As a sexagenarian any conversation that doesn’t include
current health complaints is a blessing and worth my time. A rather bright
friend and I were recently engaged in a theological discussion. Now don’t let
that last phrase chase you away. In any case, he gently placed the proposition
before me that there is no outside to the universe, no transcendence, no God,
no supernatural beyond the natural. He has good reason for this stance.
And though I am a religious person, I have no difficulty
with this proposition. I did however offer a counter-position in that, though there
may be no outside to the universe, I fervently believe there is an inside; an
interiority, a subjectivity, in ancient days known as anima mundi or the Soul of the World.
The intelligent design (ID) debate is typically posited
within a framework of Creator outside the universe (Intelligent Design) or no
Creator outside the universe (evolution). The reasoning for ID that I most
often hear is that when we look around and see such an intricate and complex
design then obviously, common sense moves us toward a Cosmic Designer. For
evolutionary biologists, a Creator is not necessary for the universe to be
here only natural selection.
The root assumption beneath both these positions however
holds to a model of cosmos as so much “stuff,” living organisms without interiority and lifeless matter available to be
molded as potter to clay and operating mechanically in the manner of Newton’s
clockwork universe. Matter tends to be viewed as inert and/or stupid, entirely
without meaning, soul, or interiority.
A slightly different, more organismic slant imagines cosmos
as living being, found in ancient Neoplatonic thinking and in the modern Gaia
hypothesis put forth by Lovelock and Margolis a few decades back. I suggest
that for Buddhist, Taoist, various indigenous, ancient quarters and the edgiest
perspectives in contemporary biology and physics, the issue of ID versus
evolution is a non issue. These models imply no separation between Creator and
Creation and that the universe is self-creating, self-organizing, self-sustaining,
and self- transforming in continuous process.
The cosmos then is self-designed. We live in an intelligent
universe. We are a particular expression of cosmic life. This is extremely hard
for many people to wrap their heads around because we are culturally
indoctrinated (both religiously and scientifically) to view the world as Other,
a huge supply of resources and commodities for our use and stewardship without
intrinsic life and value except as assigned by humanity. In the history of
humanity, soul was withdrawn from everything except our species. We imagine
humanity as the crown of creation rather than one species among many,
interpenetrating and interdependent upon each other.
When the universe was de-animated in the Age of
Enlightenment by the new Western worldview, we became increasingly separated
from the natural world. Indeed, even estranged from ourselves, the medieval Great
Chain of Being was fractured and modernity began.
The organismic model of the universe is entirely consistent
with astrological thinking and I would encourage those seeking more information
consider reading The Death of Nature by Carolyn Merchant, The
Self-Organizing Universe by Erich Jantsch, The Dream of the Earth by
Thomas Berry, Journey of the Universe by Swimme and Tucker, Where the Wasteland
Ends by Roszak, The Archetypal Cosmos by LeGrice, and The Sacred Depths of Nature by
Goodenough.
Wishing you curiosity.
