Design or Dust

Addressing the controversial question, “Is the universe intelligently designed?” this introductory essay surveys critical problems in Darwinian theory and creationist theology: organic complexity and the origin of life; the relationship of consciousness and matter; who or what is God; design, disparity, and imperfection; and the origin and evolution of man. The discussion reexamines these issues in light of modern scientific research and basic theosophic concepts underlying the world’s religious traditions — suggesting there is a middle ground reconciling spiritual intuition and scientific knowledge.

Developing epistemological faculties to experience God’s agency and intention within evolution without negating scientific knowledge, 2019

The first part of this paper will explore how we can come to valid perceptions to answer the question: Does matter precede evolution and consciousness or does consciousness precede matter and evolution? I will focus on the aspects of how science and theology have approached understanding ‘agency of God’ and ‘God’s intent for creation.’ The idea of cooperation demands that we the can find how God intends to restore and heal creation. The work of humans gives a forum for God’s agency. The intention within evolution aligns with the Australian Aboriginal concept of ‘dreaming’ (albeit that is a western term). The second part of this paper focuses on the Christian tradition of developing spiritual senses and practices from a spiritual scientific point of view. This means we need to define the religious spiritual practices that transform the physical sense into organs of perception to experience spiritual phenomenon and thereby come to knowledge of God’s intentions and perceive divine activity within evolution. This method can stand as a non-material scientific process in its own right and create a dialogue with positivist scientific method.

Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 2022

This is the second part of a two-part article presenting the theoretical and empirical case for nonhuman animal (hereafter, ‘animal’) spirituality. Part 1 discussed the relevance of evolutionary theory and species differences for understanding animals’ capacity to have spiritual experience, conceptual issues related to defining animal spirituality, and methodological considerations regarding analogical reasoning and animal-centered anthropomorphism as heuristic strategies in the study of animal spirituality. Issues related to the question of animal consciousness and the use of evolutionary panentheism as a philosophical/theological frame for theorizing about animal spirituality were discussed. Part 2 examines six biopsychosocial capabilities of animals that are building blocks of human spirituality—cognition, imagination, emotion, moral sense, personality, and value-life (Maslow’s phrase)—and proposes an ontic pluralism of animal spiritualities. Part 2 concludes with a discussion of...

Westminster Theological Journal, 2020

The key concepts of sentience, pain and suffering as they pertain to animals are insufficiently conceptualized biblically, philosophically or scientifically and thus unable to bear the weight required of them as foundational to this theology. Animals and humans do not differ merely in degree, but in kind, with the rational being of humanity serving as the basis of the self-consciousness and uniqueness that enables human beings to recognize themselves as those whose pain has meaning, for whom suffering can have a purpose, and for whom the Son of God became a human being in the incarnation of necessity in order to suffer and die for those to whom he served as a covenantal head and as the sacrificial Lamb to take away their sins.

Zygon®, 2012

Although official Roman Catholic teaching affirms the concept of evolution as a convincing theory in order to explain the biological origin of different life forms, there is still a strong insistence on an "ontological gap" between human beings and all other creatures. This paper will investigate how best to interpret that gap while still affirming human evolution. Drawing on medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, I seek to uncover the influence of Aristotelian ideas on the rational soul. I will argue for the crucial importance of divine grace in consideration of divine image bearing so that while other animals share in the likeness of God, only humans, like angels, bear God's image. Such an approach does not provide any justification for the denigration of other creatures. Rather, the possibility of a further transformation of human nature, deification, and thus into the likeness of God depends on Christ as the one who bears the image of God perfectly, and the Spirit, who enables such a transformation in human subjects.

BolRIFT legacy, 2024

This article explores the emergence of the innate spiritual capacity of Homo sapiens by integrating perspectives from evolutionary biology, philosophy, and theology. It highlights a fundamental principle of Darwinian (or post-Darwinian) evolutionary theory: the necessity of an exogenous cause to generate adaptive transformations validated by natural selection. The primary objective is to demonstrate, through logical reasoning, that this unique aptitude, exclusive to Homo sapiens, exceeds the explanatory scope of strictly naturalistic frameworks. The argument also challenges the limitations of the "God of the gaps" concept by repositioning transcendence as a legitimate hypothesis for understanding this human singularity. This work aims to address the dogmatic omission of spirituality in contemporary evolutionary paradigms, reinforcing the connection between evolutionary theory and the emergence of spiritual capacity.

2014

Animal people are usually confident that Cartesianism is something of the past and that modern science clearly establishes that animals are sentient beings. But actually the scientific status of sentience is anything but firmly established. Not only is the subjective point of view absent from current science; it is precluded by construction from our fundamental realms of knowledge. Physics — the mother-science once we reject Cartesian dualism — is currently unable to include sentience in its account of the world. A large part of the philosophy of mind describes a mindless mind, from which subjectivity — feeling, qualia — has been stripped, leaving only in place functional relations. This situation paves the way for discourses in which sentience seems to escape the realm of knowledge to fall into that of private beliefs, which individuals can choose as freely as their religion. This is a real obstacle to having animal sentience taken seriously; as such it has been largely underestimated. We believe it necessary for the movement for animals to understand that it cannot by-pass the “mind-matter” problem. We must not allow the existence and relevance of animal sentience to be denied in the name of science. One path we are contemplating is a “Declaration on Sentience” in which scientists and other thinkers would subscribe to the following assertion: sentience is an objective reality of the world and belongs to the realm of science. Despite the current intractability of the “mind-matter” problem, we do have something on our side. Although we cannot prove the reality of sentience, we can show it impossible for anyone to disbelieve in it — just as no one can really disbelieve in the reality of the physical world. We thus have enough reasons to reject the main ways in which sentience is denied or dismissed in many realms of current philosophy or science. These reasons are based on our own situation as sentient and deliberative beings.

New Blackfriars, 1970

The age of modern reasoning, where the rational human mind and it's development was increasingly perceived as the very essence of being human, the Other,-in the form of nature and animals were also decimated in substance. Aristotle the father of modern philosophy believed that animals were incapable of reason and therefore were to be regarded as inferior to man in the same manner as were slaves. Bible also reflected the sentiments with a decree of man as master over animals " Let (man) have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground". Descartes' view was more extreme as it took animal existence to a still lower level. He believed animals were assembled as machines and that they were incapable of having thoughts, feelings language or consciousness (Wilson, 2010). As human thought progressed along the lines of decimating the consciousness of animals and importance of engagement with nature, the trend was reflected in discourses on morality too. Thomas Aquinas, the very influential figure in the theme of Christian morality stated, a man when he kills an ox commits a crime against another man and not against he ox (Thomas & Richard, 2002). Scientific taxonomy aided the rational human mind to extract essences of plants and animals and 'objectively' 'analytically' scrutinize them as specimens and taxonomical categories. Aided by the trends in development, philosophy, morality and science, today in the 21 st century the nonhuman is the passive, dismissible other. The 'visual labels' of ours (influenced by our sciences, philosophies and moralities) when attached to things, makes them invisible (Shephard 1995). The aim of this paper to argue the case of the active