From Materialism to Miracles: Connections and Contradictions

Lloyd D. Graham

The worlds of scientific materialism and religious belief are usually regarded as opposite extremes of the philosophical spectrum.  An attempt to journey from one to the other, in either direction, is seldom made, but it is not impossible to traverse the barriers which traditionally separate the multiplicity of world-views, both secular and religious, within this spectrum.  While the method I will adopt may be criticized for avoiding rather than overcoming these divisions, the result may nevertheless be interesting and instructive.  It is in the hope of highlighting internal contradictions within, and constructive resonances between, the many traditions of thought and belief that this wide-ranging account is offered.

            Recent advances in understanding the ways in which natural selection operates − and the level at which it operates − have provided plausible explanations for much, if not all, of what is observed in the biological world.  Thus, an organism is best considered as a survival machine built solely in order to further the propagation of its genetic alleles, or 'selfish genes'.  In population biology, kin selection and reciprocal altruism emerge as winning sociobiological strategies for such organisms [1]. Such rationalizations must, of course, apply in turn to mankind, and it is therefore logical to conclude that all human impulses towards altruistic behavior have arisen simply as a matter of evolutionary expedience.  On a personal level, this conclusion may easily lead to a cynical  approach to life.

            In opposition to this school of thought stands the somewhat old-fashioned notion of 'Natural Law'; that is, the doctrine of an objective framework of propriety, of right and wrong − a fundamental law which rates selfish motives as evil, and insists upon altruism.  To the sociobiologist, this viewpoint amounts to no more than a profound misunderstanding of the situation.  It is true that the moralist's position is normally propounded as requiring a leap of faith − a leap which, whatever its emotional appeal, seems unnecessary and intellectually dishonest to the objective sociobiologist.  The latter is only prepared to consider rational argument; unhappily, science uses exclusively the indicative mood whereas morality uses the imperative, and no amount of reasoning can derive an imperative from an indicative.

Inherent in the cynicism arising from the sociobiological world-view described above is the assumption that if altruistic motivations can be explained genetically, then any concept of altruism possessing intrinsic merit becomes meaningless.  This need not be so, however; just as no amount of reasoning can derive an imperative from an indicative, neither can any amount of reasoning deny such an imperative its meaning.  The idea of a 'Natural Law' may no longer be necessary to rationalize the human perception of right and wrong, but that does not mean that the emergence of a moral sense is without some further significance.  Science cannot pronounce on spiritual matters, which, like the fundamental mystery of existence itself, lie beyond its scope.

            The silence of science on the central issue of what, if anything, is demanded of the individual in life can be seen as an intellectual vacuum which permits complete freedom of speculation.  Interpretations ranging from absolute nihilism to the most complex and demanding dogmas have flourished: this is the domain of faith and religion.  It is inevitable that an individual's religious commitment will reflect his or her psychological profile and cultural environment. It also seems likely that any religious sense instilled during childhood will continue to influence the adult.  However, if we can bring ourselves to forget, or at least suspend, all our preconceived notions about God, we are left with a definition − as opposed to a description or characterization − of God as the 'deepest, veriest truth about the structure of reality, the ultimate meaning and significance of existence at the deepest level of its mystery' [2].  In the relatively fresh terms of what is generally called radical theology, a movement within the Christian tradition, God is best understood as the ground of our, and of all, being [3].  This is not to relocate the superbeing of traditional Western theism − the omnipotent deity-persona inhabiting some parallel supernatural realm − but to resist it, in deference to modern psychology, as an anthropomorphic projection [4].  This position is actually closer to the Eastern understanding of God.  One is reminded of the sage of the Hindu Upanishads who, when asked for a definition of God, remains silent, meaning that God is silence; when asked to express his God in words, he says ‘Neti, Neti’ ('Not this, Not this'), meaning God is not the sensory world; but when pressed for a positive explanation, utters the simple words Tat Tvam Asi ('That Thou Art') [5].  Or, in a saying more familiar to us in the Western world, 'The Kingdom of God is within you' (Luke 17.21) [6].

            Those who seek the absolute, the ultimate and the eternal usually envisage something beyond this world.  However, the statements above contradict this, their declaration being one of immanence.  Moreover, to understand the mystical term 'eternal' merely to signify an infinitely long existence must surely be naive.  In contrast, it is hard to find a more meaningful interpretation of the term than Alan Watts' one − drawn from Zen Buddhism − of full absorption into the now, the present, the finite moment.  This blatantly immediate view actually affords a real escape from time: wanting to prolong a particular moment is merely the result of being self-conscious in the experience, and hence incompletely aware of it [7].  True awareness, on the other hand, occurs when the observer is totally preoccupied with what he/she observes, to the extent where he/she forgets their identity as beholder and is only aware of what is beheld.  However, since selflessness in any relationship is the hallmark of love, it seems reasonable to suppose that the relationship of true awareness is one of love between the beholder and the beheld.  Taking this idea to its natural conclusion, love may be considered as the true ground of all awareness.  But if − as affirmed above − God is the ground of all being, these two postulates need to be reconciled by a simple resolution: that God is love.

            This, of course, has been the essential message of the prophets, evangelists and sages through the ages, although their inspiration derived from revelation rather than speculative analysis.  The Christian apostle John is perhaps the most forthright: 'He who does not love does not know God, for God is love' (1 John 4.8).  As John Robinson puts it, ‘it is precisely his thesis that our convictions of love and its ultimacy are not projections from human love; rather, our sense of the sacredness of love derives from the fact that in this relationship as nowhere else is disclosed and laid bare the divine ground of all our being.  And this revelation for St. John finds its focus and final vindication in the fact of Jesus Christ ... It is in Jesus, and Jesus alone, that there is nothing of self to be seen, but solely the ultimate, unconditional love of God’ [8].

            To attest of Jesus that ‘there is nothing of self to be seen’ recapitulates what was suggested above about the relationship between selflessness and love.  But the idea of selflessness is also central to the great Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism.  In the life of the Buddha, his enlightenment is explained solely in the following words: 'From the summit of the world he could detect no self anywhere ... He had reached perfection' (Legend of the Buddha Shakyamuni)[9].  In the Hindu Upanishads, the principal theme is 'When all desires that cling to the heart are surrendered, then a mortal becomes immortal, and even in this world he becomes one with God' (Katha Upanishad) ... 'Whenever the soul has thoughts of "I" and "mine" it binds itself, even as a bird with the net of a snare' (Maitri Upanishad).  Such aspirations are not far from those expressed by Jesus, who issued such challenges as 'Anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind; he must take up his cross, and come with me' (Mark 8.34).  Selflessness, it would appear, is the way, the truth and the life, the love in which we encounter the ground of all being, God.  The imperative is unconditional: 'Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you' (Luke 6.27).  Here is anything but silence on what is demanded of the individual in life!

            Many people feel that their partisan affiliation to a particular revelationary tradition is vindicated by the miraculous events attending the revelation, and this is particularly so with Christianity.  However, I think it is fair to say that to insist upon, or indeed argue from the supernatural or magical elements of the scriptures is a perverse displacement of emphasis.  In basing faith upon such things, a Christian stands accused by Jesus himself, who sighs deeply and says 'Why does this generation ask for a sign?  I tell you this: no sign shall be given to this generation' (Mark 8.12). It is also necessary to recall that Jesus acknowledges miracles of his opponents: 'And if it is by Beelzebub that I cast out devils, by whom do your own people drive them out?' (Matthew 12.27), and 'Imposters will come claiming to be messiahs and prophets, and they will produce signs and wonders...' (Mark13.22).  New Testament references to Simon Magus (Acts 6.9-10) and Bar-Jesus (Acts 13.6), for example, confirm that attribution of supernatural or magical power is no guarantee of divine sanction.  All religions that have so desired have had their miracles, as the study of comparative mythology reveals, and many of the miraculous formulae in the Gospels − the virgin birth, baptism in Jordan, temptation in the wilderness, the healing and nature miracles − can be rather convincingly related to symbolic supernatural motifs found in other religions and legends [10].  To contend that the supernatural embroidery of historical fabric was a commonplace device, reflecting the mentality of the times and designed to highlight the importance of the history, seems most reasonable in the light of modern scholarship.  The Gnostic Gospels show admirably what happens when such embroidery is carried to excess.  Philosophically, to rely upon supernatural manifestations as a way to faith is pure short-sightedness.  As the Oxbridge polymath Juan Mascaro elaborates: 'Those who rely on physical miracles to prove the truth of spiritual things forget the ever-present miracle of the universe and our own lives.  The lover of the physical miracle is in fact a materialist: instead of making material things spiritual, as the poet or spiritual man does, he simply makes spiritual things material, and this is the source of all idolatry and superstition' [11].  As an aid to the propagation and expression of a message, mythology is indispensable; but if superstition is made a foundation of (or prerequisite for) belief, it can become an insuperable obstacle to the modern mind.

The argument has progressed from materialism to spirituality − and thence to materialism once more.  What has been learned from this round-trip?  It seems inevitable that reconciling the moral dimension of human life with the amorality of the physical world will require some holistic theory, where higher levels of physical sophistication invoke or express principles hitherto absent or unapparent.  Myopic extrapolations from sociobiological models serve as little to deny the significance of the moral sense as thaumaturgics to confirm it, but, between these two extremes, the fruits of philosophical reflection often bear an uncanny resemblance to the fundamental teachings enshrined in the great and ancient religions of the world.

 

References

1. R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2nd edn., Oxford University Press, 1989.
2. J.A.T. Robinson, Honest to God, SCM Press, 1963, p.49.
3. P. Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, Penguin, 1969, p.53-70.
4. E. Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion, Yale University Press, 1950.
5. Hindu scriptural quotations are from Buddhist Scriptures, Penguin, 1959.
6. Biblical quotations are from the New English Bible.
7. W.A. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, Rider, 1983, p.130.
8. J.A.T. Robinson, Honest to God, p.53 & p.74.
9. Buddhist scriptural quotations are from The Upanishads, Penguin, 1965
10. J. Campbell, Occidental Mythology - The Masks of God, Penguin, 1976.
11. J. Mascaro, Introduction to The Upanishads, p.40.