readoldthings

1. According to Plato, an eternal Creator God created the gods-- Cronus and Rhea, Zeus and Hera, and the rest that we know from mythology-- and he then gave them the task of creating the bodies of human beings. Our souls, however, were created by the Creator God, because our souls are immortal, and only an eternal being can create immortal forms.

 

From the Timaeus: "Now, when all of them, both those who visibly appear in their revolutions as well as those other gods who are of a more retiring nature, had come into being, the Creator of the Universe addressed them in these words: 'Gods, children of gods, who are my works, and of whom I am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble, if so I will. All that is bound may be undone, but only an evil being would wish to undo that which is harmonious and happy. Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved, nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of your birth. And now listen to my instructions:-Three tribes of mortal beings remain to be created-without them the universe will be incomplete, for it will not contain every kind of animal which it ought to contain, if it is to be perfect. On the other hand, if they were created by me and received life at my hands, they would be on an equality with the gods. In order then that they may be mortal, and that this universe may be truly universal, do ye, according to your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of animals, imitating the power which was shown by me in creating you. The part of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and you-of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then interweave the mortal with the immortal, and make and beget living creatures, and give them food, and make them to grow, and receive them again in death.'"

 

2. In The City of God, Augustine tells us that the beings that the Platonists refer to as "the gods" are in fact the holy angels of the True God.

 

City of God, Book 9, Chapter 23: "If the Platonists prefer to call these angels gods rather than demons, and to reckon them with those whom Plato, their founder and master, maintains were created by the supreme God, they are welcome to do so, for I will not spend strength in fighting about words. For if they say that these beings are immortal, and yet created by the supreme God, blessed but by cleaving to their Creator and not by their own power, they say what we say, whatever name they call these beings by. And that this is the opinion either of all or the best of the Platonists can be ascertained by their writings. And regarding the name itself, if they see fit to call such blessed and immortal creatures gods, this need not give rise to any serious discussion between us, since in our own Scriptures we read, The God of gods, the Lord has spoken; and again, Confess to the God of gods; and again, He is a great King above all gods." This opinion is confirmed by St. Thomas Aquinas as well.

 

3. Medieval thinking regularly had lesser divine beings doing the active work of creation, as in the Cosmografia of Bernardus Sylvestris, where God is basically badgered into Creation by a group of goddesses.

 

4. And of course, this point of view is central to the Western occult tradition, in which angels are seen to be set over everything in the material world-- including higher concepts like the four elements, the planets of astrology or the spheres of the Tree of Life-- and much of magic of magic consists of finding out the names of these angels and getting them to cooperate with you.

 

5. Stephen C. Meyer is one of many scientists and thinkers in the Intelligent Design movement who claim that the structure of the cell, and of DNA as a kind of coding language, make the case for a creator. An introduction to his work can be found here: https://signatureinthecell.com/about-the-book/ . Dr. Meyer explains his theory in detail here. 

 

My intention here isn't to debate Intelligent Design. I think that Meyer and others make a very good case for it. Of course, I might be wrong, and so might they. But what I want to do is assume that they are right-- if so, what can we conclude?

 

Intelligent Design proponents often claim to be agnostic about precisely *who* or *what* they are claiming the Intelligent Designer is. But if you listen to their talks, they regularly refer to the designer as "God." And what they mean is the Christian God, usually understood through the lens of Protestant theology. They make claims which sound roughly like this:

 

"DNA shows evidence of being a coding language. However, it is much more complicated and much more advanced than anything that we have created or could create. The designer of DNA must be extremely intelligent. Therefore, it was designed by God."

 

I'm sort of putting words in their mouth here. They actually say "Therefore, it shows evidence of design" and then repeatedly imply that the designer is God.

 

The trouble here is this. God isn't extremely intelligent. He's infinitely intelligent. And, actually, he isn't even infinitely intelligent-- he is Infinite Intelligence. Suppose DNA shows evidence of having been designed by a being-- or, what seems more likely, a group of beings, or a member of a group of beings-- much more intelligent than humans. How much more? A thousand times? A million?

 

A being with an IQ of 10 million is not only not God, such a being is still infinitely less than God.

 

If our DNA-- the coding language which creates our bodies, and the bodies of all living creatures-- shows evidence of design, it is evidence of design by a very intelligent, very powerful, but nevertheless finite being. Such a being is not God.

 

6. Another detour. Hindu philosophy speaks of three components to the self. There is the material body, the nature of which is obvious; the subtle body, which consists of mind and of the kinds of subtle energies that are worked with in yoga, qigong and similar practices; and finally, and far more distinct from these two, there is the true self, the observer or atman. (I am oversimplifying here.) It is easy to see that the observing self is distinct from either the mental or physical bodies. Look at the room around you. What do you see? I see a cafe full of people, a table with my computer, a coffee and a stack of books; my hands at the keyboard. I close my eyes and visualize the scene, as completely as I can. My visualized cafe is not the same as the physical cafe, but both are images. The part of me which perceives the images is not an image-- it is without content. The image in my mind falls apart as soon as I open my eyes; the image of the cafe will crumble in due time. My body will die, and my mind with it. It is the observer that-- at least in theory-- persists, or can persist, from this life to the next. The observer does not contain images, but sees them. The observer does not die with images, but persists after them. It therefore has the qualities of simplicity and immortality. These qualities can only come from a simple but eternal being. The observer is not created by our DNA, which only creates the body that the observer uses to observe the physical world. Therefore it was not created by the being or beings that created DNA as a coding language to produce life.

 

Therefore, the observer, which is the soul, was created by God.

 

And our bodies, which are produced by DNA, were created by the beings who created DNA.

 

7. Therefore, if Intelligent Design is true, the Platonic account of creation is true. And the Intelligent Designers have found evidence not for a literal interpretation of Genesis but for the Timaeus; not for Sola Scriptura Protestantism but for classical Christian Platonism.

 

8. (As a postscript, if this is correct, God is still the creator in a higher and truer sense than the angels/gods he tasked with material creation, as demonstrated by Proclus. From Elements of Theology, Proposition LVI: "Everything which is produced by secondary natures, is produced in a greater degree by prior and more causal natures, by whom such as are secondary were also produced.")

 

9. (And as a second postscript, the best modern rendition of this idea can be found in the fictional account of Creation given by J.R.R. Tolkien at the beginning of The Silmarillion.)

 

10. (Oh, and, actually lastly, it's worth noting that the Creator God in the Timaeus isn't the same as the highest eternal principle that Platonists call The One. But doesn't St. John the Evangelist make exactly this claim when he tells us that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.")