In a message dated 8/21/2006 7:36:33 AM Eastern Standard Time,
gregoryarago@yahoo.ca writes:
Thanks to Rich for the excerpt to his paper, which discusses, among other
things, how he thinks choice *is* an evolutionary adaptation. I would like to
make just a few comments, though not all of them are within the fields of
knowledge or expertise in which I study and research. Hopefully the
inter-disciplinarity of such discussion will show through.
If the existence of Adam and Eve is taken for granted (which I don’t think is
a bad idea), then the question of ‘evolution of consciousness’ can be
closely discussed with spirituality via the presence of a non-material human
dimension. If Adam and Eve were supposedly ‘conscious’ in the Garden of Eden, then
naming animals, making tools and generally surviving can be viewed as not just
physical-material topics and can include extra-physical considerations.
Consciousness is scientific, but also a supra-scientific topic.
Adam and Eve did not exist. They were not conscious in hte garden of eden.
Once they were self conscious (a more rigorous term - all life has a degree of
consciousness relative to its sensory apparatus - but only man has a developed
self conscious). Self consciousness is not "supra-scientific" if I understand
that term.
In his paper, Rich asks: 'What do scientists say about 'the beginning?' I
wonder about this also. Could anyone out there suggest a guess about how many
scientists (i.e. what percentage) actually pronounce on ‘the beginning’ of life
or human existence? It seems to me this is a surprisingly minuscule number of
scientists, yet their views are accorded such respect for their speculations
and the experiments they carry out. Isn’t it true that a vast number of
scientists don’t pronounce on ‘beginnings’?
If Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil is the pivotal event that marks the Biblical transition
from one consciousness to another and we are to apply a Darwinian perspective to
the text, we must ask: what is the corresponding pivotal event that marks the
scientific evolution from one consciousness to another? What do scientists say
about “the beginning?”
Not OOL, just the beginning of self consciousness.
Several questions arise about the limitations of evolutionary thought. May it
be that the concept of ‘evolution’ can be taken out of context, misquoted so
to speak? Is this a possibility that can be further explored at ASA or should
it be swept under the carpet due to fears about anti-evolutionism? I ask this
because it seems to me that not only those like Dennett and Dawkins abuse the
term ‘evolution’ and over-stretch its uses, but also those theists, even
Christians, who tie together or integrate their views of science with their
theology to such a degree that evolution has become one of the most important
theological concepts in their vocabulary (e.g. de Chardin). Could it be, for
example, that process theology is so intimately intertwined with evolutionary
thinking that to remove evolutionary thinking would result in a catastrophe for
process theology?
When can a person legitimately conclude that ‘evolution [has] run mad,’ as
C.S. Lewis once suggested of de Chardin’s evolutionary universalism?
It may be that Rich and I differ on this issue, not from a standpoint of
Christian thinking, but based on the different disciplines and approaches we take
in the diversified academy. As a social scientist who has witnessed the
pervasiveness of evolutionary ideas in several social-humanitarian fields, I cannot
help but think that natural scientists, as well as mathematicians, don’t give
enough attention to this feature of evolution or the evolutionary paradigm as
it represents normal science.
Arago
I don't understand your terms or your point. I'm sorry. If you read about
self consciousness, you find it has a self. If you read about the fall of adam
and eve they had no self before and a self after the fall. If you read eastern
mysticism, you find the elimination of the self. You look at the crucifixion,
you find the self sacrificed. If you look at human evolution, you see that the
self arose with the expansion of the brain as man learned, which meant he had
to hold more and more things in consciousness to make his decisions. If you
read the OT and the NT you find that those who are most respected have the law
"written on their hearts" which is another way of saying you are behaving
intuitively/instinctively. If you behave intuitively, the law is written on your
heart.
I don't depart from these simple inescapable facts. I don't embellish. I
don't distort. I report. These are the facts. if there is a better understanding
of the fall and the redemption I have yet to hear it. I can see that the NH
author who put jesus' words in the gospel of thomas understood the fall and the
return the way I am explaining it.
“When you disrobe without being ashamed… you will not be afraid.”3
The writer has reversed the fall correctly - if there is no shame (a self)
there is no fear (ontological anxiety). When there is no fear you have now
accepted the burden of the cross because that's what it takes to carry it. God gave
you a self, and your only correct decision is to give yourself freely back to
him, to freely love him, which is why he gave you the freedom to choose in
the first place. If you give yourself back to God, you are an empty shell to do
his will. His law is written on your heart. The theology works.
Here are some more examples if you wish:
Two states of consciousness can be discerned in Genesis. We have compared
those two states of consciousness to the two states of consciousness scientists
discuss when they make the distinction between animal consciousness and human
consciousness. If all humans have evolved from the lower animals as the
scientists suggest, and the religious experience has a scientific basis, we must be
able to find expressions of that universal truth in religions around the world.
A scientific truth remains the truth in every time and in every place. If the
transition from one state of consciousness to another is a “fall,” and the “
fall” is a human biological universal, we should be able to find other world
religions that address a return to a primeval state before a “fall.” Recall
that Adam and Eve exhibit no shame and stand in the presence of God without fear
before the fall. After the fall they are self-conscious, ashamed and fearful.
Consider this fall resulting in shame (self-consciousness) and fear
(ontological anxiety) in light of the views that follow from religions around the world:
“It has been one of the chief aims of all religious teaching and ceremonial…
to suppress as much as possible the sense of ego,” (Joseph Campbell, Masks of
God).
“What is sacred in science is truth; what is sacred in art is beauty. Truth
and beauty are impersonal… If a child is doing a sum and does it
wrong, the mistake bears the stamp of his personality. If he does the sum exactly
right, his personality does not enter into it at all… Perfection is
impersonal. Our personality is the part of us which belongs to error and sin. The whole
effort of the mystic has always been to become such that there is no part left
in his soul to say ‘I’,” (SimoneWeil, Human Personality).
“The Gods… having created the Sacrifice, offered it of themselves.” Antonio
T. de Nicolas, in his Meditations through the Rg Veda explains, “Agni is the
Great Sacrificer, gifted with the right intention, the right intentionality,
capable of piercing the mysteries, through his measuring power, through his
concentrated thought, and through his wisdom. All this is possible because he
gathers in himself the efficacy of the sacrificial science.”
The last words uttered by Job from the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible are, “
Now I see thee (God) with my own eyes. Therefore I melt away (I despise
myself); I repent in dust and ashes.”
In John White’s essay, Jesus, Evolution, and the Future of Humanity, he
writes, “The very first words Jesus spoke to humanity in his public ministry were, ‘
The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe
in the gospel’ (Mark1: 14, Matthew 4:17).”
White writes, “Notice that word: repent. Over the centuries it has become
misused and mistranslated. The Aramaic word that Jesus used is tob, meaning, ‘to
return,’ ‘to flow back into God.’ The sense of this concept comes through
best in the Greek word first used to translate it. That word is metanoia and like
tob, it means something far greater than merely feeling sorry for
misbehavior. Meta means, ‘to go beyond,’ ‘to go higher than.’ And noia comes from nous,
meaning, ‘mind.’ So the original meaning of metanoia is literally ‘going
beyond or higher than the ordinary mental state.’ In modern terms, it means
transcending self-centered ego and becoming God-centered.”
Now Job’s final words assume a greater significance. When Job despises his
self and his self melts away, he transcends his self-centered ego (repents) and
sees God.
Jesus says, “By gaining his life, a man will lose it; by losing his life for
my sake, he will gain it (Matthew 10:39).” Jesus leads us to understand that
by letting go of the self the self is regained. Holding onto the self ensures
its loss! Remarkably, Jesus makes very specific reference to the self-sacrifice
when He says, “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in
order to take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down on my
own. I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again. This command I
have received from my Father (John 10:17).”
William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience quotes E.D. Starbuck
on the centrality of self-surrender in pursuit of the religious experience:
Starbuck says, “that to exercise the personal will is still to live in the
region where the imperfect self is the thing most emphasized.” Later Starbuck adds,
“the act of yielding, in this point of view, is giving one’s self over to
the new life, making it the center of a new personality, and living, from
within, the truth of it which had before been viewed objectively.”
These are a few of the many examples from religions around the world that
suggest our current state of consciousness must be surrendered if we are to see
God with our own eyes, as Job did.
rich faussette
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Received on Mon Aug 21 17:50:45 2006
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