THE
PROCESS OF THE COSMOS
Philosophical Theology
and Cosmology
A SPECULATIVE ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE
by
Dr. Anthony Bernard KELLY PhD.
First Published by Dissertation.com, 1999
ISBN: 1 – 58112 – 060 - 5
Copyright, KELLY Anthony Bernard, 1999
THE
PROCESS OF THE COSMOS
SUMMARY 4
Chapter One THE
PROBLEM OF THE MOTIVE FOR CREATION 6
Madigan’s argument 7
Madigan’s claim 9
Assessment
of Madigan’s argument 10
Aristotle’s initiation of the argument 11
Avoiding
Aristotle’s argument 11
The problem of direct Creation 11
Confronting Aristotle’s argument 13
Aristotle’s hidden assumption 14
Is the world
in process? 14
Madigan’s other claim 15
Chapter Two NATURAL
THEOLOGY AND
Chapter Three THE
WORK OF NICOLAI HARTMANN 23
The Teleological nexus and
the Causal
nexus 23
Hartmann’s analysis of Spiritual Being 25
Hartmann’s Ethics and
the role of Values 28
An explanation of these phenomena 32
Hartmann’s antinomies 34
Hartmann’s Ontology 37
Strata and Levels distinguished 38
Hartmann’s analysis of Freedom 42
Chapter Four THE EMERGENCE OF HOMO SAPIENS ETHICUS 44
The Nature
of Man 44
Homo Sapiens Ethicus 46
The
Relevance of Myth and History 50
Emergence of
Spiritual Consciousness 52
The Axial Period 54
Chapter Five THE
PROCESS OF THE COSMOS 56
The Process
of Self-Creation 56
Altruism and
Morality 58
The
Emergence of a Moral Sense 58
The Problem
of Evil 60
Man, Culture
and Deity 61
The Role of
Culture 63
The Good of
Man 64
Chapter Six EMERGENCE
AND THE WORLD PROCESS 66
Emergence 67
Criteria of
Emergent Levels 68
The Emergent
Levels 69
Theories of
Emergent Evolution 71
The Miracle
of Life 77
Miracles and
Emergence 77
The World
Process 77
The Laws of
Nature and Natural Law 78
Chapter Seven THE
EXPLANATION OF THE WORLD 81
Self-Existence 81
The
Emergence of Life 83
Challenges
to Neo-Darwinism 84
Does Life
have an
Intrinsic Ordering Principle? 86
Critique of Harris 90
Other Critiques of Neo-Darwinism 90
Neo-Darwinism and Biochemistry 93
Cosmological Natural Selection? 94
Conclusion 96
BIBLIOGRAPHY 98
This
is a speculative answer to the riddle of existence, but it is not mere
speculation. It presents a consistent and coherent answer to some of the most
profound philosophical questions, such as why there is anything at all and why
there is evil in the world. The
existence of both physical or natural evil, and of moral evil, is one reason
why many cease to believe in God. Such
people can not reconcile a powerful and perfect Creator with an imperfect world
in which evil abounds.
I
argue that with the advance of scientific knowledge, particularly in cosmology,
Natural Theology can now provide an answer to the question as to the reason for
the existence of man and the world.
Aristotle had reasoned from the contingency of the world to the
necessity of a God. He had also
concluded that the world was unworthy of God’s concern, as God could not be
concerned with a world which was significantly different from God himself. Aristotle’s reasoning from the world up to
God, together with his inability to reason down from God to the world,
established an antinomy, in the sense of a contradiction between the
conclusions of two lines of thought, both of which appear to be true.
The
history of subsequent attempts to avoid this antinomy, and to provide an
explanation for the existence of the world, is considered. No such attempt is found to be
successful. A hidden assumption in
Aristotle’s reasoning is exposed.
Aristotle’s conclusion that the world was not worthy of God’s concern
followed from his unstated assumption that the world was complete, rather than
in process.
We
now recognise that the universe and life have both developed in complexity from
more simple beginnings. Teilhard de
Chardin was the first to understand the entire Cosmos as a process, but he
understood it as an inevitable process from Alpha to Omega, rather than a free
process.
Early
in the 20th Century the Emergent Evolutionists had sought to explain
the emergence of the biological and mental levels from the material level,
without success. Nicolai Hartmann’s
subsequent ontological investigations made clear the stratified nature of
reality. Hartmann’s ontology is brought
to bear on the problem of Emergence.
Hartmann’s analysis of ethics and his phenomenology of human nature are
also brought to bear on the problem of the nature and role of man in the
world.
I
argue that the world can be understood as a process involving the possible
self-creation of an entity like God. In
the series of the emergent ontological strata of reality, the physical,
biological, conscious and spiritual strata, each stratum is less rigidly
determined, and exercises greater freedom than does the previous stratum. The laws of nature vary from stratum to
stratum, becoming less deterministic at each new stratum.
The
present human moral-cultural, or spiritual stratum, exercises complete freedom
in relation to the law of this stratum, the moral law. The moral law may command but unlike the
physical law, it can not compel. The
possible outcomes of this process of Emergence could be either the
self-creation of a stratum which is not significantly different from God, or
the self-destruction of humanity. In
this context, Christ could be considered to be a proleptic exemplar of the
final emergent stage.
In
the first chapter I argue that Aristotle was correct in his conclusion that God
could not cause a world which was significantly different from himself. I utilise Patrick Madigan’s account of the historical
development of the question of the motive for creation, set out in his Christian
Revelation and the Completion of the Aristotelian Revolution (1988), in
order to trace the attempts to avoid Aristotle’s conclusion and to provide some
motive for the apparent production of an imperfect world by a perfect God. I argue that logically God could not directly
create a world which was similar to God.
Only a process involving free self-creation at some stage could possibly
produce an entity which was also self-existent, and so not significantly
different from God. I argue that the
imperfect world represents a stage in such a process.
In
the second chapter I utilise the findings of modern Physics and Cosmology to
present an argument from Natural Theology that the world is involved in such a
process of self-creation. This chapter provides an overview of my argument.
In
the third chapter I bring the phenomenological work of Nicolai Hartmann, in
particular his New Ways of Ontology (1953) and his Ethics (1932),
to bear on the thesis that the world is in process and that man has a
significant role to play in that process.
Hartmann shows the stratified nature of reality, with each succeeding
stratum exercising grater freedom, and being less rigidly determined than the
previous stratum. He also shows that the
present moral-cultural or spiritual stratum is completely free in relation to
the application of the law of that stratum, the moral law. Hartmann’s insights, from a non-theistic
perspective, support my thesis that the world process is a process of
self-creation.
In
the fourth chapter I argue that the present human moral-cultural or spiritual
stage of the process of the cosmos is a relatively recent phenomenon. I consider a number of studies of the literature
and history of both the ancient Greeks and the
Hebrews. The transition from a
pre-moral way of thinking to a new way of thinking is more fully documented in
the Greek culture of the Classical period than in any other culture. This change in men’s minds has been the
subject of many conjectures as to its cause.
I argue that the change was the result of a newly emergent moral sense,
and I show that this most recent emergent stage is primarily a phenomenon of
about the first millennium BC.
In
the fifth chapter I argue that the Cosmological evidence of the development of
the cosmos to the present time is consistent with the cosmos being involved in
a process of self-creation. I also
propose a novel resolution of the problem of evil. This resolution is consistent with my overall
thesis.
In
the sixth chapter I relate my thesis to the problem of Emergent Evolution. I survey various approaches which have been
made to the problem of Emergence, particularly the contribution made by Samuel
Alexander who proposed the eventual emergence of Deity. The phenomenon of emergence has never
previously been explained. I argue that
the problem of Emergence is resolved by this thesis.
In
the seventh and final chapter I consider other attempts which have been made to
provide an overall explanation of the cosmos, particularly the neo-Darwinian
approach. These approaches include
Smolin’s attempt to find a form of natural selection in the process of the
cosmos, as set out in his The Life of the Cosmos (1997)
Chapter One - THE PROBLEM OF THE MOTIVE FOR CREATION.
A
brief history of the quest for a sufficient reason for the existence of the
world has been set out by Patrick Madigan (1988). Madigan
argues that contrary to the Enlightenment view that Christianity had diverted and perverted the patrimony of
classical Greek philosophy, the insights provided by Christianity had enabled
the completion of the Aristotelian project to generate an adequate explanation
of the world. (1988,1-2)
Madigan maintains that Aristotle had been unable to complete his project of providing
a scientific explanation of the cosmos.
Aristotle had concluded that God could only be engaged in the highest
activity, that of thinking or contemplation.
This activity could only be directed towards God himself, as the highest
object. It would be unworthy of God to
attend to anything lower than himself.
The world, as it existed, was therefore not worthy of God’s concern.
(1988,3-7)
Madigan’s primary thesis is that Aristotle failed in his original project to provide a full
explanation of the world. He maintains
that Aristotle had realised that he could not succeed in this project because
he could not provide a satisfactory theory of the production of the world from
an immutable God. In Madigan’s opinion,
Aristotle had then sought to avoid the appearance of failure by shifting the
focus of the question from the nature of the ultimate efficient cause of the
world, to the eternity of motion. (1988,42)
In the presentation of his argument Madigan traces the debate concerning
God’s motive for creation, from Parmenides to Aquinas and beyond.
Aristotle had proposed to give a full scientific explanation
of the world. In his terms this would
have meant the identification of the material, formal, efficient and final
causes of the production of the world.
He had established that God was necessary as a first mover to explain
the existence of the world, and he had also established that God could not
cause a world which was significantly
different from himself. These two
conclusions appeared to be contradictory.
Madigan considers that not only had Aristotle failed to
explain the world, he had also discovered that such an explanation was
impossible. While our world requires a
first cause, the attempt to explain the world from this first cause could not
succeed. (1988,16-18)
Madigan shows that the Greeks, from Parmenides on, had been able to reason up to a realm of true
being, or God, but none of them had been able to connect this realm with the
world of appearances. (1988,27)
Plotinus had subsequently argued that the world had been
produced necessarily and unconsciously as an automatic emanation from God’s
nature. (1988,62) No such attempt to
explain creation was ultimately satisfactory.
Madigan then argues that it was only the Christian `good news’ which could provide an escape from
the impasse into which classical philosophy had fallen. His argument relies upon the necessity of
salvation. Madigan argues that while
creation is first in the order of time, it is salvation which is first in the
order of explanation. Salvation is what
provides God’s motive for creation. From
God’s viewpoint, Madigan claims, creation and salvation are not separable, but
should be viewed as two moments of a single divine initiative. He maintains that creation is essential in
order to make salvation, as friendship or fulfilment, possible. (1988,76) Madigan understands salvation as the call to
a relationship with God, although he admits that just what salvation will turn
out to be is, and will remain, a mystery at the philosophical level. However, salvation has to imply some sort of
relationship between man and God, involving mutual recognition and friendship.
(1988,77)
Madigan sees the attempt to provide an adequate explanation
of the world as having moved towards a final stage in its development, when
Thomas Aquinas proposed that God could act simply to communicate
his perfection, rather than acting as a result of the existence of a need on
God’s part. Aquinas had argued that
`every agent, insofar as it is perfect and in act, produces its like’, and he
concluded that it was appropriate for God to communicate his good to others as
much as is possible. (1988,102-4)
Aquinas’
argument, that every agent produces its like, has never been taken to its
logical conclusion that God can only be concerned to produce another entity
like God. Madigan almost reaches this
conclusion but is hindered by his concept of direct creation, concluding that
there is a limit as to how far God’s aim can be achieved when using creatures.
(1988,104) He does not consider whether
there is another way in which God’s aim may be achieved.
For
our purposes, Madigan’s final chapter is the most relevant. He maintains that the integration of the
doctrine of God’s necessary self-love with the Christian good news of Christ’s incarnation and suffering
on man’s behalf, was the significant intellectual advance made by the
Scholastics. Madigan argues that this
integration provided the resolution of the problem of the motive for creation,
a type of resolution that classical philosophy was not able to reach.
Madigan’s account of the argument as to God’s motive for
creation, particularly as put by Aquinas, is detailed.
My question is whether the arguments which Madigan relates and which
have been put over time, warrant a different conclusion from the one he
reaches. I do not argue with his
conclusion that the motive for creation is provided by salvation, understood as
involving some sort of relationship between man and God. The issue is the nature of that relationship
and the process by which it may be achieved.
In order to examine the arguments which have been put over time, I will
set out Madigan’s account in some detail.
Madigan begins with Aristotle’s observation that God needs nothing, and that if he
does produce a world it must be for a sufficient motive. Madigan notes that even the motive of love
will require that the love has to be proportional to the worth of the object of
love. Aristotle maintained that God and
man could not be friends, as God could get nothing from such a
relationship. Aristotle also maintained
that for God to act for less than a proper motive would be inappropriate. This view re-emerged in the Middle Ages, and
inspired a new attempt to provide a complete explanation of the world. Creation was by then understood to involve a
consideration of salvation, which in turn was to be `understood as God’s
interest in engaging in a relationship with beings other than himself’.
(1988,102)
Aquinas’ response to Aristotle was not in the nature of an explanation of how God
had gone about the process of creation, but was an attempt to identify an
appropriate motive for creation. Aquinas
argued that God had intended to communicate His perfection, which is his goodness,
to His creation, and that this desire to share his goodness with beings other
than himself could provide a motive for the creation of the world.
(1988,103) Madigan summarises Aquinas’ conclusion as follows:
Thus,
as far as he can (for like produces like), God will create another `god’, the closest approximation to himself. There is a limit as to how far this can be
achieved, when using creatures; but this still seems the best (or least
inadequate) description we can give of God’s project. God wants to share himself as fully as
possible with some one else, to bring about the closest possible imitation of
and communion with himself. (1988,104)
Madigan asks whether human beings are worth Christ’s condescension, self-sacrifice and self-expenditure
on man’s behalf, and he recognises that such an event seems out of proportion
and unseemly. He notes that Aquinas had already clearly recognised the problem that
God’s love for lesser beings posed for the generation of an adequate account of
the production of the world. The
resolution proposed by Aquinas was that God’s self-regard would move him to
want to share his nature beyond the godhead and with creatures, in particular
with a creature able to appreciate God’s glory and reflect it back.
(1988,105-7)
Aquinas
had argued that the Incarnation would not have been necessary had man not
fallen. Later thinkers including Duns
Scotus and Suarez could not accept this.
They argued that in creating man with freedom, God would have known that
man would sin. Aristotle’s position that God and man could not be friends had
consequently reasserted itself. These
later thinkers had concluded that if God was going to create a world at all, it
could only be to enable Him to receive acknowledgment and praise from the greatest and most perfect being that
creation was capable of producing. For
God to receive praise from any less perfect being would mean that God was
willing to accept that His creation was producing less than it was capable of.
This also would not be compatible with the divine nature, as God could
not be lacking in power to achieve the best possible outcome. (1988,110)
Madigan recognises that the idea that God should sacrifice
himself for man seems inappropriate, and even impossible from an Aristotelian
perspective, as God’s love must be directed to himself as the highest
object. Aquinas’ response to this difficulty is to assert that if
God’s self-love is great enough it will move him to want to share his nature
with creatures, particularly with a creature able to appreciate his glory and
reflect it back. This suggestion of a
motive for creation had first been made by Dionysius the Aeropagite.
God’s motive is assumed to combine both altruism and egoism. His self-love makes him want to call other
beings into existence to appreciate, share and reflect back his goodness.
(1988,106-7) Madigan comments that in
this scenario God’s goodness seems to function as something almost distinct
from God. Thomas does not intend this
but, as Madigan says, `this way of
putting it helps to explain - as well as it can be explained - how God can be
self-contained, and also naturally (but freely) productive’. (1988,108)
The
later Scholastic thinkers had argued that it was only the prospect of the
creation of Jesus Christ which could have moved God to produce a world, the
production of Jesus Christ being God’s intention and purpose from the beginning,
as Jesus Christ is the only creature who justifies the whole enterprise of
creation. These thinkers rejected
Thomas’ idea that God had assumed a human nature because of the needs of fallen
man. They continued to adhere to the
attribution of the motive for creation as consisting in the reception by God of
acknowledgment and praise from the greatest being of which creation was
capable. This being is Jesus Christ as
the pinnacle of creation or the perfect creature. Only this being could have moved God to
produce the world. Madigan quotes Scotus’ argument that God foresaw the union between the Word
and the human creature, Christ, the creature who would owe God supreme love,
even had there never been a Fall of man.
Madigan
comments that Scotus implies that if God could have created Christ without
creating the rest of mankind, he might have done so. (1988,109-11) He notes that it was the opinion of a number
of later thinkers that the world was created in order to produce Jesus
Christ. For Madigan himself, Christ is
the proleptic anticipation of the life-form which should eventually
characterise the world as a whole, although he does not offer any explanation
as to how this might eventuate. (1988,112, note 6) Christ, as the second person of the Trinity,
was present at creation. As the perfect
creature he was also the goal of
creation. As the divine Logos, he was not only the efficient
cause of the universe, but, when united to a human nature, he was also its final cause. In this perspective, the Incarnation was not
the divine response to what Augustine had called our `fortunate fall’, but it would have
happened anyway, even if man had not sinned. (1988,112-3)
Madigan summarises the thinking of the later Scholastics as
having God embark on the enterprise of creation and salvation for himself as
well as for us, the whole drama of sin and redemption, death and resurrection
being the only way God could produce the Christ, as both the proper expression of God himself and
the proper response to that expression. (1988,114) Madigan expresses some reservations as to the
manner of expression of this Scotist strategy.
He suggests that `process’ categories might be found to be more helpful,
as such categories could express the situation in a way which would better
safeguard both divine and human freedom.
This is because process categories are less time-bound, and more true to
our experience. (1988,116) Perhaps the
Scotist strategy could be expressed as the process of the world being best
understood as a necessary stage in the process of the production of the
Christ. This is a theme to which I will
return, together with Madigan’s view that Christ is the proleptic anticipation
of the life-form which should eventually characterise the world as a
whole. Madigan does not comment upon the
inherent contradiction in the concept that the whole drama of sin and
redemption, death and resurrection was the only way that God could produce the
Christ. The contradiction arises from
the concurrent belief that Christ, as the second Person of the Trinity, pre-existed his incarnation as man.
Madigan argues that God’s intention from the outset was to
produce the greatest possible likeness to himself, thus making possible the
most perfect friendship with his creation.
He argues that from the fact of creation we must reason to God having
the intention of our salvation, in the sense of our forming some form of
relationship with God, and that this is a necessary precondition, and the only
possible motivation for creation, in the mind of God. He maintains that any other attempt to
explain creation simply fails. (1988,115 & 118)
From
his examination of the history of the search for a sufficient motive for God’s
creation of the world, Madigan argues that an adequate explanation of the world
only becomes possible by modifying the dividing line between philosophy and
revealed theology. He argues that
salvation, understood as friendship between God and man, is needed to complete
the project of fashioning an adequate explanation of the world. Only when philosophy makes contact with
revealed theology in this way, he maintains, can philosophy’s deeper programme,
the fashioning of a satisfactory explanation of the world, be realised. Philosophy, in Madigan’s view, poses a
question which only revealed theology can answer. (1988,117)
Madigan’s claim.
Madigan then makes his most important claim. He maintains that there is only one possible explanation of the
world, and that explanation is based on God’s self-love. Noting that love must be proportional to the
worth of its object, he argues that the world begins and ends with God’s love
for himself - we are merely enfolded within that love. God loves himself as the highest object. This self-love is expressed in the procession
of persons within the Trinity, but does not stop there. It expands and leads God to call into
existence a world that did not have to exist, a world `called into existence to
acknowledge a love that also did not have to be as strong as it is’.
(1988,119) Madigan argues that because
of the strength of God’s love for himself, and his goodness, the circuit of
divine self-love expands to generate the world.
This expansion was not necessary, but it nevertheless happened. The evidence for this, he argues, is the fact
of creation, from which fact we must also
reason to an intention on God’s part of establishing a relationship with us,
which we understand as salvation.
Madigan argues that the intention of salvation is a necessary
precondition and motivation for creation in God’s mind, because God wants
others to love him as he loves himself. (1988,118) Madigan maintains that the intensity of the
divine nature, as both love and goodness, leads God to call this world, which
did not have to exist, into existence.
In order to fully account for the world it thus becomes necessary to
propose that God also wants to enter into a positive relationship with a being
which is capable of appreciating God’s greatness and reflecting that greatness
back to him. Madigan argues that if the
most important conclusion of philosophy is that God exists, the central message
of Christian revelation is the contingency of the divine
goodness, which must be postulated in any satisfactory account of the existence
of the world. (1988,119-20)
Assessment of Madigan’s arguments.
Madigan does not base this explanation of the existence of
the world, which he maintains is the only possible explanation, on God’s love
for man. He appreciates that God’s
mysterious love of other beings is the true difficulty in generating an adequate
account of the production of the world. (1988,106) This love of other beings is turned by
Madigan into a non-necessary by-product of the circuit of divine
self-love. This divine self-love is the
fundamental factor in Madigan’s argument, as he recognises that love must be
proportionate to the worth of the object of love. This proportionality is Madigan’s primary
problem, as there is no such proportionality between God and man. The generation of the world has therefore to
be the result of the expansion of the circuit of divine self-love. The world is not created from the motive of
love of man. Madigan’s explanation of
the existence of the world, its generation by the expansion of the circuit of
divine self-love, is of a similar order to Plotinus’ device of an emanation of the world from God’s
goodness. It suffers from the same major
disability as does Plotinus’ explanation, in that it does not explain the
existence of evil in the world. Evil
could no more derive from the expansion of God’s self-love than it could derive
from an emanation of God’s goodness. Any
satisfactory explanation of the existence of the world would have to
incorporate a satisfactory account of the existence of evil in the world. Whether such an account could ever be given
has been a matter of doubt. John
Courtney Murray asks how the world can be a place of manifold evil and an arena
of human misery, if an all-mighty God exists, and he maintains that the problem
of evil utterly defeats philosophy. (1964,104)
I will challenge this view.
In
Madigan’s scheme, the world, including mankind, is saved
from being a mere epiphenomenon of the circuit of divine self-love by his
concurrent insistence on God having the additional motive of establishing a
relationship with other beings who could appreciate his goodness and reflect it
back. This motivation, which was
originally proposed by Dionysius the Aeropagite, is argued by Madigan to be a
consequence of the circuit of divine self-love, which contingently expands to
produce the world. The evidence for the
existence of this supplementary motive is derived simply from the fact of the
existence of creation.
Aristotle’s initiation of the argument.
Let
us review the arguments which have been put over time, including Madigan’s argument, to assess their worth. It is clear that Aristotle provided the arguments which initiated the problem
when he demonstrated that if God does produce a world it has to be for a
sufficient reason, and that God could not cause a world which was significantly
different from God. The history of the
problem is the history of the attempts to get around these conclusions of
Aristotle.
Aristotle
also argued that love had to be proportional to the object of love, which ruled
out God’s love for man. The Christian assertion of God’s love for man did not affect
the strength of Aristotle’s arguments.
All that the Christian assertion that God loves man succeeds in doing,
in the context of the question of God’s sufficient reason for the production of
the world, is to indicate that the problem is not as easily dismissed as
insoluble, as it had appeared to Aristotle.
For Christians, at least, there had to be a resolution or dissolution of
the antinomy which Aristotle had discovered.
The question is whether this antinomy has yet been resolved or
dissolved, or whether it has simply been avoided. If it has not yet been resolved or dissolved
then the question is whether it is capable of resolution.
Avoiding Aristotle’s argument.
All
of the subsequent arguments which seek to provide some justification for God’s
production of the world, including Madigan’s, can be seen as attempts to avoid the force of
Aristotle’s arguments, rather than to resolve the conflict
between his conclusions. They seek to
introduce some additional factor to provide an explanation of the existence of
the world, but they do not confront Aristotle’s arguments directly. Thus Plotinus has the Good being diffusive and the world existing
as an emanation from the Good, and Madigan has an extension of the circuit of
divine self-love as expressed in the procession of persons in the Trinity. Dionysius the Aeropagite has man’s role reducing from one of
friendship to one of appreciating and reflecting God’s goodness. Attempts to avoid the dilemma introduced by
Aristotle’s antinomy continue to re-appear, even in Madigan’s argument. This is despite the fact that God’s love of
man is central to Christianity and is an essential part of the Christian
`good news’, which Madigan maintains enables the completion of the Aristotelian
revolution. If the antinomy between the
nature of the world and the conclusion that God could not cause a world which
was significantly different from
himself is to be resolved, it has to be confronted directly, rather than
avoided.
The problem of direct Creation.
Aquinas’ view, following Aristotle, is summarised by Madigan as arguing that God will, as far as possible, create
another `god’, the closest approximation to himself. How far this creation can go is limited by
the fact (in Aquinas’ understanding) that God is directly creating this other
`god’. If man represents the limit of
this creation, it could be argued that the project to create another `god’ does
not get very far. The later Scholastics
sought to avoid the uncomfortable reality of man in general by focussing on
Christ as the one man who justifies creation, not just as
man, but in his role as the second person of the Trinity.
They
reasoned that the world was created as the only way to produce Jesus
Christ. In commenting on this, Madigan
recognises that Christ is the proleptic anticipation of the life-form that
should eventually characterise the world as a whole, although how such a
transition is to take place is not discussed.
Madigan does not challenge Aristotle’s arguments that God could not cause a world
significantly different from himself, that God needs nothing, and that if God
was to produce the world it would have to be for a sufficient motive. He accepts Aristotle’s deduction that love
has to be proportional to the worth of the object of love. Aristotle had
consequently stated that friendship between man and God was impossible.
(Ethics,1159a)
Aquinas had also dealt with the question of the possibility
of friendship between man and God.
Aquinas concludes that it is possible for man and God to be friends,
despite their being infinitely unlike one another. The basis of Aquinas’ conclusion is that
there is a communication `between man and God’ which resolves to God
communicating his happiness to us. (Aquinas, 1952,483) Joseph Bobik, (1986) analyses this approach and points out that
this communication is merely an offer, which opens the possibility of
friendship. He quotes Aristotle to the
effect that a great disparity between two humans will make friendship between
them impossible, despite their common nature, unless the superior shares with
the inferior the knowledge or other goods which provide the basis of his
superiority. (1986,258) He also quotes
Aquinas to the effect that God has decided to share his beatitude with man, and
this communication, this sharing, provides the link out of which friendship
ought to grow. (1986, 258-9) Bobik
concludes, with Aquinas, that whenever two persons have nothing in common, but
the superior offers a shareable gift to the inferior, it then becomes fitting
that the inferior contribute to actualising the friendship. Aquinas regards having something in common as
absolutely indispensable to friendship. (1986, 259-60). In seeking to flesh out this communication,
or sharing, and relate it to those things which human friends have in common,
Bobik argues that Aquinas can only fall back upon humans generally having a
common origin in God, with the only other basis Aquinas can identify applying
only to members of a common faith. (1986,270)
However it is clear that common origin is a circumstance which does not
always guarantee friendship between humans, and even when they belong to a
common faith that fact does not guarantee friendship between them. These factors can provide a basis for a human
friendship to arise, but they can not ensure it.
There
is a more significant fallacy in Aquinas’ reasoning, which Bobik does not
challenge. Aquinas points out that every
friendship is founded in something which the friends have in common.
That
clearly relates to their common possession of whatever it is, at the time they
are friends, as is clearly implied in the passage Bobik quotes from
Aristotle. It is not reasonable to
assume that an offer to share something in the distant future, with conditions,
has the same effect as common possession in the present. The dimension of the obvious gap between
created man and God is a problem for any current attempt to establish the
motive for creation in the postulated possibility of friendship between man, as
such, and God, as the gap between man and God is still too great.
Madigan summarises Aquinas’ conclusion to the effect that God, as far as he is
able, will create another `god’, the closest approximation to himself, as like
produces like. This formula is at first
sight convincing, but it does not constitute a description of man. When Aquinas refers, in Madigan’s later
reference, to God’s self-regard moving him to want to share his nature with
creatures able to appreciate his glory and reflect it back, he is significantly
reducing his earlier criterion of the creation of `another god’, the greatest
possible likeness to himself.
Appreciation and reflection is not likeness, nor is Aquinas’ latter
formulation convincing.
Aquinas’ attribution of the Incarnation to man’s fall, is
not convincing either, as later thinkers realised. These also considered that the motive for
God’s creation had to be the production of a perfect creature, which they
argued had been realised in the person of Jesus Christ, `the creature that uniquely justifies the
enterprise of creation’. (Madigan, 1988,111)
While I do not deny that Jesus is the perfect man, the argument that the
purpose of creation was finally accomplished nearly two thousand years ago
raises the question of man’s present purpose in a still imperfect world. The invocation of Christ to resolve the
difficulty of the glaringly apparent imperfection of mankind, appears to be a
device to avoid accounting for that imperfection. God’s love is held to apply to all men, not
simply to Christ.
Confronting Aristotle’s argument
None
of the arguments which have been considered really confront Aristotle’s argument that God is necessary as a first cause to
explain the existence of the world, and that God could not cause a world which
was significantly different from himself.
Aristotle’s argument appears to be supported by Aquinas’ conclusion, as summarised by Madigan, that God will, as far as possible, create another
`god’, the closest approximation to himself.
While neither of these arguments is presented in their authors own
words, they can serve as a basis for consideration as to how the essential
argument might be confronted directly.
As
represented, Aquinas’ argument is more specific than Aristotle’s, as it speaks
of another `god’ both as created, and as being the closest possible
approximation of the original. These descriptions
are self-contradictory. There can be no
`close approximation’ between a creator God, and any entity which is created or
made. The difference between creator and
created is significant, perhaps the most significant difference which could
ever be discovered between any two entities.
Aristotle
did not speak of creation. His position
that God could not cause a world which was significantly different from himself
is a much more supportable claim. The
concept of cause is a much wider concept than that of direct creation. An outcome can be caused in many different
ways. Is it possible that we have
contributed to the failure to resolve the Aristotelian antinomy by our adoption
of the Hebrew concept of God as Creator, responsible for the direct creation of
man? Has the implied restriction of
God’s causal activity to direct creation, hindered us from recognising that God
could operate in other ways?
For
example, could not God initiate a process involving the possible, but by no
means certain, self-creation of `another god’.
Any outcome of such a process, as a self-created entity, could possibly
constitute an entity which was not significantly different from God.
Aristotle’s hidden assumption.
The
contradiction between Aristotle’s conclusion that God was necessary as a first cause
to explain the existence of the world, and his conclusion that God could not
cause this world, which is significantly different from himself, is only apparent. The contradiction relies upon the empirical
evidence that the nature of the world, as it presents to us, is not worthy of
God’s concern. The world is obviously
significantly different from the nature of a God who could operate to bring a
world into existence. The contradiction
also relies on the unstated assumption that the world, as it appears to us, is
not merely a stage in a process, but is the finished product. The assumption that the world was a finished
product has remained hidden and was never challenged in the context of this
apparent contradiction, although it is now common to see the world as evolving
or in process. The idea of a completed
world was reinforced by the inference, drawn from the Bible, of a completed
creation. Clifford notes the effect
Mesopotamian myths had upon biblical cosmogonies, and he provides an example
which shows how profound was the belief in
If
the world as it appears to us is merely a stage in a process which could
possibly lead to the production of an entity which is not significantly
different from God, the apparent contradiction between Aristotle’s two
conclusions disappears.
Is the world in process?
If
the world is involved in a process which is capable of moving towards the
production of an entity which is not significantly different from God, it is
clear that this can not be a process of direct creation. Whatever is created in a process of direct
creation has to be significantly different from the self-subsistent first cause
which is God. While the possible product
of a process which could produce a world which would not be significantly
different from God, could obviously not be self-subsistent, any such product
would have to be self-created, if it was to be, in essence, not significantly
different from God. Both God as a
self-subsistent entity, and any self-created entity, would be self-existent,
and so essentially similar.
If
there is such a process of self-creation, would mankind have a role in that
process? Mankind is significantly
different from God, but man shares some of the characteristics of God, to a
limited extent. Mankind as such cannot be the purpose of the process of the
cosmos. Mankind could, however,
represent a stage in such a process.
God’s attributes are generally taken to include being personal, free,
creative, all-powerful, all-knowing, self-subsistent, necessary, eternal,
immutable and good. Man has some of
these attributes, to some extent. He is
personal, to some extent free, creative, able to exercise some power and able
to acquire knowledge. To a certain
extent he is what he makes himself, and so is self-creating to some
degree. He is capable of goodness but
also, unlike God, capable of evil. The
extent to which he exhibits any of these attributes is dependent upon both his
own efforts and on the culture within which he operates, a point which I will
consider later. Suffice here to say that
he can contribute something to the self-creation of others both directly, in
the case of individuals he can influence, and also indirectly to the extent
that he contributes to his culture.
If
the process of the cosmos is the process of the possible production of an
entity which is not significantly different from God, which we could for
identification purposes call Deity, we can consider what attributes could be expected
of that Deity. We can also consider
whether it is reasonable to assume that our world is merely a stage in the
process of production of such an entity.
In particular we would have to ask how the attributes of man would
compare with the attributes of Deity, in order to assess whether mankind may
represent a stage in that possible production.
We
may accept that God’s attributes include those of being personal, free,
creative, all-powerful, all-knowing, self-subsistent, necessary, eternal,
immutable and good. The criteria of
Deity would have to be similar to those attributes, except where they could
conflict with the attributes of God. The
areas of conflict would appear to be with God’s attributes of being all-powerful,
self-subsistent, necessary and immutable.
In relation to these latter attributes, we could expect Deity to be
powerful to some extent, and also to be self-created. There would be no conflict between both God
and Deity sharing God’s attributes of being personal, free, creative,
all-knowing and good. We could therefore
expect the criteria of Deity to include being personal, free, creative,
powerful, all-knowing, self-created and good.
Deity would then not be significantly different from God. These criteria of Deity compare with
mankind’s present attributes of being personal, being morally free and enjoying
other freedoms to some extent, being creative, powerful, knowing and, to an
extent, self-creating. Man is capable of
good, but also of evil. It is in this
last attribute of goodness that man is significantly different from Deity,
other differences being differences of degree.
If
we accept the attributes set out above as identifying the criteria by which
Deity could be known, we can now consider how a process of
the production of Deity could operate. A
process generally involves a series of stages, with each successive stage
building upon the previous stage. A
process involving the self-creation of Deity would have to involve the prior
self-creation of a less perfect entity, in as free a manner as possible, from a
series of progressively less perfect entities.
The final less than perfect entity, prior to the emergence of Deity would be expected to exhibit characteristics
which were not significantly dissimilar from the characteristics which Deity
would possess. They could be similar to
mankind’s characteristics of moral freedom, personality, knowledge and the
possession of a potential for goodness.
There would have to be some sort of continuity established between the
prior entities and Deity, so that the goal of self-creation could be
achieved. The process of production of
the prior, less perfect entities, would also need to be as free as
possible. Whether the world is involved
in such a process will be considered later.
Madigan’s other claim.
Madigan considers that all philosophy is part of a deeper
programme, which he identifies as the fashioning of a satisfactory explanation
of the world. He maintains that this
deeper programme poses a question which only theology, in the sense of revealed
theology, can answer. (1988,117) While
this may have been the case at an earlier time, I will argue that with the
advance of scientific knowledge, natural theology can now provide an answer to
the question as to the reason for the existence of the world.