Are propensities the Substance of things?

Are propensities (powers, etc.) the right kind of thing to be substance?  Let us examine the proposal from the previous post. 

One might object that propensities do not appear to have enough being, as they appear instead always to point to an incipient state of becoming. Are they, as Armstrong (1997) claims, always packing but never arriving?  Would objects made of such substance as proposed here actually exist, or only potentially exist, or (perhaps) exist potentially?  Bird (2007) responds to this by pointing out that this objection assumes that powers or dispositions are not fully actual. Rather, he says, we should insist that powers are actual full-blooded features of objects and that what is merely potential are their manifestations. I would respond slightly differently: powers are the actual full-blooded substance of objects and are not merely the ‘features’ or ‘properties’ of objects.

Perhaps we wonder whether objects made of such substance are really ‘full-blooded’. Do such substantial objects persist as objects should?  How do they have being?  Can they be individuated properly?  Are they simple units, or can they be divided?  Could elementary particles be of such substances?  Could we be such objects and still feel our own reality?  Let us discuss some of these issues.

Do these new kinds of substance persist?  There is certainly no need for them to persist forever, but can they persist through accidental changes while maintaining their essential nature?  To answer the question about persistence, we note that dispositions are possessed even when they are not being manifested. A vase is still fragile when it is not breaking. The fragility persists for a finite duration: at least from one contact event until the next. What I am asserting is that the corresponding substance of the glass persists for at least exactly that same duration. In that duration, it may change its position, orientation or illumination. These are the variable accidental properties that vary while the underlying substance (fragility and the other dispositions) remain the same. Whether the underlying substance persists forever is the same question as whether the fragility (etc.) persists forever. That can be answered by looking at the future adventures of the vase in the world.[1] If the fragile glass ceases to exist, then the substance ends, perhaps by being changed into another kind of substance. That substantial objects might persist only for a finite time does not render them any less enduring or persistent objects during that time.

How do these substances have ‘being’?  The recent dispositional essentialists have taken all properties as ‘powers, and nothing but powers’, so we wonder if we can take all objects similarly. The claim was thought by Bird (2009) to include all properties, including all those previously thought categorical such as position, shape and structure. I do not hold such a strong view. Particular objects have both dispositional and categorical properties, once we understand how this is to be conceived. The dispositional properties are instantiated by the underlying dispositional substance, whereas the categorical properties are instantiated by the form or structure of that substance which makes up this specific object. In this way we have what Martin (1993) calls a ‘Janus-faced’ or ‘dual-aspect’ view, but of objects rather than of properties. We are thereby constructing a notion of substance wherein substantial objects legitimately have both dispositional and categorical aspects. We do not follow Jacobs (2011) in having ‘powerful qualities’ that have both dispositional and qualitative sides. Rather it is the substantial objects that have both. Now, some but not all properties are dispositional. We do not deny the semantic distinction between dispositional and categorical properties but rather reinforce it. Neither do we have a ‘neutral monism’ whereby the dispositional and categorical are ‘modes of presentation’, following Mumford (1998), of the same instantiated properties.

Many philosophers since Prior et al. (1982), and recently, Rives (2005) have argued that dispositions are ‘causally impotent’ following the argument that “if dispositions are distinct from their categorical bases, and their bases are efficacious, then the dispositions themselves are impotent.” Rives explicitly assumes that “the causal efficacy of categorical properties is not in question”. I disagree. I think categorical properties such as size, shape, structure are by themselves never causally efficacious. We saw that above. Such properties are only efficacious when they are shapes or structures of some substantial object, and this requires the participation of dispositional properties. A ‘base’ can never be a structure per se and hence never purely categorical.[2]

A summary of the new position is to say that specific objects are unions of form and power, of qualitative and dispositional aspects.[3] Objects are structures of propensity, namely forms of substance, in a good Aristotelian manner. Forms may be examined in great detail by form-al sciences such as mathematics and logic, but no natural changes can be generated by formal constructions. For example, contemporary attempts in physics to construct ‘it from bit’ (to derive existence from form) can only produce a static (timeless) universe without changes or causes of change. I would instead say that forms are the means by which dispositional powers operate, since the power-substances can only operate if they are arranged in some form or structure that allows for interaction and movement. Conversely, forms can only have an impact on the world if they are the forms of some propensity, as thereby a physical object in the world is in existence and has powers to influence others. This is why I said that objects in the world are required to be unions of form and power: they require powers to be in some form and require forms to be of some power. The resulting union has an existence that goes beyond either ingredient by itself.[4] In a natural object, the power and form are actually inseparable and only abstractly distinguishable. We can (and should) intellectually distinguish them—as recent philosophers have emphasized—but that does that mean that they can ever exist apart.

Can these substantial objects be individuated?  Can we identify individual objects made of such substance?  It certainly does not seem that we can divide powers or propensities themselves into parcels, with some for each individual object in the world. I can only see individuation proceeding via the specific forms or trope that the substance-stuff has in specific objects. That is, identifying individual objects, as forms of the underlying substance-stuff, can only proceed by identifying those particular forms used in each individual object. We may say that even the individual and specific existence of an object depends on the specific forms that inform the essential underlying powers/propensities of the substance.

Some scientists may be suspicious of the idea that there is a fundamental level where objects are composed of dispositions directly and do not have parts in substructures. Would that not be the end of science?  No, because science’s task is to first determine which is the fundamental level. Secondly, scientists try to exactly characterize and understand all those dispositions, both common and uncommon, in order to predict their exact operation. Any such claims are subject to empirical verification or revision.

Finally, we must consider the logical plausibility of this proposed identity. Grammatically, nouns in sentences are the agents of actions and refer to the bearer of causal influences. The object of an action must cooperate in the operation of those influences.[5] This is entirely consistent with the present claim that subjects and objects are themselves forms of propensity. It is the nature of powers and propensities to be causal influences, so any thing constructed from them will be the bearer of causal influences. We must agree, therefore, to a grammatical move of powers from being adjectives within predicates to being the substance of subjects and objects. Then we must envisage as nouns the forms of such powers and propensities. This seems to me to be quite feasible.

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[1] I would doubt that vases are eternal. I not believe that electrons or nuclei are necessarily eternal either.

[2]  Psillos (2006) also makes this mistake, when he argues that “fundamental properties [..] flow from some fundamental symmetries," for symmetries, as purely mathematical structures, can never physically ‘flow’, and can never produce physical objects. Rather, in our Aristotelian framework, they describe the properties of objects and, here, relations between those properties. It cannot be that “elementary particles are the irreducible representations (irreps) of a group," again because groups (or even their representations) have no causal powers.

[3]  Neither can exist by itself. No dispositions can exist except in a form, and no forms can exist except as forms of dispositions.

[4]  Ellis (2010) has recently written in support of this view of forms as being both categorical and necessary for the operation of powers.

[5] A hammer and a vase must have powers to interact with each other if fragility is to be manifested this way.

References

Armstrong, D. M. 1997. A world of states of affairs. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bird, Alexander. 2007. Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press.

Bird, Alexander. 2009. Structural properties revisited. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press: Clarendon Press;.

Ellis, Brian D. 2010. Causal powers and categorical properties. New York: Routledge.

Jacobs, J.D. 2011. Powerful qualities, not pure powers. Monist, 94(1), 81–102.

Martin, C. 1993. The need for ontology - some choices. Philosophy, 68(266), 505–522.

Mumford, Stephen. 1998. Dispositions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Prior, E.W., Pargetter, R., and Jackson, F. 1982. 3 theses about dispositions. American Philosophical Quarterly, 19(3), 251–257.

Psillos, Stathis. 2006. What do powers do when they are not manifested?  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 72(1), 137–156

Rives, B. 2005. Why dispositions are (still) distinct from their bases and causally impotent. American Philosophical Quarterly, 42(1), 19–31.

Defining 'Substance' in terms of Dispositions

Scientific analyses of powers or dispositions

Consider how science might analyze the fragility of a glass vase, namely the disposition to break after small external pressures. The very first analysis would be to treat the vase as a whole with mass, shape, rigidity and fragility. The fragility is then a property of the vase. The vase is therefore an object with specific dispositional properties and, as well, with a shape and orientation. The second analysis would be to consider that the vase is made of glass, where the glass is a continuous solid with various mass, elastic and fracture properties. A computer finite-element model of the vase might then explain its fragility in terms of the stress and fracture properties of the constituent material. In this case, the glass is the dispositional material, to be arranged in the shape of the vase and thereby to explain the properties of the vase. A third level of analysis might be a molecular simulation, where elasticity and fractures are properties derived from the strengths of interaction potentials between molecules. Now, the molecules are the objects constituted by those interaction potentials, which are dispositions, and they are arranged to make macroscopic glass-material. And so on: a fourth level may consider the potentials between individual electrons and nuclei, where now those electrons and nuclei are constituted by mass, charge, spin, magnetic moments, etc.: all dispositional properties. Surely quantum mechanics is also needed, which introduces its own set of probabilistic dispositions (propensities).

We see that at each stage of microscopic analysis, the presented objects are diagnosed as structural forms of some more fundamental disposition. Whether the stages reach the most fundamental level is not the issue here. Rather, at each level, the result of the analysis is to attribute existence to some ‘stuff’ with some causal powers held essentially. First, the vase as a whole was the existing stuff; in the second analysis, the glass with stress-strain powers is taken as the stuff of the vase; later it is electrons, etc., with electric charges; and the final stage listed here has electrons with propensities to emit or absorb virtual photons.

The attribution of dispositions in all of the above cases is according to the following logical template:

 “Object S has the disposition P to do action A” is equivalent to “if S is in some circumstance C, C depending on P and the character of A, then there will be a non-zero likelihood of S doing A”.

For example, “A vase object has the disposition to break" is equivalent to “If the vase is in some circumstance of being struck forcefully, this circumstance depending on the precise fragility and the character of the breaking, then there is a non-zero likelihood of the vase breaking".

New Ontology for Substance

We thus see how science analyzes and constitutes dispositional properties and how those properties are explained as forms of some essential more-fundamental dispositions or propensities. We can now philosophically generalize that analysis in order to formulate a new view of the constitution of objects, such that dispositional essentialism logically follows. This new constitution is to take powers or propensities themselves as the persisting ‘stuff’ of which objects are made. That is, I argue that we should identify ‘propensity’ and ‘substance’ so that natural objects, as ‘forms of propensity’, are then ‘forms of a substance’ in nearly the manner of Aristotle.

It is admittedly a large metaphysical leap to identify propensity as substance, but I will argue that the identification is grammatically correct, philosophically sound, historically defensible, and physically correct, and that it even helps clarify interpretations of quantum physics. It furthermore agrees with the Eleatic Principle: that existence should only be given to that which has causal power. In a more modern age, this would be called a ‘pragmatic’ view of substance, as attributing significance not to what something merely is but to what it can do. The identity of substance and propensity is claimed in the same sense that, while the morning star and the evening star are initially known independently, they turn out to refer to the same (ontological) being. This identification should be the next development for those who adhere today to dispositional essentialism. Instead of worrying about ‘ungrounded dispositions’, we will see that dispositions are able themselves to be grounds or bearers of properties. 

God is Life Itself

We are going to within theism, and say that theism affirms that life itself is identical to God. For this, the concept of ‘life’ will be defined. We will show in theistic science how this is connected with the Love that is God. That is a long demonstration that depends on many pieces of theory and evidence and will only be fully sketched later. For now, we simply affirm the central point: 

Postulate 7  God is Life Itself. 

That is, God has life in himself. This is implied by the claim of Christianity in John 5:26: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself."

We have to understand in practical terms what life means here. Modern science has been progressively reducing the idea of anything specific that can be called life. In our new context, we want a general concept which can be used for all psychological, biological and physical processes. I acknowledge that physical objects are not normally taken as ‘living’ in the normal sense, and elsewhere in this book I have stressed that they are ‘dead’. Yet here a particularly inclusive concept is required. We will therefore give the 

Definition: Life of an object is the most fundamental (or: original, deepest) disposition: whatever it is that gives rise to its actions and capacities for interactions. 

An object’s life is therefore that from which all of its behavior is derived, given its environment. In God’s case, the life consists of the divine Love as postulated in the previous chapter. In the case of other objects, persons, etc., we have yet to work out what the most fundamental dispositions are, but whatever they are, that is their life. When we talk of ‘derivation’ of capacities from the ‘most fundamental dispositions’, we must allow ourselves to use the theory of ‘derived dispositions’ within multiple generative levels, as described in my article here.

Core theism asserts that, remarkably, God is that life itself. This means that the behavior of all objects derives from God. We have yet to see how this is done and how a single God can be the life itself of multiple living creatures. And, of interest to us humans, we would especially like to know who is in control at each stage. Who decides the course our life? 

The task of science is to explain the dispositions and causal powers of all objects and to understand what is the life of humans, animals and plants, etc. The materialist view is that all these have a life which is reduced entirely (and only) to that of the fundamental dispositions of the composing atoms and molecules, and that these constituent particles have the powers as discovered by physics. If this were true and were combined with theism, we would have to conclude that atoms and molecules were divine. In that case, it would follow that the fundamental particles would be divine and would be indestructible and eternal since they have life in themselves and ‘live’ from themselves. If it is not the particles themselves that are divine, then perhaps it is the energy from which they are produced. This line of thought has indeed been followed by many atomic philosophers, from Democritus into the twentieth century.

A non-reductionist view is also possible. Such a view says that we have some kind of life—whether vital, mental, or spiritual—that does not derive from that of our constituent atoms but has a different origination. Most of us sense that this might or ought to be true, as we have reasons to believe that our spiritual and rational lives do not originally spring from physical causes. We may have difficulty, though, maintaining such a view in a way that is coherent with the conclusions of modern science. The view of scientific theism is even more divergent, as it insists that all our life is non-reductionist, since it originates from God. Even the fundamental powers of elementary particles come from that source, a theist insists. Our challenge is to make detailed sense of these claims, while avoiding a pantheism whereby we (or atoms) are part of God or whereby God is part of us.

Extracted in part from Chapter 12 of Starting Science From God.

Does desire generate thought, or thought generate desire?

We need to consider the relation, within the mind, between desires and thought. That relation should be the same as that between willing and understanding, since we generally think that willing is in accordance with our desires and with our loves and motivations: we will by means of desires. We also generally think that our understanding is in accordance with our thought: we understand by means of our thoughts and ideas.

But does desire generate thought, or thought generate desire, or neither?  There is room for debate on this, but there are psychological, philosophical and theological arguments to lead to the conclusion that it is desire which generates thought, rather than the opposite.

The psychological evidence stems from the fact that persons tend to think about what they want: their desires lead their dreaming, thinking, planning and eventually acting to get what they want. This suggests that desires generate the streams of thought that occur in the understanding, rather than that our thinking dictates what we want, love, or desire. Thought may influence what we desire but only by selection. Our thoughts select which desires can be feasibly brought nearer satisfaction.

Some will disagree, saying that it is primarily thought that makes our desire, and that we tend to desire things that we have thought up. This is true, but what is the causal determiner of what we think up?  Thoughts seem to pop into our heads, and thoughts about what we desire are much more likely to do so!  We interfere at this point sometimes and reject thoughts as unsuitable, but that rejection itself also requires motivation or desire. We do not clearly see our desires in our consciousness, but only our thoughts and actions, so we tend to forget about the essential role of dispositions and desires. How many times have we seen people, seeming to themselves to be rational, being driven by desires which they hardly acknowledge existing?

Philosophically, we could argue from the Aristotelian view that thought is the entertaining of the forms of things. Then, since forms themselves have no causal power, we could say that all the power must belong to whatever is doing the thinking and not to the thoughts themselves. This implies that thoughts themselves are not dispositions. The honor of being dispositions belongs to desires or loves. Desires are more similar to dispositions than are thoughts. It is dispositions (rather than forms) which are causally efficacious. 

This agrees in general with the analysis of Gilbert Ryle's 1949 book "The Concept of Mind". He argues that minds as a whole are akin to dispositions, and hence the actions of a person are the effects of those dispositions. He took this to imply materialism, but we will see later that other conclusions are possible, even preferable.

Pure Act or Pure Love: which better describes God?

Here is a selection of a my own comments following Edward Feser's post Is [the] God [of classical theism] dead? I continue trying to resolve some fundamental differences with the Thomists, but it was difficult. I wanted to give them a chance to defend in their best way.

I do not here include anyone else's replies. The links are to my comments.

First the existing argument from Thomas Aquinas (emphasis added):

“God brought things into being from no preexisting subject, as from matter…
    Now, the order that obtains between act and potentiality is this: although in one and the same thing which is sometimes in potentiality and sometimes in act, the potentiality is prior to the act, which however is prior in nature to the potentiality. Nevertheless, absolutely speaking, act is necessarily prior to potentiality. This is evident from the fact that a potentiality is not actualized except by a being actually existing. But matter is only potentially existent. Therefore, God who is pure act, must be absolutely prior to matter, and consequently the cause of it. Matter, then, is not necessarily presupposed for His action.
    Also, Prime matter in some way is, for it is potentially a being. But God is the cause of everything that is…Hence, God is the cause of prime matter—in respect to which nothing [else] preexists. The divine action, therefore, requires no preexisting matter” (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 2, Chapter 16).

If someone told you that being G was 'pure actuality', then you would think that it would be devoid of potentiality, capacity, power, and (hence) causal powers.

However, Feser claims about God that "it is precisely because He is pure actuality that He is the source of all causal (or actualizing) power." This is to repeat Aquinas' argument.

But I do not understand the inference here. There must be much more to God than 'pure actuality'. That does not seem to be a good characterization of his essence. What is missing? Can it be given a philosophical characterization (rather than by a theological accretion of attributes)?

I still have a problem, however, with the meaning of 'pure' in 'pure actuality'. (And how it is thereby supposed to refer to something essential about God.)

Normally, a 'pure A' means 'devoid of not-A'. Purely red means devoid of not red. Purely intellectual means devoid of not intellectual.

However, here, 'pure actuality' refers to something with no potentiality for changing itself, but still lots of power for changing other things. This does not seem to be a good sense of words. I am surprised that Aquinas uses it!

I agree that powers (whatever they may be) must be grounded in what exists. And that they cannot be grounded in 'pure potentiality'. From many examples, that is clearly ridiculous. I also agree that 'actuality' is practically synonymous what 'what exists'.

But then, how does the term 'pure actuality' get us close to identifying God? A god who is devoid of some potentialities (those for himself), but who is positively enthusiastic about other potentialities (those for others). Do you see the problem?

By 'potentiality' I refer to any capacity or power in onself to make a change, whether in the agent, or in another (patient).

I agree that god does not change himself. But, if he is defined as 'pure act' after Aquinas, is it possible for him to have in himself any powers to change others?

• It cannot be because 'actual' means 'exist', since ordinary existing things are not sources of powers. 
• It cannot be since god = pure actuality and god is the source, since i am asking an ontological question not a theological one. 
• It cannot be because every coming-to-be requires an actual thing to do that, because that has nothing to do with where the powers originate. 
• It cannot be because the original actual being can have no potentiality, since that directly blocks answering the question. 

I agree that a purely actual being will be devoid of all passive potencies. The question is, is it not, for the same reason, devoid of all active potencies as well?

I think of myself as a classic theist. I just think that Aquinas at various points was let done by the poor development of Aristotle's ontology (physics and metaphysics).

It you look at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1025.htm for example, at the first section discussing whether there is power in god (my subject above!), all the crucial steps are based on ideas of 'perfection' and 'fittingly', etc. Aquinas does not have the philosophical machinery to give a robust answer, so he wings it, in order to get to the right answer. (Most of his final answers are quite good: it is the logic in the middle that is poor).

A 'normal ontology' need not badly constrain God, if the ideas in it came from God in the first place. Since much religion is to get us to listen to God, we should not be afraid to use the ideas we get. (At least, then, they would be consistent)

Now I propose a resolution of this problem, by means of

Actual powers:

How about this resolution of problem?

We take (at least for now) God to be immutable, in the sense that his essence is constant for all time. He never changes: he is famed for his constancy.
This implies that the essence as it actually exists at one time, exists as such for all times. It has NO potentiality to change himself. For these reasons, we may reasonably characterize God as 'purely actual'. Aquinas would define God as Pure Act, as our most direct description.

But we also take God as the source of all life, love, power and activity in the universe. He is essentially omnipotent. That is, it is from his own nature that God is the source of all power. But is this compatible with being purely actual?

Maybe we can resolve this by being clearer on what about God is purely actual? Some characterize God as 'love itself'.

Let us conceive of God as a 'fixed and immutable actual love'. 

Does that make sense? Does it help above? For our analysis, consider love as a specific kind of active power.

Certainly, a fixed and immutable love makes a good eternal essence for God. It makes sense for religion (find your own quotes). This love is always for others, so never changes itself: as we thought all along.

A God whose essence is love itself can then certainly give and share that love to creatures in the universe. This also makes sense for religion.

But a 'fixed actual love' is certainly not 'pure act' in the Aristotlean-Thomistic sense. Sorry about that, but tough for A-T ontology. It is a 'fixed energy source' (imagine your local star, for a metaphor). It is purely actual, with absolutely no passive powers, but is 'full' of active powers to create and share.

Evolution: God cannot create instant adults or species

There is continuing debate concerning whether God needs progressive stages in history to bring adults into life, or whether God has complete absolute omnipotence to create things immediately. This is sometimes taken as the dispute between evolution and creationism, but in reality the situation is more complicated (and interesting).

It is certainly true that traditional theism has emphasized the absolute omnipotence of God -- his unfettered sovereignty. And, not surprisingly, the atheists then have the same idea about that God which does not exist. One such as Jerry Coyne, for example, criticizes theistic support for slow evolution:

But if you didn’t know about evolution, and knew only about the Bible and the idea that God is omnipotent and omniscient, wouldn’t you have guessed a priori that if God brought all life into being, he’d do so via an instant miracle rather than by a 3.5-billion-year process of evolution on one planet out of billions in a single universe out of billions of universes?

A closer study of the basis of theism, however, shows that God is life itself, and that we must be conformed in suitable ways in order to receive that life. Furthermore, that life is only useful to us -- and good to receive -- if it appears to us as if it were our own. Otherwise it would appear to be imposed on us 'from outside', and we would not enjoy it, and maybe even reject it. These facts are simple features of the life that we have from God.

From this, we have to conclude that God can only create by progressive modifications. Something like evolution (or growth or development) is needed for humans, for species, for cultures, etc. Of course, this is not Darwinian evolution, since it is not changing merely by natural selection. Something we might call theistic selection is also involved, since fitness now depends not only on bodily activities, but on an internal conformity to the reception of life from God (who is life itself, as mentioned above).

I have discussed some of these issues in more detail in previous posts:

• No Instant Adults in Theistically Driven Evolution,
• Causal Explanations of Evolution Cannot be Purely Natural,
• Theistically Filtered Evolution and Theistically Driven Evolution,
• Why Evolution is True (within Theism).

The point now is that we cannot defend theism from external critques, if we do understand properly the foundation and consequences of theism itself. That is why I advocate a Theistic Science as the name of developing this understanding. I write this blog blog.beginningtheisticscience.com, the book Starting Science from God, and for many years have maintained the website www.theisticscience.org.

Sometimes the correct ideas are presented (imo). The Biologos group, for example, has recently posted some observations on the theology of God with respect to the universe, under the heading "Why Should Christians Consider Evolutionary Creation?". Given this group's previous advocacy of natural selection is the 'source' of all biology, it is interesting to read:

Here are three examples of biblical attributes of God emphasized by studying evolutionary science:

• God is extravagant. God did not create just one type of flower, but uses the system of evolution to create a huge variety of flowers, of every size, shape, color, and scent. As opposed to being “wasteful,” a biblical view of evolution helps us appreciate it as a pointer to the extravagance of God’s loving gift of life to the whole earth. God’s creation does not reflect a cold efficiency, but the transformation of such “waste” into worship, just as Jesus honored the woman who poured expensive perfume on his feet (Mark 14:3-9, John 12:3-8).
• God is patient, and most often works gradually rather than instantaneously. In the natural world, we see God creating life over billions of years, not instantly, and grand geological processes playing out slowly over time, as well. Similarly, in the Bible we read of the centuries that passed between God’s covenant with Abraham and his covenant with David and the centuries more before Jesus appeared “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4). In individual lives, God often works by planting his Word deep in us and letting it grow slowly over time. God seems pleased with the slow but extraordinary unfolding of his universe, just as he is patiently unfolding his plan of redemption.
• God is the provider. He provides for his creatures in each moment, giving them what they need to survive, adapt and thrive in communities of life. The Bible speaks of God feeding and caring for animals (Jonah 4:11, Psalm 104), and modern evolutionary science is shedding light on how God has arranged complex ecosystems that support many different kinds of creatures together. But God provides for his creatures even at the genetic level, giving species a measure of biological “creativity” to help them respond to new challenges. As biologist Richard Colling says, “Evolution is not about the imposition of death and destruction and survival of the fittest. Those things are a part of it, but not the main core of what evolution is. . . [The] evolutionary process of creating duplicate genes that give rise to new possibilities [is] redemption, it’s possibility, and it’s hope.”

These are also some of the consequences that come within theistic science. However, until more detailed reasons are given for these conclusions, and connections with other aspects of theism, they will not be convincing to everyone, let alone those who oppose theism. 

Egregious and flawed concepts about God

This is slightly-modified reblogging of Jime's recent post at 

Pseudo-intellectualism: the dark side of the paranormal community (#4)

Many new age people consider themselves "believers in God". But exactly what means "God" to them?

Some will say that God is a kind of "energy" which permeates the entire universe (or something like that). But what exactly do they mean by "energy"? A physical energy? A spiritual energy? Presumably, it is the latter. But what is a "spiritual energy"? The energy of a spirit (= unembodied person)? These reflections tend to be absent in the works of these new age people.

They don't specify if they believe in a personal God (a spiritual person with superlatives attributes which is the ground and source of all physical and non-physical reality), and when asked explicitly they deny this personal concept of God (which they, erroneously and again by ignorance, attributes to the Christian concept of God... which certainly is personal, but not all the personalistic concepts of God are Christian. In fact, in classical Christian theism, the anthropomorphic concept of God is largely rejected on behalf of a personal concept of God defined analogously).

The "theistic" new age person tends to conflate "personal" with "anthropomorphic," precisely because they have no idea of the literature about the problems related to the concept of God. They reject a straw man, created largely by the secularist propaganda of atheists.

Therefore (and here appears their pseudo-intellectualism and illogical thinking in full expression), often they ascribe personalistic properties to that "energy" (e.g. the property of being "intelligent", conscious, good, having purposes, plans and intentions in order to organize the universe, etc.). For example, they say, based for example on NDEs, that such energy is "pure love" (note that love, in the highest spiritual level beyond pure animal instinct, is a property of persons). 

Obviously, all of these specific properties of such peculiar "energy" are properties TYPICAL of persons, not of non-personal entities, forces or energies like the law of gravity, entropy, quantum vacuum, atoms, electrons, DNA, etc. So, the new age person tend to verbally to reject the personal concept of God, but implicitly such concept is fully implied in the properties that they ascribe to the "energy".

An egregious example of this is Deepak Chopra. Confusing "personal" with anthropomorphic (and with Christian fundamentalism) you read see this pearl in his criticism of Dawkins:

This assumption is false on several grounds. The most basic one is that God isn't a person... Therefore, reducing God to a Sunday school picture and claiming that the Book of Genesis--or creationism in general--competes with science isn't accurate. Fundamentalism hasn't played a role in scientific debate for generations. Einstein pointed out that he didn't believe in a personal God but was fascinated by how an orderly universe and its physical laws came about.

Chopra conflates the notion of God as being a person with "fundamentalism". This is an example of the conceptual naiveté and philosophical unsophistication that I've discussed in this post. Certainly, fundamentalists believe that God is a person, but the reverse is false: not all who believe that God is a person are fundamentalists.

Former atheist champion, the late scientistic philosopher Antony Flew became a deist who concluded about God this:

I accept the God of Aristotle who shares all the attributes you cite [self-existent, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent and omniscient being]. Like Lewis I believe that God is a person  but not the sort of person with whom you can have a talk.  It is the ultimate being, the Creator of the Universe.

Note that Flew's God is personal, because as a trained philosopher he knows that attributes like "omniscient" implies personality. Does it make Flew a six day creationist? Obviously not. But Chopra doesn't undertand this because he has absolutely not idea of the concept of God in classical and contemporary theology and philosophy. No hint of sophisticated reflection on the concept of God is being advanced in Chopra's works.

Chopra prefers to knock down the simplistic view of God taught by pseudo-intellectualistic Christian preachers at the Sunday school, instead of carefully addressing the sophisticated views of first-rate classical and contemporary thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, Richard Swinburne, etc.

Regarding Einstein, the fascination for the laws of nature and the universe is not an objection against the view of God as personal. At most, it shows that Einstein was a pantheist. But Einstein was a physicist, not a theologian nor a trained philosopher, so hardly Einstein's personal opinion is going to settle the theological-philosophical problem of the nature of God.

Chopra's superficiality is telling in the following passage. After saying that God is not a person, he has not problem in using the property "intelligence" as applied to his non-personal concept of God:

So at bottom, the real question is this: Do we need an all-pervading intelligence to explain the universe? Forget the image of God sitting on a throne, forget Genesis, forget the straw man of a Creator who isn't as smart as a smart human being. The real debate is between two world views:

1. The universe is random. It operates entirely through physical laws. There is no evidence of innate intelligence
2. The universe contains design. Physical laws generate new forms that display intention. Intelligence is all-pervasive

Note that Chopra's second alternative is not incompatible with the first one. Materialists accept that the universe operates entirely through blind, mechanical and unguided physical laws AND that these laws generate new forms that display intention (e.g. the law of unguided biological evolution generates human beings who are intentional agents). They reject innate or intrinsic intelligence but accept supervenient intelligence displayed by some biologically complex organisms. This is the standard position of materialist and Darwinist scholars. Therefore, Chopra's understanding of the "debate" is superficial, false and misleading.

That intelligence is "all-pervasive" is fully compatible with God being a person. Perhaps what Chopra means is that intelligence is INTRINSIC in the structure of the universe, i.e. the physical energy and laws of this universe are, themselves, "intelligent".

Now, the intelligence of physical laws (if it were the case) doesn't exclude the existence of a intelligent designer who have designed them. After all, my cell phone is an intelligent one (a smartphone), but it doesn't suffice to conclude that a transcendent (=beyond my cell phone) creator of my cell phone doesn't exist. On the contrary, the evidence for such smartphone is evidence for the existence of a intelligent designer of it.

Regarding the universe, it is specially the case given the evidence that the universe (with its intelligent laws) began to exist. And this implies a cause. Therefore, the "intelligence" of the physical laws cannot be the explanation of the origin of the universe, because such laws began to exist too. Therefore, it points out to a intelligent cause that created such universe with such "intelligent laws". Hence, Chopra has not given any compelling reason to think that God, if exists, is not personal. On the contrary.

Regarding God sitting on a throne, I don't know ANY sophisticated Christian thinker who thinks such a ridiculous thing. Indeed, for Christians, God is immaterial (therefore, it is impossible to him to be sitting on something, let alone in a throne). The biblical passages which suggest divine corporality are interpreted metaphorically, not literally (because the Bible has several literary genres and proper interpretation and exegesis is dependent on them), as any person familiar with theological and biblical literature would know. 

Regarding a God who is not so smart as human being, no informed Christian could properly believe such a thing, since God is supposed to be perfect and omniscient, therefore (by definition) he's INFINITELY more smart and wise than any other being, including humans. A Christian believing otherwise wouldn't be a Christian, because he would believe in a God incompatible with Christian theology.

Again Chopra is beating a straw man and misinforming the public about Christian theology. 

It is fine if you don't believe in God or in any particular religion or worldview. But serious intellectuals have to make an effort to represent the views of their opponents in the most charitable, strongest formulation. Otherwise, they're pseudo-intellectuals and sophists.