Consciousness and the Culture Wars

It’s been quite a while since my last blog post. And what does it take to awaken me from my blogmatic slumbers? Headlines like this: Creationists Declare War over the Brain. Not again! Not another surd in the so-called culture wars. Say it ain’t so; please, say it ain’t so.

I’m afraid it is so. Apparently, there was an “international symposium” titled Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness held in New York last month. And in August, the Discovery Institute (home to Intelligent Design thinkers and supporters) held their annual Briefing on Intelligent Design, at which two putative neuroscienists—(I say “putative” only because I have not yet had the opportunity to review their credentials and because I have suspicions about agenda-driven “science” whether it emanates from the Discovery Institute or from the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens; and I put “science” in scare quotes because usually when you’ve got cultural agenda in the neighborhood a lot of stuff gets called “science” which isn’t)—as I was saying, the Discovery Institute hosted their annual confab at which two putative neuroscientists spoke, two scientists who also headlined the “international symposium." These “scientists” (and for all I know they may have impeccable credentials; but until I get the chance to check them out, I'm going keep "science" in scare quotes) these "scientists" claim that the fact of consciousness constitutes “Darwinism’s grave.” And in the aftermath of “Darwinism,” with “Darwinism” (whatever that is; about as helpful a term as "evangelical" or "postmodernism") having been buried, there’s now room for what they call “non-material neuroscience” a “science” they themselves allegedly practice.

Well, there are many, I say MANY, issues embedded in this “non-material neuroscience” movement that deserve attention. I’m going to address a few of them. I do so not as a neuroscientist, but rather as a Christian philosopher with a keen interest in consciousness and neuroscience, a professor who regularly teaches a course called Minds, Brains and Persons, (a course in which we puzzle over the mystery of consciousness and just how it relates to neural goings-on between our ears), and someone who has published a couple of articles and books on related issues.

First, although there are others more competent than myself who can speak to the ID movement as such, notably among them my colleague, Steve Matheson, I will say this: to the extent that ID claims that the level of complexity found in biological systems exceeds that which evolution, i.e., natural mechanisms, could have produced, then if God has in fact brought about biological systems through natural mechanisms (i.e., through evolution), I think God’s going to be pretty surprised to learn that God could not have in fact done this! I can state the point much more succinctly: isn’t it a bit presumptuous to lay down a priori how God has to do things?!!! Of course it is; it’s presumptuous (as uncle Al Plantinga might say) in excelsis.

Second, let me say something about consciousness and the brain. For starters, it’s no secret, no new revelation to any of us—hard core dualists, atheistic materialists or even Christian materialists like myself—that consciousness has so far escaped the materialist-naturalist net of explanation. Why is that? Why hasn’t consciousness yielded to natural explanation? Is it because no naturalistic ‘link’ exists between neurophysiological goings-on in the brain and ‘technicolor’ phenomenology or is there a solution to the mystery that characterizes the relation between the mental and the physical and that solution is to be found in an immaterial mind or soul?

According to one atheistic philosopher there is indeed a natural property that accounts for the psychophysical link. Says Colin McGinn, a notable philosopher of mind,

Resolutely shunning the supernatural, I think it is undeniable that it must be in virtue of some natural property of the brain that organisms are conscious. There just has to be some explanation for how brains subserve minds. (From Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem,
Blackwell's, 1994, p.6)

Now McGinn thinks that we are constitutionally incapable of ever discovering that link. But, he assures us, it is a natural link and indeed it has to be. It has to be because we must—as good materialists/naturalists—shun the supernatural.

Well, it’s clear that by “resolutely shunning the supernatural” McGinn means to rule out--again, a priori--the existence of God, the soul or anything supernatural or immaterial. To put it another way, McGinn is a metaphysical naturalist, i.e., a naturalist about everything: the natural world is all there is and so it is exhaustive of reality.

But look: one needn’t embrace that exaggerated claim in order to believe that it is in virtue of some natural property of brains that organisms are conscious. I, for example, am a theist, a supernaturalist you might say. I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And since I believe in the God of the Christian Scriptures, I believe neither that the natural world is all there is, nor that the natural world is “causally closed.” I believe, in other words, that God can intervene in the natural world, that God has done so and, sometimes, continues to do so. And I believe that it is in virtue of some natural property of brains that we are conscious.

Furthermore, I believe that, for the most part, God does not directly intervene in the natural world. Since the natural world has yielded in so many ways to scientific (i.e., naturalistic) explanation over the past several hundred years, it seems eminently plausible to believe that God created the world—the natural world—with its own integrity and such that it operates according to regularities that can be grasped and understood, not only by those who acknowledge its author, but by those who do not and whose explanations, though natural and accurate, do not appeal to the author of nature.

Since God created the natural world, and all that it contains, with its own integrity, it is also reasonable to believe that consciousness itself—a feature encountered in the natural world—has a natural explanation. That’s my position anyway. So it seems clear to me that we can accept the claim that it is in virtue of a natural property of the brain that organisms are conscious without accepting metaphysical naturalism.

Perhaps some distinctions will help. Begin (and for our purposes, end) by distinguishing metaphysical naturalism from both methodological naturalism and what we might call chastened naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism, again, amounts to the claim that the natural world is all there is and is exhaustive of reality. Methodological naturalism, on the other hand, amounts to a presupposition about the practice of science. It says that scientific explanations must exclude reference to supernatural or immaterial entities.

Now if science is in the business of discovering natural causes, this ought not to surprise or offend. Methodological naturalism, as I understand it, is perfectly compatible with a robust Christian theism insofar as it does not rule out explanations that appeal to God. It simply will not count such explanations as scientific explanations. Moreover, what I want to call chastened naturalism recognizes the enormous contribution science has made to our understanding of the natural world and takes the natural world to possess its own integrity and to exemplify regularities that can be understood without reference to any immaterial or supernatural entities. What makes it chastened naturalism is its refusal to go “metaphysical” and to claim that the natural world is all there is and, therefore, that the sciences are the only source of genuine knowledge. Chastened naturalism is compatible with there being religious experience and Divine revelation. Such experience and revelation provides for religious knowledge, which is genuine knowledge even if not visible to the practice of science and by definition not scientific knowledge.

In short, to grant to atheistic naturalists that it is in virtue of some natural property of brains that organisms are conscious does not require us to sacrifice our theistic or Christian commitments. It doesn’t even require us to deny that consciousness is a result of Divine activity. Why? Because since when is God precluded from acting through naturalistic mechanisms? Did God fashion you in your mother’s womb? Yes. Well, how did he do that? I suggest picking up any biology textbook and reading the chapter on embryology. There you will find the answer. You are not, however, likely to find there any mention of God. That’s not surprising, though; is it? What you find there is the naturalistic explanation for your coming to be. And there's nothing atheistic about it. Who made up the rule that natural (explanation) is incompatible with God? I didn't get that memo.

So, what is the solution to the problem of consciousness? I'll say it again—and say so with no embarrassment—I have no idea. Like McGinn and Leibniz before him I think consciousness continues to prove itself intractable. It remains a mystery. But I'm not convinced that we will never solve it.

But doesn't the fact that materialist neuroscientists have so far failed to solve the problem drive us ineluctably to substance dualism? Well, the “neuroscientists” funded by the Discovery Institute think so. I, however, think not. Let me tell you why, why the fact of consciousness, though profoundly puzzling to materialists, ought not to be viewed by dualists as grounds for celebrating victory in the mind-body debate.

Here’s a little argument for dualism, based on consciousness:

(i) Materialism or dualism is true
(ii) We human beings are conscious creatures
(iii) It is a mystery how it is that we human beings are conscious creatures if materialism is true
Therefore,
(iv) The fact that we human beings are conscious creatures is a good reason for believing dualism is true

This is not, of course, a good argument. Suppose we know about John only that he is either a full-time auto-mechanic or a full-time janitor. Suppose too that we know that John attends philosophy colloquia at Calvin College every Tuesday afternoon. The fact that it is difficult to see how it could be that John attends philosophy colloquia at Calvin every Tuesday afternoon if John is an auto-mechanic is no good reason to believe he is a janitor. In other words, it needs to be shown how John's attending philosophy colloquia makes it more likely that he is a janitor than that he is an auto mechanic. Likewise, just because we can’t see how consciousness emerges from matter makes it no more likely that it owes to an immaterial soul.

But isn’t it much easier to see how it is that we human beings are conscious if dualism is true than it is if we are wholly physical beings, i.e., if some version of materialism is true? I don’t think so. Is it really any easier to see how an immaterial soul could be conscious than it is to see how a material being could be? If anything it may seem harder, owing simply to the fact that it is difficult to imagine an immaterial soul. Peter van Inwagen—a Christian and philosopher who is recognized by his philosophical peers as among the very best analytic philospophers currently working—has argued for the claim that since we know quite a lot about physical objects the mystery of consciousness is glaring. There is, he believes, a corresponding ignorance about non-physical objects that has had the tendency to conceal the mystery for dualists. But the fact of the matter really is this: consciousness is a mystery for all of us. It is no less a mystery for dualists than it is for materialists.

So the fact that consciousness has not yielded to natural explanation is not, despite the claims of the non-material neuroscientists, Darwinism’s grave. (I still want to know what view or views “Darwinism” is supposed to pick out. But that’s a topic better left to my friend Steve over at Quintessence of Dust. And it’s probably already been addressed there.)

I can think of at least two reasons for believing that naturalism--in terms either of consciousness or evolution--poses a problem for theism. (i) assume that God cannot work through natural mechanisms or (ii) identifiy naturalism with metaphysical naturalism. I see no reason to embrace either (i) or (ii). Until I do, I will remain a (chastened) naturalist and a Christian theist. And with any luck, I will also remain employed.

All is Quiet

Today I leave for Innsbruck, Austria for a week. I'll be delivering a paper at the How Do We Survive Our Death: Personal Identity and Resurrection international conference. Here's what I have to look forward to greeting me Sunday morning, as I pull into Innsbruck:



My contribution to the conference, a paper titled Constitution, Resurrection and Relationality, presents the Constitution View of human persons, which I've been talking about for the past ten years, and most recently in Rethinking Human Nature. In the paper I situate the view as a materialist alternative to dualist views, on the one hand, and reductionistic versions of materialism, on the other. I then address a theological criticism of the view to the effect that my account of human personhood doesn't take the fundamentally relational nature of human persons seriously, and in fact contributes to social isolation and a sort of introspective atomism. I show how relationality is actually essential to human personhood on the constitution view and I try to demonstrate that human persons are always--from the beginning of the Christian narrative to its very end--persons-in-relation. So relationality is not just compatible with the Constitution View, and not simply congenial to it, it is in important respects essential to the view. I also sugest that if we are to survive death, either in the sense of immediate survival or resurrection from the dead, then these very bodies must survive or be raised. If you're interested, the paper will appear along with the other papers being presented (including papers by Dean Zimmerman, Hud Hudson, Eric Olson and Stephen Davis--the rest of the U.S. contingent) in a forthcoming volume on the same topic.

All of that to say--things will be a little quieter than usual around H-SAB over the next week. I do aim however to queue up a post to appear while I'm gone, and I hope you find it interesting and have some thoughts on the subject it addresses.

Why Matter Matters

Jesus showed the apostles real hands and a real side. He really ate with his disciples; he really walked with Cleopas; he really conversed with people, using a real tongue. Jesus really reclined at supper, and with real hands he took bread, blessed and broke it, and offered it to them…Don’t let yourselves be deceived into thinking that Jesus ate with out teeth, walked without feet, broke bread without hands, spoke without a tongue, or showed a side that had no ribs.

—Saint Jerome

The Christian story, from the beginning of the narrative in Genesis to its dramatic climax in Revelation, is an earthy story, a fleshy story that celebrates materiality, laments its perversion by human sin, and eagerly awaits its ultimate glorification in the resurrection life. Creation may not be exhausted by material creation (angels are created and they're not material), but it is the material world whose creation is chronicled in the opening pages of Genesis and whose tale of glory and disgrace, near total collapse and full restoration is told throughout the bible.

The story of creation, by the way, is not merely a story of Divine production or origination either. It is a story of Divine delight, delight in the material world brought into being by the Word. Indeed the creational refrain “It is good!” echoes through the pages of Genesis and beyond.

The doctrine of the incarnation, the taking on of flesh by the second person of the Trinity, signals God’s re-affirmation of embodiment and creation. So too the Ascension. The incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, his taking on of flesh, was neither momentary nor provisional. God’s persistent “Yes!” to embodiment reverberates into eternity in the resurrection, exaltation, and glorification of the embodied Christ. The humanity of Christ, his embodied nature, is not shed in the New Jerusalem. It is taken up, exalted and glorified.

Remember too that the most prominent image used in Scripture for what awaits us in the hereafter is that of a great banquet, nothing short of a Eucharistic feast of carnal delight. And not a whiff of disembodied or ghostly existence is to be found anywhere in that image.

If you want to know what it means to be human, what it means to live a full-orbed and flourishing human life, look to the embodied Christ. What you will discover there is exactly what sober-minded theologians have been telling us all along: that an authentic human existence consists in a fully embodied life rightly lived in relation to God, to neighbor, and to the rest of the terrestrial world.

Now I’m on record as saying that we human beings are wholly material beings, lacking immaterial parts such as an immaterial soul. And I believe that a world-affirming, material-affirming view of our nature has concrete, practical implications. For example, a recognition of the fact that God’s kingdom has come to us in the embodied Christ helps us to avoid misconceiving our eternal destiny vertically, as “up in the heavens.” Instead it encourages us to reconceive the kingdom of God horizontally, as here and now, even if its eventual fulfillment lies in a future—an embodied future—that we anxiously await and actively anticipate.

Second, wrapped as we are in flesh and bones, and embodied in ever-expanding circles of social relations— family, neighborhood, community and world, materialist-friendly views of human nature make good sense of the urgency and importance of our call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and to pursue this-worldly justice. Why? Because the fact that we are material beings highlights the fact that starvation, want, and physical impoverishment are kingdom concerns. The world of bullfrogs and butterflies, of economic systems and environmental hazards, the world of sex and love, of loneliness and connection, the world of factory farms and consumer goods—in short, the fully, physical world that both depresses and delights us, is precisely the world that matters to God. It is this world that God is restoring. Contrary to the sacred hymn, this world is our home. It is broken, disfigured, and dis-eased to be sure, but it matters to us. It matters to us because we are created for it in all of its physicality.

A materialist-friendly view of human nature also serves to protect us against turning our longings for a new day into longings for a disembodied existence in some far off and distant heaven. Like the prophets of long ago, whose longings were for this world finally to be as God intends—a world where lions lie down with lambs and swords are beaten into plowshares, where the hungry are fed and the broken hearted are lifted up—a materialist view of human nature can encourage us to eagerly long for and actively anticipate this embodied future that only God can realize. The way of Christ incarnate offers us this future. What it offers us is a new way to be human.

And, I might add, this future, this new way of being human, is one of the siren songs of emergent faith. And it’s a hopeful song, too. Those tired of singing the old world-desping, body-desping, social justice-rejecting, polarity-producing songs of our forebears, find this sort of song refresing, inspiring and deeply resonant.

But wait (I can hear the naysayer say), this sort of view denies that we’ve been made in God’s image. How can we have been made in God’s image if we’re not immaterial souls? Well, there are many ways that we human beings image God, and none requires that we be immaterial. We image God when we care for creation and contribute to the terrestrial flourishing of the created order. Indeed, this is what the Bible means when it speaks of our having been given “dominion.” To have dominion is to care for others, including non-human “others” like ocean and stream, octopus and salamander; to have dominion is to tend to the well being of all the earth.

We also image God when we live in loving relation to other human beings and invest ourselves in their flourishing and well-being. God is a Trinity, so it should come as no surprise that we image God in social and not just private ways. The tenor of the relation between the three persons of the Trinity is one of a harmonious and free exchange of love and joy. Engaging in acts of mercy, hospitality, love, kindness, and so on is to act like God. In fact, we image God best when we image Jesus, who welcomed the outcast, fed the hungry, gave sight to the blind, hated evil, and delighted in doing the work of the Father. We also image God in our suffering. God is love. To love is to open oneself up to suffering. And suffering love is God-love. When we lay down our lives for our friends, and yes, our enemies, too, we image God, who laid down his life for us in Jesus.

God is a society of three; so, that we bear God’s image in social ways ought not to surprise us. Moreover, it is hard to imagine how we might image God in the ways I’ve just described if we are isolated atoms or immaterial souls. In short, there is nothing in the doctrine of the imago Dei, rightly understood, that entails we are immaterial souls.

Skin and bone is what we are. Holy skin and bone. And what we've been set apart for is anticipating that new humanity, that new society of wholeness and flourishing. There's work to be done. And those of us called to that work get impatient when we're told that first we've got to figure out the right positions on a host of theological and philosophical-theological doctrines and issues. I don't think so. Not that I don't enjoy exploring philosophical-theological issues and doctrines (some of them anyway, some of the time). But I don't enjoy the social paralysis that endless debate oftentimes produces. And it's that paralysis that emergent types also loathe.

Okay, ‘nuff said. Tony Jones and The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier is coming up…..

Truth Fish Eats Darwin Fish. Huh?

You’re familiar with the expression “You learn something new everyday.” Well, I don’t know about that, but I suppose one could learn something new everyday, or nearly everyday if one was sufficiently attentive. Yesterday I learned something new. It’s something everyone else apparently already knew. Not me. I am a ridiculously slow learner.

You know the Ichthus, the ancient symbol of the Christian faith that is a simple line drawing of a fish and that scores of very rude and bad drivers affix to their bumpers? Well, I always thought the Ichthus with legs and the word “Darwin” emblazoned inside it was a statement by those Christians who accept both the Christian faith and evolutionary creation. Since I have been such a person for quite a long time I just assumed that there were lots of us and some of us—those into bumper stickers—decided we’d announce it to the world just to let the world know that the two—Christian faith and evolutionary creation—are not at odds. I was wrong, of course. Apparently, as everyone but me knew, the Ichthus with legs and “Darwin” emblazoned inside it is supposed to signal the ridiculously false view that the Christian faith (a supposedly ridiculously silly and dangerously false view of the world) has been replaced by atheistic naturalism (a supremely enlightened and wonderfully liberating) view of the world.

That’s pathetic, really. It is surpassed in its pathetic-ness only by the “Truth” fish (which I just became acquainted with yesterday) swallowing whole the “Darwin” fish (whose true meaning I just became acquainted with yesterday, too). The messages of both of these pathetic bumper stickers make the same mistake. (I know, I know—they’re BUMPER STICKERS for cyrin’ out loud. Don't take them so seriously. Right. But did you watch any of the coverage of the Republican Party National Convention during the last election? There are lots of bumper sticker-loving, bumper sticker-believing, bumper sticker personality types making really important decisions about our future and the future of our planet. It’s scary!) Anyway, as I was saying, the messages of both these pathetic bumper stickers make the same mistake. They falsely imply that Christian theism and evolutionary creation are alternative and mutually exclusive explanations of the natural world. They’re not. And it doesn’t take a genius to see this.

In my kick off blog (when was that? Oh, yeah, just yesterday) I pointed out even if very briefly how we came to be. We develop from a small, hollow sphere through a natural process of cell-division and growth. Things begin with a single celled zygote and through a series of cleavages and divisions we get what biologists refer to as a morula, then a blastocyst, then there’s the development of body form, and eventually a fetus. Then, after more development, we get you! Now who made you? Well, God, of course. But my description of your biological origins didn’t mention God. Yet I bet not a single one (of the two or three of you) who read that description said to yourself, "Oh, did he just say I wasn't made by God?" Of course not. That's because the natural facts and biological processes causally responsible for your coming to be do not in any way exclude God from being the author of your being. They're perfectly compatible.

Alright. ‘nuff said. I had to get that off my chest. My colleague Steve Matheson is a biologist. He’s a much quicker learner than me, too. And he’s got an amazing blog that deals with all these sort of issues. Every Christian whose undies get in a bunch when they read or hear about the facts of common descent and evolutionary creation should read his blog. Every dim-witted naturalistic atheist should read his blog, too. Both might then stop saying the same sorts of silly things. You can visit Steve’s blog here: http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/

Peace, Love and Good Sense to All,
Kevin

[NB: The comment above about the Republican National Convention refers to the infamous slogan "Flip-Flop" raucously chanted by throngs of flip-flop carrying conventioneers during one of the speeches I saw. It is not meant as an indictment of Republicans as such. No doubt bumper-sticker-deep thinking is an equal opportunity employer and scores of rabid Demoncrats are also in its employ.]

Holy Skin and Bone Kickoff

Dirt. The biblical story of our origins is one of dust and ashes—earth, mud and breath. We are made from the dust of the ground, says the writer of Genesis.

Then the Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground... (Gen. 2.7)

Adam, Adamah, the Hebrew word for ground. We human beings are dirt-people, of a piece with shrub and shrew, mountain and mollusk, armadillo and ant. Earth-people is what we are; made of flesh and bone, sinew and socket. We develop from an astonishingly small, hollow sphere through an equally astonishing process of cell-division and growth. From zygote to morula, from blastocyst to the development of body form, all the way through to the appearance of a fetus—the miraculous process of our biological development takes place amid an earthy mix of urine and blood.

While some may regard this carnal tale with horror and disgust, let me remind you that the urine and blood, this earth and dirt, is God-breathed, God-loved, God-blessed, holy stuff. Indeed the biologically incarnated life of Jesus unfolded just like ours. His geneology is equally soiled, including as it does adulterers (King David) prostitutes (Rahab) and other assorted outcasts and sinners. Like all collisions, the beautiful collision of heaven and earth is messy business. It's holy business. Holy and messy. Wholly messy.

This is a blog whose author is made of mud, whose author lives in the mud and whose author hopes and dreams in the mud and who expects those hopes and dreams ultimately to be realized on the surface of a little round planet made of mud. This is a blog, therefore, that is ultimately about the kingdom of God. Don't be surprised. The kingdom of God is ultimately all about the dirt and mud, once beautiful, now twisted, but on its way to glory. That kingdom is a future that has collided and intersected with this little round planet, a future that has come and is coming still. It's a future some of us long for, work for and eagerly and actively anticipate. Since this blog is about that kingdom, this blog will be about politics, sex, music, literature, science, community and all those earthly realities that delight us, frustrate us, confuse us, fascinate us and ultimately make us hunger and thirst for the consummation of all things.

I'll plan just to say what's on my mind when the mood strikes. And maybe, if you're interested, you will respond and there will be born a conversation that will make us all better human beings or more informed human beings or more enriched human beings than we would otherwise have been.

So here's to skin and bone set apart for the most exciting task on earth--heralding a kingdom that is at once "not of this world" but every bit "of the earth."