When I first came to philosophy, I started in a World Religions class, which actually was considered a philosophy of religion class. I noticed that there was something different about the class, about what was being discussed. It had to do with what we thought we knew, what we took to be true about the world and false. We questioned pretty much everything that I could think of at the time, but most importantly, we questioned our own beliefs, which many of us thought were iron clad. The professor was quite energetic and lively about the subject. He was very critical about the attitude of our time. People, he said, took more time becoming informed about out their car – the color, the kind of tires, rims, kind of engine, etc – and picking it out then figuring out their beliefs about things, more specifically what religion they were following or willing to follow. By contrast, he felt that it was more important to know the latter than the former given the more real impact it could have on one’s life.
He wanted to shock us into understanding what he was talking about. He constantly pitted us against philosophical quandaries regarding our beliefs about things that would puzzle us and even make a number of us offended. One of my most memorable moments was the first time he told us to bring our bibles. He asked us to open up to the Gospels, Matthew first, and then proceeded to lead us through as many blatant, so called, ‘contradictions’ as he could fit into the hour (with class discussion of course, or what could better be described as class controversy).
Now, I said he wanted to shock us. I cannot really speak for the rest of the class, but I know I was shocked. I am not going to go into the reaction I had after class that day. I will say that I have come to realize the reason for his shock tactic. I believe it was in order to pry open our eyes from a kind of sleepy naiveté. In many ways, however, I think that the way he went about doing this was a bit irresponsible. Regardless, his chief motive was to teach us how to do philosophy, and his method is the same method that is being employed in much of philosophy of religion today to the denial of certain philosophers within the discipline.
Now, I have stated that I believe the way he introduced this method to be irresponsible. This belief does not just stop at his introduction of the method, but extends to the method itself. Why? Because this method gives primacy to a certain way of looking at the world which is mistakenly thought to be the best, if not the only way in some cases, of looking at the world. And the fact of the matter is that, for us, it is difficult to pry ourselves from seeing the world in this way or stop ourselves from being tempted by this view because we are so couched in its context, its paradigm, if you will. He called it critical analysis, which is another way of saying ‘empirical analysis’. Here, one looks to evidential causes to explain respective effects. If there is no evidence, one should not try to speculate on causes beyond what are believed to be possible causes. Here experience plays an important role as does a kind of common sense in a particular field. This latter is important insofar as the kind of criteria one can bring to bear on the subject under scrutiny with regards to speculating on possible causes. For example, if a cow is found bloodless in a field, it is more desirable, and plausible, by a rational community to posit an animal killed the cow and drank the blood than it is to say aliens took the cow up in their spaceship and drained the cow of its blood and then left it in the field when they were finished. The place one finds this kind of analysis mostly is in the sciences. Science, today, has become, in many ways, the religion of the masses in so far as it is a way of looking at the world.
But why go this route? Why is empirical verification so important? Apart from the fact that our interests as a community are invested on such a methodology given its instrumentality, as a consequence, it is due primarily to the enlightenment period. Descartes provoked many to ask certain questions about the world and self that ordinarily one would not think of asking. Later, Hume reinvigorated an old argument of philosophy and so today philosophers and philosophers of religion are still trying to combat skepticism – even though they think the matter closed. The fact is that if it were closed we would not have so many metaphysical theories floating around about the world, self, and knowledge. Even within the realm of psychology the question of what knowledge is is still being debated. In philosophy, one examination led to what were thought to be ‘sense-data’ the characteristics of which can be identified in its descendant, qualia. Nevertheless, these concepts all hook up with the idea of sensation. We can only be sure of our own sensations. The problem is that there is skepticism over whether our sensations connect up with a world apart from our sensations. In other words, is what we see, hear, touch, etc., really what we see, hear, and touch? Is the world outside as we perceive it also what we take to be on the inside? The idea here is supposed to be that we need a more precise language to talk about such things in philosophy (thus terms like 'sense data' and 'qualia') – as if the language we possess is not qualified.
So, in relation to religion, if we cannot even be sure of everyday physical objects how can we be sure of God’s existence? After all, asks the epistemologist, can God be perceived? To add to this epistemological mess, we have ways of proving and disproving God arising from the rational tradition. There is for example the discussion of the logical problem of evil and the problem of God. Here the conclusions that arise are less in God’s favor than perhaps hoped by the believer. On the other hand, what can also be included here is Paley’s example of the watch, and Wisdom’s garden example, both of which might be used to infer God’s passing in the world of physical objects and, therefore, his existence. But because of the shaky arguments both for and against the existence of God that arise from either arguments brought to light by our hero Hume, something new, something more concrete must be introduced. Here we end up once again in the realm of empirical verification and a scientific, naturalistic worldview.
Scientific explanation is yet one more foundational way to physically justify God’s existence. What is worrisome to me philosophically is that the majority of people who hear about this stuff, knowingly or unknowingly, are eating it up. This is because, as I said before, we are entrenched in the paradigm of science and it is not so much because we are a scientific culture – this description has its place – but instead we have bought into the idea of scientism. Here is what one leading philosopher/slash theologian says:
The exponential growth of scientific knowledge, perhaps more than any other single factor, has transformed our sense of who we are and what kind of a world we inhabit. Given science’s astounding success, it is natural to assume that the growth of scientific knowledge will be limitless, that in the end nothing will lie outside its purview.[1]
In all fairness to this scholar, he does say that what he is arguing for steers a middle course between an embracing response to this perspective and a negative one, which I will summarily illustrate shortly. But regardless, for now, one overall important criticism that at least one tradition of philosophy poses has to do with the prior question in relation to the necessity of an empirical proof of God’s existence. But let me go back and quickly outline this new argument that has been proposed as a possible foundation for God’s existence from a theoretical perspective.
Emergence
The new argument is based on an old development of the idea that from an aggregate of simple units – or properties – of a certain kind emerges not only an organized complexity, but also a new property or novel property. This novel property, despite it having emerged from the aggregates, cannot be reducible to them. This is because it cannot be predicted from putting the units or simples of the aggregate together that the property in question would emerge. The additional hypothesis here is that not only can it not be predicted, but that the novel, emergent property can actually effect the aggregates that brought about the unpredictable emergent property. This is called downward or top-down causation.
This notion is controversial. The reason is that because throughout history causation is usually thought of as bottom-up an not top-down. An example: a bunch of atoms came together to form molecules to form the organelles of a cell to form multiple cellular bodies (organs) to form an elephant. It is thought, that an elephant cannot effect the atoms, but the atoms can effect the elephant. But in emergent theory, the elephant can effect the atom. A very rough example can help to illustrate. When the elephant moves it causes the atom to move to a different location; therefore, top-down causation.
One important powerful mind that can be said contributed, at least philosophically, to the notion of emergence theory is Hegel. His system of emergence of novel models in history is best expressed in his commonly illustrated triangular model of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. For example, some abstract feature appears in history which is then quickly confronted by some antithetical feature. In their confrontation, however, what arises from the fusion or ‘synthesis’ of the two is a new thesis, which will then continue on and confront some other antithetical feature, and so on.
The next part of emergence can be compared with the notion of projection one finds in the work of Feuerbach. He is important as a point of comparison for our purposes because he worked out the idea that God is just a projection of individuals’ hopes, dreams, fears, in other words, inner-self. But although an analogy can be drawn between Feuerbach’s projection theory, it is a limited one as analogies go. While one can say that God is projected from an individual, it is a notion, if that is appropriate, that is predictable from our thoughts given our experiences. In addition, we, at least at the time he was talking about this subject, are not aggregates but individuals. It just so happens that we find ourselves in a society and there are like-minded individuals who will also project the notion of God.
A third important aspect to emergence theory is evolutionary theory. In summary form, evolutionary theory posits that given a certain environment, certain forms will be better suited to live in that environment. Since nature does not stand still, or rather, given that organisms will continue to try to continue as a species, they will continue to reproduce and adapt their environment, be it consciously and/or unconsciously. What is meant here is that during reproduction new, unpredictable forms will arise that will be better equipped to deal with their environment. If we apply this model not just to biological organisms but also to ideas, then after trial and error of certain ideas, a final, unpredictable idea can arise as the most fit to exist in a world of ideas.
A natural consequence of emergence theory is the emergence of a divine, transcendent mind or being. Given that we are aggregates of individuals coming together to form a community – that is, making decisions, going to school, getting jobs, securing a future for a younger generation, and so forth – and when taken as a whole, in a historical milieu, the natural consequence of conceiving of a deity arises. One might infer from this process and ultimate product the existence of God, who either emerges presently or is in the process of becoming given the progress of history, change, and its aggregates.
This is a very general overview of how the notion of emergent properties, which is based on science, can be used to give an explanation, more specifically, an empirical explanation of God. A more thorough picture would take more time. I feel that it is a little unfair because I might have left out some important subtleties that may sway discussion of the subject one way or the other. But I also believe that enough has been introduced to evaluate the philosophical implications, difficulties, strengths, etc of the theory.
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