Analogy and Emergence
Can emergence 'save' a viable notion of the analogy of being, so that we are not
faced with the alternatives of reductionist 'univocity' and postmodern 'equivocity'?
If so, what would be the consequences for the doctrine of creation, and arguments
for the existence of God? Can emergence (as analogy once did) reconcile immanence
and transcendence, or the kataphatic and apophatic ways?
And can emergence therefore mediate between the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of creation
out of nothing, and Buddhist 'dependent-co-arising'?
A highly abstract work, but crucial to situating many of my core ideas within current
debates between Radical Orthodox theologians and their opponents, perhaps bringing
in the Mayahana Buddhist notions as a third angle. Very embryonic, but a first version
has been delivered to the Christian Philosophy Conference.
These are the key ideas on which the aims of the website rest:
- Analogy: matter is meaningful. We have evolved within a world rich with analogies
for understanding ourselves and the transcendent God who made it.
- Emergence: meaning is material. An authentic humanity requires us to see our minds
and our cultures as emerging seamlessly from the material world, which we ignore
at our psychological and ecological peril.
- Aspect-realism: a middle way in the theory of knowledge. It is through the evolved
structures of our bodies and activities that we know the world by relating to it
in what I have termed diousia, a 'dialogue of being'. So realism is right in that
we do indeed make contact with a world 'out there', while relativism is right in
that this reality presents different aspects according to the activities we bring
to bear on it. Knowledge can be objective, but is always personal, and science and
religion are not exclusive but complementary ways of relating our lives to reality.
This theory is the consequence of being realist about the knower as well as the
known.
- Plenitude: God has created a world that is sufficient for the flourishing of the
beings in it. A degree of strife and suffering is natural and inevitable in a world
that evolves, but synergy and co-operation are as significant as competition in
the evolutionary process. Large-scale suffering and injustice arise from a sinful
resistance to plenitude (both by individuals and by institutions) not from the lack
of it. We should not, and ultimately cannot, flourish through the depletion of others.
But these convictions are not plucked from the thin air of wishful thinking. They
rest on some hard-nosed argument -click here to see the basic arguments behind
the core ideas and aims, and where you can find more about them in my writings.
This is the part of the website where I relate my aims and convictions to some
core ideas, that is, key arguments that support the aims and convictions, and
concepts on which they are based. Over the next two months I hope to add
the descriptions of the core ideas and basic concepts and arguments and link
these to my publications.
If you compare this site to a travel guide, this page gives you the key
destinations where you can land and some guidance as to how you can explore from
there. But of course, it is equally possible to travel freelance in the
way that fits best with your own interests. There is nothing prescriptive
about this page, and it will appeal to those who think visually and laterally
more than those with a more linear and verbal style of thought.So use at your
own risk!
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