Contingent Divinity: The Golden Calf of the Universe
Author’s note: The following is excerpted from the forthcoming book, Invoking the Beyond, which I am co-authoring with Paul David Collins.
In Romans 1:25, St. Paul pens the following comments concerning the practices of idolaters: “They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” St. Paul’s identification of the “creature” as the idolater’s surrogate for God elucidates a parallel between the ancient world and modernity. To understand this parallel, one must first examine the etymology of the term “creature.” “Creature” is derived from the Latin word creāre, which means “created thing.” The material cosmos qualifies as a “created thing” and, within the dominant cultural milieu of modernity, it is the material cosmos that tends to occupy the lofty status of divine. Today, the idolatry of the ancient world is expressed through the Weltanschauung of naturalism and enjoys pseudo-scientific sanctions with evolutionary theory.
Naturalism holds that nature brought itself into being without a Creator and continues to arrange itself through purely organic processes. Of course, structure and organization imply design, which, in turn, implies a Designer. Since the naturalist views nature as the originator of its own structure and organization, he or she is tacitly deeming nature a de facto designer. Essentially, the material world is hypostatized. Within the context of this discussion, the term “hypostasis” is being invoked to denote a fundamental, self-sufficient rational entity upon which all else is contingent. Ironically, those who advance the hypostatic depiction of the universe typically contend that their immanent surrogate for the Divine is anhypostatic. Yet, given the irreducibly teleological nature of their cosmology, such an anhypostatic characterization of the universe is not logically sustainable. Invariably, the elevation of the sensate cosmos to the status of the Divine results in the hypostatizing of the contingent universe, a reality tacitly underscored by the anthropomorphic terminology that scientific materialists tend to invoke in discussions concerning the material world. This hypostatic depiction of the universe provides the basis for the virtual apotheosis of material agencies and the enshrinement of immanentism.
Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov identified two core commonalities shared by materialism and immanentism. These are “the rejection of a transcendent God and of ‘contact with other worlds’” (Valliere 185). In the absence of a transcendent God and another world, the hypostatic view of material agencies gains the semblance of sense and human reason can be elevated to the status of divine revelatory agency. The denial of contact with a world beyond this one provides the basis for the Enlightenment’s self-sufficient portrayal of nature, which is supposedly explained through an incoherent narrative involving an infinite regress of contingent agencies imbued with the causative powers of the Divine. In turn, the denial of a transcendent God provides the basis for the Enlightenment’s apotheosized portrayal of reason, which supposedly uses the hermeneutical keys of fetishized science and logic to decipher the sublime mysteries of the inexplicably eternal universe. Conrad Goeringer articulates the Enlightenment’s symbiotic portrayal of reason and nature:
Reason, then, was the faculty for comprehending nature, the second important element in the Enlightenment triad. Nature was just that – the natural, real world. It was not the realm of the supernatural, the demonic, or the godly, but the empirical or rational “stuff” of which the universe was, and is, made. Nature could be understood through reason; through logic, scientific inquiry, and open mind of free inquiry, nature would yield her secrets. (“The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and the Illuminati”)These elements–a self-creating, self-sustaining natural world and an apotheosized human cognitive faculty–comprise an anti-metaphysical view of the universe that echoes the schools of occultism that populated antiquity, particularly the ancient Mystery religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia. All the elements are in place for the transplantation of divinity within the ontological confines of the physical universe, an interpretation of God that pervades pantheism, immanentism, and even naturalism. In fact, Perennial Traditionalist Rene Guenon contends that all three constitute “anti-metaphysical errors,” which are “closely interrelated” (The Reign of Quantity 288). All three fetter the Divine to material agencies, albeit through a variety of different conceptual frameworks proffered by different theoreticians. As much as some may object, this is just as much the case for naturalism.
St. Paul’s description of idolatry is equally applicable to the luminaries of Enlightenment thought and all of its ideational progenies. Radical empiricist and Enlightenment theoretician David Hume admits as much in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:
It were better, never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that divinity, the better. (94)Thus, the naturalist strives not toward an objective understanding of the natural order, but the re-assertion of pagan spirituality and the divinization of the universe. In his book Pale Blue Dot, deceased astrophysicist and cosmologist Carl Sagan prophesies the arrival of such a religion with glowing approval:
A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. (77)The desire to worship the creation instead of the Creator is certainly nothing new. The adherents of many orthodox religions, particularly the traditional Abrahamic faiths, assign this desire a very specific and pejorative designation: idolatry. The Bible is replete with case studies in idolatry, even within the very nation through which the Lord would bring His salvation. Of course, the invocation of such a designation typically invites mockery and contempt from the anti-theist. Yet, in their religious veneration of the universe, anti-theists level a similar charge against traditional theism. A commonly reiterated mantra among anti-theists is that belief in a transcendent Creator devalues the creation, which is regarded with reverential awe in spite of its axiomatic contingent nature. This denunciation is exemplified by the words of Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!In other words, belief in God constitutes a corrupting “otherworldly hope” that robs the world of its supposed divinity. The infidels (i.e., traditional theists and adherents to orthodox religions) must be allowed to expire by the “poison” of their own beliefs. Once they have been expunged, the earth can be redivinized. Nietzsche tacitly promotes an inverted interpretation of idolatry. Through Nietzsche’s interpretative lens, devotion to the allegedly untenable belief in a transcendent Creator qualifies as idolatry. In this sense, Nietzsche is advancing some form of immanentism as the one true religion. Therefore, the legitimacy of the charge of idolatry is not what is in question. Instead, the question is, “What qualifies as idolatry?” If St. Paul’s criteria for defining idolatry holds sway, then it is the naturalistic outlook and its closely aligned anti-metaphysical beliefs (e.g., scientific materialism, pantheism, immanentism, etc.) that satisfies all of the prerequisites.
Man’s idolatrous impulse did not recede with antiquity, as is evidenced by the deified portrayal of the natural order promoted by the Enlightenment and several modern men of “science.” The sciences did not banish this anthropomorphism to the realm of superstition. Instead, under the guidance of certain theoreticians, the sciences have actually enshrined the worship of nature. At this juncture, it is most elucidating to revisit Guenon’s observations concerning “anti-metaphysical errors.” Guenon contends that the adoption of such errors “shuts out all ‘transcendence’ and so also shuts out all effective spirituality” (The Reign of Quantity 288). The anti-metaphysical interpretation of transcendence is one case in point.
Within the framework of such anti-metaphysical outlooks, there is no longer any ontological transcendence. Instead, transcendence is redefined as moving beyond the constraints of finitude (e.g., time, space, death, etc.) while still indwelling the confines of immanent experience. Such a false transcendence has been advanced through the new immortality narratives of scientific materialism, which reduces the soul to an information pattern that is contained and fragmentarily transmitted through genes. Simultaneously, all organisms are portrayed as mere survival mechanisms for genes. The perpetuation of a species means the perpetuation of genes. In turn, the perpetuation of genes means the perpetuation of the information pattern that constitutes the soul. Herein is the newly defined immortality for the anti-metaphysical age of modernity. In The Selfish Gene, ardent anti-theist Richard Dawkins distills this new immortality narrative:
Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever. (The Selfish Gene 35)Interestingly enough, the chapter of the book where Dawkins exposits this reductionist conception of zoe (i.e., eternal life) is entitled “Immortal Coils.” Since genes transcend death, humanity enjoys genetic immortality without God. Once again, there is no ontological transcendence. Instead, there is just some vague circumvention of finitude through the impersonal agency of genes. Interestingly enough, Dawkins, who is a stalwart evolutionist, characterizes pantheism as “sexed up atheism” (The God Delusion 40). The New Atheists, who have swept the bestsellers lists with their literary works and championed a rallying call for the waning paradigm of Darwinism, appear to be the missionaries of evolutionary pantheism. Fleshing out the definition of pantheism, Dawkins writes: “Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings” (40). It is ironic that Dawkins, who fiercely advances a dysteleological outlook, would acknowledge the “lawfulness” intrinsic to the natural order. Such an acknowledgement bespeaks a distinctly teleological outlook.
Dawkins is not the only New Atheist who has invoked distinctly teleological language in regards to the material cosmos. Examining Spinoza’s pantheistic outlook, Daniel Dennett uses terms like “Design” and “creation” to describe the natural world (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea 520). Obviously, such terms are inherently teleological. Yet, simultaneously, Dennett makes appeals to dysteleological “mindless purposeless forces,” citing them as the ultimate causative agencies behind the universe (520). In short, Dennett presents a grand narrative of human origins that attempts to blend the mutually exclusive philosophical views of teleology and dysteleology. Dennett argues that this cosmological myth is rendered coherent by Darwinism and that the alleged divinity of the universe, which he dubs “The Tree of Life,” is worthy of religious veneration:
Spinoza called his highest being God or Nature (Deus sive Natura), expressing a sort of pantheism. There have been many varieties of pantheism, but they usually lack a convincing explanation about just how God is distributed in the whole of nature… Darwin offers us one: it is in the distribution of Design throughout nature, creating, in the Tree of Life, an utterly unique and irreplaceable creation, an actual pattern in the immeasurable reaches of Design Space that could never be exactly duplicated in its many details. What is design work? It is that wonderful wedding of chance and necessity, happening in a trillion places at once, at a trillion different levels. And what miracle caused it? None. It just happened to happen, in the fullness of time. You could even say, in a way, that the Tree of Life created itself. Not in a miraculous, instantaneous whoosh, but slowly, over billions of years.Dennett’s veneration of Darwin as the theoretician responsible for scientifically dignifying pantheism’s distribution of divinity “in the whole of nature” is well-founded. While several atheists and neo-Darwinians might raise objections, there is a body of evidence that suggests Darwin was exposed to occult ideas, particularly pantheistic concepts that circulated in Freemasonic circles at the time. In turn, exposure to these ideas tainted the interpretative lens through which Darwin would view his “evidence.” Once Darwin had systematized his data, the resultant theory would be appropriated as affirmation for the new secular gospel of an intra-mundane god.
Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells the truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm’s “Being greater than which nothing can be conceived,” it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred. (520)
Erasmus Darwin is responsible for developing “every important idea that has since appeared in evolutionary theory” (Darlington 62). No doubt, orthodox evolutionists contend that these ideas originated with dispassionate, objective scientific observations. Yet, Erasmus’ organizational affiliations suggest that he was exposed to certain occult and pantheistic ideas, which, in turn, shaped his thinking. William Denslow’s 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J, Part One states that Erasmus was “made a Mason in the famous Canongate Kilwinning Lodge No. 2 of Edinburgh, Scotland” (285). Having established Erasmus’ Masonic pedigree, it becomes necessary to contextualize the early evolutionist’s ideas within the corpus of the occult beliefs pervading some strains of Masonry.
In Morals and Dogma, 33rd degree Freemason Albert Pike claims that the brotherhood is a retainer of the occult beliefs espoused by the pagan Mystery cults of antiquity, albeit in a fragmentary and imperfect form. He boldly proclaims: “Though Masonry is identical with the ancient Mysteries, it is so only in this qualified sense: that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy, the ruins only of their grandeur . . .” (23). Therefore, it must be understood that Masonry advances a flawed and possibly embellished facsimile of the Mysteries. While some elements of the original Mystery religion might remain intact, they are probably buried beneath layers of errant interpretation and extraneous doctrines. Yet, Masonry, which is permeated by a form of spiritual elitism akin to Gnosticism, has never encouraged modesty among its members. It is not uncommon for Masons to arbitrarily lay claim to either authorship or stewardship of ancient traditions and supposed repositories of mystical wisdom. Not surprisingly, Pike characterizes Masonry as the “successor of the Mysteries” (22). However, whether or not Masonry’s philosophical and spiritual lineage can be directly or indirectly traced back to the ancient Mysteries is inconsequential. Instead, it is important to determine the extent to which Masonry’s reformulated version of the Mysteries might have informed the evolutionary ideas of Erasmus and, in turn, Charles.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica contributor William L. Reese, the Mystery religions “stressed types of mystical union that are typical of pantheistic systems” (“Pantheism and panetheism in ancient and medieval philosophy”). This pantheism seems to have remained intact within Masonry’s reformulated version of the Mystery religions. In The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Thirty-third Degree Mason Manly P. Hall likens the Lodge to the cosmos and characterizes the various natural kingdoms as the constituents of some sort of pantheistic homogeneity. Hall contends that the apprehension of this pantheistic analogue is a prerequisite for becoming a “mystic Mason”:
Every true Mason has come into the realization that there is but one Lodge–that is, the Universe–and but one Brotherhood, composed of everything that moves or exists in any of the planes of Nature… He realizes that his vow of brotherhood and fraternity is universal, and that mineral, plant, animal, and man are all the included in the true Masonic Craft… The mystic Mason, in building the eyes that see behind the apparent ritual, recognizes the one-ness of life manifesting through the diversity of form. (63)
