A Stupid Way to Kill Timelessness

I just reread an obscure critique of Darwinism from decades ago, called Providence Lost. The arguments still hold up because they will always hold up. Indeed, the only way for the naive believer in reductive Darwinism to deal with these objections is via a naive belief in reductive Darwinism, i.e., sola fide. This refusal to engage is 

indicative of a strong will to believe "in" a theory that chimes in so beautifully with the prevailing irrationalistic philosophies of our time.

In other words, it helps them to believe what they already want to believe, so they are in the domain of will and desire, not of truth. 

The arguments alluded to above will always hold up because they have to do with logical principles that are the very basis of thought and reality -- including the possibility of science -- and which no theory can contravene without self-refutation and soph-beclowning. 

For example, lately we've been discussing teleology, which scientism prohibits a place at the adult table. Ironically, this banishment has a purpose of its own, which is to safeguard materialism and prevent religion -- or just commonsense immaterialism-- from gaining a foothold. In other words, obvious truths must be rejected if they provide intellectual ammunition to the enemy. Nevertheless, 

It appears incongruous for a purposive and thinking being to be dependent on the non-purposive and non-rational.   

To say that rationality is grounded in the infrarational is an offense to our rationality. How does a subhuman cause produce a supra-human effect? Because that is what Darwinism is: a transcendent (and therefore suprahuman) explanation of man's origins. But if it is true it is false, because we obviously transcend the constraints implied by the explanation. In short, we escape the closed system of bottom-up and past-to-future genetic determinism.

Did human rationality evolve? I don't see how. Take, for example, the very basis of rationality, the principle of non-contradiction. Was there a time when this was a little bit true, or a hybrid of half-true and half-false? Was the Pythagorean Theorem discovered a little bit at a time, or is it seen at once in a flash of insight? 

To the extent that we evolved, we evolved into a transcendent space that was -- and in many cases still is -- awaiting us, a land of timeless truth, beauty, and value. It is from here that we can make timeless pronouncements on the nature of things. If we can know only timebound truths, then there goes Darwinism itself, because surely we will evolve beyond it, or will evolve a superior explanation for our origins. 

If you can believe that all the biological diversity and creativity in this world are due to random copying errors -- most of which are detrimental to the organism -- then what can't you believe? There is only one thing you cannot believe: that belief in genetic determinism itself is determined. That is the One Free Miracle Darwinism grants itself. 

Here's something from last summer that anticipates where we're going with this:

The doctrines that explain the higher by means of the lower are appendices of a magician's rule book. 

As we've been saying, some things are irreducible to anything less, e.g., consciousness, experience, interiority, and free will, but this hardly stops some thinkers from trying. 

Hart spends a lot of time arguing with these folks, but the arguments can have no traction in the face of an absolute faith-based commitment to reductionism and to a causally closed physical universe. 

I'm also reading a book by Schuon which is about a quarter of the length of All Things Are Full of Gods. One reason for the comparative brevity is that Schuon can't be bothered to argue with these metaphysical yahoos and their "pseudo-mythologies." Rather, he

distills the quintessence of traditional wisdom without paying sustained attention to all those false and fraudulent philosophies that might hitherto have occluded our view.

Schuon's approach here is more "like that of the poet: to find simple, direct, and resonant statements" of the unchanging truths, recalling what we said the other day about "precision poetry."

Speaking of a reductively closed universe, Schuon makes precisely the opposite point but doesn't deign to try to persuade the unpersuadable: 

To say that man is endowed with a sensibility capable of objectivity means he possesses a subjectivity not closed in on itself, but open to others and unto Heaven.

Boom. This goes to the conclusion of yesterday's post. As the Aphorist says,

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will.

So, if I'm wrong about the existence of free will, it only proves I am right, and it's an open cosmos after all, in which freedom cannot be reduced to anything less. 

In the same essay Schuon puts it out there that

An incontrovertible proof of God is that the human spirit is capable of objectivity and transcendence, transcendence being the sufficient reason of objectivity.

One can try to eliminate transcendence and reduce it to immanence, but out goes man (and his pseudo-explanation):

Without objectivity and transcendence there cannot be man, there is only the human animal; to find man, one must aspire to God. 

There is an outward man and an inward man, corresponding to horizontal and vertical (or immanence and transcendence) respectively, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it except to accept this truth, regardless of how pleasant.

Back to Hart, those committed to reductionism "speak as if, in principle, all events at higher levels of physical organization must be reducible without remainder to lower" causes. It's just "a preposterous presumption and nothing more," and not even an interesting one. Unless maybe you're on the spectrum. Which is no joke, for a person can only believe what he is capable of believing. 

Hart claims that there exists a "basic, original, natural intentionality of the mind toward" a "transcendent end that makes all other mental actions possible." He also speaks of "that constant natural orientation of the will toward its transcendent horizon," which is certainly consistent with Raccoon orthodoxy. 

The "inner man" alluded to above is ordered to this transcendent (or vertical) horizon, and this is precisely where all the cosmic action takes place. Again, to eliminate it is to eliminate man and make straight the path for the human animal.

I'm tempted to bring in Voegelin for back-up, as he talks about the paradoxical structure of "intentionality and luminosity," and of how language participates in this paradox by illuminating the in-between.  

Lots more arguing back and forth in the next chapter, but as the Aphorist says,

The philosopher who adopts scientific notions has predetermined his conclusions.

So, 

Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time.

Gemini? I suspect this one will trigger you a little:

The text is highly polemical and assertive. The author uses strong language ("naive believer," "soph-beclowning," "preposterous presumption," "metaphysical yahoos," "not a damn thing we can do about it," "stupid way to kill time"). There's a clear sense of conviction and a willingness to dismiss opposing viewpoints as intellectually deficient or ideologically motivated.

It's a philosophical and theological critique disguised as a commentary on a book. While it mentions Darwinism, the arguments quickly ascend to discussions of fundamental reality, logic, consciousness, and the nature of being.

The writing is dense and assumes a reader familiar with philosophical concepts (teleology, immanence/transcendence, principle of non-contradiction, sola fide). It also uses rhetorical questions to challenge the reader's assumptions.

In essence, the text is a defense of an a priori belief in transcendent realities against what the author perceives as the intellectually and spiritually limiting doctrines of reductive materialism, particularly as exemplified by Darwinism. It suggests that a commitment to a "closed physical universe" prevents engagement with evident truths that point beyond the material.