Building Houses on the Sand

In the last week, I have been reading in Karen Armstrong's book, The Battle for God, in which she traces the emergence of fundamentalist religion as an outgrowth of a reaction against modernity. For Armstrong's fundamentalists, there is a sense of fear and doom from the experience of modern world and rational thought (logos) when separated from the mythos of a religious experience. in this schema, fundamentalism is a, perhaps regrettable, but certainly understandable reaction to this alienation that comes of the experience of the modern world without as sense of meaning. While I am not sure that I agree that the traditional "mythos" of western Christianity can sustain us as it did in the past, I agree that we seem to need a sense of "meaning" if we are to live fully and happily in the world.

As I have been trying to explore my own sense of "meaning" in a world in which God has ceased to exist, I feel as if I stand on a knife edge between chaos on the one side and order on the other. Like apparently so many others before me, I have been exploring the idea of an "evolutionary" view of cosmic history. This has been, of course, a modernist view that looked at the history of the cosmos and also biological evolution on earth and found in it something akin to "progress" as we know it in our knowledge-based and increasing technological society. In this view, we imagine a sort of "stream of consciousness" that moved from the first awareness of self to a sense of "family" to a sense of tribe, nation, globalism and finally, I would suppose, to a sense of a "cosmic" identity and awareness. Along with this, the progress of thought and knowledge has, with some fits and starts, been one generally of growth. This is a growth from ignorance to knowledge, from superstition and myth to theory and fact, from the "red in tooth" perservation of self to an increasing sense of the need for and rightness of "charity," from simplicity to complexity (although this latter has been argued), from no thought to thought, from inanimate, to aware to self aware to globally aware.

I thought of a parable or allegory in which we are, in this view, rather like a great company of people building houses or castles in the sand. Each of us builds for a time, either a little or a lot, but inevitably death/entropy washes away these castles that are our lives. But we do not build in isolation. We build in company with those who build as our companions on the beach. We learn from them, and we copy them and they us. We also learn, in an unbroken stream into the past, from those who built before us, so that our unique contributions create castles that are of increasing complexity and "perfection." Some of us, perhaps, build well and advance the progress of self and others. Some of us build poorly, perhaps, or even give up building and dedicate ourselves to destruction. Nevertheless, the general direction, with sometimes great leaps forward, periods of stagnation and even tremendous steps backward, has so far been that of "progress." Looking at this "big picture," it seems that there is a general trend, a "direction," if you will, in what we see and are.

It is this apparent "direction," perhaps, that might give us a sense of "hope" and "purpose." Even if our presence as self-aware biomatter is one that came about by merest chance, our self-awareness gives us a unique opportunity. We each have, as it were, our "day in the sun" in which we are the builders. We can build well or poorly, according to our ability and knowledge, but whether we will or not, we will build something that influences the future and touches back to the past. We are, in our small selves, part of a larger "self" of humanity and perhaps the cosmos that reaches forwards and upwards and outwards, seeking to expand who and what we are and looking to what we may become. And who knows what it is that we might become? It is this "great becoming" that, perhaps, gives us some sense of inspiration. We are part of a great cosmic evolution that began at the time of the big bang and moves into the future to--what? We do not, of course, know the "ultimate" answer. We can, at most, use the short ruler of our experience so far to draw a theoretical "future line," but the "ultimate answer" is unknown. We dream of "perfection" but what form that or whatever future is to come is unknown with any certainty. Our meaning, however, is not that we know or can surely predict what we will become, but that we are part of this becoming and that we are know that we are a part of the life and existence of the universe. Through a great and un-numbered sequence of occurrences, we have been given a chance to be a little bit of the process by which the cosmos is able to know itself. Even the tiniest glimpse of this "great becoming" is the greatest of gifts. It is one that we receive as a most precious gift from our ancestors in humanity and farther back up our "family tree" to the beginnings of the universe of which we are direct lineal descendants. It is our awareness of being on this journey or part of this process of becoming that is our "spirituality." It is this "gift" of knowing that we will pass to the future, should we not care for it so poorly that there is no future.

It may be, perhaps, that our desire that this journey should continue would be a moral imperative that would shape our behavior. Since we know that we journey together (i.e with the help of our contemporaries as well as the "boost up" of our ancestors) , our moral behavior should be that which fosters our "togetherness." It should, therefore, be one that values the other as well as the self, leading us to restate in a new way the "golden rule" of antiquity. We do not love simply because we can, but we love because we must, for our survival and continuance depends on it. We do not learn to adapt because we can but because we must. We do not learn to be careful of our environment and the earth as a whole because we can but because we must.

But our "view" or "vision" is conditional. This "vision" may sustain and guide us today, but it may not be an adequate vision for the people or creatures of tomorrow who must evolve their own vision and find their own sense of meaning. This is, I suppose, akin to "theory" in science, which we accept not because it is necessarily "true" but because it "works" and "explains" and "interprets" reality and "predicts" it in some way. We do not necessarily discard an older view because it was "wrong" but because it no longer "works" for us in our world today. I might even be able to come to terms with Tillich's "ground of being" - that "larger being" of which I am a part and which is, in its totality, all of the cosmos or simply "the all" or "everything."

Finally, I might even imagine a sort of "dialog" with theists who "see" from a different perspective. If we can, for just a moment, admit that "religious" or philosophical language is not always "literal," I can see a point of company with the proponents of "intelligent design." Where I see a "becoming" that has, at least in a short sense, a "direction," they see the finger of God. For the theist, "God" is the creator and "prime mover" of all that is. The "progress" of the world is the creating hand of God. He is the "alpha" point of all that is. For me, while I cannot necessarily see the "alpha" point "God," I can perhaps admit that the "direction" of the universe points to something more than I/ we am/are at this point in time. This "direction" that we perceive could tend towards an "omega point" in which a sort of "perfection" might be achieved that would be, perhaps, akin to what the theist calls "God." We might be, perhaps, rather like the old story of the blind men describing the elephant. We are simply at opposite ends of the creature, and it is only in seeming that our views are so different or opposed.

Once again, this is only a "proposition," something for future contemplation and discussion and not a "final word." It would remain to see how we would function in such a view or how much "meaning" I/we could derive from it. Could it be the basis of a "meaningful" life? Could it provide some measure of "positive" and inform and inspire and shape my/our existence? Perhaps....

Jeffrey Shy
(And the foolish man built his house upon the sand....)
Mesa, Arizona