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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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How It All Comes Together: God - Life - Soul, by George J. Irbe Page 2 The co-author of The Self and Its Brain, John C. Eccles is a distinguished neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. He has thorough and copious experience with mind-body interaction phenomena. He is much more inclined to believe in the possibility of the self-conscious mind, or soul, surviving the physical death of the brain. Eccles expresses his feeling in eloquent fashion in Dialogue XI:
Eccles then proceeds to pose the age-old questions, answers to which must largely be left to belief:
Of course, neither Karl Popper the philosopher, nor John Eccles the neurologist can answer these questions by purely rational reasoning. But Eccles expresses an optimistic conjecture (of faith, that is) which is also very much my own, in the following statements:
Eccles concludes his statement of faith by quoting a fellow neuroscientist:
I wholeheartedly subscribe to John Eccles belief. His question whether "this life of ours is simply an episode of consciousness between two oblivions, or is there some further transcendent experience of which we know nothing" is also a statement to the effect that it makes no sense to have an episode of consciousness between two oblivions. Surely, then, it also would make no sense to the Supreme Being, the Creator. C. A theory of linkage of life and soul I will now proceed to state, in as reasoned a way as I can, my conjectures and beliefs about what I have covered so far. The morality and natural law aspects are best discussed afterwards. The catalyst for my "epiphany" which I recounted at the start of this essay was the concept of exnihilation. It was my "missing link" in the sequence of necessary facts and conjectures that would knit all the parts into a whole. I will argue that my missing link -- exnihilation -- is actually a more honest conjecture than the missing link of the Darwinians, by which legerdemain (never mind that it can't be found, just imagine that it was there once) they would like to prove the evolution of one species from another. The Burgess shale tells us that the Darwinian missing link(s) are entirely unnecessary. But exnihilation, or an equivalent of it, like the "big bang", is essential for us to set a beginning to everything. Like most people, I have to start my argument with a statement of pure belief. I believe that there is a Creator or Supreme Being. Along with Anselm and Mortimer Adler I believe that "God is a being that which no greater can be thought of" [1, ch. 8, p.70]. I also agree with Adler that God is not my personal minder, an anthropomorphic image with an unkempt beard, but rather, as Adler writes:
Adler delineates the boundary (which he calls a chasm) between reason and faith concerning men's expectations from God; expectations which are much greater, more particular, and very individualistic when the belief in God is based in religion. Adler says that,
My belief is mostly in "the God of the philosophers", but I do step over the boundary, or chasm, just a little bit. Adler says:
Adler explains that exnihilation, the making of something out of nothing, "... involves the action of a supernatural cause. No natural cause exnihilates anything, either creatively or preservatively.[1, ch.14, p.132]. I believe that God -- to put it very simply -- "runs this universe" like the manager of a large enterprise. A manager delegates authority to his assistants. God delegates his authority to a set of dynamic, self-enforcing laws, which operate as a multitude of "if - then" statements in a perpetually-running computer program. In my opinion, this concept, which fits into the concept of God as sustainer of the cosmos, is not that big a step from reason into faith. My other departure from the rational is the conjecture of on-going acts of exnihilation of incorporeal souls. I would like to argue that God's exnihilation of incorporeal souls is another form of the creative process; it is different from the creative exnihilation of the physical universe in that what is exnihilated is not physical or material, nor is it in any sense understandable to us. I can return now to the incident which provided me with the sudden understanding of the interconnectedness of all these things. I was pondering upon CK's question about when does an individual's soul commence to be. CK, being a Christian, of course was referring only to the soul of a human being. A series of concepts assembled themselves quickly in my mind. Aristotle believed that all living things have a soul, and he defined as a living thing one that has one or more of the following faculties: nutritive, perceptive, desirative, locomotive and intellective. Some living things have only the nutritive faculty, others also the perceptive. Let us recall what Popper says of Aristotle's conjecture about the soul:
In other words, Aristotle saw the soul as having parts whose functions ranged from the very basic biological ones to complex intellectual ones. Aristotle himself says that "the thing is alive if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay." [4, Bk 2, ch.2]. But perhaps the most significant statement of all in De Anima follows shortly thereafter. It talks of different kinds of souls, some being separable from the body upon death and immortal, others being the kind that die along with the body. In Aristotle's words:
I arranged Aristotle's "faculties" of a living thing in what to me was the most logical order of sophistication, that is: nourishment, growth, locomotion, perception, intellect, reasoning. The unique property of a living thing is that it exercises these faculties on its own internal volition. The only thing that can provide this internal volition is the soul. Thus, to answer CK's question re the egg and the sperm, I conjecture that an incorporeal proto-soul is exnihilated by the Creator to the biological host at the moment when the fertilized egg begins the process of nourishment and growth that eventually leads to the first division of the cell. I consider this soul -- which I call a proto-soul -- to be at this initial stage at the same basic, primitive level as the basic incipient life form itself. The nature and potential of the exnihilated proto-soul is tailored to the expectations of the genetic code of the life form in question. Let us recall that the genetic codes for all imaginable life forms on earth, above the simple proto-life form, appeared simultaneously (by a statistically impossible miracle, or an act of exnihilation?, take your choice). Each life form aims for what is its perfection. For man it is as stated in the Nicomachean Ethics [5]. Simpler life forms have comparably less demanding perfections to achieve. My confidence in my conjecture is reinforced by Karl Popper's comment that:
Continuing with my conjecture: The development of the proto-soul into a soul and then into a mature soul proceeds in tandem with the growth and maturation of its biological host. As the genetic and biological complexity of the host, determined by its DNA, increases, so does the extent of development of, and demands on, its soul. As the standards of perfection grow more complex along with the more complex biological host, so does its vulnerability to external factors which can hinder the development of both the soul and the biological host, or destroy both entirely. The soul is obliged to develop more sophisticated responses and counter-moves to the more complex threats to the perfection of its biological host. The soul does not always measure up to the challenge. We all have heard, or have used, the expression "it/he/she has lost the will to live." By this we mean that the soul of that plant or animal or human has succumbed. At this point I must divide further discussion of the life-soul linkage between that of other life forms on earth, and humans. We have indeed been endowed with an exceptional soul which merits its own, separate discussion. Let me first describe how my hypothesis applies to the lower life forms. I am going to do that in a fashion reminiscent of the ancient Greek philosophers, thereby demonstrating that their methods still have utility today. I begin with the simple unicellular life. Its perfection is simply to be a perfect cell and, as is the case with most unicellular life, to achieve growth by dividing itself. The demand on its soul is small: develop into the perfect cell and then divide and be annihilated. Two new souls are exnihilated for the two new cells each of which repeats the simple cycle of exnihilation - division - annihilation. Next, lets look at a tiny animal called a radiolarium. The radiolarium builds a perfect spherical skeleton whose surface consists of an exquisite, perfectly-patterned geometrical frame. It seems logical to me to conclude that the demand on the soul of the radiolarium, however primitive otherwise, is substantial in that it is in charge of the building of this geometrically perfect skeleton. It is not necessary to dwell in detail on how the responsibility of the soul increases in more complex life forms. The tree is a complex form of plant life; its soul must guide its complex biological system to the perfect state of maturity, guiding the growth of roots and branches to best advantage for exploiting energy from the sun and the moisture and nourishment from the soil. When we come to the complex biological life forms of birds and mammals, the soul must manage a sentient organism with a very complicated pattern of existence. This soul has consciousness and a level of intellect and reasoning. It must manage its biological host through the complexities of gestating, birthing, nourishing, rearing and teaching the young; through the gathering of, or hunting for, food, and storing of the food for later use; through seeking or building of shelter against the elements. This soul, if it can develop unimpeded by internal genetic defects, or external agents (e.g. an impediment being the bird or mammal being placed in a cage), seeks the perfection in all the aspects pertinent to its biological host. The perfect life for a bird or mammal is to be physically strong and healthy, to be a smart and capable gatherer or hunter of food, to be a good rearer and educator of one's progeny. Man, too, is a mammal, so, in order to meet the basic needs common to mammals, the soul of man must also strive for the attainment of perfection of its human host by using the same survival skills that are important to the souls of other mammals. However, man's soul is a very special exnihilated creation; its perfection culminates in self-consciousness, which is not the case for other mammals whose souls have only consciousness. This self-consciousness is what sets man apart from all other living things. The self-conscious mind, or soul of man has been discussed at length by Popper and Eccles [3], some passages from which I have quoted above. Eccles presents a schematic diagram of brain-mind interaction; he lists the several names -- ego, self, soul, will -- by which this enigmatic incorporeal entity is known. The schematic shows the soul to be interacting with a specific area of the brain, called the liaison brain. [3, ch. E7, sec.50]. We say that self-consciousness of the mind or soul is what differentiates us from other animals. But what exactly do we mean by that? It is basically an awareness by the self that he/she is an individual. Now, I have conjectured that the soul of every life form starts out as an exnihilated proto-soul, with a potential for development proportionate to the genetic make-up of its biological host. The highest level of development, and one unique to the human soul, is self-consciousness. Therefore, the human soul must undergo a considerable development to reach its full potential. Popper puts it this way:
When one thinks of oneself, one is thinking of something other than one's material body or its parts. When I think of myself, I do not think of my brain or my heart. However, I am capable of thinking of my brain or my heart, and when I do, I'm thinking of my brain or heart, not of myself. Therefore, when I think of myself, or of anything in relation to myself, I am resorting to my self-consciousness. In the above quote, Popper refers to Kant's definition of a person. I assume the definition applies to a mature individual. I think that the second criterion, regarding numerical identity of self, is common to all humans and develops early in life. The first criterion, regarding responsibility for one's actions, is ambiguous. I must assume that it refers to a sense of responsibility by the person for his/her own actions, not what actions of that person others might hold them to be responsible for. An inner sense of responsibility by a person calls for a much higher level of development of the soul, and this level of development is not attained by all human souls. We have now arrived at the critical point of discrimination between a human soul that is merely self-conscious and one that is self-conscious and, to put it simply, also has a conscience. Conscience is the understanding by the soul of the difference between right and wrong thinking and acting, and a persistent inner force which compels the soul always to think and do right to the best of one's ability. Conscience is both backward- and forward-looking. It is a faculty that the human soul is capable of developing for self-examination as to what it has done and what it will do. It is the only attribute of the human soul that raises it above the souls of other life forms. The attribute of a superior intelligence alone would make man only a smarter animal. The potential for the development of a conscience is the unique attribute inherent in the proto-soul which the Creator exnihilates to the human genome. This extraordinary potential is what makes many religious people of varied faiths think that they are made in the image of God, or at least are specifically favored by God, and are made immortal by God. I believe that the fully-developed, but incorporeal and self-conscious soul with a conscience enters into the domain of the logos of the Creator, and thus avoids the annihilation that comes to other souls at the moment of physical death of their biological host. There is still another question regarding conscience as the determinant for survivability of a human's soul: does it matter if, for whatever reason, a human's soul has functioned without a conscience for most of that human's lifetime and then develops one shortly before physical death? I know that a Christian would answer that it does not matter; the Christian believes that one's soul can be "saved" at any time before death. There is the fact that we all know of some exceptionally cruel and evil persons who have committed despicable acts during a part of their life and then have developed a conscience and spent the rest of their life expiating the bad deeds of the past with good deeds now. It seems reasonable to me that a mere backward-looking regretfulness of past misdeeds does not translate into a conscience. The development of a conscience must be demonstrated by choices, decisions, and deeds over a period of time. The length of this period of affirmation would depend on the kind of endeavors and the intensity of effort the individual is engaged in. In the final analysis, only the soul itself and its exnihilator -- the Creator -- know whether it has or has not developed a conscience. We know that Eccles believes in the survival of the soul after physical death of the brain. But Eccles does not differentiate between souls with different levels of development. Of course, he is expressing his belief as a fully developed self-conscious soul with a conscience. One does not necessarily have to believe in some form of immortality of the soul for it to be so for that soul. Popper is skeptical about immortality of the soul, but I, for one, consider Popper's soul to have a fully-developed self-consciousness and conscience. Popper does concede the possibility of a state of survival which we cannot even fathom by stating that he would have to consider seriously "... those who say that this [immortality] cannot be just in space and time, and that it cannot be just a temporal eternity, ..." [3, Dialogue XI]. To conclude this part on the life-soul linkage, I quote some advice from Aristotle:
To that I would like to add what I quoted earlier from Aristotle:
I think that I can assume that when Aristotle talks about straining ourselves to be immortal and living in accordance with the best thing in us, and when he says that our life consists of actions of our soul, and that a good man is so defined by his good and noble performance, and that human good is an activity of the soul exhibiting excellence, Aristotle is saying the same thing as I am, i.e., that survival (immortality, if you will) is achieved by that soul which has developed fully its self-consciousness and its conscience. D. How it all comes together: God, life, soul, natural law I recall reading some years ago the book Natural Law and Natural Rights, by John Finnis (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980). On page 18 of that book Finnis defines natural law thus: "A sound theory of natural law is one that ... claims to be able to identify conditions and principles of practical right-mindedness, of good and proper order among men and in individual conduct." Elsewhere in the book Finnis says that natural law embodies the practically reasonable, pre-moral principles of right and wrong which are 'per se nota' (self-evident). I posed a question at the time of reading this, which asks whether this theory of natural law could be the link to other laws of nature obeyed by the animate and inanimate components of the universe? To my knowledge, most thinkers and philosophers about natural law are adamant in keeping the moral law which applies to human conduct separate from physical laws of nature. Now, having conjectured that the human soul is but a very special case of the souls that are exnihilated to all living things, I am inclined more than ever to say that that which we designate as the natural law of human conduct is, at the least, part of the Creator's (natural) laws which apply to other living things, and most likely the natural law that applies to living things is just a sub-set of the set of dynamic, self-enforcing laws to which, as I said before, God delegates his authority in the functioning and maintenance of all his creation. The self-consciousness and conscience of our souls, along with their greater potential for developing a high level of intelligence, is what allows us to comprehend the logic of these laws, whereas lower life forms without these attributes of the soul do not enjoy the privilege of understanding them. Our souls are exnihilated with a much greater potential for the development of intelligence than souls of lower life forms. Therefore, our souls have many more options to choose from in deciding on a course of action in response to a particular circumstance in life. I think that the laws I refer to are identical with natural laws, and that what Finnis terms the practically reasonable, pre-moral principles of right and wrong which are self-evident, are so described by us because they apply specifically to us humans. I dispute the term "pre-moral". It is my contention that the principles of right and wrong are parts of God's natural laws and as such they always have been equivalent to -- if one so prefers -- moral principles. The Nicomachean Ethics remains, still, after 2400 years, the most comprehensive, non-religious treatment of ethics and morals ever written. A man of our own times, Mortimer J. Adler, is arguably the greatest-ever expounder and popularizer of Aristotle's philosophy in general and Aristotelian ethics in particular. With regard to the commonsense natural moral philosophy of Aristotle and Adler, I have yet to come across anything significant that I would disagree with. I will conclude making the linkage between the soul and natural law by drawing on the thoughts of both men. Aristotle's understanding of ethics, and Adler's elaboration of them into a natural moral code, is based on a few key concepts which I will summarize and remark on from my perspective of the soul and natural law. To begin, the purpose of every action we take is to achieve what we think is some good for us. This is a self-evident truth, because we would never deliberately do something that we think is bad for us. The problem is that we may be pursuing what is only an apparent good, which could be innocuous, but could also be empty of value or even harmful for us, rather than a real good which we, like every other human being, actually need. Furthermore, since we obviously must, first of all, desire something before we pursue it, our choice of a good must be based on the right desire. In my view, the right desire for a real good and the proper means for achieving it can be determined only by the human soul which has developed a certain level of intelligence, self-consciousness, and conscience. Another of Aristotle's and Adler's key concepts is that of happiness. We spend our life pursuing goods that enable us to pursue further goods. But there is one ultimate end to all the goods that we pursue, which we seek for its own sake and that is happiness. Adler says: "So conceived, happiness is the totum bonum (the whole of goods) ... As the totum bonum, happiness or a whole good life is a normative, not a terminal, end -- an end that takes a complete life to achieve, and therefore an end that is not achieved at any moment in the time of our lives." [6, App. II, p.169] Here I am going to make a daring comparison of concepts: I conjecture that Adler's abstract idea of "happiness" is equivalent to my idea of the fully developed self-conscious soul with a fully developed conscience transcending into God's logos, and by so doing being spared annihilation. Of course, men do not make natural law, although they rely on it when making positive laws of their own. A law is a form of prescription cloaked in advice. The gist of a law is the "ought" and/or "oughtnot" it prescribes. When we deal with natural law and natural rights we do not prescribe "oughts" and "oughtnots" by ourselves, which we do when making positive law; rather, we derive the contents of the natural "oughts" and "oughtnots" by using our common sense to deduce them. We interpret the "oughts" and "oughtnots" by observing the Creator's natural processes at work and by using our very capable intelligence to learn what is good and what is bad for us to do. Aristotle was a genius with few equals. Among his many pioneering accomplishments we can include sociology and psychology. Aristotle was very insightful in observing and interpreting the behavior of human beings, and, I would like to add, his soul had reached such a level of development that he could perceive, down to the smallest nuances, practically all of the "oughts" and "oughtnots" of natural law applicable to human beings. Aristotle understood the meaning of "good" and "bad" -- necessary criteria for "ought" and "oughtnot" prescriptions -- to be indefinable, primitive and self-evident concepts. I would like to remark here that their indefinable and self-evident nature is precisely what identifies them as concepts of the Creator's natural law and, therefore, it requires a soul with a well-developed self-consciousness and conscience to fully understand them. Much time had to pass before Mortimer J. Adler -- another man of genius -- came along to interpret Aristotle's writings correctly. Adler has expanded and explained Aristotle's thoughts in easily-understood language in his many books and lectures on the subject. Here I will insert some quotes from Adler's work which, in my opinion, show the connection between the Aristotelian ethics and natural law.
The moral and natural rights and duties cited by Adler are, in my opinion, the core for the "oughts" and "oughtnots" of natural law which applies to humans. Adler implies as much when he says that they cannot be taken away or annulled by men. I would like to add to the basic notion in (e) "... and toward other living things in God's creation." I think that a human soul has developed its conscience to the fullest extent only when it treats other life forms with the same sense of moral obligation and respect which it must accord to other humans. I seem to have an instinctive sense that the natural laws that concern human-kind are but a component of the entire body of laws which governs the universe, and which, I believe, are the active agents instituted by the exnihilating Creator, also know as God, the Supreme Being, and by many other comparable designations. Recapitulation To repeat in short form of "how it all comes together" for me: (1) there is God, the being that which no greater can be thought of, who is the exnihilator of the physical universe; (2) life is one of God's most unique creations; its presence in the universe is outside the bounds of ordinary probabilities; (3) another of God's unique creative acts is the exnihilation of all the myriad genetic codes for all the life forms found on earth (past, present, and future) some 530 million years ago; (4) another of God's unique creative acts is the exnihilation of a soul for every living thing; the soul is the manager of all activities by the living thing; (5) the ultimate of God's creation is the soul of a human being, which has the potential to develop self-consciousness and a conscience; (6) all souls which do not develop a self-consciousness -- those of animals and plants -- are annihilated when the living host they inhabit dies; (7) the human soul has been given the potential to develop the intelligence for understanding the Creator's laws, which we know as natural laws and which include laws prescribing our own behavior; (8) in addition, the human soul has been given the potential to develop a self-consciousness and conscience; the soul is obligated to develop both faculties, because both are essential for the full understanding of, and for complying with, the natural laws. (9) the souls of humans which do not develop self-consciousness and a conscience are annihilated upon physical death of their human hosts; (10) the souls of humans which develop self-consciousness and a conscience survive the physical death of their human hosts; the subsequent disposition of these souls is within the Creator's logos which is beyond our understanding or imagination. I find that I have now arrived back at the beginning of the story: there is God, the being that which no greater can be thought of.
Sources 1. How to Think About God, by Mortimer J. Adler (Macmillan, 1980). 2. The Science of God, by Gerald L. Schroeder (Free Press, 1997). 3. The Self and Its Brain, by Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles (Routledge, 1977). 4. De Anima (On the Soul), by Aristotle, translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred (Penguin Books, 1986). 5. Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, translated by David Ross (Oxford Univ. Press, 1980). 6. Desires, Right & Wrong, by Mortimer J. Adler (Macmillan, 1991). 7. The Time of Our Lives, by Mortimer J. Adler [1970] (reprint by Fordham Univ. Press, 1996).
Questions/Comments? Post them in The Radical Academy Forum Mr. Irbe's Website: Classical Liberal George E-mail Address: George J. Irbe |
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