God and Consciousness

1150 words, 6 minute read

These days, we have all accepted David Chalmbers’ characterization of consciousness, its origin and its nature, as the ‘hard problem’. Prior to society’s collective lobotomy (aka the Enlightenment), we struggled with a different ‘hard problem’, the existence and nature of God.

Ironically, the solution to both problems turns out to be the same…and that is the solution! Yes, you read right, but just to be clear, the solution to both problems is that the solution to each problem is also the solution to the other. Wow!

The concept of consciousness informs our concept of God, and our concept of God (whatever it may be) informs our concept of consciousness. In fact, an analysis of the Trinitarian (Christian) model of God and a parallel analysis of the phenomenon of consciousness reveal a common underlying structure.

Consciousness occurs whenever an entity (A) is aware of a world (W) external to itself and is also aware of itself (A’) being aware of that world. I diagram it here:

A

↙        ↘

W      ←      A’

A experiences W stereoscopically, first directly, second by perceiving itself perceiving W. The infinitesimal differancebetween the two experiences is what we call consciousness, aka fuzziness, dissonance, angst, deja vu, the vague sense that things aren’t quite as they seem, that the door is ajar.

We can take for granted that every living organism is ‘aware’ at some level of its environment; even single celled prokaryotes respond to environmental stimuli. So the determining factor is whether the organism in question is aware of itself being aware of its environment. It ‘knows’ but does it know that it knows?

***

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, God’s harshest critic, if the World is whole, flat and ontologically democratic, then there is no room for a transcendent entity such as ‘God’:

“…One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!”                    

But the phenomenon of consciousness, at least as modeled above, proves Nietzsche wrong. The subject of conscious experience transcends herself and the world. God or no god, transcendence is not only possible but actual. The conscious subject perceives her surroundings, and she experiences herself perceiving those surroundings. Theoretically at least, she could perhaps perceive herself perceiving herself perceiving…ad infinitum. Bottom line: The phenomenon of consciousness does not prove the existence of God per se, but it does demonstrate its feasibility. Sorry, Nietzsch’.

***

The model we are proposing for the phenomenon of consciousness is far from original. It turns out to be the same model the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) used to define Christianity’s unique experience of God (one God/three persons). Of course, these bishops had no idea they were incidentally modeling consciousness at the same time.

Nicaea labeled three persons, ‘Father (F), Son (S), and Holy Spirit (H)’ respectively, but a different terminology could be adopted by the theologically squeamish:

F

↙        ↘

H      ←      S

What is essential is the structure, the process, the pattern: the Father ‘begets’ the Son and the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds’ from the Father and the Son, exactly as modeled above. So Trinity and consciousness share a common structure; therefore, according to the tenets of 20^th century Structuralism (Levi-Strauss), they enjoy congruent identities.

“At the foundation/beginning (arche) was the logos (pattern)”, wrote the Apostle John to open his Gospel.  At its deepest level, the World consists of patterns; they define everything (e.g. objects and actions). And whenever two distinct entities share sufficiently similar patterns, their identities are entangled.

So, our consciousness is entangled with God. That is not to say that our consciousness is God, but it is to say that there is a ‘statistically significant’ affinity, i.e. congruence, between consciousness and Triune God.

According to one metaphor, infinite and eternal God ‘sees’ the World through the conscious experience of mortal ‘beings’ like us. We are to God as ‘organelles’ are to a cell or organs to a body; i.e. we are independent but functionally aligned. This is not so surprising. Christian theology refers to us as ‘members’ (cells) of Christ’s Mystical Body, and conversely, Christ becomes part of our bodies in Eucharist.

To be clear, I am not God…as if there were ever any doubt on that score. Rather I am the image and likeness of God: we share a common structure, we are inexorably template, like it or not we are entangled.

This realization makes both hard problems disappear. We know that God exists because we are conscious and we experience consciousness because God exists. Here, we are reminded of the simple profundity of Medieval Irish poet, St. Dallan:

“Naught be all else to me save that thou (God) art!”

Quite literally true…according to our analysis. There could be no meaningful (i.e. conscious) ‘you’ without God! Therefore, absent God, you are naught. Dallan is not talking here about God the Creator; his God is much more immediate and immanent. Life itself, and every drop of experience it contains, is both the experience and the manifestation of divinity. “A shout in the street, that’s God.” (St. Joyce, 1250 years later)

Dallan writes (in part):

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me save that thou art!

Thou my best thought by day and by night;

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word;

I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord…

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;

Be thou my dignity, thou my delight…

Heart of my heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

God is in every nook and cranny of my being. Or to put it another way, “I (Christ) am in the Father and you are in me and I am in you.” (John 14: 20)

My relationship to God is not in the least bit remote. God and I share a common structure. God is my foundation, my scaffolding, my logos. God is in every nook and cranny of my being; God permeates me. Enriched (hopefully) by this insight, we can read the words of Saint John (Apostle,1st century CE) and the ‘other John’ (Lennon, 20th century) with renewed awe:

“I am in the Father and you in me and I in you.” (John 14: 20)

“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…” (I am the Walrus)