1065 lines
87 KiB
HTML
1065 lines
87 KiB
HTML
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<title>The one remaining question is whether there is any other practical interest of reason</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_1" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="117" height="52" border="0">he
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one remaining question is whether there is any other practical
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interest of reason. The traditional answer is that there is a kind of
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goal that is higher than both individual and spiritual interest,
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namely, religious interest, or the recognition of something that is
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worthy of worship. Is there anything holy in a spatiomaterial world
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like ours?</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
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assert that reason also has a religious interest is to hold that
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there is something worthy of its worship, that is, something that
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reason ought to recognize as holy or sacred and, thus, hold in
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reverence. Such an object would have to be of such exalted glory that
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it would inspire reason to adore it and act in a way befitting it.
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Such an object would be the source of a new kind of goal for reason,
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a goal which serves the religious interest of rational beings. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000">“<font face="Times New Roman, serif">God”
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is the name traditionally given for the object of the religious
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attitude, and the philosophical defense of religion has traditionally
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(in the West) been an argument for the existence of God. God is
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supposed to be a being of such surpassing perfection that He is
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worthy of our worship. But the belief in the existence of a being
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outside of space and time who is responsible for the natural world is
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supernaturalism, indeed, supernaturalism in its most familiar form,
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and that is what ontological philosophy gives up with its basic
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assumption of naturalism. Thus, if the existence of a transcendent
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God were what is required for reason to have a religious interest,
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then ontological philosophy would have to deny that reason has any
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such interest.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
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repudiation of belief in a transcendent God has led naturalists to
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see religion in terms of its traditional function of justifying
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morality, and thus, it might be argued that ontological philosophy
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has already explained the religious interest by the spiritual
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interest of reason, as part of necessary truths of theoretical reason
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about what is. But if that is all there is to be said about religion,
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God is an illusion, and there are no religious goals for ontological
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reason to pursue, because ontological philosophy explains religion
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away. Ontological philosophy reveals that the reason for being moral
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derives from our spiritual interest, that is, from the function of
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reason as the behavior guidance system for both the spiritual animal
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and the individual. It would follow, then, that reason did not pursue
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religious goals because there is actually something worthy of
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worship, but simply because such beliefs were the most efficient way
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of guiding behavior to contribute to the natural perfection of
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rational beings, both individual and spiritual. It would debunk
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religion, because once ontological reason saw through its function,
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religion would no longer be needed to justify morality or to justify
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submitting to the group. Nor would reason be able to believe in
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anything like God, except, of course, as their own spiritual animal.
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But to hold that the interest of their own spiritual animal is what
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is served by the pursuit of religious goals would be to reduce
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religion to tribalism. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If this is
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how ontological philosophy must treat religion, people with a
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religious sensibility would surely use it as a weapon against
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ontological philosophy. It is ontological philosophy that believes in
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tribalism, for it makes the spiritual animal the source of highest
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goods that reason pursues. By contrast, traditional religions,
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despite their troubled histories, have usually thought of their goals
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as something more than mere tribalism, especially Christianity and
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Islam, with their universalistic claims. Thus, if ontological
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philosophy must simply dismiss religion, as most contemporary
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naturalists do, there are many people who will be disillusioned, if
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they accept it, and regret the absence of anything of truly ultimate
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value. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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issue is, therefore, whether there is anything in a spatiomaterial
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world like ours that is worthy of worship by rational beings, that
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is, anything that rational beings would submit to from sheer
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knowledge of its exalted nature. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">None of the
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goals of reason explained thus far by ontological philosophy can be
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considered religious, because they are not pursued from awe at the
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prospect of something of extraordinary perfection and glory.
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Necessary goals of reason are pursued because they control conditions
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that affect the reproduction of the individuals or spiritual animals
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whose behavior reason guides. To be sure, optional goals are good for
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contributing to the natural (or artificial) perfection of something
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other than rational beings, but they are good for rational beings
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only because they are chosen. If ontological reason has a religious
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interest, therefore, there must be goals that are more valuable for
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reason than mere optional goals without being required in the way
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that necessary goals are.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The only
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way ontological reason could have such an interest is if there is
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something worthy of worship in a spatiomaterial world like ours. And
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as it turns out, there is. The reason is that it is possible that
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there is — or will be — an absolutely perfect being in a
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spatiomaterial world like ours. And the possibility of such a perfect
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being is enough, as we shall see, to make the religious attitude
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appropriate and to explain how reason has a religious interest in
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addition to its individual and spiritual interest. Ontological reason
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will pursue goals that are good because they contribute to the
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natural perfection of the world itself, and the pursuit of such
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religious goals will make the world even more perfect. Indeed, since
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ontological reason takes responsibility for doing what is good for
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the world, as well as the individuals and spiritual animals whose
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behavior it already guides, it will be the agent for the world,
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making the world itself a rational being. Thus, the world itself will
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be a perfect rational being. God is immanent, not transcendent.
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Though such an absolutely perfect rational being is something that
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will be created by reason, it is something that is worthy of worship,
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and the work of ontological reason in the world is to bring God into
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existence. That is how reason <i>makes </i>the world "whole."
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</font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">A<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_2" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="106" height="41" border="0">
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Perfect Being is possible in a spatiomaterial world like ours,
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because it could be the outcome of evolution. We have seen how the
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basic nature of a spatiomaterial world with a large scale structure
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like our own and with matter that is capable of taking on complex
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molecular structures like ours makes evolution by reproductive
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causation inevitable. Not only does evolution inevitably begin on
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suitable planets, but it goes through inevitable stages that lead up
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to rational beings like us. And as we have seen, when reason finally
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comes to understand how the world is whole, it discovers its own
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nature as a behavior guidance system for both the individual and the
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spiritual animal, and as I have suggested, that makes reason the most
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powerful being in the world. But what I want to suggest now is that,
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if rational beings take the perfect being that would come to exist
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they it were to pursue religious goals to be worthy of worship,
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ontological reason will eventually evolve all the perfections that
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have traditionally been attributed to God, insofar as that is
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possible in a spatiomaterial world. The evolution of ontological
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reason would make the world itself an absolutely perfect being, that
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is, God. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_3" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="74" height="37" border="0">he
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personal perfection attributed to God are omniscience, omnipotence,
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and absolute goodness. It is possible for reason to evolve all the
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perfections attributed to God as a person, because a person is a
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rational being and theses traits are the perfection of reason as a
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behavior guidance system. They are, respectively, the perfection of
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knowing, doing, and choosing. This would be the outcome of a late
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phase of cultural evolution during the philosophical stage of
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spiritual evolution, one that starts with reason understanding of its
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own nature and place in the world (that is, with ontological reason)
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and may not be complete for some time. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Reason has
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three functions, let us recall, because behavior guidance systems are
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not mere cybernetic (or functional) systems, which use feedback to
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guide their behavior toward some goal, but have a function in
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addition to input and output, namely, choosing between incompatible
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goals. Even if the same input is used to select the kind of behavior
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and to generate it, as in animals, the selection is a third,
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essential sub-function of behavior guidance systems, the one that
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makes them the locus of evolutionary progress. It is the perfection
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of these three functions of behavior guidance systems that accounts
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for the traditional perfections: omniscience has to do with the input
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function, omnipotence with the output function, and absolute goodness
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with the function of choosing. In rational beings, the first has to
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do with the perfection of knowing, the second with the perfection of
|
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doing, and the third with the perfection of choosing. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>O<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_4" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="54" height="34" border="0">mniscience</i>.
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Reason will eventually be omniscient, because the input to this
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behavior guidance system will be the most complete knowledge of the
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world possible. Reason will be able to know everything that it is
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possible for reason to know about the world. That is possible, given
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the nature of space and matter in our world, since as we know,
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everything in the world and everything about the world can be
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explained by how it is constituted by those two kinds of opposite
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substances. What is ontologically necessary in a spatiomaterial world
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like our own can be known without explaining why the basic laws of
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physics are true, but there is no reason to doubt that reason will
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eventually understand the essential natures of space and matter that
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make the basic laws of physics true. The knowledge of what is
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ontologically necessary is the framework that makes it possible to
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explain as completely as required any aspect of the world. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
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this kind of omniscience does not include knowing all the contingent
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details about the world, nor does it include knowing aspects of the
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future that depend on its own practical reasoning. But that is the
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kind of omniscience one might expect of a transcendent God, not what
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can be expected of an immanent God. As an immanent God, reason will
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be able to know as much about any contingent aspect of the world as
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is possible for any part of a world made of space and matter. And
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since it will be able to figure out how efficient causes can be used
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to control whatever can be controlled in such a world, it will be
|
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able to discover whatever is relevant to attaining its goals. That is
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as much as is possible for a being in space and time.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">As
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ontological reason begins this phase, the biggest gap in its
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knowledge is in astronomy and cosmology. But that does not affect the
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possibility of this future course of evolution, because it does not
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affect what reason knows about evolution and its own nature as the
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outcome of biological evolution. It is not necessary to know why the
|
||
basic laws of physics are true to demonstrate the global regularities
|
||
about change; it is only necessary to know that they are true. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>O<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_5" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="54" height="34" border="0">mnipotence.</i>
|
||
Reason will also be omnipotent, because the output of this behavior
|
||
guidance system can control conditions in the world as well as any
|
||
structural cause can in a spatiomaterial world like ours. Its
|
||
omniscience includes knowledge about the means to any goals it may
|
||
choose (or, at least, where to look for them and how to recognize
|
||
them when they are found), and so the only limit to its power will be
|
||
its ability to structure the thermodynamic flow of matter from
|
||
potential energy to evenly distributed heat. But reason is
|
||
responsible for guiding the behavior not only of individual rational
|
||
subjects, but also spiritual animals, and thus, no structural cause
|
||
can be more powerful than the spiritual structural cause of spiritual
|
||
animals guided by reason, for it can coordinate the behavior of as
|
||
many, independently moving animal bodies as are needed to attain the
|
||
goals that it pursues. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nothing can
|
||
equal its power except another spiritual animal. But as we shall see,
|
||
war would be overcome, when reason understands the nature of
|
||
goodness, because of its pursuit of religious goals. Understanding
|
||
the basic cause of war makes it clear what rational beings must do in
|
||
order to attain their goals without resorting to war. Without such
|
||
conflicts among spiritual animals, rational beings will be as
|
||
powerful as possible as anything that can exist in a spatiomaterial
|
||
world. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nor is the
|
||
omnipotence of such spiritual animals is merely potential. Though the
|
||
parts are rational subjects who are autonomous, they will cooperate
|
||
in pursuing the goals that spiritual animals pursue, if they are
|
||
good. Their autonomy as rational beings is what enables them to
|
||
cooperate in pursuing such goals, because it enables them to do what
|
||
they believe is good. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though
|
||
reason will not be omnipotent in the way that a transcendent God is
|
||
supposed to be, it will be able to attain any goal that is it
|
||
possible for a part of a spatiomaterial world. And the lack of the
|
||
power to do magic or create a natural world from nothing is not a
|
||
real limitation, if the world is made of space and matter, because it
|
||
is not ontologically possible in the first place. Omniscience has
|
||
never been understood as the power to do what is impossible. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>A<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_6" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="58" height="34" border="0">bsolute
|
||
Goodness.</i> Reason could also be absolutely good in the end. We
|
||
have already seen why reason would pursue what is good for reason.
|
||
All that needs to be added for reason to be a perfect being is that
|
||
it also pursue what is good for the world as a whole, that is, to
|
||
pursue religious goals. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Ontological
|
||
reason would always pursue what is good for itself, as we have seen,
|
||
because the function of choosing how to behave is served by a
|
||
behavior guidance system that discovers what is good by understanding
|
||
the nature of goodness. It recognizes that goodness is contributing
|
||
to natural perfection, and rational imagination gives reason the
|
||
ability to tell what is naturally perfect by seeing how it is a
|
||
unique optimum against the background of what is possible. And since
|
||
ontological reason recognizes itself as an essential part of such a
|
||
natural perfection, it has sufficient reason to do what is good. It
|
||
knows that there can be no reason not to do what contributes to the
|
||
natural perfection of which it is part. Thus, it will do what is good
|
||
for reason, that is, it will pursue goals that contribute to the
|
||
natural perfection of reason itself, including both necessary and
|
||
optional goals.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">In
|
||
order to be absolutely good in the sense implicit in traditional
|
||
theology, however, reason would have to pursue goals beyond what is
|
||
good for rational subjects and spiritual animals. To do God’s work
|
||
is to pursue religious goals, and that means pursuing goals that are
|
||
good in virtue of contributing to the natural perfection of the world
|
||
itself. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">That would
|
||
be possible, if there are conditions that reason can bring about that
|
||
would make the world itself more naturally perfect and they would not
|
||
come to be in any other way. The natural perfection toward which
|
||
evolution proceeds is only what is possible by reproductive
|
||
causation, and natural selection is a crude instrument that takes
|
||
much time and can involve much suffering. By doing what natural
|
||
selection cannot do, or doing it more quickly or less wastefully,
|
||
reason could make contributions to natural perfection that are not
|
||
otherwise possible. It might make the structural causes bundled
|
||
together in organisms or the organisms combined in ecologies even
|
||
more optimal in the sense of having more power to control relevant
|
||
conditions, and reason might make contributions to the natural
|
||
perfection of life and the natural perfection of change by avoiding
|
||
setbacks in evolutionary progress or changing their timing. Such
|
||
goals would require much more detailed understanding of the evolving
|
||
structures involved, but it is not impossible to make the world even
|
||
more naturally perfect than it would be otherwise. Thus, reason could
|
||
be good in the sense of doing what is good for the world itself,
|
||
rather than just what is good for rational subjects and spiritual
|
||
animals. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
|
||
are some specific goals that might be good for reason to pursue
|
||
because they contribute something to the natural perfection of the
|
||
world that cannot come to exist in any other way. They include the
|
||
goals mentioned above as optional goals for spiritual animals. But
|
||
what we need to recognize now in order to see how there could be a
|
||
perfect being in a spatiomaterial world like ours is that they are
|
||
also good in a different way -- not because they are chosen, but
|
||
because they contribute to the natural perfection of the world.
|
||
Instead of being optional, we need to suppose that reason pursues
|
||
them because they are good for the world as a whole, thereby taking
|
||
responsibility for making the world more perfect than it would be
|
||
otherwise. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">One such
|
||
goal is the protection of the ecology from disruption by spiritual
|
||
animals, or what is called protection of the environment. Though the
|
||
capacity to survive storms, asteroids and other natural disasters may
|
||
be part of the natural perfection of the ecology, protection from
|
||
what spiritual animals do to it is unique, because it is an effect on
|
||
the ecology that only reason can control. Furthermore, there may also
|
||
be other ways in which reason might make the ecology more perfect in
|
||
the sense of maximizing the use of available free energy to fuel
|
||
reproductive cycles than is possible by reproductive causation. For
|
||
example, it might make the ecology more perfect to tend it like a
|
||
garden so that more of the available free energy is consumed.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Another
|
||
such goal would be to replace the natural selection of spiritual
|
||
animals by warfare with measures that would make spiritual animals
|
||
just as perfect, but without the suffering involved in warfare. The
|
||
only way to stop war, however, is to control population growth, since
|
||
war is merely the form that the natural selection caused by
|
||
reproduction takes in the case of spiritual animals. But this would
|
||
not necessarily make evolution and the world more naturally perfect,
|
||
unless reason also tended to spiritual animals themselves so that
|
||
they become no less naturally perfect for organisms of their kind
|
||
without natural selection. But if that is possible, it would surely
|
||
make the world itself more perfect, because it would attain the same
|
||
end with fewer and simpler means than all suffering the effects of
|
||
war. War is, after all, a very wasteful means to the evolution of
|
||
spiritual animals. Thus, the creation of a world order in which all
|
||
spiritual animals could live in peace with one another into the
|
||
indefinite future is a plausible religious goal.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Another
|
||
possible religious goal would take over natural selection at the
|
||
individual level as well as the social level. Natural selection at
|
||
the individual level is responsible for rational subjects evolving
|
||
toward the natural perfection of organisms of their kind, but insofar
|
||
as it is still at work, it is also a wasteful process because of the
|
||
suffering that it involves (such as individuals dying of genetic
|
||
diseases). But reason could take over from natural selection as the
|
||
cause of individual evolution by intervening in the germ line to
|
||
correct genetic defects and to change genetic structures so that
|
||
rational subjects are more powerful in attaining the goals they
|
||
pursue, that is, are more naturally perfect as rational subjects. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There are
|
||
surely other religious goals, including many that can be pursued on
|
||
the individual level, because there are other changes that reason
|
||
could bring about in the world that are neither necessary goals nor
|
||
mere optional goals, but that would make the world itself more
|
||
naturally perfect. And as far as spiritual animals are concerned, one
|
||
of the more important religious goals will probably be the
|
||
colonization of the solar system in the sense of changing conditions
|
||
on them so that life can evolve on them as well as on earth. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">All
|
||
that is required for the outcome of evolution to have the personal
|
||
perfections traditionally attributed to God is for ontological reason
|
||
to pursue goals because they contribute to the natural perfection of
|
||
the world itself, rather than just because they contribute to the
|
||
natural perfection of reason in its role as the behavior guidance
|
||
system for rational subjects and spiritual animals. That would mean
|
||
that religious goals rank after the necessary goals of rational
|
||
beings, yet ahead of their optional goals. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Religious
|
||
goals would not be good because they are necessary goals of reason.
|
||
Necessary goals of reason are those that control conditions that
|
||
affect its reproduction, either as individuals or as spiritual
|
||
animals. But religious goals are good because they contribute to the
|
||
natural perfection, not of the individual or the spiritual animal,
|
||
but the world itself. Religious goals cannot reduce to necessary
|
||
goals of reason as the behavior guidance system of the world, because
|
||
there are no conditions that affect the reproduction of the world
|
||
itself. What makes religious goals good is simply contributing to the
|
||
natural perfection of the world. But that requires seeing the world
|
||
itself as a form of natural perfection. It depends on reason
|
||
understanding the nature of goodness as contributing to natural
|
||
perfection and seeing how what reason can do beyond merely
|
||
controlling conditions that affect the reproduction of rational
|
||
beings would contribute to the natural perfection of the whole. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Nor would
|
||
religious goals be good as mere optional goals, either of individual
|
||
subjects or spiritual animals. Optional goals are good for reason
|
||
because they are already good in some way, and reason makes them good
|
||
for reason by choosing them. Though religious goals are also already
|
||
good, they are good in a unique way, because they contribute to the
|
||
natural perfection of the world itself, not just to the natural (or
|
||
artificial) perfection of a part of it that happens to catch one’s
|
||
fancy. Nor are religious goals good for reason simply because reason
|
||
chooses to pursue them. Rather they are good because they make the
|
||
world itself naturally perfect. If religious goals are good for
|
||
reason at all, they are good for reason whether or not rational
|
||
beings choose to pursue them. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
religious interest, if ontological reason has such an interest, is,
|
||
therefore, distinct from both necessary and optional goals. There is
|
||
no reason to believe that religious goals would conflict with the
|
||
necessary goals of reason, because the control of conditions
|
||
affecting individual and social level reproduction would be an
|
||
essential part of the natural perfection of the world. But the
|
||
pursuit of religious goals would affect the pursuit of optional
|
||
goals, both individual and spiritual, because reason would see their
|
||
goodness as prior to optional goals. Most optional goals would be
|
||
compatible with the natural perfection of the world, because optional
|
||
goals also contribute to natural (or artificial) perfection in some
|
||
way. But the religious interest would set priorities among optional
|
||
goals, because in the context of an overall plan is to make the world
|
||
itself perfect, some optional goals will contribute more to the
|
||
natural perfection of the whole than others. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Ontological
|
||
reason has, therefore, the potentiality of being not only omniscient
|
||
and omnipotent, but also absolutely good. But if that is the future
|
||
of evolution, it means that the advent of ontological philosophy is
|
||
only the beginning of a phase of the philosophical stage of the
|
||
gradual evolution of spiritual animals that leads to it. It will be
|
||
mainly cultural evolution by rational selection, but the natural
|
||
perfection for culture of this kind may not be complete until the far
|
||
distant future, because there may be much for reason to do,
|
||
including, perhaps, even stages in the evolution of the means it uses
|
||
to attain its ends. After all, the social and political problems that
|
||
it must solve are not insignificant and reason has only begun to
|
||
acquire the technological control of nature that is possible.
|
||
However, if ontological reason does pursue religious goals, a perfect
|
||
being with all three personal perfections traditionally attributed to
|
||
God would be the natural perfection toward which gradual change
|
||
during that stage will proceed. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
existence of such a perfect individual and spiritual being in the
|
||
world would be a form of natural perfection by our definition of
|
||
“natural perfection,” because it would be the kind of optimal
|
||
part-whole relation that makes the most of what exists in a
|
||
spatiomaterial world like ours. For an all-knowing and all-powerful
|
||
being to act for the good of the world as a whole would be for
|
||
structural causes to use as much free energy as possible to control
|
||
as much as possible of what happens in the world. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To pursue
|
||
religious goals would make reason more powerful than simply pursuing
|
||
necessary and optional goals, because it would be to set a priority
|
||
among optional goals with an eye to making the world as a whole
|
||
naturally perfect. Since the goals pursued would do what is required
|
||
for the natural perfection of the whole, they would fit together more
|
||
completely than any other set of goals, and thus, reason would be
|
||
doing as much as possible to control what happens in the world. In
|
||
other words, to pursue goals that conflict with religious goals could
|
||
only detract from the maximum power of life, and to pursue optional
|
||
goals instead of religious goals would be to have less effect on the
|
||
world than is possible. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Acknowledging
|
||
its religious interest would, of course, make only its planetary
|
||
system naturally perfect, because given how space separates it from
|
||
other planetary systems, that is the only part of the world that it
|
||
can affect. But that is all that ontological reason can contribute to
|
||
the natural perfection of the world as a whole, at least, for the
|
||
foreseeable future. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Furthermore,
|
||
it is clear that there can be no further evolutionary stage in the
|
||
series that has led to ontological reason, because there is no higher
|
||
level of part-whole complexity in reason as a behavior guidance
|
||
system that would make it any more powerful. No higher level of
|
||
forensic organization (that is, in the part-whole complexity of
|
||
argument) can guide behavior any better than one in which reason
|
||
understands its own nature as a system for guiding behavior that has
|
||
evolved in a world of matter and space in time like our own, for
|
||
there is no higher level of reflection than one that understands the
|
||
wholeness of the world. Ontological philosophy is already complete in
|
||
that way. Thus, once reason understands its own nature and function
|
||
as a behavior guidance system, no other structure could discover what
|
||
is good for individuals or spiritual animals better than it. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">There is,
|
||
by the way, no possibility that machines constructed as artifacts
|
||
will replace multicellular animals as rational subjects, except for
|
||
modifications of human biology. A machine could, perhaps, eventually
|
||
be as powerful as reason, though that would require it to have
|
||
rational imagination (including spatial and structural imagination as
|
||
well as the capacity to reflect on itself). But such a machine would
|
||
not be conscious in the way we are, unless it was constructed of
|
||
neurons like our own, because the phenomenal properties whose
|
||
intrinsic natures explain the subjective aspect of experience (or the
|
||
fact that it is like something to perceive and think) are the
|
||
intrinsic natures of the photons generated by the synchronized firing
|
||
of many neurons throughout the cerebrum, like an extraordinarily
|
||
complex antenna. Rational beings would not choose to replace
|
||
conscious rational beings with machines that are not conscious, that
|
||
is, with Zombies. They might know and control all the same conditions
|
||
that make the world perfect, but without the unity of mind, there is
|
||
a way in which the perfection would not exist at all. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">If,
|
||
therefore, ontological reason does find the prospect of such a
|
||
perfect being worthy of worship and reason does evolve toward natural
|
||
perfection of this kind, it will be the last stage of evolution,
|
||
because it will have a kind of behavior guidance system than which
|
||
none more naturally perfect can be conceived. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_7" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="74" height="37" border="0">he
|
||
kind of natural perfection that exists at this point in the evolution
|
||
of philosophical spirit may be dwarfed by the perfection that
|
||
eventually comes to exist, but it is clear that its basic nature
|
||
permits it to acquire all the perfections that have traditionally
|
||
been attributed to God as a person. Indeed, the traditional view of
|
||
God can be seen as an attempt to conceive the greater perfection that
|
||
is potential in rational beings before reason understands its own
|
||
nature and place in the world. The traditional belief in God merely
|
||
looks for God in the wrong place, as something that transcends
|
||
nature, rather than as something in or about nature itself. But in
|
||
order to show that what could evolve from ontological reason is a
|
||
perfect being in the sense of a traditional God, it is necessary to
|
||
show that this kind of perfect being also has the ontological
|
||
perfections traditionally ascribed to God: being necessary,
|
||
ubiquitous, and eternal. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Just as
|
||
omniscience, omnipotence, and absolute goodness are simply the
|
||
perfection of the three subfunctions of a behavior guidance system,
|
||
so these three <i>ontological perfections </i>can be seen as holding
|
||
of reason because it is the inevitable outcome of evolution in a
|
||
world of matter and space like ours enduring through in time. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>N<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_8" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="65" height="36" border="0">ecessary
|
||
being.</i> God as a perfect rational being would be a necessary being
|
||
in a spatiomaterial world like ours, if it is the eventual outcome of
|
||
evolution, because evolution is a process that inevitably gets
|
||
started on suitable planets. His existence would follow from the
|
||
nature of a world of matter and space in time, given that matter has
|
||
the nature described by the basic laws of physics in this world and
|
||
the universe has a large scale structure like our own. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If
|
||
ontological reason inevitably acknowledges a religious interest, the
|
||
existence of a perfect being would be a consequence of the basic
|
||
nature of a spatiomaterial world like ours. Since evolution is, as we
|
||
have seen, a global regularity, we might say that the necessity of a
|
||
perfect rational being is shown mainly by recognizing how space is an
|
||
ontological cause of evolution. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This would
|
||
give God, however, the same kind of necessity that the world itself
|
||
has, and there is another way in which God has traditionally been
|
||
thought to be necessary. That is, substances exist necessarily
|
||
because they cannot come into existence nor go out of existence as
|
||
time passes, and that makes God necessary, since God is their
|
||
necessary ontological effect. But the necessary existence of God has
|
||
been said to derive from His being the cause of Himself, or <i>causa
|
||
sui</i>. That would also be true of this perfect rational being, as
|
||
we shall see, if ontological reason, in its practical capacity,
|
||
inevitably acknowledges a religious interest. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>U<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_9" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="63" height="36" border="0">biquitous
|
||
being.</i> God is ubiquitous in a spatiomaterial world, because it is
|
||
a necessary being. Reason will evolve everywhere in a spatiomaterial
|
||
world with a large scale structure like our own, though its frequency
|
||
depends on how often suitable planets occur. If reason must evolve
|
||
into God, God will exist throughout the universe. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
|
||
scientists who understand that life could exist on other planets have
|
||
set up antennas to listen for messages from more advanced life forms
|
||
in the hope of solving the mysteries of the universe, and they have
|
||
come up with nothing. But if ontological philosophy is right about
|
||
the course of evolution, that is just what we should expect.
|
||
Ontological reason will not even try to communicate with life on
|
||
other planets, because it will know that intervening and solving the
|
||
problems that reason confronts on other planets would only cripple
|
||
the spiritual beings that are evolving there. On the other hand, if
|
||
ontological reason has already evolved on distant planets, there is
|
||
nothing to say to them, at least, not in that way. (There may be
|
||
other ways that rational beings from different planetary systems
|
||
interact. But they will be severely limited, given the distances they
|
||
are separated in space and the impossibility of traveling faster than
|
||
light, and they will occur at a much later point in the evolution of
|
||
perfect rational beings.) </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Reason is
|
||
also ubiquitous in another sense, which comes from its spiritual
|
||
nature as the behavior guidance system of a spiritual animal. As
|
||
ontological reason evolves control over everything that happens on
|
||
its planet or in its planetary system, there will be a single
|
||
spiritual structural cause whose non-reproductive work dominates its
|
||
entire planet, and eventually the entire planetary system where it
|
||
evolves.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
ubiquity of a perfect being is a consequence of the basic nature of a
|
||
spatiomaterial world like ours, but in a world that is obviously in
|
||
space, evolution depends on matter being of the same kind everywhere.
|
||
Hence, we might hold that its ubiquity is shown mainly by how matter
|
||
is an ontological cause of evolution.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>E<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_10" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="60" height="36" border="0">ternal
|
||
being. </i>God is eternal in a spatiomaterial world, also because it
|
||
is a necessary being. God will exist as long as the universe itself
|
||
does, because He will evolve again and again throughout the existence
|
||
of the world. If the universe is eternal, God will have eternal life.
|
||
</font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Moreover,
|
||
particular Gods can be eternal in their own planetary systems,
|
||
because spiritual animals can exist indefinitely, even if individual
|
||
rational subjects cannot, and there will always be some free energy
|
||
to use as fuel for their reproductive cycles. Though God may have to
|
||
inhabit only the farther reaches of the planetary system when the sun
|
||
becomes a red giant and engulfs the earth. There is now about four
|
||
and a half billion years to prepare. And if the red giant later
|
||
becomes a white dwarf, God could move back in closer and have all the
|
||
free energy required to exist indefinitely, if He so chooses. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This is to
|
||
hold that the expansion of the universe does not end (as suggested in
|
||
our discussion of cosmology). That is the most likely case, because
|
||
as far as scientists can tell, there is not enough matter for
|
||
gravitation to cause the universe to collapse back to another Big
|
||
Bang, and apparently not even enough to slow the expansion to a stop
|
||
asymptotically, that means the universe is eternal. However, if the
|
||
Big Bang is a recurrent local process, as suggested earlier, there
|
||
would be no end to the evolution of perfect rational beings. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
eternity of a perfect being is also a consequence of the basic nature
|
||
of a spatiomaterial world like ours. But since it depends on how the
|
||
space and matter constituting the world endure through time as
|
||
substances, its eternity is shown mainly by how time is an aspect of
|
||
the existential aspect of the nature of substance as substance. Thus,
|
||
the eternality of God might be said to depend on how time is an
|
||
ontological cause of evolution. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">E<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_11" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="74" height="37" border="0">xcept
|
||
for being the creator of the world, therefore, ontological reason
|
||
could eventually come to have all the perfections traditionally
|
||
attributed to God, both personal and ontological perfections. It
|
||
depends on whether ontological reason has a religious interest, that
|
||
is, on whether it chooses to pursue religious goals in addition to
|
||
its spiritual and individual goals, and that depends, in turns, on
|
||
whether the prospect of the perfect being that would result is worthy
|
||
of worship. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">A<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_12" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="55" height="34" border="0">ll
|
||
that is required for ontological reason to evolve into a perfect
|
||
being is for it to pursue goals that are good because they contribute
|
||
to the natural perfection of the world itself, rather than just goals
|
||
that contribute to the natural perfection of reason as the behavior
|
||
guidance system for rational subjects and spiritual animals. Will
|
||
ontological reason pursue religious goals? </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
cannot be shown that reason ought to and will pursue religious goals
|
||
in the same way that its pursuit of individual and spiritual goals,
|
||
because religious goals do not contribute to the natural perfection
|
||
of rational beings. Religious goals are not necessary goals of
|
||
reason. They do not control conditions that affect the reproduction
|
||
of rational beings at either the multicellular or social level of
|
||
biological organization. And religious goals cannot be explained as
|
||
optional goals, for that does not explain their special worth. Nor
|
||
would optional religious goals make the existence of God inevitable. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To have a
|
||
religious interest, reason would have to be the behavior guidance
|
||
system for the world as a whole. But that is not a function reason
|
||
could possibly have as a result of biological evolution. The pursuit
|
||
of goals that contribute to the natural perfection of the world
|
||
cannot evolve like another level of biological organization,
|
||
beginning another stage of biological evolution, because the world
|
||
itself is not a reproducing organism. That is, the world as a whole
|
||
is not a primary structure generating reproductive cycles. Even
|
||
something as small as the planetary system or the planet is still the
|
||
whole in which evolution takes place, not a level of biological
|
||
organization. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
is nevertheless possible for ontological reason to have a religious
|
||
interest. The belief that rational beings ought to pursue religious
|
||
goals would evolve by the rational selection of practical arguments,
|
||
if what would result were perfect enough to be worthy of worship,
|
||
because to beings with a faculty of rational imagination, it will be
|
||
clear that accepting arguments for acknowledging a religious interest
|
||
gives them the most rationally coherent world view. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">As rational
|
||
beings come to understand the nature of reason and its place in the
|
||
world, they will see how it is possible for there to be a perfect
|
||
being in a spatiomaterial world like ours, and they will recognize
|
||
that its existence depends on whether they pursue religious goals, in
|
||
addition to the necessary and optional goals of their and spiritual
|
||
interest. If the perfect being that would result from pursuing
|
||
religious goals is exalted enough that rational beings revere it and
|
||
serve it from the sheer recognition of its unique natural perfection,
|
||
rational beings will identify with the world itself, not just their
|
||
spiritual animals or themselves as individuals. And by acting in the
|
||
interest of the world as a whole, they will contribute what only
|
||
reason can contribute to the natural perfection of all the organisms,
|
||
to the natural perfection of the ecology, to the natural perfection
|
||
of life, and to the natural perfection of evolutionary change itself.
|
||
And by pursuing religious goals, a perfect being will come to exist
|
||
in their planetary system. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
answer that ontological reason will give to this question is obvious
|
||
to anyone who understands the situation in which reason will find
|
||
itself and what is at stake in its choice. Once ontological
|
||
philosophy evolves in the cultures of existing spiritual animals,
|
||
rational beings will actually face this choice, and the answer will
|
||
be acted out in history, determining the future course of evolution.
|
||
But as rational beings who have traveled the path of this whole
|
||
argument, we are in a position to know that ontological reason will
|
||
see the perfect being that they can bring into existence by their
|
||
actions as worth the effort. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Reason
|
||
gives them more power than they need to pursue necessary goals, and
|
||
among the optional goals that are open to them, some will take
|
||
precedence because they contribute to the natural perfection of the
|
||
whole of which they are part. By acknowledging that it has a
|
||
religious interest, reason will change in the direction of maximum
|
||
holistic power, because when the world as a whole is naturally
|
||
perfect, as much as possible of what happens in its planetary system
|
||
will be controlled using the available free energy as efficiently as
|
||
possible. Ontological reason will, therefore, choose to pursue
|
||
religious goals. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">This choice
|
||
is similar to another stage of evolution, because an entire new range
|
||
of conditions come under the control of living organisms. In this
|
||
case, those conditions are not relevant in the sense of affecting the
|
||
reproduction of an organism with a higher level of part-whole
|
||
complexity. But the conditions that are controlled are on a higher
|
||
level of part-whole complexity than the necessary and optional goals
|
||
of rational beings, because they contribute to the natural perfection
|
||
of the world itself (that is, at the scale of its planetary system,
|
||
the part of the world it can affect). Thus, what makes it good to
|
||
pursue religious goals is the same thing that makes a higher level of
|
||
part-whole complexity in evolving organisms good: it contributes to
|
||
the natural perfection of life. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Though the
|
||
autonomy of reason makes it possible to pursue any goals that are
|
||
good, the pursuit of religious goals maximizes the holistic power of
|
||
reason, because, as we have seen, they are aimed at controlling all
|
||
those conditions that make the biggest difference in the perfection
|
||
of the world as a whole. There is no other set of goals that would
|
||
enable reason to control more of what happens in the world, and thus,
|
||
religious goals would contribute to the natural perfection of reason
|
||
itself. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_13" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="56" height="34" border="0">he
|
||
self-creation of God. </i> For rational beings to choose to pursue
|
||
religious goals, however, is for ontological reason to choose to
|
||
transform itself into God. It is the prospect of a perfect being
|
||
inspires them to make this choice, but the perfect being in prospect
|
||
comes from reason itself, and thus, it comes from reason choosing to
|
||
do what is good because it contributes to the natural perfection of
|
||
the world as a whole. But since that is to act as the perfect being
|
||
that ontological reason intends to bring into existence, God already
|
||
exists in those actions. Thus, the belief in God is a self-fulfilling
|
||
belief. God creates Himself. And God continues to create Himself in
|
||
all the actions that are done in the interest of the world itself. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Even the
|
||
immanent God in a spatiomaterial world like ours would be <i>causa
|
||
sui</i>. God would create Himself, because ontological reason makes
|
||
itself into God by acting in the name of God. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
|
||
world as a rational being.</i> To pursue religious goals is, however,
|
||
to act for the good of the world as a whole, and thus, it is for the
|
||
world itself to be a rational being. That is, ontological reason
|
||
takes up the function of being the behavior guidance system for the
|
||
world itself, and thus, it does for the world what it does for the
|
||
spiritual animal and for the individual rational subject. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
|
||
the world does not become a rational being because it is a
|
||
reproducing organism like individuals and spiritual animals, imposing
|
||
natural selection on themselves by their own reproduction. But that
|
||
is merely to say that the world does become a rational being as a
|
||
direct result of natural selection, or biological reproductive
|
||
causation. It is due, instead, to the cultural evolution of practical
|
||
arguments by rational selection. The world acquires the power of
|
||
reason to do what contributes to the natural perfection of the world
|
||
itself, because the kind of natural perfection that inevitably comes
|
||
to exist within it includes rational beings who are able to
|
||
understand how the world is whole, who recognize themselves as a
|
||
necessary consequence of its nature, and who see how and why it is
|
||
good for them to act in the interest of the world as a whole. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
|
||
world as a perfect rational being.</i> Since this outcome is
|
||
inevitable, however, the world is not only a rational being, but a
|
||
perfect rational being. The nature of a spatiomaterial world like
|
||
ours makes it inevitable that evolution will begin, because as we
|
||
have seen, the effect of the cycle of night and day on the kinds of
|
||
molecules that exist on suitable planets is the existence of
|
||
reproductive cycles, which impose natural selection on themselves.
|
||
The course of evolution is inevitable, because, as we have seen, it
|
||
involves an inevitable series of evolutionary stages, each caused by
|
||
a higher level of part-whole complexity in the evolving structures of
|
||
reproductive organisms (taken broadly to include arguments that
|
||
reproduce within spiritual animals as primary structures). We have
|
||
seen how the inevitable outcome is ontological reason, that is,
|
||
rational beings who understand how the world is whole, who recognize
|
||
themselves as the inevitable outcome of evolution, and who inevitably
|
||
choose to pursue religious goals because they see how it would make
|
||
the world itself perfect. With reason acting as a behavior guidance
|
||
system in its interest, the world is a rational being. But since it
|
||
is an inevitable consequence of the nature of a spatiomaterial world
|
||
like ours, it is an expression of the essential nature of what
|
||
exists. The nature of the world is revealed, not only in the basic
|
||
nature of what exists, the essential natures of space and matter in
|
||
time and how they exist together as a world, but also in the nature
|
||
of what inevitably comes to exist from it. Thus, it turns out that
|
||
the world itself is perfect. And since the world is inevitably a
|
||
rational being, the world is a perfect rational being.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">What we
|
||
have been calling “natural perfection” are part-whole relations
|
||
that are optimal because of the basic nature of the world, but now we
|
||
find that that nature not only sets the standard of perfection, but
|
||
also measures up to it in the most complete way. In general, the
|
||
perfect makes the most out of the least. But the standard of
|
||
perfection appropriate to nature is fixed by the second law of
|
||
thermodynamics, because that makes it possible for structural causes
|
||
to use the thermodynamic flow of potential energy towards evenly
|
||
distributed heat to make things happen that would not otherwise
|
||
happen. Judged according to this standard, part-whole relations are
|
||
optimal when structural causes are combined in such a way that they
|
||
use the available free energy as efficiently as possible to control
|
||
as much of what happens in the world as possible. That is how to make
|
||
the most out of what exists in a world constituted by space and
|
||
matter enduring through time. And now we find that the basic nature
|
||
of the world not only sets the standard of natural perfection, but
|
||
also makes it inevitable that what happens in the world eventually
|
||
measures up to that standard as completely as possible. And it is
|
||
more complete than what is possible by natural selection alone,
|
||
because it uses a behavior guidance system that guides behavior to
|
||
what is good by recognizing how and why the good is good, even when
|
||
it does not control conditions that affect its own reproduction. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>The
|
||
world as God.</i> Since the world, because of its very nature,
|
||
inevitably becomes a perfect rational being, the world itself is God.
|
||
As ontological reason acknowledges its religious interest, it takes
|
||
responsibility for the world as a whole, doing what ought to be done
|
||
because it contributes to the natural perfection of the world as a
|
||
whole. That is the work of ontological reason in the world, to act
|
||
for the good of the world itself.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Thus, it
|
||
will be possible for ontological reason to answer G. E. Moore’s
|
||
doubts about the possibility of any such naturalistic explanation of
|
||
the goodness of religious goals in the same way as it does his doubts
|
||
about the goodness of other goals. To a rational subject who
|
||
understands her nature as a rational subject and her place in the
|
||
natural world, including her identification with the world as much as
|
||
with her spiritual animal or her individual Self, it will simply does
|
||
not make sense to ask, But is contributing to the natural perfection
|
||
of the world good? She will know that it is contributing to her own
|
||
natural perfection and, thus, that it is good in the same way as her
|
||
other goals are good. Religious self interest will, therefore, take
|
||
its place, along with spiritual self interest and individual self
|
||
interest, as what determines the goals she will pursue. That is, they
|
||
all contribute to the natural perfection of reason. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The pursuit
|
||
of religious goals is also the wisdom that Socrates was seeking,
|
||
because this ontological explanation of the nature of goodness
|
||
explains why religious goals are good for the rational subject in a
|
||
way that will make him religious. The pursuit of religious goals is
|
||
good for him as a rational being, because it contributes to his own
|
||
natural perfection. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><i>A<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="OdnR_14" align="right" hspace="5" vspace="10" width="59" height="34" border="0">n
|
||
act of free will.</i> God comes into existence from an act of
|
||
self-creation, and though it is inevitable, it is an act of free
|
||
will. As we have seen, free will is autonomy, or the power that
|
||
reason gives individual subjects to do the good simply because they
|
||
know that it is good. The choice of ontological reason to pursue
|
||
religious goals is autonomous in that sense, because it comes from
|
||
the knowledge that it is good for rational beings to contribute what
|
||
only reason can contribute to the natural perfection of the world as
|
||
a whole. It is inevitable, but only because it really is good and
|
||
reason understands things so completely that it knows that it is
|
||
good. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">God’s
|
||
act of self-creation within a spatiomaterial world is free in the
|
||
same sense that Aquinas had in mind when he argued that God’s
|
||
choice to create the natural world was free. Aquinas was, of course,
|
||
talking about the traditional, transcendent God of epistemological
|
||
philosophy. But he wanted to deny that the existence of the natural
|
||
world is a necessary consequence of God’s nature, because that
|
||
would mean that it was not an act of free will. What Aquinas meant
|
||
can be expressed, I believe, by saying that God created the world
|
||
because He understood the nature of goodness. Because that
|
||
understanding enabled Him to see that it would be good to create the
|
||
world, He chose to create it because it is good. In the same sense,
|
||
it is by an act of free will that God creates Himself in a
|
||
spatiomaterial world: ontological reason understands the nature of
|
||
goodness and, by seeing that it would be good for God to exist,
|
||
chooses to create God because it is good. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">That
|
||
is also the sense in which practical reason, according to ontological
|
||
philosophy, cannot be reduced to theoretical reason. Since
|
||
ontological reason’s choice to pursue religious goals is
|
||
inevitable, the existence of God is among the necessary truths about
|
||
<i>What is </i>that reason can know by theoretical reason, that is,
|
||
in reason’s capacity as knower of the true. But that does not mean
|
||
that <i>What is </i>includes everything that holds necessarily <i>for
|
||
reason </i>because spatiomaterialism is the best ontological
|
||
explanation of the world, because <i>What is </i>is, in part, a
|
||
result of what ontological reason does. Reason creates God, that is,
|
||
transforms itself into God by acknowledging that is has a religious
|
||
self interest, as well as a spiritual and individual self interest.
|
||
<i>Doing</i> cannot, therefore, be eliminated in favor of <i>knowing</i>.
|
||
It is a product of ontological reason in its practical capacity.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">In
|
||
explaining what happens before the evolution of ontological
|
||
philosophy, reason can be treated like any other evolving structure.
|
||
But when ontological philosophy evolves, that explanation becomes
|
||
part of what is evolving, and as ontological reason, it is the agent
|
||
whose practical reasoning brings about the subsequent course of
|
||
evolution. Ontological reason cannot sit back and simply contemplate
|
||
the existence of God, because the coming into existence of a perfect
|
||
rational being is the <i>doing </i>of reason. And it does what it
|
||
does, not because it recognizes its inevitability, but because what
|
||
it does is guided by <i>What ought to be. </i>In the end, therefore,
|
||
“ought” implies “is.”</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To be sure,
|
||
the content of practical reason, including all the goals that ought
|
||
to be pursued, coincides, in part, with the content of theoretical
|
||
reason. Its necessary truths about <i>What is </i>include what reason
|
||
does inevitably in the world. But the diagram of the whole argument
|
||
of ontological philosophy does not misrepresent what holds
|
||
necessarily for reason by separating the conclusion about <i>What
|
||
ought to be </i>from the conclusions about <i>What is</i>, because
|
||
<i>for reason</i>, there is a difference between <i>knowing </i>and
|
||
<i>doing</i>. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The
|
||
difference between theoretical and practical reason is nearly as
|
||
basic to reason as the difference between the ontological foundation
|
||
and the necessary truths that follow from it, which is represented in
|
||
a similarly fundamental way in the diagram of the whole argument. In
|
||
that case too, the content of necessary truths coincides with part of
|
||
the content of the ontological foundation, because the necessary
|
||
truths, being truths that follow from it, are implicit in it. But the
|
||
distinction is important <i>for reason</i>, because there is a
|
||
difference between what reason knows about the world empirically (by
|
||
an inference to the best ontological explanation of the world) and
|
||
what reason knows about the world prior to discovering what happens
|
||
in the world by experience. If there were no difference between
|
||
ontologically necessary truths (including conditionally ontologically
|
||
necessary truths) and ordinary empirical knowledge, ontology would
|
||
not be a new way of doing philosophy.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">God
|
||
is known first of all, therefore, as an intention of practical
|
||
reason, as the goal of ontological reason’s own plan of individual
|
||
and social level behavior in the world. That is the sense in which
|
||
practical reason is not reducible to theoretical reason. The creation
|
||
of God is the work of ontological reason in the world.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
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