The rakish and brilliant Augustine of Hippo who became St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, began his philosophical inquires as a Zoroastrian, that is, as a believer in two deities, one Good, the other, Bad. He was apparently driven into the camp of Zarathustra by his need to explain evil, and having two gods warring for power or taking turns ruling the universe seemed to the young Augustine to make sense. Eventually, he rejected Zoroastrianism on the grounds that there could not be two infinite creators. That was part of his reasoning rejecting the philosophy of his youth and it probably underlay his reasoning for becoming a Christian—which led to his becoming one of the “Church Fathers.” The guy was a genius. In his writings he gave us a number of analogies, including one to explain the Trinitarian God of Christianity (De Trinitate), * and he laid out an explanation of Creation that was based on the Logos (Word), Nous (Mind), and Form (Ideal Form) that had roots in the philosophy of Plato.
“What,” Augustine asked himself, “did God create from nothing?” Augustine starts his reasoning where today’s physicists start theirs: With nothing. For the latter, a vacuum produces stuff. That is, something comes from nothing during quantum fluctuations. Don’t try, it’s impossible to visualize accurately because nothing is No Thing, and the quantum fluctuations occur on a scale so tiny that they can’t be magnified by a bathroom makeup mirror, light microscope, or even electron microscope. Anyway, the starting point of creation is “nothing” for both theologians and physicists.
Now one of the problems in any discussion that centers on God, creation, and things that exist, usually breaks into many discussions running simultaneously, covering topics like evolution, Creationism, those quantum fluctuations, Time with a capital T, and Space with a capital S. For Augustine, no act of creation by an infinite deity could occur during something like the Hexaemeron, or Six-Day Creation. If God, Augustine argues, is outside Time, then he doesn’t act “in time.” For Augustine, Creation had to be a—to use the physicists’ term—singularity. By comparison, although most physicists seem to accept the universe’s evolution from a singularity, they also believe in quantum fluctuations that produce “something from nothing,” even if what’s produced is virtual particles. [Of course, the foregoing begs the question about prayer. Augustine would accept the presence of God acting "in the universe."]
So, what Augustine argues for is a single act. But how, then, does the universe occur in all its expanding diversity? Here Augustine relies on his Neoplatonic approach. What God created was the possibility for forms to exist. Yeah, that’s definitely Platonic if you recall Plato’s idea of Ideals. [One can think of trees, but not an Ideal Tree, an ideal form of “Tree”]. So, the forms we see around us—and we are all manifestations of form—can and do change in a universe that operates “in time.” In this, Augustine foreshadowed Darwin by about 1,500 years (Augustine: b. 354; d. 430; Darwin: b. 1809; d. 1882). So, Augustine allows for evolution because it is the unfolding of an indefinite number of specific forms based on some ideal; it is the unfolding of possible forms. The notion isn’t foreign to you because you recognize the differences among trees; yet, you label them all “trees.” So also, you know dogs as though you know some Ideal Dog. As many professors of Philosophy 101 might say, “You really can’t imagine the Ideal Tree, only individual trees.”
Now we know that all biological forms have connections to some progenitor, some initial life-form or common ancestor that through time developed and evolved. We also know that not all Ideals can lead to all possible manifestations. There won’t be a clam running in the Kentucky Derby. The forms clams can take fall within a range of sizes and shapes all bounded by the two valves we commonly call shells, but none of those future evolved bivalves will run for the roses past onlooking ladies in wide-brimmed hats. Nevertheless, clams are, in fact, related to organisms with “legs”: the cephalopods and pelecypods belong to the phylum Mollusks, a group that might include 200,000 species. The point is that I might be able to imagine a possible, but not probable, form, such as a cold-blooded racehorse embraced by two interlocking shells, but chances of such a critter’s evolving from either a bivalve or an Equus is nothing but the stuff of fairy tales. Yet, I will note the existence of the duckbilled, egg-laying platypus, one of the strangest life-forms on the planet and one that could easily be the stuff of fairy tales.
I tell you this because I recently saw a popular TV host claim he was an atheist and that there are 100 million atheists in the United States. I’m guessing they don’t gather in “sacred places,” unless one can call coffee shops “sacred.” Atheism is pretty much a loner condition, but that’s not to say that atheists aren’t among the most ethical and even moral people on the planet. Instances of Christian—and every other religion’s—hypocrisy abound, and wars fought by “religious people” have killed untold numbers of innocent people. But with regard to an atheist “religion” one has to ask why a group of like-minded would bother to gather if everything is disconnected except through nature—that is, through Darwinian evolution or Augustinian evolution—and not connected through some common practice, such as a ritual that expresses a belief? Do atheists have anything that resembles ritual, that is, a set of behaviors designed for public enactment? Yet, if ethical and moral action can be known more through human interaction outside a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue, than through practice of a ritual, then there is no reason for anyone to think atheists cannot be either ethical or moral.
So, where were we…Ah! Yes. Musing about…that Creation problem.
I’ll grant that in a universe destined by entropy for a cold ending, chaos is inevitable, the difference if you want an analog between vegetable soup and tomato soup, the former having identifiable constituents; the latter, a mix of indistinguishable constituents. The current “scientific belief” in an ever more expanding universe headed to become a cold dark “tomato soup” contrasts with the physicists notion of the quantum fluctuations which produce “something from nothing.” One might argue that in becoming a cold dark universe, the universe sets the stage for the vacuum that produces the universe.
Note that I have not argued from design. Nor have I argued from the notion of a “universe fine-tuned for life.” I’ve played a slot machine, so I know that randomness can produce a “winner.” And in the slot machine of this universe, it is possible that we are here and able to discuss this simply because the “three red sevens” on the wheels aligned.
That analogy also limps because the slot machine is already in existence and I’ve been talking about a universe “coming from nothing.” The nothing according to the physicists has constructed a something that is in fact in delicate balance, at least among the four fundamental forces. If gravity were stronger, then the expanding universe could not have formed. If electromagnetism were weaker or the weak force stronger, then no atoms could form. Yep, as the Gerry Rafferty/Stealers Wheel lyrics go,
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
We’re seemingly stuck here in the middle of a creation whose origin is an Either/Or. EITHER the world had a Creator who acted in a singularity and set in motion the possibility for “forms” to exist and evolve, including a form of the universe that is cold dark and a manifestation of entropy, OR the world had no Creator and not only created itself from a singularity but also continues to create itself from the vacuum that, in an ending contradiction, will become a vacuum that produces no new forms in a cold smooth soup.
I’m with Augustine. I favor the former over the latter even as I recognize the problems with that scenario. What do you think?
*I have no doubt (tongue in cheek) that my explanation here will satisfy the “experts,” but I’ll venture this about Augustine and analogs. To explain the Trinity, he argued from the human condition thus: I have a mind (the Father); it expresses itself (the Word, Logos, or the Son), and the relationship between mind and expression is Love (the Ghost or Spirit). Analogies “limp” as we know because they are mere comparisons, avatars of whatever. But interestingly (at least to me), Augustine ties his philosophy to his religion through the opening lines of the Gospel of John, evangelist who refers to Christ as “the Word.” Consistent with Augustine’s interpretation of the co-equal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, John says that “nothing was made that was not made through the Word.” That’s the expression “in the image of God” and notion Christians hold dear. Existence bears the stamp of the Creator through the Word or Logos. Let me add (as though you had a choice) that the Word in that analogy of the mind is intrinsic to the Mind. The mind cannot deny its existence, and because of that, expresses it (the Logos or Word).
“What,” Augustine asked himself, “did God create from nothing?” Augustine starts his reasoning where today’s physicists start theirs: With nothing. For the latter, a vacuum produces stuff. That is, something comes from nothing during quantum fluctuations. Don’t try, it’s impossible to visualize accurately because nothing is No Thing, and the quantum fluctuations occur on a scale so tiny that they can’t be magnified by a bathroom makeup mirror, light microscope, or even electron microscope. Anyway, the starting point of creation is “nothing” for both theologians and physicists.
Now one of the problems in any discussion that centers on God, creation, and things that exist, usually breaks into many discussions running simultaneously, covering topics like evolution, Creationism, those quantum fluctuations, Time with a capital T, and Space with a capital S. For Augustine, no act of creation by an infinite deity could occur during something like the Hexaemeron, or Six-Day Creation. If God, Augustine argues, is outside Time, then he doesn’t act “in time.” For Augustine, Creation had to be a—to use the physicists’ term—singularity. By comparison, although most physicists seem to accept the universe’s evolution from a singularity, they also believe in quantum fluctuations that produce “something from nothing,” even if what’s produced is virtual particles. [Of course, the foregoing begs the question about prayer. Augustine would accept the presence of God acting "in the universe."]
So, what Augustine argues for is a single act. But how, then, does the universe occur in all its expanding diversity? Here Augustine relies on his Neoplatonic approach. What God created was the possibility for forms to exist. Yeah, that’s definitely Platonic if you recall Plato’s idea of Ideals. [One can think of trees, but not an Ideal Tree, an ideal form of “Tree”]. So, the forms we see around us—and we are all manifestations of form—can and do change in a universe that operates “in time.” In this, Augustine foreshadowed Darwin by about 1,500 years (Augustine: b. 354; d. 430; Darwin: b. 1809; d. 1882). So, Augustine allows for evolution because it is the unfolding of an indefinite number of specific forms based on some ideal; it is the unfolding of possible forms. The notion isn’t foreign to you because you recognize the differences among trees; yet, you label them all “trees.” So also, you know dogs as though you know some Ideal Dog. As many professors of Philosophy 101 might say, “You really can’t imagine the Ideal Tree, only individual trees.”
Now we know that all biological forms have connections to some progenitor, some initial life-form or common ancestor that through time developed and evolved. We also know that not all Ideals can lead to all possible manifestations. There won’t be a clam running in the Kentucky Derby. The forms clams can take fall within a range of sizes and shapes all bounded by the two valves we commonly call shells, but none of those future evolved bivalves will run for the roses past onlooking ladies in wide-brimmed hats. Nevertheless, clams are, in fact, related to organisms with “legs”: the cephalopods and pelecypods belong to the phylum Mollusks, a group that might include 200,000 species. The point is that I might be able to imagine a possible, but not probable, form, such as a cold-blooded racehorse embraced by two interlocking shells, but chances of such a critter’s evolving from either a bivalve or an Equus is nothing but the stuff of fairy tales. Yet, I will note the existence of the duckbilled, egg-laying platypus, one of the strangest life-forms on the planet and one that could easily be the stuff of fairy tales.
I tell you this because I recently saw a popular TV host claim he was an atheist and that there are 100 million atheists in the United States. I’m guessing they don’t gather in “sacred places,” unless one can call coffee shops “sacred.” Atheism is pretty much a loner condition, but that’s not to say that atheists aren’t among the most ethical and even moral people on the planet. Instances of Christian—and every other religion’s—hypocrisy abound, and wars fought by “religious people” have killed untold numbers of innocent people. But with regard to an atheist “religion” one has to ask why a group of like-minded would bother to gather if everything is disconnected except through nature—that is, through Darwinian evolution or Augustinian evolution—and not connected through some common practice, such as a ritual that expresses a belief? Do atheists have anything that resembles ritual, that is, a set of behaviors designed for public enactment? Yet, if ethical and moral action can be known more through human interaction outside a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue, than through practice of a ritual, then there is no reason for anyone to think atheists cannot be either ethical or moral.
So, where were we…Ah! Yes. Musing about…that Creation problem.
I’ll grant that in a universe destined by entropy for a cold ending, chaos is inevitable, the difference if you want an analog between vegetable soup and tomato soup, the former having identifiable constituents; the latter, a mix of indistinguishable constituents. The current “scientific belief” in an ever more expanding universe headed to become a cold dark “tomato soup” contrasts with the physicists notion of the quantum fluctuations which produce “something from nothing.” One might argue that in becoming a cold dark universe, the universe sets the stage for the vacuum that produces the universe.
Note that I have not argued from design. Nor have I argued from the notion of a “universe fine-tuned for life.” I’ve played a slot machine, so I know that randomness can produce a “winner.” And in the slot machine of this universe, it is possible that we are here and able to discuss this simply because the “three red sevens” on the wheels aligned.
That analogy also limps because the slot machine is already in existence and I’ve been talking about a universe “coming from nothing.” The nothing according to the physicists has constructed a something that is in fact in delicate balance, at least among the four fundamental forces. If gravity were stronger, then the expanding universe could not have formed. If electromagnetism were weaker or the weak force stronger, then no atoms could form. Yep, as the Gerry Rafferty/Stealers Wheel lyrics go,
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.
We’re seemingly stuck here in the middle of a creation whose origin is an Either/Or. EITHER the world had a Creator who acted in a singularity and set in motion the possibility for “forms” to exist and evolve, including a form of the universe that is cold dark and a manifestation of entropy, OR the world had no Creator and not only created itself from a singularity but also continues to create itself from the vacuum that, in an ending contradiction, will become a vacuum that produces no new forms in a cold smooth soup.
I’m with Augustine. I favor the former over the latter even as I recognize the problems with that scenario. What do you think?
*I have no doubt (tongue in cheek) that my explanation here will satisfy the “experts,” but I’ll venture this about Augustine and analogs. To explain the Trinity, he argued from the human condition thus: I have a mind (the Father); it expresses itself (the Word, Logos, or the Son), and the relationship between mind and expression is Love (the Ghost or Spirit). Analogies “limp” as we know because they are mere comparisons, avatars of whatever. But interestingly (at least to me), Augustine ties his philosophy to his religion through the opening lines of the Gospel of John, evangelist who refers to Christ as “the Word.” Consistent with Augustine’s interpretation of the co-equal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, John says that “nothing was made that was not made through the Word.” That’s the expression “in the image of God” and notion Christians hold dear. Existence bears the stamp of the Creator through the Word or Logos. Let me add (as though you had a choice) that the Word in that analogy of the mind is intrinsic to the Mind. The mind cannot deny its existence, and because of that, expresses it (the Logos or Word).
RSS Feed