The process thinkers seem to think that characterizing divine action as “lure” solves some problems for theology and science. But what does it solve? Most seem to think it solves the problem of supernaturalism without losing divine action. But does it? I don’t see how. After all an influence must “touch” that which is to be influenced. You don’t influence someone without talking to them or showing some action. But all types of influences that current science would accept are the result of physical interaction. Words interact with structures in the ear or eye which creates neuro-dynamic processes that end up in the brain and so on. (more…)

Of course, there are various reasons for the steady decline of participation in traditional religion. Is there any doubt that there is also a steady secularization in societies? The reason I would like to focus on is the incredulity of many religious claims found in the traditions. Most of the traditions, at least in the West, still point to an interventionist supernatural mode of causation. The miracle stories in all the traditions are still taken seriously by many adherents. For some people, however, the idea that there are supernatural interventions taking place in the cosmos has become less and less tenable. Why? In a large part I think it is a result of people getting a feel for how things work in reality. I use the word “feel” purposefully. Most people in populations do not have a strong grasp of the details of causation as described in science. Instead they steadily attain a feel for the causal dynamics of life. Certainly the success of science in explaining many of the causal factors associated with reality has had a big impact. As people become more educated and science literate they attain some sense of how things nominally work. This sense has created a dissonance between what the traditions claim and what science claims. (more…)

The ontology of a theological system is extremely important. Where does the ontology come from? This is a very interesting question. For ontologies that are not back-fitted from prior commitments they may flow from an intuition about reality. An intuition like this is a “gut” feeling, a sense about something that is not explicated rationally but something “sensed” or “felt”. Michael Polanyi called this the “tacit mode” of knowing. As he states “we know more than we can say”. An everyday example of this is dancing. A person can learn how to dance without learning dance theory. They learn the moves and rhythm without being able to articulate what they are doing. They know more than they can say about dancing. Polanyi suggests that this is the start of all knowledge. In Jean Piaget’s cognitive terminology this could be called the preoperational stage of knowing where motor skills are acquired but devoid of logic. At some point in cognitive development subsequent stages of concrete and formal reasoning are acquired. This does not suggest that prior stages of development are no longer in play, but that new ways of cognition supplement them. Polanyi calls this the explicit mode. Surely this tacit mode must have been a powerful force in the religious sentiment of early hominids, but according to Polanyi it remains a cornerstone of cognitive processes. Examples of this kind of intuiting concerning the foundations of the cosmos are the common intuitions of unity, individuation and separateness, interactions and dependencies of individuals on the whole, etc. When I say these are intuitive or tacit, they all stem from a sense of reality that is not fully explicated by reason or concepts. (more…)

One of the perennial questions that thinkers dating back to ancient times have speculated on is, what constitutes reality? Perhaps this is an obvious question that would arise from the abilities of hominids to develop the concept of cause and effect. If everyday causes and effects can be discerned, does this not raise the issue of ultimate causes as well? Apparently it does. Who knows how far back this question was thought about but modern theories seemed to emerge at least by the sixth century B.C.. At that time there was a Carvakan school of thought in what is now known as India. These philosophers were perhaps the first materialists because one of the things they postulated was that all there is, is matter and it has “svabhava” or self-nature. In other words matter has an intrinsic nature that produces the world we see. Today this self-nature is thought of as “properties” such as mass, spin, charge, etc. Apparently this line of thinking made its way to early Greek thought probably through the Persian trade routes because about a hundred years later materialist atomistic thought emerged most notably by Democritus. In atomism it is claimed that reality is constituted by atomos, small indestructible elements which have intrinsic properties and when combined in various ways produce the variety we see. This particular characterization of reality caught on in the West and eventually led to the predominant view in science. However, this “svabhava” view was not without its detractors. There were those both in the East and West who rejected this view. In the East the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna developed his sunyata concept or “emptiness” saying that nothing has an essential independent nature but only a conditional or relational existence. The term for this is often “dependent co-arising” in Buddhist thought. (To me this has are remarkable similarity to quantum theory concepts of nonlocality and emergence) In early Western Greek thought the rejection of atomism was more subtle. Anaxagoras did not reject atomism, per se, but claimed that what animated atoms was not a self-nature but nous or mind. Anaxagoras is considered by some to be the first panpsychist. Plotinus also posited the primacy of mind, “‘For there is for this universe no other place than the soul or mind”. (more…)