God Talk
On the Meaning of Terms
• Meaning is constrained from two major
sources.
– My society provides a language where terms
have multiple ranges of meaning.
– My attempt to communicate something specific
also constrains the meaning.
• These constraints may or may not overlap.
• Meanings are not preset but vary within a
range with context.
“That’s three runs.”
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Are we talking baseball?
Are we talking about nylons?
Are we talking about scientific lab results?
Are we talking about a track meet?
Are we talking about a game on your Iphone?
“Can you lend me your largest
ramafruge?”
Two more requirements for meaning
• The terms must be imaginable.
– Examples of failure here are:
• “The corner of the circle….”
• “The intellectual development of a quark….”
• If the concepts are intended to describe
something real they must be tied to experiences.
– E.g. – atoms, the dragons that attempt to swallow the
sun and moon at eclipses.
– What about the supernatural?
I propose Construmentalism
• By this I mean that I choose (usually automatically), from among
the available concepts that might be useful in describing and
organizing my experiences, certain concepts with which to construe
my experiences in a way that I hope will be useful to me and
communicative to others.
• To a significant extent, my mind dictates what I perceive.
• Not only do I choose to think I operate this way, I choose to think
everybody does.
• Neither rationality nor empirical evidence determines the choice. I
tend to construe things (according to stereotypical patterns) first
and make up excuses later.
• True/false, right/wrong are largely beside the point.
Implications of Construmentalism
• If I am right I cannot prove it.
• I can only propose and let you make of it
what you choose.
• I must sit lightly on my construments and
wait to see if something better comes along.
Are we just playing with words?
• Some people are going to accuse me of simply playing
with the concept “God”.
• But if so, this is serious play.
– I am suggesting that people who don’t know what they mean (or
didn’t know what they meant) , do (or did) in fact mean something.
And this is it and it is empirical.
– This path will allow theists and non theists to communicate.
– We all live with each other. To ignore something important to
many is not friendly but impolite to say the least.
– Any conceptual framework which has survived for thousands of
years, deserves some respect.
– A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.
• A brightness illusion - the centre on the left
looks brighter
If the eye is at Q there will be a virtual image
of P at P`. P` is not real but the observer
might not know that! Further the observer
might not have a concept for P and therefore
be unable to perceive P.
P’
Having a referent for “God”
• The term “God” is a human term. We
created it. We apply it or we don’t. If we
don’t choose to apply it to something it
becomes meaningless (or vague) to us.
• It strikes me as incredible that many would
try to prove or disprove the existence of
God without first knowing (or deciding) to
what the term refers or might be applied.
Contributions from Immanuel Kant
• The capacities of the mind determine (contribute to)
what we can and do experience.
• The stress on the distinction between phenomenal and
noumenal.
• Limiting knowledge to the phenomena.
• We make some (not all) knowledge claims based on
what the mind brings to experience.
• His useful distinction between pure and pragmatic
reason.
• The role of forms and categories. Not fully correct,
but suggestive.
So what further do we need?
• Kant’s “mechanics” of the mind were
defective. So we need a better theory of
how construments develop from mental
operations. Hawkins provides this.
Hawkins on Intelligence
• Memory, Intelligence, Awareness, etc. in mammals
seem to be functions of the mammalian cortex.
• The structure of the mammalian cortex is new with the
evolution of mammals; hence the word “neocortex.”
• In humans the cortex is more extensive than in other
animals, about 30 billion cells with an average of 1000
synapses per cell.
• 90 % or more of the cortex seems to have the same
structure.
The cortex as pattern recognition
organ
• From the uniformity of structure, Hawkins follows
Mountcastle in hypothesizing uniformity of function.
• Assuming the cortex is the organ of intelligence, the
only input is a spatial-temporal collection of electrochemical discharge patterns.
• These come from sense organs, and various sections of
the brain, including the cortex itself.
• Our cortex creates our awareness of whatever from its
perceptions of patterns in these discharges.
On Memory
• Hawkins doesn’t attempt to give us a
precise mechanism for memory other than
to suggest that the synapses are involved in
storing and recognizing discharge patterns.
• It takes many fewer synapses to store a
label than to store what the label represents.
The cortex is not like a computer!
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The cortex stores sequences of patterns.
The cortex recalls patterns auto-associatively.
The cortex stores patterns in an invariant form.
The cortex stores patterns in a hierarchy.
» Illustration: Recalling the memory of a song.
• You will know the next note; even if it is in a key, a
voice, or an instrument, you’ve never heard before.
How do you have a useful concept of
‘dog’ or ‘circle’ etc.
• Every dog is a little different from other dogs and
every time you see the same dog the experience is
a little different.
• It helps to have seen some dogs, cats, birds, cows,
etc. (so you have some memories and can build
some similarity relations).
• Now when you see another dog, the discharge
patterns in the cells of the cortex somehow seem
similar to those associated with the name ‘dog’
and not so much to the name ‘cat’.
Forward and Backward Processing
• Each section of the cortex is taking inputs from multiple
sections below or from the senses and from the thalamus and
other sections of the brain. Perhaps I will already have enough
clues to process at a high level.
• Processing goes forward and back. The back processing is a
prediction (construment) of what you are sensing based on
some similarity to some pattern in memory.
• It can fill in what you don’t sense.
• It can preempt the forward processing by inhibiting alternative
forward processing.
Summary from Hawkins
• The cortex does not work by formal logic! It’s guesswork, “construment.”
• The cortex will likely find something familiar, a suggested construment,
even for first time experiences.
• If the dissonance is too much there is a mechanism to handle that and
constitute a new memory.
• There is no role for foundational propositions to explain our beliefs.
• We don’t conclude things based on self-evident or revealed propositions.
• We don’t attempt to prove that our construments (predictions or guesses)
are the only possible ones.
• Recognition, metaphor, even artistic imagination are in play.
• So far there is no role for proof. Our construments are stereotypical.
• Culture, early childhood experiences, and religious upbringing lead to
different models of morality and the world. Moral reasoning is learned.
How we think
• The mind/brain is not primarily an engine of
rationality.
• We do not think rationally and we are not
like computers.
• But, by grasping how we do think, we
should be able to build better robots and
fashion better arguments.
– Consider politics of “reframing.”
The Role of Art
• Because of the presence of choice and the
underdetermined character of our conclusions it is
becoming evident that life itself is an art form.
• We construe our self-concept, and the rest of our
phenomenal world, even our life in an artistic way.
• Science can be helpful, but it too is an art form.
Rest of paper
• Present a Proposal for Empirical Referent of
“God” (next 6 slides)
• Ancient Antecedents and development (5 slides)
• Some support from the Scientific study of
Religion (11 slides)
• Some support from A History of God
• Have time for Questions and Answers
What do we mean by empirical?
• “Knowledge” (a pattern) comes only or primarily
from sense experience.
• The use of sensory evidence, tests, and
experiments should enable us to choose patterns.
• The words “empirical” and “experience” come
from cognate Greek and Latin words which were
used to describe the method of a school of
medicine that opposed the dogmatic approach.
There are different degrees of
Empiricism.
• Strong Empiricism – we only know what
comes from our senses (nothing else).
• Whatever we claim to know (from whatever
source) should be confirmed or refuted by
appeal to our senses.
• Whatever patterns we choose to use should
be tied to experiences. (If what we conceive
cannot be reconciled with our experience
then there is a problem.)
The concept “God” is tied to our
experiences.
• If it were not so, it would have disappeared!
• The concept is fundamental and privileged. Much more
so than “unicorn,” “tooth fairy,” “Santa Claus,” “Easter
bunny,” or “sandman”, etc.
• Many people have “religious experiences”.
• There is something called the “God Helmet” used in
Persinger's research in the study of the neural correlates
of religion and spirituality.
God is experienced as:
• Powerful – but there can be no empirical
foundation for omnipotence.
• Benevolent – but not omni benevolent.
• Knowledgeable – but not omniscient.
• Long lasting – but not eternal.
• Widely available – but not omnipresent.
• Good – but not perfect.
God is experienced as:
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Within us.
Our physical and biological environment.
Our social context.
Our significant others.
Our culture.
God
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Society
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Sociology
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External Environment
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Physics, Chemistry,
Biology, Agriculture
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Significant Others
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Internal Environment
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Psychology,
Sociology
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Psychology,
Medicine,
Neurophysiology
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Culture
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Anthropology
Ancient Antecedents
• Ma’at
• Rta (later Dharma)
• Asha (derived from Rta? Later Ahura
Mazda)
• Tao (leads to wu wei, leads to laissez faire)
• Logos
• Buddha Nature, Sunyata
Egyptian Goddess Ma’at
• Ancient Egyptian concept of
truth, balance, order, law,
morality, and justice.
• As a Deity she regulates the
stars, seasons, and actions of
mortals and deities in this life
and the next.
• At creation she set the order of
the universe and then sustains it.
• The sun god Ra created by
setting his daughter Ma’at in
place of chaos.
Some Biblical references to God
• Exodus 3 – God’s name is YHWH, the verb “to be”. Implies that God
is Being itself, Existence, The Ground of Being, that with which we
are ultimately concerned.
• Genesis – God is the creator and sustainer.
• Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 – God is lawgiver and Judge. – Source of
morality.
• Psalm 19 – The heavens declare the glory of God. Attributes of God
seen in environment.
• Psalm 50, Deut. 33 – God shines forth from the land, is present in his
people, etc.
• Psalms, Isaiah 63, Jer. 2,3, Hosea, etc. – God as Father, spouse, even
kinsman.
• Various people have various gods – Individual gods tie together the
individual societies that live in various places. Jews are not to worship
them because they lead away from YHWH and into foreign societies.
Some New Testament refs to God
• John 1 – Jesus is the logos incarnate. (neo-platonic view)
Logos = God = Ma’at. The rational character of
everything is God.
• John 8 – “I came from God.… you are of your father the
devil.” – There is something within individuals which
forms them and guides their perceptions and actions.
• Acts 17 – Paul preaches in Athens about the “unknown
god”– “in him we live and move and have our being…. We
are his offspring.” – This environment shapes our lives, our
activities, and our very essence.
• Eph 6 – “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities and powers of the air.” – Devils like
Deities are not a type of being but characteristics of our
environment.
• I John 4 – “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in
God and God in him.” – God is a relationship to others.
Historical development of concepts
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Philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural science
Science, scientist
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God
Nature
Human nature
Society, culture
• An example of some of this transition can be seen in the six editions of
Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (from 1759 to 1790).
• Some who would not object to “Nature has provided man with….” would
object to “God has provided man with….” And some who would object to
“Human nature equips the individual with….” would not object to
“Society provides the individual with….”
Freud’s Dark Vision
• Freud regards religion as false and illusory.
• But useful as wish fulfillment and as restraint on human
instincts toward incest, cannibalism, a lust for killing, and
to combat laziness.
• Humans seek to maximize pleasure while minimizing
suffering. Our tools are civilization (culture) and religion
which supports it by restraining our negative impulses.
• But this solution creates displeasure by virtue of
– Our own painful, mortal existence
– Cruel and destructive aspects of the natural world
– Necessary sacrifices to live with other people.
• While the love instinct can be used to bind society
together, the aggressive instinct must be repressed or
redirected toward other societies.
• Repressed instinctive drives show up as guilt, or anxiety,
or neuroses. Religion attempts to deal with these by
explaining evil and providing forgiveness.
Later psychoanalytic view
• The great religions help some people to resolve their
internal and external conflicts, integrate their
personalities and optimize their relationships
(salvation).
• But many are left in a childish state of subservience to
myth.
• Jung said that the gods are archetypes from the
collective unconsciousness. When projected they lose
power. Most of his patients (2nd half of practice)
suffered from losing contact with these gods.
• Psychoanalysis might be a better way. Thus
“Psychoanalysis is the rich man’s religion” or
“Religion is the poor man’s psychoanalysis.”
Hawkins, Bruce Hood and beyond
• We often think we have experienced something we haven’t.
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We have seen things fall but not gravity.
We have seen live bodies but not life.
We have experienced many dogs but not dog.
We have experienced instances of social suasion but not God.
• In every case the abstract noun on the right is taken as a name
for one or more perceived patterns.
• If we don’t have abstract nouns like “society” or “culture”, the
term “God” is very useful.
• So God is a construment.
Hawkins, Hood, and beyond #2
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We have all experienced the feeling that someone or something, either within or
outside our mind wants us to do something.
Hawkins and Hood have shown that we have the concept of agency available
even where we have not seen the agent.
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Surely it was an act of God. And
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If the rains have washed out our path,
If a crocodile eats the mailman,
Or a tornado tears the roof off a house,
Or the wind blows the water back allowing us to cross where there was water, etc.;
Who is it who insists that I pay attention to my neighbor’s needs?
Who suggests that I root for the home team when I don’t know the players?
Who convinces me to make a contribution to my church or United Way?
Why do I stop at a red light when no one else is there?
Why do I keep my promises? Why do I care what happens to others? Etc.
These are not rational extrapolations from Kant’s categorical imperative. Some
would cite “social pressures” and “political calculations.” But where these
concepts are not available, “God” is a simpler explanation. I am not saying
“God” is a better explanation, but that we are prewired to think that way.
Emile Durkheim
• Religion is what holds society together.
• God is society writ large. It is society’s way of representing itself
to itself. The believer’s self image depends on God.
• The totemist knows that the totem represents God. He also knows
that it represents his society. He may have another for himself.
• Religion reflects society’s collective aspects. Every society can
be called religious, for any society lacking collective ways of
thinking and acting is not in fact a society.
– If we feel dependent on god, that is but a symbolic representation of our
dependency on society;
– if we tremble at god’s justice and punishment, that is our regard for
society’s laws.
– Our reverence for divinity is but our respect for society;
– our belief in the immortality of the soul, our belief in the continuity of the
collective life.
These concepts are protected and
existentially vital.
• They are protected because they are vital to the
maintenance of society, the collective life of the group.
• Also therefore of:
– Culture
– One’s own self concept
• A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices
relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart
and surrounded by prohibitions – beliefs and practices
that unite its adherents in a single moral community
called a church.
Later Sociologists
• When sociologists say god is mediated to us by
society they mean more than that others tell us
what to believe. They mean that the referent is
social. Many gods have become obsolete, but
so have those societies.
• Guy Swanson found that belief in god was
universal in societies with three or more levels
of sovereign groups.
E. E. Evans-Pritchard (d.1973)
• Argued that religion of the Azande (witchcraft and oracles)
must be understood in social context and function. (solving
disputes)
• Azande faith in witchcraft and oracles was quite logical
and consistent once some fundamental tenets were
accepted.
• Loss of faith could not be endured because of its social
importance.
• Hence they had an elaborate system of explanations (or
excuses) against disproving evidence.
• Besides an alternative system of terms or school of thought
did not exist.
Clifford Geertz’ definition of
Religion
• Religion is a system of symbols which acts to
establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods
and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of
a general order of existence and clothing these
conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the
moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.
• Culture is also a system of symbols, So religion is a
form of culture. And one the most important symbols
is “God.”
Geertz’ Comment on Culture and the
role of Anthropologist
• Geertz followed Weber when he wrote that “man is an
animal suspended in webs of significance he himself
has spun and the analysis of it must be therefore not an
experimental science in search of law but an
interpretive one in search of meaning.”
• The anthropologist must be both empirically rigorous
and a savvy interpreter, akin to a psychoanalyst.
• In 1972 he wrote that “cultural analysis is (or should
be) guessing at meanings, assessing the guesses and
drawing explanatory conclusions from the better
guesses.”
Looking at the Human Sciences we
have seen:
• Psychologists discussing the way “God” can be
used to deal with problems of self integration and
depth psychology.
• Sociologists saying “God” is society writ large.
• Anthropologists saying “God” is a protected
concept because it is used to support culture of
which it is a part.
• I am saying God (as the horizon of being) is that
with which we deal in these sciences.
God as Kinsman, Father, Spouse
(I.e. – Significant Other) #4
• Lev. 25:25, Num. 5:8, Ruth, Psa. 19, Isa.43, 49, etc.
– There are certain responsibilities that kinsmen have and God
assumes these responsibilities and demands them of us.
• Hosea
– God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute as a metaphor of His
relation to Israel.
• In the New Testament we are the Bride of Christ.
– Also common in Christian mystics.
• Common in Bhakti poetry, Islamic mysticism.[p.130f]
“God seems to have changed his mind about the Vietnam
war; nowadays you hardly talk to anyone who favors it.”
• This quote (attributed to a lay preacher in
California) is from Time or Newsweek from the
late 1960’s commenting on the growing opposition
to the war.
• It is a beautiful example of Biblical parallelism in
which the same thing is said twice with different
words.
• The implication is that for the preacher, “God” =
the people that he is talking to, i.e. – his
significant others.
How far is it from seeing God as a
father, a spouse, or a kinsman to
seeing our significant others as
part of God?
God within us #1
Karen Armstrong writes that after the Romans destroyed the temple
in Jerusalem, the Rabbis produced a major insight (In Mishnah and
two Talmuds).
God had, as it were, adapted himself to each person “according to the
comprehension of each.” As one Rabbi put it, “God does not come to
man oppressively but commensurately with a man’s power of
receiving him.” This very important rabbinic insight meant that God
could not be described in a formula as though he were the same for
everybody: he was essentially a subjective experience. Each
individual would experience the reality of “God” in a different way to
answer the needs of his or her own particular temperament. Each one
of the prophets had experienced God differently, the rabbis insisted,
because his personality had influenced his conception of the divine.
We shall see that other monotheists would develop a very similar
notion. To this day, theological ideas about God are very private
matters in Judaism and are not enforced by the establishment. [p. 74]
In mainline Christianity
• The Christian Gnostic tradition was effectively banned during
the time of Constantine. But Christian mysticism survived.
• Augustine found God by looking within his own psyche. He
even found models of the trinity in his mental capacities which
he took to be part of the image of God within himself. Now we
might say that Augustine psychoanalyzed himself in his
autobiography.
• In reaction to the Protestant Reformation, Ignatius Loyola(14911556) developed his spiritual exercises which are a crash course
in mysticism and are still used by some Catholics and Anglicans
as an alternative to psychotherapy. [p. 284]
Islamic Sufism
• Sufism is the internal aspect of Islam. (mystical)
• Many are quoted saying things like “I am God!”, “The
Father and I are one!”, “I am the Truth!”
• Al-Junayd (d.910) taught a Muslim could be reunited
with his creator…. It would be the end of separation
and sadness, a reunion with a deeper self that was also
the self that he or she was meant to be. God was not a
separate external reality and judge but somehow one
with the ground of each person’s being….[p.227]
Islamic Sufism (continued)
• For the mystic the revelation is an event that happens within his
own soul…. We have seen, however, that during the eleventh
century, Muslim philosophers such as Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali
himself had found that objective accounts of God were
unsatisfactory and had turned toward mysticism. Al-Ghazali had
made Sufism acceptable to the establishment and had shown that
it was the most authentic form of Muslim spirituality. During the
twelfth century the Iranian philosopher Yahya Suhrawardi and
the Spanish-born Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi linked Islamic
Falsafah indissolubly with mysticism and made the God
experienced by the Sufis normative in many parts of the Islamic
empire. [p.229f]
• Several Islamic mystics developed techniques similar to modern
psychoanalytic techniques.
How far is it from saying that each
man experiences God differently
depending on the inner workings of
his own mind to saying that part of
what one experiences in experiencing
God is the deep and inner workings
of his own mind?
God is immanent in the Community
#3
• [After the destruction of the temple,] the Israelites were
encouraged by their Rabbis to see themselves as a united
community with “one body and one soul.” The
community was the new Temple, enshrining the
immanent God: thus when they entered the synagogue
and recited the Schema in perfect unison “with devotion,
with one voice, one mind and one tone,” God was
present among them…. The higher union of God and
Israel could only exist when the lower union of Israelite
with Israelite was complete: constantly, the Rabbis told
them that when a group of Jews studied the Torah
together, the Shekinah sat among them. [p. 76]
The mystical Body of Christ
• Christians also understood that wherever two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I.
• Augustine said "Let us rejoice then and give thanks
that we have become not only Christians, but Christ
himself. Do you understand and grasp, brethren,
God's grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have
become Christ.”
• Both Catholics and Protestants have understood the
Church to be the Body of Christ.
How far is it from saying that God is
immanent in the community to
saying that a part of the perception
of God is the perception of the
community or society?
God and our environment #2
• God is understood to have created and
sustained all that is. All that is, comes from
Him and is therefore good.
• The stoics (“The universe itself is God.”)
Neo-Platonists and Pythagoreans all
understood the world to be some sort of
emanation from the divine.
• The logos is present in all that is.
God and our environment
• Al-Ghazali (d.1111) said that everything we see or
experience is the Face of God. Nothing else truly
exists. [p.190]
• Isaac Newton suggested that we exist in God’s
sensorium along with everything we experience.
• Spinoza and Leibniz were pantheists.
• Tillich said God is the ground of being (of
everything).
How far is it from saying that all that
we can see is God or “the Face of
God” to saying God (at least in part)
is all that we can see?
[I.e. – Our physical and biological
environment is part of God.]
God and Culture are linked #5
• Moses, Jesus, & Muhammad split our calendars and inaugurated
cultures.
• Armstrong points out that as the Western Roman empire began to
fall, the Christian concept of God became darker and more
defensive.[p.123]
• At the fall of Constantinople and the start of the Renaissance all the
major monotheisms were experiencing change. “By the end of the
sixteenth century, the West was about to create an entirely different
type of culture. It was, therefore, a time of transition and, as such,
characterized by anxiety as well as achievement. This was evident
in the Western conception of God at this time.” [p. 257]
• This is even more evident in Calvinism then in Lutheranism. [cf.
pp. 279f] [cf. Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism]
Muhammad and Islamic Culture
• Before Muhammad Arabic culture was tribal, polytheistic,
individualistic, brutal, and valuing wealth, power, and fame.
• Muhammad knew that monotheism was inimical to tribalism: a
single deity … would integrate society as well as the individual.
[p. 149]
• Armstrong points out that the pillars of Islam consciously create
a new culture. “In practical terms, islam meant that Muslims had
a duty to create a just, equitable society where the poor and
vulnerable are treated decently. The early message of the Koran
is simple: it is wrong to stockpile wealth and to build a private
fortune, and good to share the wealth of society fairly by giving
a regular proportion of ones wealth to the poor.” [ pp.142ff]
How far is it from saying that a
new vision of God produces a
new culture to saying that culture
is part of the vision of God.
Aeschylus (525-456 BC) quote
He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
How far is it from saying that the
prophet or mystic has a direct,
intuitive knowledge of God, which is
derived more from the imagination
than from the intellect, to saying that
the prophet imagines a construment
of God or imaginatively utilizes the
God symbol?