How to Start Theistic Science?

Let’s think now about how we would go about forming a scientific theory that had theism and God in it. How would you do that? Material science starts from the assumption that there isn’t a God, so what can we do? The obvious thing is to start from the assumption or postulate that there is a God! If some people are allowed to start by assuming that there is no God, then we can build another building next door which is based on the assumption that there is a God. We can follow that that as an alternative, in a contrast to the naturalistic way.

And then we have to spell out the basic ideas of theism. We have to spell it out without ambiguity, and in a non-metaphorical way. We have to form ideas that can be understood as literally true. When people look at Genesis, they say in Genesis, the first chapter is true, but not literally true. Ok. But what is Genesis 1 referring to? That is the question! And if are to understand what is going on, then we should have an idea about what Genesis 1 is actually referring to. And [another] consequence of this is that no paradoxes are allowed. Some philosophers are very keen on paradoxes, and here is an example of a visual paradox.

A box which is paradoxical in three dimensions.

We cannot have that in three dimensions! By paradox I mean two things which contradict each other. For example, some philosophies and some religions say that ‘we are God’ but ‘we are distinct from God’ at the same time. That is what I mean by a paradox: when two things are held which appear to contradict each other, or do contradict each other, if they are held at the same time. That means that we want to avoid all paradoxes, because it is well known (from the logical point of view) that if you have two things which contradict each other at the same time, then you can prove anything. This is a general feature of an inconsistent system. It is useless. So we want to keep rational consistency. So, therefore, we emphasize a lot the rational consistency of the ideas that we are trying to present.

Avoiding Reductionism

Furthermore, [we have] a general question. Actually it is a matter of taste, but this is the way that I have decided to proceed. Instead of saying that ‘minds are nothing but brains’, or that ‘souls are nothing but minds’, or that ‘God is nothing but an idea in our mind’, or the cosmos, or everything that there is, I want to avoid these reductionist or ‘nothing but’ explanations. We need to have a proper account of how there could be, for example, minds, and how they are related to brains, how they are connected, but not equal to each other. They are distinct. They are causally connected: one can affect the other, and the other can affect the one. [This must be possible] without demolishing [one or the other. For if we] do not actually have minds, we don't think, we don't have ideas, we don't have feelings. It is a serious problem to deny that there are minds!

Lastly, to make theistic science, we want to make predictions, and compare with experiments. We say that if these predictions are confirmed, then this is evidence in support of theistic science. That is the general principle of doing science. We will see, as are doing this, whether you agree that the starting point is confirmed. We will discuss later how you can ‘prove’ things.

Objections to Theistic Science

Now if I present these ideas to a scientific group, there are some standard responses they make. There are some scientific objections to theism. The first one is that, if God were allowed as an explanation in science, then ‘anything goes’. They say that, no matter what happens, one can say ‘God did it’.
The explanation of ‘God did it’ could be used for any event whatsoever. God, they think of as some person with a free will outside reality, who is not bound by any of the natural laws. They think that this is so overwhelmingly different that it would interfere with everything that they do. If that were to happen then you could not form any rules or patterns, or regular or irregular activities. Comprehensible or incomprehensible things could equally well be explained by God. If God was making miracles happen all the time, then this wouldn’t make sense: you couldn't do science like this.

We want start by replying to this objection, that God is not some arbitrary and capricious old man who can do what he likes. It is clear that when you get a better understanding of religion, there is a certain constancy and reliability about God which not everyone agrees with, but you get a better understanding in my opinion. In fact, as the religions and the churches get a better understanding of God, he does not look like this: 

That means that, if we want to allow for a scientific theism, we want to say that the previous reasons for opposing theism in science arise from misunderstandings about the nature of God. That is why we have to make it clear what the foundation of our theism is, and explain it in a simple rational way: without contradiction and without paradox. [This is] to avoid these particular misunderstandings. I believe that, with the help of Swedenborg, we will see later that there are some basic ideas which can be used in this way.

See for example and my rebuttal of Robert Pennock.

We know that there are considerable regularities in the world, and we should be able to explain the source and nature and reasons for these regularities. As an example of this, we can say that the source of regularities might be the constancy and eternality of the love and wisdom of God. So that is a beginning of an explanation within theistic science of why there are regularities. But we then have to explain lots more about how the love and wisdom of God operate, and what are the regularities that result.

Combining the Arguments from Being and from Love

We now look at the consequences of combining the Arguments from Being and from Love within theism. The first argument from Being concluded that all our being is because of God’s being:

1. God is Being itself (Postulate 3)
2. We (as individuals) have being (as, we exist).
3. Therefore, our being either is, or depends on (derives from), God (Being itself).

The second argument from Love concluded that we are distinct from God:

1. God loves us unselfishly (from Postulate 3), 
2. Unselfish loves cannot love only themselves, 
3. Therefore, we must be separate from God in some ways: God is not us.

There is a prima facie problem here. How can we share God’s being if we are necessarily distinct from Him?  If we are other than God, it would appear that we are separate beings. How can that be true, if the essence of our being (namely being itself) is identical to God?

The resolution of this paradox is the key to understanding theism from the philosophical point of view. We can verbally affirm both Arguments, but if they contradict each other, then we would have a logical set of statements containing a contradiction. Since from such a set any statement could be derived, and we understand nothing, our task should be to offer a resolution to this paradox. This paradox is particularly poignant because it is one that God himself had to resolve before he could create anything. How could he create beings whom he could love?  It is a real problem, not just ours, so we look at how God solved the problem.

Part of the solution will be to find a way that we can be close enough to God, without become identical with him. This talk of being ‘close enough’ is in fact a spatial metaphor, and such metaphors may not strictly apply in reality. However, as an aid to understanding, we can give several more visual metaphors which begin to suggest how a solution may be possible, indeed implemented, in our world.

We may imagine that we are ‘adjacent’ to God and maybe even ‘touching’ him. This equates to our not being continuous with God, but rather contiguous. There must be very close connections between God and us, connections sufficient to transplant being from God to ourselves but with still enough differences remaining that we are not part of God.

Another metaphor is that ‘God is within us,’ but this is a metaphor often open to multiple interpretations because of multiple meanings of the word ‘in’. My own favorite here is to think of us creatures (all of the finite world, in fact) as ‘hollow inside’, and as God filling up that hollow in a way that keeps him distinct from us. This is again a touching metaphor, but is now restricted to an interior space which is only vaguely conceived. The concept of interior spaces is one which will recur later.

Whatever spatial metaphor we use to picture our relation to God, it must include that, despite our existence being distinct from God, we are still in some way connected with the divine. This is possible if God sustains our being, even though we have some separation. What is the meaning of ‘sustain’?  Is this something that God does once at the start of the universe or something that happens all the time?  And is it something that God does automatically just by existing, or does it require some continual active contributions from God?  Does it require contributions from us? There is much to discuss further.

Adapted from chapter 9 of Starting Science From God.

Comparing Nondualism with Theism (I)

Nondualism has attracted renewed interest in the West in recent decades, through the introduction of esoteric Hindu & Buddhist religious philosophies, and with the support of writers such as Ken Wilber and leaders such as Andrew Cohen. Traditional nondualism, in its purest form, is generally taken to be that of Shankara, and Georg Feuerstein summarizes the advaita realization as follows: ''The manifold universe is, in truth, a Single Reality. There is only one Great Being, which the sages call Brahman, in which all the countless forms of existence reside. That Great Being is utter Consciousness, and It is the very Essence, or Self (Atman) of all beings."

These teachings are themselves to contribute to enlightenment, a spiritual transformation in which the individual is profoundly changed, to have some kind of liberation from 'the bondage of conditioned existence'. These transformations may be sudden or progressive, and those to whom it happens typically want to share their fortune with others to lead in them in the same direction, with the aim, inter alia, of easing them of their ignorance and troubles.

The Moral Problem with Nondualism

The well-known 'moral objection' to nondualism is that it does not tell the unenlightened (or enlightened, for that matter) how to live. Classically, the world is recognized as being either completely unreal, or only partially real, and the nondual teaching does not in any way address the ethical or moral dimension of human life. Tradition in Hinduism deals with this issue by restricting the individuals to whom the absolute teachings were revealed to those who have already fulfilled demanding moral and ethical qualifications for discipleship. And even more than that, Shankara himself states that the qualifications for discipleship also demanded an extraordinary degree of detachment from and transcendence of worldly desires.

Now, however, nondualism is available to everyone who can browse bookshops, libraries and websites. Not a few these days are attracted to nondualism precisely because of the disconnection between spirituality and morality, as they see thereby the possibility of some kind of salvation for everyone (including themselves) irrespective of their own moral life. However, a modern sensibility has been brought to bear on the subject, one that has been influenced by Christianity, with the result that nondualism as taught today has developed in interesting and subtle ways. The purpose of this essay is to examine those changes, and compare them with what might be expected from a theistic perspective.

Before proceeding, I remind you of the relevant essentials of what it means for a view to be theistic. Theism is the view that there is an Infinite Absolute that is the source, sustainer and redeemer of creation. In particular this Source is Love and Wisdom themselves, and just as these are the essence of human spirituality, in the Source they are the essence of a Divine Human nature, who is the Lord God of the whole universe. Rational creatures living on planets are created to be distinct of the Source, but are sustained and saved in their lives by conforming themselves to receive the Love and Wisdom from the Absolute, not just on Earth but everywhere necessary, in order to perform good uses from love by means of wisdom. Such an account is derived in most part from Emanuel Swedenborg's "Divine Love and Wisdom", where it is intended to be a account that is both rational and empirical, and which can be understood eventually without paradoxes.

Is the Life of a Nondualist Paradoxical?

Avoiding paradoxes where possible is a good thing for two reasons. Most fundamentally, it is desirable because, from a contradiction, it is strictly possible to logically derive any thesis whatsoever. The only way to avoid that is to have further qualifying conditions; so why not make the situation clear from the beginning? The second reason is that the promulgation of ideas is much easier when they do not appear to have visible inconsistencies.

The next post will examine how a modern nondualist practitioner Andrew Cohen addresses these issues.