Did God create man, did man create God, and/or How Does 'Creation Theory' Fit With 'Evolution Theory'?
This is one of those essays that started with the intention of going somewhere (a DGB interpretation of 'The Adam and Eve Story') and then made an abrupt turn and ended up going somewhere else (an imaginary meeting between DGB and Anaximander). Actually, this essay started out in a couple of different directions before it made the final turn towards Anxamander. We will come back to some of the other points that were started in this essay but let's see how this 'imaginary meeting with Anaxamander' developed. -- dgb, April 9th, 2009.
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Let us look at the human organism and the human personality from both a 'Biblical-God-Created-Man' perspective and alternatively, from a more 'DGB post-Hegelian-post-Darwinian Historical-Evolutionary' perspective.
The first Biblical way suggests that 'the earth was created in 6 days by God, and that on the 7th day, presumably Sunday, God rested. I think Nietzsche has asked the question -- and I will embellish it slightly: 'What did God do after the 7th day? Did he get bored? (Nietzsche) Did God stop creating? Has He/She been sitting around 'watching the world evolve and destroy itself ever since'?
Now forgive me for my Biblical ignorance but where does the 'Adam and Eve Story' come into play here? I have to do some Biblical homework here. Did the Adam and Eve Story occur in the first 7 days of Creation? Or did it occur some time afterwards -- in which case God was still busy 'Creating' even after the first seven days?
I just went upstairs and picked up a copy of The Bible for the first time in I don't know how many years. But I got at least part of the information I was looking for off the internet -- like usual -- reading a children's version of 'The Adam and Eve Story'. But I still didn't find 'what day' in the seven days man was created by God.
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Book of Genesis: Chapter 2
(Children's Version)
The Story of Adam and Eve...
God took some clay from the ground and made the shape of a man. Then He breathed gently into the shape. The man's eye's opened and he began to live. God called him Adam.
The Lord made a beautiful garden for him to live in. The garden, called Eden, was full of many wonderful things. Beautiful flowers grew everywhere. Birds sang in the trees, streams flowed through the valley and animals roamed across the fields.
God hade made the man in His image to keep Him company and look after the world.
God brought all the animals to Adam one at a time to be given their names. "Elephant", he would say, or "Tiger", or "Porcupine".
But God felt sorry for Adam. "None of these animals is really like him," thought God, "he needs someone to share his life. Someone who cares for him and who he can care for."
That night, God took a rib from Adam's side and made a woman. When Adam awoke the following morning, he found a wife, Eve, lying asleep beside him. Adam was so happy. He took her hand and she woke up. She looked up at him and smiled.
God told the man and woman that it was their job to take care of their new home. God blessed them, saying, "All this is for you. Help yourself to anything you like. But never touch the tree in the middle of the Garden. That tree gives knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat its fruit, you will die."
God did not mean that Adam and Eve would drop down dead the moment they ate the fruit from the tree. He meant that in time they would die with out His Spirit dwelling in them.
One day, Eve was gathering berries for dinner when she heard a silky voice behind her.
"Has God told you that you can eat the fruit from all the trees?" the voice asked softly. Eve turned around to see a snake talking to her.
"God has told us we can eat all the fruit except for what grows on The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Eve told the serpent.
"Oh come now, that's silly! I hardly think such a lovely fruit would do you any harm," the serpent lied. "God knows that if you eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you'll become just like God, and will be able to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong."
The woman looked at the fruit and thought how tasty it looked. She thought how wonderful it would be to be as wise and powerful as God. She believed the serpent's lie and ate the fruit.
She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She fidgeted and wondered what was wrong with her. Suddenly she realized that she was feeling guilty -- she had disobeyed God and knew she'd done something wrong.
Eve hurriedly picked some more fruit and took it back to Adam. They ate the fruit and sat in gloomy silence. As soon as they ate the fruit a change came over Adam and Eve. They became unhappy and fearful of God.
Adam and Eve heard God calling them. Without thinking, they dived into the bushes, but God knew where they were. When God asked them if they had eaten from The Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil that He had told them not to touch, they blamed each other for their sins.
God was sad that Adam and Eve had disobeyed them. He told them that they had to leave the Garden of Eden, "From now on you'll have to scratch a living from the soil. You'll need to make clothes and grow food. Nothing will come easily -- not even childbirth. And one day, you will die."
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Well, what are you going to do with this, Mr. David Bain? Are there people out there who are going to jump off tall buildings once they read your mythological interpretive analysis of 'The Adam and Eve Story'? Other people who will break out into 'righteous religious rage' over what might turn out to be a rather bizarre, unorthodox interpretation here? Or maybe it isn't so bizarre?
People didn't want to hear about 'The Kantian Dialectical Split' between our 'subjective' (phenomenal) and 'objective' (noumenal) world. Some people couldn't stand the 'epistemological and existential angst (anxiety)' of not being able to 'know' our objective-noumenal world. There's either a semantic problem here with Kantian language or a real epistemological disagreement between Kant and DGB Philosophy. I don't imagine likely that Ayn Rand would have liked what Kant said but I have to check that. Our senses and our logical-evaluative system is the 'dialectic bridge' between ourselves and our outer world. Our senses and logical-evaluative system is far from perfect -- especially in the face of narcissistic bias -- but still this epistemological dialectic bridge is all we have and it is enough to let some people survive for 70,80, 90 years in the world. One lady the other day in Los Angelos! of all places celebrated her 115th, birthday. My dad just celebrated his 80th birthday. So some people are doing some things right in terms of interpreting, evaluating, and living in their 'subjective-objective world'.
Man has always been at least partly a 'control-freak' and there is nothing more anxiety-provoking than 'not knowing something' -- particularly for some or even many people who get more strung out over this 'not knowing' phenomon than others. But obviously, sometimes 'knowing' is important -- it can be the difference between life and death in some situations.
There are many, many other 'dialectical splits' that I could -- and will partly -- go on to talk about in the history and evolution of man -- far too many to count, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions...'right vs. wrong', 'good vs. bad', 'black vs. white', 'men vs. women', 'Christians vs. Muslims', 'employer vs. employee', 'parent vs. child' -- what is essential in many of these cases is whether these dialectic splits are intelligently handled, tolerated, respected, accepted vs. turned into 'righteous-narcissistic raging wars'.
Remember that we are playing 'The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game' here.
But it is no game, really. Again, in some cases it is about life and death. If there is a car racing towards me at 80km per hour, it is obviously rather important that I 'know' about it. I have to trust the 'probability of correctness' of my senses and logical-evaluative process in this, and hundreds or thousands of other situations every day, some more important than others.
In fact, The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game can be viewed as a slightly different rendition of the Kantian Dialectical Split between our Subjective and Objective World.
Let us credit Descartes for at least partly identifying 'The Expistemological-Existential Dialectic Split'. His most famous statement was: 'I think, therefore I am.'
But let me distinguish in this regard the difference between a 'one-sided dualistic philosophy' and a 'two-sided, dialectic philosophy'.
In a one-sided dualistic philosophy their is only a righteous 'either/or' point of view -- and thus, argumentative debate against any and/or all opposing philosophies. In contra-distinction, in a two-sided (or multi-sided) dialectic philosophy their is a 'dialectic engagement' within the philosophy itself as opposed to a dialectic engagement with 'external' opposing philosophies... Anaxamander (power is only temporary until the 'suppressed return from the Shadows' -- 'What goes around, comes around...'), Heraclitus (Opposites attract -- and need each other in order to establish a 'dialectic union and harmony' between themselves and their 'opposing, bi-polar, half'...), and Lao Tse ('yin' and 'yang')... (added April 25th, 2011)
Descartes said: 'I think; therefore I am.' Descartes was a one-sided dualistic or dialectic philosopher.
In contrast, I say: 'I think therefore I am.' But also at the same time I say: 'I am; therefore I think.'
I think because I am. And I am because I think. The two are dialectically or bi-laterally inter-connected. Just like the chicken and the egg story. The chicken and the egg are dialectically and bilaterally connected as well. The chicken creates the egg. And the egg creates the chicken. Which came first? I don't know. My mind doesn't extend that far back empirically into the history of chickens and eggs. Ask God.'
Anyways, if you are a 'classic bilateral dialectic, post-Hegelian thinker in the 'Jacques Derrida' mold, you always 'reverse the flow of the action, the flow of the causality' -- from what is epistemologically and/or culterally 'dominant' to what is epistemologically and/or culturally marginalized, suppressed, and/or in 'lying in the background, in the shadow of the epistemologically dominant, one-sided point of view.
This incidently was Jacques Derrida's (1930-2004) main -- and hugely important -- contribution to philosophy.
However, Anaxamander beat all of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, Perls, and Derrida to 'the dialectic punch'.
Indeed, part of me -- actually all of me -- sits here and thinks: Maybe I made a 'labelling' mistake. Maybe I should have titled my philosophical network of blogs: 'Anaxamander's Hotel' rather than 'Hegel's Hotel' because Anaxamander was the first and oldest Western dialectic philosopher. However, in response to this, I can also counter-argue: Without philosophically meeting Hegel, I would never have philosophically met Anaxamander. And Hegel was still the philosopher who put everything 'dialectically together' in one package -- 'The Phenomeonlogy of Spirit (1807) for all 19th, 20th, and 21st century philosophers to go follow and go 'creatively ballistic' over what Hegel put together so profoundly (but not 'Absolutely' perfect).
Back to Anaxamander. Professor Anaxamander -- I want to meet you. Where can I find you? In the 'Apeiron' (your word for 'The Boundless', 'The Unlimited', 'The Undifferentiated', 'The Unarticulated'...) You certainly 'articulated' yourself. Is there a place that I can find you that we might call the 'Articulated Apeiron'?
I need to talk to you. Let's have a talk. I love your story of philosophy. I love your story of Creation. I want to call you a 'Creative-Evolutionist' Philosopher. Can we hear your story again?
(DGB: Allow me some creative-projective liberties here. If you want to get Anaxamander's 'uncontaminated' philosophy -- uncontaminated by DGB Philosophy -- then just google...Anaxamander...on the internet. I have taken some 'creative license' here.)
Anaxamander: Well, firstly, let me say this. I am not dead. I live on in the dialectic spirit of man. I live on in the dialectic spirit of life competing with death, of organisms living and dying, growing and decaying, being born and being destroyed...dominating with power, and being overwhelmed by power...I represent the powerful and the powerless, the dominant and the suppressed or marginalized, the 'figural' and the 'background' at one and the same time. I was the first Western philosopher to fully articulate the 'dialectic' and indeed, the 'multi-dialectic' nature of man -- and life/death. Also, I articulated the 'cyclical nature of life' -- the strong and powerful only being strong and powerful for a while in time before the weak and less powerful gain strength, gain power and energy, 'mutate' in the 'shadows of existence' and come back to the 'foreground' to once again do battle with the more powerful until the powerful are finally defeated and either thrown back or retreat into the 'shadows', the 'background', the 'Apeiron' of life. I was the first philosopher to basically articulate the idea that: 'What goes around, comes around?'
DGB: I know that Professor Anaxamander. I have been blown away by your philosophy. I love it! I can fully see how your philosophy, your theory of the dialectic nature of man and life, have lived on 2500 hundred years plus in the history, the culture, the philosophy, and the psychology of man.
Still, you have to understand, Professor Anaxamander. By your age, I am still a very, very young man. And I am still very ambitious. And looking back at your philosophy, with the greatest of respect for you, I find there is one question -- one major question -- that you did not really answer, for all of us who have listened to, and/or read your philosophy. The question is this: You say that the Universe -- or the 'Apeiron' to use your word -- was -- and still is partly --'Chaotic', 'Unarticulated', 'Undifferentiated' -- and that this remains the 'background' of life from which all more differentiated, articulated forms of life 'spring forward into the Foreground of life' (in this regard, I think you foreshadowed the birth of Gestalt Psychology almost 2000 years before its time) in the dualistic/dialectic form of 'twos' or 'bi-polar opposites'.
My question to you is this: Why did/does life 'differentiate' into 'twos' -- into 'bi-polar opposites'? That I am aware of, I don't think you really answered that question.
Anaxamander: You are right, I never really answered that question. However, after I died -- in body but not in spirit -- there were a few of my indirect, fellow Greek philosophy students who addressed this question that I never answered. Both Heraclitus and Plato answered this question in their own respective philosophical ways. Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers from China answered this question in their own particular philosophical way. The Bible in its own particular way recognized the importance of 'twos' in, for example, 'The Adam and Eve Story', and 'The Noah's Ark Story'...And furthermore, my very young man, I think you are playing with me here.
I think you come back to me in time, not only in humble servitude, but also with ambitious 'egotism' or 'narcissism' as you might say. I think you want to tell me of your version of why the Universe, why Chaos, why the Apeiron, divided into twos -- many, many different types of 'twos'.
DGB: You are right, so right, Professor Anaxamander. I have to laugh. Once again, you are right. You have me pegged so right. You're telepathic, psychic -- or just very, very wise about the ways of the world. I come back here very much in awe of you -- very much humbly your servant. However, at the same time, I want to show you how creatively brilliant I am -- I want to add to your philosophical theory in a way that is at least partly different than all of Heraclitus, Lao tse, The Han Philosophers, and Plato... even though I respect and incorporate their respective philosophical theories as well. I am like a giant 'philosohical Pac-Man'...I just go around 'eating up' other philosophers philosophies -- 'spitting out' the parts I don't like -- and 'digesting', 'assimilating' the 'nutritious' parts that taste good, and are good for my DGB spirit and soul....Another of my favorite mentors -- Dr. Frederick (Fritz) Perls -- I think would be at least partly proud of me in this regard. So, Professor Anaxamander, do you want to hear my philosophical theory of how and/or why the Universe, Chaos, or The Apeiron to use your word -- divided into twos? I confess, the theory is a little on the 'crazy' side -- if nothing else, it is a 'symbolic, mythological story' -- just like Greek Mythology, and just like The Bible -- nothing more, nothing less.
Anaxamander: Do I have a choice? I think you are going to 'implode from your brain and mouth inwards' if I don't listen to you. And it's not like I have a full agenda here -- other than watching the world destroy itself, and different people trying to 'overpower' each other but I saw that and expounded on that some 2500 years ago plus. This is just more of what I saw each year between Sparta and Athens. Another 'dialectical split' to use your words between the 'unilateral, authoritarian, or dictatorial-minded (The Spartans) vs. the 'democratic, equal rights, equal opportunity-minded' (The Athenians) What's new in the world. What goes around, comes around. Everything changes (Heraclitus) but also, paradoxically, everything stays the same (Parmenides). The world in the 2000s is essentially no different than the way I left it in 546 BC. (I'm dating myself.) The world is still the same. Man is still the same -- evolution or no evolution. In the end, 'greed', 'righteousness', 'egotism', and 'narcissism' -- to use your word again (or Freud's, or Havelock Ellis', or the Greeks...) -- these characteristics of man will ultimately destroy him, drive him into extinction, and quite possibly, take the rest of the Earth with him. Anway, I know you are 'exploding at your mouth' here. So -- let hear it. Let's hear your theory about 'why the Apeiron dialectically divides into twos.
DGB: Professor Anaxamander, you are putting a damper on my excitement, my enthusiasm here. Now I don't want to tell it to you.
Anaxamander: Now, don't be that way, young man. See, you are a perfect example of man's greatest 'virtue' and also his/her greatest 'vice' -- personal egotism.
DGB: You are right there Professor Anaxamander. Don't get me going. It's too late. I'm already going... I have to say a few things in this regard.
Ayn Rand recognized 'egotism' as man's greatest mental 'asset'. But Ayn Rand was not a dialectic thinker. Coming from 'Lenin and Stalin-influenced Communist Russia', Ms. Rand obviously knew much about many of the potential vices and even atrocities of 'pathological communism, authoritarianism, socialism...' as she experienced them as a child living in, and then leaving, Russia for her 'internalized idealism as it was still evolving'...the 'virtues' of 'Selfishness' and 'Egotism' and 'Capitalism' in America. Not that she couldn't recognize many of 'American vices' as well. That we can talk about at another time.
But Hegel had it right -- and I am partly paraphrasing: 'Every theory, every characteristic contains within it both its own individual 'virtues' and its own individual 'vices'. The virtues and the vices are both contained within the paradox, the contradiction of any 'unilateral theory or characteristic' that 'captures only one side, one part, of the whole.' Thus, egotism has made man what he is today. And it quite likely it will destroy man because he cannot live with other theoretical, philosophical, religious, political, economic and/or egotistical differences that differentiate him from other 'men' and 'women' who share his species -- but not his philosopohy, or not his particular interpretation of the way things are, and/or the way things came to be.' Egotism -- both as an 'individual' characteristic and as a 'group-cliche' characteristic -- cannot accept and/or tolerate other forms of human egotism and philosophical difference. So everything comes down to what you so wisely and prophetically described, Professor Anaxamander -- it all comes down to a 'social Darwinian struggle for power and control'. Just like the Spartans went after each other, year after year, in your old country -- or close to your old country -- always trying to defeat each other in war. Always trying to achieve 'City-State-Superiority' over the other City-State. From the Spartans and the Athenians to Ghangis Khan, to Alexander the Great, to Napoleon, to Hitler and Nazi Germany -- to America invading Iraq to North Korea 'testing their missiles' -- has anything substantially changed in the world other than technology? Certainly the psychology of man seems exactly the same today as it was 2500 years ago.
Anaxamander: I told you, you were ready to 'verbally explode'. Did you get that all off your chest? What happened to your theory about 'why the world divides into twos'.
DGB: Well, if you are available, I would like to meet with you again. I would love to meet with you again. But I'm a little burnt out here. If i can stay around here for another day, or you stay around here for another day, and not disappear back into the Shadows, back into the Apeiron, I would love to talk with you again tomorrow. Can you stick around one more day? And then I will let you go back to your business. And I will go back to the stressful world I live in.
Anaxamander: Well, I have some other things to do. I have a dinner planned with Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato tonight. But I will join you back here for one more meeting tomorrow. I do thank you for giving you my due respect in Western philosophical history. And I do thank you for carrying my dialectical spirit in your heart and in your writing. I do like what you are doing. You go a little 'offside' now and then -- even for me -- but I know your intentions are good, your heart is in the right place -- and I will see you here tomorrow, same place, same time.
DGB: Thank you, Professor Anaxamander. Again, as you well know, you have my greatest respect. Have a great dinner tonight. I have some things to do with the rest of my day as well. But I am envious. I would love to be joining you and your friends for dinner tonight. Maybe one day not so far off. Good day!
-- dgb, April 9th, modified April 10th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
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From the internet....Free Essays....Anaxamander and 'The Apeiron'
Well-known for his theory of Apeiron, or the unlimited, Anaxamander pursued the changes of the Earth. He basically thought that apeiron compensated for the many changes the Earth undergoes. As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
