functional information
  contained in the biosphere - although I cannot prove it. I also have severe
  objections to Howard's "and able" and his implication of a lack of
  "equipment" of the creation should divine intervention happen.
   
> HVT: b) Do you envision the character of God and of God's relationship =
> to the universe to be such that God is both willing and able to =
> intervene on some occasions by directly re-arranging atoms and molecules =
> into new or different structures?
>
> DW: Perhaps my key thesis is that God acts on and through creatures =
> that "beg" him to act: creation through travail. All life forms =
> interact at some level with God all the time. A particular one may go =
> happily a million years but then confront a crisis. At that point the =
> life form cries out with groans too deep for words. God hears, and in =
> collaboration with the life form itself comes up with something new. (A =
> common alternative is extinction.) So yes, God can and does rearrange =
> the physical components, but in response to the creature's travail and =
> through its collaboration. I can imagine God punctuating the =
> equilibrium in this way, causing large changes over short times. =20

  Thank you, Don - this is a very interesting idea! It is new to me, but looks
  quite plausible theologically. I just read the book of Judges, where there
  is a repeated history of Israel falling into idolatry, being subjugated by
  some foreign nation, finally coming to repent, crying to the Lord and being
  rescued again. Why did God leave them in their misery, sometimes for many
  years? He wants to be asked for help. This seems to be the only way faith
  can again be apprehended and be established.
   
> I think God's activities as described in the Bible involve the same kind =
> of dynamic. Even though God much of the time is portrayed as taking the =
> initiative, in reality it's the people's travail that he responds to. =
> In a sense it's the people who bring on the intervention. =20
>
> The more "intelligent" or spiritual the life form is, the more capable =
> it is of successfully interacting with God to make something new. So =
> that's why it took the one-celled plants & animals a few billion years =
> to get anywhere. =20

  To extend this principle of God responding to creatures' travail is somewhat
  more difficult to understand than in the case of humans, who obviously are
  gifted with the special capacity of consciously turning to the Lord. But it
  might resonate with Paul's saying about the creation's "groaning as in the
  pains of childbirth" in Romans 8:22. But the "groans that words cannot
  express" (v.26) - to which you seem to be referring above - appear,
  according to the context, to be higher, not lower, than human language.

> As for bare molecules, it must have taken them longer still. That lends =
> plausibility to the idea that life originated outside our solar system =
> and was seeded on Earth by spores. =20

  In the case of the molecules, at least for the moment, I prefer to think
  rather in terms of God's deliberate fine-tuning of circumstances in the
  origin and development of the earth and of life. Extraterrestrial spores had
  to originate somewhere. Crick's panspermia hypothesis (Crick F.H.C. & Orgel
  L.E., Icarus 19 (1973), 341-346) is apparently no longer taken to be a
  serious option (Kerr R.A., "Rethinking water on Mars and the origin of
  life", Science 292 (2001), 39-40). I think the little additional time and
  space an extraterrestrial origin might perhaps provide couldn't help enough
  to make a spontaneous origin of life sufficiently more probable to be worth
  while considering.

> These ideas are less than half-baked. But if I expose them, maybe =
> someone will be able to run with them better than I, or give useful =
> feedback. Down deep some such mode of creation through travail appeals =
> to me in a way that no other scheme has yet done. God does not fiddle =
> with his world but partners with it. =20
>
> Don

  I don't see God's intervention as "fiddling" at all - which sounds like lack
  of knowledge, ability, or power. He certainly knows what He was doing,
  throughout the history of the universe. But I sympathize with your concept
  of "partnering", although I don't yet see what it (and "collaboration")
  would mean in this context or in the one of animal life.

  Peter

  --
  Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
  <pruest@dplanet.ch<mailto:pruest@dplanet.ch>> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
  "..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)
Received on Thu Mar 18 04:40:49 2004