A Fundamental Either/Or
Here’s an either/or proposition that cannot be resolved by human reason:
Either:
Temporal nature is the foundation of all reality, the source of all experience, the cause of all being, which, through the phenomenon of complexity, takes the form of minds, their awareness of themselves as functions of nature, and their illusory ideas of meaning, purpose, and eternity;
Or:
Eternal mind is the foundation of all reality, the source and cause of nature, which it brings into being as the medium through which minds may come to discover their meaning and purpose, to know themselves as dependent on their own and nature’s source, and to imagine and long for the eternal.
All the evidence of the senses enhanced by all the means at the disposal of reason and science cannot decide between these two versions of the foundation of reality. Whether we embrace the one or the other view, or both alternately—as, for example, the “either” in the lab and the “or” in church, museum, or hospital—must itself be a function of either nature at its work or mind at its.
In other words, we believe what we believe about this either/or either because nature has caused us to do so or because mind has created us to do so. And there is no way to know which. The evidence of nature at work cannot disprove that mind is its source. The evidence of mind at work cannot disprove that nature is its source.
We live by faith: either faith that our faith itself is but a natural phenomenon or faith that our faith binds us to the supernatural source of all phenomena.
Look outside at the trees, hear the birds sing, notice the clouds and the sun moving in the blue sky. Which do you believe: that for no reason or purpose nature has caused you to exist, to become aware of and love nature, to contemplate nature’s and your own meaning, and to imagine and crave eternity? or that for some reason some eternal One has caused nature to exist and caused you through nature to exist, to become aware of and love nature and its source, to contemplate nature’s and your own meaning, and to imagine and crave eternity?
Some might ask, “what’s the difference, since we can’t know?” It’s a good question, and to this one I think careful observation of your own experience can supply an answer. If you truly believe the “either,” the answer is there is no difference. If you truly believe the “or,” the answer is all the difference in the world.
Either:
Temporal nature is the foundation of all reality, the source of all experience, the cause of all being, which, through the phenomenon of complexity, takes the form of minds, their awareness of themselves as functions of nature, and their illusory ideas of meaning, purpose, and eternity;
Or:
Eternal mind is the foundation of all reality, the source and cause of nature, which it brings into being as the medium through which minds may come to discover their meaning and purpose, to know themselves as dependent on their own and nature’s source, and to imagine and long for the eternal.
All the evidence of the senses enhanced by all the means at the disposal of reason and science cannot decide between these two versions of the foundation of reality. Whether we embrace the one or the other view, or both alternately—as, for example, the “either” in the lab and the “or” in church, museum, or hospital—must itself be a function of either nature at its work or mind at its.
In other words, we believe what we believe about this either/or either because nature has caused us to do so or because mind has created us to do so. And there is no way to know which. The evidence of nature at work cannot disprove that mind is its source. The evidence of mind at work cannot disprove that nature is its source.
We live by faith: either faith that our faith itself is but a natural phenomenon or faith that our faith binds us to the supernatural source of all phenomena.
Look outside at the trees, hear the birds sing, notice the clouds and the sun moving in the blue sky. Which do you believe: that for no reason or purpose nature has caused you to exist, to become aware of and love nature, to contemplate nature’s and your own meaning, and to imagine and crave eternity? or that for some reason some eternal One has caused nature to exist and caused you through nature to exist, to become aware of and love nature and its source, to contemplate nature’s and your own meaning, and to imagine and crave eternity?
Some might ask, “what’s the difference, since we can’t know?” It’s a good question, and to this one I think careful observation of your own experience can supply an answer. If you truly believe the “either,” the answer is there is no difference. If you truly believe the “or,” the answer is all the difference in the world.
posted by G.Rap | 1:46 AM
4 Comments:
I don't think it's quite as divided as all that.
I think it's plenty possible to be atheistic and to believe in "meaning, purpose, and eternity." We have this emotion of wonder, which allows us to be amazed and delighted by the birds flying outside the window without requiring any level of awareness as to their origin. In much the same way you can believe in meaning, pupose, and eternity without differentiating between the "either" and the "or."
Now, knowing you, you're going to ask, "well where do those emotions come from?" Well, even with reflection upon this fact an atheist can strengthen his conceptions of morality: "what an amazing universe, that, whether by some form of evolution or some yet undiscovered mode of creation gave me, gave us, this knowledge of right and wrong that allows me to coexist with humanity in such an amazing way. To go against this would be to defile something beutiful, something perhaps comparable to holy."
Jack
PS--I just want to say how thankful I am for this blog. I really enjoy the chance to have these discussions and to share my thoughts and recieve all yours. It's truly awesome.
I'm grateful for your comments too, Jack.
Of course we have the emotions and the wonder in response to nature. And anyone who wants to live only in that realm of emotions is welcome to do so. But I am speaking to those who are concerned with the underlying ground of the phenomena of reality, not merely with the phenomena (nature, our emotions) themselves. For most people, life is nothing but messy combinations of parts of my either/or at various times. My point was to consider what underlies all that, and that consideration brings me to the clarity of the either/or question I posed.
I understand "meaning" to mean participation in that which is greater and more real than ourselves, something closer to the absolute than we are. Nature, being itself unconscious, seems in this sense less than we are. If nature is grounded in non-consciousness, in meaningless accident, then I don't see how awe before nature itself can be anything more than ersatz meaning. We certainly feel nature to be meaningful, whatever we believe. But when we ask WHY we feel that, the either/or divide opens up before us.
Lastly, the distinction between the holy and the "comparable to the holy" may seem insignificant. To the atheist it is. To the believer, however, as I said, it makes all the difference in the world.
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An afterthought: Jack’s formulation is in part an attempt to subsume morality under aesthetics. We experience moral obligation as a pleasing phenomenon and only therefore embrace it, though reality itself does not oblige us to do so. But what of those for whom morality is not pleasing but an annoyance, or worse, an outrage to their aesthetic pleasure in being free to do as they please? It is as naturally pleasing to some parts of ourselves to be bad as it is to other parts of us to be good. This is one of the flaws in Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism, which considers right and wrong to be a subset of pleasure and pain. Where is the authority upon which one set of impulses can be held to moral account by another?
It is the familiar problem raised by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man: From the “is” no “ought” can be derived. Either morality is itself an absolute, or there is no oblilgation to be moral for any other reason. Either the ought is in the premise or there is no way it can be got into the conclusion.
Nor does the phrase "to coexist with humanity in such an amazing way" help in the least. Either it was always a good to coexist in this amazing way and we have been brought into existence to do so, or the coexistence and amazement can have no authority over my behavior. I will coexist if it pleases me, and not if it doesn't.
Returning to my either/or: Either we are morally obligated to strive for the good because whatever wills us into being wills us to do so, or all oughts are merely one more set of accidental natural phenomena, which may be contemplated with pleasure or pain or amazement but which have no more authority over us than any other impulse.
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