Monthly Archives: January 2022

The Natural Evolutionary Origin Plus Supernatural Origin of Humanity

Core philosophy, Evolution and Religion

It is logically consistency to accept a complete naturalistic evolutionary origin of homo sapiens or homo sapiens-sapiens and still posit a supernatural origin of humanity. I follow some in using homo sapiens-sapiens to admit the prospect of human intelligence itself needing an evolutionary account. I write of a complete naturalistic origin to emphasize that the supernatural origin is not introduced to fill any gaps in the naturalistic evolutionary account. The supernatural should not be introduced to answer any question which could be answered naturalistically. From here on, I will write simply of evolutionary accounts and not use modifiers such as “naturalistic” or “by natural selection.”

What do I accept by granting that there is a complete evolutionary account of the origin of homo sapiens? I give the answer of a non-scientist who sooner or later faces the question “What do you accept or reject by accepting or rejecting an evolutionary explanation of humanity?”

There are two parts to my answer. The first sketches a model which finds a place for empirical evidence to support theories that species, some still existing, evolved by natural selection. The second part presents an imaginary scenario of what it means for the species we are now to be the same species as one existing thousands of years ago.

Perhaps a million or more years ago one particular breeding population in the genus homo, which I label A, flourished and grew. Some members of A would mate with members of other homo populations, which I label B, C, D. Genetic and environmental factors were not favorable for the flourishing and growth of B, C, D despite interbreeding with A. B, C, & D gradually became extinct.

Of course, my sketch is very “sketchy.” Over the thousands and thousands of years B, C & D have had successor populations which have bred, more or less successfully, with other populations, including successors of A. In the end though, all but the successors of A have become extinct.

Only A still exists in the sense that a path down from the present through a tree structure of branches ending before the present, leads from the present to A. The nodes at base of branches on the tree are species; not individuals. It is a branch which has not yet reached its tip.

The genuine hard scientific work lies in tracing such a pathway in the fossil and archaeological data. It is not always clear when they are on the pathway. For instance, do these tool-like rocks clearly indicate A’s? Most likely there can be no specification of a definite time for the origin of A’s. Individuals but not populations have definite origin times. But there can be a bracket of, perhaps, a few thousand years before which there were no A’s but within which A’s appeared. Perhaps, the beginning point of the bracket was fifty to forty thousand years ago.

It should be emphasized that the scientific program is not for explaining the origin of individual members of a species. If one accepts evolution, as I do, it is tempting to believe that there is a “family tree” tracing me back to a breeding pair of humans at a definite time before which there were no humans. But the scientific program is guided by a model of a “species tree.”

Also, it should be emphasized that evolutionary accounts face all of the mind-body problems of any scientific study of contemporary humans. The relation of human thought and feeling, collective as well as individual, to their physiological correlates in the nervous system of individuals, are unexplained in any study of humans.

There is a sexual or reproductive dimension to believing that a species long ago is the same species as ours. This is the requirement that, in general, individuals can reproduce fertile offspring if and only if they are of the same species. There is no way that such a test can be conducted with individuals thousands of years apart. So, I will indulge in a thought experiment.

Suppose somehow a male and female of ancient A had been frozen or preserved in some fashion so that they can now be revived and be sexually active here and now in the twenty first century. Let’s call them Ancient Man and Ancient Woman. They should be able to have offspring by mating with people of the twenty first century. Suppose Ancient Man mates with a contemporary woman Mary and she gives birth to a daughter Clara. Clara should grow up to have all of the cognitive abilities and technical skills of any other child of our century. This means, amongst many other things, that Clara could learn to speak English. Suppose further, Ancient Woman mates with a contemporary male Dick and Ancient Woman becomes pregnant and bears a son Tom. Just like Clara, Tom would be born with the ability to learn the cognitive and technical skills of the twenty first century. To be sure, there would be physical features which set Clara and Tom apart from typical twenty first century people. Almost certainly, they would have smaller body size. Over the centuries, natural selection changes many features of a species without leading to a new species. However, in this thought experiment the prediction is that if Clara and Tom breed with typical twenty first people and then the offspring of these children mate with typical twenty first people the physical differences will be significantly modified to match human features of our century.

The above is my attempt to specify what I admit when I claim to accept that the scientific community has the correct research program for giving a naturalistic explanation of the origin of the human species, indeed for the origin of any species.

The question of whether or not members of this species have been given a purpose or goal for their lives is not, and ought not be, even raised in the evolutionary account. So, it is consistent with this naturalistic account to claim that humans as beings with a purpose began when God specified that each man and woman has the goal of living to know, love and serve Him while living so that they can be happy with Him after biological death.

Of course, consistency is far from significant, let alone true. So, the further questions concern motivation and justification for supernatural claims.

No Truth Conditions for Claims About the Natural and the Supernatural

Core philosophy, Ontology

Most of the claims that I will make about the supernatural are also claims about the natural. For instance, Luke’s account of the Annunciation is about a young virgin and the angel Gabriel. Claims of a miracle are at least claims that something with a supernatural feature acted in the natural world. I will argue that a complete understanding of the origin of homo sapiens requires interpreting human beings as beings who are both natural and supernatural. Roughly: certain homo hominids with a supernatural soul were the original humans. In a way, the origin of humans is miraculous!

What is it like, though, for claims about such radically different kinds of things to be true? For two reasons, which I have elaborated on in previous posts, I will not answer this question.

First, the challenge to provide an analysis of how elements of reality can be combined to make truth conditions for a claim is a challenge to show that what is claimed to be is really possible, viz., a possible combination of realities. This challenge can be set aside because of an assumption that whatever is consistently describable is really possible.

Second, the challenge asks for an account of how reality makes a claim about reality true. It asks for the truth about truth. This is analytic philosophy which I am abandoning.

So, I set aside an impossible task which I am strongly tempted to begin. I would like to begin with an inventory of the basic individuals, properties, relations and atomic facts of the supernatural and then the natural. Then guided by some hopefully noncontroversial rules on combination of facts, construct combinations of atomic facts, i.e., molecular states of affairs, which correspond with claims about the natural and the supernatural. If the molecular state of affairs obtains, the claim is true; otherwise, false.

Of course, a further challenge is to develop an epistemology on how one can determine whether or not a mixed natural and supernatural state of affairs occurs. Theoretically, on this analytic approach, I am setting aside, the truth of claims about molecular facts can be determined once the truth of the claims about atomic facts has been determined. Still, there is the problem of how to determine truth of atomic supernatural claims. I suspect it would be ad hoc in the way indicated below.

So, I set aside the task of a philosophical analysis of how we can talk of the natural and supernatural. I simply start talking about the supernatural under the assumption that such talk can be intelligible. I use an ad hoc epistemology which means that each claim I make has to be discussed on its merits with intelligent people of good will and at least a mildly skeptical temperament.

Distinguishing the Supernatural From the Natural

Core philosophy, Realism vs. anti-realism

In distinguishing the supernatural from the natural I am making truth claims. However, my truth claims are about our ways of thinking and speaking about what is real and unreal. They are not directly about the realities we might call the natural and supernatural. For instance, I am not talking directly about the truth of a claim such as “Her cure was miraculous.” I am talking about what I mean by saying her cure was miraculous. In short, I am talking about conceptual schemes as opposed to what the schemes are used to represent. Sometimes talking about thinking is called second order thinking as opposed to first order thinking which is saying of what is that it is a certain way.

These second order claims can be true or false. But their truth is not so directly dependent upon realities as that of first order thinking. Truth of second order claims is filtered through human consensus. Second order claims are offered to human thinking as proposals on the best ways to think directly about reality. In short, they are claims describing and correcting, if necessary, the fundamental human conceptual scheme, viz., the way of thinking to distinguish between the real and unreal. If in the opinion of those who think in this second order way about realities my characterizing this way of thinking aptly characterizes their way of distinguishing real from unreal, then there is support for my truth claims about the way of distinguishing real from unreal. Note that support for me would come not only from the consensus. Support comes from other’s agreement that these are appropriate ways of thinking about the reality with which they are acquainted. Reality is not ignored in the forming of the consensus.

It needs to be emphasized that agreement with my proposed conceptual scheme for distinguishing real from unreal need not be agreement on what I think is real and unreal. For instance, someone could agree with me that I have characterized a supernatural reality properly. Some might well agree that if there were supernatural realities, they would be as I have said they would be. However, they might go on to argue that their experience and efforts to explain how things happen and what there is show them that there are no supernatural realities. They would claim that the supernatural is an empty category. They might add that they can understand acquaintance with supernatural realities as natural mental occurrences. However, they should not proclaim that the notion of “supernatural” is meaningless or that it is impossible there be anything supernatural. I am working under the assumption that the only impossibility is logical impossibility; there cannot be anything whose description is logically inconsistent.

I, though, believe that there is a supernatural reality. But what is it? Here are some of my beginning speculations.

First: supernatural realities are dependent upon the Transcendent for their existence. Of course, then, the Transcendent is not a supernatural reality. Fundamental metaphysics is not an investigation of the supernatural. However, realities dependent upon the Transcendent which are clearly not any kind of natural reality would be supernatural realities.

At this point, I am using “natural” in the broad sense in which it is opposed to the supernatural. I am not here using “natural” in the narrow sense in which it designates the material or physical in naturalism as a philosophy.

The supernatural realities are those which are not any kind of natural realities. What, though, are the natural realities? I characterize the natural epistemically. Natural realities are those humans develop beliefs about with use of human empirical reason. Supernatural realities are those human beings develop beliefs about with faith. Faith is itself a supernatural reality. So, only with faith can one develop beliefs about faith! (This role I attribute to faith may require correction as I go forward.)

Human empirical reason is that which we use in developing beliefs about the physical, mathematical, social and moral.

So, a first outline of my conceptual scheme for distinguishing the real from the unreal is as follows. There is the supernatural and everything else is natural. The categories of the natural are the moral, mathematical, social, mental, physical and material.

Reality of the Supernatural

Core philosophy, Ontology, Realism vs. anti-realism

This brief post applies a post from May 2021, Truth of Spiritual Claims to my previous post of December 2021. Here, however, I write of supernatural reality instead of spiritual reality.

It is a fallacy to conclude from “Reality – what exists – is one” that “There is only one kind of existent in reality.” There are no rules of careful thinking which show that someone who thinks Luke’s account of the Annunciation is an assertion of what happened believes in a fiction. I think Luke’s account speaks of what was and how it was a couple of thousand years ago in Nazareth. To emphasize: I say “Luke’s account is true” to express my intention to endorse Luke’s account as a correct account of reality.

Of course, an angel speaking and a virginal conception are not normal or natural occurrences. So, careful critical thinking requires distinguishing then from the normal or natural. Depending upon a person’s intellectual standards and those of communities of people whose approval he wants, distinguishing these non-normal events from normal events requires careful distinctions which are probably of no interest to the vast majority of people.

A product of this careful thinking is to specify the distinction between what one asserts with religious faith from attempts to describe and explain what normally exists as a distinction between talking of supernatural instead of natural reality.

Careful critical thinking does not endorse presenting this distinction as between the real and unreal.