Emptying into Fullness: Complexity, Diversity and Creativity
SpiritQuest: Faith and the Life of the Mind
September 19th Evening Presentation
“Emptying into Fullness: Complexity, Diversity and Creativity”
How might the Eastern Orthodox understanding of the self-emptying of God provide insight into the paradox of entropy and increasing complexity of evolving systems? Might scientific inquiry suggest new avenues for faith-filled contemplation?
Issues:
1. Models and paradigms and worldviews
a. There are general assumptions about reality, including humanity's place in Nature.
b. There are general “rules of the game” for approaching problems which are generally agreed upon.
c. Those who subscribe to a given worldview share a definition of the assumptions and goals of their society.
d. There is a definite, underlying confidence among believers in the worldview that solutions to problems exist within the assumptions of the worldview.
e. Practitioners within the worldview present arguments based on the validity of data as rationally explained by experts—be they scientific experts or experts in the philosophy and religious assumptions of the worldview.[1]
A worldview provides a way of looking at phenomena and events in life as well as a vantage point from which to look. A comparison with the German equivalents for “worldview” helps to illustrate this. For instance, “worldview” can be translated either as Weltanschauung or as Weltbild.[2] Welt means “world.” Anschauung means view or opinion or even experience, as one’s personal experience. It is from the verb, anschauen which is a variant of ansehen which means “to look at (something).” Thus, embedded in this word is the notion of a way of looking at the world, an outlook based in subjective or collective experience. Weltbild literally means “world picture,” and carries the connotation of a particular way of framing reality or one’s perception of reality. This nuancing of “worldview” suggests that a way of looking can become much more structured and concretized, particularly as it becomes more influential in a society and adopted by the majority of its members.
What a worldview does, then, is provide a particular cognitive landscape, a picture-place, which is believed to describe the world as it is, and which provides a way for understanding and living in that world. A worldview is self-reinforcing in that it not only determines what sorts of questions about reality are legitimate to ask, it also determines how one goes about investigating reality and deriving answers. Answers and solutions which fit into the conceptual landscape are deemed correct and suitable, and those which challenge that landscape or suggest other possible landscapes are rejected.[3]
Thus we can say that a worldview makes ontological, metaphysical, epistemological, cosmological and ultimate-value claims. A worldview begins by claiming, or perhaps it is more accurate to say it begins by assuming, to describe the world or reality as it is. The ontological claim or assumption to describe reality as it is in itself grants a worldview authority and power. A worldview describes the world, cosmos or universe in its interworkings and how everything fits together, or describes things in their places and their proper workings and relationships. A worldview also describes how it is possible to know reality, or even how knowing itself is possible at all. It also describes the nature of action in the world, and the consequences and ramifications of various actions in the world, whether these actions are committed by humans or by other beings.
At the same time, a worldview is conspicuously unimposing. There are no portentous manuals on the prevailing worldview, no tests are given, no protectors of the worldview exist per se. Rather, everything in a society or culture is derived in one way or other from the prevailing worldview.
As a cognitive landscape or picture-place, a worldview functions to establish the parameters within which its constituents live, move and have their being. It is directly analogous to a terrain in that its constituents must learn to navigate, pilot and maneuver within the topography of assumptions, acceptable behaviors, possibilities, as well as explore that which remains undiscovered, possible but untried, potential but unknown. In addition, certain territories of behavior or thought remain dangerous, forbidden or taboo. To venture into those realms is to risk expulsion from the established worldview, or may introduce perilous elements into the worldview, or may even chance falling off the edge of the world as it is known!
In summary, a worldview establishes a cognitive place which places limits and boundaries on behaviors, activities, conceptualization, and attempts to alter those limits. A worldview is not only a way of seeing the world, it fixes that way of seeing as a place which can be seen, and grants it ontological status. “We look at things this way because that is the way they are.”
Notion of a scientific paradigm and a paradigm shift (leading to a scientific "revolution") was given careful articulation by the historian Thomas Kuhn. The Stanford online Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an in-depth discussion of Kuhn's work. Wikipedia also has an article discussing Kuhn's seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
2. Theology has always been developed in dialogue with what a given culture understands about the world in any given era, utilizing that era’s understanding of the nature of reality, physical world and beyond, etc. that is to say, theology is constructed in the context of a larger worldview, although it also contributes to that worldview. Perhaps think of theology as a paradigm that exists within the framework of a larger worldview.
b. Creatio ex nihilo was a theological notion developed in reaction to Gnostic thought that said the Demiurge created the world from pre-existing matter that was flawed and tainted to begin with. Thus humankind and the rest of the world was flawed, which was why there was sin, human failure, greed, etc., and why there were natural calamities and tragedies. A good god would not create a world so flawed. For an in-depth discussion of this, particularly with reference to scientific cosmology, read this article by Paul Copan.
3. Kenotic theology
a. Philippians 2:5-11 – “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν), taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” This passage provides the foundation for what is called the kenosis or “self-emptying” of God as exemplified in Jesus Christ. If Jesus is considered to be a representation of the being of God, of God’s nature, then this passage suggests that we understand God’s essential nature not to be that of a divine tyrant, but rather of a self-humbling, self-giving deity unafraid to rub elbows with the lowest elements of the universe.
b.In addition, if we consider Christ is the one through whom all things were created, as indicated in the opening verses of the Gospel of John and Paul’s letter to the Colossians, then this idea of kenosis or self-emptying says something about how God creates.
d. An example: Directing a play. The director can be very autocratic, telling the actors exactly where to walk, stand, what emotions to feel and express, how to deliver lines, what their subtext is, motivations, etc. Or the director can allow the actors to utilize their talent and training to improvise and explore their role and the dynamics of the scene. This is an example of the director setting up a framework, or scenario, and then “withdrawing” control. Note that the director remains involved, commenting, offering suggestions, etc.
e. If one adopts this as a theological model for understanding the activity of God in the world, it opens up possibilities for a bridge metaphysic between science and religion.
f. Return to a suggestion Tim Hillebrandt made in the first session – music as the point of congruence or connection in the dance between intellect and faith – metaphysics as the music that guides the choreography.
4. Process Theology
Process Theology utilizes the philosophical thought developed by Alfred North Whitehead, which was developed according to insights and problems presented by the development of quantum mechanics and Einstein's theories of relativity. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the central cahracteristic of Process Philiosophy thus: "The guiding idea of its approach is that natural existence consists in and is best understood in terms of processes rather than things — of modes of change rather than fixed stabilities. For processists, change of every sort — physical, organic, psychological — is the pervasive and predominant feature of the real.
5. Entropy, probability, complexity and evolution a la Wicken
a. In evolution thermodynamics, Jeffrey Stephen Wicken (c.1940-c.2000) was an American biochemist noted for his 1987 book Evolution, Thermodynamics, and Information: Extending the Darwinian Program. Wicken extended the work of American mathematical physical chemist Alfred Lotka (1922) and Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1944) on the thermodynamical nature of life to argue that thermodynamics, particularly the second law, is the “go” of life. To quote a noted excerpt on his synopsis on the relationship of life (structuring) in an expanding universe, Wicken states:
b. “In a universe where cosmic expansion maintains a disequilibrium between potential and thermal forms of energy, this means that putting smaller entities together to form larger entities will generate entropy through the conversion of potential energy to heat. Hence, the potential energy wells into which natural processes tend to flow are correlated with the buildup of structure … Dissipation is the driving force of the universe’s building up or integrative tendency. Entropic dissipation propels evolutionary structuring; nature’s forces give it form.”
[2] Weltbild is similar to Eugen Fink’s idea of Bildwelt, or “image world.” To Fink, who followed in the phenomenological footsteps of Edmund Husserl, the Bildwelt is the capacity of mind “to which imagining as intuitive presentification [vergegenwärtigung] furnishes access.” (Edward S. Casey, Imagining: A Phenomenological Study [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976], p. 2.) The similarity between the terms Weltbild and Bildwelt points to the world-constructing properties of the imagination.
[3] This definition of worldview parallels Thomas Kuhn’s well-known discussion of scientific paradigms in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Not all scholars, however, are comfortable applying Kuhn’s notions of paradigms to discussions outside the context of scientific revolutions, which is the central concern in Kuhn’s book. For purposes of discussion in this dissertation, the idea of worlds and worldviews is more instructive. For discussions concerning the use of Kuhn’s notion of paradigms to explain the shifts in academic discourse outside of the physical sciences, which is Kuhn’s focus, see Robert F. Schedinger, “Kuhnian Paradigms and biblical Scholarship: Is Biblical Studies a Science?” Journal of Biblical Literature 119, no. 3 (Fall 2000):453-471; Gary Gattung, ed., Paradigms and Revolutions: Apraisals and Applications of Thomas Kuhn’s Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980); Bruce G. Trigger, A History of Archaeological thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 5-7; Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1982) and the recent assessment of Kuhn by Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
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