![\"Lanier's](\"https:\/\/infanttheology.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/gadgetusecover.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cA theological analysis of the debates provides evidence that<\/strong> contemporary culture\u2019s romance with scientific naturalism leads to a serious overestimation of the power of science and springs from deadly moral and spiritual roots. A sinful humanity is itching to hear that the ultimate foundation of all life has no meaning.<\/strong>..the popular mind seems unable to resist idolizing naturalistic explanation because it provides an all too human, all too comfortable worldview within which I can function as my own god\u2026.We must\u2026 assume the burden of challenging the popular romance that lets distorted science substitute for personal encounters with each other and with God.<\/strong>\u201c<\/em> \u2014 James V. Bachman<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Building off of a previous post<\/a>, I have been thinking more about the problems with the analogy of the cosmos \u2013 which man is unavoidably a part of \u2013 as a machine <\/strong>(incidently, I was gratified to find thinking that mapped almost entirely with mine expressed here<\/a> in the article by James Bachman, \u201cSelf-righteousness through popular science: our culture\u2019s romance with naturalism\u201d<\/a> [see here<\/a> if that link does not work] quoted above*)<\/p>\n As technology and culture writer Jaron Lanier shows us in his book, despite the fall into sin men certainly can see that there are downsides to considering human beings to be mere cogs \u2013 or perhaps nowadays, mini-computers \u2013 in a more expansive cosmic machine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That said, fallen man may also think he detects \u2013 more or less consciously (perhaps feel<\/em> is a better word) \u2013 some benefits as well<\/strong> (yes, these \u201cperceptions\u201d are illusionary<\/em>):<\/strong><\/p>\n For example\u2026.<\/p>\n SALVATION FROM THE GUILT OF SIN:<\/strong><\/p>\n If we are a part of the cosmic machine, then all that we \u201cdecide\u201d to do is in some sense, basically determined. Even if we talk about chance in contrast to more deterministic forces, the laws of nature that give us diversity only allow for a range of probable outcomes that are, finally, subject to considerations that can be said to be impersonal (note previous post, This is personal<\/a>) and, in short, mechanical.\u00a0 <\/strong>Of course, the idea of natural selection further reinforces this idea that we are \u201cmade\u201d a certain way and destined, in this or that way, to do what we desire to do \u2013 or, more specifically, what our genes \u201cwant\u201d us to do.\u00a0 Therefore, guilt for any \u201cwrongdoing\u201d becomes more of a pragmatic problem, psychologically and socially, than anything else<\/strong> \u2013 for we and those we desire to be found with determine \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d insofar as we are able.**\u00a0 In short, real personal responsibility and accountability becomes questionable and it is easy to see why this results in the banishment of the troublesome \u201cCosmic Mechanic\u201d:\u00a0 We are saved from this ridiculous god who supposedly wants to run our lives one way when he made us another way.<\/strong><\/p>\n SALVATION FROM DEATH:<\/strong><\/p>\n In order to avoid thinking about death and what it really means, we gadgets can either, as Neil Postman put it, \u201camuse ourselves to death\u201d [with the gadgets we gadgets make, evidently in our own image], or, if we are really ambitious, we can try and beat it.\u00a0 Here, <\/em>as the cosmos is increasingly thought of in terms that, at bottom, can be reduced to the mechanical (no matter how much \u201corganic\u201d language is used as clothing!), the technological may be readily perceived<\/em> not only as the \u201cstrong horse\u201d (as they like to say in the Middle East), but the only horse on earth and in heaven<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0 All things \u2013 even death itself \u2013 can be reduced to mechanical problems with mechanical solutions<\/strong>, as someone like Ray Kurzweil basically assure us. And naturally gifted persons like himself find themselves rising to the top as if by destiny, attaining large followings and much worldly success\u2026.. They are confident \u2013 even religiously so \u2013 that they are not only on the right side of history, but that their ideas will change history and everything else <\/strong>(except perhaps for the only \u201cessences\u201d or \u201csubstances\u201d that are now thought to exist, the fundamental particles and the laws of nature that accompany them).\u00a0 <\/strong>Note that in today\u2019s academic world this kind of thinking is far more mainstream than many would suspect.<\/p>\n SALVATION FROM OUR ENEMIES<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Of course seeing the cosmos as mechanical banishes the fascinating but oppressive \u201cdemon-haunted\u201d world that Carl Sagan spoke of<\/strong>.\u00a0 Further, we can more readily find relief from those who oppose us \u2013 who insist on ways or forms of life that we find incompatible with our own preferred lifestyles.<\/strong>\u00a0 When we see the world as a machine it becomes easier to reduce other human beings \u2013 particularly the ones that we are convinced are unreasonably opposed to us \u2013 to be something less than persons.\u00a0 They become to us mere \u201cwetware\u201d, \u201cmeat puppets\u201d who only have value when we and our friends determine they deserve it.<\/strong>\u00a0 Piling fantasy on fantasy, we imagine we can be saved from those who oppose us in a more passive fashion, by retreating into our \u201clittle online worlds\u201d that we have some control over (increasingly giving into the temptation \u2013 enhanced and made more readily available via technology \u2013 to become more self-centered and to \u201ccommodify\u201d the world). But of course this does not work.\u00a0 For some look for salvation from others more aggressively, increasingly utilizing automatized technology in order to subdue those will not cooperate, either by soma-like methods (Brave New World) or perhaps a heavier hand<\/strong> (1984, Neuromancer). <\/strong>Or maybe, this is done more or less unknowingly, utilizing the impersonal \u201claws of economics\u201d<\/a> (Lanier is a helpful resource here as well \u2013 see the end of this post<\/a>).<\/p>\n SALVATION FROM THE MOST OPPRESSIVE AND GREATEST ENEMY OF ALL!:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cEnemy\u201d that is. Of course fallen man does not really know who his Enemy is, even if he thinks he does.<\/strong> He does not truly realize who are true and false enemies \u2013 after all, he \u201cknows\u201d, deep down, that God Himself \u2013 particularly as He is described in the Old and New Testaments \u2013 is his Enemy!\u00a0 And here, if we simply see ourselves as a machine in the larger cosmic machine it is easier to both retreat from the knowledge of Him and nevertheless attempt justify one\u2019s self before Him<\/em><\/strong>***.<\/p>\n Let me explain.\u00a0 After my last post<\/a> where I backed away somewhat from my pastor\u2019s succinct appraisal of my view\u00a0 \u2013 \u201cModern man has been led away from God by the idea that the universe is simply a machine<\/strong>\u201d \u2013\u00a0 I realized that I had written and posted the following in the recent past:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026with an increase in functional knowledge and earthly power, man\u2019s free powers tend to combine with devotion towards certain unbending\u00a0 principles and \u201ccause-and-effect\u201d laws (like a vending machine: ultimately manipulative \u201cif-then\u201d moralism), and the temptation is for this to take over completely, squelching out the last vestiges of an actual person who is God.<\/strong>\u00a0 In other words, this \u201chighest of men\u201d, rich in the knowledge and wisdom of the world, seeks to harness not only what have come to be known as the \u201claws of nature\u201d*** and \u201cnatural law\u201d, but any \u201claws of the [increasingly depersonalized] supernatural\u201d as well (whether more or less \u201csystematically\u201d). \u00a0This is accomplished with the help of its magicians\/scientists and priests as \u201csalvation\u201d comes through the mighty accomplishments of the appropriate \u201ctechnologies\u201d, dealing with both the material and the \u201cspiritual\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 Here, we find that the distinction between the natural and the supernatural, for whatever its beneficial uses, has actually been of some assistance in banishing the biblical God.\u00a0 Therefore, writ large,<\/strong> as unchecked Old Adam more successfully harnesses the order inhering in the creation, in practice he makes the Creator his impersonal creation and himself salvation.****\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n (end old quote from this post<\/a>, part 3 in a 3 part series that is summed up here<\/a>)<\/p>\n In other words, considering the creation \u2013 and especially ourselves \u2013 as machines is spiritually dangerous<\/strong> because it opens us up to the temptation to think the same about all persons, including the Creator Himself! \u00a0 <\/strong>Then, we treat Him accordingly \u2013 that is, attempting to manipulate Him as we would any other machine.\u00a0 In sum, such thinking only gives fuel to our desire to justify ourselves over and against Him. <\/strong><\/p>\n That we may be Creator, Lord, and Judge.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWould you condemn me [to non-existence or to a machine-like existence] that you may be justified?\u201d<\/em> (Job 40:8).\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n We would <\/strong>(read more on this here<\/a>)<\/p>\n As Calvin said, the mind is an idol factory.*****\u00a0 An illusion<\/em> factory.<\/strong><\/p>\n Back to Jaron Lanier<\/strong>. I saw someone highlight a recent quote from him the other day<\/a>: \u201cWe don\u2019t yet understand how brains work, so we can\u2019t build one.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course Lanier does not think that the brain can be reduced to purely material and mechanical causes, even if some persons in the field of artificial intelligence might take that quotation as a call to redouble their efforts.<\/p>\n And why do they do that?\u00a0 Again, because for them the brain \u2013 and the human being in fact \u2013 is, in the end a machine of one sort or another.<\/strong>\u00a0 They just need to figure everything out. Wherein does their confidence lie? Well, again, the ideas of a certain 19th<\/sup> c. Englishman \u2013 that the unbelieving world just seemed to be waiting for \u2013 helps bolster their confidence that they are on the right track<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As the A.I. scientist Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it:<\/p>\n \u201cNatural selection is stupid. If natural selection can solve the AGI [Artificial General Intelligence] problem, it cannot be that hard in an absolute sense.<\/strong> Evolution coughed up AGI easily by randomly changing things around and keeping what worked. It followed an incremental path with no foresight.\u201d (p. 199, Barrat, Our Final Invention)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But again, I submit that this confidence does not come from Darwin\u2019s theory per se<\/em>, but the modern scientific and technological mindset<\/em> (MSTM \u2013 again, see previous post<\/a> on this topic) that Darwin and many other scientifically-oriented persons have allowed to drive them.<\/strong><\/p>\n It hit me this past weekend as I talked with a fellow Cub Scout dad \u2013 a very bright man and gifted mathematician \u2013 that everything I am saying here actually dovetails rather nicely with \u201cmoralistic therapeutic deism\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 As he explained the video game Spore<\/em>, I noted how it sounded like a spectacular catechization into a purely Darwinian worldview \u2013 where man who emerges from the the laws of nature \u2013 the impersonal \u2013 basically creates God.\u00a0 A very moral man and faithful church attending Roman Catholic, this man thought the game was largely right in its view of man. I gave him much to think about, among other things that his view sounded very much like moralistic therapeutic deism to me.<\/p>\n To wrap things up, my view in sum<\/em><\/strong>: <\/strong><\/p>\n it is not only incorrect to say that the cosmos is a machine, but it is even dangerous to say that it is like a machine \u2013 and it is best to avoid such talk.\u00a0 My pastor read me right.\u00a0 <\/strong>Please note that I am not saying that all persons who currently see the cosmos as a machine think as I have outlined above<\/em>, for some still identify the cosmos with the creation and see God as very much involved in it.\u00a0 Further, I am not saying that the errors of those who really do see nature as wholly organic, free and divine are less theologically serious. <\/strong><\/p>\n I am simply asserting that it is normal for the practice of methodological naturalism to lead persons in this mechanical direction and for it to affect our deepest beliefs.<\/strong>\u00a0 And I think to say this is not much different from saying lex orendi lex credenda<\/em> (The Law of prayer is the law of belief)<\/span>.<\/strong>\u00a0 As one finds some success in the world using naturalistic techniques one may begin to think, somewhat logically******, that they ought to have a very good reason for not letting their methodological naturalism become pure philosophical naturalism.<\/strong> Just what is that good reason?\u00a0 After all, they think, there is no doubt that I am understanding much about nature and learning ever better how to manipulate it. It works because it is true and its true because it works!<\/p>\n Please go ahead and pushback against me here \u2013 I hope you agree with me that this is an important discussion to have.<\/strong><\/p>\n FIN<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Notes:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n * Also this from a page in a Francis Schaeffer book I happened to turn to the other day<\/strong>: \u201cIn my earlier books I have referred to Whitehead and Oppenheimer, two scientists \u2013 neither one a Christian \u2013 who insisted that modern science could not have been born except in the Christian milieu. Bear with me as I repeat this, for I want in this book to carry it a step further, into the area of knowing.\u00a0 As Whitehead so beautifully points out, these men all believed that the universe was created by a reasonable God and therefore the universe could be found out by reason.\u00a0 This was their base.\u00a0 Modern science is the original science, in which you had men who believed in the uniformity of natural causes in a limited system, a system which could be reordered by God and by man made in the image of God.\u00a0 This is a cause and effect system in a limited time span.\u00a0 But from the time of Newton (not with Newton himself, but with the Newtonians who followed him), we have the concept of the \u201cmachine\u201d until we are left with only the machine<\/strong>, and you move into \u201cmodern modern science,\u201d in which we have the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, including sociology and psychology. Man is included in the machine.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the world in which we live in the area of science today.\u00a0 No longer believing that they can be sure the universe is reasonable because created by a reasonable God, the question is raised which Leonardo da Vincit already understood and which the Greeks understood before that; \u201cHow does the scientist know; on what basis can he know that what he knows, he really knows?<\/strong>\u201d (He is There and He is Not Silent<\/em>, p. 43, 1972)<\/p>\n **An interesting example my pastor thought of:Slumdog Millionaire<\/em> relieved the angst<\/em> of the actors and actresses in Hollywood by convincing them that they need not feel guilty about their popularity and wealth, it was just a matter of chance; if it was not them, it would have been someone else.\u201d<\/strong> Note that this kind of thinking could be encouraged either by [mechanistic] naturalism or the kind of neo-polytheism promoted by Herbert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly where the idea is that the gods and goddesses come into being to explain the unexplainable to man. (see my critique on their book All Things Shining<\/em> here<\/a>)<\/p>\n ***Though it seems to me that in reality, the one they are trying to please and appease through their deeds \u2013 this \u201chard man\u201d \u2013 is actually the one to whom they are enslaved, the devil.<\/p>\n ****I went on: \u201cAs a result of this, the human person \u2013 not considered in light of the Divine person of Jesus Christ and His love for all \u2013 is inevitably trodden underfoot, as at least some persons inevitably become means to other ends.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n *****This is a great quote, and also interesting for me in that even it makes the mind sound mechanical in our modern age!<\/p>\n ******Why \u201csomewhat\u201d? Well, deism actually makes more sense than atheism in one way, because deism not only banishes a god who is distinct from his creation (this is in line with biblical theism) \u2013 where god is said to remove himself from the clock \u2013 but also acknowledges that this god will still judge man in some way.\u00a0 And of course, here man imagines that he can, by cooperating with god\u2019s system, justify himself before him in one way or another.\u00a0 <\/strong>This is obviously not right, but it is more right than subsuming god in the impersonal system and making him become a part of it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>