0014 For example, a number of ladies in the community, noting that berries are in season, set out to collect several baskets. They perform the rituals of gathering to ensure success. Then they set out, chattering, as always. During the harvest, one mother is bit by a spider that no one can identify. After hastily returning, they bring the spider’s remains to the shaman.
The shaman is concerned. He makes a paste to put over the bite. The next morning, the woman is dead and the berries, left overnight in the baskets, are mysteriously rotted.
0016 To me, Singh’s three cultural selection schemas for malevolent magic recapitulate the scaffolding below them. Evilis a privation of good.
0017 Malevolent magic is like a figure in a mirror. It is not the good that stands before the mirror. Instead, it is a purely relational being that recapitulates the figure that stands before it. Something is wrong. Something is missing. There is nothing behind the surface of the mirror, even though the reflected image seems real. The reflected image seems to stand behind the surface of the mirror as if occupying space in a real world.
Can anyone see what is behind a mirror?
0018 Perhaps, this explains why Singh cannot see the magic of everyday life that both underlies and supports his expert statistical analysis. He cannot see through the glass upon which he stands. He looks down and sees the world above him, full of witches and sorcerers, instigators of mystical harm.
0019 Razie Mah’s comments associate features of Singh’s essay to elements in a category-based nested form. Singh’s argument retains its integrity, even as his vision is transubstantiated from a reflection into a real anthropological subject of interest. What is the nature of magic? Does magic touch base with the presence underlying the word, “religion”?
0020 Anthropologists take note.
Print out copies of Manvir Singh’s publication in Current Anthropology and Razie Mah’s Comments on Manvir Singh’s Essay (2021) “Magic, Evil and Explanations”.
Present the pair to a few graduate students, asking, “Which is real and which is fake?”
Is Anthropology a science? Or is it a discipline of interpretations?
0001 Is the current scientific consensus on human origins at odds with core theological doctrines at the heart of the evangelical faith?
You bet it is.
0002 Well, is this a blessing in disguise?
It may well be.
How so?
0003 When science clashes with key theological doctrines, such as Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, Christians may need to strive for better theological essentials.
0004 Does the same apply to science?
Can I say, “When the theological doctrine of original sin pushes back against our current consensus on the evolutionary sciences, researchers may need to search for better scientific essentials.”?
0005 On December 11, 2019, Jeff Hardin, member of the Department of Integrative Biology at UW-Madison, publishes his essay, Biology and Theological Anthropology: Friend or Foe?, on the Biologos website.
In the introduction, he joins British neuroscientist, Donald McKay, in asking (more or less), “Does God give us Darwin, Mendel and Rawlinson in order to achieve a less improper interpretation of His Word?”
0006 At the same time, one cannot ignore a reflection.
Does God give us the Bible in order to achieve a less improper interpretation of human natural history, genetics and Near Eastern Literature?
0007 Jeff Hardin, unlike most writers on this confounding topic, does not hide the question in the mirror.
0008 In order to appreciate how science and metaphysics mirror one another, I turn to Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy (available at the smashwords website under the Empirio-schematic series).
Science is successfully born at the start of the modern age, with the formulation of the Positivist’s judgment.
What is a judgment?
A judgment is a relation between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’. When the elements are assigned to Peirce’s categories, the judgment becomes actionable. Actionable judgments unfold into category-based nested forms.
0009 Here is a diagram of the Positivist’s judgment.
0010 The positivist intellect, the relation, insists on a rule: No metaphysics. Surely, this is one reason why scientific inquiry into human evolution grates against theological anthropology.
What ought to be is an empirio-schematic judgment.
Disciplinary language (relation) brings observations and measurements (what is) into relation with mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be).
0011 What is what is?
What is has the structure of Peirce’s secondness. The category of secondness is the realm of actuality. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.
Here, the two real elements, a noumenon and its phenomena, belong to firstness, the realm of potential. The noumenon, the thing itself, has the potential of capturing the attention of the positivist intellect. Itsphenomena, observable and measurable facets of the thing, have the potential of activating an empirio-schematic judgment.
The contiguity is most curious. I place the contiguity in brackets. A noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.
0012 Centuries ago, the scholastic hylomorphe, matter [substantiates] form, occupies the slot of what is for a rational intellect.
The positivist rule dissolves this hylomorphe and precipitates another dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.
The noumenon is the thing itself.
Phenomena are observable and measurable facets of the noumenon.
The original hylomorphe gets shuffled into the noumenon.
Why?
The positivist intellect has a rule.
0013 Here is a picture.
0014 I ask, “What is it to be a human being?”
Obviously, the relevant answer points to the noumenon.
So, I should look to metaphysics.
0015 But, the positivist intellect says, “No metaphysics is allowed.”
Scientists are only interested in the observable and measurable facets of matter [substantiates] form, as well as of body [substantiates] soul. They are not concerned about the noumenon. Their observations may be mechanically modeled. Their measurements may be mathematically construed. Their models rely on the lingo of specialized disciplines.
Scientists engage in empirio-schematic judgments, the what ought to be of the Positivist’s judgment.
0016 Okay, if this makes sense, then the dyad, expressing what is for the Positivist judgment, provides a way to appreciate the mirroring of the question raised by Jeff Hardin.
0017 The distinction between a noumenon and its phenomena is valuable because it allows scientists to study phenomena, while ignoring the metaphysics associated with their noumenon.
So, while many inquirers ask noumenal questions, “Where did we humans come from? What went wrong? What is the cure?”, the scientific answers are based on clues concerning what would be the observable and measurable facets of hominin evolution as witnessed by a disinterested observer.
0018 Here is an association between modern versions of theological & biological anthropology and what is for the Positivist’s judgment.
0019 What do scientists look for?
Evolutionary scientists look for clues. Then, they analyze those clues with specific models built by empirical scientists and geneticists. The clues turn into observable and measurable features of the evolutionary record that may be then analyzed according to models proposed by biologists and natural historians. The result is a narrative of hominin evolution.
The evolutionary record is a product of scientific inquiry. It is expressed as a narrative.
0020 This conclusion is implicit in Hardin’s treatment of human natural history. He presents a narrative.
What does this imply?
Human evolutionary sciences are forensic sciences. They rely on theories by the empirical and natural sciences. They are devoted to producing a narrative describingwhat happened, in accordance with the positivist rule.
0021 The empirical sciences have it easy. They assume that the subject of inquiry is real, because they encounter the things themselves.
Empiricists know that the thing itself cannot be reduced to its observable and measurable facets.
0022 The forensic scientists have a more difficult time. They assume that the subject of inquiry ought to be real, but the thing itself is no longer present. They must construct a narrative about what the subject of inquirymust have been, as if it could be observed by a disinterested observer. Clues are studied in order to ascertain the phenomena that would have been observed. Then, these forensic-built phenomena are subject to an empirio-schematic judgment.
Hardin addresses this construction in a section on science and human origins.
0023 The rational mind must wonder, “Is human evolution nothing more than a narrative that scientists build from phenomena rigorously constructed from various clues?”
If that is true, then the noumenon of human evolution can be objectified by its phenomena, violating the structure of the Positivist’s what is.
0024 Is this rather disorienting?
Obviously, we cannot appreciate human evolution as a noumenon, because the thing itself is no longer present for direct examination.
So, the evolutionary sciences formulate what the phenomena of human evolution must be.
They end up providing a narrative.
Yet, this scientific narrative cannot give us an appreciation of what it is to be an evolved human, even though our sense of what is it to be human evolved.
0025 Even worse, what if humans evolved to pay attention to noumena?
Such a proposal explains why classicists and believers come up with hylomorphic descriptions of things and people in the first place.
Such a proposal accounts for why a narrative is relevant.
0026 The unsettling end to the prior blog shows where Jeff Hardin’s discussion can go.
Hardin poses one question. A second question mirrors the first. The transit from one question to the other turns everything backwards. One question reflects phenomena onto their noumenon. The other reflects a noumenon onto its phenomena.
Scientists study phenomena. Their data makes sleepiness great.
Humans pay attention to noumena. Our attentiveness is likely innate.
0027 We want to hear a narrative about the thing itself. Forget about the empirio-schematic judgments about its phenomena.
Evolution, as a forensic science, offers a data-driven narrative. But, it’s really a projection of models onto the thing itself. So, the story from phenomena inherently violates the dyad of what is in the Positivist’s judgment.
So, it will never satisfy. It will never offer me a way to appreciate who I am.
0028 I am a tarnished image of God.
The Bible offers a narrative, which many call “special revelation”. Special revelation captures our attention. Reading the words bring us into awareness of the thing itself.
0029 Hardin offers the following picture.
Hardin argues that the narratives of the evolutionary sciences provide constraints on interpretations of what it is to be human from Genesis.
0030 The following is a particularly important application.
0031 In the next blog, I will look at the same argument in the mirror within the heart of Hardin’s essay.
0059 Our current world is fallen, yet civilization constantly rises from the ashes of prior self-destructions.
The Bible depicts a cycle of formation, deformation, and reformation.
A new approach to the psychological and the social sciences ought to move in tandem with Biblical interpretation.
0060 Some evolutionary psychologists already stumble in this direction.
For example, today, people are fat, lazy and addicted to sugar.
Is the problem that our ancestors adapt to a world filled with fat-burning, strenuous and sugar-demanding activities?
No, with the benefits of civilization, the pressure is off. We can afford to slow down, take rests and eat desserts. The problem is our current Lebenswelt.
0061 When anyone asks me what I’m doing, I say, “I’m working.”
But, I’m really eating candy.
Yes, I project meaning, presence and message into the word, “work”.
And, my projection is paying off.
My own spoken words create an artifact that justifies my sloth, plus a little extra.
Fat, that is.
0062 Spoken words stimulate the production of artifacts that appear to validate the meaning, presence and message of spoken words.
Doesn’t that sound scientific?
The motif is so versatile.
Augustine proposes that the disorder caused by Adam’s rebellion resides in our privy parts.
Surely, he is on track.
What better incentive to manipulate meaning, presence and message, than to generate artifacts in the service of one’s privy parts?
The current Zeitgeist says, “It’s only natural.”
Augustine’s concept of concupiscence sounds like an orientation that postmoderns want to speak about… er… manage.
0063 What about the disciplines of modern psychology and sociology?
Do they labor as word-smiths, hammering out the spoken words that will address the tsunami of concupiscence-related disorders that currently plague modern society, or do they construct spoken words that thwart an evangelical’s desire to hear a sermon on Original Sin?
After all, lectures on concupiscence are not justified in a Zeitgeist where concupiscence is labeled “natural”.
0064 Surely, secular experts justify various features of our current Zeitgeist… er… regime, just like they previously (and maybe still do) labored to account for various flavors of mercantilism, various strains of fascism, and various manifestations of communism.
These ideologies all build on foundations of spoken words, specialized disciplinary languages fashioned by academically certified agents.
0065 Spoken words can (somehow) create the artifacts that validate spoken words.
The best way to make that happen is with sovereign power.
Spoken words can generate the righteousness underlying an organizational objective that will allow me (and my fellow travelers) to demand sovereign action. Then, the state implements my organizational objective, thereby validating the righteousness that my spoken words advocated.
Try to get around that.
0066 An example?
May I call the current regime: “big government (il)liberalism”?
Some would call it, “the administrative state”.
Big government (il)liberalism is the latest sovereign solution to the nasty consequences of an enlightened disposition, declaring, “Concupiscence is okay, because it is natural.”
“Tolerance” is key.
Big government experts must be tolerant in order to better manage the citizen’s natural proclivities.
0067 So, the word, “liberal” has been perverted from a focus on freedom and responsibility to a fixation on nonjudgment.
The prefix, (il), celebrates this inversion, because managing citizens is the negation of serving them.
0068 Isn’t that what the word, “government”, ought to mean?
If the citizens are going to do what’s natural, then someone must clean up the mess. What does that mean? Someone must control the citizens, in order to ameliorate the mess that they would produce, if left to their own natures.
Er… not someone, something. Something big.
0069 In a world where government is omnipresent, the message comes across loud and clear.
Look at your television and listen to the talking heads.
0070 Our current Lebenswelt is filled with word games.
The same types of word games are recorded in the Bible.
The Bible offers a testimony to the formation, deformation and reformation of the word, “covenant”.
0071 Where, in modern inquiry into psyche and organization, do we see the word, “covenant”?
Is the term, “social contract”, the same?
Oh, the term, “social contract”, is not religious.
The term, “covenant”, sounds more religious.
What is a word game?
0072 A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion”, available at the smashwords website, concerns our current Lebenswelt.
The modern disciplines of psychology and sociology claim to be “not religious”.
Indeed, they purport to scientifically investigate religion, even though they are religions.
Say what?
It all depends on how one defines the word, “religion”.
0073 A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” offers category-based tools for appreciating the nature of our current Lebenswelt. The term, “religion”, is grounded in the potential of meaning, presence and message. Meaning involves social construction. Presence requires a three-tiered model of our differentiated world. Message entails an actuality filled with unresolvable contradictions.
This course fleshes out a scientific anthropology that moves with theological anthropology, without violating what is in the Positivist’s judgment.
