CHAPTER TEN

DOES THE OBJECTIVE SYSTEM OF VALUES IMPLY A COSMIC INTELLIGENCE?

The faith of religion in the reality of a spiritual as distinct from a material world has good and sufficient grounds. This is an important conclusion but does not bring us to the end of our inquiry. We have still to consider whether belief in the existence of such a spiritual order as the system of values is sufficient by itself for the needs of religion. Or must genuine religion go further and affirm belief in the existence of a Supreme Spirit, a Cosmic Intelligence, a Divine Purpose, or a Personal God?

I do not think that the facts of man's religious experience and history would support us in saying that it must. We cannot doubt

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that many individuals have responded to the existing universe with genuinely religious emotions of awe and reverence and personal confidence who saw no evidence in it of the controlling influence of a cosmic purpose or a divine personality. Great religions of the Orient have refused to ascribe anything like self-conscious intelligence or personal character to the Universal Reality.

What is indispensable to religion is belief in the reality of the highest values with which we human beings are acquainted. This is equivalent to believing that Universal Reality possesses moral and spiritual values, since the highest values we know are those of social intelligence and personal association. So even when religious faith is limited to the vaguest cosmic emotion it never fails to ascribe to the Cosmos attributes of spiritual value like inherent order and majesty, trust-worthiness and ultimate intelligibility.

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And religions like Buddhism which refuse to attribute to Reality any definite characteristics, such as those of moral and social value, seem to mean quite otherwise in their underlying import. For by depreciating separate individuality, condemning individual desire, and representing the acquisition of altruistic virtue as the only road to the attainment of eternal reality they practically assign highest reality to these spiritual values.

Belief in the reality of the values esteemed by social intelligence and sought through personal association we therefore take to be the irreducible minimum of religion, and cannot accord a like position to belief in a universal spirit or personal deity. While it is desirable to make this point perfectly clear, it is at the same time a fact that belief in God or in gods has held a central place in the religions of mankind. Indeed, more, it has seemed to the vast majority of men a necessary,

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implication of belief in the conservation of values, scarcely distinguishable in matter of fact from this latter belief. Proof of this is found in the historic fact that man's conception of God has kept fairly even pace in its development with his understanding of the values realized through rational insight and socially-adjusted conduct. Primitive man attributed to the gods superhuman power and little else2 although this power differed from the power of purely natural forces by being responsive to human appeal. Then as social evolution proceeded and man gained a fuller understanding of the values of personal intelligence and co-operation, to power was added justice and to justice was added wisdom and the “beauty of holiness,” and to wisdom and holiness has finally been added universal benevolence.

Hence it is a fair question, and one suggested by the conclusions reached, whether

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the objective system of personal and social values does not imply the reality of a comprehensive and coordinating intelligence. Of course it should be understood that this question is, philosophically speaking, a speculative one. No strict demonstration of God's existence (or His non-existence) is possible; the idea of proving the existence of God in strict accord with the canons of logic was given up long ago. And while the belief in question is, as we shall see later on, subject to experimental investigation and testing, no such verification as is obtainable for the generalizations of physical science is in the nature of the case possible.

Understanding the existence of God, then, as an admissible postulate or hypothesis-the postulate, that is to say, of the reality of an All-Comprehensive or Cosmic Intelligence which organizes objects in their aspect of

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value--we may now consider what reasons may be adduced in its support.

The system of values really exists. This, the conclusion we have reached, will now be taken as established fact and the starting-point of further reflection. What does it mean? That the objects of the existing world so far as their value is intelligently appreciated prove to be related in ways other than, and different from, that of physical causation. They reveal coherence of character, potencies of adaptation and transformation, and intrinsic harmonies which are significantly expressive. This does not mean that objects in their aspect of value constitute one perfectly organized system, one complete and self-contained whole. The system of values as brought to light in our experience is essentially a developing system, and there is no reason to doubt that human intelligence and invention really assist in its development.

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But while it is a developing system and is developed (in part, at least) by human instrumentality, it is, nevertheless, a system and a meta-physical system. Now is such a system conceivable apart from an immanent, organizing intelligence? It is true, to be sure, that values are in a sense created by our own rational insight, practical contrivance, and aesthetic perception. But they are also and at the same time discovered. For if existing objects were not intelligible, they would disclose no identities and differences of meaning; if they did not possess a certain order and fitness they would not be adaptable to rational uses; if the qualities of some of them were not intrinsically harmonious they would not reflect the nature and system of the whole. So the question returns: Is the intelligibility, the order and adaptability, the expressive unity, of actual

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objects conceivable apart from an intelligence which knows and contrives and perceives?

One reply would be: Certainly not, the system of objective values implies the community of creative human intelligence; but there is no reason to go further. Still, there are difficulties which this solution does not wholly remove. Let us consider these difficulties as they first present themselves in their more obvious and (if you will) more superficial aspect.

The human individuals who share the life of intelligent community have each a brief existence and a fragmentary experience. If they alone constitute the community of intelligence, can it be said to possess any real unity and continuity? Suppose that some cosmic collision extinguished all life on this planet. Would the system of personal and social values then be destroyed? Or that some earthly influence hostile to man such

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as an insect-carried plague destroyed civilization and reduced mankind to a few bands of roving savages. Would the community of intelligence be correspondingly shrunk near to the vanishing-point? If such is the case, the existence of the system of values is, despite all its coherence and organization and potencies of development, at the mercy of the circumstances and vicissitudes that jeopardize the existence of our organic species on this planet. If, on the other hand, we are convinced that the system of values does possess real organization and inherent potencies of continuous and consistent development, must we not rather suppose that conscious intelligence and rational purpose exist in some more comprehensive and enduring form than we are able to observe in the case of human individuals? Supposing the objection to be, nevertheless,, maintained that we have already attributed

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a common reason to mankind and thus have already provided or allowed for a comprehensive principle of intelligent community, the answer will merely put the argument in another form. Human nature has two sides: man is both a natural being and a self-conscious person. He is linked by his organism with the succession of physical events to which, as stimuli, he must respond with appropriate movements in order to preserve his organic existence. But man as an intelligent person is capable of taking the comprehensive, the universal point of view. His world is a world of objects possessing identity of character and permanent possibilities of development and reorganization, the world as it must reveal itself to intelligent individuals in all times and places. This comprehensive and universal outlook makes the intelligent man a spectator of universal evolution, including of course the incidents, the progress,

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and the approaching end of his own organic existence as well as the natural life and death of generations of his fellows. No view of man or of his destiny deserves serious consideration which does not give due weight to the fact that man is unique among all the forms of life we know in being intelligently aware of the fact that he is a living being with a limited span of life and therefore a being capable of effectually relating his own brief period of bodily life and activity to the larger issues of human progress and world history which far transcend it in past and future. Of all the characteristics of man this is perhaps the most remarkable and significant, and if contemporary naturalistic theories are constrained to ignore it they convict themselves of a one-sidedness and inadequacy which is certain to be paid for by a reaction to idealistic views.

Now we grant that the succession of

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physical events with which man's organic existence connects him requires for its explanation a physical universe or order of events in space-time. Does not the universality of man's rational outlook which associates him with others in the community of intelligence equally require for its explanation the conception of an all-comprehensive intelligence which embraces within its permanent unity all intelligent individuals? Are we not then bound to agree that the system of values implies the existence of a developing social consciousness which endures and embraces the consciousness of human individuals so far as they realize in their own conscious experience the universal values? I believe that we are, that this is a reasonable inference. But what are we to think of the scope and limits of this consciousness? Did it emerge when human intelligence first appeared in the process of

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organic evolution? Has the natural universe come to consciousness of its own immanent values, come to consciousness of itself, so to speak, in the insights and ideals of human society and civilization?

This conclusion would doubtless meet the approval of many today who, while accepting the facts of science, wish to give due recognition to the idealistic factor in evolution. Perhaps it is as far as we can go. Yet there are further considerations which force themselves upon our notice. If the system of values exists objectively, how are we to understand its existence before human intelligence appeared on the scene of cosmic evolution? Man did not put in his appearance until comparatively late in our earth's history, say a half million years ago. What are we to think of the period, the millions of years, when the earth existed without intelligence and without any life at all? And what

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of the vast stretches of stellar evolution antecedent to the origin of the earth? Did the system of values exist at all? If it did not, what ground is there for asserting that values are inherent in the real nature of things? But if, on the other hand, we are convinced that the system of values, qua real, did exist through the long courses of cosmic evolution, does not its existence imply as a necessary correlate a comprehensive and equally enduring intelligence? We are, to be sure,,quite familiar with the answer which the naturalistic evolutionism of our day is prepared to give to such a question as this. Yes, we shall be told) the values which man discovers and appreciates in the actual, world, along with all the other functions and manifestations of life, existed in the period previous to man's advent and, for that matter, to the origin of life itself. But they existed potentially, were latent in the

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simpler forms of life and, still earlier, in matter itself.

There is an assumption present in such reasoning, however, which is generally overlooked. And this assumption, when explicitly stated and impartially examined, proves to be somewhat questionable, to say the least. It is assumed that the order of physical events, which is not a fact of direct experience but an inference based upon the facts of common perception, existed throughout the whole course of evolution and furnished the real framework within which the whole process in all its phases, of value as well as of physical occurrence, proceeded. But the attributes of value, the permanent correlation of diverse qualities, the capacities for reorganization and adaptation, the intrinsic and expressive harmonies, are features of existence no less actual and important than its strictly physical attributes. And these

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attributes of value, as we have also seen, require for their explanation the community of intelligence. This latter, the unity of associative or communal intelligence, is therefore on an equal footing with the order of physical events: both are inferences based upon the facts of everyday experience; both may with an equal right claim to signify the truth of the world of everyday fact, the reality inherent in existing things. But why then suppose that the earlier stages of evolution when many of the features of the now-existing world were not in evidence, proceeded within the space-time frame exclusively, and not within the organizing, associating unity of intelligence as well? But this latter point need not be pressed to the limit; a case can hardly be made out on this ground alone. For it will be open to the naturalistic evolutionist to reply that so far as scientifically verifiable fact is concerned,

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there is convincing proof that the physical forces we can observe to be now working in the natural world were also operative in all earlier stages of evolution, while there is no empirical evidence of the influence of intelligence or of rational purpose on the course of cosmic affairs before the time when the products of human art and the relics of man's social culture begin to appear. This brings us back to the underlying question upon which the whole argument turns. What meaning can we give to the existence of the system of values as latent or potential in the natural world during the earlier stages of its evolution? Exist in some sense these values must have, else their appearance at a later stage -would have been a break in the continuity of the evolutionary process. Yet there is no empirical evidence, it is said, of their influence or effect upon the course of events at particular times and places. So we must

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content ourselves with saying that they existed potentially, they were latent, in the natural world.

How, we still seek to know, are we to conceive of the potential existence of the system of values in the physical universe? Physical forces determine the effect of particle on particle2 of event upon event, in the space-time system. But the presence in the natural world of the system of values even in potentia means the existence of another type of relation besides that of external or physical determination between mass-points in motion. It means the existence of a relation between the parts or members, i.e., specific objects and events, and an organizing unity or whole which includes them, not as a space-time system includes the succession of physical events in sequence of external determination, but organically, by virtue of their intrinsic adaptability and their distinctive possibilities of

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functional contribution. If this relation exists, then existence, real existence of some sort, must be granted to the “whole,” to those en- during unities and forms which determine the progressive organization of the natural world and the explicit realization of its immanent values. In what sense can the “whole” exist, potentially if you will, but nevertheless really and effectively? I find it difficult if not impossible to understand it except as an anticipatory selection of objects, of existing materials, on the basis of their intrinsic character and fitness. One hesitates to mention purpose in this connection because purpose suggests to so many minds a power which arbitrarily interferes with, and sets aside, the regular order of nature in pursuit of some aim of its own. But purpose need not be given this narrowly human, this anthropomorphic, meaning. It may mean simply the immanent order of nature or, more definitely,

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the effective ordering which proceeds in the natural -world. Only so far as it involves an anticipatory selection, it implies the influence in all stages of evolution of an inclusive and organizing intelligence. The argument may be put in a different way but the reasoning is in substance the same. The problem is that of explaining the origin of the objective system of values. Now if we desire to explain the occurrence of any physical event we try to discover the physical event or configuration of physical events which invariably precedes it, and when we have found this we are satisfied that we have discovered the cause of the occurrence which required explanation. If, however, it is the system of values which we have to explain, the explanation must necessarily take a different form. For the system of values is not a physical event or a configuration of physical events. It can only originate as the

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anticipatory and incipient realization of the possibilities of mutual implication, functional adaptation, and significant harmony, inherent in the nature of things. But these possibilities are, as far as we can see, infinitely or, at least, indefinitely many and varied. Consequently, in order to explain the origin of the existing system of values we must postulate some creative agency which selects from the indefinite range of possibilities just these for realization. And this creative agency is the Cosmic Intelligence which we call God. “The religious insight,” says Professor Whitehead, “is the grasp of this truth: That the order of the world, the depth of the reality of the world, the value of the world, in its whole and in its parts, the beauty of the world, the zest of life, and the mastery of evil, are all bound up together-not accidentally, but by reason of this truth: that the universe exhibits a creativity

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with infinite freedom, and a realm of forms with infinite possibilities; but that this crea- tivity and these forms are together impotent to achieve actuality apart from the completed ideal harmony which is God.”¹

1    Whitehead, Religion in the Making, p. 119.