Religion & Science
RELIGION & SCIENCE
[Upbringing and Mental Schism]—My youth swept past during the Edwardian Era. During the summer of 1914 I qualified as a doctor & served as army doctor for most of WWI. In 1919 I settled into general practice. My middle life has been overshadowed by WWII and its consequences. Many of my generation suffered from a mental schism. We were outwardly normal, but our inward balance seems to have been precarious.
I was brought up in a lower-middle-class Victorian home. Aridity lay like a blight on the average Victorian—a lack of vision, a failure to love beauty for its own sake. A Victorian home like mine was a “good” home, comfortable and secure. Integrity and honesty were valued, [along with] self-restraint and moral discipline. The seeds of religious skepticism were planted at an early age. I recognized that the science I learned at school and the Bible science taught at home could never be reconciled.
At University, I was impressed by modern science's empirical efficiency in relief of suffering & the healing of sick people. Several of us decided to believe in practical truth, not speculative truth, which denied science’s basic assumption. We hoped Einstein’s theory of relativity might be the scientific harbinger of truth. Our basic attitude to life was “scientific.” Finding truth with the experimental method in science & the authoritarian method in religion produced the deeply rooted mental schism from which my generation has suffered.
Medical Practice—As soon as the war ended, I settled in general medical practice in an industrial district. [I knew that] religion disregarded certain facts. I began to see that science also disregarded facts. After a few years in general practice, I reached the conclusion that many of the accepted theories of medicine were in need of radical restatement. I saw a considerable number of patients who recovered following the use of alternative methods of healing. It seemed to me that [attributing recovery to] chance and coincidence was a direct challenge to the experimental scientist [and not honest]. I began to make a study of unorthodox systems of healing.
Any method or no treatment at all was sufficient to cure very many cases of illness. The refusal of medical help was often followed by disastrous results. The new theory I was seeking seemed to be an integration, a synthesis of physical, psychological and religious healing. I have discussed my experiment with life from the medical point of view because [that’s where my expertise is]. I tried to understand the relation between the economic, social, cultural and strictly religious causes of health and welfare.
A Lost Soul—On a summer afternoon [near 1925], after a long & tiring day, I sat in the garden, & heard myself say, “If you don’t take care, you will lose your soul.” Anyone who refers to his soul as something that can be lost has discovered a new inner reservoir of facts to studied & related to outward facts of ones ordinary life. This redirection from outward to inward search for truth was the next step for my divided mind’s healing. It became increasingly clear that both fellowship & cooperation were important to [my] successful [search & to] modern research. I realized that I needed instruction in the art of reflection. I made a survey of religious organizations. In the end I applied for and was accepted into membership in the Religious Society of Friends.
The Search for Intellectual Coherence—At this stage in my journey it became clear to me that the mere accumulation of facts does not bring truth. Knowledge of truth was a blend of insight with outsight. For William Harvey, the 1st step was taken when he realized the accepted theory did not fit the facts as he observed them. The 2nd step was when he began to reflect upon the facts, both old and new. [For William Harvey] the essence of the experimental method lies in the combination of reflection with observation. There is an interplay of reflection with action, of imaginative thought with factual experience, of theory & practice, worship & work.
Experience consists not only of the actual outward events, [but also of] all we have thought, felt, desired, hoped, loved and learned. Our experience of life is profoundly shaped and conditioned by the particular culture into which we were born. Before I joined the Society of Friends, I tried to work out a coherent explanation which would do justice both to the scientific and to the religious data with which experience had provided me.
2 cardinal events of my intellectual experience were: the day I accepted as true the evolutionary view of life; the day on which I grasped the significance of Einstein’s theory of relativity. It had general application to all aspects of experience. D’Arcy Thompson wrote of organic form, the mysterious inherent nature of the individual. As I reflected, it seemed to me that the form, the essential unity of the self, was observable during life & could be studied by the experimental method. For me the concept of the self's form has provided sound doctrine & an explanation of the enduring identity of the experience throughout its entire life. At this time in my life, my inward & outward search met at a point, at the intersection of outward & inward life, my self & its environment.
The Unity of the Self—I was startled when I realized how plainly the facts relating to my life’s unity had been brought to my attention & with what blind obstinacy I refused to see them. [I learned that]: joy is the awareness of a harmony between our life’s form & its shape [experiences]; fellowship is joy experienced by the solitary when he finds companionship; truth is the perfect marriage of theory with fact & of thought with insight; beauty is awareness of harmony between the subject & object of aesthetic reflection; goodness has been called “love in action” & “truth & beauty personified.” I believe all people have experienced the influence of their form upon the shape of their experience. I conclude that the “life of the spirit” is the activity of the form of the self.
The 1st effects of membership in the Religious Society of Friends were emancipating. [After that], I began to see myself as I really was. To see those “things that were hurtful,” that we had been projecting upon other people, & to see ourselves as truth sees us—these are experiences that are likely to shake the self-esteem of the hardiest; some people quit at this stage. One’s lower self will launch a counter-attack soon after initial spiritual victory. The Spirit driving Jesus into the wilderness was the same spirit he had encountered at his baptism.
I began to experience a measure of divine healing. But while I once presumed that the Sermon on the Mount & a life of practical service were the solid sum & substance of religion, I found that this hypothesis failed to account for the facts about my soul & about reflection. My battery was overcharged with ideals, but the energy never reached the wheels; I was undercharged with drive. [On a positive note], I was influenced by friends I had made within the Society of Friends, and [vocal ministry from worship. I also began to read the Bible again with a new perspective.] Looked at through modern eyes the Gospel narratives spring into to new life.
All these influences directed my attention to a unique historic figure, Jesus of Nazareth, whose spiritual, intellectual & moral grandeur stood out like a mountain in flat country. [These questions became insistent: Why must such a man die on a cross? Why must his mission fail? Why did I, who could be thrilled by ideals, fail lamentably to attain them? The Cross became a challenge both to reason & heart. [At one point I found myself between beliefs]. Returning home one morning from daily round of doctor’s calls, I found myself standing in my hallway in the center of a bright light. [I felt as if I might be able to] unlock “all mysteries. The light faded & I was left with: “The Cross is ingrained within the structure of Reality.” I saw a pattern [of death & life in a new form in] atoms, seeds, tribes, nations, communities, men & women, & in philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, ethics, & aesthetics. The entire creation, from nebula to man, each in his own place and order.
The Inward Drama—Reflection made me aware that within myself a drama was being enacted. I learned to recognize the characters in my life’s drama and even to give them names. There are 5 characters; 4 appear during the earlier part the 5th only in the last act. The 1st person was a familiar figure that I really knew little about; this was Ego. He moved about his own world holding a mask before his face. I realized that the Egoist possessed a number of real positive virtues. He could be a courageous, unconventional individual.
As I looked for the man behind the mask, my 2nd character began making more frequent appearances. I found that this Shadow Ego was the counterpart, the mirror image of my conscious Ego. The center of the Egoist lay in conscious experience, but the center of the Shadow lay in the unconscious, and in crude self-interest. During my early life I learned to display my “good” qualities in the bow window of my essentially Victorian self [my Ego]. I thrust my “bad” qualities into my equally Victorian basement [Shadow Ego]. Aggressive instincts, a longing to inflict pain, self display, all my natural lusts and hates, belonged to my Shadow self.
Shadow Ego skillfully assumed a number of disguises. His earliest disguise was a black dog; [my mother referred to the “black dog on my shoulder” during my bad moods]. The Shadow appeared also as a ragged neglected urchin. Lastly, my shadow self appeared as young Hercules in strength & a gypsy in appearance. I called him Sambo & came to think of him as a real, lovable villain. Sambo & his satellites possessed negative traits but also doggedness, zest, courage, drive, & a strong sense of fun & humor. [The Egoist was somewhat a coward].
The 3rd character in my play was a woman & she proved to be one aspect of the soul. In My Lady, I recognized my ideal woman. She was my conscious soul self & carried the projections of some of my feminine ideals. My Lady, like Ego, was carrying a mask before her. She was a substantial part of my own being.
Years later I became acquainted with my drama’s 4th character; her name was “She.” Like Sambo, she was capable of many disguises. She also had a history & a life story of her own. She sometimes presented herself as the most human of women, rather too human & fleshly for my peace of mind. Other times She appeared clothed in the vestments of a semi-divinity. On her 1st appearance, She seemed wholly evil, dangerous & greatly to be feared, a vamp & a female warrior. She was also a woman whose ancient wisdom & power ought to be obeyed.
Transforming a Character—I knew that Sambo & She must transform into reasonably respectable members of society & that they must be accepted on friendly terms by each other, by the conscious Ego & My Lady. I find it difficult to give an honest & accurate & objective account of this phase of my experiment. Any event happening to me & others would be described very differently by the others. My wife & I have had a successful marriage. 2 people more or less infected by the mental schism of our age would have difficulties. It seems each of us made the common mistake of supposing that any human spouse could be capable of carrying the other’s inward image of the ideal wife or husband. Those ideals cease to cause serious conflict, only when each realizes that those ideals are part of his or her own character and not a part of the marriage partner’s actual character.
We must also recognize that Sambo, My Lady, Ego, and She are in fact integral to our character—stubborn facts about ourselves. Making friends with our various characters, and them behaving in a friendly fashion toward one another is one of the greatest and most difficult achievements of the religious life. Time, love, and the Light of Christ, has softened some of Ego’s hard, harsh contours. My transformed Sambo became ultimately the strength with which I learned to love God, my neighbors and myself.
My Lady became & remains guardian of my values & the keeper of my soul, inspirer & censor of my acts. Unreal enthusiasms, mistaking the will for the deed, & love of fantasy are some of her weaknesses. The She character manifests 1st as the earthy earth, the 2nd with an aura of divinity. The Painted Woman carries some characteristics of She. Until we recognize the strength & insistence of the sex component in the unconscious soul, the motives of that component will interfere seriously with our religious life & all our relationships. Transformation of the human She is a necessary 1st step towards a better acquaintance with the other, [semi-divine] She.
The Well & the Form—In Meeting for Worship, for no conscious reason, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well recurred to my mind in peculiar pictorial form. As an observer, I seemed to overhear the conversation between the woman & the stranger. As I sat in Meeting the entire story was re-enacted before my mind. In the Samaritan woman I saw both My Lady & the Painted Woman, 2 aspects of my soul. The story applied to myself meant that my inward She would be transformed as a result of meeting the Stranger & drinking the living water.
Where was that Well, that source of life, in my experience? The Well was the source of unitive life, the life of reflection & worship, the spring of life & fellowship, of truth, beauty & goodness. The Well was a symbol of both the divine & the human components in the soul. The human elements in She were symbolized by the Woman at the Well & the divine components in the soul were symbolized by the Stranger who sat beside the well. The Stranger was Christ, but I had not realized that He was actually within the compass of my self. He had long been forming within my self, but had been hidden from my awareness.
When I actually saw Him for the 1st time, he became a personality invested with the divinity that brings peace, rest, security and joy to the troubled soul. What I saw was the embodiment of an actual relationship between my form on the one hand and the Eternal Form of God in Christ upon the other. I had found Christ Transcendent and in doing so I had come at last to my true self and to a measure of conscious self integration. The Divine Seed was planted in the unitive form of my life, that mysterious and unique quality which determined the growth of my individuality. This last period of human life should be a period of joy and serenity, of richness, during which the Divine Seed reveals itself in its fullness as the Inward Christ.
I see that human life is a process of growth, not only of the body, but also of the soul; the spirit, a process which commences in infancy and should not cease until we die. My 3 major convictions are: truth is trustworthy and those who seek her surely find her; the “Cross is ingrained in the structure of all reality”; life can be fully lived only in fellowship, that our many and varied relationships are the experiences through which we touch and enter into the Eternal Life that is our present and our future heritage.
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343 Quakerism and Science (by Calvin Schwabe; 1999)
About the Author—Calvin Schwabe has been professor of epidemiology, medical parasitology and tropical public health, and a researcher in medical and veterinary science. He served with the World Health Organization and remains a consultant to it. This pamphlet describes the complementary roles Quakerism and science have played in his personal pursuit of a "gathered life." [He believes] more conscious understanding and cultivation [of this complementary relationship will help] other individuals and society.
[Introduction]—I affirm that science and Quakerism not only have more in common than does science with other avenues of religious expression, but that wider recognition of that fact could encourage inner and outer peace. Science seeks closer and closer approximations of the actual state of nature through ongoing revelations. [Quakerism seeks] to identify and erase [obstacles to] the life-shaping faith Jesus preached and exemplified. How Friends worship becomes gathered is basic to my understanding of Quakerism's relationship to science. [Sometimes] a Friend is moved to speak to a particular insight or concern; [others sometimes elaborate].
Not all Quaker worship meetings are obviously gathered. More often, Friends are drawn to speak to very [diverse] concerns, & rarely a Friend gathers a profound & cohesive synthesis of them. Those who share in such a revelation sense that something deeply mystical has taken place; a hushed contemplative silence envelopes all, & there is a truly creative religious experience. Sometimes a scientist juxtaposes, often by sheer chance, diverse information & ideas that are rarely joined & insightfully visualizes a new scientific hypothesis or solution.
My epiphany was that the processes of scientific and spiritual creativity that connected a gathered meeting with the creative leap in a research scientist's mind are remarkably similar. In both revelations are generally ac-companied by a profound ecstasy, which is often contagious. My search has been to comprehend better what may be involved in such revelatory experiences. Louis Pasteur noted that chance [juxtaposition of ideas] favors only a "prepared mind." The vast majority of potentially important juxtapositions pass unnoticed. Pasteur once said: "[It] is true, I have freely put myself among ideas that cannot be rigorously proved."
Creative scientists have understood that if observations & explanations don't leapfrog one another, science loses a lot of dynamism. I came to realize that many creative original happenings in science have reflected a religious-type experience of seeking & unexpected revelation, [i.e.] a usually unacknowledged mystical process. It is unacknowledged because religion's experiential basis is absent among many creedal or dogmatic religions. Philosophers of science have mostly neglected this creative aspect of important science, [as opposed to the de-tailed attention given to the more formula-driven processes of hypothesis-testing & proof. [Arthur Koestler & Horace Judson speak of "innocence of perception" & "innocent exuberance" respectively to describe the freedom from tradition necessary to see something in a new light, through a flash of inspiration]. Most publications limit themselves to how religion & science can be compatible within individuals. I seek to introduce additional benefits to a wider recognition & intentional cultivation of the more profound relationships of science to Quakerism.
Recognizing Parallels between Science and Quakerism—In my mid-teens, I concluded that, to bridge any chasm between science and religion in my mind, my religious beliefs must be able to withstand scrutiny by the same criteria for evidence which my science was trying to observe, and the community must be as open to continuing revelation as science is. I hadn't thought to query about what the process of continuing revelations might require. I discovered that early Quakers numbered among them scientists. [The Quaker self-title of Seeker, as Arthur Eddington put it, "is a name which must appeal strongly to the scientific temperament." Quakers and scientists actively share among themselves their experiences and insights, in the monthly meeting for Friends, in frequent gatherings to exchange findings and insights for scientists. Neither group is particularly adept at explaining itself and what it is about to the broader community.
Seeking Life's Purpose—Joint convincement of my life partner & I soon after our marriage [included] an almost religious calling to apply acquired skills & knowledge to satisfying basic human needs, [particularly] within the emerging 3rd World right after WWII. I worked in health & food needs; we both served in education. Early on we learned how Friends applied religious insights & skills to real, often intransigent human problems. The Quaker movement actively supports its adherents' personal concerns. [Early Quakers understood] that the inner-directed contemplative life of a religious seeker & an outward directed life of right action, aren't mutually exclusive. The Quakerly revelation about life's possibilities provided enormous relief. People making statements that science & religion are implacable opponents are insufficiently informed about the potentials of one or both.
Science and Quakerism have obvious and important differences. Their traditional subjects for inquiry have been quite different. As a scientist and Quaker, my curiosity became aroused about what a [Creative] Force's properties might be. Could underlying principles explain those qualities? I began to feel that science and Quakerism were sometimes synergistic in the insights they revealed. Being complementary is simply an additive relationship; synergism introduces a multiplier. The scientific phenomenon of attractivity provided the rational linkage between the bases for creativity and order in a Master God-Force underlying science, and a behavior-influencing God. God is the variously manifested Attracting Force in the universe which brings the most diverse things into interaction with one another more frequently than by chance. God, in its most commonly perceived role of creator and behavioral guide, is the Master Attractor and Bonder in the universe.
I learned coincidentally that Isaac Newton's and George Fox's lives overlapped by 48 years. Although each was confined within some of the main theological precepts of their time, they were open within those limits to highly perceptive personal insights. Both stretched institutional and authoritarian constraints to their maxi-mum. Both recognized and responded to new experiential prompting that paved the way to less self-conscious interactions between science and experiential religion.
It can be spiritually inspirational to know what Paul, Jesus, Moses & prophets said. But their words as sole sources of revealed religion may needlessly thwart one's continuing spiritual growth. George Fox realized that creeds,"steeplehouses," & paid clergy, could impede the process of exploring ourselves for "that of God" within each of us, & of personally responding to these revelations in how we live. Arthur Eddington stressed that "religious creeds are an obstacle in the way of sympathetic understanding between science & religion." [I also discovered] their complementary, even synergistic potentials for pursuing callings to social service. I deliberately juxtaposed my disciplines/professions/pursuits/objectives in ways not commonly related to one another by most. I tried to visualize & pursue the potential benefits of such connections in seeking knowledge and offering service.
A Complementary Journey—How do observed qualities within biological systems reflect influences of some transcendent, purposeful, principle or force? [I chose the reductionist approach in exploring bio-chemical bases for the development of diseases in humans & animals that are caused by parasites. I also placed emphasis on the effects of other variables among populations at risk. I began to sense that a [combination of] holistic & reductionist perspective about research, if observed more generally in science, might help bring comprehension of science & religion closer together, & [a harmony between them]. Quakerism encourages one to gather [all worldly &] spiritual aspects [of one's life] into a purposeful whole, a "gathered life." [Within my long list of global concerns], I came to see each issue as potential avenues for application of my training in objective reason [& connections between the issues]. I believe [George Fox today] would urge us to consider insights of all the non-Christian spiritual traditions, [as he viewed] it as potentially universal, "a great people to be gathered."
Neither the route of science nor of religion can substitute for the other in visualizing resolutions to complex social problems. The experiential insights of Quakerism and science together could bring synergy to inquiries and actions. Subjective awareness of connection between things which Friends cultivate, could and should be more consciously recognized and encouraged within science. [And not only] Quakers and scientists, but also politicians, economists and philosophers of science should explore it jointly. Constant pressures to function simultaneously within isolated, insufficiently interactive or compatible compartments of life I feel impose a substantial extra burden on many Western Friends today not imaginable to George Fox in 17th century England.
Creativity and "Subjective Awareness"—Almost all religions associate creativity with the Divine. Creativity is making different or new things from previously existing, more mundane, less consequential things. The result of a seemingly simple creation of a place from [thoughtful placement of ordinary objects] may be as awe-some and contemplative as the most magnificent cathedral's interior. W. I. B. Beveridge wrote a book entitled The Art of Scientific Investigation. Science is both highly cooperative, and introspective, with [creative] flashes of scientific insights coming through juxtaposing things within individual minds.
What some seek in spiritual centering is a "worldly thought" void or vacuum into which purer signals or insights can reveal something deep, spiritually important. Centering necessitates sufficiently reducing its normal clutter to a point that one can sense meaningful connections among some previously unconnected things. Possibilities for new connections, without a centering silence, are easily lost among extraneous mental impulses that otherwise clog the synapses of our internalized internets. [Chance contributes to science at least 3 ways]: chance observation of a curious fact and research into the why; chance realization of the answer to a problem one has been seeking; rarely, discovery of the answer to some important question one had not sought.
I was investigating effects of a hormone in a particular lobster species on enzymes affecting muscle and liver cells. There was a measurement problem in the wide variations of color in lobster liver homogenates. Further, those colors were superimposed on another color of a chemical used to make measurement possible. [The wide range of baseline values from lobster to lobster was so great that final analysis of our results yielded insignificant effects from the hormone under investigation. As I lay thinking one night about how to attain significant effects from our research, I also thought about a seemingly unrelated article about placing crabs in their respective molting cycles. If we classified our lobsters by molt cycle phase, we could examine our measurements of hormone activity through analysis of variance that took the molt phase into account. This chance juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated facts permitted us to demonstrate significant activities of that hormone. I had not yet related this chance juxtaposing in science to Quaker worship, an experience to which I had yet to be exposed.
Lying partially awake at night is when I have experienced most of my more profound scientific insights or unusual synthesis of ideas. I have become reasonably adept at writing semi-dozingly in the dark. I began to sense the broader potentials of interaction between science and Quakerism in facing some critical social problems and human needs. These would involve creative processes informed by subjective awareness [or innate convictions] of connections among things, coming from unexplained flashes of insight which enable or encourage a person to creatively perceive diverse things in new and meaningful relationship to each other. The integrating ingredient leading to new subjective awareness seems to resemble the Quaker's Inner Light. How revelations happen is currently impossible to explain scientifically. How may subjective awareness [of unusual connections] be derived or fostered within science? In my search I was constantly drawn back to the importance of Pasteur's "prepared mind," [especially] in the context of unexpected revelations.
A Prepared Mind—How does a prepared mind imply a personal experiential background receptive to a particular revelation? I had begun in my 30's to speculate about the overall creative process in science. My most unexpected and consequential chance opening involved the prepared mind necessary to answer an important question I had not even thought to ask. [In 1961], I served as the World Health Organization's principal consultant on the hydatid disease, a parasitic infection that behaves a lot like cancer. The Turkana, a pastoral people of northwestern Kenya had the highest known rate of this infection in the world. In my field studies, I transected the spine of cattle to count the number of this parasite on each cut muscle surface.
I was taking a trip up the Nile to Cairo, & I would be continuing field work begun in 1957, comparing ancient Egyptians with the similar, present-day "cattle-culture" of the Turkana & Maasai people. [The bovine species had striking cultural & economic prominence with Egyptians, from earliest times through dynastic times. Religious rituals involved sacrifice & dissection of bulls by priests. One major mystery had been the origin of the Egyptian ankh symbol (a "T" with an oval on top). Virtually all their hieroglyphs were originally pictures of things familiar to priests. I had seen bulls' vertebrae many times before, [but not while thinking about Egypt & the ankh]. Similarities between the symbol & the vertebra were alike in virtually every detail. [The initial], pure chance realization of the ankh's anatomical origin led to studies & a insights into early Egyptian beliefs about the male's role in reproduction. The studies combined biomedical & anthropological observations with more conventional approaches to studying Egypt. [Traditional Egyptologists could never have had a mind sufficiently prepared in bovine anatomy] to reveal the ankh's anatomical origins. I see the more & more consciously gathered, [integrated] life is a vital implementor [in considering] the context of any specific problem or action area.
Encouraging Revelation/ Conclusion—One totally untested device toward purely scientific ends would be to attempt to apply Quakerism's unique practice of "collective mysticism" to the creative process in scientific re-search. This new method is intended to bring [well-prepared minds together to perceive diverse things in a new light, or to share the most "far out" or most privately held notions & generate new ideas. W. I. B. Beveridge, author of The Art of Scientific Investigation, & I began exchange ideas about the encouragement of "unexpected revelation." He wrote in Seeds of Discovery: "A fundamental shift of outlook on the part of scientists [generally] might bring a harmonizing relationship of science and ... mysticism, might open the frontier between objective knowledge and subjective awareness." It could accelerate the rate of truly creative breakthroughs in science.
One way to encourage better prepared minds for breakthroughs in complex social problems, would be to interface whole fields, disciplines, or [professions] which rarely interact. I have attempted to exploit extensive, seldom recognized interfaces between human health & veterinary biomedical science. Veterinary science maintains important ongoing research & services to agricultural & medical science, relating to food production & diseases transmissible from a animals to human, respectively. Sufficient food, livable environment, & humane values in society usually fail to elicit much governmental priority until they assume significant human health proportions. Recognizing that veterinary medical science has significant human health implications in meeting basic human needs has "gathered" my diverse professional objectives in ways which encouraged insights about possible new social actions [eventually carried out by different sectors of government working in concert].
To understand what this might entail in practice required recognition that governmental veterinary services have been the sole form of service outreach to serve successfully 30 to 50 million migratory livestock-keeping, pastoral people, [whose lives focus on the welfare of their livestock]. Health and other basic services could easily be grafted on to this experienced veterinary vehicle through local cooperation of government sectors. UNICEF- & Oxfam-assisted medical-veterinary cooperation succeeded in the mass vaccination of these people's children & their cattle at the same time against major diseases. Revelations about novel social actions require the same openness of mind & enlightenment as do scientific research and the gathered Quaker meeting for worship. Cooperation [in social action] will depend on well-prepared minds and gathered lives to become realities.
Among today's more critical social problems are: [quality], temporal limits and manipulation of life; [balancing] preservation of a livable environment while satisfying need for food and jobs; examining humane values between other animals and us; balanced zones between the common good and individual rights; under-standing [and prevention] of causes of violence; human dilemma of altruism vs. selfishness, individually and collectively; [etc.] Fruitful inputs to social issues from religion into science might include: moral/spiritual/ humane insights; altruistic and creative motivations of scientists; [application of Quaker methods promoting openness to revelation and subjective awareness]. Inputs from science to religion could include: appreciation of the importance of continuing revelation and an open mind; causal thinking and conceptualizing connections among things; an avenue for seeking from a scientific perspective. Cultivating connections between science and the Quaker stream of religious experience might mean acquiring new knowledge, facilitating solutions to social problems and achieving a greater sense of personal fulfillment.
Quakerism's relevant experience is a melding of continuing inner search with useful daily living experiences. Science's relevant experience is systematically observational and experimental, but still with a similarly mystical access to enlightenment. They both reject dogmatism and recognize the need for open, prepared minds, which are encouraged by gathered lives, where varied spiritual, work, familial, recreational aspects co-exist harmoniously and interact productively. In concert, they have a largely unexploited potential to interact to personal and social advantage. To the degree scientists contribute to a sustainable planet, promote humane values, and are not prostituted for antisocial ends, no conflict should exist [between them and] Quaker faith and practice. http://www.pendlehill.org/product-category/pamphlets
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About the Author—Ted Benfey belongs to Friendship Meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he teaches chemistry & history of science at Guilford College. He joined Friends while a student at University College, London. He writes: “The rift between man & nature became abruptly clear to me when I heard of the bombing of Hiroshima. This pamphlet arose during a Woodbrooke sabbatical, “where I sought for Quaker insights that would allow men & women of our time to break through to a more harmonious communion with nature.”
It would go a great way to caution and direct people in their Use of the World, that they were better studied and known in the Creation of it. For how could Man find the Confidence to abuse it, while they should see the Great Creator stare them in the Face, in all and every Part thereof? William Penn
I—What is needed is a new way of looking at nature, releasing energies of those who look at nature in non-“orthodox” ways but are shackled by fear they may be wrong. The only sound way to hold to the particulate, mechanistic doctrine is to insist that we, [like inanimate nature], are mere particles in motion, a machine part of a larger machine. All who look into themselves know they are aware of something that is not machine-like.
The suffering of countless today is a feeling of being shackled by a fragmented, fractured world view. We have lost the art or the interest in putting the pieces of puzzles together. In fact [the spiritual pieces that aren't] consonant with [modern science’s worldview is considered illusion]. God isn't to appear at certain moments of evolution to breathe life into the 1st amoeba nor to endow the 1st human with a soul. All of God’s handiwork must have gone into the original design.
Around Newton’s and Laplace’s time many thought of God as the great clockmaker and winder-up of the universal clock. The current evolutionary view is not complete, because its initial description demands an act of faith from us and we have never yet been asked to commit ourselves to anything remotely resembling this claim. If there is no meaning [in asking what was going on before the Big Bang], there is no significance to our own lives either. We are afraid to say no to a coherent viewpoint that at least ties together all the sciences even if it plays havoc with our conception of ourselves, our sense of our significance, our own importance. [There can be no measurable progress towards a goal] on a time scale immeasurably long.
II—Those who are not scientists seem to assume that all scientists are committed to a view of nature that is nothing but particles linked or in motion. They were totally unlike us—for we could examine them and feel them and taste them and be nourished by them, but they could do none of those things. In the 1700s Laplace raised the possibility that if all were particles, and their laws of motion were known, [past, present, and future] locations could be calculated [without worrying about deviations]. [Even after new discoveries and theories], the basic view that nature is dead and unfeeling and soulless has not fundamentally changed.
Those chemists who were not atomists and early North American naturalists were not concerned with the ultimate constitution of matter, particulate or otherwise. A major motivating force behind those devoting their professional life to the study of animal behavior must be the delight and fascination in simply watching the life patterns before them. Max Weber and R.H. Tawney pointed to the change in religious atmosphere which led a remarkable number of religious dissidents to flock to the sciences and make significant contributions to them. Friends were in fact advised by William Penn to find their recreation in nature. It is unlikely anyone would have followed that path if they thought that they might in fact lay spiritual insights open to question.
III & IV—The 17th century saw not only a great Puritan hurricane engulfing England, it saw also a modified Platonism, neo-Platonism, entering the British Isles. This neo-Platonism sought for a new view of the world not grounded in pagan Greek thought but transformed by the insights & experience of Christianity, which helped to raise the significance of matter and of working with materials. Christianity clearly has a doctrine of matter quite apart from its new insights about man and sin and rebirth and man’s relation to God. Quakers held that all matter was sacramental, not certain bits at certain times. George Fox said: “A true voice arose in me which said, ‘There is a living God who made all things,” [i.e.] all things should reveal the character of the maker.
John Woolman said: “Our Gracious Creator cares & provides for all his creatures. His tender mercies are all over his works; & so far as his love influences our minds, [just that far do] we become interested in his workmanship. We as his creatures, while we live answerable to the design of our creation, are entitled to a subsistence no one may deprive us of.” [In his business], the material & how it was used were to be vehicles of God’s love.
[John Woolman was probably influenced by the Neo-Platonic author of The Imitation of Christ, Jacob Boehme, John Everard & William Law]. These 3 broke with the older mystical tradition of via negativa (salvation through self-denial). [There is] is an active role for God-centered man in the world’s affairs, because as Boehme said: “The visible is sprung from the spiritual world ... it is a subject or object resembling the spiritual world; the spiritual world is inward ground of the visible world; the visible subsists in the spiritual.” Neo-Platonic thought was sweeping through England during the 1640s. Revelation by Jesus through the Church was to be replaced by direct communication between Christ & his followers through the Holy Ghost, Christ in us.
[V]—Boehme was interested in alchemy, & alchemists had always believed that careful study of the transformations possible in the laboratory would provide hints of the transformation of which man’s soul was capable. During the 16th & 17th centuries arose the “Chemical Philosophy,” an attempt to rewrite science, the description of nature, in a Christian form rather than the mechanistic, atomistic directions being developed. Most chemists were not atomists until our Friend, John Dalton (1810) showed how atoms could be useful in chemistry.
Why should a Quaker open the door to a development so destructive of religious concerns? [This wasn’t the only time Quakers have opened the door to developments whose consequences weren't in line with Quaker longings. The Quaker Abraham Darby & his descendants found a way of using coal for smelting iron ore. Kenneth Boulding said: “the economic base for English speaking people's great upsurge in the last 200 years owes a great deal to 18th century Quakers in advancing science & industry. [Perhaps] Quakers organized their Society on the belief that all truth is good & new truths will enhance & enlarge understanding of truths already known.
Another Quaker opened a door to a new & destructive world. Benjamin Robbins turned his genius to the study of projectiles and military engineering. He maintained his friendships with if not his membership in the Society. I am convinced that there is more optimism than blindness underlying the enthusiasm of these 3 Quakers. They had faith that there would always be enough individuals sensitive to God’s will to prevent that progress from leading mankind as a whole to destruction.
VI—John Woolman must have been deeply influenced by neo-Platonic ideas regarding the material world for there was little in his Quaker reading to help him. Some believe that John Woolman was not alone in his concerns. John Woolman’s influence extended beyond Friends. Woolman had a strong influence on Emerson, and Emerson had an enormous influence on 19th century American thought. Emerson wrote: “As water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground to our eyes and hands and feet.” Emerson felt unsettled and paralyzed by the mechanical conception of the universe and the corresponding psychology of sensation of John Locke. Emerson provided a philosophy that not only helped to overcome the servility to tradition but taught how to use the resources of nature.
The motivation for American industrialization was the dream that through the right handling of materials a human standard of living could be provided for all. Howard Brinton writes: “Emerson’s doctrine that God is present in all events in nature was similar to the Quaker belief that inspired Quakers to pursue science. . . Man, disillusioned by the extreme danger which mechanistic science & the meaninglessness of life which it creates now placed him, is seeking some deeper, more moving & more spiritual power to give direction and goal to his life.”
VII-IX—Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971) said: “Friends do not accept the idea that the universe occurred by chance, that man is a chance conglomerate of molecules which has developed ideals, a conscience, humanitarian instincts merely in order to survive.” Harold Loukes stated: “The central element in the whole Quaker position is that spiritual laws are material laws as well; they are the law of the universe. [When someone uses atoms to explain man’s creation of artworks, no doubt the atoms will be endowed with even further properties].
We now know that Dalton’s atoms aren't uncuttable, they have their own structure, that atoms of the same element aren't all alike, nor are those of different elements always a different weight. Any given atom can have a life history, from birth, through its period of disintegration or absorption into something larger. As theories are modified they more & more describe little organism time-dependent entities—rather than Greek eternal atoms.
The Chinese made remarkable progress in science and technology before 1500 on the basis of their Yin-Yang concept of alternating and complementary phases. The fact that progress in understanding and manipulating the material world can be made using either a particulate and analytical, or a continuous and inter-related philosophy suggests that the atomistic-mechanistic view point need not be the final one.
There is a new view of the natural world & our relation to it struggling to be born. What we need is to forge a new link between the insights of science & the deeper promptings of the human spirit. [When we see nature as part of us & ourselves as part of nature, affecting & affected by nature], then we will be moving to wholeness, to health. What we need is rebirth of love for matter, becoming friends with the rocks, heeding Emerson’s call.
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433. Recovering Sacred Presence in a Disenchanted World (by Mary Conrow Coelho; 2015)
About the Author—Mary Conrow Coelho was a physiology lab assistant and a high school biology teacher. She left the science world in her 30's to study theology; she earned a MDiv degree, and a PhD in Historical Theology. She has co-led workshops, among them "The Depth of our Belonging." She is the coordinator of the New Story Group at Friends Meeting at Cambridge, and is active in Quakercare Witness.
[Introduction]—One day in my late 20's, I was unexpectedly brought to my knees by a mysterious power, hitherto unknown to me; a numinous [sacred] experience occurred. I could not rationally defend it. Thomas Berry said: "In my view, the human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single sacred community or we will both perish in the desert. It was an experience of falling in love in the sense of wanting to be intimately related to that which I had known. I assumed the experience came from outside of me. In scientific materialism, ideas about matter left no room for Sacred Presence. We can find in scientific discoveries of the last 2 centuries how numinous experiences can arise from an inner sacred Presence.
Quakerism is an experiential heritage that is challenged in explaining such numinous experiences that traditional science cannot account for. There are startling changes in the way we understand the world, changes that offer a basis for reclaiming and perhaps deepening the early insights and practices of Friends and of other spiritual traditions as well. I learned that physical beings do not have an intrinsic non-material dimension. The earth became disenchanted and my own identity severely narrowed. Numinous experiences of Presence, Light, beauty, and truth have no home in modern reductive scientific understanding.
There have been discoveries in the 20th century that have revealed major fissures in the modern materialistic worldview. Significant changes in both science and theology offer a home for spiritual experiences and hopes and the opportunity for a fuller expression of the Religious Society of Friends. Some scientists have looked for ways to incorporate discoveries that reductive materialism cannot contain or explain. We are awakened to the need to move away from objectification of the natural world and unrestrained exploitation of natural resources.
New Understandings that Transform Our Assumptions: The Nonvisible Interiority of Matter—Scientists in the 1920's expected to find tiny particles of matter [as the basis for all matter]. They discovered instead, that including atoms, matter is 99.99% empty space. "Empty" means empty of that which can be known by human senses & instruments. John Polkinghorne wrote that the emptiness or "quantum vacuum" is "more like a plenum than like empty space." Plenum roughly seems empty when it is full. Plenum is a realm of pure generativity, a boiling "sea of energy" that generates matter. Plenum is the basic generative power of the universe.
What was thought to be "particles" within atoms have been discovered to be very small knots of energy, called quanta, which sometimes are particle-like and sometimes are wavelike. [Down to a particular scale] our formulas and discoveries are reliable; after that quantum theory is also required. Quantum theory brings the study of the hidden, nonvisible inner world into the world of science. [Here I seek] to ponder the consequences of quantum physics for our understanding of self and spiritual traditions.
Given old assumptions, it would have been true that numinous experience must arise from outside the world of physical things. Quantum studies of the vast nonvisible plenum brought this assumption into question. A spiritual experience within the body of the person can be considered with fresh eyes. Thomas Kelly writes of a "subterranean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light never fades, a perpetual Flame burns, where the wells of living water of divine revelation rise up continuously, day by day, and hour by hour, steady and transfiguring."
The New Story of Our Origins/ The Emergent, Creative Character of the World/ Belonging Within the Ongoing Story—Another major scientific breakthrough is a new cosmic creation story. The nuclei of future hydrogen & helium atoms were formed 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was born. Some lighter elements, like carbon, were forged within stars, & the heavier elements were formed within supernovae. Earth coalesced 4.6 billion years ago. Chlorophyll developed within the early tiny creatures, enabling them to use the sun's energy. Arising from a long line of hominids, human beings—a self-reflective form of the earth—came into being.
We now see a world in which we can recognize radical novelty throughout the great unfolding drama, rather than the "dire news of scientific inevitability." Physicist Paul Davies calculates that there is essentially zero probability of achieving even 1 protein by chance alone. Emergence is the term used for the appearance of genuinely novel structures and patterns within the evolutionary story, that cannot be reduced to their sum or difference. It is also suggested that there is directionality in evolution. When I studied evolutionary biology in college, I learned that life on earth is ancient, but such knowledge did not speak to me personally. While objective detachment has led to remarkable discoveries, it has a price. Many of us learned to intentionally sever any sense of sacred connection to the earth, [to view] "the world as inert stuff out there and that we are the active agents of change whose role it is to get that stuff in shape" [Parker Palmer].
Self-Organization: in Nature and within Humans—By the 20th century, the origin of the great diversity & complexity of the world became a major question. The evolution of increasingly complex plants & animals apparently contradicts the law of ever-increasing disorder or dissipation. The capacity to dissipate energy as heat while continually importing energy from the environment makes it possible for living beings to overcome disorder. Self-organizing systems can be galaxy superclusters, or subatomic particles/waves. Self-organized forms, such as a cell, may become nested in a larger self-organizing whole. The new whole is a complex nesting of self-organizing forms, and it may have new properties that can't be traced as having arisen from the constituent parts.
New levels that develop through the self-organizing processes of simpler cells combining into a more complex cell are emergent levels, for the novel structures and patterns that appear. How is my inner life integral to the ongoing unfolding evolutionary story? Carl Jung identifies patterns in the human psyche, which he calls archetypes, deep psychological structures which order and integrate experience. Michael Comforti observes that archetypes are the psychological parallel to to the scientific theory of self-organizing dynamics in nature. The Self, similar to the Soul, is the creative, inner center of the person. The Self is unknowable, but is experienced in alternative forms of knowing, such as some dreams, mythic material, and numinous experiences. Inner ordering and creativity is an inner dynamic found throughout the natural world. It also can be identified as acting within the human person. With self-organizing in mind and body, we find a way to begin to heal the all-too-common separation of soul from the earth. Since experiences of the Self can be numinous, we gain confidence that we may find pathways to experience the indwelling sacred Presence.
New Understandings that Transform Our Assumptions: Common Origin of Mind & Matter/ Another Change in Our Assumption/ Drawing Near to the Whole—Self-Organizing dynamics free us from the assumption that the evolutionary story is only about the evolution of the physical world. In Jung's thought, archetypes order both body and mind into a functioning whole grounded in the nonvisible. Polkinghorne notes that time and again mathematics has provided the key to unlocking the secrets of the physical world. What links together mathematics with the structures of the physical world? The world has all through it Polkinghorne's "signs of mind," or Jung's archetypal patterns that link mind and body.
Discoveries in quantum physics make it possible for there to be spiritual life within the evolutionary world. Even though large objects' behavior can be predicted, specific events on a small scale are unpredictable. Ian Bar-bour explains indeterminancy's consequence at the quantum level as: "The future isn't simply unknown; it 'isn't decided' ... there is an opening for unpredictable novelty." Indeterminancy may be a chance for divine influence & for human participation in the unfolding of divine purpose, [without having] a precise predetermined plan.
Teilhard de Chardin writes: "Like meridans as they approach the poles, science, philosophy, & religion are bound to converge as they draw near the whole." We can now imagine that there is a whole, such that the earth & its human beings are a place for numinous experiences & spiritual insights. Anne Hill describes an experience of being flooded by a great power pervading every atom of her body. She writes: "Suddenly, something in you—[not a usual sense] but some other faculty—beholds a vast & boiling ocean that pours itself into the room/into you & leaves you streaming with energy. You feel an immediate bodily connection to aliveness you never knew existed, one that is inside/ outside you at once. Boulding writes that reality underlying religious experience "must be postulated, just as we postulate reality underlying our carefully learned experience of the senses." Could images of a "vast, boiling ocean," "burning oneness binding everything," & "perpetual flame" be a manner of "knowing" the infinite energy of the "emptiness" or plenum that physicists have enountered?
Theological Reflections—I will be using the word of God with some hesitation because it is unfortunately widely associated with the image of a being of omnipotent and supernatural power. Yet experiences of a sacred Presence need to be named so they may be part of the shared knowledge of a culture. Should we not embrace new variations in the meaning of the word God, rather than discard the word? Jung refers to God as a "psychic fact." Ken Wilder uses the phrase "the eye of contemplation" to identify the spiritual mode of knowing. [The images mentioned earlier] arise from the eye of contemplation. 2 other modes of knowing are the eye of flesh (sensed, witnessed knowledge), and eye of the mind (e.g. logic, mathematics).
The understanding of God espoused by panentheism holds that the world is "in" God & God is "in" the world. The sacred Presence permeates the physical world & our interiority. While God's transcendence isn't spatial, God transcends in the sense that God is always, everywhere moving us toward full expression of divine aim & love. The manifest world of matter takes form within the vast emptiness, the plenum. particles that comprise the physical world are plenum taking form. The generation & sustaining of the manifest world out of the plenum is a place where our ideas of God as the creative Ground & the nonvisible reality seem to come together. The evolutionary story and the discovery of the generative plenum affirm the emergence of the manifest world out of a vast inner "emptiness." God is an influence in the unfolding story of the universe, rather than an outside force that abrogates the laws of nature at will. God's role as an immanent persuasive power within the vast plenum is central to the directionality of the evolutionary world and to including Friends' leadings in that story. Even though God does not have omnipotent power, there is the powers of persuasion and allure, healing & sustaining.
Everything that exists is interconnected and interrelated. There is the unity of the earth, and interdependence within the earth, in ecological systems, communities, and families. Until recently, it had been assumed that physical change came only from local causes. Experiments show that the "spin" of a photon can be instantaneously affected by the spin of another correlated particle, even though the particles are great distances away from each other; this is nonlocal causality. There is interconnected, mutual influence in nature beyond our ability to explain. Does this help to explain the Quaker experience of a gathered meeting, an awareness of Presence? We know life and the world from within.
Learning to Inhabit Ourselves—There may be personal, psychological reasons that we fail to fully partake of the revelations of our new origin story. We may be oblivious to the sacred depths of our world, so a healing journey may be a necessary part of becoming open to God's allure. Jung says that real healing accompanies the approach to the numinous experience. Their result is the full, well-lived life, and community. Numinous experiences that bring healing may occur in: images, icons; dreams, visions; silent meeting; nature. Leadings are sometimes of this numinous nature. Without the power of the numinous realm, our wounded psychological patterns will prevail. Louis Dupré writes: "Following the years of gradual change, the real is no longer an object that reason places before the mind, but rather a totality in which the mind constitutes an integral dynamic part." We are drawn into depths of things, into participation in the unfolding story. Peter Todd writes that it is humankind's participation in God that will further evolution as well as the survival of the species.
We are Allured & Drawn Forth by Truth, Beauty, & Goodness/ Evolution's Purpose Felt on the Inside—Through the healing journey, a person becomes increasingly available to participate fully in the unfolding creative process, to share in [& support] the evolutionary story's [positive] direction. Alluring experiences of truth, beauty, & goodness touch us deeply; they may involve numinosity or a kind of resonance with the sacred Presence. In process theology, the drive to discover or advocate truth is divinely instilled. [Evolution has brought] increased capacity for truth & beauty in conscious experience [alongside] the increased complexity of structure.
Friend's know from experience inner participation in the allure of truth, love, and beauty as "leadings." In the emerging conception God as the immanent, alluring element, continually creating through the processes of the natural order, leadings find a home in the evolutionary universe. In leadings, God is dependent on human love, wisdom, and our courage to be and act. Leadings may go beyond our routine daily habits of thought. There can be a new order inspired by Divine Reality.
Pervasive Evil/ The Wide Range of Possibilities Open to the Divine Aim/ Images of Divine Presence—Brian Swimme states that beauty & allurement are the root cause of all evil activity, [because we are prone to addiction to even imperfect beauty, & to misunderstanding distorted, partial truths we follow as clear, whole truths]. The divine creative power can't evoke a [new & right possibility, contrary to the wrong choices that are being made]. How are we to find hope in the face of the pervasive misuse of power & dishonesty? Even in the face of evil, we affirm the healing power of love. God's persuasive power [has a real influence] on the consciousness of an individual or group.
In the old mechanistic story of scientific rationalism, the sacred Presence had to interfere with the natural order to have divine influence on the direction of evolution—God had to enact miracles. Now we can see wide-spread unpredictabilities and flexibilities, [in the form of] indeterminancy, new order from chaotic processes, non-local causality, and self-organizing dynamics, which offer the divine aim more possibilities. [These forms interact with one another in creating new possibilities]. If God is not omnipotent, where is the basis for hope?
It is in the new, unimagined emergence that we see a kind of transcendence expressed throughout the manifest world, and in human consciousness. This is transcendence that does not override the natural world; it is not from outside. It is based on sacred persuasion, creativity, and aim within the natural world and the individual. The evolutionary story helps us avoid the spirit of tragic resignation. [When someone asked], What is my purpose? The answer came that God has an infinite longing to know itself and that as one continued to grow in self-awareness one was doing God's work. With new self-awareness there are new ways of being a person. How are we to speak about God's presence in the very fabric of the universe? Symeon the New Theologian (949 A.D.) writes several moving images as invocations at the beginning of his Hymns of Divine Eros: "Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come, nameless treasure. Come, inexpressible reality. Come, inconceivable Person. Come, endless happiness. Come, light that never sets."
Intrinsic Values as Guidance for Community and Culture/ Group Decision Making/ Ecological Witness: The Natural World is the Primary Manifestation of the Divine/ Friends as Part of the Emerging Worldview: A Foundation for Friends Renewal—In some post-modern thought, values & meaning are considered culturally relative human projections. In this worldview, reality has no value or meaning; the universe is pointless. Here a magnificent forest can be turned into a commodity for unlimited exploitation. The insight that alluring values of truth, beauty & goodness are intrinsic to the unfolding evolutionary story means they are an expression of the nature of things. [Believing this], people can act with great conviction.
Leadings toward truth, beauty, love & caring join persons, groups & meetings in the direction of evolution. We are part of the process of evolution & the process itself come into self-awareness. Quaker decision making, the search for unity in a business meeting, can facilitate the transformation of consciousness in individuals & in a community. [In this process], what seems impossible may come forth. Thomas Berry writes: "Only when we begin to think of the emergent universe as the comprehensive realm of the sacred will we be able to overcome the present assault on the universe in its Earth manifestation."
Remarkably, we can now hear our ancestors freshly, given the radical change in our worldview, a change in the lens through which we see. The essential truths of religion would find a far vaster and more profound form when expressed within the context of the dynamics of the developing universe. Our culture is being forced out of the current dysfunctional phase that threatens the viability of earth and its inhabitants. We may have confidence that, as Boulding proposed, "the evolutionary potential of Quakerism is not yet exhausted and indeed is still very high." Friends have a vital role to play in the unfolding adventure of the earth and its many beings.
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433. Recovering Sacred Presence in a Disenchanted World (by Mary Conrow Coelho; 2015)
About the Author—Mary Conrow Coelho was a physiology lab assistant and a high school biology teacher. She left the science world in her 30's to study theology; she earned a MDiv degree, and a PhD in Historical Theology. She has co-led workshops, among them "The Depth of our Belonging." She is the coordinator of the New Story Group at Friends Meeting at Cambridge, and is active in Quakercare Witness.
[Introduction]—One day in my late 20's, I was unexpectedly brought to my knees by a mysterious power, hitherto unknown to me; a numinous [sacred] experience occurred. I could not rationally defend it. Thomas Berry said: "In my view, the human community and the natural world will go into the future as a single sacred community or we will both perish in the desert. It was an experience of falling in love in the sense of wanting to be intimately related to that which I had known. I assumed the experience came from outside of me. In scientific materialism, ideas about matter left no room for Sacred Presence. We can find in scientific discoveries of the last 2 centuries how numinous experiences can arise from an inner sacred Presence.
Quakerism is an experiential heritage that is challenged in explaining such numinous experiences that traditional science cannot account for. There are startling changes in the way we understand the world, changes that offer a basis for reclaiming and perhaps deepening the early insights and practices of Friends and of other spiritual traditions as well. I learned that physical beings do not have an intrinsic non-material dimension. The earth became disenchanted and my own identity severely narrowed. Numinous experiences of Presence, Light, beauty, and truth have no home in modern reductive scientific understanding.
There have been discoveries in the 20th century that have revealed major fissures in the modern materialistic worldview. Significant changes in both science and theology offer a home for spiritual experiences and hopes and the opportunity for a fuller expression of the Religious Society of Friends. Some scientists have looked for ways to incorporate discoveries that reductive materialism cannot contain or explain. We are awakened to the need to move away from objectification of the natural world and unrestrained exploitation of natural resources.
New Understandings that Transform Our Assumptions: The Nonvisible Interiority of Matter—Scientists in the 1920's expected to find tiny particles of matter [as the basis for all matter]. They discovered instead, that including atoms, matter is 99.99% empty space. "Empty" means empty of that which can be known by human senses & instruments. John Polkinghorne wrote that the emptiness or "quantum vacuum" is "more like a plenum than like empty space." Plenum roughly seems empty when it is full. Plenum is a realm of pure generativity, a boiling "sea of energy" that generates matter. Plenum is the basic generative power of the universe.
What was thought to be "particles" within atoms have been discovered to be very small knots of energy, called quanta, which sometimes are particle-like and sometimes are wavelike. [Down to a particular scale] our formulas and discoveries are reliable; after that quantum theory is also required. Quantum theory brings the study of the hidden, nonvisible inner world into the world of science. [Here I seek] to ponder the consequences of quantum physics for our understanding of self and spiritual traditions.
Given old assumptions, it would have been true that numinous experience must arise from outside the world of physical things. Quantum studies of the vast nonvisible plenum brought this assumption into question. A spiritual experience within the body of the person can be considered with fresh eyes. Thomas Kelly writes of a "subterranean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light never fades, a perpetual Flame burns, where the wells of living water of divine revelation rise up continuously, day by day, and hour by hour, steady and transfiguring."
The New Story of Our Origins/ The Emergent, Creative Character of the World/ Belonging Within the Ongoing Story—Another major scientific breakthrough is a new cosmic creation story. The nuclei of future hydrogen & helium atoms were formed 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was born. Some lighter elements, like carbon, were forged within stars, & the heavier elements were formed within supernovae. Earth coalesced 4.6 billion years ago. Chlorophyll developed within the early tiny creatures, enabling them to use the sun's energy. Arising from a long line of hominids, human beings—a self-reflective form of the earth—came into being.
We now see a world in which we can recognize radical novelty throughout the great unfolding drama, rather than the "dire news of scientific inevitability." Physicist Paul Davies calculates that there is essentially zero probability of achieving even 1 protein by chance alone. Emergence is the term used for the appearance of genuinely novel structures and patterns within the evolutionary story, that cannot be reduced to their sum or difference. It is also suggested that there is directionality in evolution. When I studied evolutionary biology in college, I learned that life on earth is ancient, but such knowledge did not speak to me personally. While objective detachment has led to remarkable discoveries, it has a price. Many of us learned to intentionally sever any sense of sacred connection to the earth, [to view] "the world as inert stuff out there and that we are the active agents of change whose role it is to get that stuff in shape" [Parker Palmer].
Self-Organization: in Nature and within Humans—By the 20th century, the origin of the great diversity & complexity of the world became a major question. The evolution of increasingly complex plants & animals apparently contradicts the law of ever-increasing disorder or dissipation. The capacity to dissipate energy as heat while continually importing energy from the environment makes it possible for living beings to overcome disorder. Self-organizing systems can be galaxy superclusters, or subatomic particles/waves. Self-organized forms, such as a cell, may become nested in a larger self-organizing whole. The new whole is a complex nesting of self-organizing forms, and it may have new properties that can't be traced as having arisen from the constituent parts.
New levels that develop through the self-organizing processes of simpler cells combining into a more complex cell are emergent levels, for the novel structures and patterns that appear. How is my inner life integral to the ongoing unfolding evolutionary story? Carl Jung identifies patterns in the human psyche, which he calls archetypes, deep psychological structures which order and integrate experience. Michael Comforti observes that archetypes are the psychological parallel to to the scientific theory of self-organizing dynamics in nature. The Self, similar to the Soul, is the creative, inner center of the person. The Self is unknowable, but is experienced in alternative forms of knowing, such as some dreams, mythic material, and numinous experiences. Inner ordering and creativity is an inner dynamic found throughout the natural world. It also can be identified as acting within the human person. With self-organizing in mind and body, we find a way to begin to heal the all-too-common separation of soul from the earth. Since experiences of the Self can be numinous, we gain confidence that we may find pathways to experience the indwelling sacred Presence.
New Understandings that Transform Our Assumptions: Common Origin of Mind & Matter/ Another Change in Our Assumption/ Drawing Near to the Whole—Self-Organizing dynamics free us from the assumption that the evolutionary story is only about the evolution of the physical world. In Jung's thought, archetypes order both body and mind into a functioning whole grounded in the nonvisible. Polkinghorne notes that time and again mathematics has provided the key to unlocking the secrets of the physical world. What links together mathematics with the structures of the physical world? The world has all through it Polkinghorne's "signs of mind," or Jung's archetypal patterns that link mind and body.
Discoveries in quantum physics make it possible for there to be spiritual life within the evolutionary world. Even though large objects' behavior can be predicted, specific events on a small scale are unpredictable. Ian Bar-bour explains indeterminancy's consequence at the quantum level as: "The future isn't simply unknown; it 'isn't decided' ... there is an opening for unpredictable novelty." Indeterminancy may be a chance for divine influence & for human participation in the unfolding of divine purpose, [without having] a precise predetermined plan.
Teilhard de Chardin writes: "Like meridans as they approach the poles, science, philosophy, & religion are bound to converge as they draw near the whole." We can now imagine that there is a whole, such that the earth & its human beings are a place for numinous experiences & spiritual insights. Anne Hill describes an experience of being flooded by a great power pervading every atom of her body. She writes: "Suddenly, something in you—[not a usual sense] but some other faculty—beholds a vast & boiling ocean that pours itself into the room/into you & leaves you streaming with energy. You feel an immediate bodily connection to aliveness you never knew existed, one that is inside/ outside you at once. Boulding writes that reality underlying religious experience "must be postulated, just as we postulate reality underlying our carefully learned experience of the senses." Could images of a "vast, boiling ocean," "burning oneness binding everything," & "perpetual flame" be a manner of "knowing" the infinite energy of the "emptiness" or plenum that physicists have enountered?
Theological Reflections—I will be using the word of God with some hesitation because it is unfortunately widely associated with the image of a being of omnipotent and supernatural power. Yet experiences of a sacred Presence need to be named so they may be part of the shared knowledge of a culture. Should we not embrace new variations in the meaning of the word God, rather than discard the word? Jung refers to God as a "psychic fact." Ken Wilder uses the phrase "the eye of contemplation" to identify the spiritual mode of knowing. [The images mentioned earlier] arise from the eye of contemplation. 2 other modes of knowing are the eye of flesh (sensed, witnessed knowledge), and eye of the mind (e.g. logic, mathematics).
The understanding of God espoused by panentheism holds that the world is "in" God & God is "in" the world. The sacred Presence permeates the physical world & our interiority. While God's transcendence isn't spatial, God transcends in the sense that God is always, everywhere moving us toward full expression of divine aim & love. The manifest world of matter takes form within the vast emptiness, the plenum. particles that comprise the physical world are plenum taking form. The generation & sustaining of the manifest world out of the plenum is a place where our ideas of God as the creative Ground & the nonvisible reality seem to come together. The evolutionary story and the discovery of the generative plenum affirm the emergence of the manifest world out of a vast inner "emptiness." God is an influence in the unfolding story of the universe, rather than an outside force that abrogates the laws of nature at will. God's role as an immanent persuasive power within the vast plenum is central to the directionality of the evolutionary world and to including Friends' leadings in that story. Even though God does not have omnipotent power, there is the powers of persuasion and allure, healing & sustaining.
Everything that exists is interconnected and interrelated. There is the unity of the earth, and interdependence within the earth, in ecological systems, communities, and families. Until recently, it had been assumed that physical change came only from local causes. Experiments show that the "spin" of a photon can be instantaneously affected by the spin of another correlated particle, even though the particles are great distances away from each other; this is nonlocal causality. There is interconnected, mutual influence in nature beyond our ability to explain. Does this help to explain the Quaker experience of a gathered meeting, an awareness of Presence? We know life and the world from within.
Learning to Inhabit Ourselves—There may be personal, psychological reasons that we fail to fully partake of the revelations of our new origin story. We may be oblivious to the sacred depths of our world, so a healing journey may be a necessary part of becoming open to God's allure. Jung says that real healing accompanies the approach to the numinous experience. Their result is the full, well-lived life, and community. Numinous experiences that bring healing may occur in: images, icons; dreams, visions; silent meeting; nature. Leadings are sometimes of this numinous nature. Without the power of the numinous realm, our wounded psychological patterns will prevail. Louis Dupré writes: "Following the years of gradual change, the real is no longer an object that reason places before the mind, but rather a totality in which the mind constitutes an integral dynamic part." We are drawn into depths of things, into participation in the unfolding story. Peter Todd writes that it is humankind's participation in God that will further evolution as well as the survival of the species.
We are Allured & Drawn Forth by Truth, Beauty, & Goodness/ Evolution's Purpose Felt on the Inside—Through the healing journey, a person becomes increasingly available to participate fully in the unfolding creative process, to share in [& support] the evolutionary story's [positive] direction. Alluring experiences of truth, beauty, & goodness touch us deeply; they may involve numinosity or a kind of resonance with the sacred Presence. In process theology, the drive to discover or advocate truth is divinely instilled. [Evolution has brought] increased capacity for truth & beauty in conscious experience [alongside] the increased complexity of structure.
Friend's know from experience inner participation in the allure of truth, love, and beauty as "leadings." In the emerging conception God as the immanent, alluring element, continually creating through the processes of the natural order, leadings find a home in the evolutionary universe. In leadings, God is dependent on human love, wisdom, and our courage to be and act. Leadings may go beyond our routine daily habits of thought. There can be a new order inspired by Divine Reality.
Pervasive Evil/ The Wide Range of Possibilities Open to the Divine Aim/ Images of Divine Presence—Brian Swimme states that beauty & allurement are the root cause of all evil activity, [because we are prone to addiction to even imperfect beauty, & to misunderstanding distorted, partial truths we follow as clear, whole truths]. The divine creative power can't evoke a [new & right possibility, contrary to the wrong choices that are being made]. How are we to find hope in the face of the pervasive misuse of power & dishonesty? Even in the face of evil, we affirm the healing power of love. God's persuasive power [has a real influence] on the consciousness of an individual or group.
In the old mechanistic story of scientific rationalism, the sacred Presence had to interfere with the natural order to have divine influence on the direction of evolution—God had to enact miracles. Now we can see wide-spread unpredictabilities and flexibilities, [in the form of] indeterminancy, new order from chaotic processes, non-local causality, and self-organizing dynamics, which offer the divine aim more possibilities. [These forms interact with one another in creating new possibilities]. If God is not omnipotent, where is the basis for hope?
It is in the new, unimagined emergence that we see a kind of transcendence expressed throughout the manifest world, and in human consciousness. This is transcendence that does not override the natural world; it is not from outside. It is based on sacred persuasion, creativity, and aim within the natural world and the individual. The evolutionary story helps us avoid the spirit of tragic resignation. [When someone asked], What is my purpose? The answer came that God has an infinite longing to know itself and that as one continued to grow in self-awareness one was doing God's work. With new self-awareness there are new ways of being a person. How are we to speak about God's presence in the very fabric of the universe? Symeon the New Theologian (949 A.D.) writes several moving images as invocations at the beginning of his Hymns of Divine Eros: "Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come, nameless treasure. Come, inexpressible reality. Come, inconceivable Person. Come, endless happiness. Come, light that never sets."
Intrinsic Values as Guidance for Community and Culture/ Group Decision Making/ Ecological Witness: The Natural World is the Primary Manifestation of the Divine/ Friends as Part of the Emerging Worldview: A Foundation for Friends Renewal—In some post-modern thought, values & meaning are considered culturally relative human projections. In this worldview, reality has no value or meaning; the universe is pointless. Here a magnificent forest can be turned into a commodity for unlimited exploitation. The insight that alluring values of truth, beauty & goodness are intrinsic to the unfolding evolutionary story means they are an expression of the nature of things. [Believing this], people can act with great conviction.
Leadings toward truth, beauty, love & caring join persons, groups & meetings in the direction of evolution. We are part of the process of evolution & the process itself come into self-awareness. Quaker decision making, the search for unity in a business meeting, can facilitate the transformation of consciousness in individuals & in a community. [In this process], what seems impossible may come forth. Thomas Berry writes: "Only when we begin to think of the emergent universe as the comprehensive realm of the sacred will we be able to overcome the present assault on the universe in its Earth manifestation."
Remarkably, we can now hear our ancestors freshly, given the radical change in our worldview, a change in the lens through which we see. The essential truths of religion would find a far vaster and more profound form when expressed within the context of the dynamics of the developing universe. Our culture is being forced out of the current dysfunctional phase that threatens the viability of earth and its inhabitants. We may have confidence that, as Boulding proposed, "the evolutionary potential of Quakerism is not yet exhausted and indeed is still very high." Friends have a vital role to play in the unfolding adventure of the earth and its many beings.
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70. Science and the Business of Living( by James G. Vail; 1953)
About the Author--James Vail (?-1952) was a scientist by trade but he had time & resources to serve the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia & around the world in Trinidad, South Africa, & Jamaica with FWCC. He also worked AFSC in Germany in 1920 & sat on the executive board until his death in 1952. He tried to balance success as a scientist with Friends’ testimonies. This pamphlet was published the year after James Vail’s death in 1952. It looked at combining science 's tradition of looking at obstacles as problems to be solved & the religious concept of moral law as the basis of a life together to make a peaceful world.
[Excerpt from] Sonnet—. . . Bid then, the tender light of faith to shine/By which alone the mortal heart is led/Unto thinking of the thought divine— George Santayana
Science has gained enormous prestige, earned by a conquest of the material world unique in history. We have developed a great confidence in our ability to solve problems which, on their face, appear impossible, and to extend our mastery of matter into vast new areas. How can the great accumulation of knowledge be interpreted so that what is known shall be available when needed? What is the impact of our work upon our civilization? Something has gone wrong with our modern world. Unrest and tension [rather than cooperation among competing] groups are not the exception. Rapid accumulation of knowledge has often led to an assumption of something near omnipotence, and generates toxic substances which prevent further growth. Our inability to assimilate [quickly enough] has tempted us to short cuts and nostrums which are very different from wisdom.
Science & the Business of Living—The man of science who is troubled about his role [& feeling responsible] is now heard from [more & more]. There is dissatisfaction with things as they are. This is like urges which spur people to new discoveries in science. It has been said that science has no moral quality; in a literal, narrow sense this is true. [If something new] should decimate the human race, it will make little difference whether the research is “pure science” or not. The community will judge according to the consequences. Because science has removed barriers of space and time, the proximity of everywhere requires rethinking our social attitudes.
Our new knowledge is pregnant with possibilities for good or evil, and we have not learned how to assure a beneficent direction to its development. The earth’s population has more than doubled within the last century. Education and development of industry through applied science can, in the long run, reduce the pressure of population on the land. The true scientist has evolved far from the beast and is inclined to humane and generous actions. Democratic peoples are inherently responsive to human rights and human needs.
But the world community is frustrated, hungry, resentful, and disillusioned. Are there some unifying principles comparable to chemistry & physics laws by which our complex relations as human beings come into an intelligible order and harmony? The process of invention usually begins with the discovery of a clue which wakes the enthusiasm of the inventor who envisages great things. In science & in human affairs, imagination, persistence, refusal to accept defeat, are essential elements of success. Faith is a great releaser of energy.
Science apart from people has no meaning. [I have been able to befriend people from India, China, Islam, and Europe who could overlook those characteristic they found undesireable or offensive. The experience has been one of mutual education, and both parties have found spiritual enrichment in the process. Our needs, hopes, and fears are not racial or national—but human. How can science help the human race to survive?
I have [learned] that in every human being there is a tender aspect. It reaches across barriers usually regarded as impassable, [in the Spanish Civil War], between Moslem and Hindu, between East and West. [The AFSC has proven its effectiveness in Western Europe including Russia]. To bring out the good will in people you have to make them trust you. Their trust is something that has to be earned. It involves rigorous self-discipline, and an honest effort to see through the eyes of the other person.
While the majority of humankind looks with longing toward the American way of life, wise and mature men see us as powerful, irresponsible, erratic and immature. [We, on the other hand, must seek] with determination to release the unexploited resource of goodwill which experimentally we know is real. [I know from experience that groups seen historically as adversaries can work in harmony with a sense of common purpose].
It seems clear that the materialism which dominates so much of our thought and action is a very important cause of the unrest and insecurity that confronts us. There is no easy answer, for it must begin with changes in you and me and [in taking responsibility to make a difference]. Every step of regimentation, indoctrination, or standardization of human beings, which relieves them of responsibility and relegates them to be units in a vast machine, is a step away from ultimate peace and order [brought] by the common consent of free people.
It would be good discipline for each of us to ask: Do the things on which I am working contribute to the well being of all around the world, or do they foster vices, prejudices, of fears? Do I realize that [such a] course will be ultimately more satisfying since it has the approval of an inner monitor which distinguishes me from animals and represents the highest point in evolution?
There is no security except in creating situations in which people do not want to harm you. The temptation to use coercion will be great, but we know that coercion fosters resentment & produces results opposite to those intended. “Feeding your enemy” may mean applying science to create local production that they may have subsistence & self-respect. If the obvious step of a courageous waging of peace is impractical, what is the alternative? Chaos. Albert Einstein said that you can't prepare for war & peace at the same time. [The high heroism & constant devotion required to wage peace] are latent in all. Is there anything more worthy of our effort?
Challenge & Response—It is of the nature & use of peculiarly human characteristics that I wish to speak. A letter from a Lord to a Professor speaks of a problem, on which he was working, as all beads & no string. Search for the string is evident in every scientific meeting; arrangements of facts in sequence gives a sense of security. Knots must be invested to prevent the loss of what has been organized. What is our purpose in devoting our energy to an industry, church, government, or any institution in which many people are associated? Is it to satisfy the urge to exert power on the part of a few, or is it to create a community? Worthwhile work & the challenge of developing one’s best powers makes for a happy & cooperative individual.
Perhaps the fundamental string of which we need to get to get a hold in our thinking is the difference between things, which we have learned how to manipulate, and people, whose reaction are quite different and much less adequately understood. To develop the possibility [of life in] a seed you must keep it alive. You cannot hurry very much the processes of germination or alter greatly the sequences inherent in its ancestry.
As a professional people we have a live interest in education. We can all agree that to meet the challenge of maintaining the advances already gained in science we must have people who are learned, vigorous, & motivated to spend great effort advancing the frontiers. For the moment it is sufficient to recognize that the education we need is something which springs from an urge within a person in response to challenge or inspiration.
I have found something that looks like a string [in] Arnold Toynbee’s 6-volume “Study of History.” Of the 26 civilizations he identifies, 16 are dead & buried & the remaining 10 show degrees of disintegration. The pattern he finds in common with them all is: 1) genesis in response to challenge; 2) growth from creative vigor; 3) failure of the creative minority and resulting breakdown; 4) time of troubles; 5) attempting a universal state to salvage situation; 6) disintegration. The diagnosis is suicide—not murder. Toynbee finds that growing civilizations extend their influence by radiation, the effect of which declines with distance across a vaguely defined zone. If this thread can help us to see our challenge and develop our response, it is to be welcomed.
The great challenge of our time is to put an end to war. As Einstein said: “if we fail to find an answer to this question, the answer to any other question is irrelevant.” If each person or each national groups thinks themselves the center of the universe, conflicts will increase and the end of our civilization will be at hand. Toynbee says that periods of growth are characterized by differentiation, decline by standardization.
There is a special challenge to those who have made these successes in technology to recognize spiritual factors without which technology breaks down, & to prepare the type of thinking on which [a vital, living] peace [and not the mere absence of war], is based. We have a lot of testimony on the value to distressed people of the warmth of human friendship. When all else seems dark, the idea that other humans care comes as a ray of light.
The intellectual fortitude which sustains the scientist in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers is needed for the creation of peace. Why should it be too much for each of us working according to his special talents to contribute to a world in which the welfare of all is a serious objective? The qualities of spirit which are the key to harmonious human relationships are seen in the personal lives and teachings of many great scientists. Without the sense of the need of religious truth the string on which our pattern of history is related will have a loose end with chaos as the penalty.
Our actions seem to derive from [instinct, intellect, & the formless source of a qualitative response to life]. Some people are possessed of personalities which are centered on [service as a response] to trouble. The spiritual part of life is a peculiarly human asset. The power of growth through spiritual insight & action has created faith that overcomes insuperable obstacles. When mind & strength are put at the service of the highest that each of can achieve we shall make our best response to a suffering & frustrated world. We must seek faith & hope with a humble & a contrite heart for without becoming better people we are indeed insufficient to the occasion.
The Scientist, His Neighbors—and Peace—Peace is the great problem of our time. Almost everybody wants peace but most assume that peace is impossible. Peace involves better conditions of health.[The global majority] needs a sense of belonging to the human family of which global communication has made them aware. Every young person, especially the scientists [needs to be introduced to new language & approaches to learning].
When the problem of building and creating is grasped we shall have to invent methods and apply the new techniques not to dead matter, not in terms of force which does not move the minds of men, but in ways which work from the inside out. Scientists are, whether or not they like the idea, a social being dependent on his neighbors. The argument that they have no responsibility to neighbors will be hard to support.
Let us dedicate ourselves, each to make his contribution to reclaiming the spirit of men from fear, frustration, superstition, prejudice. It is important to keep before everyone the basic ideas of freedom & responsibility. To what extent can we leave to others the responsibility for the end use of our technical work? It is a discipline first to understand and then to practice the responsible and, if needed, the sacrificial work which it entails. To earn the right to freedom we must be the kind of people that behave without being coerced.
Horizons—One of the frustration of travel is the horizon. At the farthest reach of every journey there is the call of the beyond. We do not want to be satisfied with the insularity which results from failure to see the place we inhabit in relation to what is beyond the horizon [and beyond our expertise]. Difficult, important choices are usually made without expert understanding.
In larger affairs a community [bowing] to authority, accepting leadership uncritically, will lack the vitality possible to one with people who feel responsible even in the absence of a complete basis of decision. The end of our civilization is in sight. Much of the pertinent information is over the horizon. But there are principles which we as well as the experts can use in directing the course of research and determining the validity of the findings. National rivalries are the major cause of war, [and need to be dealt with by the United Nations]. Another problem we need to face is fear. Most other nations today are afraid of the United States of America. Fear can be dispelled by deliberate and sustained effort to create forces of trust and cooperation.
Have you ever pondered the teaching of history? Each country is described as if it were God’s own and infinitely superior to the others. Objective treatment of history on an international basis in our schools could be of immense value. Peace depends upon the recognition of a moral basis of life. Without living within the frame of moral behavior our great freedoms will vanish over the horizon. Moral law is as inexorable as gravity. A responsible attitude for each of us might include a determination to promote the discoveries we need for the urgent business of living at peace. We can each resolve not to be part of the problem, but part of the answer.
208. Rhythms of the Ecosystem (by Janette Shetter; 1976)
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70. Science and the Business of Living( by James G. Vail; 1953)
About the Author--James Vail (?-1952) was a scientist by trade but he had time & resources to serve the Religious Society of Friends in Philadelphia & around the world in Trinidad, South Africa, & Jamaica with FWCC. He also worked AFSC in Germany in 1920 & sat on the executive board until his death in 1952. He tried to balance success as a scientist with Friends’ testimonies. This pamphlet was published the year after James Vail’s death in 1952. It looked at combining science 's tradition of looking at obstacles as problems to be solved & the religious concept of moral law as the basis of a life together to make a peaceful world.
[Excerpt from] Sonnet—. . . Bid then, the tender light of faith to shine/By which alone the mortal heart is led/Unto thinking of the thought divine— George Santayana
Science has gained enormous prestige, earned by a conquest of the material world unique in history. We have developed a great confidence in our ability to solve problems which, on their face, appear impossible, and to extend our mastery of matter into vast new areas. How can the great accumulation of knowledge be interpreted so that what is known shall be available when needed? What is the impact of our work upon our civilization? Something has gone wrong with our modern world. Unrest and tension [rather than cooperation among competing] groups are not the exception. Rapid accumulation of knowledge has often led to an assumption of something near omnipotence, and generates toxic substances which prevent further growth. Our inability to assimilate [quickly enough] has tempted us to short cuts and nostrums which are very different from wisdom.
Science & the Business of Living—The man of science who is troubled about his role [& feeling responsible] is now heard from [more & more]. There is dissatisfaction with things as they are. This is like urges which spur people to new discoveries in science. It has been said that science has no moral quality; in a literal, narrow sense this is true. [If something new] should decimate the human race, it will make little difference whether the research is “pure science” or not. The community will judge according to the consequences. Because science has removed barriers of space and time, the proximity of everywhere requires rethinking our social attitudes.
Our new knowledge is pregnant with possibilities for good or evil, and we have not learned how to assure a beneficent direction to its development. The earth’s population has more than doubled within the last century. Education and development of industry through applied science can, in the long run, reduce the pressure of population on the land. The true scientist has evolved far from the beast and is inclined to humane and generous actions. Democratic peoples are inherently responsive to human rights and human needs.
But the world community is frustrated, hungry, resentful, and disillusioned. Are there some unifying principles comparable to chemistry & physics laws by which our complex relations as human beings come into an intelligible order and harmony? The process of invention usually begins with the discovery of a clue which wakes the enthusiasm of the inventor who envisages great things. In science & in human affairs, imagination, persistence, refusal to accept defeat, are essential elements of success. Faith is a great releaser of energy.
Science apart from people has no meaning. [I have been able to befriend people from India, China, Islam, and Europe who could overlook those characteristic they found undesireable or offensive. The experience has been one of mutual education, and both parties have found spiritual enrichment in the process. Our needs, hopes, and fears are not racial or national—but human. How can science help the human race to survive?
I have [learned] that in every human being there is a tender aspect. It reaches across barriers usually regarded as impassable, [in the Spanish Civil War], between Moslem and Hindu, between East and West. [The AFSC has proven its effectiveness in Western Europe including Russia]. To bring out the good will in people you have to make them trust you. Their trust is something that has to be earned. It involves rigorous self-discipline, and an honest effort to see through the eyes of the other person.
While the majority of humankind looks with longing toward the American way of life, wise and mature men see us as powerful, irresponsible, erratic and immature. [We, on the other hand, must seek] with determination to release the unexploited resource of goodwill which experimentally we know is real. [I know from experience that groups seen historically as adversaries can work in harmony with a sense of common purpose].
It seems clear that the materialism which dominates so much of our thought and action is a very important cause of the unrest and insecurity that confronts us. There is no easy answer, for it must begin with changes in you and me and [in taking responsibility to make a difference]. Every step of regimentation, indoctrination, or standardization of human beings, which relieves them of responsibility and relegates them to be units in a vast machine, is a step away from ultimate peace and order [brought] by the common consent of free people.
It would be good discipline for each of us to ask: Do the things on which I am working contribute to the well being of all around the world, or do they foster vices, prejudices, of fears? Do I realize that [such a] course will be ultimately more satisfying since it has the approval of an inner monitor which distinguishes me from animals and represents the highest point in evolution?
There is no security except in creating situations in which people do not want to harm you. The temptation to use coercion will be great, but we know that coercion fosters resentment & produces results opposite to those intended. “Feeding your enemy” may mean applying science to create local production that they may have subsistence & self-respect. If the obvious step of a courageous waging of peace is impractical, what is the alternative? Chaos. Albert Einstein said that you can't prepare for war & peace at the same time. [The high heroism & constant devotion required to wage peace] are latent in all. Is there anything more worthy of our effort?
Challenge & Response—It is of the nature & use of peculiarly human characteristics that I wish to speak. A letter from a Lord to a Professor speaks of a problem, on which he was working, as all beads & no string. Search for the string is evident in every scientific meeting; arrangements of facts in sequence gives a sense of security. Knots must be invested to prevent the loss of what has been organized. What is our purpose in devoting our energy to an industry, church, government, or any institution in which many people are associated? Is it to satisfy the urge to exert power on the part of a few, or is it to create a community? Worthwhile work & the challenge of developing one’s best powers makes for a happy & cooperative individual.
Perhaps the fundamental string of which we need to get to get a hold in our thinking is the difference between things, which we have learned how to manipulate, and people, whose reaction are quite different and much less adequately understood. To develop the possibility [of life in] a seed you must keep it alive. You cannot hurry very much the processes of germination or alter greatly the sequences inherent in its ancestry.
As a professional people we have a live interest in education. We can all agree that to meet the challenge of maintaining the advances already gained in science we must have people who are learned, vigorous, & motivated to spend great effort advancing the frontiers. For the moment it is sufficient to recognize that the education we need is something which springs from an urge within a person in response to challenge or inspiration.
I have found something that looks like a string [in] Arnold Toynbee’s 6-volume “Study of History.” Of the 26 civilizations he identifies, 16 are dead & buried & the remaining 10 show degrees of disintegration. The pattern he finds in common with them all is: 1) genesis in response to challenge; 2) growth from creative vigor; 3) failure of the creative minority and resulting breakdown; 4) time of troubles; 5) attempting a universal state to salvage situation; 6) disintegration. The diagnosis is suicide—not murder. Toynbee finds that growing civilizations extend their influence by radiation, the effect of which declines with distance across a vaguely defined zone. If this thread can help us to see our challenge and develop our response, it is to be welcomed.
The great challenge of our time is to put an end to war. As Einstein said: “if we fail to find an answer to this question, the answer to any other question is irrelevant.” If each person or each national groups thinks themselves the center of the universe, conflicts will increase and the end of our civilization will be at hand. Toynbee says that periods of growth are characterized by differentiation, decline by standardization.
There is a special challenge to those who have made these successes in technology to recognize spiritual factors without which technology breaks down, & to prepare the type of thinking on which [a vital, living] peace [and not the mere absence of war], is based. We have a lot of testimony on the value to distressed people of the warmth of human friendship. When all else seems dark, the idea that other humans care comes as a ray of light.
The intellectual fortitude which sustains the scientist in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers is needed for the creation of peace. Why should it be too much for each of us working according to his special talents to contribute to a world in which the welfare of all is a serious objective? The qualities of spirit which are the key to harmonious human relationships are seen in the personal lives and teachings of many great scientists. Without the sense of the need of religious truth the string on which our pattern of history is related will have a loose end with chaos as the penalty.
Our actions seem to derive from [instinct, intellect, & the formless source of a qualitative response to life]. Some people are possessed of personalities which are centered on [service as a response] to trouble. The spiritual part of life is a peculiarly human asset. The power of growth through spiritual insight & action has created faith that overcomes insuperable obstacles. When mind & strength are put at the service of the highest that each of can achieve we shall make our best response to a suffering & frustrated world. We must seek faith & hope with a humble & a contrite heart for without becoming better people we are indeed insufficient to the occasion.
The Scientist, His Neighbors—and Peace—Peace is the great problem of our time. Almost everybody wants peace but most assume that peace is impossible. Peace involves better conditions of health.[The global majority] needs a sense of belonging to the human family of which global communication has made them aware. Every young person, especially the scientists [needs to be introduced to new language & approaches to learning].
When the problem of building and creating is grasped we shall have to invent methods and apply the new techniques not to dead matter, not in terms of force which does not move the minds of men, but in ways which work from the inside out. Scientists are, whether or not they like the idea, a social being dependent on his neighbors. The argument that they have no responsibility to neighbors will be hard to support.
Let us dedicate ourselves, each to make his contribution to reclaiming the spirit of men from fear, frustration, superstition, prejudice. It is important to keep before everyone the basic ideas of freedom & responsibility. To what extent can we leave to others the responsibility for the end use of our technical work? It is a discipline first to understand and then to practice the responsible and, if needed, the sacrificial work which it entails. To earn the right to freedom we must be the kind of people that behave without being coerced.
Horizons—One of the frustration of travel is the horizon. At the farthest reach of every journey there is the call of the beyond. We do not want to be satisfied with the insularity which results from failure to see the place we inhabit in relation to what is beyond the horizon [and beyond our expertise]. Difficult, important choices are usually made without expert understanding.
In larger affairs a community [bowing] to authority, accepting leadership uncritically, will lack the vitality possible to one with people who feel responsible even in the absence of a complete basis of decision. The end of our civilization is in sight. Much of the pertinent information is over the horizon. But there are principles which we as well as the experts can use in directing the course of research and determining the validity of the findings. National rivalries are the major cause of war, [and need to be dealt with by the United Nations]. Another problem we need to face is fear. Most other nations today are afraid of the United States of America. Fear can be dispelled by deliberate and sustained effort to create forces of trust and cooperation.
Have you ever pondered the teaching of history? Each country is described as if it were God’s own and infinitely superior to the others. Objective treatment of history on an international basis in our schools could be of immense value. Peace depends upon the recognition of a moral basis of life. Without living within the frame of moral behavior our great freedoms will vanish over the horizon. Moral law is as inexorable as gravity. A responsible attitude for each of us might include a determination to promote the discoveries we need for the urgent business of living at peace. We can each resolve not to be part of the problem, but part of the answer.
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About the Author—Janette Knott Shetter was born into a family with an appreciation of nature. [She remembers her grandfather’s and mother’s deep involvement with nature. She acquired a doctorate in biochemistry with an emphasis on bacteria from the University of CA. This pamphlet grew out of a course on ecology which Janette gave at Pendle Hill in 1971 when she was a student and her family were residents there.
The Dance of Shiva—So faintly [did the] uncertain sound began that he turned his whole mind inward & distinguished a slow & stately rhythm rising from his overflowing grace. His supple body … his legs’ movement picked up the rhythm. Shiva moved with stately grace & gay abandon, as only a Shiva could do. All that wasn’t Shiva dancing a dance of universal death & joy began to fall apart, disintegrate, evaporate into the thin vapors of apparent nothingness. As he had danced the worlds out, now he danced them in again, evoking [new life & a new age].
This pamphlet is the result of what Shiva said to me as a person who had already been made acutely aware of the ecological realities of our time. In one of his right hands Shiva holds the drum of creation; from the other flows protection. A left hand holds the fire which destroys the cosmos, while the other left points to the upraised foot as a symbol of release. Within man & his universe exists a rhythmic tension between destruction or reduction & creation or synthesis. What determines if the [universe’s] dance results in creation or disintegration?
The Dance of the Atoms/ Cycles of Matter—Atoms are in a never-never land where the boundary between matter and energy, which had always seems so firm, begins to blur. Forces that bind matter into atoms are probably the most powerful in the universe. Atomic reactions have been occurring within the sun. In the sun the coming together of 2 hydrogen atoms at intense temperatures and pressures to form an atom of helium results in energy essential to our planet, [in a dance of] ascending leaps of unpremeditated joy. [On the other hand], the use of hydrogen bombs would release byproducts whose radioactivity would continue for a longer time than man has existed on this earth. At first sight, there seem to be no restraining forces. The laws of physics tell us how much energy will be released, and fission or fusion processes are regulated by properties inherent in matter itself. The factors that regulate the dance of destruction or creation become more complex as the units get larger.
The “cycles of matter” is the continuous process in which macromolecules are broken down into inorganic compounds, which reform into complex molecules. Living creatures die, and microorganisms reduce the complex molecules of that particular creature into small molecules of nitrate, phosphate, sulfate and carbon dioxide. Similar decomposition occurs in our stomachs; the molecules of the bread we eat are broken down into smaller molecules that can travel the blood stream to where they are needed.
The sulfur & nitrogen from the complex compounds, through bacteria, becomes hydrogen sulfide & ammonia. Out of one form's destruction comes the energy for the growth of another, [anything] from bacteria to human. Intrinsic to the creation of new forms is the synthesis of the most magnificently complex molecules. I find the mythic image of the sound waves creating solid matter a marvelous metaphor for the conversion of gases into very solid plant structures by photosynthesis. Each DNA molecule and many of the protein molecules are uniquely characteristic of the species, and in some cases of the individual plant or animal that produced it.
With each step of the dance some new, but transient, structure comes into being. The regulatory mechanism of destruction and synthesis is incompletely known. The rate of destruction which is also the rate at which nutrients are made available for new growth determines, in part, the rate and amount of growth that can occur in an ecosystem. Man’s addition of phosphate allows inordinate amounts of algae to grow. Shiva’s dance may be frenzied, but it is still a dance with a rhythm that balances the extent of creation.
Cells to Organisms—Millions of years ago, an aggregate of cells developed survival power not available to unicellular creatures. With the beat of Shiva’s drum renegade cells within a multi-cellular creature can return to the unicellular way of reproduction, & there may be a cancer. [There is an instance] where single cells are pro-duced that have the potential of uniting with another single cell from another human being, & a unique new life begins.
Multicellularity allows different cells to specialize in performing the different functions of the whole. Slime molds specialize only during reproduction, whereas humans are made up of billions of cells with specialized functions, with each cell contributing to, and playing an integrated part in, the whole. The variety and success of the multi-cellular way suggests that there is a powerful evolutionary force in this direction.
On the other hand, single cells have a less complicated reproductive system so that they can form 2 cells in a relatively short time, whenever nutrients become available, [e.g.] when an animal dies. Single-celled organisms can live in extreme temperatures from near freezing to about 180°F (82°C). The question of synthesis or destruc-tion is a pressing issue on the level of cellularity. How a cell “knows” to become a certain cell is still one of em-bryology’s unsolved mysteries. Each cell works to its own rhythm; & when the rhythm is violated, a cell goes wild & a malignant growth begins. It is entirely possible that any new manmade compound, given long expo-sure, is detrimental to biochemical regulatory systems; many are known to be. Cancer's cause is complex. Here-dity, viruses, even the inability to express hostility and anger outwardly can contribute to [cancerous conditions].
Within the Individual—In speaking of atoms, macromolecules, & multi-cellular growth, the results could be calculated. With the forces within ourselves an exact determination isn’t possible. Disintegration is re-presented by the mentally ill, wholeness by the creative, mature person. It can be caused chemically & by the more subtle effect of social environment, when an intense struggle for survival leaves no room for wholeness. Disintegration can be healthy when it leads to the end of [dysfunctional behavior or outmoded ideas]. I suspect any religious experience involves the breaking the old bonds, dissolving the boundaries between man & God.
Integration, creation, synthesis can have their negative side, when they stunt further growth. When a pre-scribed definition of wholeness is assumed & creative deviance is prevented, the integration resulting is unhealthy. There are pairs of seeming opposites in all of us that cry out for an integration, a bringing together & giving honor to each member of the pair. Analogous to the ecological need for the decomposing bacteria, is society’s need for its deviants, as examples of what isn't done, & as creators pointing in a new direction. As Shiva “turned his whole mind inward,” we too can turn our minds inward and attempt to be sensitive to our own inner rhythm.
Individuals and Groups—The pendulum swings between drawing apart as an individual, and becoming a part of a group. If we listen sensitively to the beat of Shiva’s drum, we will find that as individuals we each need differing amounts of solitude. And within every group there are forces for both cohesion and disintegration, both of which have their positive and negative aspects.
For those elements acting to decrease group cohesion in a negative way, we have the dominator, who knows what the group should do & doesn’t listen to the group’s natural rhythm. There is one there “strictly as an observer,” [uninvested in the group]. There’s the one whose words & actions say “pay attention to me.” There are forces outside the group, unclear, impossible tasks & irreconcilable schedules. Sometimes the group’s composition leads towards dissolution. Forces of dissolution can be positive, as when an individual withdraws to become more aware of their Self as an individual. A drive towards competition, self-assertion, self expression, control of others & the environment, when balanced by cohesion-promoting forces, can be a powerful forward thrust.
There are negative aspects to group cohesiveness. Some are intoxicated with the group and lose their own identity; some groups encourage this. There is the conformist. The norms or accepted ways of behaving with a group have a strong influence with those fearing rejection. Factors that promote cohesiveness include: a group that is hard to join; groups with a clearly defined goal; successful groups; clear expectation and roles.
My experience suggests love & concern for others is the main cohesive force that holds groups together. When accompanied by love. group norms can be very positive. People see potentials in themselves they didn’t realize were there, & become free to respond to the Light Within; & they find the courage to act. Free choice is a dominant factor. The sum of many free choices forms a pattern, so the factors involved here are a part of Shiva’s dance. The only true guide is a fine attunement to the Spirit’s leading—Shiva turns his whole mind inward.
Mankind and the Ecosystem—There are 3 main ways in humankind can consider the earth: domain to exploit for [short-term] benefit; natural resource to be technologically managed for future generation; creation of God’s Spirit to be lived in harmony with. [The difference] between “living in harmony with” and “using” [can be seen in] the man who designs a hydroelectric power plant with a love for the beauty of the canyon [vs.] the man who considers the canyon to be there only so he can use the water.
There is a world ecosystem no matter how humankind lives. It is unstable, out of balance, or disorganized when man plays a disruptive, & not a harmonious role in it. Humans are only beginning to be aware of their destructive effects upon the earth [& its other inhabitants]. With atomic weapons “all that isn’t Shiva dancing” may indeed, “fall apart, disintegrate, evaporate into thin vapors.” If all known fossil fuel reserves were burned, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would double; present life is adapted to existing concentration.
An obvious disintegrating force is the uncontrolled growth of the human population, whose course I find closely analogous to the growth of a cancer within the body. The death of the ecosystem is the inevitable result if control is not restored. These are only a few of the many hazards of the disintegrating forces acting on the once-strong ties between man and the earth he lives on.
One right hand of Shiva is in a gesture of preservation. To an ecologist preservation represents a balance of destruction & creation. Shiva’s devotees had a deep intuition of destruction’s necessity. Death is a necessity on an earth with a limited amount of life-sustaining elements. Overcrowding conditions are the soil of pestilence. Hidden within destruction is hope that new more complex, more conscious, & more unified forms might arise.
Those who have seen dissolution in their personal lives prepare the way for new growth and development that could not have otherwise taken place, may find the frenzied dance of destruction somewhat easier to accept. [Dissolution has been part of our advancing civilization]. Surely we do not have to turn our backs on all of these advances in order to form a viable man-earth ecosystem. Humankind has separated themselves from the earth as a child must from their mother. We cannot truly know ourselves until we come to know the earth our mother as an adult, and rediscover and renew his appreciation of the magnificent bounty, terror, and beauty of Nature. Shiva’s drum beats for disintegration, and also for reunion with earth.
We cannot go back to the simple days of relating to nature, when we had far less control of nature. Having eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, we have been driven out of the garden, and the gate to Eden is guarded by angels with flaming swords. Let us listen carefully to the dimly heard beat of Shiva’s drum and see if we can hear the beat for a new integration of humans, separate, and uniquely themselves, with their environment, an integration that is sensitive to the inner rhythm of the ecosystem and harmonizes with them. [It will take the attributes of scientists, poets, and perhaps even saints to fully appreciate and integrate with nature]. When one’s egoism is consumed, one becomes less strongly bound to what from the view point of the ego is good or bad. “Shiva dancing in the hearts of his devotees” means becoming aware of these forces within ourselves, and learning to accept and cooperate with those painful processes that disintegrate our self-centeredness. Then one is enabled to watch the dance of personal integration and disintegration with joy as well as fear.
237. Reaching Toward God (by Michael Marsh; 1981)
About the Author—Michael Marsh is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington. He participated in an American Friends Service Committee summer work camp, where he 1st met his wife. He says: “The question of God & God’s relation to us has gnawed me for a long while. I came to a partial answer in my pamphlet Philosophy of the Inner Light (#209). Inward explorations also brought me to the reality of a truly personal God.”
The Universe we Live in/ History of Life on Earth—What can one reasonably believe about God's reality & nature? What does awareness of a greater presence signify? Reasoning can overcome many intellectual barriers that block us today from full belief. An impersonal force isn't the God we seek; our God holds comfort as well as power. Neither science nor Freud nor Marx nor anyone else has refuted the personal God.
Let’s 1st look at the picture of the universe offered by science. Before the Big Bang 10 or 20 billion years ago, the physical reality was of infinite density compressed into infinitesimal size. From the Big Bang, the universe expanded; cosmologists differ as to whether the universe will continue expanding or whether it will begin to contract and end as it began. Our sun is about 5 billion years old. There may be other planets like ours.
The Earth is now thought to be about 4,600,000,000 years old. About 500 or 600 million years ago a remarkable diversification and complexification of organisms began. Today over a million species of animals and over a third as many plants have been discovered. The struggle for biological survival leads to both supportive symbiosis and deadly attacks. Out of this immensity of galaxies, out of more than 10,000,000,000 years of time, out of this swarm of sharing and competing species, perhaps 100,000 years ago, homo sapiens evolved.
Exploring the God Question/ 1st Alternative: Physical Forces—The amount of order observed makes it reasonable to think that the universe has an ultimate explanation, an integrated system of reasons why things are as they are. What is the ultimate explanation's nature? Either the universe is made & sustained by physical forces, or the universe was made & is sustained wholly or in part by personal or impersonal mental forces.
Some of our human capacities & achievements can’t be ascribed to biological evolution (i.e. even complex physical forces) or to chance. No biological explanation exists for human capacities beyond those serving the struggle for existence. Human minds at their best have a capacity for [scientific speculation] about the universe's nature & to make good predictions based on theories. [This isn’t a survival skill]. Evolution doesn't explain our ability to understand somewhat the super-large & the super-small & to predict their behavior. William Temple wrote: “We are so impressed by the world's greatness & multiplicity, that we seldom reflect on the fact that we know it. [Apprehending & comprehending] the process is the most remarkable [aspect] of the process.
Biological evidence may explain the human tendency to put a moral gloss on one’s own goals, & the moral imperative to obey community laws. It doesn’t explain [the moral sacrifice of those who] find & follow a higher moral law that may subvert established social rules [e.g.] Lao-Tse, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln. Anti-establishment moral imperatives, and the will to follow them, clearly do exist in the minds of some humans. Biology offers no explanation for the human capacity for moral independence.
Most people have a capacity to perceive and appreciate beauty [i.e.] Aesthetic experience. Yet beauty as such serves no biological function. [Time is wasted in a biological sense] when an artisan makes a beautiful chair or rug or bowl rather than a [more efficient] machine-made one. The aesthetic capacity is evidently too widespread to be a chance affair and too useless to be biologically selected. I conclude that [scientific speculation, moral sacrifice], and Aesthetic experience cannot be explained either by biological natural selection or by chance. Therefore, the universe was not made by, and is not sustained wholly by physical forces.
2nd Alternative: Mental Forces—Some kind or kinds of mental force must form part of the ultimate explanation. Is the ultimate mental force personal or impersonal? If basic mental force is impersonal, then the universe has no long-term willed goal & no dialog between humans & ultimate explanation. Evolutionary development with increasing complexity, & human development in particular points to] a cosmic architect willing a final distant goal but operating with difficult materials. Evolution’s long devious, pain-filled path & the possibility we are [alone] in the universe, lend weight to the hypothesis of no will & no goal; the evidence is not clear.
Thousands of people have testified to a Divine-human dialog. Prophets & mystics old & new claim to [have experienced God]. Countless people pray to God, & feel their prayers are heard & answered. Often an awareness of love accompanies the mystical experience. This dialog evidence seems suggestive but not conclusive about the reality of a personal God. In speaking of the ultimate explanation as personal, we mean it has immensely more of the unique qualities of a human person.
From what source do people get the capacity to grasp in part how the universe [i.e. ultimate explanation] works? Most plausibly, we get them from the ultimate explanation itself, [which mean] it must have personal qualities. How can the ultimate explanation “give” a person capacities? Some interpenetration must occur between the human mind and the ultimate explanation. [Organisms that reach a certain level of complexity] are able to interact with the ground of all being in a way that makes them persons.
Personhood is most remarkable thing about humans. [The creator & sustainer wouldn’t be less remarkable than humans, i.e. less than personal]. The ultimate explanation embraces the universe's laws & logic, [energy & space as the] ground of all being. This isn’t a simple system. [No human mental capacities] can be explained by physical/biological forces or chance. The ultimate explanation isn’t less advanced than human beings.
An Upland Area/ God-Refuters: Marx & Freud/ Foundations for God—[Through this discussion I can now] freely say “God,” & can believe that willed goals & values might be more than merely human dreams. The God I had reached in my pamphlet Philosophy of the Inner Light (PHP #209) wasn't a God who cared. [I expand on that idea in this pamphlet to suggest a more personal God].
Karl Marx & his leading followers portray God as imaginary, projected in answer to human hopes. “The opium of the people” it was called. [Of the arguments against God, one] assumes that flaws in God’s representation by humans disprove God’s reality; the other assumes that God must be a material entity; only God’s effects can be measured. History shows the folly of entrusting great power & wealth & faith to any priesthood.
Sigmund Freud’s God is an illusion, & religion is “ humanity's universal obsessional neurosis.” Religion embodies a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.” Freud [questions] ordinary religious belief's motives. But the truth of ideas rests not on purity of motives but on how well ideas fit the world. What is my motive in seeking God? [Knowing this] will instruct me on my possible bias and will help me towards objectivity and truth.
The 5 foundations we reach as we strive to explain all that happens are: laws of nature; principles of logic/ mathematics; space; temporality; and a creative evolving fund of energy. Each of these 5 are limited by our understanding of them. The ultimate explanation is what lies behind them: creativity; formal structure; eternal now; true laws of nature; immensity. Where in all this is the personhood of God? It came to me strongly that always what we humans say about God is metaphorical. We all speak in ciphers. [The 5 foundations of the ultimate explanation] are metaphors. God is beyond our words.
Creative Father/ “Logos” in the Son/ Ground of our Being—I started 1st with God as creativity; source of energy for what is & was & will be. This aspect of God may be taken as the generator of space or immensity. God is also lawgiver, the laws of nature & the formal structure of logic/mathematics underlying natural law. God also sets forth the laws of persons, including moral law. I think it is like that God’s true moral laws are also hypothetical, where A is done, God’s love will be wounded. We find God’s will embodied in the laws that shape the universe, & [in the] goal, the ideal reality, the future [it points toward]. We may will this ideal reality in our inmost self when we are open toward God. Kelvin Van Nuys has described God’s will as cosmic purpose for good.
John’s Gospel uses “Logos” to describe God; it means “Word,” reason, or explanatory principle. Can we consider God the lawgiver to be God as son, [Logos] made flesh? The most plausible view is nature’s laws develop (by God’s will) only as required to actualize events or entities; these laws appear as needed to deal with new situations. Nothing prevents us from accepting God as a son figure, coming after the primal generator in action, not in being. The Christ who spoke & acted in Jesus served as law-giver & teacher of laws new & old. Paul viewed Christ as “1st born” of God, & held that through Christ all things in heaven & earth were created. My view is God the father as source of energy & power; God the son as source of cosmic Logos & expressed will.
I have called one realm experiential time, temporality, the ground of consciousness or the eternal now. You can think of this realm as the ground of your consciousness, the ground on which you experience all life-events. Temporality stretches back through our past to our earliest personal experiencing, covers the moments of our immediate awareness, and forward to our inevitable death. Paul Tillich says of the eternal now: “It is the eternal that stops the flux of time for us. It is the eternal “now” which provides for us a temporal ‘now” … Eternal life is beyond ‘past, present, and future: we come from it, we live in it presence, we return to it.”
Entering the Eternal Now/ God as Mother—For God the whole past, present and future exist as now. [People seek to enter the eternal now because many have found there a kind of love. Ruysbroek wrote: “This immersion in love becomes the habit of our being, and so takes place while we sleep and while we wake, whether we know it or not.” Once you accept God as personal, the attribute of love can scarcely be denied.
In the ground of being into which we sink womblike, we find God as mother. St. Augustine concludes that man alone, or husband & wife together, stand as God's image, but not woman alone; therefore the Holy Spirit can’t be woman. I find this whole argument based on false premises about women's origin & inferiority. To those of you who have felt God’s love in your life, did it not resemble more than anything else the ideal mother’s love for her child. God’s love must exist (in the mother) before the son can function as cosmic purpose for good.
The Triune God/ Our Experience of Light—I focus on a triune God because God the father is power lacking form. God as law-giving son or Logos shapes and forms the vast evolution of actuality seeking perfection. God as mothering love influences some events but clearly is not all powerful. The triune God unites in the end as one God, one Ultimate Mind embracing all 3 aspects; without this unity we should have no universe at all. I lived far from any awareness of God in my dull, blind, angry moments.
God is light. God is more than a candle, a lantern, a beacon, a sun, though all of these can symbolize God’s light. Light is the interaction of electromagnetic waves with our organism and our mind that produces our experience of light. God Logos gives us of his light whenever we see how things fit, how concepts relate, or how we ought to act, or where beauty dwells. Only in God as mother-ground, eternal now, do we possibly move toward more than interaction, toward possible pure participation in God’s light as such. I am loved imperishably, because I am part of God’s own whole; it is this that makes me safe.
Dante, in Divine Comedy writes in part: “Oh grace abounding that had made me fit/ to fix my eyes on the eternal light/ until my vision was consumed in it!// I saw within Its depth how It conceives/ all things in a single volume bound by Love,/ of which the universe is the scattered leaves;// … As I grew worthier to see,/ the more I looked, the more unchanging semblance/ appeared to change with every change in me.”
136. The Evolutionary Potential of Quakerism (by Kenneth E. Boulding; 1964)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Kenneth E. Boulding was born in England and educated at New College, Oxford and the University of Chicago. He served the League of Nations. He is a member of the Committee on Research for Peace of the Institute for International Order, and full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution of the University of Michigan; he is also Professor of Economics there.
The James Backhouse Lecture—This is the 1st in a new series of lectures instituted by Australia YM, delivered in Melbourne January 5, 1964. James Backhouse was an English Friend who visited Australia from 1832 till 1837. He published full scientific accounts of what he saw, encouraged Friends, & followed up his deep concern for the convicts. Australian Friends hope that this series of lectures will bring fresh insights into truth.
[Introduction]—Equilibrium, entropy, and evolution [are the concepts that largely describe the universe]. [Equilibrium is the ability to maintain a balanced state]. All equilibrium states are temporary; otherwise there would be no history. In making history there is a “running down” process or increasing entropy, & a “building up” process or evolution. In its loose sense entropy may be equated with a measure of chaos or probability. Whenever anything happens it is because the system had a potential for change but when something happens part of this potential is used up. In an organization’s history there is social potential which is gradually used up & unless it can be renewed the organization matures, ages & dies. Within a closed system the law of increasing entropy reigns supreme. The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to run down. The law of increasing entropy [reduces the universe] to a state of perfect equilibrium where nothing more can happen, forever.
The Process of Evolution—Evolution is a process at work in the universe which is creative rather than destructive. It operates as far as we know through very simple machinery. Most of evolution’s random changes produce states that won't survive. Sometimes however these changes will be large enough to move the system to a new position of equilibrium. The process by which systems change is called mutation. The process by which some survive & some don't is called selection. The evolutionary process itself mutates. Life itself in its genetic structure had an apparatus for recreating potential in each generation & for enormously increasing the possible mutation rate. The advent of humans a mere half million years ago, represents a break and a change of gear in the evolutionary process at least equivalent to the invention of life itself. We now seem about at the point at which humans can begin to intervene actively in the process of biological evolution. What is happening today is that civilization is passing away & a new state of human arising which I call “post-civilized,” or “developed.”
The Quaker Mutation—What is the role of the Society of Friends in this evolutionary process stretching from creation to doomsday? The Society of Friends can be seen as a mutation from the Christian phylum. Often it seems to be some obscure bud off the main line of evolution which eventually turns out to contain the greatest evolutionary potential. Each of the great religions can be seen as a phylum stretching through time from its origins, growing or declining & branching with some branches possessing more evolutionary potential than others. The Quaker mutation is purely a mutant from the Christian phylum.
Toward Perfection and Experience—The Quaker mutation included a surprisingly large change from its Puritan, Protestant, Christian roots; this makes it of unusual historical interest. The Quakers were perfectionists. They believed that life without sin could be lived on earth. The inward light for George Fox was no pale intellectual illumination, but a consuming holy fire which not only revealed sin but brought you out of it. Their refusal to practice certain trivial and widely accepted customs [got them into a lot of trouble].
A second very important strand in the Quaker mutation might be called “experimentalism” (i.e. experience is the only true source of religion and perfection). Vitality and freshness flowed into the stream of religious culture from this Quaker insistence on experimental religion. I incline to the view that Rufus Jones was mistaken in trying to identify the stream of European mysticism as the source of Quaker mutation. Those who argue that its source came out of English Puritanism are much closer to the truth. Any religion which lays stress on experience will find mysticism congenial. The object of Quaker meditation is not so much to achieve union with the divine as to receive practical instruction from the divine.
Creating a Social Body—Out of these motivational mutations comes: Meeting for Worship; Meeting for Business; the Quaker’s social organization. Fox seized on these Seekers’ meeting for worship as an ideal expression [of experimentalism], & these Seekers found in George Fox’s doctrine justification for their practices. The Seekers were the “social egg,” & Fox was the fertilizing sperm. George Fox’s genius created the Meeting for Business & the organization of the new society into monthly, quarterly, & yearly meetings. This gave the society a “body,” capable of maintaining itself and of mobilizing individual resources into a common purpose. By 1700 the original expansion had largely settled down into a self-reproducing religious subculture.
Subsequent mutations in some parts of the Society of Friends have tended to move the pattern back towards its original sources, with singing, a paid minister & a regular sermon. Even in meetings which retain unprogrammed meeting for worship there have been many mutations from the original pattern, almost all in the direction of the “world” surrounding the meeting. Many of the traditional interests of the society in social reform have largely been taken over by others. I believe the evolutionary potential of the Quaker mutation is far from exhausted, has hardly begun to show its full effects, & has a vital role to play in the future development of humankind.
Factors of Survival—A mutation can often survive & reproduce itself not because it is in itself particularly favorable but because it happens to be associated with other mutations which are favorable. A mutation which is intrinsically favorable and which has a high evolutionary potential may have low survival value because it is associated with other less favorable mutation, or because the environment for which it is suited is yet to come.
Quaker's mutation period marks the beginning of enormous expansion of the English-speaking world’s influence. Science & technology would be unlikely to develop outside of a society in which perfectionism & experimentalism were present. It isn’t only because of Quakerism that there are Quakers in Australia, but be-cause of many forces & institutions of which Quakers wouldn't approve [e.g. the British navy & penal system].
I think Quakerism is an example of a mutation which was in a sense premature and before its time. The religious experience and the resulting ethical conclusions and culture characteristic of the Quaker mutation have more relevance in the world to which we seem to be moving than in the world which we are leaving behind.
Religion in the Post-Civilized World—Has the larger mutation involved in science and technology rendered any religious interpretation of the world unlikely to survive into the future post-civilization? The justification for religion as a set of practices lies in the experience itself. It can be magic and superstition or the loftiest experience attainable by the human organism. It is precisely in religious experience that one finds the evolutionary potential that looks forward to the ultimate future of man. Pursuing good for its own sake is what religion at its highest has always meant by the search for God.
Some want to disassociate Quakerism from its Christian origins. I think this deprives Quakerism of too much of its content to make it viable. I suspect that Quakerism will have to remain Christian, constantly holding up the standard of perfection before it and forcing it constantly to consider what are the bare essential characteristics of the Christian phylum which give it further evolutionary potential.
Building Human Identity—The Society of Friends is deeply committed to love as a major ethical principle and on building the human identity around universal love which knows no barriers of race, class, country or creed. The threat of violence is still an important element in the modern world. Civilized society works for money and goods and could not operate without this motivation and without the corresponding institutions. The ethic of love is the only one on which the world society which technology has made necessary can be built.
The great search of humans today is for a human identity which will permit one to live in peace with all one’s fellows. Today national identity dominates all the others & it is strong even in the Society of Friends. The [Society of Friends needs to] translate religious & ethical experience into an understanding of how the kind of love we treasure & covet can be produced, defended, & extended. I believe the next major task of the Society of Friends is to mobilize the intellectual potential & to catch a vision of the great intellectual [& spiritual] task to which it is called. It is only as knowledge is “sanctified” by love [& spirit] that it works without question for human good. Only as we are gathered without either pride or envy, can knowledge be made perfect in love.
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237. Reaching Toward God (by Michael Marsh; 1981)
About the Author—Michael Marsh is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington. He participated in an American Friends Service Committee summer work camp, where he 1st met his wife. He says: “The question of God & God’s relation to us has gnawed me for a long while. I came to a partial answer in my pamphlet Philosophy of the Inner Light (#209). Inward explorations also brought me to the reality of a truly personal God.”
The Universe we Live in/ History of Life on Earth—What can one reasonably believe about God's reality & nature? What does awareness of a greater presence signify? Reasoning can overcome many intellectual barriers that block us today from full belief. An impersonal force isn't the God we seek; our God holds comfort as well as power. Neither science nor Freud nor Marx nor anyone else has refuted the personal God.
Let’s 1st look at the picture of the universe offered by science. Before the Big Bang 10 or 20 billion years ago, the physical reality was of infinite density compressed into infinitesimal size. From the Big Bang, the universe expanded; cosmologists differ as to whether the universe will continue expanding or whether it will begin to contract and end as it began. Our sun is about 5 billion years old. There may be other planets like ours.
The Earth is now thought to be about 4,600,000,000 years old. About 500 or 600 million years ago a remarkable diversification and complexification of organisms began. Today over a million species of animals and over a third as many plants have been discovered. The struggle for biological survival leads to both supportive symbiosis and deadly attacks. Out of this immensity of galaxies, out of more than 10,000,000,000 years of time, out of this swarm of sharing and competing species, perhaps 100,000 years ago, homo sapiens evolved.
Exploring the God Question/ 1st Alternative: Physical Forces—The amount of order observed makes it reasonable to think that the universe has an ultimate explanation, an integrated system of reasons why things are as they are. What is the ultimate explanation's nature? Either the universe is made & sustained by physical forces, or the universe was made & is sustained wholly or in part by personal or impersonal mental forces.
Some of our human capacities & achievements can’t be ascribed to biological evolution (i.e. even complex physical forces) or to chance. No biological explanation exists for human capacities beyond those serving the struggle for existence. Human minds at their best have a capacity for [scientific speculation] about the universe's nature & to make good predictions based on theories. [This isn’t a survival skill]. Evolution doesn't explain our ability to understand somewhat the super-large & the super-small & to predict their behavior. William Temple wrote: “We are so impressed by the world's greatness & multiplicity, that we seldom reflect on the fact that we know it. [Apprehending & comprehending] the process is the most remarkable [aspect] of the process.
Biological evidence may explain the human tendency to put a moral gloss on one’s own goals, & the moral imperative to obey community laws. It doesn’t explain [the moral sacrifice of those who] find & follow a higher moral law that may subvert established social rules [e.g.] Lao-Tse, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln. Anti-establishment moral imperatives, and the will to follow them, clearly do exist in the minds of some humans. Biology offers no explanation for the human capacity for moral independence.
Most people have a capacity to perceive and appreciate beauty [i.e.] Aesthetic experience. Yet beauty as such serves no biological function. [Time is wasted in a biological sense] when an artisan makes a beautiful chair or rug or bowl rather than a [more efficient] machine-made one. The aesthetic capacity is evidently too widespread to be a chance affair and too useless to be biologically selected. I conclude that [scientific speculation, moral sacrifice], and Aesthetic experience cannot be explained either by biological natural selection or by chance. Therefore, the universe was not made by, and is not sustained wholly by physical forces.
2nd Alternative: Mental Forces—Some kind or kinds of mental force must form part of the ultimate explanation. Is the ultimate mental force personal or impersonal? If basic mental force is impersonal, then the universe has no long-term willed goal & no dialog between humans & ultimate explanation. Evolutionary development with increasing complexity, & human development in particular points to] a cosmic architect willing a final distant goal but operating with difficult materials. Evolution’s long devious, pain-filled path & the possibility we are [alone] in the universe, lend weight to the hypothesis of no will & no goal; the evidence is not clear.
Thousands of people have testified to a Divine-human dialog. Prophets & mystics old & new claim to [have experienced God]. Countless people pray to God, & feel their prayers are heard & answered. Often an awareness of love accompanies the mystical experience. This dialog evidence seems suggestive but not conclusive about the reality of a personal God. In speaking of the ultimate explanation as personal, we mean it has immensely more of the unique qualities of a human person.
From what source do people get the capacity to grasp in part how the universe [i.e. ultimate explanation] works? Most plausibly, we get them from the ultimate explanation itself, [which mean] it must have personal qualities. How can the ultimate explanation “give” a person capacities? Some interpenetration must occur between the human mind and the ultimate explanation. [Organisms that reach a certain level of complexity] are able to interact with the ground of all being in a way that makes them persons.
Personhood is most remarkable thing about humans. [The creator & sustainer wouldn’t be less remarkable than humans, i.e. less than personal]. The ultimate explanation embraces the universe's laws & logic, [energy & space as the] ground of all being. This isn’t a simple system. [No human mental capacities] can be explained by physical/biological forces or chance. The ultimate explanation isn’t less advanced than human beings.
An Upland Area/ God-Refuters: Marx & Freud/ Foundations for God—[Through this discussion I can now] freely say “God,” & can believe that willed goals & values might be more than merely human dreams. The God I had reached in my pamphlet Philosophy of the Inner Light (PHP #209) wasn't a God who cared. [I expand on that idea in this pamphlet to suggest a more personal God].
Karl Marx & his leading followers portray God as imaginary, projected in answer to human hopes. “The opium of the people” it was called. [Of the arguments against God, one] assumes that flaws in God’s representation by humans disprove God’s reality; the other assumes that God must be a material entity; only God’s effects can be measured. History shows the folly of entrusting great power & wealth & faith to any priesthood.
Sigmund Freud’s God is an illusion, & religion is “ humanity's universal obsessional neurosis.” Religion embodies a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion.” Freud [questions] ordinary religious belief's motives. But the truth of ideas rests not on purity of motives but on how well ideas fit the world. What is my motive in seeking God? [Knowing this] will instruct me on my possible bias and will help me towards objectivity and truth.
The 5 foundations we reach as we strive to explain all that happens are: laws of nature; principles of logic/ mathematics; space; temporality; and a creative evolving fund of energy. Each of these 5 are limited by our understanding of them. The ultimate explanation is what lies behind them: creativity; formal structure; eternal now; true laws of nature; immensity. Where in all this is the personhood of God? It came to me strongly that always what we humans say about God is metaphorical. We all speak in ciphers. [The 5 foundations of the ultimate explanation] are metaphors. God is beyond our words.
Creative Father/ “Logos” in the Son/ Ground of our Being—I started 1st with God as creativity; source of energy for what is & was & will be. This aspect of God may be taken as the generator of space or immensity. God is also lawgiver, the laws of nature & the formal structure of logic/mathematics underlying natural law. God also sets forth the laws of persons, including moral law. I think it is like that God’s true moral laws are also hypothetical, where A is done, God’s love will be wounded. We find God’s will embodied in the laws that shape the universe, & [in the] goal, the ideal reality, the future [it points toward]. We may will this ideal reality in our inmost self when we are open toward God. Kelvin Van Nuys has described God’s will as cosmic purpose for good.
John’s Gospel uses “Logos” to describe God; it means “Word,” reason, or explanatory principle. Can we consider God the lawgiver to be God as son, [Logos] made flesh? The most plausible view is nature’s laws develop (by God’s will) only as required to actualize events or entities; these laws appear as needed to deal with new situations. Nothing prevents us from accepting God as a son figure, coming after the primal generator in action, not in being. The Christ who spoke & acted in Jesus served as law-giver & teacher of laws new & old. Paul viewed Christ as “1st born” of God, & held that through Christ all things in heaven & earth were created. My view is God the father as source of energy & power; God the son as source of cosmic Logos & expressed will.
I have called one realm experiential time, temporality, the ground of consciousness or the eternal now. You can think of this realm as the ground of your consciousness, the ground on which you experience all life-events. Temporality stretches back through our past to our earliest personal experiencing, covers the moments of our immediate awareness, and forward to our inevitable death. Paul Tillich says of the eternal now: “It is the eternal that stops the flux of time for us. It is the eternal “now” which provides for us a temporal ‘now” … Eternal life is beyond ‘past, present, and future: we come from it, we live in it presence, we return to it.”
Entering the Eternal Now/ God as Mother—For God the whole past, present and future exist as now. [People seek to enter the eternal now because many have found there a kind of love. Ruysbroek wrote: “This immersion in love becomes the habit of our being, and so takes place while we sleep and while we wake, whether we know it or not.” Once you accept God as personal, the attribute of love can scarcely be denied.
In the ground of being into which we sink womblike, we find God as mother. St. Augustine concludes that man alone, or husband & wife together, stand as God's image, but not woman alone; therefore the Holy Spirit can’t be woman. I find this whole argument based on false premises about women's origin & inferiority. To those of you who have felt God’s love in your life, did it not resemble more than anything else the ideal mother’s love for her child. God’s love must exist (in the mother) before the son can function as cosmic purpose for good.
The Triune God/ Our Experience of Light—I focus on a triune God because God the father is power lacking form. God as law-giving son or Logos shapes and forms the vast evolution of actuality seeking perfection. God as mothering love influences some events but clearly is not all powerful. The triune God unites in the end as one God, one Ultimate Mind embracing all 3 aspects; without this unity we should have no universe at all. I lived far from any awareness of God in my dull, blind, angry moments.
God is light. God is more than a candle, a lantern, a beacon, a sun, though all of these can symbolize God’s light. Light is the interaction of electromagnetic waves with our organism and our mind that produces our experience of light. God Logos gives us of his light whenever we see how things fit, how concepts relate, or how we ought to act, or where beauty dwells. Only in God as mother-ground, eternal now, do we possibly move toward more than interaction, toward possible pure participation in God’s light as such. I am loved imperishably, because I am part of God’s own whole; it is this that makes me safe.
Dante, in Divine Comedy writes in part: “Oh grace abounding that had made me fit/ to fix my eyes on the eternal light/ until my vision was consumed in it!// I saw within Its depth how It conceives/ all things in a single volume bound by Love,/ of which the universe is the scattered leaves;// … As I grew worthier to see,/ the more I looked, the more unchanging semblance/ appeared to change with every change in me.”
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136. The Evolutionary Potential of Quakerism (by Kenneth E. Boulding; 1964)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—Kenneth E. Boulding was born in England and educated at New College, Oxford and the University of Chicago. He served the League of Nations. He is a member of the Committee on Research for Peace of the Institute for International Order, and full time Director of the Center for Research in Conflict Resolution of the University of Michigan; he is also Professor of Economics there.
The James Backhouse Lecture—This is the 1st in a new series of lectures instituted by Australia YM, delivered in Melbourne January 5, 1964. James Backhouse was an English Friend who visited Australia from 1832 till 1837. He published full scientific accounts of what he saw, encouraged Friends, & followed up his deep concern for the convicts. Australian Friends hope that this series of lectures will bring fresh insights into truth.
[Introduction]—Equilibrium, entropy, and evolution [are the concepts that largely describe the universe]. [Equilibrium is the ability to maintain a balanced state]. All equilibrium states are temporary; otherwise there would be no history. In making history there is a “running down” process or increasing entropy, & a “building up” process or evolution. In its loose sense entropy may be equated with a measure of chaos or probability. Whenever anything happens it is because the system had a potential for change but when something happens part of this potential is used up. In an organization’s history there is social potential which is gradually used up & unless it can be renewed the organization matures, ages & dies. Within a closed system the law of increasing entropy reigns supreme. The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to run down. The law of increasing entropy [reduces the universe] to a state of perfect equilibrium where nothing more can happen, forever.
The Process of Evolution—Evolution is a process at work in the universe which is creative rather than destructive. It operates as far as we know through very simple machinery. Most of evolution’s random changes produce states that won't survive. Sometimes however these changes will be large enough to move the system to a new position of equilibrium. The process by which systems change is called mutation. The process by which some survive & some don't is called selection. The evolutionary process itself mutates. Life itself in its genetic structure had an apparatus for recreating potential in each generation & for enormously increasing the possible mutation rate. The advent of humans a mere half million years ago, represents a break and a change of gear in the evolutionary process at least equivalent to the invention of life itself. We now seem about at the point at which humans can begin to intervene actively in the process of biological evolution. What is happening today is that civilization is passing away & a new state of human arising which I call “post-civilized,” or “developed.”
The Quaker Mutation—What is the role of the Society of Friends in this evolutionary process stretching from creation to doomsday? The Society of Friends can be seen as a mutation from the Christian phylum. Often it seems to be some obscure bud off the main line of evolution which eventually turns out to contain the greatest evolutionary potential. Each of the great religions can be seen as a phylum stretching through time from its origins, growing or declining & branching with some branches possessing more evolutionary potential than others. The Quaker mutation is purely a mutant from the Christian phylum.
Toward Perfection and Experience—The Quaker mutation included a surprisingly large change from its Puritan, Protestant, Christian roots; this makes it of unusual historical interest. The Quakers were perfectionists. They believed that life without sin could be lived on earth. The inward light for George Fox was no pale intellectual illumination, but a consuming holy fire which not only revealed sin but brought you out of it. Their refusal to practice certain trivial and widely accepted customs [got them into a lot of trouble].
A second very important strand in the Quaker mutation might be called “experimentalism” (i.e. experience is the only true source of religion and perfection). Vitality and freshness flowed into the stream of religious culture from this Quaker insistence on experimental religion. I incline to the view that Rufus Jones was mistaken in trying to identify the stream of European mysticism as the source of Quaker mutation. Those who argue that its source came out of English Puritanism are much closer to the truth. Any religion which lays stress on experience will find mysticism congenial. The object of Quaker meditation is not so much to achieve union with the divine as to receive practical instruction from the divine.
Creating a Social Body—Out of these motivational mutations comes: Meeting for Worship; Meeting for Business; the Quaker’s social organization. Fox seized on these Seekers’ meeting for worship as an ideal expression [of experimentalism], & these Seekers found in George Fox’s doctrine justification for their practices. The Seekers were the “social egg,” & Fox was the fertilizing sperm. George Fox’s genius created the Meeting for Business & the organization of the new society into monthly, quarterly, & yearly meetings. This gave the society a “body,” capable of maintaining itself and of mobilizing individual resources into a common purpose. By 1700 the original expansion had largely settled down into a self-reproducing religious subculture.
Subsequent mutations in some parts of the Society of Friends have tended to move the pattern back towards its original sources, with singing, a paid minister & a regular sermon. Even in meetings which retain unprogrammed meeting for worship there have been many mutations from the original pattern, almost all in the direction of the “world” surrounding the meeting. Many of the traditional interests of the society in social reform have largely been taken over by others. I believe the evolutionary potential of the Quaker mutation is far from exhausted, has hardly begun to show its full effects, & has a vital role to play in the future development of humankind.
Factors of Survival—A mutation can often survive & reproduce itself not because it is in itself particularly favorable but because it happens to be associated with other mutations which are favorable. A mutation which is intrinsically favorable and which has a high evolutionary potential may have low survival value because it is associated with other less favorable mutation, or because the environment for which it is suited is yet to come.
Quaker's mutation period marks the beginning of enormous expansion of the English-speaking world’s influence. Science & technology would be unlikely to develop outside of a society in which perfectionism & experimentalism were present. It isn’t only because of Quakerism that there are Quakers in Australia, but be-cause of many forces & institutions of which Quakers wouldn't approve [e.g. the British navy & penal system].
I think Quakerism is an example of a mutation which was in a sense premature and before its time. The religious experience and the resulting ethical conclusions and culture characteristic of the Quaker mutation have more relevance in the world to which we seem to be moving than in the world which we are leaving behind.
Religion in the Post-Civilized World—Has the larger mutation involved in science and technology rendered any religious interpretation of the world unlikely to survive into the future post-civilization? The justification for religion as a set of practices lies in the experience itself. It can be magic and superstition or the loftiest experience attainable by the human organism. It is precisely in religious experience that one finds the evolutionary potential that looks forward to the ultimate future of man. Pursuing good for its own sake is what religion at its highest has always meant by the search for God.
Some want to disassociate Quakerism from its Christian origins. I think this deprives Quakerism of too much of its content to make it viable. I suspect that Quakerism will have to remain Christian, constantly holding up the standard of perfection before it and forcing it constantly to consider what are the bare essential characteristics of the Christian phylum which give it further evolutionary potential.
Building Human Identity—The Society of Friends is deeply committed to love as a major ethical principle and on building the human identity around universal love which knows no barriers of race, class, country or creed. The threat of violence is still an important element in the modern world. Civilized society works for money and goods and could not operate without this motivation and without the corresponding institutions. The ethic of love is the only one on which the world society which technology has made necessary can be built.
The great search of humans today is for a human identity which will permit one to live in peace with all one’s fellows. Today national identity dominates all the others & it is strong even in the Society of Friends. The [Society of Friends needs to] translate religious & ethical experience into an understanding of how the kind of love we treasure & covet can be produced, defended, & extended. I believe the next major task of the Society of Friends is to mobilize the intellectual potential & to catch a vision of the great intellectual [& spiritual] task to which it is called. It is only as knowledge is “sanctified” by love [& spirit] that it works without question for human good. Only as we are gathered without either pride or envy, can knowledge be made perfect in love.
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