Summary of text [comment] page 45

I continue with page 45, where Schoonenberg accepted that “evil is a statistical necessity” for God’s creation and wondered whether it applies to the realm of freedom and morality, that is, to us.

[Perhaps I should summarize.

Failure of configurations and types is intrinsic to a spontaneous order.  Failure occurs.  Actuality slips back into the realm of possibility.  Spontaneous orders are amazing anti-entropic processes that are apparently (to us) full of design, implying instrumental causes and formal elements.

We evolved to see the instrumental and formal features that typify a designed order.  When we look at the spontaneous orders of the biological world, we intuitively see instrumental and final elements and, correspondingly, also see metaphysical and physical (that is, “natural”) evil.]

[Of course, humans have been intervening in natural systems and driving them out of whack since the start of civilization, even before.  However, unlike today, there was no pretense of scientific knowledge.

Oh, I have a good idea for restoring all the Earth’s ecologies to their former beauty.  Eradicate humanity.  OK, I am not the first to think of it.  Also, I do not hold the Sovereign Power to accomplish the task.

However, I want to point out one possible weakness of this organizational mandate.

Civilized humanity may be that the reason that the Earth is not a giant snowball at this very moment.  Why has the planet not returned to the Ice Age as one would expect from the geological data?  According to the cycles of the past 2 million years, glaciation should be going full tilt.

The answer is simple.  Heat is retained through the absorption of outward bound infrared radiation by an atmosphere enriched in biomolecules from anthropogenic sources.

Gaia may prefer our interference.]

[We do not see evil when we intervene in a natural system in order to save something.  This completely amazes me because interventions intended to “preserve a particular feature of a spontaneous order” only causes the spontaneous order to adapt as if it had less energy going through the system. Or, the system faces greater entropy.

Here, the ongoing rejection of the concept of “design” by secular fundamentalists (who ridicule William Paley and the proponents of Intelligent Design equally) produces an ironic situation.  The unconscious denial that “the environmentalist projects design into nature’s spontaneous order” blinds the environmental engineer to the potential of negative dynamic adaptive response to ‘his’ intervention by the spontaneous order.

In sum, the environmentalist sees design in nature, refuses to admit that ‘he’ sees designs, constructs an intervention, then is surprised at the unintended consequences, but accounts ‘himself’ blameless.]

Summary of text [comment] page 45

[The spontaneous order of nature is smarter than we are.

We see design in nature because such intuition increased our reproductive success; that is, our chances of survival.

Consequently, we habitually behave according to our vision and think to ourselves:  Of course, this is the way it all must be.  We can see the designs.  We see some aspect of the natural world apparently failing, and focus on that problem without realizing that the Hippocratic oath might apply: First of all, do no harm.]

[Humans evolved to see designed order.  We perceive spontaneous orders “as if they were designed”.   We intuitively see instrumental causes and formal elements in nature as well as culture.

If you think about it, the act of “seeing design” gives us the illusion that we are observers of some subject, rather than subjects in some objective situation.  In terms of the nested form, “design” puts the situation of “us seeing” into context – and – “us seeing” situates “what we observe, that is, the subject”:

Design₃( us seeing₂( what we observe₁))

Instrumental causes & formal elements₃( us observing₂( the subject₁))

We innately view our world through the lens of design.  When we observe any actuality that slips back into the realm of possibility, we see failure.  We call these failures “evil”.

We look at the spontaneous orders of biology and observe metaphysical (failure based on limitations) and physical (challenges that lead to failure) evil.

Here “evil”, like the word “sin”, has the connotation of “missing the mark (that is, failing with respect to the point of the design)”.]

Summary of text [comment] page 45

[So why call failures in a spontaneous order “evil”?

What is evil about a system that comes into being on the basis of trying out combinations based on simple rules?

Each combination – configuration – is a formal trial within the order.  The longevity of any particular combination rests on instrumental causes and formal elements as well as the challenges that arise from the creature’s situation.

The failure of any type of configuration registers as a limitation, a failure of a formal element. Each success registers as a success of a formal element.

Every spontaneous order is anti-entropic.  It requires the expenditure of more energy than is retained by the system.  Every spontaneous order adapts to its circumstances more readily that any designed order.  Every spontaneous order accepts failure as part of itself….

…which is precisely what we do not do.  We do not accept “failure”.  We designate it as “evil”.  Why?]

[In each one of us, God designed “something that could be better” and “something that has worked before and will keep on working”, that is: virtue and freedom.

Animals never worry about these issues.  They do not know any better.  They simply participate in a spontaneous order and do not worry about it.   Doesn’t that sound like a parable?]

Summary of text [comment] page 45

[We are preserved, somehow, by the element that draws God to create each one of us: love.

God will judge, savor and love me in my exercise of freedom.  That exercise starts once I stop worrying about my continued existence, that is, my preservation.  That exercise starts the moment I take up my cross; that is, become responsible.]

Summary of text [comment] page 45

[At this point, we have encountered three resonant movements in widely separated passages: the cessation of God Recognizing Himself, the death of the spontaneous order in which we are embedded, and the eclipse of think^divine.

The movements all describe horrific evil, where actuality₂ ceases to emerge from the realm of possibility₁.  All describe a supernatural evil beyond the goods and evils of nature.  All describe the ultimate limitation.

Attaching this afterthought to the end of the Lord’s Prayer makes the prayer a work of monstrous, sublime beauty.  The poetic light of de Chardin pales in comparison to the theatrical fireworks of the Lord’s Prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts.  Let us forgive the debts of others.  Um … what else? … oh, I know:

Deliver us from the cessation of You Recognizing Yourself, the complete annihilation of my society, and the total and utter loss of sanity.]

Summary of text [comment] page 45

[God will not even allow us this assurance, in the present, after the Fall.]