Minding Creation

Joanna Leidenhag

• Editore: T&T Clark
• Anno: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780567696243
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Theology & Religion
• Categoria: Christian Theology

Are humans the only creatures that can appreciate God's creation? What if consciousness is spread more widely across all things? This volume examines panpsychism through the lens of Christian doctrine. Minding Creation is the first substantial examination of what a panpsychist theory of consciousness implies for key theological debates concerning God's presence and action, evolution and the origin of the soul, human uniqueness and the environmental crisis. Joanna Leidenhag develops a theological panpsychism that is based on an exceptionally wide range of scholarship. Minding Creation draws on the theologies of historical figures such as Augustine of Hippo, Gottfried von Leibniz and others, in order to create a critical and constructive conversation with contemporary analytic philosophers of mind, such as Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, and David J. Chalmers. Leidenhag also discusses key concepts and issues, such as emergence theory, divine action, and ecology. She concludes that God created a universe from nothing which is filled with indwelling powers, sacramental value, and intrinsic experience. This is a creation in which the Holy Spirit is internally present at every point, a creation that worships God, and a creation that human beings must protect and lead in praise.

Chapter 1

Taking leave of emergence theory

Emergence theory is a philosophical framework that has been enthusiastically embraced by many Christian theologians, particularly those working at the intersection of science and religion. Although the general language of emergence is almost universal, what I refer to as ‘emergence theology’ (or the ‘emergence theologians’ who construct this theology) is the thorough and intentional employment of the theory of emergence from the natural sciences and from philosophy of mind to explicate core tenets of Christian theology.¹ Emergence theologians hail from a variety of denominations and countries, and include figures such as Philip Clayton, Arthur Peacocke, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Nancey Murphy, Denis Edwards, Elizabeth Johnson and Amos Yong. The current popularity of emergence theory among theologians means that before panpsychism can be properly explored in subsequent chapters, reasons for rejecting emergence theory need to be given.

The appeal of emergence theory for theologians is the promise of a scientifically aware view of God and creation, which on the one hand denies supernatural interventionism and anthropological dualism and on the other hand avoids physicalism and reductionism.² In contrast to reductionism, where reality is nothing but the determination of microphysical parts, emergence theory argues that reality includes ‘something more from nothing but’.³ For theologians seeking to articulate their faith in dialogue with natural science, the appeal of emergence theory is clear and compelling: Emergence theory offers a framework for articulating an anti-reductionist evolutionary theism that places humanity, divine action and even the incarnation of Jesus Christ in congruity with the evolutionary story. Emergent accounts of divine action are seen to be profitable because they depict a God who works with nature and does not suspend natural processes or violate the law of energy conservation in bestowing humanity with mental and spiritual capacities.⁴ Thus, for many contemporary theologians the philosophical framework of emergence theory is seen as the essential link or the bridge for increased dialogue between the natural and theological sciences.

Despite its current popularity across academia, emergence theory is widely acknowledged to nevertheless contain several philosophical conundrums and scientific ambiguities. What has not been so widely recognized is that emergence theologies also contain a unique set of troublesome tendencies. After exploring the central claims and limitations of emergence theory within the natural sciences and philosophy of mind, this chapter argues that when emergence is accepted as the conceptual scaffolding for Christian theology, then there is a significant and undesirable theological slant given to, in particular, the doctrine of God. It is argued that emergence theologies struggle to resist the logical consequence of emergent theism, which makes God in some way emergent from the complexity of the natural world. If divinity is defined within the framework of emergence, then God cannot be the transcendent Creator of this natural process.

But can emergence theory be employed by Christian theologians in a more constrained way, limited, for instance, to theological anthropology? A constrained employment of emergence theory as an articulation of the origin of the animal soul inherits some of the philosophical conundrums of emergence theory, but largely avoids the theological problems discussed in the latter part of this chapter. A dualistic and restricted employment of emergence thus remains one possible option within theological anthropology, and there are notable examples of this approach.⁵ Yet, these restricted uses of emergence theory cut against the global and interdisciplinary logic of emergentism. In order to provide maximum interdisciplinary revenue emergence theory is often taken as an overarching framework that not only redefines articulations of creation (including humanity) but also articulations of God. Moreover, as a theory that presents the immaterial as secondary to and dependent upon the material, even limited employments of emergence present some, hitherto unrecognized, challenges to traditional Christian theology. This conclusion should leave theologians wondering if there is not perhaps a better metaphysical theory available, a more suitable theory of consciousness with which Christian theology might partner.

This chapter will proceed by examining more closely what the claims of emergence theory are within different academic disciplines, including various fields within the natural sciences, within philosophy of mind and finally within theology. First, I provide a brief and general introduction to emergence theory. Second, I argue that theologians should be aware of the wide variety of emergence theories employed within the natural sciences, many of which are compatible with reductionism. Third, this is seen to be different again from emergence theory within philosophy of mind. The strong type of emergence that theologians most frequently employ is a highly critiqued concept within philosophy of mind. Emergence theory does not, at present, appear a secure foundation for Christian theology to build upon. Thereafter, this chapter examines the problematic hue with which emergence theory colours Christian theology through a Trinitarian structure by analysing the impact of emergence theory on the doctrine of God (the Father), the incarnation (the Son) and divine action (the Holy Spirit). The conclusion of this chapter is that the cost that emergence theory exacts must be carefully counted before one chooses emergence theory as the philosophical framework for articulating one’s theology. In light of the concerns presented in this chapter, it seems prudent to consider what alternative philosophies might serve contemporary Christian theology better. Taking its cue from notable philosophers dissatisfied with emergence theory, Chapter 2 evaluates the recent revival of panpsychism within analytic philosophy of mind.

What is emergence theory?

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), when examining the composite nature of table salt from two toxic substances, reaffirmed the Aristotelian principle that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.⁶ Influenced by Mill, George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) distinguished between resultants, as additions of things, and emergents, which he described as ‘a new qualitative class of phenomena’ which ‘cannot be reduced to the sum of their difference’.⁷ This idea was developed further by the British emergentists in the 1920s, most notably Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan and C. D. Broad. They articulated emergence as a naturalistic meta-theory, which applied across disciplines on a cosmic scale and affected physical, mental and cultural spheres. The interdisciplinary aim of emergence theory is clear from the foundation of this movement; all levels of reality and all the academic disciplines that concern these different levels are drawn together under the one meta-theory of emergence. One might call this emergentism. The naturalistic component of emergence theory, although parsed out in different ways by Alexander, Morgan and Broad, is important. All three of the British emergentists employed emergence theory to remove the need to invoke any mystical or supernatural agencies, which only some academic disciplines can claim to have knowledge of (most notably, theology), since this presents a barrier to interdisciplinary dialogue and thus cuts against the central purpose of emergentism.

Emergence theory states that reality is fundamentally layered into ‘hierarchical divisions of stuff … organized by part-whole relations, in which wholes at one level function as parts at the next (and at all higher) levels’.⁸ These wholes are often metaphorically referred to as ‘higher levels’ and their constituent parts, or base substrates, are ‘lower levels’. Higher levels are not only conglomerates of lower levels, but as a result of the increase in complexity of the physical parts, new properties are said to emerge. This emergence of genuinely novel properties, from which emergence theory derives its name, means that higher-level phenomena are not merely quantitatively different to their lower-level substrates, but that there are qualitative differences between levels as well. The qualitative difference and novelty between levels is defended by the claim that emergent properties are unpredictable and irreducible from the parts at the lower levels.

The claim that the emergence of higher-level properties cannot be predicted is an epistemological claim regarding the limits of human knowledge. Since it remains possible that the ontological reality is in fact reducible, this epistemological form of emergence is known as ‘weak eme...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Taking leave of emergence theory
• Chapter 2 Welcoming contemporary panpsychism
• Chapter 3 An interlude on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
• Chapter 4 Indwelling creation: Panpsychism and divine action
• Chapter 5 The voices of creation: Panpsychism and ecology
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright Page