< Back Transubstantiation for the Rest of Us Nicholas Senz For Aristotle, there is a real distinction between what a thing is and what a thing is like. Recently, we celebrated the great Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, colloquially known as the feast of Corpus Christi (“the body of Christ”). On this day we give special thanks for the great gift we celebrate every Mass: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, one of the most central mysteries of our faith. Of course, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is also one of the most mysterious mysteries of our faith. Our eyes tell us it is bread and wine before us, but our faith tells us it is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Church’s Tradition has handed down to us a word to describe this reality: transubstantiation, which says that the accidents of bread and wine remain while the substance becomes that of Christ Himself. For many, though, this term is no help: the technical philosophical explanations are just as head-scratch-inducing as the claim itself. Yet once some of the finer points are made clearer, this explanation can be quite helpful. First, a bit of background. To borrow a phrase from St. Anselm of Canterbury, our faith is always seeking understanding— fides quarens intellectum —and so we often turn to the tools of understanding, to philosophy, to contemplate the truths of the faith. The Church has found the philosophy of Aristotle in particular to be a fitting partner to the faith, so Aristotelian terms have often been employed in theological investigations. (This can be seen pre-eminently in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.) The concept of transubstantiation is one such instance of the Church making use of Aristotelian terms: substance and accident. What do these mean? To put it simply: for Aristotle, there is a real distinction between what a thing is and what a thing is like . This is a common sense observation, but one that Aristotle builds into his systematic thought about reality. Let’s use for our example a human being. What it is, as we’ve just said, is a human being. The human being will have all kinds of different characteristics—weight, height, hair style—but essentially, before anything else, apart from any other attribute, it is first and foremost a human being. The human being’s weight could fluctuate; his height could increase or decrease with age; his hair style could change from a crewcut to dreadlocks; but those changes do not put that human being out of existence and an entirely new one into being. There is something that endures beyond all these changes: the human being himself, in his essence. We could put it this way: with all the aspects of a human being and all the ways they can change, there is something that stands under those different attributes. “Stands under” in Latin is sub – stans , which gives us the word substance . All of these changeable, secondary aspects of the substance are, you might say, “attached” to the thing, but are not an integral part of the thing itself. “Attached” in Latin is accidens , which gives us the word accidents . Thus, substance refers to what a thing is, and accidents refer to what a thing is like. Thinking of things this way, we could say that there are two kinds of change a thing might normally undergo: substantial change and accidental change. In a substantial change, the thing that was ceases to be and a new thing comes to exist, as when a log burns and becomes ashes, or when a lump of dough bakes and becomes bread. Something new has come into being. Substantial changes are virtually always accompanied by accidental changes, because different kinds of things typically have different attributes. The log that was hard and brown becomes fine and black. The dough that was, well, doughy and white becomes soft and golden. Here both what a thing is and what it’s like change. It can also happen that the thing remains but its characteristics change, as when a log is chopped in half and loses mass, or when a lump of dough is sprinkled with sugar and becomes sweet. This is only accidental change. Once we distinguish the difference between these two, what happens in the mystery of the Eucharist, in transubstantiation, becomes clearer. If it’s possible for the attributes of a thing to change while that thing remains the same, it’s intelligible for the thing itself to change while the attributes remain the same. This is precisely what happens in the Eucharist: the substances of the bread and wine change, but the accidents remain the same. That is, what they are is now different, but what they are like is not. Before the Mass, the bread is small, soft, and white, and the wine is wet, aromatic, and intoxicating. After the words of consecration are prayed, all of these attributes remain, but what is on the altar is no longer bread and wine, but the very substance and presence of Jesus Christ Himself. This explanation by no means exhausts the mystery of the Eucharist. As with all the sacraments, there is something here beyond our comprehension. But while reason cannot completely encapsulate the Eucharist, reason can at least show that what we claim about the Eucharist is not unreasonable. It is mysterious, but it is not absurd. The doctrine of transubstantiation helps us to understand how the eyes of faith can see what the eyes of the body cannot. This was republished with minimal edits and with permission from catholicexchange.com. Nicholas Senz is a husband and father who tries every day to live Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." He is Director of Religious Education at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Mill Valley, CA, a managing editor at Catholic Stand, and a Master Catechist. A native of Verboort, Oregon, Nicholas holds master's degrees in philosophy and theology from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA. His work has appeared at Catholic Exchange, Crisis Magazine, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, and his own blog, Two Old Books . Nicholas is a science fiction aficionado, Tolkien devotee, avid Anglophile, and consumer of both police procedurals and popcorn in large quantities, usually together. Twitter at @NickSenz . Previous Next

< Back Happy Thanksgiving David Cowles Nov 24, 2021 Happy Thanksgiving! Really? With COVID, economic insecurity, terrorism, etc. what do we have to be thankful for? Only everything! Literally…every thing. Being is a function of being good. (Don’t tell that to my 10 year old self.) We ‘are’ only in so far as we are ‘good’. We don’t realize it, but we have a blind spot. Sadly, we are not “all that we could be”. But what is this thing called ‘Good’ that we celebrate this week? It’s God. It’s what makes Being be. It is the yardstick by which we measure everything in our world. But because it is a yardstick, it can’t be among the things that it measures. It must transcend our everyday world. And what transcends our everyday world is what we call “God”. Happy Thanksgiving! Really? With COVID, economic insecurity, terrorism, etc. what do we have to be thankful for? Only everything! Literally…every thing. Being is a function of being good. (Don’t tell that to my 10 year old self.) We ‘are’ only in so far as we are ‘good’. We don’t realize it, but we have a blind spot. Sadly, we are not “all that we could be”. But what is this thing called ‘Good’ that we celebrate this week? It’s God. It’s what makes Being be. It is the yardstick by which we measure everything in our world. But because it is a yardstick, it can’t be among the things that it measures. It must transcend our everyday world. And what transcends our everyday world is what we call “God”. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back AI - Our New Frenemy AI and the Human Quest for Love AI - The Next Big Test of the Human Soul Hadassah Treu "The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born." When I grew up and even as a mature adult, I was fascinated by Isaac Asimov's books about robots. Asimov is the one who invented in his books the so-called Three Laws of Robotics. These instructions are not scientific laws, but they are built into every robot in his stories to prevent dangerous malfunctions. According to the first law, robots must not cause harm to humans or allow humans to be harmed by not taking action. However, the laws underwent an interesting development because the robots themselves added a 4th law, the so-called Zero law. In "Robots and Empire," the robots Giscard and Daneel devised a law that put the needs of humanity first before the needs of the single individual. The Longing for a Perfect Companion These books thrilled my imagination, and they also sparked a powerful longing in me. I was longing to have somebody by my side, somebody like "Daneel." The robot had a human-like appearance, beautiful and perfectly resembling a human. He was available 24/7 and possessed superhuman strength, intelligence, and access to limitless information. The positronic robot Daneel Olivaw was something between a superhuman and a faithful servant. Who didn't want to have a perfect friend like this? Asimov wrote six novels about robots and a lot of short stories. In these novels, he explores different scenarios of the robot-human society, whereas the ratio and the role of the robots in society differ. It is noteworthy that all robot-human societies developed dysfunctions, eventually leading to humanity's extinction. This was, for example, the case on the planet Solaria, described in the novel "The Naked Sun." A tipping point in Asimov's robot stories was when one robot (Giscard) gained telepathic abilities. Namely, he gained the ability to read and influence minds. From this moment on, he gradually took on the role of a god, changing events and decisions throughout society. In fact, he took responsibility for the whole human race! AI Is Our New Reality Nowadays, surrounded by artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily life and sitting on the brink of a technological revolution, I can't help but think about Asimov and his robots. AI is not a sci-fi fantasy. It's reality. AI is everywhere, and it has become an integral part of our daily lives; it doesn't matter whether we recognize it or not. AI is on our smartphones, the chatbots, and the virtual assistants, on social media feeds, not to speak about Alexa or generative AI like ChatGPT. But we always need to remember that technology is a tool. And as a tool, it is our responsibility how to use it. We can't define it as good or bad because it doesn't have a moral value, but we can use it for good or for evil. We also need to remember that even as a tool, this technology is extremely valuable and powerful. So, we have to train ourselves not only to have a balanced and realistic attitude but also how best to interact with this technology. The output we will get from our interactions is largely based on the input we are feeding. Most probably we will need such jobs shortly like AI whisperers and prompt engineers, fact-checkers (yes, AI can give misguided and untruthful information – remember the input!), and creators who will co-create with AI. But most of all, we will need some kind of ethical guardians and voices of the societal conscience who will spur us to act with integrity and ensure the proper development of the human-machine relationship. Is AI Really Our New Best Friend? Is AI like us? Why do we have such a longing for a relationship with artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a type of nonbiological intelligence. Machines are given instructions to complete tasks using a set of rules. Because it's nonbiological, AI can be copied and reprogrammed and can be very flexible. AI has no conscience like human beings, and it lacks emotions, beliefs, and desires. However, research shows that even though machines and computer programs don't have sentience, the people interacting with them, give the machines human characteristics—like feelings, beliefs, desires, and understanding. This is dangerous because we begin to trust them and treat them the way we treat other people. This is exactly what happened in the robot novels of Azimov – the robot Daneel (although lacking emotions) was treated by the main hero, detective Elijah Baley like a human, like a friend. When we talk, for example, with a generative AI like ChatGPT, we can get a good imitation of what a human might say. However, we need to remember that AI lacks real feelings, empathy, or awareness. So we need to approach every AI output with an open but critical eye. Another substantial difference is that as a machine, AI looks back to gather information. Unlike humans, AI can't have visions, imagine futures and outcomes, invent things, or even plan. These are high-level skills that still belong only to humans. People are forward-thinking, and machines are retrospective. And yet… The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born. Disappointed and disillusioned on the quest for love, struggling with intense loneliness in an overpopulated world, where does the human soul turn next? A new study explains that robots with artificial intelligence can help fight people's loneliness. These mechanical companions could help isolated people by reducing the potential health risks that come with chronic loneliness. Researchers claim that interacting with a robot can have the same impact on humans as interacting with a person. So, companion robots can alleviate stress and loneliness and provide a promising "quick fix" to the problem of making new friends in adulthood. However, despite how promising this sounds, the issue with the moral and trustworthiness of such mechanical companions remains. The Big Temptation Are we tempted to treat AI as more than a tool? Definitely, yes. This is dangerous ground because AI has the potential to influence our theology and become our new idol. We should be careful not to become too dependent on AI but use it wisely and with caution. Part of this process is to admit the fact that AI influences us and even changes us when we use it. It expands our possibilities as humans. It opens for us new opportunities to live, work and create. So, AI is a powerful change agent. The question is, will it sparkle good and positive changes or not? Ultimately, it is our responsibility to use AI for the glory of God and the good of society. Perhaps you guess the end of Asimov's robots saga… The robots Giscard and Daneel chose to be humanity's saviors and concluded that the only way to help humanity advance was to break free from the robots. What was meant to be humanity's aid has turned into an obstacle. The strength has turned into weakness. The friends have turned into enemies. What they meant for good, brought evil. Is this where we are heading to? Hadassah Treu is an international Christian author, blogger, and poet, and the Encouraging Blogger Award Winner of 2020. She is passionate about encouraging people in their journey to faith and a deeper walk with God. Hadassah is a contributing author to several faith-based platforms and devotional and poetry anthologies. She has been featured on (In)courage, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living (Turning Point), and other popular sites. You can connect with Hadassah at www.onthewaybg.com. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Returning to Andromeda David Cowles “What sort of God would throw candy wrappers on a pristine beach? I mean, burning someone at the stake, well maybe, but littering, no way!” It’s time for me to return to my home planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. For over a year now, I’ve been researching intelligent life on Earth and documenting suspected occurrences. I think I’ve done good work here, but I know my superiors are going to want a lot more from me than just a collection of anecdotes. They’ll want to know what intelligent life forms on Earth think about themselves and Universe and their place in that universe; and frankly, I’m at a loss to know what to tell them. Got a minute? Can I explain my conundrum? Maybe you can help! For the most part, Earthlings agree on the ‘data’, what happened and when, but the way they interpret that data sorts them into two possibly irreconcilable camps. First, the data: At the birth of time itself, an event occurred which everyone affectionately calls ‘Big Bang’. Then in the first fraction of a nanosecond, that universe ‘inflated’ by a factor of 10^26…to the size of a small marble. Over the next three seconds, all the forces of attraction and repulsion and all the known subatomic particles, in other words all the building blocks of the universe, precipitated . The Universe cooled from 10^32 degrees Kelvin all the way down to a chilly 10^9, still 100,000 times hotter than Earth’s Sun, but below its own ‘dew point’; and below its dew point, the universe rains fermions and bosons. Crazy, right? Well, hang on, we’re just getting started. As you know, the universe is incredibly fine-tuned. It depends on dozens of apparently unrelated parameters; a variation of less than 1% in the quantitative value of any one of these parameters would have aborted the universe sometime during its first three seconds. Over the next 14 billion years or so, the universe ‘gradually’ expanded to its current size (45 billion light years across); the subatomic particles and their related forces combined to form elements, then molecules, then galaxies, and finally, black holes. The first three seconds were incredibly eventful! Then, nothing much happened for the next 10 billion years. Oh, galactic sheets formed along with stars, planets, and moons; new, heavier elements emerged, and together with hydrogen, combined to form an inconceivably vast array of molecules, exhibiting many bizarre and unexpected properties. In other words, yada, yada, yada… Then came the next Big Day! I call it ‘Big Bang 2’. A little less than 4 billion years ago, precursor molecules (organic) combined to form the first (and only) living organism; et voila, biogenesis. Biogenesis happened almost as suddenly as cosmogenesis. One day lifeless, next day life! No wonder Earthlings are dizzy! At least as far as Earthlings know, reproductive ‘life’ can only occur in the presence of DNA, a single molecule painstakingly assembled from a ‘string’ (actually a ‘double helix’) of molecules. DNA is made up of just 4 molecules, bases, arranged ‘vertically’ in triplets and ‘horizontally’ in pairs. No big deal, right? Except that an average DNA molecule consists of three billion base pairs. A change in the composition or position of a single base pair may (or may not) impact the phenomenal characteristics of the host organism. So, kind of a big deal, after all! So far, so good, right? But here’s where things start to get interesting. Some Earthlings believe that ‘life’ arose independently on many different planets and moons across many different galaxies; they tend to underestimate the nearly incalculable precision required to generate a single living organism. Others believe that life evolved only once…on Planet Earth; they tend to underestimate the vastness and variety of the universe. Of course, Earthlings have no access to any real evidence either way. Here’s where you’d like me to step in and give my ‘study subjects’ additional information that might help clear things up for them but, of course, I can’t do that: I am prohibited by the Prime Directive from sharing any information with Earthlings that they have not already discovered on their own. I’m told, “Lose lips implode galaxies!” So my lips, unfortunately, must remain sealed. So this welter of seemingly disconnected ‘facts’ forms what Earthlings call their ‘Standard Model’ (of cosmogenesis and of biogenesis). These ‘models’ are widely accepted; but their interpretation is an entirely different matter. Sidebar : While most Earthlings accept the Standard Model , some prefer a version of that model that telescopes the entire process down to 7 days. Potato…potato! Now things get interesting. Consensus turns to conflict, sometimes armed combat, once the discussion moves from science to philosophy. So far, we’ve focused on the ‘what and when’ of things…that’s the easy part; but now that we’re starting to look at the ‘how and why’, it’s a very different story. Here, seemingly, the human population splits into two apparently irreconcilable camps. One crowd takes the science at face value. It is what it is. There’s no need to look further. Universe just is! WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get. We’ve pushed the envelope to the limit of its elasticity. In the language of Earth’s scholastic philosophers, Universe is causa sui . It has no proper cause; it is the product of no agency. You are your own grandmother. Shut up and enjoy! Or not, suit yourself. Perhaps this is the only possible universe (the Anthropic Principle), or perhaps it is the best of all possible universes (Leibniz), but in fact, no one knows, and no one can know, and no one could do anything about it if they did know. So all you can say is: This is how it is! The other camp takes a very different view of the same data. “ Causa sui …phooey!” Obviously, something as complex as Universe must be the result of an intentional act by a supremely creative intellect. Earthlings usually refer to this ‘creative intellect’ as ‘God’. The ‘God Hypothesis’, as I call it, is potentially useful; but perhaps it raises as many problems as it solves. Who is this God, and why did he exercise his creative intellect in just this way? If this impossibly intricate universe is the product of a creative intelligence, why is everything so messed up? That question splits itself into two versions. The first is the age-old Problem of Evil . As I write this report, tens of thousands of human beings have just died horrible deaths as the result of an earthquake in Turkey. Many were crushed to death, others smothered, others buried alive. The ‘lucky’ survivors had to wait to be rescued, immobilized and without food or water for as much as a week. If Universe is the intentional act of a creative intelligence, is that intelligence malevolent? As in Earthlings’ Book of Job , should God be brought to the dock to face charges of Crimes Against Humanity? (If you’re interested in the outcome of this ‘trial of the millennium’, I recommend an article in Issue #1 of Aletheia Today Magazine , " The Riddle of Job .") But I don’t want to get into the ‘Problem of Evil’ right now. If you’re interested, check out " The Problem of Good ." also in Issue #1 of Aletheia Today Magazine . In any event, it is the less challenging version of our problem. The second version is of much greater concern. If God is benevolent and created Universe, why did he do such a lousy job? I’m passing over God’s alleged crimes against humanity so that I can focus on a much more serious crime, cosmically speaking, the crime of Littering. What sort of God would throw candy wrappers on a pristine beach? I mean, burning someone at the stake, well maybe, but littering, no way! Sidebar : What’s happening to me? Have I spent so much time on Earth that its values (or lack thereof) are rubbing off on me? What does it say about me that I condemn careless inefficiency over intentional cruelty? Anyway, according to the Standard Model, genesis is nothing but a bunch of wrong turns. It’s like a stopped clock – it’s only right twice a day. 24 hours of noise gets you two bits of information! For example, genes mutate randomly. Almost all such mutations are harmful to the host species and therefore do not pass on to future generations. Once in a great while, a particular combination of mutations works to produce a new phenomenal characteristic that confers a selective advantage on its host species. Such mutations may be conserved and passed on. The universe as is cannot possibly be the intentional product of a creative and benevolent intelligence… unless that intelligence has done a brilliant job of covering its tracks. But if so, for what purpose? Just to fool the already cognitively impaired members of Homo sapiens ? So, I am faced with the fact that Earthlings understand the common data in two diametrically opposed ways. The Standard Model, by itself, is hardly convincing, and it’s anything but beautiful. Some Earthling once wrote, “Beauty is truth and truth beauty.” If that’s so, goodbye Standard Model! Where’s Occam’s Razor when you’re so desperately in need of a shave? At first glance, the so-called ‘God Hypothesis’ looks more appealing. For one thing, it allows for the operation of real, objective values (e.g., Beauty, Truth, and Justice) in the creation and maintenance of Universe. It allows Einstein to claim, rightly or wrongly, that Universe has a built-in bias toward Good . For another thing, it solves the problem of ‘particularity’ – how is it that something as precisely tuned as the cosmos and the biocosm came to be just the way it is? The answer is simple, “God made it that way.” But if so, why does it look like it came about by blind chance? As if this were not enough, I have another problem! Earthlings have a useful epistemological principle that could apply here; it takes various forms: “Actions speak louder than words; by their fruits you shall know them," etc. In other words, don’t tell me what you believe; show me! Is Universe the product of spontaneous generation, i.e., a random, purposeless accident? Or is it the brainchild of an intelligent, powerful, benevolent Creator? Naively, one would expect that people in Camp #1 would behave somewhat differently from those in Camp #2 – and so they do…but only on the margins. There are living members of genus nihilist, as there are of genus credulous . The problem is, there are only a few of each. The actions of the vast majority of human beings don’t betray an allegiance to either ideology. Some label themselves ‘theist, idealist, spiritual’; others prefer ‘atheist, materialist, secular’. Can you tell me who is in which group by examining the way they live their lives? I can’t! Avowed theists are capable of unimaginable cruelty. Avowed atheists are capable of incredible charity. Absent, the one-percent at either end of the spectrum, people don’t seem to care one way or the other about these issues. They deny the existence of God but behave like Mother Theresa; or they affirm the existence of God but behave like Josef Stalin. To the extent they care at all, human beings seem to wall off their cosmological ‘beliefs’ from their terrestrial ‘duties’: Church is for Sundays while business…is ‘just business’. Or do I have it backwards? Should I have said, ‘cosmological duties’ and ‘terrestrial beliefs’? Either way, there’s a disconnect. I am particularly intrigued by older Earthlings, many of them retired from what they call ‘the daily grind’. As far as I can tell, most of them are spending their final years perfecting their golf swings, travelling to exotic destinations, or seeking out hidden culinary gems. Few see ‘financial freedom’ as an opportunity to turn their attention from the ridiculous to the sublime. Recently, many have taken to enshrining their post-retirement activities in the form of something they call a bucket list , a compendium of things they hope to experience before... You’re 75 years old and now you want to see the Grand Canyon? Why? To check it off some imaginary list? To say you’ve seen it? After all, you’ve lived on Earth for 75 years. How can it be that you haven’t even seen the Grand Canyon, or eaten a meal in Paris, or shopped in a Kasbah! What a waste of a life…or not! The best explanation I can come up with is that Earthlings regard their lives as ‘works of art’. Prior to age 25, they are priming the canvass. From 25 to 65, they lay in the broad strokes. After 65, it’s time to add the finer details. To what end? Have they even read their own poets? “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; look upon my works ye mighty and despair…nothing beside remains.” (Shelley) What is the purpose of this finished product humans call ‘a life’? It’s not for God, they’ve ruled that out; and it’s not for others, obviously. People seem hell-bent on making themselves for themselves . The competition characteristic of the commercial realm spills over into the existential. I am ‘better than you’ if I have ‘more’ experiences than you. But what does it mean to ‘have more experiences’ than someone else? Longer life? (Is life an endurance contest?) More variety? (Is life a travelog ?) Greater intensity? (Or should I say, “Cheap Thrills” ) ? I heard one person describe life as making memories : but memories for what? Making memories, some no doubt painful, that will shortly be erased? Is life a punishment? (A ‘bad boy’ is made to write 25 humiliating sentences on a blackboard, and then later that same day is made to erase them.) I am told that once upon a time, things were different: humans regularly devoted their later years to prayer, study, and various spiritual practices. Well, no more! Teenagers talk freely about ‘the meaning of life’, but not seniors! In fact, it is considered déclassé for an older person to raise such concerns, even in casual conversation. It is considered morbid, a memento mori for a society that has effectively lost sight of its mortality. So, I must report that human beings are split into two diametrically opposed factions when they consider ‘the ultimate question’: what’s it all about, Alfie? (Title of a movie from the 1960s.) But must I also report that they don’t really care about the answer? For the most part, they live their lives as they want to live them, with no regard for where those lives fit into the totality of things. Curious, don’t you think? This is the spot where you’re wondering if I know something that you don’t. Come on, admit it! Well, maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but either way, as you know, I can’t tell you. I am prohibited by the Prime Directive from sharing any information that might prompt folks to change their behavior. So I’m afraid you’ll have to figure things out for yourselves…if there’s anything to figure out…and I’m not saying there is! BTW, I appreciate the hospitality you’ve shown me throughout my stay. I’ll find a way to muddle through my report. In the meantime, my thanks to all of you…and good luck with your quest! Image: Perseus and Andromeda (1720). Hendrick Jacob Hoet (c. 1693–1733). Credit: The Bowes Museum. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Spring 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Is God Real David Cowles Apr 18, 2023 “God is Logos, the substructure of the world and of everything in it. God is what all things have in common. ” “Is God real?” Notice I didn’t ask, “Does God exist?” The latter is a much trickier question because it involves both the nature of ‘God’ and the nature of ‘existence’. Proving the existence (or non-existence) of anything is a heavy lift, much less God. Proving that something is real is easier. X is real so long as it influences something other than itself. Imagine the Universe (U) as a network of influential relationships : ‘to be real’ is merely to be part of this network, i.e. to be an element in the ‘concrescence’ of at least one other entity. Note : Being an influence is not the same thing as being a cause . Linguistically speaking, ‘to cause’ is the paradigmatic active voice verb; ‘to influence’ is technically voice agnostic but practically speaking, it’s passive. Cause is an orientable vector; influence is a globally non-orientable (but locally orientable) loop ( aka Mobius Strip). Note : Being an influence is also not the same thing as being a part . Parts are assembled to form wholes; influence is a relationship between two wholes. “X is real” is a purely empirical judgment; it tells us nothing about X per se . I am creating a name (X) to label a presumed precursor state. Being real is the ontological equivalent of Dark Matter : we ‘know’ nothing about it per se . We know it only by its influence, its shadow, in other phenomena. We know ‘that it is’ ( Dasein ) by its influence, we know ‘what it is’ ( Wassein ) by those influences, but we know nothing about ‘what it is’ per se …if anything. Consider an analogy from medicine: Syndrome : Disease :: Real : Existent. Note : When I say, “X exists”, I assert that X is something more than just the sum of what influences it and how it influences others. When I say, “X is real”, I make no such assertion. I testify to the influences of X, but I say nothing about X itself. Example : Are my dreams real ? Of course they are! One night’s dream can influence my thoughts and feelings for days to come. But what are dreams…and do they exist ? That’s a much tougher question. If I say, “X exists”, I am stating that X is something , i.e. more than its manifestations. If X falls in an empty forest, it still makes a sound. (Of course, this begs the question whether anything exists; a radical idealist might claim that there are only disembodied manifestations.) But what might X be over and above its influence in others? Western philosophy offers a number of suggestions: Creativity (Whitehead), Freedom, Negation or Neant (Sartre), Reck (Anaximander), Aletheia - Truth (Parmenides), Idea or Form (Plato), a Divine spark or Shechinah (Hasidism), a Noumenon (Kant), the Dialectic (Hegel, Marx), Differance (Derrida), Consciousness (Penrose, Chalmers), Recursion (Pred, Cowles). Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! But notice what all these models have in common? They all refer to some sort of process that is inherently non-linear. If X exists, then at some level X is self-referent: √X = X = X² (actually, X^1/n = X = X^n) . Therefore X must be equal to 1, a quantum of Being, not a set of coordinates on a continuum. If Universe exists, X is its reflection; everything that ‘exists’ is ‘the image and likeness’ of that Universe...and of X. On the other hand, if I merely say that “X is real,” I am asserting only that there is a vector (linear) running from X to X’. Therefore… Existence : Reality :: Calculus : Arithmetic To be real is linear (arithmetic); to exist is dialectic and hence inherently non-linear (calculus). So what? Well, by the end of Grade 4, I had mastered basic arithmetic, but I still have not grasped calculus. That’s what! But that said, ‘arithmetic’ is not nothing, and neither is ‘being real’. It is almost universally conceded that the existence of God cannot be ‘proved’, i.e. inferred by induction from experience or deduced by logic from a set of irrefutable assumptions. I have said so myself on many occasions . The considered wisdom: you can’t prove the existence of anything from its essence. You can’t prove that something is ( Dasein ) just by showing what it is ( Wassein ). William of Ockham notwithstanding, even perfection ( summum bonum , essence) does not entail existence because ‘existence’ is not an attribute or a quality; it is a quantum of being, not a spectrum of qualia . Existence is not something you can ‘perfect’…unless you’re Martha Stewart. It doesn’t come in shades, sizes or degrees. It’s a quantum! (The wonder is that we ever expected anything different.) Although there is not a causal relationship between Essence and Existence, there is a (non-linear) Uncertainty Relation (Heisenberg). Broadly speaking, the more we know about the essence of something, e.g. God, the less sure we can be of its existence. Conversely, the more certain we are that something exists, the less we can know about what it is that exists. Naively, we imagine an inert existent, a table rasa on which we may draw a rainbow of features. This is not how it works! Existence and essence complement one another; they co-evolve, and they co-exist. Slippery customers, these! This Uncertainty Relation recapitulates Heisenberg’s primal pair : momentum and position. Knowing the location of something is akin to knowing that it is . Conversely, to know the momentum of something is akin to knowing what it is , i.e. its qualities, its behavior, its potential (trajectory). How does all this apply to God? Basically all Western theologies can be divided into three camps. First, there are theologies that claim to know with certainty that God exists but is ineffable…i.e. cannot be described in any way. Mysticism falls into this category. So does St. Dallan, a medieval Irish poet: “Naught is all else to me save that Thou art.” At the other end of the spectrum, there are folks who claim to know everything they need to about the essence of God but are agnostic re his existence. Pascal and Sartre fit here. At the deepest level, existence and essence, like particles and waves, complement each other. They cannot be conflated but neither can they be disjoined. Disembodied essence is no more conceivable than featureless existence. But could there be a different approach? One that does not get hung up on the essence-existence dichotomy and so, perhaps, skirts Heisenberg…and even Heidegger? Should we be looking for God beyond essence and existence, in the deep structure of reality itself? If we are successful, we will be entitled to call God ‘real’. The concept of God is bound up with notions of Immediacy (Presence) and Eternity, Becoming and Enduring. If I could identify an aspect of reality common to all events and if that aspect was Omnipresent, Eternal, the Source and Destiny ( Alpha and Omega ) of everything that was, is, or ever will be, would I be entitled to label that God and call it real ? Consider this reasoning: A World exists : It is. (Big Bang) Whatever exists is inherently recursive and self-reflective (above): I am. (Descartes) The World consists of discrete but related events , things that exist . (Whitehead) Events do not occur in time; they are temporary suspensions of time, local interruptions in the universal temporal flow. (Heraclitus) Events are knots in the thread of time, islands of order floating in an entropic sea. Events make meaning possible. They are ‘signatures of all things we are here to read’ (Joyce). Knots in a thread can be read as binary code, dots among dashes, an alphabet of runes. Every event is the Universe reflecting on itself…and acting on itself. Therefore, all events are recursive. Timeless, events occur only in the Eternal Present. They define the Present. They are what Presence is, what’s happenin’ ! Presence and Occurrence are synonymous. Events can only be ordered with respect to one another by using an external lattice such as spacetime. The Present includes traces of past and future events. It is the Present that preserves the past and presages the future. Without Presence there is no Past or Future. Presence makes past and future events relevant. So, I believe we have now established some things about the Real World. Regardless of the physical details of ‘creation’, our end-product is clearly not a random sequence of dice casts, strung together to constitute a Cosmos. There is an omni-present, universal and eternal substructure that informs, or shapes, everything that comes to exist. So I ask again, “Am I entitled to call this substructure God ?” If so, God is Logos , the deep structure of the real world. God is not ‘All Things’ (pantheism); God is not so much the Creator as the Precondition of everything that is. Have I proven that ‘God exists’? I have not. Have I established that God is real ? I believe I have… Of course, this does not close the door, one way or the other, on subject of God’s Existence, but that is another topic for another day. Hopefully though, it does settle one thing once and for all: Regardless of whether or not God exists, God is most definitely real – not as a concept (Lennon) but as the universal and eternal substructure of everything that is. Deal with it. 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< Back Self, Inc. David Cowles “You’re the CEO of Self, Inc…What’s your mission statement?” You can’t open a business today without a Mission Statement. Before you manufacture a single widget or serve a single burger, you have to tell the world all the good things you’re going to do for it: “Our mission is You , our customer, so we will always deliver a quality product at a fair price. We are committed to maintaining a healthy environment through sustainable business practices and a carbon neutral footprint. We cherish diversity. We offer all members of our business family a competitive, living wage, a generous package of workplace benefits, and opportunities for personal and professional growth.” How’d I do? Around the turn of the century (yes, we can say that now and mean 2000, not 1900), it was fashionable for self-helpers to proclaim, “You are the CEO of Self, Inc.” It’s not wrong. So, M/M CEO, what’s your mission statement? “I just want to be happy, And I want my life partner to be happy too. I want my kids to have happy childhoods, And satisfying adult lives. And, of course, I deserve to be happy too.” Well, sorry, but I won’t be buying any stock in your IPO. Apparently, you didn’t get Life’s memo. I think you should sit down for this. Ready? “No one is happy…and no one is ever going to be happy!” It’s not that life is so terrible (unless it is); it’s because happiness is not a thing. For the most part, life is just life. And life doesn’t make anyone happy. It’s not supposed to! That’s not what life is; that’s not its purpose. Does water make a fish happy? Or does it just enable it to be a fish? When you were very, very small, someone whispered in your ear, “The purpose of life is happiness.” Unlike other whispers, this one took. I mean, why not be happy? As if! No one chooses to be truly miserable, yet all of us are miserable, at least some of the time. Then what is happiness? The absence of misery? Ok – but do we require something more – like ecstasy (not the drug) or euphoria or contentment…? So according to your mission statement, the purpose of life is your happiness. When you say that, do you mean that’s the purpose of all life…or just your life? All life? Then you’re a megalomaniac. Just your life? Then you’re pathetic. Sorry, but you’ve been given the great gift (grift?) of life…and you plan to spend it, How? Crouched in a corner, wrapped in cotton batten, mumbling, “Please don’t hurt me,” until it’s all mercifully over? I’m not on board. If Happiness is my Summum Bonum and if Life is what makes me happy, then “Woe is me!” Life ends, so Happiness must end, and ‘ Bonum ’ must vanish. Good that vanishes certainly can’t be Summum Bonum . If your goal in life is your own personal happiness, then either (1) you are unhappy today, or (2) you are afraid of being unhappy tomorrow. Either way, your happiness is incomplete; so the search for personal happiness is in fact a symptom of unhappiness . I’ve just arrived at Heathrow. “Sir, what is the purpose of your trip? Business or pleasure?” “Business!” I answer, it transforms my restless wandering into an arrow headed trajectory. Now a purpose accomplished can undoubtedly generate a sense of self-satisfaction akin to happiness; but it was not the purpose of my trip. The purpose of my trip was to do business; happiness might be my reaction if the business goes well. Suppose I had answered, “Pleasure!” instead. Pleasure is me drinking real ale on the lawn of a pub called, “The Apple and the Butterfly”, eating steak and kidney pie with a glass of port at lunch, visiting the Tate Modern, and strolling Kew Gardens. Would these pleasures make me happy? “Of course,” you say, automatically. But maybe not! Pleasure and happiness do not always go hand in hand, do they? Happiness is a measure of my success in accomplishing my purpose, but it cannot be that purpose. The instant we make our happiness our purpose, we manifest our unhappiness. Happiness then is a one word oxymoron. Say it, “Happiness!” There, you did it, congratulations, now you’re an ‘Oxy Moron’. Put that on a T-shirt! Purpose does not emerge over the course of an event (it may self-modify); it wraps around the event. Purpose must be present ab initio . There are no purposeless acts, no matter how much we’d like to convince ourselves otherwise. Ultimately, the success of any event, its ‘satisfaction’, is a measure of the degree to which the event fulfilled its purpose. Purpose motivated the event, organized the environment, and energized the action; now it measures the outcome. In the terminology of Alfred North Whitehead, happiness is a subjective form that may accompany an event. It’s not the event itself; it is not the purpose of the event; it’s not the event’s subjective aim . It is not any part of the event itself, nor is it part of the event’s superject (its ‘objective immortality’). Essentially, it’s a superfluous artifact of consciousness, much like the appendix in human physiology. Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and wore a frown, but Jill was filled with laughter. Was the water fetched? Check. Did Jack and Jill both perform as expected? Check. Then how do their moods figure in? Every event has a unique purpose that entails a novel mix of Beauty, Truth, and Justice. So now at last, the sales pitch you’ve been waiting for: Will you hire me to rewrite your mission statement? I was thinking of something along these lines: “Make me a channel of (your) Peace, A conduit of Beauty, Truth, and Love.” Let me know what you think. Or have you heard something like this before? Keep the conversation going... 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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“The most important thing we’ve learned is that we know so much less than we thought we knew.” < Back Is the Universe Real David Cowles Jul 15, 2024 “The most important thing we’ve learned is that we know so much less than we thought we knew.” What must it have been like to stare up at the stars c. 2000 BCE? The Universe is your patch! You have qualified dominion over the animals and plants, and you can imagine setting sail on that great whale rode ( Beowulf ) we now know as the Milky Way. It is easy to see how we might have fallen prey to hubris . “I’m the king of this castle!” Things look a bit different now, don’t they? We know so much more, and the most important thing we’ve learned is that we know so much less than we thought we knew. Of course, in absolute terms we have exponentially more data points; but relative to what is available to be known , our noosphere is shrinking. For one thing, much of what we thought we knew has turned out to be wrong; for another, each new, hard-won kernel of gnosis has shone a spotlight on vast new regions of ignorance. Once upon a time I knew nowt about arithmetic. Then someone showed me that 1 + 1 = 2. Cool beans! Then what about 1 + 1 + 1? Or 2 + 1? Or 2 + 2? In a couple of years I’ll give you Principia Mathematica. Imagine that X stands for everything there is to know, and Y stands for what we do know. In 2000 BCE, Y might have been 10% of X. Wow! But 4,000 years later, things have changed. What we know now is more like 1% of what is available to be known. We are learning what we don’t know faster than we’re learning in the first place. As fast as we learn more about our universe, the faster we learn how much more we don’t know. Sidebar : If this process continues unabated, we may reach the coveted mystic state of absolute unknowing. In 1900 CE, we were like 4-year-olds. We knew everything there was to know. By 1950, we’d learned that there was a lot more to be known than we’d imagined. To make matters worse, we realized that much of what we thought we knew in 1900 wasn’t what we thought it was. By 1950 we’d begun playing with computers; 75 years later, our computers are playing with us. For 50 years, we programed our computers; now computers program themselves. How long before those same computers program us? “What is man (sic) that God should be mindful of him?” Good question, but it was easier to answer when homo sapiens was top dog in a Universe we imagined to be less than half the size of our solar system. Not so easy to answer in the context of a Universe that is 14 billion years old and contains a trillion galaxies. Or in the context of a body that is made up of nothing but 30 trillion independent life forms (cells). Now what is ‘man’ again…? We have absolutely no right to expect our tiny lives to matter. But if that’s so, then all the agony of living has been for naught. In the cosmic context, we are sparks. What is just is. It’s not good, or bad; it just is. It came to be without regard to values of any sort. Even ‘order’, a prerequisite of Value, is in ever dwindling supply. In fact, order max’d out at Big Bang. Like a well wound watch, our universe is slowly running downhill. By some estimates we’re already about 15% of the way to Heat Death. To the extent that order is related to Value, the high point was 14 billion years ago, and every moment thereafter is a step in the ‘wrong’ direction. Look at it another way. The primary values - Beauty, Truth, and Justice – can all be appreciated as different manifestations of ‘order’. Without an ordered background to draw from, none of these values could be operative. Therefore, if they are at all, they must be gradually disappearing. Not much to look forward to, is it? A world which will necessarily become uglier, less truthful, and more unjust over time. (Hmm, sound like somebody’s political system?) Such a Universe is simply a process of self-annihilation. If Being = Good, then Entropy = Evil; and so Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil”. And consciousness? According to this model, consciousness is the accidental consequence of increasing entropy (Hawking). It is a trace left behind by the order that is vanishing. Living consciously in this world is like watching your uninsured McMansion burn to the ground. No wonder folks are depressed. Unless none of this is true! Recent advances in neuroscience suggest that consciousness (self-awareness, recursion) is coincident with life itself. Like love and marriage pre-1950, you apparently can’t have one without the other. As far as we know, all life is cellular. It is apparently the minimal condition required for DNA to be expressed, conserved and replicated. According to this model, the DNA molecule evolved only once on Earth, and it evolved in tandem with a cellular superstructure. If and when we discover non-terrestrial life, we may find phenomena that we want to classify as ‘living’ but that has nothing like DNA and/or no such cellular structure; but all that is mere conjecture now. As soon as the Earth had sufficiently cooled, the first DNA molecule was synthesized…and expressed as a conscious cell. As far as we know, in the 4 billion years since that momentous event, not a single new DNA molecule and not a single new cell has formed. Remarkable! That means, as far as we can say with any certainty, life and consciousness are one-offs. But of course, we’ve only surveyed a tiny corner of this vast universe. If Universe came to be accidentally and spontaneously and if it will ultimately self-annihilate, then what is it anyway? Here our academic overlords are split: either (1) the universe is real but has no meaning, no value, no purpose, or (2) what we call ‘universe’ is not real but only virtual. According to this later interpretation, the Universe ‘exists’ in same way virtual particles ‘exist’…it doesn’t. A virtual particle is a particle still born; it has no being . It is a sub-momentary dispensation from the great Neant that ultimately comes to nothing. Turns out though, the two models are identical, one framed in the vocabulary of Idealism, the other in the language of materialism. Gregory Bateson’s seminal contribution to Western philosophy is his insight that ‘being’ applies only to entities that ‘make a difference’. To be is to be different and to make a difference; an actual entity is “a difference that makes a difference”. Whatever is not distinguished from its inherited world and/or does not make a distinguishable contribution to the inheritable worlds of other entities…is not! Camus and Sartre applied such a test to the existence of ‘God’. For them, God is an entity whose existence, or non-existence, makes no difference. Therefore, whether God exists theoretically or not, God does not exist. In the language of symbolic notation (A υ ~A) = ~A. We might say the same of Universe. Whether it’s fully virtual or merely meaningless, it cannot ‘be’ because either way, the events that constitute it make no difference. Alternatively, the Universe is a locus of events, real events because each event is a difference that makes a difference. According to the ‘Standard Model’, events within Universe are actual entities because they are differences that make a difference, but not so Universe per se . That won’t wash! If Universe is annihilated at Heat Death, so are all its constituent events. Therefore, the great chain of difference is broken. In that case events are real only in the context of each other but not in any objective sense. So then, what of Universe itself? Events within Universe are real because they are differences that make a difference. Does Universe? Yes, but if and only if Universe is ‘different’ from the mere collection of events that make it up, and if there is something to which Universe can matter. If so, that ‘something’ must transcend the universe itself. Yet Universe must remain true to its name ( uni ). Only, Universe itself can meet this test. The Universe is a massively non-linear ‘perpetual recursion machine’. Every event shapes the whole as the whole shapes every event. Is this paganism? Or pantheism? Neither. The Universal process of perpetual recursion transcends the Universe itself. It is a manifestation of the Trinitarian God, the paradigm of recursion. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com Return to our 2024 Beach Read Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? 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“Your Destiny is the Fate of others; the Destiny of others is your Fate.” < Back Destiny Versus Fate David Cowles Jul 15, 2024 “Your Destiny is the Fate of others; the Destiny of others is your Fate.” Destiny and Fate are two words I hardly ever use. They seem to suggest a passivity that is alien to my philosophy…and perhaps to yours as well. But whenever I have used them, I’ve used them interchangeably…and I was wrong! Far from being interchangeable, Destiny and Fate are antonyms. And for just that reason, they turn out to be very useful concepts after all! Destiny concerns what you make of yourself: “She was destined to do great things.” Fate concerns what the world makes of you: “He was fated to die in battle.” But even that is an oversimplification. Better to say, Destiny is what you can make of yourself; it is the sum of your possibilities while Fate is the sum of your limitations. Every failure can be attributed to the fickle finger of fate; likewise every success is a fulfillment of destiny. Traditional Physics offers a simplified view of the world: the future consists of all the points in your forward light cone. This might work in an empty or solipsistic world, but it won’t work in any universe that includes the category of the other, i.e. something other than the self but sharing some ontological properties in common with that self. Every ‘other’ has its own unique light cone but cones intersect, generating an interference pattern that we know lovingly as this world. Imagine the Universe as a beaker of supercooled water. Drop in a precipitant et voila instant crystallization. The other has just that effect in our universe. Such crystallization destroys the monotonous symmetry of the solipsist’s universe. The array of points in the light cone now manifests as short cuts and obstacles, tools and impediments. I remain 100% free in my actions but those actions now must take into consideration the presence of the other. The insertion of the other modifies the terrain in which I operate. All this has nothing to do with ethics; not yet! Whether or not I engage with the other, I must take it into consideration simply in order to realize my own personal, entirely selfish goals. When the law student asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” he is essentially asking who qualifies as an other? Jesus makes it clear that all human beings belong to the category of the other. His made his point. But we are free to ask, “Are human beings the only others?” What about God? According to Martin Buber, God is the ultimate other. What about animals: corvids and parrots, primates, sea mammals, octopus? Trees, forests, and other plants? Fungi (the wood wide web)? Prokaryotes (e.g. bacteria)? What about the individual cells that work together to constitute an organism? We mustn’t forget other ‘life forms’ either, e.g. AI bots, Extraterrestrials. And what about Gaia? Or Kosmos? Clearly, different cosmologies classify different entities differently. Simply put, your Destiny is the Fate of others and the Destiny of others is your Fate. Example: Robert Frost is out on his famous walk in a ‘yellow wood’. Home is his destiny (and destination) but fate decrees that he can only get there via one of two paths. How come? The forest also has a destiny: to regenerate and proliferate. The forest’s destiny becomes Frost’s fate; his choice of routes is limited. But Frost’s destiny requires the forest to accept two roads across it; that is its fate. Consistent with that fate, the forest is free to pursue its own destiny by rejuvenation and reproduction. Map this relationship onto the traditional timeline: destiny is the present exerting influence in the future while fate is the future being felt in the present. And what of this illusive present? The present is a region hypothesized to exist between past and future. Its width is indeterminate: in some models (Laplace) it is zero, in others it is infinite (but bounded by a membrane of infinitesimal width). I am 5’ 4” tall; fate keeps me from realizing my dream of playing for the Boston Celtics. On the other hand, I may be destined to ride a Kentucky Derby winner someday. Fate becomes destiny. At any point I can see myself as the victim of fate or the beneficiary of destiny. A friend’s mother used to say, “Whenever God closes a door he opens a window.” Exactly! In fact, a closed door is an open window. We all seem to have an almost insatiable desire to be ‘someone’, to make a difference, to leave the world a better place, to fulfill our unique destiny. I am the author of my own play, the world is my stage (Shakespeare) and you, dear readers, I might as well just say it, you are my props. So go on, hate me! It’s ok. Of course, you have your own destinies to fulfill, and potentially at least, I am one of your props. So we’re both telling the same story, but in one version, I play the lead and in the other version, you do. Life is a high school director’s dream: every part is the lead! (No more noise from disgruntled helicopter parents or their overachieving progeny.) Your destiny is the self you choose to project (superject) into the world. It’s you as you’d like the world to remember you… a few billion years from now; as if. You control your destiny. If you don’t control it, it’s not your destiny, it’s your fate…over which you have no control. Destiny is what you make of yourself; Fate is what the World makes of you! The Serenity Prayer (AA et al.) says it all: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (fate), the courage to change the things I can (destiny), and the wisdom to know the difference.” Ah, wisdom! A slippery commodity, that! Trying to alter things that cannot be changed (fate) can lead to depression, resentment, anger, and addiction. Failing to alter things that can be changed (destiny) can be a symptom of apathy, laziness, cowardice, etc. It can lead to anxiety, rage, and self-loathing. Destiny is what you do to the world; Fate is what the world does to you. You are responsible for your destiny. You are what you make yourself to be. But your little skiff is not merely storm tossed on a dark and raging sea. Your boat is equipped with a rudder to help you steer and, through the fog, you can just make out a beacon of light. Value (Good) is the beacon that continually reorients you throughout your journey - it acts as an existential GPS. Of course, nothing makes you sail toward the light; you can get your bearings from a full 360° of possible courses. It’s 100% up to you, it’s your destiny after all, but there is a safe harbor if you choose to take advantage of it. If you arrive safely home, you may say that the harbor was your destiny all along and that the lighthouse (wisdom) showed you the way. And that’s true! But you and only you sailed your vessel safely into port. Ultimately, freedom trumps destiny and fate. Destiny and Fate are often seen to be in conflict. The dichotomy is enshrined in our modern Indo-European languages. When we speak using active voice verbs, we talk about destiny; when we speak in the passive voice, we talk about fate. We know how to struggle, how to fight, how to compete against others. Often, I pursue my destiny by limiting yours. I do for myself by doing to others: it’s the Golden Rule for survival in a bi-polar world. But is it best practices? Is it possible that I might enhance my destiny by helping you advance yours? Could it be that destinies can be mutually reinforcing? If I am your fate, might you harness that fate to help you achieve your destiny? If you are my fate, might I harness that fate? Could fate be a trampoline rather than a tar pit? Consider space travel. The #1 impediment is gravity. The thrust needed to overcome the Earth’s attraction requires an enormous expenditure of energy. But once I have put the blue planet in my rear view mirror, I can use the Sun’s gravity to slingshot my capsule into deep space. What was once an obstacle (Earth’s gravity) has now become a tool (Sun’s gravity). Gravity, my fate, need not just limit my destiny; it can also facilitate it. Jesus final commandment, delivered to his disciples on the eve of his Crucifixion, was just this: “Love one another.” (John 13: 34) When I love an other, I want both of us to transcend our fates and fulfill our destinies. In fact, I come to understand that achieving my destiny includes you achieving yours. Your destiny and mine become entwined. My destiny is your fate just as yours is mine. For the most part, one dampens the other; I limit you, you limit me. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Every so often, our destinies may reinforce each other instead. When that happens fate and destiny (your trajectory and mine) coincide, each amplifying the other. What do Utopia, the Garden of Eden, the Kingdom of Heaven, and Pepperland have in common? They are states of being in which Destiny and Fate are one. Revelation tells us that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Christ is not two persons; he is one person with two aspects. He is the convergence of Destiny and Fate. He is that from which the universe comes to be (“without him nothing came to be” – John 1: 3) and that toward which the universe inexorably tends (“so that God may be all in all” – First Corinthians 15: 28). Like great circles, our event lines diverge at Alpha and reconverge at Omega…but with their ‘orientations’ flipped. The arrows that once pointed up now point down. Event lines are Mobius Strips; we live in an non-orientable universe. Like electrons and other massive quanta, events occur in 720° space (vs. 360° for photons and 180° for gravitons). A key question in cosmology these days is whether ‘information’ per se has mass. Most physicists think it does, but how do you prove it? I would propose that the fact that events behave like massive particles (720° geometry) suggests that events have mass over and above the mass/energy of their components. That ‘mass’ could only be a function of their information content. It could be that content. According to Euclid, no two parallel lines ever intersect. What a lonely world that would be! Talk about ships passing in the night. But 10 th grade geometry notwithstanding, the world is anything but Euclidean. According to the ‘better geometer’, John of Patmos (Revelation), all lines intersect…at the Alpha and at the Omega – one point, two countenances! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . purpose and devotion. Return to our 2024 Beach Read Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back The Faith Chaplain Challenge In Matthew 28: 18-20, Jesus tells his followers, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” However, in the secular world, this isn't always easy, nor is it even permitted in many cases and situations. Inspired by this issue's Being a Faith Chaplain in a Secular World , tell us how you navigate not just your faith in the workplace, but also how you share your faith with others in places where your personal beliefs aren't always popular or even welcomed. Email your story (300 words or less) and we will choose one winner whose experience will be shared with our readers in our next issue. Email editor@aletheiatoday.com. Be sure to put "Faith Challenge" in the subject line. Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back AI, Pope Leo, and the Finns David Cowles Sep 13, 2026 “Can the Finns rescue Leo’s Papacy?” 1600 words, 7 minute read AI sure makes strange bedfellows. Less than 1% of Finns are practicing Roman Catholics… much less than 1% in fact. That makes Finland the least Catholic country in all of Europe. And yet academics at the University of Eastern Finland collaborated in an article (9/8/2026) on AI Governance that is intentionally based on the teachings of Pope Leo XIV. Our own commentary on the Pope’s first encyclical ( Magnifica Humanitas ) was less charitable. This was a ‘heaven sent’ opportunity for Leo to make a major contribution on the most important social issue of our time (AI); and in the process, it was a chance to reassert, and reestablish, the relevance of Roman Catholicism for the modern world. In language a long suffering Chicago White Sox fan would appreciate, the Pope was ‘caught looking’, called out on strikes without ever taking the bat off his shoulders. Quelle domage! But wait, could Finland save Leo’s Papacy? AI Governance ignores Leo’s Luddite commentary and concentrates on eight benign principles distilled from his encyclical: (1) human dignity, (2) the common good, (3) the universal destination of goods, (4) social justice, (5) solidarity, (6) subsidiarity, (7) shared responsibility, and (8) transparency/accountability. As we shall see, our authors place special emphasis on ‘universal destination’ and ‘subsidiarity’. All in, this is a welcome gloss on Leo’s document. The authors review three current models for AI governance in light of those eight principles: The State Model - The state is primary agent of governance. AI is a technology requiring regulation, centralized oversight, and enforceable mechanisms to protect civil rights, public safety, and the collective interest. The Market Model - AI governance should be shaped primarily by its creators and stakeholders. This approach places emphasis on industry-wide standards, adopted codes of ethics, and the responsible behavior of technology producers. The Hybrid Model – Governance requires the cooperation of multiple public and private actors. Responsibility is shared among public institutions, private companies, industry experts, civic organizations, and international bodies. Leo’s reflections best align with the Hybrid Model and they add normative corrections to both state-led and market-led models. Human dignity and shared responsibility are prioritized over centralized control, public or private, all in pursuit of “ a more just and inclusive social order in which technology enables human flourishing .” This is precisely the dimension of AI that Leo ‘underappreciated’. AI Governance points out weaknesses in all three models. For example, “centralization can lead to technocratic forms of control and reduced pluralism in which algorithmic systems restrict democratic deliberation and civic agency.” Amen to that! But the authors follow Leo down the rabbit hole of Euro-American ‘democracy’. We are assured that “the state model in democratic societies ensures the protection of fundamental rights, public safety, and enforceable regulatory standards.” Apparently, the authors have never visited Planet Earth. As the Pope’s namesake, Leo XIII (c. 1880) was quick to point out, the superficial form of a government does not always reflect its actual function . No paper constitution guarantees a just society. Did the US tolerate slavery; did the UK imprison homosexuals? The Market Model does not protect against the concentration of power in the hands of technocrats. Private sector governance often combines ethical declarations with ‘limited transparency, asymmetric power, and inadequate safeguards’. Public interest may be subordinate to the twin imperatives of competition and growth. The Hybrid Model is championed as ‘best suited to the multidimensional nature of AI governance’. Ideally, it involves public and private interests, industry experts and civic actors, in a ‘polycentric power structure’. “However, institutional pluralism alone does not guarantee genuine accountability.” A hybrid structure may serve as a fig leaf for the “concentration of real control in the hands of dominant institutions or interest groups.” AI Governance reimagines Leo’s encyclical as a reflection on the course of civilization itself. This brings us back to Leo’s eight principles (above). “Together, they form a vision of AI governance that stands in opposition to the logic of the over-concentration of power” and the reduction of human beings to the status of mere data points, i.e. means rather than ends. “In the context of AI governance, this means that the primary criterion for evaluating technology cannot be efficiency alone, but rather whether AI systems protect the human person from being instrumentalized.” Here is where Aletheia Today parts from Leo and the Leonides . The ‘human person’ has already been ‘instrumentalized’, if not by agrarian serfdom then certainly by industrial wage slavery ! Karl Marx wrote that the purpose of philosophy is not to interpret the world but to change it. Likewise, the potential of AI is not to ‘protect the human person’ but to free that human person from such instrumentality . “From this perspective, AI governance cannot be limited to risk control but must also address equitable access to technological resources, data, infrastructure, and the benefits arising from the development of AI.” Yes…but! AI (on top of PCs, smart phones, the internet, the web, and social media) is the engine of ‘equitable access to technological resources…and the benefits arising from the development of AI’. Just try to stop it! Job #1 for potential regulators: Don’t get in the way! Our authors echo Leo’s concern that “the development of global networks, platforms, and AI systems may lead to new forms of exclusion, restrictions on freedom, invasive surveillance, and discrimination reproduced by opaque algorithms.” In fact, AI’s networks, platforms and systems are engines of inclusion, removing restrictions on freedom and protecting against discrimination. (‘Invasive Surveillance’ remains a legitimate concern.) Consider : “Discrimination reproduced by opaque algorithms.” AI doesn’t invent its own prejudices; it inherits them from its human trainers. AI can’t hate anyone unless one of us, consciously or not, hated that person, race, gender, or class first. Heck, we discriminate against red headed stepchildren; AI can only improve on our dreadful record! But this is a teachable moment! We excoriate AI when it displays any sort of discriminatory behavior…and rightly so…but we fail to acknowledge that the prejudice originated with us. Let’s remove the logs from our own eyes before we worry about the splinters in AI’s. To hold AI to the highest possible ethical standards is a good thing; but let’s first hold ourselves to those same standards. “A social order requires equal access to technological opportunities, protection of groups particularly vulnerable to marginalization, and public control over the use of data and technology: who possesses the data, computational capital, and capacity to train AI models, and who becomes merely the object of their operation.” Of course…but let’s unpack. Again, AI is an engine of distributed access, not a barrier. That access protects those ‘vulnerable to marginalization’ and ‘public control’ is thereby assured, so long as we equate ‘public’ with ‘people’ and not the state. And in the long run, we will all ‘train AI’ as we live our lives and generate data in the process. Leo and our authors correctly emphasize the importance of Solidarity , t he recognition that “the future of each individual is connected to the future of all. Solidarity springs from shared humanity…AI governance should transform technological interdependence into consciously built solidarity directed towards the common good of the entire human family.” Absolutely…and that’s precisely what AI does, ‘governance’ notwithstanding. Leo’s value of Subsidiarity “means a shift away from both state centralism and market self-regulation towards a distributed responsibility among various actors… Individuals and local communities should retain their agency… multi-stakeholder and public-private models…do not guarantee justice, accountability, or genuine participation.” Right. AI Governance emphasizes two of Leo’s values above all: The universal destination of all goods and reliance on subsidiarity as the cornerstone of any regulatory framework. Amid Leo’s tangled jungle, our authors have identified two prize winning rose bushes. But alas, our authors back slide: “The state in this model…remains the guarantor of rights, enforceability, and minimum safety standards.” Remains? The guarantor? We believe that rights are derived from human nature (image and likeness of God) per se , not from the generosity of the State ( Declaration of Independence ). And a survey of history reveals that states are more likely to infringe those rights than protect them. “AI governance requires not only the protection of citizens (largely unnecessary) but also their active participation (very necessary). Given the limited agency of individuals in isolation, collective forms of organization and participation are essential. Their role is to expose power imbalances, represent vulnerable groups…and introduce into debate questions that neither the state nor the market asks.” Indeed. All of which brings us back to the consensus goal (above): “A more just and inclusive social order in which technology enables human flourishing.” This is precisely the mission and promise of AI. It let us end wage slavery, fund a ‘living wage’ safety net, and reconstitute the human person as an end rather than a means. Of course, it needs conscious direction but most importantly, we need to let it do its job. We need to prepare ourselves, politically and spiritually, for an era of Sustained Abundance ; we must not cling to the familiar shores of scarcity, want, and wage slavery just because we fear to set sail on the uncharted waters that lead to universal prosperity. We must train ourselves to recognize and accept God’s grace in whatever form it takes. So can the Finns rescue Leo’s Papacy? I very much hope so…but sadly, I doubt it. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Winner of the Haiku Challenge We're pleased to announce Richard Blankenship as the winner of the Haiku Challenge from our June 2022 issue. Check out his clever, 17-syllable poem: Somewhere in the void, souls sojourn naked, awake. We are Resplendent. Congratulations, Richard! Send your haiku to editor@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Never Skip Over the Miracle Annie D. Stutley "Once upon a time, a grittier version of me roamed barefoot and luxuriated not in material but in emotional response. " Once upon a time my family vacation looked different – no fuss, no glamour, but full of all the classic summer substance that freckles childhood. Mom’s family had a lake house upon a hill that rolled down to the rocky shoreline of the then sleepy watering hole in Southwest Louisiana, Prien Lake. Prien, as we called it, was another of my childhood constants -- as important as church and as ritual as fireworks on the Fourth. If Bay St. Louis (the Bay) was the shiny, sandy string by which my upbringing was pulled, Prien was the frolicking, mucky highlight, smack dab in the middle of each summer. Unlike the Bay, there was nothing remotely fancy about the house at Prien. Built in the early 1900s by my great-grandparents, it was never intended to be a year-round residence. There was no air conditioning except for one unit in the living room, no television but a tiny black and white screen with rabbit ears, no telephone, and the only bathroom was a small one off the sparsely appointed kitchen. Prien was surrounded by lush vegetation, trees and shrubbery that came with an array of critters. Lizards, skinks, bugs, spiders, and an occasional snake were fairly normal visitors. But there were also fireflies at night, blanketing the lawn as we played board games like Mad Magazine and Win, Place, or Show in the front room, and dragonflies in the morning that zoomed about the hammock hanging from the branches of a big Magnolia tree. While the Bay had one large, Greek revival porch, Prien was almost entirely encircled by porches, some open, some screened, and one a glassed-in sunroom. Upstairs was a balcony and three bedrooms. All of the furniture was old–wrought iron bed frames and turn-of-the-century marble-topped vanities that would cost a fortune today, and all of it etched with a natural shabby chic finish from the damp lake air. The house remained locked up most of the year. So our trips always began with Mom and me at the nearby laundromat washing sheets and towels. I’d sip a Pop Rouge soda on the stoop of the laundromat, watching cows in the adjoining pasture while we waited for the sheets to dry. Before long though, we’d settle in, the year’s dust swept out and a summer breeze blowing in like a trumpeter: Vacation had begun. Today my vacations look very different. We stay in hotels overlooking huge, zero-entry, sparkling swimming pools with tumbling waterfalls, or we book luxe condos where laminate countertops are considered slumming it. I never clean upon arrival. Everything shines, even the bathtub, on a stage under a spotlight. Champagne can be icing beside me with just the press of a button. I mean, really. What the hell, Annie? At Prien, I’d swim all day in murky water, the slimy bottom of the lake nothing more than an afterthought. I’d shower on the back steps of the house with a bar of Ivory soap I kept on a rock. I caught crabs and trapped bugs. I followed lizards in between the leaves of the aspidistra. I lived a little filthy and slept a little sweaty. Yet, I remember it as idyllic. I believe that it actually was idyllic, that I’m not remembering it through child’s eyes. But it wasn’t so because of freedom at my fingertips, nor because of the sweeping view, and not because it was all captured in a brief, fleeting moment each year either. My present vacations are all those things. Prien had something extra -- a certain magic that lay in the purity of its intention. That little pink cottage on the lake wasn’t in competition or tried to be anything more than the humblest representation of why we get away from our ordinary lives in the first pace–to gather, to listen, to pray, to wonder, and to rest. Over the years imposing waterfront mansions slowly took the place of the camps along Prien Lake’s shoreline as the area turned residential. The little house held on. And as I bobbed on a raft after boats zipped by, listening to the water lap against the wharf, the sky preparing a magnificent sunset, a subtle yet significant whisper came to me skipping off the lake: This is enough . It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t the chic sophistication that my children associate with vacation today, but it did the job well. I realized recently that I had never before written about Prien. Initially, I was disappointed in myself. How could something so important in my memory be overlooked? But perhaps it’s exactly because that place never beckoned attention. It lacked the certain drama of anywhere else I’ve known and kept a quiet simplicity in my mind over time, just as the house itself. When I was in high school, termites infested Prien and we stopped going. I was getting too busy for long vacations anyway and all my siblings were working by then. Prien was to Mom what Bay St. Louis was to me, and she’d been evicted. I was too snotty a teenager to notice her sadness. Then one day when I was in college, Mom was folding clothes and seemed strangely distant. “You okay, Mom?” I asked. “They’re tearing down Prien today,” she said softly. In an instant I saw the old, green furniture on the porches, the curious indoor window behind the sofa that overlooked the center hall, the dusty rafters atop the bedrooms, and I heard the buzzing vintage refrigerator. I remembered eating my weight in boiled crabs under the ceiling fans, the antique paper dolls I played with, paper dolls that my grandmother had played with too, nights of board games, coffee on the front porch as the sun rose, and the tattered, pink chaise lounge where I took the best naps of my life. I thought about Mom as a child. She, too, crabbed all day and waited for the fireflies at night. She, too, cartwheeled down the bluff and rested beneath the branches of the Magnolia. Like me, she didn’t want for anything more. My heart lurched. Mom was losing more than a house. Her childhood would lie in the rubble. It was the humblest of vacation homes, but it made our lives rich. And I thought how remarkable to have shared such a place as a family, a patch of earth that worked its miracle each summer and then receded until the next year, never changing, never relenting to the times, just remaining ever so. Prien was our Brigadoon. And it had vanished forever. I know enough to know that not all humans are so fortunate to keep the same simple taste we had as children. I traded in my Pop Rouge soda for the pop of a champagne cork. Critters, all of them, give me the creeps, and I am most happy immersed in nature when I know I can return at nightfall to my air-conditioned cabin. My vacations have matured into a luxury where my grown-up fantasies of swim-up bars and room service come true, and now my hearts skips a beat when I see that housekeeping has swept through my suite. But once upon a time, a grittier version of me roamed barefoot and luxuriated not in material but in emotional response. Prien was freedom. Prien was family. Prien was motivation to make it to the next summer. Prien was hope that one could always be so happy. Prien was immeasurable joy. But just like Brigadoon, Prien was remote from reality -- nothing lasts forever. This essay was written poolside in Lake Buena Vista -- another Disney trip. It’s the annual vacation my kids push through homework, exams, and practices to get to. It’s not cheap and we hustle all year to make it happen. But it’s also an artificial version of the real thing: Disney Polynesia, Disney Africa, Disney Europe. In fact, someone once told me, “Ya know for what you’ve paid all these years, you could have taken your family to actual Tahiti, not fake Tahiti.” Fake Tahiti is exaggerated -- remote from reality, transporting us to a make-believe world where everything is over the top. At first glance, it’s a stark contrast to Prien, unless I were to try to measure something immeasurable, something worth every penny and every unstamped passport page. Like Prien, our fake Tahiti elicits immeasurable joy in us. I’m too changed to stay at a Prien kind of place today, at least not without a professional cleaning crew and an exterminator. But once upon vacation, I was able to see past the torn paint and wear to the miracle Prien produced every summer. It was family that kept it going -- a shared love for place and each other that kept it from evolving into anything more than its purest intention, an immeasurable joy, a tie that bound us, and a reminder of what truly matters. Eventually my kids will outgrow fake Tahiti. But wherever they vacation and however they choose to experience that time, I hope they never skip over the miracle. Image: The little pink house on Prien Lake just before demolition. Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next