KARL JASPERS FORUM
TA 106 (Müller)
Commentary
27
EVOLUTION
AT PLAY
by Maurice McCarthy
27 April 2008, posted 3 May 2008
<1>
In the course of writing C9 I realised that my concept of evolution had
degraded. I knew at once that I'd never
really had the concept, never re-birthed it, never
made it my own. All I'd ever had was
mental image or representation which had now faded. I was surprised by my indifference to the
realisation. "Hmm, I'll have to
think about this."
The meandering course of study and thinking which
followed led me to a supremely simple accommodation of evolutionary thinking by
Christianity, so simple you could tell it in stories to a 9 year old. It adds absolutely nothing to the science but
I've yet to find any way in which it contradicts the facts of evolution when
seen through Ernst Mayr's population thinking. (Note 1.)
<2>
All living things have a soul.
The soul is the child of the spirit.
Evolution is the course of these children at play together.
This annihilates design and accommodates all chance as
play. The uniqueness of humanity can now
be seen as the special case in which the spirit incarnates. In all other cases
the spirit "hovers above" the child-souls. The children now "learn", grow as
souls by evolving through their living together in a physical environment. Evolution is the course of experience of the
souls in the world. Design can possibly
be relegated to a concept fit only for a mechanical universe but not a living
one.
<3>
God is a Trinity.
Humanity is made in the image of God.
Therefore man has three parts - body, soul and spirit.
The distinction between soul and spirit is that only the
second is immortal. A question now
arises. Since the Church was the
custodian of learning for many hundreds of years then any unexamined
presuppositions there are likely handed on to science and philosophy. The distinction between body and soul runs
through the history of western philosophy to this day but that between soul and
spirit was lost. How come and what was its
effect?
<4>
The answer appears to lie in Canon 11 of the 8th
Ecumenical Council of 869-870.
"Though the old and new Testament teach that a man
or woman has one rational and intellectual soul, and all the fathers and
doctors of the church, who are spokesmen of God, express the same opinion, some
have descended to such a depth of irreligion, through paying attention to the
speculations of evil people, that they shamelessly teach as a dogma that a
human being has two souls, and keep trying to prove their heresy by irrational
means using a wisdom that has been made foolishness. Therefore this holy and universal synod is
hastening to uproot this wicked theory now growing like some loathsome form of
weed. Carrying in its hand the winnowing
fork of truth, with the intention of consigning all the chaff to
inextinguishable fire, and making clean the threshing floor of Christ, in
ringing tones it declares anathema the inventors and perpetrators of such
impiety and all those holding similar views; it also declares and promulgates
that nobody at all should hold or preserve in any way the written teaching of
the authors of this impiety. If however
anyone presumes to act in a way contrary to this holy and great synod, let him
be anathema and an outcast from the faith and way of life of Christians."
http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum08.htm
This canon was assented without discussion. It went through 'on the nod.' It feels out of place with all the other canon's at the same Council but no one knows who draughted it.
<5>
The Council took place in the Hagia Sophia and its
agenda was political. The Emperor Basil
had thrown the Patriarch Photius out of office and
was seeking a religious ratification for this and so the right to expel all the
priests that Photius had appointed. Pope Adrian was seeking the supremacy of Rome
over Constantinople and made it a condition of attendance that this was
acknowledged. Hence those Greeks who
attended were a minority. Anastasius, the Counsellor to the previous Pope Nicholas,
arrived by chance for the last day. Due
to him we have a more or less complete record of the Council.
This synod (and one at Rome concerning Photius) were " ... totally condemned and abrogated
and must in no way be invoked or named as synods" 10 years later. The acts of the Council do not appear in the
Byzantine canon and are missing from the Roman until around the late 11th
century. The spirit was never spoken
against but from this time on it appears to become unacceptable to make any
real distinction between the terms soul and spirit. It is never mentioned
again. The picture of humanity made in
the image of God was clouded.
<6>
Spiritually, the time of the Council was still in the
ascent of the intellect and therefore the spiritual task of the age was to
provide an enclave for knowledge and learning. However, after the death of Charlemagne, Lothar failed to hold the 'middle kingdom' (Lotharingia or, roughly, Alsace-Lorraine) as the earthly
protection of spiritual development. By
effectively abolishing the spirit humanity, became a dichotomy. This meant that science could be freed from
all religious dogma - something which would have been nigh on impossible if the
trichotomy had remained in force. Canon 11 looks like a stroke of strategic
genius.
<7>
Since materialism cannot explain consciousness (i.e.
the soul) then the time has come right to reassert the trichotomy
of soma, psyche and pneuma. Most importantly of all, the soul evolves.
------------------------------------------------
NOTES.
1. Darwin produced a divalent theory of variation and
selection. He left presupposed the so-called unit of evolution, i.e. what /in
principle/ was varying and being selected. The candidates are the gene, some concept of
the species or the ecology. The first and
the last do not tell us what the individual animal is. In 1942 Mayr defined
species as "groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations,
which are reproductively isolated from other such groups."
------------------------------------------------
Maurice McCarthy.
e-mail
<moss (at) mythic-beasts (dot) com>