Section 8
One particularly clear example will enable us to move to the next stage of the argument. A machine is a collection of components that can be analyzed chemically into their elements and physically into the molecular and atomic particles that constitute them. Yet the most exhaustive chemical and physical analysis would not enable me to understand the machine unless I understood the purpose for which it was designed. As I have already remarked, it is, of course, possible to explain a particular component by speaking of its function within the total operation of the machine; and if the whole universe were to be conceived of as a vast mechanism, then each component part, including human beings, could be “explained” in terms of function. But since we have no knowledge of machines other than those devised and constructed by human beings to fulfill purposes entertained by the constructors, it is absurd to posit as the ultimate framework of explanation a machine constructed by nobody for no purpose.
In seeking to understand a machine, we employ the concepts of both efficient cause and final cause. If the machine breaks down because one of the components has been eroded by wear and tear, I could properly say that the cause of the breakdown was fully understood by referring to the physical and chemical processes that caused the erosion and therefore the breakdown. But when the machine is in proper working order, it would be absurd to say that the chemical and physical laws governing the structure and movement of its parts are the sufficient explanation of the machine. It can be explained only in terms of the purpose for which it has been constructed. Thus the physical and chemical laws can furnish a full explanation for the cause of failure, but a full explanation for the successful working of the machine cannot be given in terms of physics and chemistry but must be in terms of mechanics and must include an understanding of the purpose for which the machine is designed.
From this example one can move to that of the animals, which are in some respects machinelike entities in that their bodies are composed of moving parts that can be understood only in terms of the purposes they serve. The difference here is that the purpose is internalized. A machine has no purpose of its own; it embodies the purpose of its designer. An animal—as innumerable experiments have demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt—has purposes of its own. It has been shown that even earthworms are capable of learning from experience how to solve a problem. And animals closest to humans in intelligence, such as chimpanzees, are capable of identifying problems and developing very sophisticated strategies for solving them. Once again, as in the case of a machine, the physical and chemical constitution of animals’ limbs and organs provides the necessary conditions for an animal’s functioning, and if these deviate from the normal, the animal will fail and we shall rightly say that this physical or chemical event was the sufficient cause of the failure. But it would be absurd to say that either that or complete knowledge of the molecular activity in its organs constituted an explanation of the animal’s behavior apart from an understanding of the purposes it sets before itself, or that this molecular activity was the cause of the behavior as though there were no difference between a purposeful action and a jerk caused by the application of an electric shock to the nerves that activate the muscles.
At each level that we have been considering, we have seen that understanding requires the recognition both of detail and of overall pattern. All chemical reactions are conditioned by the molecular changes that are the subject of physics, but chemistry as a distinct discipline cannot be simply replaced by physics. All mechanical operations are conditioned by the chemical and physical operations of the component parts of the machine; but mechanics is still a necessary form of knowledge and cannot be replaced by physics and chemistry. All animal life is conditioned by the successful working of the limbs and organs, which is in turn conditioned by the laws of chemistry and physics and mechanics. But biology is still a proper study in its own right. The Laplacean ideal, which pretends that by a complete knowledge of the smallest elements we would know everything, is absurd. At each of these levels we are able to understand only because, while we focus attention on one level, our minds are operating with a vast amount of tacit awareness that has been gained by attention to other levels. In observing the behavior of an animal, we judge its success or failure in relationship to the purpose it is trying to achieve—to catch its prey, to build a nest, to protect its young, and so forth. Detailed knowledge of the mechanical, chemical, and—ultimately—atomic factors that condition success or failure is relevant to our understanding but is in no sense a substitute for it. It would be absurd to say that we understand the behavior of the bird engaged in building its nest by possessing a complete knowledge of the atomic and molecular changes in its tissues. We may for certain purposes attend focally to these precisely because we are aware of and are interested in the whole purposeful activity of building a nest.
I have sketched a series of levels of explanation stretching through physics, chemistry, and mechanics to biology. At each point the principles established at the lower levels condition the higher level but do not explain it. At any level, the reductionist attempt to substitute a precise description of the components for an understanding of the whole fails. Physics cannot replace chemistry, nor chemistry mechanics, nor mechanics biology. We now have to move to the next level, namely, to our understanding of other human beings. Here the new factor entering in is the possibility of full, or at least growing, reciprocity. I use the word full to make the point that there can be a partial reciprocity at lower levels. A biologist observing the behavior of an earthworm is in a unidirectional relationship. The worm does not observe the biologist; there is no reciprocity. But a shepherd with his sheepdog is in a relationship in which there is real, though partial, reciprocity. No one can watch a Northumberland shepherd and his dog working together without acknowledging that a mutual understanding exists between them. So as we go up the scale, there are no absolute breaks. And I use the word possibility because it is, alas, possible for a practitioner of what are sometimes called the human sciences to regard his fellow human beings in the same way the biologist regards an earthworm. In the development of our scientific culture there have been essays in this direction. I shall not discuss them except to draw attention to the point that they represent the carrying of one of the fundamental assumptions of our culture to its logical conclusion. (This possibility forms the basis of C. S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength.)
Leaving this point aside, I come to the principles involved in the mutual understanding that can exist between two human beings. Each is aware of the other through the medium of a whole range of audiovisual impressions. As in the case of learning to read a written text, so in our learning to communicate with others from our earliest infancy, we have to learn to recognize gestures, expressions, words, intonations. Yet in a mature relationship we do not directly attend to any of these things. The audiovisual experiences condition our knowledge of the other person, but it would be absurd to say that they cause it, or that they explain it, or that we infer the existence of the person from these audiovisual data. They form part of the tacit knowledge that makes it possible to attend focally to the person, not as a physical or chemical or biological entity but as the subject of beliefs, experiences, and purposes similar to our own. Once again, this is nothing automatic. It is the fruit of a purposeful effort to understand, and it is evoked by the purposeful effort of the other party to communicate. The infant of a few weeks does not yet have the power of understanding fully developed. This power is evoked by the loving actions and gestures and words of mother and father, sisters and brothers, until he reaches the point in mature life where the relationship approaches full reciprocity.
If we ask what precisely is new in this reciprocal understanding between mature adults, as compared with, for example, the understanding between a shepherd and his dog, the answer must be somewhat as follows. A clever sheepdog quickly understands his master’s purpose: it is to get that particular sheep separated from the flock and brought into this pen. The shepherd knows that the dog is tempted by other conflicting purposes, such as chasing a rabbit, but he simply overrules them. And even in this relationship the shepherd acts not by coercion but by the exercise of an authority the dog has learned to acknowledge. If it is anyone other than his own master, the dog will forget the sheep and go after the rabbit. Human beings have contrasting and sometimes conflicting purposes, but in a mature relationship one does not simply overrule the other. Of course, if A is a practitioner of social engineering or psychiatric manipulation, he may treat B’s commitment to pacifism or to religious belief as simply a deviation that has to be corrected. He may also be able to identify the chemical, economic, or other factors that he regards as the sufficient cause of this deviation; and he may have techniques for rectifying them. We know that such a concept of human relations exists, but we recognize that it is different from a mature relationship in which A and B mutually acknowledge one another as responsible persons. In such a mature relationship there is no way of dealing with conflicts between differing purposes except by a process of mutual exchange, in which each tries to communicate to the other his perception of what is the proper objective of purposeful action, in other words, of what is good. In this context, the word good is obviously irrelevant if it means only “what I want for myself.” It can only mean “good absolutely, good for all.” If it does not mean this, the whole exercise in mutual communication is meaningless. If there is nothing that is “good” in this universal sense, then in every conflict of interest the only argument that is not meaningless is “this is what I want to do.” And in that case the only possible way in which conflicting purposes can be reconciled to each other is for the strong to manipulate or coerce the weak. And, as we scarcely need to be reminded, modern technology has provided us with many sophisticated ways of doing this.
By contrast, in a mutual relationship between two mature human beings, we know that the relationship can be sustained only if we both acknowledge something that has authority over both and if each trusts the other to acknowledge this. In other words, I must treat the other person in accordance with the purpose for which (or whom) he or she exists and not as an object to be used for my purposes. But if, as seems to be the case, there are no absolute breaks in the continuity of being between humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects, it would follow that, even with regard to subhuman beings, I am under obligation to respect the purpose for which they exist and am not free to subject them to my own. It need hardly be said that the implications of this for contemporary ecological issues, as well as for the ethics of a consumer society, are enormous.
Have we, in discussing the mutual relationships between mature human beings, reached the top of the hierarchy of ways of knowing? Obviously not, for in describing their relationships we have had to invoke the concept of “the good” as something both parties have to acknowledge as having authority, as that by which conflicting purposes have to be assessed. But what kind of knowledge could it be that gives knowledge of “the good”? Will it be by following Bacon’s admonition and observing “the facts”? That would be to fall again into the reductionist trap. We do not understand the mind of another person by even the most painstaking examination of all the facts—physiological, psychological, biographical—about him or her. This kind of knowledge of the facts about a person can only be a subsidiary—and normally tacit—element in knowing the person as a person. Our ordinary language conveys very simply the sharp distinction that we draw between the most expert knowledge of the facts about a person and the experience of knowing that person. The sharpness of the distinction becomes clear when—as sometimes happens—a discussion of a person is interrupted by the sudden arrival of the person himself. The discussion has to be broken off altogether or else converted into a different kind of discussion in which we listen to the person himself speaking. Speech in the third person has to be replaced by speech in the first and second. In our normal speech we say that to carry on the former discussion about the person would be simply to ignore the person.
The same kind of break has to occur at this point in our discussion. It is the break that marks the limit of what is usually called natural theology. It is the same break as the one we met in the preceding chapter when I said that the model of the hermeneutical circle was not adequate for the interpretation of the Bible from outside the commitment of the believing community. I have suggested the ways in which the concept of purpose becomes more and more necessary as we ascend without a break through the realms of physics, chemistry, mechanics, and biology to the human person. I have reached a place where one could say that there are pointers to the fact that we cannot stop with the human level and that human conversation itself becomes inexplicable without reference to something beyond itself. And obviously, all of this argument is possible because I who argue and you who listen have already the experience of purposeful action. But no analysis of nature, from the lowest proton to the highest form of human life, could enable us to have direct knowledge of any purpose beyond our own. We do not infer the existence of another person from an analysis and classification of the audiovisual sensations we receive, but rather we attend directly to the person as a living center of meaning and purpose, and for this direct relationship our awareness of the sounds and gestures made by the other person is subsidiary and tacit. Thus it would also be idle to suppose that we could come to the knowledge of a supernatural personal reality by induction from all the data of our natural experience. At this point the only relevant questions are: Is there anyone present? Has he spoken? Natural theology ends here; another kind of enterprise begins, and another kind of language has to be used—the language of testimony.
The Christian church testifies that in the actual events of this finite, contingent, and yet rational world of warped space-time there are words and gestures through which the Creator and Sustainer of the world has spoken and acted. It is not that the events are anything other than part of the unbroken nexus of happenings within space-time that can be analyzed and classified along with all the rest. They are not “interventions” by someone who is otherwise absent. And—even more important—it is not that we are talking about something called religious experience as a separate form of cognition. That the word religion points to a kind of experience that is widely diffused throughout human history is an obvious fact. But that what is called religion is the only or the primary form of contact between the human race and its Creator is a mere assertion that has no logical foundation. It is simply one of the unexamined assumptions of our culture. As a member of the Christian church and from within its fellowship, I believe and testify (and the shift to the first person singular is, of course, deliberate) that in the body of literature we call the Bible, continuously reinterpreted in the actual missionary experience of the church through the centuries and among the nations, there is a true rendering of the character and purpose of the Creator and Sustainer of all nature, and that it is this character and purpose that determines what is good. Because I so believe and testify, I reject the division of human experience into a private world, where the “good” is a matter of personal taste, and a public world, where “facts” are regarded as operative apart from any reference to the good. I believe that all created beings have a sacramental character in that they exist by the creative goodness and for the redeeming purpose of God, that nothing is rightly understood otherwise, and that, nevertheless, God in creating a world with a measure of autonomy and contingency has provided for us a space within which we are given freedom to search, to experiment, and to find out for ourselves how things really are. I believe that the whole of experience in the natural world, in the world of public affairs, of politics, economics, and culture, and the world of inward spiritual experience is to be seen as one whole in the light of this disclosure of the character and will of its Creator.
As we came up the ladder from physics through chemistry, mechanics, and biology, to the understanding of the human person, we reached the point where we could speak of a mutual relationship between human beings approaching full reciprocity. We know that at the deepest levels of interpersonal relationships—of friend with friend, of man and woman in love—there is always the longing for complete mutual understanding. But we know that it is never in fact complete, and never wholly free from the danger that one subordinates the other, uses the other, manipulates the other. Can there ever be complete reciprocity, or is this an unattainable ideal to be striven for but never reached? Is it a mirage or a reality that can be reached?
The Christian testimony is that it is a reality within the being of the Triune God. This testimony rests on the fact that in a life lived as part of our human history, Jesus manifested a relationship of unbroken love and obedience to the one he called Father, a love and obedience sustained by the unfailing love and faithfulness of that same Father, and that those who believe and follow have been enabled through the presence of the Spirit actually to participate in this shared life of mutual love, which is the being of the Trinity, by being made one in the sonship of Jesus. This given reality of participation is most succinctly expressed in the words of the prayer attributed to Jesus by John: “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may believe” (John 17:23). Here is the reality of a fully reciprocal relationship between the Father and the Son within the being of the Godhead, into which believers are drawn by the power of the Spirit, and out of which they can bear witness to the world of that reality from which all things proceed, for which all things exist, and by which all things are to be understood. It is a reality within which they can seek and summon others to seek that fully reciprocal understanding between persons that we can only approximate in this life but which we hope to attain fully in the life to come, when we shall know as we are known (1 Cor. 13:12).
The twin dogmas of Incarnation and Trinity thus form the starting point for a way of understanding reality as a whole, a way that leads out into a wider and more inclusive rationality than the real but limited rationality of the reductionist views that try to explain the whole of reality in terms of the natural sciences from physics to biology, a wider rationality that in no way negates but acknowledges and includes these other kinds of explanations as proper and necessary at their respective levels.
It is from this point of view that I can begin to understand and cope with a world that is both rational and contingent. For at the center of this disclosure, providing the clue to the whole, there stands the cross, on which the one whose purpose is the source and goal of all was slain in shame and dereliction, and the resurrection, in which that very death became the source of life. This precludes any shortcuts to meaningfulness that would ignore the radical contingency of things. The sort of immanent rationality that supposes that everything can be explained in mechanical, organismic, or mathematical terms is excluded, and so is whatever supposes (after the manner of some kinds of religion) that everything is controlled in the interests of the good as I conceive it. The meaningfulness of things seen in this light is compatible with the recognition of mystery that can only be borne in the course of a resolute following on the way of the cross. On the one hand, one is protected from a sheer irrationalism, for which there is no meaning in the world and everything is incomprehensible accident. On the other hand, following the way of the cross in the light and power of the resurrection, one is able to acknowledge and face the reality of evil, of that which contradicts God’s good purpose, in the confidence that it does not have the last word. Here, in the responsible acceptance of this communication of a personal purpose of good, is the ground upon which it is possible to believe that the world is both rational and contingent.