It has been said that westerners think linearly, with thoughts moving from one to another like a chain, and other people, like American Indians, think in a circular path. Some people think this explains why our cultures are so different. There may be something to that, I don't know, but the analogy works for our purposes. In light of the last post, I believe both the linear and the circular paths are incomplete. The best way of thinking is in 3-D. I mean that our ideas should fit together like that chain mail shirt mentioned in the last post.
Please don't dwell on that analogy too long, or try to take it too far. It's just that the chain mail shirt is still coming in handy for descriptive purposes. One of the most prominent characteristics of modern thought is it's linear nature, and this carries over into modern descriptions of cause and effect. This has significant influence on many aspects of our lives, including politics, religion, medicine, ethics, etc.
The pre-modern understanding was that to understand the cause of something you had to know 4 different causes. These are the material, efficient, formal, and final causes. An easy example of this is to consider a statue. The material cause is the marble or wood, or whatever it is made out of. The efficient cause is the sculptor. The formal cause is the design or plan in the sculptor's mind. And finally, (no pun intended) the final cause is the purpose of the statue (ie to beautify the city, or whatever).
The problem with the modern way of thinking is that it only deals with the first 1 or 2 of those causes. Usually, all there is to know from a modern perspective is the material the thing is made of. As far as science goes, the interaction of matter is all that is needed to explain cause and effect, or so we are told. Modern science sometimes allows for efficient causes, and sometimes not. Often the material world is considered explanation enough, as the material universe is the efficient cause.
Here's why it matters. That is what Darwinism, among other things, is all about. There is no design, purpose, or final plan for anything in biology, to a Darwinist. Once in a while you'll here someone in medical school take Darwinism to it's logical end and deny, for instance, that the purpose of the heart is to pump blood. It just happens to be a muscle that contracts in such a way to pump blood. But it really all happened as an accident. Fortunately, few people can continue thinking this way, even if they don't understand where the faulty thinking is. It is clear to most people that the reason we have cardiologists is because some people's heart don't behave the way the ought to.
Another way of saying this is that the modern way of viewing things is reductionistic. The explanation of everything is just an explanation of the material parts. If you understand the physics and chemistry of a human body you've explained all there is to explain. In medical school reductionism rears it's ugly head all the time. Fortunately, in my experience most people in medicine have at least some understanding that people are more than the sum of their parts. But they still have a tainted view of people and their souls. The most obvious example I can think of reductionism in medicine is in the way abortion is handled. An unborn baby is just 'products of conception'. Also, in neuroscience reductionism plays a big role. The standard view in neuroscience is that all you are as far as your identity goes is your brain. The chemistry in your brain is what you are. Your thoughts are really just chemical reactions. And of course there is no soul. Souls are immaterial and don't neatly cooperate with the view that material explanations are all that are needed. In reality, souls and the mental activity they engage in are immaterial. Looking into a brain and thinking you have found the thought is like tearing apart a radio trying to find the voice (that's an illustration from CS Lewis). The brain is a thought processing organ, but a bunch of neurons don't exhaustively explain the thought.
Wendell Berry is a Christian writer who explains it like this: modern, reductionistic science is useful and has value, but in terms of really explaining things it is 'more like a bucket than a well.' When you leave out design and purpose and anything immaterial you end up with less ability to explain reality, not more.
Historically, Descartes is the one is given credit with this focus on material causes. I don't think he intended all the consequences of that. And it wasn't all bad. Science does work. It just isn't the complete answer it is made out to be. In the first 100 or 200 years after Descartes scientists were obviously Christian, and they did their science from the point of view that the universe and been created by a God who had put it in order, and therefore the material universe could be explored and understood. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton were all like this.
A curious thing happened with Newton, however. In one of his scientific works he said, in Latin, "Hypothesis non fingo." In English that means, "I feign no hypothesis." In other words, he wasn't pretending that his physics provided a complete understanding of reality. He was merely describing the physical universe without reference to purpose or design. That doesn't mean the purpose and design weren't there. It is interesting that Newton came up with most of his discoveries in math and science in a very short period of time. Most of it happened in 1 year. He spent a far greater amount of time investigating things like numerology in scripture, and contemplating spiritual things. The volume of his writings on such things greatly outnumbers his writing in math and science that we remember him for today. His religious views were a little odd, and he wasn't a Christian as we understand it because he didn't believe in the Trinity. But he understood the bigger picture was there.
Compare that to a century or so later when LaPlace was giving an explanation of his work to Napoleon. LaPlace had written a book on the solar system and planetary motion. Napoleon asked him how God fit into his explanation. "I have no need of that hypothesis, Sir," was LaPlace's response. What a change! Now, I don't know about LaPlace's spiritual life, but he was apparently a practicing Catholic. Christians will sometimes defend LaPlace because math and physics had progressed to a point where that really was all that was needed to explain the solar system. Or was it? He could have at least said that, "Well, God designed the solar system and it works according to his purposes," or something like that. We are back to the bucket vs the well. Even if a description of the solar system seems of little consequence, the schism had happened. The formal and final causes were removed. The consequences are more dramatic when one considers this same materialism led to Karl Marx, Darwin, etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment