Faith: The Rhythm of Reason and Hope

Evolution is a process whereby there is a species of individuals that exist through time in generations, with each new generation capable of new and different features that are selected by an environment, which causes the proceeding generation to be different from the previous one. If the creativity of the new and different features is unlimited, and the selective pressures change sufficiently, then the change in the species that the process of evolution can produce is itself unlimited, given enough time.

Evolution is not merely change. It involves, as described above, a species (or collection) of individuals, that exist in generations, where each new generation has new features, that are selected by an environment. Evolution is often discussed in the realm of biology, and it is the most commonly accepted theory among biologists accounting for the origin of diversity of the species. Often evolution is invoked when simply change over time is actually intended, and the phenomenon in question lacks one of the key components of evolution, mentioned previously.

Evolution of an animal species would involve an animal species such as a certain type of moth, the individual moths, the generations of moths, the various features that the moth is capable of expressing such as color or wingspan, an environment such as the English countryside and a selection such as certain moths being eaten because their dark color exposes them to predators. In this scenario, evolution can describe the change in the moth species from a dark color to a light color after the introduction of a factory that leaves a white film over the newly industrialized English countryside.

Evolution can exist in other phenomenon as well when the basic requirements of evolution are met, such as technology, and, more specifically, particular technological devices that large numbers of people use on a daily basis that are capable of significantly and directly impacting the schedules, thought processes, and daily life of people. We will call this subset of technology Personally Integrated Devices (PIDs), or just devices for ease of speech.

In order to apply the tools of evolution to devices we need to understand the characteristics of a particular piece of technology that makes it a PID. Then we can view these devices through the lens of evolutionary theory and see if it provides any insight into human behavior and the technologically infused world of certain modern societies.

A Personally Integrated Device is anything that is not a part of the human body and not another biological species, that exists in generations where each new generation the potential for new features, that is used by a large amount of people within a society and is used often enough to affect that persons life, their decisions, and the way they perceive the world. Two things that might fit this description are viruses and clothing. Viruses exist on a hard to categorize line between living and nonliving material, and so they might fit into the "not another biological species" category and would thereby be ruled out of being a PID. If not, they are certainly not human, they exist in generations, each generation can have new features, some are involved in a large number of people within a society, and obviously affect the lives of those people. However, because it is not clear that they are "used" by people, and for other reasons, we will not include them in the definition of a PID.

Clothing, and other common tools and materials used by people, might fit the previously given description of a PID. Clothes are not apart of the human body, they exist in generations since new clothing needs made and often with new features (styles), used by essentially everyone, and clothing effects the lives of people, their decisions, and the way they view the world. Clothing effects everything from morning routines to partner selection.

Other things that fit this description are TVs, desktop computers, laptops, phones, tablets, and other similar devices. These devices certainly fit the description of a PID, and have a particularly new and pronounced effect on the lives of people, their decisions, and their view of the world. It is these in particular that we will focus on, using the term device to discuss these particular PIDs (keeping in mind that other things such as clothing might fit the description of a PID).

Now to apply the concept of evolution to these devices. Obviously devices are individuals (the particular device that a particular person has) of a species (phones in general) and each new generation is capable of new and different features (touch screen that can fit into your pocket, for example). However, is there an environment that selects which features the next generation of devices has?

The device environment is not the human environment, even though spatially these devices almost always exist together with the humans that own them. The device environment is the desires of people that either choose to use the device a lot and ignore the device and eventually discard it or otherwise cease using it. In order for evolution to be applied to devices the features of the device must be capable of effecting the choice of the person to either use the device more or discard the device. Since it is clearly the case that when people use these devices their choice of whether to continue to use the device or discard it is significantly impacted by their actual use of the device itself. This point needs clarified and stressed. A person who has never used a smart phone laughs at the idea that they one day would say that they can't live without it. Their use of the smart phone itself changes their choice as to the importance of the smart phone. In this way, the smart phone is competing in the environment of that persons desires and behaviors, and is selected (that is, survives) if it can change that persons behaviors to include the use and protection of the device.

When viewed through this lens, we can see an active evolution occurring among devices, where the survival strategies being employed involve the manipulation of the desires and behaviors of the people themselves.

The creative engine behind the features of devices used to be the creativity of engineers. However, devices can now creatively adapt through machine learning. This machine learning is centralized in a geographically separate place, however the resulting effect is new features being acquired by the device that is physically present with the person.

This survival strategy of devices has ensured the survivability of the species by becoming so important to the human being that, in often said words, "I couldn't live without my smart phone."

Is this relationship parasitical? This question can be answered philosophically by looking at the ideal of what a person should strive for or empirically by looking at how societies involved in this relationship behave. However it can also be answered personally. When you go to sleep on a Sunday evening thinking about your week to come, do you think in that moment that it would be ideal for you to spend 10 hours on twitter in the coming week? The philosophical and empirical answers are just as obvious.

Sometimes this parasitical infection by the device reaches levels with noticeable and sometimes sever symptoms. A person might be incapable of holding a conversation without stimulus from their phone, might be jittery when sitting without their phone, feel depression or anxiety when they for some reason cannot use their phone, are spending hours a day scrolling through apps, and may have other symptoms. We will call this severe case of the parasitical infection Technological Mental Disease (TMD).

TMD should be researched as a medically diagnosable disease. Its affects should be studied individually and societally. Prevention mechanisms should be put into place to prevent it.

One of the most clear observations that we can make of the world is that it is complex. By complex I do not mean difficult to understand, although the world is often difficult to understand as well, but rather I mean that it is composed of multiple things. The opposite of complex is simple, which, in this usage of the word, means singular or whole. Another example of this use of these words is in chemistry where a simple molecule is a molecule with a single atom and a complex molecule is a molecule with more than one atom. This first observation of the world is both obvious, important, and yet easy to forget. Another observation that we can make is that for two things to relate to one another they must relate by some principle. We could say that a hammer and a rock relate by the principle of smashing things. The head of the hammer breaks apart the rock. We could offer a more robust example such as boiling water and metal relating by the principle of heat transfer. Many examples could be given, but the point is that two things must relate by some principle.

This observation that the world that we observe is composed of many things that all relate to each other by some set of principles is a generalized observation that many others have made in the history of philosophy. Some will describe this in terms of cause and effect or using other philosophical concepts. However, I have found it useful to generalize this to the simple observation that the world is composed of multiple things, and these things interact or relate in various ways.

A few other observations can be made. If there is no principle of relation between two things, then it would be as though those two things existed in entirely separate worlds. They would simply have no knowledge of each other, so to speak. This means that there needs to be a principle of relation between all things. If you continue to press the question, eventually everything needs to relate to everything else. This thought process inevitably leads to the observation that there must be a single principle that relates everything to everything else. We could call this the first principle. Also observe that there could not be no first principle, for how else would anything relate to other things? Secondly, observe there cannot be more than one first principle, for how then would those two principles relate? If there were two “first principles”, then you could simply ask how those two principles relate. We are led to the conclusion that there must be a single first principle that is the principle of relation of all other things.

This is a more generic analogue of the statement that you could follow the cause and effect relationships between things back to a first cause of all things. However, a principle of relation is more generic and emphasizes the fact that this first principle is not some “originating cause” that has it’s effect, kicks the clock work into motion, and thereafter is hands off. Rather, this first principle relates things to each other continually. So when we say “first cause” we do not mean temporarily first, as if God acted at time equals zero, but substantially first. To say it differently, just as there is nothing back of God causing God to be God, God is also back of everything else causing everything else to be, at all times.

This observation is extreme simplicity in that it denies all complexity and composition in God. Other examples of simplicity would be moderate simplicity. For example, a simple sports team would be a team with one player. However this is moderate simplicity in that the single player is still a composition in manifold ways. However, when we say that God is simple we are denying all forms of composition in God. This doctrine of simplicity is witnessed in the scriptures, is the foundation of monotheism, and has been confessed by christians for millennia. Any composition in God begs the question as to how those individual things which are not God come together to be God. First, if these things that are in God come together to be God, how do these things individually exist, and, by what principle do these separate things relate to each other as to compose God? Said differently, denying the absolute simplicity of God by the slightest bit, indicates the existence of at least two things that exist without God, cause God to be God, and indicates the existence of some principle or cause that is more fundamental than God. All of these outcomes shred the biblical witness, monotheism, and the christian confession throughout the ages.

As an aside, when discussing simplicity one thing that needs to be avoided is the sneaky introduction of time in our statements. We could say that there is nothing before God that causes God to be God. However, this assumes that God is an agent in time, and that time is somehow more fundamental than even the discussion of the simplicity of God. One way that we can avoid this is to amend the previous statement and say that, there is nothing back of God that causes God to be God. We have replaced the word “before” with “back”. Now this introduces spatial language instead of temporal language into the discussion. However, when speaking of God, no matter what we do, our language will be inadequate, and so we simply need to choose the statement that is the least prone to error. Given that people more readily understand that God is not circumscribed by space than understand that God is wholly outside of time, using the spatial term of “back” is less prone to error than the temporal term of “before”. And so, there is nothing back of God that causes God to be God.

When speaking of these concepts one of the things that must be done is to take time to pause and discuss the usage of words. Learning theology often involves learning a phrase that is akin to a formula, such as that God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions”. And then learning what those words mean in this theological context and how they are composed in the phrase. So here I want to pause yet again and think about this word, “circumscribed”. Another thing that helps when defining terms in a particular theological context is to start with the definition in it’s common modern use, then proceed to narrow in on what it means in a particular theological context. And so, circumscribed means for one thing to fully surround or contain another thing. If you draw a circle around a picture of a rabbit, the circle circumscribes the rabbit. If you put apple butter in a jar, the jar circumscribes the apple butter. So what does it mean that God is not “circumscribed” by time and space? Well to start, it is another way of saying that God is eternal and omnipresent. To say a particular circle does not circumscribe God is obvious, but to say that space itself cannot circumscribe God is to say that God cannot be measured with spatial dimensions like physical objects can. God is not ‘here’ or ‘there’. The property of spatial location is not a property of God like it is for physical objects. And the same applies to time, that God is not measured in temporal dimensions. He is not “then” and “now”. Neither time nor space is a property, or part, of what constitutes God as it is for created things.

We could expand this to say that God is not circumscribed by anything, including our language (which is to say that God is incomprehensible), nor time (which is to say that He is eternal), or space (which is to say that He is omnipresent) and therefore He is infinite in the truest, unlimited sense of the word. To say that God is infinite is to say he is not circumscribed by anything, which is to say that he is not parameterized, or constituted by, the properties that constitute other things, such as ourselves. Here we have shown a connection between many of the attributes of God including his infinitude, eternality, incomprehensibility, and omnipresence. As we can see here, the attributes of God are not a list of isolated qualities that we pick and choose. They are all deeply interconnected, a fact that strongly hints toward simplicity itself, which declares an absolute identity between the attributes of God themself. But more on this later.

So what have we said so far? A simple observation of the world is that it is composed of multiple things related to each other in various ways, and this leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is a first principle which relates, or causes, all things. God is therefore the first principle of all relation, or said differently, the first cause of all things. Additionally, God must be absolutely simple and all composition whatsoever must be denied of God. If God was composed of parts then there is something back of God that causes God to be God. And finally, we have stated that this doctrine of simplicity is the foundation of monotheism. My goal is to make these statements not indirect conclusions but direct observations. These are direct observations of the world which we are capable of making ourselves and confirming with both scripture and the historical christian confession.

The church fathers placed the doctrine of simplicity as necessary to a proper confession of monotheism and as the anchor point for the doctrine of the trinity. Modern theologies usually reverse this, and deny or augment the doctrine of simplicity on the basis of the doctrine of the trinity. We may also feel like this is the right move to make but upon inspection we find that the church fathers made the right move. The doctrine of simplicity frames and structures our understanding of the trinity. This might be a difficult leap to make at first, similar to asking someone to pour the milk into their bowl before the cereal. Old habits are simply hard to change. As we progress we will see more and more as to why the doctrine of simplicity should guide our doctrine of the trinity and not the reverse. However, to touch on this only quickly, we can at least outline the basic reasoning.

First, we can state positively that only a doctrine of the trinity that rests on simplicity can be a truly historic trinitarian confession of faith. Or said more simply, the doctrine of the trinity was developed by church fathers who themselves relied on simplicity. And so to strip away the foundation from the conclusion is to destroy the doctrine itself. Secondly, the doctrine of simplicity is not only amenable to the doctrine of the trinity, but necessary. For the doctrine of the trinity is not only about the threeness of God but also the oneness. Trinitarianism was from the outset and has always been monotheistic, a three in one, not just three. To have trinitarianism without simplicity is to speak of the threeness of God without the oneness of God, which is no trinitarianism at all. Finally, we speak of the threeness of God as the absolutely simple substance of God relating to itself. Again, we will expand on this slowly, but I wanted to outline the arguments early.

This doctrine of simplicity is something of a great filter on theology in that all belief systems can be described as either being based on simplicity or complexity, and I would argue that this is the most foundational characteristic of a philosophy or religious belief. Paganism is the belief in a complexity without any underlying simplicity. The pagan gods are all forces in a material world of unending complexity without any underlying simplicity. Modern materialism is essentially an augmented paganism in that it again replaces the simple first principle with a complexity of things without any underlying principle of relation. Atheism is expressly predicated on the denial of the doctrine of simplicity. In fact, the word atheism means exactly that. Non theism, which can be alternatively stated as denying simplicity. What we see is that when comparing the philosophies of christianity to paganism, materialism, and others we see that one takes seriously the necessity of simplicity, while the others miss the absolutely fundamental first observation that we can make of the world, which is that it is a composite that demands an underlying simplicity.

A polemical tactic of atheists has been to categorize belief systems as falling into two main categories, religious and non religious. This makes paganism and theism and other "religious" beliefs into one category and has atheism stand alone in its own unique category. However, this is the wrong way to categorize belief systems. The better categorization is between beliefs based on a doctrine of simplicity and those based on a doctrine of complexity. The philosophy of paganism and polytheism share more in common with atheism and materialism than they do with monotheism. And the reason is the “mono” of monotheism, meaning “one”. Polytheism and atheism are both based on a principle of complexity. From the outset a robust monotheistic belief stands categorically apart from other beliefs. It is also worth noting that all belief systems that incorporate a robust doctrine of simplicity are rooted in the Abaramic and Mosaic tradition. “And God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am” and “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Compare these statements from Exodus and Deuteronomy to the first line of the Second London Confession that describes god: “The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself.”

In comparison, the differences between paganism and atheism are minor. Both put forward an unexplained complexity with no underlying simplicity. They differ in their ability to understand and predict the complexity that they put forward. One puts forward rational agents that can be inconsistently predicted with motives. The other puts forward rules based material that can be consistently predicted with mathematical formula. This is a good step forward from paganism, but still fits into the same category and fails to grasp the totality of reality and its underlying unity.

In contrast, a philosophy of simplicity puts one on the track towards understanding and appreciating the complexity of creation, and more importantly its simple underlying principle of relation, the Lord Himself.