Of Fish and Amphibians: Our Purpose, Our Ancestorsby Stephen L. Beck You've seen them on the backs of cars. It started with the Christian fish. In reply came the evolving amphibian. The riposte arrived in the form of the Christian fish eating the evolving amphibian. On the sidelines, we have the "fish n' chips," mocking the whole bumper-sticker debate. Such is one way we discuss science and spirituality, reason and religion. This debate, though, is as limited as its vocabulary -- note how naturally we could slip in to saying, "science versus spirituality, reason versus religion." This is certainly a mistake. There are tensions, of course, but to suppose that you have to choose one or the other is simplistic. There are reasons why the debate has been framed the way it has. Christianity, for instance, explains the world in a way that imbues it with God's purpose, and all people's actions and lives have meaning, or at least can have meaning, with reference to that purpose. In contrast, scientific explanations of the world proceed without reference to such grand purposes. Scientists don't try to answer the "why," only the "how." One might even jump to the conclusion that according to science, the "why" is nothing more than the "how." This conclusion is a leap, of course. Scientists may say nothing about the "why" because they think that science cannot help on that question, not because they reject the question itself. Wittgenstein said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Perhaps this silence indicates a deep mysticism rather than disbelief. Still, scientific explanation leaves open the possibility that the "why" is nothing more than the "how." That possibility interests me: What form of spirituality is left to us? Suppose the world is without any ultimate purpose. Where can we look for purpose in life, then? We can look to ourselves. It is clear enough that we have purposes -- for example, when I give you a gift, my purpose is to show my friendship for you. In fact, we explain our actions, to ourselves and each other, with reference to our purposes. It is how we make sense of ourselves to ourselves, and of each other to each other. This would be very well, if we could always make sense of ourselves and each other -- but we can't. Most of the time we can, but there are odd moments -- at least, there have been for me -- when I don't know why I do what I do. From one point of view, this fact seems surprising, even troubling -- a sign of mental illness. "How," one might ask, "can you not know why you act as you do? Are you 'in denial'? Deceiving yourself? What is the matter with you?" This viewpoint presumes that the normal state of affairs is to understand everything about yourself. A healthy person is transparent to herself, and knows and sees all that goes on within her own mind. From a contrasting point of view, it is not normal to understand everything about yourself. People often seem to have difficulty explaining why they married a certain person, chose a career, took up the interests that they did -- and the degree of difficulty they have has little to do with whether their choice works well for them or not. The injunction "know thyself" should be taken as an ideal towards which we can strive, not as an ordinary, easily-satisfied rule. To fail to know yourself fully is not a sign of ill health; it is an indication that you have not yet attained perfection. Why should we accept the second point of view, rather than the first? Let me try to make sense of this idea in another way. When we think of our ancestors, we tend to think of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents ... and then it starts getting hazy. But the scientific evidence tells us that our ancestors have been on this planet for about 3.4 billion years! Our ancestors have been animals for about the last 550 million years; we had reptile ancestors as long ago as 300 million years; our ancestors have been mammals for the last 210 million years. Only in the last 4 million years or so have our ancestors been hominids of one sort or another, and we have only about 100,000 years' worth of modern Homo sapiens ancestors. Add to that the fact that all we are -- the shapes of our bodies, the forms of our brains, the manner in which we see and hear, think and feel -- is a product of all those ancestors before us. Each successive generation has layered its bequest to its descendents over those of previous generations. We owe the structure of our existence to each of those billions of generations from which we descend. Thinking about things that way, of course we won't understand ourselves transparently. Of course some of the reasons why we do things will occasionally perplex us. The uniquely modern-human part of our brain is only the topmost layer, beneath which lies hundreds of millions of years of the legacy of pre-human ancestors. With such a deep and varied inheritance that composes our very consciousness, it is inconceivable that we could be transparent to ourselves. If it is an ideal and not the norm for us to know ourselves, then how are we to come to this knowledge? One part of knowing oneself is knowing one's ancestors, knowing one's family. There is a shared history that may reveal patterns that I can apply to myself; there are some family resemblances that I may see more clearly in another than in myself. But it turns out that my ancestors aren't just my parents and grandparents, but a lineage 3.4 billion years long. My family doesn't just consist of my mother and father, brother and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins -- it comprises all living things on Earth! I suggested earlier that we can look for purpose within ourselves. But, far from leading to a kind of isolated navel-gazing, it points us outward, towards other life around us, and towards the legacy of life behind us. This is why, when a friend recently asked about my religious beliefs, I replied that I believe in ancestor worship. Stephen L. Beck is the Managing Editor of the Green Pages.
Back to Home page. |
