Which Is To Be Master?

Our story so far . . .
“God” must, at least, include “reality as a whole.” What else is “God”? Which of the qualities that have at one time or another been said to be qualities of God are qualities that are instantiated in reality?

Candidates for qualities that have sometimes been said to be qualities of God include: “supernatural,” and “personal” (that is, person-like; knowing and wanting). I discussed and rejected “supernatural” in part 1. In part 2, I recognized an important poetic place of play for conceptions of nature/reality as “person-like" before turning to consider possibilities for "God" neither supernatural nor person-like.

In Part 3, I looked at such qualities as the final source of beauty and mystery; a power inspiring gratitude, humility, wonder, and awe; an ultimate context and basis for meaning and value; the widest (or highest or largest) reality to which our loyalty is owed, and, hence, the basis of the ethics that flow from that loyalty.

As Carl Sagan describes it, the cosmos has all of these qualities. Many people today, even though they may lack the detail of sophisticated understanding that professional scientists have, share Sagan’s sense of the natural world – the ecological, biological, and geological processes of planet Earth and the physical processes of electrons and atoms and stars and galaxies – as possessing attributes traditionally belonging to God. Let us call these people “Religious Naturalists.” They are naturalists by virtue of holding that “the supernatural” either doesn’t exist or is conceptually incoherent, and by virtue of holding that such attributes of personhood as knowing and wanting do not apply to nonliving nature or reality-as-a-whole. Naturalists may be nonreligious or religious, depending on whether they experience nature and the cosmos as beautiful, mysterious; inspiring gratitude, humility, awe; commanding loyalty, and grounding ethics.

Can we say that the cosmos, then, is God – even though the cosmos is neither supernatural nor person-like? May reality thus described reasonably be called God? May we call “God” a cosmos that has “most” of the qualities traditionally associated with God – or must we insist that supernatural and person-like necessarily must be a part of the definition? How shall such a question be answered?

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.' (Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll)

My mother was a physics and chemistry professor. My father was an English professor. Once, at dinner, Mom posed a question to my sister Alizon and me, as she was sometimes wont to do.

“If you throw a rock into the air, straight up – perfectly vertical – it will reach its topmost point, and then start to come straight down. At that instant at the top, is the rock accelerating?”

“No,” my father interjected. “For just an instant, it’s not moving at all.”

“At that instant it is stopped,” agreed Mom. “But it’s still accelerating. Acceleration means that its velocity is changing, and the rock’s velocity is changing throughout its trajectory – on the way up and on the way down.”

“No,” said my father, “that is not what 'acceleration' means.”

Since Dad’s specialization was 18th-century British literature, perhaps Dad had in mind Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of 1755.

Dr. Johnson defines accelerate as:

To make quick, to hasten, to quicken motion; to give a continual impulse to motion, so as perpetually to increase.

“You scientists,” fumed Dad, “don’t get to change the English language.”

Actually, scientists do get to change the meanings of words. Sorry, Dad. Sometimes scientists even do so through an explicit and formal process, as when the International Astronomical Union, on 2006 August 24, adopted a new definition of “planet” for our solar system. Their definition excluded Pluto, which had been within the definition of planet since its discovery in 1930. More often, the shift in meaning disseminates slowly and informally.

Words change their meaning as we learn more about the things they point to. As we learned more about motion, we saw that all regular changes in velocity were mathematically describable, and we needed the word “accelerate” to refer to all such changes, not just to speeding up.

Similarly, as we learned more about a planet, the word’s meaning changed. “Planet” originally meant “wandering star.” By Galileo’s lifetime, educated Europeans had pretty much universally dropped the “star” part from their understanding of the meaning of “planet.” By 1930, the definition took in nine objects in our solar system, then, in 2006, in the light of discoveries about the Kuiper belt, the definition was refined to include only eight objects in our solar system.

Other examples:

- As we learned more about what water was, we incorporated “H2O” into its definition.

- As we learned more about “atoms,” the word’s meaning changed. “Atom” originally meant “not divisible.” When we developed the ability to split atoms, we had to change the definition of “atom” so that it no longer meant “indivisible.”

- A thousand years ago, "animal" was almost universally understood to mean nonhuman -- and "human" to mean nonanimal (Aristotle's definition of humans as the "rational animal" notwithstanding). As we learned more about animals and humans, we changed the definitions to reflect our new understanding of what humans and animals are.

Words change their meaning as we learn more about the things they point to. Our definitions of words reflect our understandings of things.

The word “God” points to a source of beauty and mystery; a power inspiring gratitude, humility, wonder, and awe; an ultimate context and basis for meaning and value; the widest reality to which our loyalty is owed; a basis of ethics. As our understanding of the reality to which the word points has evolved – so that, for many of us, that reality is no longer regarded as supernatural or person-like – then dropping “supernatural” and “personal” from the definition would seem a simple matter. Since so much of the meaning of “God” is retained, then the dropped part would seem more easily releasable than, say, dropping “star” from “planet” or “indivisible” from “atom”. After all, “star” and “indivisible” were once much bigger parts of the definitions of “planet” and “atom” respectively than “supernatural and person-like” have been for “God.”

Case closed? Not so fast. We must also consider the "does not exist" option. As our understanding of things evolves, sometimes we do indeed change the meanings of words. Other times, however, instead of redefining the word, we conclude that the word fails to refer -- i.e., that the purported object pointed to does not exist.

The authors of the Biblical Book of Job evidently wrote for a populace that took leviathans to be real entities. Now we say they don’t exist.

From the late 17th-century until the late 18th-century, the phlogiston theory of combustion postulated that a fire-like element called phlogiston was contained within combustible bodies and was released during combustion. Eventually, the phlogiston theory of combustion was replaced by the oxygen theory of combustion that we have today. Scientists did not re-define “phlogiston.” Instead, they expressed their new understanding by saying, “phlogiston does not exist,” and “there is no such thing as phlogiston.”

Which route should religious naturalists take? Should we say that God is the cosmos? Or, instead, should we say that there is no God?

In the history of the evolution of human knowledge, re-definition is the norm, and the “doesn’t exist” route is the rarely necessary resort. Had there been any actual beasts that were at all close to leviathans, even if significant features of the mythical understanding were missing, we would have retained “leviathan.” Phlogiston was unusually awkward: it turned out that combustion involves the taking in of something (oxygen), rather than the giving off of something. The process itself was entirely opposite to what phlogiston theory had said. So redefining “phlogiston” as “oxygen” would have required unusual conceptual gymnastics. Moreover, the “phlogiston” concept itself was new, never broke out of scientific circles to become well-anchored in cultural understandings, and lacked a long history of accumulated associations that might have given it meanings we wouldn’t want to throw away. Phlogiston was a rare case of an easily disposable concept.

The word “God,” however, has a very long history of referring to a source of mystery and meaning, an origin, a basis for values and commitment, an ultimate the contemplation of which cultivates well-being, humility, peace, and an ethical vision, as such contemplation does for religious naturalists such as Sagan. The list of the functions of the word “God” that are retained by religious naturalism is much longer than the functions dropped.

The great advantage of the word “God” is clarity of communication. That word, better than any other, clearly and directly specifies that what we’re talking about is indeed an ultimate ground of both concrete values and commitments and at the same time incomprehensible, mysterious, full of powers we can but dimly apprehend (e.g., dark matter; 128 dimensions; the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle; reproduction; immunological response; consciousness) – a reason for living, and a beauty beyond reason.

What humans have been pointing to with that word, “God,” turns out, for religious naturalists, not to have beliefs and desires. We can now drop that nonessential meaning and speak even more clearly of the holy within which we live and breathe and have our being.

Words change their meaning as we learn more about the things they point to.

CODA

Religion brings us together, binds us, makes community of us. A religion offers a basis for an ethics. We might say that whatever is your basis for ethics is your religion. Religion is a context for cultivation of virtues. It is a field in which wisdom slowly grows. Through all this is an account that responds to the question: Who am I? Who are we? What sort of world is this? What is reality?

A shared account of what reality is supports religious community-forming power. It supports the ethical grounding and the virtue aspirations because what we hope to be and can be is framed by what is. Today our best account of reality – a dynamic and constantly shifting account – emerges from the researches of scientists. To know it as best we can gives us shared reality to ground community and hopes. And it opens for us a world of wonder, even as it affirms connectedness.

In the Book of Job, the Hebrew and eventually the Western Mind addressed suffering. “Why do I suffer?” cries Job. Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him in his misery. They offer the trite moral simplifications: “You must have done something wrong to bring this on yourself; you must have sinned to incite God’s punishment.” For these friends, the universe is mechanically moral: Goodness in, reward out; badness or evil in, punishment out.

Finally, God himself/herself appears to answer the charge that Job’s suffering is unfair and without basis. It’s not clear, however, that what God proceeds to say can be accurately called an “answer.” God unleashes four chapters of rhetorical questions that invoke the wonders and grandeur of creation. A sampling:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?... Or who shut in the sea,... made the clouds its garment... Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place... Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?... Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?... Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion?... Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?...Do you give the horse its might?... Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high? (Job 38: 4, 8, 9, 12, 18, 28, 31. Job 39: 1, 19, 26-27. NRSV.)

God goes on also to invoke leviathans and behemoths (and unicorns, too, according to the King James Version, though later translations say "wild ox" instead). God’s speech is not an explanatory “answer” to the question Job had so plaintively raised to the heavens, "Why do I suffer?" Yet confronted with the vast awe of creation, Job’s complaint is stilled. Humbled and speechless, Job abandons his plea, for he grasps that the mystery of the cosmos is so much deeper than principles of justice.

What about you and me? Amidst our daily and variable discomforts, distractions, and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, where shall we look today for the “speeches of God” that will fill us afresh with such profound wonder that our sufferings fade into insignificance, replaced by an awe unto joy? We look to nature, just as God directed Job to look. Such "speeches" today are read through the Hubble and other telescopes, inscribed by particle accelerators, displayed with electron microscopes. Those of us without the training to decode those cryptic signals can nevertheless find abundance of beauty and mystery in more popular science writing. We find it in looking, naked-eyed or with simple binoculars, at the night sky or a distant flock of cranes. We find it in walking amidst uncultivated undisturbed flora of the land of our belonging.

Near the end of his life, Carl Sagan wrote in Pale Blue Dot:

In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

Dear Carl: It’s here.

Thank God.

* * *
This is part 4 of 4 of "Science, God, and the Universe."
Previous: Part 3: "Saganic Verses"
Beginning: Part 1: "Not Supernatural"

An Easter Story Story

This is the story about the story: the story about what happened to the story about Yeshua. Yeshua taught people about a new way to live in love with each other. After he died, Yeshua’s students and followers began gathering together in communities that they called churches. They gathered to share the stories about Yeshua, to try to try to attain this Kingdom of God that Yeshua talked about.

Soon, however, the story started changing. Very different ideas started to be added on.

SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER: When Yeshua said Kingdom of God, did he really mean that the Kingdom was right here – that the Kingdom was created whenever people lived together with love as their law? Some people started to say, “Oh, what Yeshua really meant was that the Kingdom of God is a happy place that your soul goes to after your body dies, but only if you’ve been good.”

SUNDAY SCHOOL PUPIL [precocious, impertinent]: That’s probably not what Yeshua meant.

TEACHER: They started to say that Yeshua was God.

PUPIL: Why would they say that? Yeshua didn’t say that.

TEACHER: In those days, anyone who was very important was said to be a god. For instance, the Romans said that Augustus Caesar was God. Yeshua’s followers also started starting saying Yeshua had a miraculous birth.

PUPIL: I’m sure it was. Every birth is miraculous.

TEACHER: They said only Yeshua had this particular kind of miraculous birth, that his mother was a saint.

PUPIL: I’m sure she was. Mine is.

TEACHER: According to the story, Yeshua’s Mom was special and holy like no other woman ever. And Yeshua’s father was not a human being at all, but was God.

PUPIL: But you said they said Yeshua was God.

TEACHER: Yes.

PUPIL: So . . . he was his own father?

TEACHER: Well, no. . . .

PUPIL: Oh, then there were two Gods: one was the father of the other.

TEACHER: No, they always said there’s just one God.

PUPIL: Then, how . . . ?

TEACHER: I don’t know. I’m just telling you what they said.

PUPIL: What else did they say?

TEACHER: They said that after he died, his body was laid in a tomb on a Friday afternoon, but then on Sunday morning he came back to life.

PUPIL: So he wasn’t really dead, then?

TEACHER: No, he was really dead. But then he came back to life.

PUPIL: What part of “dead” do you not understand?

TEACHER: I’m just telling you what they said. Besides, there are lots of stories in which the dead come back to life.

PUPIL: Uh, yeah, like Zombie stories. Do you mean Yeshua was undead?

TEACHER: Don’t say that! Have some respect!

PUPIL: I’m just trying to understand what the story is saying.

TEACHER: And I’m trying to tell you. A lot of different stories started being told about Yeshua.
In some of those stories, they say Yeshua died to take your sins away.

PUPIL: My sins? That’s awfully nice of him, but how does one person dying take away sins of another person? Also: I wasn’t born yet, so I didn’t have any sins back then. Oh! And didn’t you say that he died and then came back to life two days later? Does that mean that my sins come back in two days?

TEACHER: You ask a lot of questions.

PUPIL: Is that OK?

TEACHER: Yes, my dear. It’s wonderful.

Over the last 2000 years, a lot of different ways of telling the Yeshua story have come along. Some of those stories are all about how he was born and what happened after he died. The things he did in between don’t matter so much.

There are also people who consider themselves followers of Yeshua – Christians -- who pay no attention to anything supposedly special about Yeshua’s birth or his death, or after death. For them, the only Yeshua story is the story of what Yeshua did, how he lived, and what he taught. They also call themselves Christian because they try to live as Yeshua taught. They try to live as though God, or love, lives within us and among us, and the better we know that, the better we can love.

An Easter Story

Once upon a time, long before there was the internet or video games or even electric lights, before there were e-books – before there were books – back when stories were preserved only on scrolls and in memory – the world was different yet also very much the same. For instance, today there are poor people and rich people – and so were there then. A child was born into a poor family. His name was Yeshua: a quiet boy, with bright eyes, curious and kind.

When Yeshua was 12, his family traveled into the big city for the festival. In the big city, Yeshua got separated from his parents. They searched all over for him for three days, worried sick. When they found him, he was sitting with a circle of grown-ups next to the temple. The wisest elders in the whole city were gathered, and Yeshua was paying careful attention and asking questions.

YESHUA: Why are some people rich and others are poor? Why is there suffering? Why do we make mistakes that hurt others or ourselves? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen to bad people? Is there really any such thing as bad people or good people? How can we learn how to be more kind and more loving?

Every elder had a different answer because nobody was sure.

When Yeshua became a grown up, he was still trying to find the answers. He read all the scrolls, and asked every teacher he could find. He went into the desert to get away from other people and be alone to think and to feel, to hear the quiet message of his own heart, and to experience more deeply the Earth and the sky.

Yeshua stayed in the desert many days with very little food.

One day in the desert a gazelle walked up to him.

GAZELLE: Why are you here, human?

Yeshua didn’t know if he was imagining, or if a Gazelle was really talking.

YESHUA: I want answers.

GAZELLE: What are the questions?

YESHUA: Why is there suffering? Why are some rich while others are poor? Why do we make hurtful mistakes? Why do bad things happen?

GAZELLE: Why, why, why.

Gazelle left. She came back the next day. Yeshua looked at her and repeated his question.

YESHUA: Why?

Gazelle looked at him, and spoke quietly.

GAZELLE: What do you already know?

YESHUA: Everybody I ask gives a different answer.

GAZELLE: There are many different reasons then.

Gazelle left again. The next day, the sun was sinking low before Gazelle trotted by where Yeshua was sitting. Yeshua looked up.

YESHUA: There are many different reasons.

GAZELLE: Yes, many reasons.

YESHUA: So how can we learn to be kinder?

GAZELLE: Good question. Much better than the other ones.

Gazelle left and did not return. A week later, Yeshua left the desert and returned to the villages of people. He began talking to people and teaching them.

YESHUA: I know that you suffer, and are poor, that you have made mistakes and are sorry, and others have made mistakes that harmed you. I have some good news.

CROWD: What? What? What is the news?

YESHUA: The kin[g]dom of God is within and among you.

CROWD: What did he say? What was that word?

PERSON 1: He said "Kingdom" of God. Like God is the King and will rule over us.

PERSON 2: No, he didn’t say "Kingdom" of God. He said the "Kin-dom" of God. Like we’re all kin – we’re all related to each other. When we know we are kin, that’s when we live in a holy way, like God.

YESHUA: The good news is the kindom of God. It is where love rules. Where love is the only law. Love is inside you, and love is among you. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.

Wherever Yeshua went, he tried to teach people how to be kinder. One day a man approached him.

PERSON 3: How can I live from love and for love?

YESHUA: Follow the rules and follow the love, for the rule is love.

PERSON 3: What’s the rule?

YESHUA: There are really only two. The first is: love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And the second is like the first: love your neighbor as yourself.

PERSON 3: My neighbor as myself?

YESHUA: Your neighbor as yourself.

PERSON 3: Who is my neighbor?

YESHUA: Let me tell you a story. Once there was a man who was robbed and beaten and left by the side of the road. Two people passed by and did nothing to help. A third person went to the man, bandaged his wounds, brought him to an inn and took care of him, paid for his care. So who was a neighbor to that robbed and beaten man?

PERSON 3: The one who showed him mercy.

YESHUA: Go, and do likewise.

Another time, another man approached Yeshua.

PERSON 4: How can I live from love and for love?

YESHUA: You know the commandments: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie.

PERSON 4: I have kept the commandments since my youth, yet my heart is not satisfied. How can I have a larger love?

Yeshua looked at the man and loved him.

YESHUA: Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.

When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Wherever he went, Yeshua talked to people and taught them to have hope in each other, taught them to care for each other, and how to be together in a community where love is the only law – a community that he called the kingdom, or the kin-dom, of God.

PERSON 5: Sounds like a liberal.

Yeshua especially emphasized taking care of the poor: providing everyone with housing, and food, and health care.

PERSON 5: Yep. Definitely a liberal.

- - - - -

Sources (from NRSV):
When Yeshua was 12 . . .
Luke 2: 40-48:

The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." [No parallels in other gospels]

He went into the desert
Mark 1: 12-13:

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. [Parallel passages: Matt 4: 1-11, and Luke 4: 1-13]

The news
Luke 4: 43:

But he said to them, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose."

Luke 8:1:

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

Luke 17: 21:

For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among (Or within) you.

Compare:
Deut 30: 11-14:

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

Love your enemies...
Luke 6: 27-28:

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse your, pray for those who abuse you." [Parallel passage: Matt 5: 44]

The rule is love
Matthew 22: 37-40:

He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. [Parallel passages: Mark 12: 28-31, and Luke 10: 25-28]

Compare:
Deut 6:4-6:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.

Leviticus 19: 18:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Who is my neighbor?
Luke 10: 29-37:

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." [Parallel passages: Matt 22: 34-40, and Mark 12: 28-34]

Sell what you own, give to the poor
Mark 10: 17-22:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing: go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. [Parallel passages: Matt 19: 16-22, and Luke 18: 18-23]

Luke 12: 33:

Sell your possessions and give alms

Luke 14: 33:

So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

To Recognize, Look

Pang asked Mazu, "If you met someone who was a distinctly authentic person, how would you recognize him?"
Mazu directed his gaze downward.
Pang asked, "Only you are able to play a tune on a stringless harp."
Mazu looked up, and Pang bowed.
Mazu then returned to his room.
Pang followed him, saying, "Just now, I tried to trick you, but you made a fool out of me instead."

(The Sayings of Layman Pang, #4: "A Distinctly Authentic Person")

Look down, Angel, upon this very spot.
Right where we are, we're on holy ground.
Look down, Angel: the blessing of your glance upon the
Dirt.
Look up, Angel.
See me with the music of your harp.
Dance with me to the tune that from no strings comes.
Dance with me, no strings attached, til we melt
With ruth.
Look homeward, Angel.
I am following the direction of your gaze.

credits:
"We're on holy ground right where we are" - Amy Carol Webb
"Look homeward Angel, now and melt with ruth" - John Milton

Hard (or Easy) to Swallow

On this blog two days ago we saw Pang ask Shitou, "What about someone who has no connection with the ten thousand dharmas?" Today, he asks the same question of a different master. The question reminded me this morning of "Baizhang (a.k.a. Hyakujo) and the Fox," in which we consider that, while an enlightened one might not be subject to cause-and-effect (the law of causation, karma), she also is one with cause-and-effect.

Pang went to study with Mazu and asked him, "What about someone who has no connection with the ten thousand dharmas?"
Mazu said, "I will tell you after you have drunk down the waters of the West River in one gulp."
Pang understood the meaning implied, and composed a verse:

With an empty mind
The examination is passed.

After he'd stayed with Mazu for two years he composed a verse:

The world over:
Men without wives
Women without husbands
Face to face,
Speaking of what is unborn.

(The Sayings of Layman Pang, #3: "One Gulp")

Not falling under, not ignoring: like a fox.
The whole thing gulped down -- without espousal.
No wedding bells ring for marriage bonds and baby making.
What could be born?
Everything possible is already facing his face, already gulped.
What is there to talk about?

Prayers That Reach the Gods. Or Not.

Note: Shitou's question about wearing black or white refers to becoming a monk (wearing black) or not.

One day Shitou said to Pang, "I've come to visit you. What have you been doing?"
Pang said, "If you're asking what I do every day, there's nothing to say about it."
Shitou said, "What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?"
Pang made up a verse:

What I do every day
Is nothing special:
I simply stumble around.
What I do is not thought out,
Where I go is unplanned.
No matter who tries to leave their mark,
The hills and dales are not impressed.
Collecting firewood and carrying water
Are prayers that reach the gods.

Shitou approved, saying, "So, are you going to wear black or white?"
Pang said, "I will do whatever is best."
It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha.

(The Sayings of Layman Pang, #2: "Subtleties of Daily Life")

The stew has ten thousand ingredients.
There is a single quarter-slice sliver of carrot in the ladle.
It tracelessly abides.
You may say, "The stew would be different without it" -- this is impossible.
The impossibility of otherwise: this is tracelessness.
Or: It leaves a mark, all right: a mark
Indistinguishable from
The effect of the whole --
A mark without impress to hill or dale, master or novice:
An unseen movement of lips silently praying.

"Shut up," he explained.

The Layman went to see Zen Master Shitou and asked him, "What about someone who has no connection with the ten thousand dharmas?"
Shitou put his hand over the Layman's mouth, and the Layman had a sudden realization.

(The Sayings of Layman Pang, #1, trans. James Green)

In the silence: no connection to the myriad beings.
In the silence: fully connected to the myriad beings.
In the silence: constant chatter.
In the chatter-chatter: silence.
Pointing to the moon: so futile, therefore necessary.
A dance pointless and beautiful and required.

Not Waiting for the Bread to Rise (Passover 2)

Exodus 12: 21–34:

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them: ‘Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you: “What do you mean by this observance?” You shall say: “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.”’ And the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his officials and all the Egyptians. And there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. Then he [Pharaoh] summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said: ‘Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord, as you said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And bring a blessing on me too!’ The Egyptians urged the people to hasten their departure from the land, for they said: ‘We shall all be dead.’ So the people took their dough before it was leavened, with their kneading bowls wrapped up in their cloaks on their shoulders.

When you have a chance for freedom, when that opening appears: Go! Don’t wait around for your bread to rise.

Even under the worst of conditions, there is some leavening in the loaf. What, give that up? Surrender plans for a nice, hot yeasty loaf and make do with the blandest unsalted crackers, all for the sake of an unknown world? Give up what you know in order to wander in the desert for 40 years of hardship?

Yes.

Giving up risen bread is the least of it. The status quo has fierce armies to enforce its way. It’s scary out there. Days after leaving Egypt, the Israelites see Pharaoh’s army advancing on them. They cry out to Moses:

Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. (Ex 14: 11-12)

Powerful resources are arrayed against you to enforce the old way. And you don’t have the resources you need to support the new way. You will run out of all bread, leavened or not, run out of meat, face starvation. A few weeks after leaving Egypt, the people moan again to Moses:

If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. (Ex. 16: 3)

The path to freedom is risky and uncertain.

Let us take a closer look at that story. The Passover story in Exodus appears to account for the origin of rituals: the paschal lamb, the unleavened bread, the consecration of the firstborn. Bible scholars suppose that the story probably took shape around pre-existing rituals – that in at least some ways the rituals account for the story more than the story accounts for the rituals. It is impossible to know “how much of the narrative draws upon authentic experience and how much of it developed over time in relation to existing customs” (Carol Meyers, Exodus, 2005, 92).

Whatever it’s source, we have this problematic story. “The intentional destruction of innocent life in God’s slaying of the firstborn has long troubled readers of this narrative. What kind of deity was it, whose deed could benefit one group at the expense of others? Already in the early postbiblical period, rabbinic commentators sought ways to rationalize such a horrific act” (Carol Meyers, Exodus, 2005, 93). Today we can read it as literary device rather than literal history. Even so, here’s this tragic slaughter of Egyptian firstborns.

For me, the story makes particularly poignant the ruling question: What is mine to do?

There is so much suffering. How much do I devote to the work of my liberation so that I’ll be free to be more effective in bringing myself to the suffering? How much do I just try to work with the chains I’ve got, dragging them with me though they hamper and slow me?

Put yourself in the Israelites’ position. You hear that a plague is coming, and to protect yourself, you put lamb’s blood on your doorway. Should you also be protecting your neighbors? Pharaoh got the same warning you did. He hardened his heart and disregarded it. Perhaps Pharaoh represents all the Egyptians. Let’s say you did tell your Egyptian neighbors to put lamb’s blood on their doorway, and they just wouldn’t do it. Now they’ve lost their child, and their grief is overwhelming. Can you help? They’re telling you to just leave – which happens to be what you’ve always wanted.

What is yours to do? Work out with diligence your liberation. Compassion for others must manifest as the work of your liberation. Otherwise, what is at work isn't so much compassion as as moral obligations that can distract us from the liberation work. Freeing ourselves will release a much greater and more whole compassion through you to others.

Let me illustrate what I’m talking about. My friend, call her Gloria, is an activist. I agree with Gloria in the qualified way that Tevye assents to Perchik. You may remember that in “Fiddler on the Roof,” Perchik, the young radical, proclaims, “In this world it is the rich who are the criminals. Someday their wealth will be ours.”

The older Tevye’s qualified assent is: “That would be nice. If they would agree, I would agree.” Tevye sympathizes with the goal of a fairer distribution of wealth, yet he frames that goal within a recognition of the rights and personhood of all, including the wealthy.

Gloria has anger about some of our government’s actions and inactions. I have anger about some of that, too. When I have responded best – which isn’t always -- I have noticed the anger, named it, made a decision about what to do with it. Gloria’s anger takes her straight to blaming, and the anger just builds on itself. Those people in that other party are evil, corrupt, willfully blind. Some of that party’s supporters are simply dupes – who are duped by the evil and corrupt others.

Gloria is working for good. The legislation she advocates would, I also believe, increase fairness and reduce suffering. With Gloria, the conversation quickly goes to condemnation. At first I tried to bring some light to what might be the universal need motivating these supposedly evil others. Everybody wants food, air, water, shelter; exercise and rest; security and autonomy; affirmation, respect, trust, creativity, beauty, harmony. I thought if we could identify which, among the needs we all have, were motivating these others, then we could relate to them a little better, even if we still thought that their strategies for meeting the needs weren’t very skillful.

However, my strategy for identifying what might be sympathetic common ground wasn’t working. Then I remembered: it is often the case that anger outward is a projection of anger inward, that negative self-judgments manifest as negative other-judgments. When I point the finger at someone else, there are three pointing back at me.

Gloria said, "Those people have no respect for other people."

So I asked, "Have there been times when you didn’t respect others as much as you wish you had?" Yes, there had indeed been times. Personal stories of regret and shame began pouring out. Now I was hearing about Gloria, instead of denunciations of people who weren’t in the room. That was a more fruitful conversation, for a while. Eventually, we reached the point where the self-blame was as stymieing as the other-blame had been.

I’m hopeful that Gloria and I might be able to identify the universal motivators that were behind some her acknowledgedly unskillful strategies. That that might be a ground for self-forgiveness -- which might be a ground of forgiveness toward those in the other political party. I’m hopeful, in other words, for the possibilities of Gloria’s liberation. Freedom will make her a more effective activist – and certainly one who enjoys life more. She wants to address human suffering through building collective action. Yet these objectives can be a distraction from doing the work for her own liberation. What is it the flight attendants always tell us? "Secure your own oxygen mask before attempting to assist others." That's something we need to know before we can fly.

The Exodus story shows a people becoming liberated, against a backdrop of massive loss: every firstborn. “There was not a house without someone dead.” What kind of God would do that? The kind that is the way the world is. There is massive suffering. It is more than you or I can fix. Our own freedom lets us bring presence and compassion to those who suffer. It's appropriate to be horrified by the mass death of Egyptians. At the same time, the Israelites' best possible response was to go ahead and get out of there. Under those unusual circumstances, that's what was theirs to do.

In the Exodus story we see that the path to freedom has two stages: the sudden exhilarating dash out the gate, followed by the slow tedium and hardship for 40 years of wilderness, lost, going in circles, getting nowhere, not to mention the lengthy and toilsome process of building a new city once the promised land finally is reached. We won't reach freedom unless we are ready to move quickly to seize an opportunity. If we delay, wait for the bread to rise, the chance may pass. Or, more likely, since there's always something in our pipeline that we're tempted to want to see through before departing, we may never get around to breaking free. Please understand the urgency of the call to freedom. Don't wait around, putting it off. Go! Now!

After making that first initial exciting break with the past, then comes the long and arduous sojourn in the desert.

I got a call about a month ago from a director of a rehab facility for people in recovery from substance abuse. She asked me about our the labyrinth that we have on our Fellowship grounds. Would it be all right to bring over a group to walk our labyrinth? Would I be available to talk about it with them and guide the experience? Yes, and yes, I said. The appointment was made, and last Friday (Apr 15), the group came.

There were fifty of them: men and women, rebuilding their lives, wrestling with demons that I can only imagine. Somehow, summoning courage that they wouldn’t have known they had, they made a break with their past lives, a sudden and dramatic exit from the comforts of slavery and addiction. They now face the slow part – the rest of their lives, really – the wilderness to traverse, a new life of freedom to build. We went out and gathered by the labyrinth. I stood on a bench to address them.

The labyrinth is not a maze, it has only one path. Its lesson is let go of your need to control, trust the path, keep going. One foot in front of the other.

You must go into your center. You must find what is there. And: you cannot stay there. You must return out to the world, bring the true self you have found back to the encounter. “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you,” says Yeshua, in the Gospel of Thomas. “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” This was a group that knows a lot about what will destroy them.

Both journeys, the in and the out, are circuitous and winding and terribly inefficient. Notice the temptations. It is so easy to cheat, to step over the rows of rocks, to walk straight in. The labyrinth’s lesson is that path and destination are intertwined, they define each other. The destination isn’t the destination unless it reached by the needful path. Like Hebrews in the wilderness, you go around and around – often winding further, by any objective measure, from your destination rather than closer.

When you get to the center, I said, hang out there as long as you feel like it, then head back. Folks heading back and folks still heading in will encounter each other. This, too, is a lesson: we encounter people who are heading in an opposite direction from us, who we could bump heads with, who might seem to be heading in a wrong direction, but there is only one path. We go in and we go out, and if you are in a going-out phase and pass by someone in a going-in phase, rest assured your positions will soon be reversed. Practice the gentle grace of letting others by. And notice that, doing this, you may have to take one step off your path. Others can knock you off your path, but never very far, and it is always a simple matter to step back on.

I instructed them to hold their hands in front of their waist; to notice the rhythm of their breathing, and synchronize it with their steps: in-2-3-4, out-2-3-4. It helps the mind quiet, so the path can take over. Then I stood by the entrance with my watch, and sent them in at five-second intervals. And I went last, walking the labyrinth, as I have many times before, though never with a group, let alone such a large one.

Afterwards we went over to the Fellowship sanctuary to debrief about the experience. Most of them had something to say. I heard from them how they valued the experience, how they took to its lessons – though some acknowledged they had been skeptical and dubious. Some spoke of how, yes, their need to control had to be tamed, and how good that felt. They spoke of how the path was not always clear – the layer of leaves has gotten thick – but they let themselves trust the person in front of them, and how good it felt to trust and follow.

One spoke of noticing how a few of their fellows had stepped over the rocks and taken shortcuts. He wrestled with judging them for that – but he said he knew that the judging voice was about him, not about them. I mentioned the little proverb, "whenever you point the finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back you," -- they all knew that one already very well.

They were so wise. I was moved and touched to be among them. It was clear to me how much they have learned from the hard work they have done – because one walk through the labyrinth will not teach such lessons except to those who have done much to prepare themselves to think and see and understand that way.

We all have our addictions. Whenever and wherever an enjoyment – an enjoyment that you can relish if it comes, and move on, with unperturbed equanimity, if it doesn’t – turns into an attachment that you gotta have, and will be perturbed if you don’t get – then that’s where the addictive tendency has entered the picture.

What are your addictions? What is the Pharaoh that holds you in bondage in the land of Egypt? Freedom is ever the half-won blessing. Its unfinished work lies before every one of us. As they say in the recovery community: You can be consumed by your addiction -- or you can be recovering: Recovering – never recovered. Freedom is never complete. New chains appear. Old chains return. And their constraints are often so comfortable, for a while.

One other lesson of the Passover story: Not one Hebrew ever walked out of Egypt alone. Nor could any have survived the wilderness alone. Freedom is a collective enterprise. We need each other to be free. Yes, there is necessary work only you can do. There is other necessary work only we can do -- together. Then take courage, friends. You are not alone.

Freedom, the Half-Won Blessing (Passover 1)

"Bring out the festal bread and sing songs of freedom."

Passover begins at sundown on Monday April 18. The celebration of freedom continues eight days, through the evening of Tuesday April 26. The first two days and the last two days are full-fledged holidays: the middle four days are semi-festive.

The first two days commemorate the 10th plague, when the mystery beyond naming killed all the firstborn of Egypt, but passed over the Israelites: hence Passover. At this, Pharaoh released the Israelites from bondage. They immediately fled. Pharaoh changed his mind and went chasing after them. A week later came the episode of the parting of the Red Sea, commemorated the last two days of Passover.

Celebrate, then, and reflect on the blessing of freedom. In parts of the world, full-scale slavery is still going on. If you are reading this blog, you probably are not enslaved in that full-scale way, and never have been. Even so, I would guess that there has been a metaphorical land of Egypt in your past in which you were bound and from which you now are free. Bring out the festal bread, and sing songs of freedom.

Yet freedom is the half-won blessing. Modern pharaohs live unchallenged. Chains still there are to break, metal or subtle-made. Resentments, small or large, bind us. A further Exodus awaits us still. And further truth, bright as a burning bush, cries to become known. We (we who are not under an unrelenting grind of oppression, nor consumed wholly with mere survival) stand midway between full-scale slavery and full-scale liberation. The unfinished work of freedom lies before us. So bring out the festal bread and sing songs of freedom.

Saganic Verses

In this series, I am asking two questions.
(1) Which of the qualities that have at one time or another been identified as qualities of God are qualities of reality as a whole?
(2) May reality thus described reasonably be called "God"?

So far, I have looked only at the first question. In "Part 4: Which Is To Be Master?" I shall turn to the second question.

One of the qualities that is sometimes mentioned as a quality of God is “supernatural.” In part 1, I said that won’t work. The reason it won’t work is not that God/reality isn’t supernatural, but that we cannot make sense of either the proposition,

“Reality is supernatural”

or the proposition,

“Reality is not supernatural.”

Each of those propositions require us to be able to be able to draw a line between supernatural and natural – and we have no way to do that.

Another candidate for a quality of God is: person-like; having knowledge and desires. In part 2, I said that being able sometimes to respond to reality as if it had such person-like attributes is a part of a healthy playful or poetic capacity. It does our hearts good and fosters creative interrelationship with our world to play make-believe from time to time – even if we are self-aware that we’re playing as we do it.

Today I want to consider what would be left – or what would have room to emerge into greater significance -- if we set aside the supernatural and the person-like. What does science tell us about reality – and what descriptors of God apply to a description of reality consistent with science?

Let's begin with some parallels between science, particularly physics, and religion.

They both address the question: What is reality? That is, what’s out there? What’s right here? What’s in here? These are old questions. What we now call science – a particular method of hypothesis, and observation and replicability – emerged only in the 17th century.

What we call religion today – religion as the kind of thing that we could have a first amendment protecting the free exercise of – is also fairly recent. For most of human history, religion and culture were essentially the same thing. If you were an ancient Egyptian, then you did what Egyptians did – including participate in certain rituals, make certain sacrifices, and tell stories about beings called gods. They didn’t divide the practices and teachings of their lives into the religious ones and the nonreligious ones. It wasn’t until the 16th century that serious thought about tolerating religious differences began to emerge in the West, and, along with it, the implication that it was possible to separate certain practices from the rest of a given people’s way of being together. Now we live in a world where we have distinct areas called “science” (recently emerged as a distinct area of culture), and “religion” (recently separated into a distinct area of culture), each addressing that ancient question: What is reality?

For millennia, priests in dark robes have said:

"There is a world beyond what you can see or hear. It is a realm of deep mystery. The normal principles of nature as we experience it do not apply there. And: Trust us. We have plumbed some of this mystery, so believe what we tell you. Do not critically evaluate it for yourself."

Now scientists in white labcoats say:

"There is a world beyond what you can see or hear. Black holes, worm holes, antimatter, dark matter, quantum probability waves, superstrings, parallel universes. It is a realm of deep mystery. The normal principles of nature as we experience it do not apply there. Trust us. We have plumbed some of this mystery, so believe what we tell you.”

Actually, science teachers would love for us all to have a much better grasp on the data and the reasoning that leads to the conclusions of contemporary physics and astrophysics. But since most of us aren’t able to be physics majors on top of the rest of our life, we can’t critically evaluate cutting edge physics research. I, for instance, feel I’m doing really well if I grasp just some of the conclusions reached a century ago in Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Like this:

If you’re standing still, and I zip past you at half the speed of light, and I’m shining a flashlight ahead of me as I go, the speed of the flashlight-beam as you see it emanating from the flashlight is not the combination of our two forward velocities – it’s not 1.5 times the speed of light, as you might think. The beam leaves the flashlight at exactly the speed of light, and receives no boost from the fact that the flashlight itself is going half the speed of light. On the other hand, it might seem that if the flashlight-beam is going forward at the speed of light, and I’m going forward at half the speed of light, then the flashlight-beam is going faster than me by only half the speed of light. But no! I will see the beam receding on ahead of me at the full speed of light. How could that be? Well, it’s because time slows down for me when I’m going that fast.

At that point, most of us have to say, “If you say so.” Most of us can’t get the training to assess these mysteries ourselves, so we end up in a position analogous to our early ancestors’ position in relation to their shamans and priests: we have to take their word for it. Certainly there are significant differences. I trust my astronomy prof a lot more than I trust the TV and radio preachers of conservative Christianity. This is because the scientific community is self-critical and always looking for better answers while priestly communities are self-reinforcing and looking to maintain the same answers.

Nevertheless, scientists deal in things that are, to the rest of us, mysterious and arcane. Quantum mechanics is even more arcane than Einsteinian relativity. I turn to "Dr. Quantum" for a 5-minute sampling of one aspect of this baffling strangeness:

With Newton, and for a couple centuries after, physics was gradually making the world more and more clear and explicable. Or seemed to be. Since Einstein's publication of 1905, physics has been making our reality more and more mysterious and inexplicable. Or seems to be. As the purveyors of the arcane, physicists now occupy a spot analogous to the priests of old.

Having sketched some parallels between the cultural space occupied historically by the community of priests and occupied now by the community of physicists, we may turn now to some parallels between the universe, as described by physics, and God, as described by traditional theology. Both are:

• profound mystery; 
• origin; 
• source of wonder, awe, and beauty; 
• ultimate context inspiring humility and gratitude; 
• grounding for ethical commitments. 

These are qualities associated with God, yet do not require being either supernatural or person-like. This is the reality that Carl Sagan called "Cosmos."  More than 30 years ago, Sagan’s PBS series, Cosmos first aired. Its 13 one-hour episodes captivated the minds and hearts and imaginations of a nation. It was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 600 million people. Carl Sagan (1934-1996) had an obvious passion for discovery, a poetry of wonder – and contacts among engineers who created for him special effects dazzling for the time. In 1980, the cold war was going strong. In a time of a nuclear arms race threatening planetary annihilation, Carl Sagan showed us a vision of another path. In this vision, deep engagement in the investigation of reality manifests and engenders a way of life thrilling and beautiful and also peaceful and just. As the first episode opens, Sagan is standing by the shore of an ocean. The camera pans, moves in, and Sagan begins:

"The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us – there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries. The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth. For the first time we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger. But our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the cosmos and our place within it. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

We’re about to begin a journey through the Cosmos. We’ll encounter galaxies and suns and planets; life and consciousness: coming into being, evolving, and perishing. Worlds of ice, and stars of diamond; atoms as massive as suns, and universes smaller than atoms. But it is also a story of our own planet and the plants and animals that share it with us. And, it’s a story about us: how we achieved our present understanding of Cosmos, how the Cosmos has shaped our evolution and our culture – and what our fate may be.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths, of exquisite interrelationships, of the awesome machinery of nature. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows, this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the Cosmos is also within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.”

We ask, as our ancestors asked 100,000 years ago, what is reality? We want to be able to respond to it effectively, to get our needs met. Something in us would also like to reciprocate: to befriend the ultimate – space and time and all the

“gas and dust and stars – billions upon billions of stars” (Sagan).

We want to live in our world, our universe, in a way that is awake to its beauty, that evokes our gratitude, that shows us how very, very small we are so that, from such humility, we can loosen the bonds of ego defenses – yet which also gives us the significance of connection to something wider, bigger, grander. We want to know how to live in awe and wonder. For most of human history, we interpreted reality as person-like because brains built like ours are inclined to look for the traits of personhood: belief, desire, intentionality. We see others as having their own beliefs and desires, and this is crucial for interpreting their behavior and getting along with them. So it’s natural for us to look for beliefs and desires in the universe itself. And for millennia, we imagined that we found them there.

The most natural path to humility and gratitude for beings like us is to be grateful and humble toward some person-like entity. That’s the most natural path; it is not the only possible path. Four centuries ago, science was being born as one part of our culture, while religion was being separated from the rest of our culture and separated into its own part. In Cosmos, and throughout his life, Carl Sagan showed us, and embodied, a way to bring them together. Though others have pointed that direction before and after him, no one has done so as consistently and thoroughly. Sagan’s example showed us a way to be connected to a source for beauty, gratitude, humility, and wonder, a source that gives meaning to our lives and joy to our days and purpose to our work.

 We cannot all be professional scientists, but we can all be scientific in the sense of having respect for the scientific process, knowledge of the more significant findings, an interest in the general directions of current research, and an appreciation of the "big picture" unfolding through that research. Sagan showed us a way we can all be both scientific, in this sense, and also religious. Sagan's science and his religion did not conflict. Nor were they distinct areas irrelevant to each other. They were the same thing. The impulse that has led so many to embrace one dogma or another, just so we can believe we have some kind of handle on what’s out there – that same impulse can instead be directed to embrace a process. Instead of latching on to one set of beliefs, we can place our faith in a process of continually revising beliefs. Sagan said:

“We are born to delight in the world. We are taught to distinguish our preconceptions from the truth. Then new worlds are discovered as we decipher the mysteries of the Cosmos.”

Sagan recognized,

“We humans long to be connected to our origins, so we create rituals.”

He then added,

“Science is another way to express this longing – it also connects us with our origins.”

The textbooks and equations of physics are not inherently so inspiring. It takes scientist-poets like Sagan to show us that it is possible to weave the findings of astronomy and physics into a story that connects us to our origins, that, indeed, as he said,

“stirs us – there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a great height.”

Groups and communities can now take Sagan’s cue, and encourage one another in being inspired together by the vastness of space, the beauty of the galaxies, and the mind-boggling first millionth of a second after the big bang. Another function of religion is to ground and yield an ethic. To befriend our world, we need both a sense of what it is and how to be and act with it. Sagan’s Cosmos flowed seamlessly from the talk of atoms and stars to talk of right and justice:

“If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.”

He then spoke to us as the prophets of Judea of old spoke:

“Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice is clearly the universe or nothing.”

It is a function of religion to expresses and inform our loyalties and obligations beyond ourselves to something larger. Thus Sagan is speaking religiously in these concluding words of the 13th and final episode of Cosmos:

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

Sagan avoids the word “God” – after all, he’s on PBS – yet when he says “Cosmos” he is pointing to a source, a connection to our origin, an ultimate context and basis for meaning and value, beauty and mystery. He is pointing to what humans have for millienia pointed to with the word “God” (or with non-English words that translate as the English word “God”). Is it fair to say that Sagan’s Cosmos is God, albeit neither supernatural nor personal? Or does the word “God” necessarily refer to a person-like entity? To this semantic, yet important, question I turn in the next and final part.

* * *
This is part 3 of 4 of "Science, God, and the Universe."
Next: Part 4: "Which Is To Be Master?"
Previous: Part 2: "Getting Personal"
Beginning: Part 1: "Not Supernatural"

Getting Personal

What is reality? And is the word "God" a useful way to talk about it? "God" has taken on so many different and even contradictory meanings that I sympathize with the impulse to drop the word entirely. In the end, I retain "God" in my vocabulary. So what do I take the word to mean?

"God" refers to reality as a whole. The concept of an entity within, and therefore less than, reality as a whole, is inadequate. Central to the conception of God in the monotheistic traditions as well as in pantheism and panentheism is that nothing is outside of God. The entirety of the universe may be the whole of God, or may be just a part of God. In either case, "reality as a whole" refers to all of it -- including the whole of God, howsoever infinite, extending beyond the universe or not.

Reality as a whole. Surely there must be more to "God" than merely "reality as a whole" -- for that definition makes atheism nihilistic and theism trivial (The atheist says, "There is no God," which would be saying, "There is no reality, taken as a whole," which is nihilism. The theist says, "There is a God," which would be saying, "There is reality," which is trivial.) Anyone who takes the atheist/theist distinction to be different from the nihilist/nonnihilist distinction, whether she self-identifies as "atheist" or "theist," will rightly insist that certain additional attributes beyond "reality as a whole" are essential to a definition of "God." The atheist then adds that those attributes are not instantiated in or by reality, while the theist maintains they are. My task, then, and yours, too, if you'll take it, is to articulate answers to two questions: (1) Which of the qualities that have at one time or another been identified as qualities of God are indeed qualities of reality as a whole? (2) May reality thus described reasonably be called "God"?

Taking up the first question, it might seem important to address whether reality as a whole is supernatural, contains supernatural elements or occasional supernatural events -- or, on the other hand, is reality entirely natural? However, as part 1 argued, the natural/supernatural distinction is one we cannot make. Trying to draw the line between "supernatural" and "natural" on the basis of explainability by natural laws fails.

Today I take up the more promising distinction between a "personal" and an "impersonal" God. When theologians speak of "Personal God," they mean a God that "can be related to as a person" (Wikipedia, "Personal God"). They don't mean "personal" in the sense of "just for me." A personal God isn't like a personal pan pizza. For clarity, I shall speak of a God who is "like a person" or "person-like" rather than "personal."

The key attributes of a person are having beliefs and desires. A person-like God would be one who believes and desires. Since God's beliefs would naturally be true, we may say a person-like God knows. A person-like God knows things and wants things.

The question, then, is: Does reality as a whole have knowledge? Does it want events to unfold in some ways and not in others? These are the keys to the broader question of whether reality as a whole can be related to as a person, for belief and desire do not reduce to each other, and from the combination of them come other person-like qualities, such as intention, disappointment, approval.

Can reality be related to as a person? Certainly it can. Sometimes it's even healthy to do so. Our relation with reality is impoverished if it doesn't also include poetic play.

- I have stood by my window during a thunderstorm, and, when the thunder crashed, found myself responding, "Well, you're angry this evening!"

- Bette Midler sings of a seed below the snow that "with the sun's love, in the spring, becomes the rose."

When we are doing science, we may set aside such notions as that storms express anger or that the sun expresses love, yet lives entirely without a capacity for a creative metaphorical relation with our world are severely attenuated (moreover, such a capacity is ultimately crucial even to science.)

Brains built like ours look for the signs of belief and desire. We interpret our fellow humans as having their own beliefs and desires, and this is crucial for interpreting their behavior and getting along with them. To become the fantastically social species that we humans are, we had to have brains adept at understanding each other's actions, what beliefs and what desires motivated those actions. With brains built, by genes and by social training, to interpret events as manifestations of belief and desire, we quite naturally look for beliefs and desires in the universe itself, in the weather and in trees, rivers, mountains, and the sky. We are built to anthropomorphize: to relate to things as if they were person-like, as if they had beliefs and desires. Our science and our religion both may have outgrown these animist conceptions of gods, but we still have the brains that find something satisfying and whole in relating to nature as if it were a person. To come joyfully into the fullness of our humanity, we shall not reject or scourge any part of who we are. There is a place for play, for creative metaphor, for poetry in our lives and in our relation to reality. In our "literal" fields of discourse today -- such as science journals and criminal trial courts -- it won't do to speak of the sun's radiation as love. But if there are not times in our lives when we craft and submit to poetic accounts of person-like qualities in nature, we are the worse for it.

The poetic is essential. It is not an obfuscation or a handicapping holdover. Rather, poetry clarifies experience, and is the ground of meaning-making. The comparison of the sun's radiation with love illuminates human experience of hope and springtime. It doesn't obfuscate. Quite the contrary, it makes clearer what was cloudy.

In the "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T. S. Eliot writes:

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

It's certainly a challenging line, but it wouldn't be fair to say that it obfuscates. Obfuscates what? There is nothing that could more clearly say what this says -- indeed, that's why it's difficult to explain (to re-say in different words) what it says. There's loneliness, isolation, the burdens of responsibilities, and a certain irony (including an irony about the irony). At the same time there's a kind of celebration: of the lowly, the ragged, and of silence. There's the rhythm of the words -- and the hard sounds of G and D and C turning into the sibilant S's at the end. Nothing can say what it says except itself. Anything else would be at best an obfuscation of what the line directly and immediately presents.

We can -- and a full human life occasionally will -- relate to reality as if it were person-like. We do so creatively, playfully, and metaphorically. We also sometimes do the work that requires literalness. Every fresh new metaphor is a candidate for ossification, for becoming "literal" -- like a mouth of a river, neck of a bottle, or hands of a clock. Such discourses as physics or law are shot through with metaphors that have ossified into literality, and this is crucial, for they could not otherwise do the work they do.

Is reality person-like? Does God know things and want things? The answer must depend on what sort of conversation we are having. Are we playing? Are we reaching for words that will convey the experience of our hearts as we grapple with the death of a loved one, or hear the cardinal's song in early light of day?

Or are we trying to put together an account that will best facilitate prediction and control? Such an account is the aim of our sciences. Are we trying to put together an account of "what happened" that will facilitate the human enterprise of regulating our conduct together? Such an account is the aim of a criminal trial. In such accounts, the more ossified our metaphors, the better.

What I come to, then, is the conclusion that the "personal God" actually is, after all, "personal" in the sense of intimate, idiosyncratic, subjective, as well as in the sense of person-like. I may draw upon, as it seems helpful and personally meaningful, the traditions that speak of God knowing and wanting. When it's time to do work in the more literal areas of discourse and culture (such as administration, business, medicine, economics, politics, as well as science and law), I set aside personal conceptions of God. In those areas, I do not relate to reality as having knowledge or wants.

I recognize the role of playfulness, of creative and poetic play, in my own and others' spiritual lives. There are times to throw ourselves wholly into pretending that nature believes and desires. Such play helps align the deeper parts of our psyche with our world in a relationship of care, mutuality, growth, and joy. Such play reveals and embodies truths the literal mind cannot grasp or express.

Playfulness can also help us lighten the heaviness of an encrusted theology, preparing the way toward a more authentic -- and truly personal rather than merely received -- relation with our world.

Theological play and imaginative projections of personhood are legitimate and important. With that acknowledgment, I turn now to consider possibilities for "God" as neither supernatural nor person-like.

* * *
This is part 2 of 4 of "Science, God, and the Universe."
Next: Part 3: "Saganic Verses"
Beginning: Part 1: "Not Supernatural"

Not Supernatural

I wrestle with what to make of life and this world. One of the words that sometimes comes to mind as I grope to articulate something that will make sense and be helpful – and maybe even true – is “supernatural.” I have, from time to time, said such things as, "I don't conceive of God as supernatural." I say this to try to clarify. The word "God” seems too slippery, so I reach for "supernatural” to make my meaning clearer. This doesn't work. "Supernatural" fails to add meaning.

"Supernatural” (or "not supernatural") is also too slippery. How, exactly, are we to draw the line between natural and supernatural? My Random House Unabridged offers that “supernatural” is “unexplainable by natural law or phenomena.” Does that help? Alas, no.

Explainability is also too slippery. Have you noticed, for instance, that Newton was thin – nonexistent, really – on the explanation for his laws? Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, says Newton. And why do they stay in motion? We have no explanation. “That’s just the way things are,” says Newton. My sixth-grade science teacher said the same thing when I asked her. (Actually, Newton had a fancy Latin way of saying it: “Hypothesis non fingo” – meaning, “I make no guess about that.”) Inertia and gravity may be “natural laws”, but they are not explained by natural law. Are we then to conclude that they are supernatural forces? Perhaps we should call them “supernatural laws."

Inertia and gravity are so ordinary that it may strike you as bizarre or perverse to suggest that they are inexplicable. Very well, let us call them “explained” just by virtue of the widely shared subjective sense that no explanation feels called for. What shall we make of the weirder end of physics: wormholes and dark matter and quantum indeterminacy? We explain X by positing Y – and eventually arrive at a Y that we have no explanation for. Why, oh, Y? Not only that, but the principles of quantum indeterminacy tell us that some things not only are unexplained, but never could be. (Oddly, physicists have a good explanation for this permanent inexplicability.)

We are surrounded by and submerged in weirdness. Driven by an urge to feel we have some grasp on things, we seek explanations. And what is "an explanation"? If any story gives us a sense (illusion?) of having a grasp on something, we call it an “explanation.” We don’t have nonsubjective standards for what counts as an explanation.

Which means that we can’t tell what is “unexplainable” (by natural law or phenomena).

Which means that we can’t tell what is “supernatural” and what isn’t.

Which means that “supernatural” (and “not supernatural”) isn’t available for careful thinking about our conceptions of “God” or “reality.”

Which means . . . ?

It’s not so much that I’m back to the drawing board. It’s more like I never left it. I stand forever before this drawing board, erasing as fast as I draw on it.

And living in wonder.

* * *
This is part 1 of 4 of "Science, God, and the Universe"
Next: Part 2: "Getting Personal"
Part 3: "Saganic Verses"
Part 4: "Which Is To Be Master?"

Blogarhithmic Expressions: What Do Christians Know?

Blogarhithmic Expressions: What Do Christians Know?

Thoughtful Christian blogger Lyn Robbins (who I knew when he was an undergrad on the Baylor debate team while I was a graduate assistant on the Baylor debate coaching staff -- though I won't say I coached him since I learned more from him than he from me) is right to suggest that we sometimes interpret the gap between "believe" and "know" in a way that unduly mutes advocacy. To have a belief is to believe that it is true. In general, with few exceptions, to have a belief is also to believe it is justified. If it is justified and true and a belief, then it's knowledge. (This is Plato's long-standing definition of knowledge: justified true belief.) So if you believe it, then you think you know it: you think it's knowledge. If you don't think you know it, you don't believe it.

Of course, you could be wrong about what you believe (what you think you know) -- and this is true in any area of human belief. We could be wrong about a scientific belief (turns out Newton was wrong about some of what he believed about motion, and Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics). We could be wrong about a belief in a defendant's guilt (preponderance of evidence at trial may establish "proof" in some sense, but it isn't infallible proof -- as we have been recently reminded by reports of new DNA evidence exonerating prisoners convicted before DNA testing was available). We could also be wrong about our faith assertions. We can even be wrong about highly poetical assertions. (Imagine T.S. Eliot, toward the end of his life, saying, "I was wrong. It is not now and never was the case that I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas." It might be an interesting exercise to imagine a rationale by which Eliot would reach that conclusion. My point here is just that such a conclusion is comprehensible and possible.) We could be wrong about any of our beliefs -- and since "proof" is inherently fallible in any field of inquiry -- then proveability (or lack thereof) is irrelevant.

Lyn writes: "We are too quick to retreat to a position that says something like this: 'Faith is inherently unproveable. If it were a scientific formula, it would not be faith. Therefore, since we cannot prove matters of our faith in a laboratory or a courtroom, it would be presumptuous of us to say that we know them."

If "proof" means "infallibly establishes certainty" then there's no such thing -- not in laboratories, not in court rooms, and not in faith professions. And if "proof" means that we have some evidence and reasoning we can draw on in support of our claim, then there is proof in faith claims as well as in science and criminal law.

Acknowledgment that we could be wrong -- about ANYTHING -- is appropriate humility. It's not just, as Lyn says, that "It is impolitic to be certain of anything that smells religious." Rather, it is ultimately life-denying (for life means growth and change) to be too rigidly closed-minded on any subject, regardless of its smell. The practical realities of life, the overwhelming size of libraries and other sources of information, the smallness of our brains and the largeness of the number of our beliefs combine to mean that we will always have to take many of our beliefs "for granted": we haven't the world enough and time to investigate more than a small percentage of them in any detail. Still, there's a big difference between "practically off limits to revision for now, given my life's projects, purposes, and commitments" and "necessarily off limits to revision forever."

We don't have certainty. We do, however, have knowledge. I can believe something without certainty, but if I don't think I know it, then I don't believe it. How shall we conceive of knowledge in a way that doesn't imply certainty? The American Pragmatists (William James, John Dewey, et al) offer an epistemology that allows for having knowledge yet also allows for our knowledge to grow and change and that recognizes that nothing is exempt from the possibility of revision. Knowing is intimately tied to doing: knowing is effective doing. Ignorance, then, cashes out as ineffective doing. We act, and our action's effectiveness is the embodiment of what we know. One's knowledge is displayed in all one's doing. Religious knowledge, in particular, is manifest in a way of living, community connections, participation in rituals, values, an ethic, and the cultivation of such qualities as care, lovingkindness, compassion, justice, peace, and equanimity.

Still, there are two ways that we draw a distinction between "belief" and "knowledge" -- though the second is dubious.

(1) In talking about other people's beliefs. I meaningfully distinguish between what "Jo believes" and what "Jo knows" to reflect the distinction between "what Jo and I disagree on" and "what Jo and I agree on."

(2) In talking about my own beliefs when my uncertainty about them is particularly high -- that is, when I am hesitant to act on that belief except insofar as I might want to be taking the gamble.

In the second sort of case, what is at issue is more a pretend belief than a real belief. For example, I might say, "I believe that OJ killed Nicole, but I don't know it." I might say it, but I don't say it often. I live my life, as much as possible, in a 'no opinion' sort of way on that question, and will venture a belief-without-knowledge-claim only if pressed for my guess. It's more a pretend belief than a real one. In a similar way, Pascal's Wager asks us to believe there's a God without believing that we know there is a God -- thus drawing a divide between one's own belief and one's own (believed) knowledge. And that's why the argument of Pascal's wager is so unsatisfying: What we want in matters of faith (as in matters of science, criminal law, etc.) are beliefs that are real beliefs (that are believed to be justified and true and therefore constitute knowledge) rather than the sort of "pretend beliefs" that Pascal's argument recommends.

Hope.

I also appreciate Lyn's distinction between hope and wishing. His favorite quote, he says, is Peter Kuzmic:

"Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future; faith is the courage to dance to it today." 

Nice. What hope is NOT is the ego's desire for the world to be different from how it is. That's what Lyn calls "wishing." My own favorite quote on the subject of hope is from Vaclav Havel: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the understanding that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

In sum. Christians have knowledge-claims and truth-claims to make. I think some forms of some of the claims of some self-identified Christians are false -- but Lyn's right that Christians might as well be willing to say that they're claiming knowledge and truth. He's also right to remind them to be polite about so claiming.

What the World Needs

I was chatting over the December holidays break with one of the less-than-immediate relatives that I encounter only around the holidays, and that I have a certain difficulty understanding and feeling understood by. Perhaps you have some folks like that in your extended family. As she told me about her new job, which was going well, I said, “It sounds like you’ve found that place where your deep joy and the world’s deep need meet.”

“Joy has nothing to do with it,” she shot back. She added that she did feel joy on occasions when her children, now grown, visit, but that the rest of life was simply about doing one’s duty. She concluded with a rebuke: “Pursuit of personal joy is one of the most selfish acts known.”

I do believe in cultivating joy, or else we won't be able to bring it to others. At the same time, she may be right about the "pursuit" bit. Dogged chasing after it only makes joy run away from us even faster. So I think in terms of cultivating joy rather than pursuing it – nurturing gratitude for life just as it is rather than being consumed with the pursuit of more, better, different. Cultivating joy means cultivating a capacity to be present to each situation without thinking "how do I get out of this situation what I want?" and instead approaching the situation with the deep knowledge of being well provided for, ego defenses able to stand down, and the ego's fears not inhibiting the natural flow of compassion. Joy, after all, doesn't come from getting what we want. It comes from wanting what we've got.

Howard Thurman said: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Thurman recognizes that different people are called to different roles. Yes, there are duties. There are universal virtues -- patience, courage, kindness, prudence, wisdom, reverence, etc. -- that all of us do well to exercise and strengthen. There’s also your uniqueness: the particular gifts (and shadows) that you and no one else are called to bring to the world: the enterprises that make you come alive.

The early Hasidic sage Rabbi Zusya once said: "When I am called before the almighty to account for my life, God will not ask me, 'Why were you not Moses? Why were you not Abraham? Why were you not David?' He will ask, 'Why were you not Zusya?'" Some duties we all have; others are unique to you becoming you. Meeting both brings joy, and joy, in turn, fuels your further blossoming into who you are, your further coming alive – which is, indeed, what our world – and you – most need.