Friday, January 29, 2010

Disneology #8: What about Evolution?

ASSIGNMENT 9: CATCH A MEAL AT THE “SCI-FI DINE IN” RESTAURANT AT DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. STUDY THE ALIENS. DO YOU NOTICE ANY SIGNS OF AN IMPLICIT BELIEF IN EVOLUTION? WALK THROUGH PANGANI FOREST OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. IS THERE ANY EVOLUTIONARY RHETORIC TO BE FOUND?

The most stressful and emotionally divisive debate between scientists and theologians is over the issue of evolution. Conservatives (who may have even misinterpreted fellow conservatives’ positions on this issue) consign fellow conservatives to Satan because they think the others do not totally agree with them. Liberals dismiss as silly anyone who is not a “true believer” in Darwinism (something that is far from being proven, itself). The entire discussion gets rather mean-spirited, at times. My goal in this commentary is give fair theological consideration to all sides of the theological issue, to help people wrestle with their own views.

In my last commentary, I mentioned evolutionists who believed that logically, there must be more intelligent life on other planets. The “logic” of this belief is expressed in the Drake Equation, developed by Frank Drake, in 1961: N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L, whatever that means! The name of this “branch of science” (that, so far, has produce zero empirical evidence of any kind of life on other planets) is “astrobiology.” A famous popularizer of extraterrestrial intelligent life theory and astronomy, Carl Sagan, even came up with a plan for attaching some sort of message to U.S. spacecraft that may be destined to leave the earth permanently. Sagan, clearly, was not thinking some extraterrestrial “plant” would be able to decipher his message. Sagan’s hope was that his message might eventually be interpreted by some extraterrestrial intelligent life form that might find our spacecraft. Some of Sagan’s notions are dramatized in the 1997 movie, Contact. These ideas were clearly floating around before Sagan and Drake became famous. Disney producers were already toying with the relationship between evolutionary theories and extraterrestrial life in the 1950s.

On December 4, 1957, the Disneyland television series on ABC TV aired an episode entitled “Mars and Beyond,” directed by Ward Kimball. The episode is included in a Walt Disney Treasures collection entitled Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond, available through Amazon.com. Film critic Ernest Rister (http://dvd.ign.com/articles/518/518352p1.html) explains that the episode offers “the history of evolution on Earth (creationists, beware) in a sequence that strongly echoes the "Rite of Spring" sequence from Fantasia, without re-using any of the 1940 animation. Then we are shown how life may have evolved on other planets in a bravura animated set-piece that is as strong as anything to come out of the Disney studios in the 1950s.”

This piece of textual evidence may be important proof that Walt Disney believed in evolution, but does that mean he rejected creation theology? Even if Disney accepted evolution as an explanation of the origin and development of life on earth, has evolution been scientifically proven? Believers in gradual evolution have been hoping that the study of fossils (paleontology) will yield scientific evidence of the various transitional stages of development each genus and species went through as it evolved. They are searching for “missing links.” The website AllAboutScience.org (http://www.allaboutscience.org/missing-link-faq.htm) reports:

“Stephen J. Gould, America's most famous evolutionist . . . stated, ‘The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary . . . textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism. I wish only to point out that it was never seen in the rocks.’”

Gould’s comments may be used by theologians who wish to reject concepts of evolution altogether. Such theologians may insist that “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record” may be taken as proof that gradualism (evolution) did not occur. Such a view may, of course, be supported by the biblical creation account, which uses the phrase “according to its/their kind/s” throughout creation (Genesis 1:11, 21, 24, 25). This “kind/s” terminology may indicate a doctrine of the existence of biological boundaries that are not crossed by evolution. Hence, there would necessarily be missing links. Nevertheless, there may be other theologians who are persuaded that some evolution/gradualism did occur. Does the biblical creation account rule out any possibility of evolution/gradualism?

The issue is “how” God created and/or made things. Genesis 2:8 states that God had “planted” a garden in Eden, but this is surely not an indication of how God made plants. Planting presupposes that one has seeds to plant. Given the existence of seeds, even humans can “plant” a garden. Did God form each plant or seed that grew? Perhaps, but Genesis does not make that claim.

Genesis 1:11 indicates “how” God made plants. He SPOKE to the land: “Let the land produce vegetation.” Genesis 1:12 confirms: “The land produced vegetation.” One way of viewing this phenomenon is to say that God delegated to land the capacity for producing plant life. If land, then, was given by God the capacity to produce life, we should not be terribly surprised if, at some point, humans—putting together the right combination of chemicals from the land—are able to see that “land” (i.e., a chemical combination) produce life (in a test tube, for example). My high school science teacher predicted to me nearly a half century ago that we were on the verge of such an accomplishment. It has not happened yet.

In a somewhat similar manner (but with a curious departure in the way it is phrased), in Genesis 1:20, God SPOKE to the waters: “Let the waters teem with living creatures.” Did God, then, endow the waters with the capacity to produce animal life? Possibly. Possibly not. Note that in Genesis 1:21, “God created . . . every living and moving thing with which the water teems.” This seems to be a special act (hence, the use of the word “created”). Water animal life was the first level of animal life. As I noted before, there are just a few times Genesis employs the term “create” in the creation account. This is one of them.
In Genesis 1:24, we return to a formula similar to the formula for making plants. God SPOKE to the land: “Let the land produce living creatures.” If God delegated to land the capacity for producing plant life, and then (later) the capacity for producing living creatures, it may be that once God created elemental animal life (in the waters), the land was given the capacity for developing that animal life. In other words, there appears to be some room for a somewhat theologically-based evolution/gradualism theory.

Note, however, that Genesis once again employs the term “create” when it comes to humans. Genesis 1:27 states: “God created man in his own image . . . male and female created He them.” Genesis 2:7 adds the detail that God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life before man became a living being. I commented in Disneology #6: “The term ‘create’ is used by Genesis only in terms of creating the ‘heavens and the earth’ in 1:1 . . . creating ‘the great creatures of the sea and every living’ thing in the sea in 1:21 (the beginning of animal life), and God creating ‘man in his own image’ in 1:27.” Nevertheless, all creation seems to have been accomplished by God “speaking,” with the lone exception of the creation of Adam. Those theologians who wish to accommodate some form of evolution/gradualism theory in their theology would do well to pay attention to the significant shifts of these three “create” events.


Regardless of whether biblical theologians choose to reject evolution altogether or to accommodate some elements of evolutionary theory in their theologies, there is a motto borrowed from the Restoration Movement that could be useful in reducing the theological community stress over this issue. I refer to the motto on page 36 of my book, The Seven Cs of Stress:

There was a nineteenth century motto promoting church unity, which suggested: “In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love.” The second element of that catch phrase is a principle of anarchy. There may be instances in which each individual should have the latitude to decide for himself or herself. When there is no compelling reason for everyone in the group to be doing the same thing, why not provide liberty/anarchy?

Is there a compelling reason for every theologian to hold exactly the same view regarding the evolution issue? When Martin Luther debated the Catholic Church over The Ninety-Five Theses, he tried to establish the compelling basis upon which he thought all Christians could find unity: Sola Scriptura (the Bible alone). If a theologian cites a plausible biblically-based argument for the opinion s/he holds, it may be a situation that cries out for liberty (and love).

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Disneology 7: Does Creation Theology Matter?

ASSIGNMENT 8: RIDE THROUGH “SPACESHIP EARTH” AT EPCOT AND NOTICE DISNEY’S RAPID PRESENTATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION. BEGINNING WITH CAVE DRAWINGS (WHICH SCHOLARS DATE NO EARLIER THAN SOME 30,000 YEARS AGO) HUMANS HAVE FOUND WAYS TO COMMUNICATE SYMBOLICALLY WITH ONE ANOTHER. EGYPTIANS TURNED THESE SIMPLE ART SYMBOLS INTO A LANGUAGE OF HIEROGLYPHICS. PHOENICIANS DEVELOPED A MORE UNIVERSAL ALPHABET. GREEKS PHILOSOPHIZED, AND ROMANS SPREAD COMMUNICATION THROUGH A NETWORK OF ROADS.

Creation accounts have been a part of the religious traditions of these ancient cultures and virtually all other cultures since the beginning of recorded history. While some modern Judeo-Christian theologians find it convenient to distance themselves from biblical creation accounts, others question why that is the case. Science is certainly not afraid to tackle issues of the origins of the universe, as we have been discussing. Even if the author of Genesis could not have personally known what happened so many years before he was born, there is no reason he should be prohibited from offering an explanation of how the world began. Furthermore, there is room for argumentation that could place the account in Genesis 1 in a context similar to that of current scientific theory.


Virtually every ancient culture offered explanations of our origins. The Egyptians focused on the role of the Nile River in creation. They saw the beginning as a mass of chaotic waters, called Nu or Nun. To this beginning they added Sun, Moon, Earth, and Sky gods. The (immortal, but not eternal) earth god and sky goddess eventually gave birth to Isis and Osiris, names better known to our generation, but Egyptian mythology (with such features as the earth god lying on his side to form mountains) did not survive as a serious explanation of the beginnings of the world. According to an account of Phoenician creation mythology dating at least as far back as the first century A.D., there was first chaos; then from a cosmic egg, creation of the universe began. Mayan creation stories begin with sky and sea, and then the creation god Kukulkan (whose pyramid, incidentally, may be seen at the Mexico Pavilion in Epcot) speaks the word “Earth,” and the Earth rises from the sea. Following this, the thoughts of Kukulkan create mountains, trees, birds, jaguars, and snakes; finally, humans are created (first, out of mud; second, out of wood; third, as monkeys; and finally, as full-fledged humans). Vying with Genesis as the oldest creation account is the Babylonian creation myth. The Babylonian account we have is developed from Sumerian myths, in the 12th century B.C. According to this account, god/s did not exist at the beginning of the universe. Instead, sweet and bitter waters comingled and created many gods. Then, one god born of two others, Marduk, eventually defeated and killed the bitter waters, Tiamat, in a colossal struggle. Earth was created, followed by the moon, then the Sun. Finally, humans descended from the gods. Greek creation mythology began with chaos, a watery state ruled by Oceanus, and as in the Babylonian account, reproductive activity on the part of the gods and goddesses produced the Greek gods. Poiseidon, one of the great Greek gods (known by the Romans as Neptune), is featured in a fountain statue in the Italy exhibit in the “World Showcase” at Epcot.

Of all ancient explanations of the origins of the universe, only the Hebrew account has withstood the test of time. Only the Hebrew account has continued throughout years of Modernism and Postmodernism to survive the vast onslaught of scientific skepticism and Postmodern relativism. Even so, the Hebrew account of world origins remains under severe attack and is strongly derided by many. So, should theologians bother to fight this battle? The answer to that question is “Absolutely!” This issue goes to the very heart of keeping the terms “creator” and “omnipotent” in definitions of God. How could the world and everything in it be the product of one omnipotent agent, if there is no agent capable of creating the world? Without an Agent, would the world have any Purpose? How could any hope of an “afterlife” be placed in God, if He was not even capable of creating the “present” life? If there is no afterlife, not only the descriptive terms “omnipotent” and “creator” but also the terms “eternal” and “immutable” should be removed from our definition of God. If God did not create the universe, how could anyone claim that He is “omnipresent” in it? If He is not omnipresent, how could He possibly know all things (be “omniscient”) about it? In short, what happens to our entire definition of God (from my November 28, 2009 commentary, “Disneology 1”), if we apply Occam’s Razor to creation?

If God is not omnipotent, eternal, immutable, omnipresent, and omniscient, are we to assume that no one is and that the humans we call geniuses are at the top of ladder, when it comes to approximations concerning these characteristics? Not even evolutionists are willing to go there. They believe that, since there is “intelligent” life on Earth, logic demands that there must be “even more intelligent” life elsewhere in the universe. There must be aliens who are more intelligent (-scient), aliens who are more powerful (-potent), aliens who can extend their lives further (approximating eternity), etc. Do we have any clear proof of the existence of such aliens? No, it’s just a theory. Yet, here is this Hebrew account of the existence of a God who created the universe, written more than 3,000 years ago, positing a more intelligent, powerful, eternal being, capable of creating the entire universe. This ancient account still stands in basic agreement with the best scientific evidence we have concerning the chronological order of the origins of the universe. It even supplies the missing link that the Big Bang theory cannot: Where did the energy to produce the Big Bang come from? It supplies a dramatistic (cf. Burke’s Pentad) explanation for our existence, something Occam’s Razor had complicated for science. Since humans seem to be hard-wired with a dramatistic nature, it explains why we have that nature. And, since humans have the capacity to be intelligent, powerful, and creative life-extenders, the very existence of the human species seems to argue for the existence of God, a being with even greater supplies of these same characteristics. There is something built into the human psyche that seems to cry out: “God created the heavens and the Earth.” Perhaps, that is why “creation accounts have been a part of the religious traditions of . . . virtually all cultures since the beginning of recorded history.”


The other ancient religious traditions of creation have fallen by the wayside, because they were filled with silly, base, and clearly erroneous stories. How then could a Hebrew author, living 3000 years ago, provide such an insightful (and difficult to destroy) account of the origins of the universe? On pages 95-96 of my book Psychotic Entelechy: The Dangers of Spiritual Gifts Theology, I offer the following obvious observation:

“Genesis provides a rapid-fire account of more than two thousand years of human history prior to Israel’s four hundred year sojourn in Egypt. Prior to the account of human history, Genesis offers a one-chapter account of the creation of heaven, earth, and the plant and animal kingdoms. Presumably, if Moses authored the creation and human history accounts, he would need some inspiration from God to certify that his account was accurate.”

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Disneology #6: Which Came First? Plant life or the Sun?

I refer to the chronological order of creation. As strange as it may seem, I see some strong advantages in the fact that Disney presents a god-less picture of the origins of the world. The strongest advantage lies in our being offered a non-theological perspective with which to compare our theological perspectives. The order of Creation in Genesis mirrors the order of the origins of the universe as depicted by science in Disney’s Epcot exhibits. The following is a chronology supplied by Genesis 1 and Epcot’s Universe of Energy and Living Seas Preshow exhibits:

Gen. 1:2: “formless and void” mass
Disney: Big Bang

Gen. 1:3: “light”
Disney: “Cloud-covered planet” but “Volcanoes spew”

Gen. 1:6: “the expanse . . . separated the water under the expanse from the water above it”
Disney: “wait and wait and wait . . . until clouds of gasses condense and rain upon the planet”

Gen. 1:9: “Let the water . . . be gathered into . . . seas”
Disney: “rain and rain and rain . . . . the Deluge . . . finally stopped; the Sea had been born”

Gen. 1:11: “Let the land produce vegetation”
Disney: “ underwater volcanoes,” “small plants . . . single-celled,” phytoplankton produce photosynthesis; other vegetation produced chemosynthesis

Gen. 1:14: “lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and . . . serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years”
Disney: After the “sea had been born,” the sun is now finally visible in the Living Seas Preshow film. The same phenomenon is shown in the same order in the Universe of Energy.

Gen. 1:20: “Let the water teem with living creatures and let birds fly”
Disney: underwater animal life (in the Living Seas preshow) and water-dependent dinosaurs and pterodactyls (in the Universe of Energy)

Gen. 1:24: “livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals” followed by “man”
Disney: Other lizards . . . humans

ASSIGNMENT #6: RECALL THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS IN THE BRIEF ONE-MINUTE CAPSULE OF THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE IN “UNIVERSE OF ENERGY.” THEN, VISIT “THE LIVING SEAS” ATTRACTION AT EPCOT. UNFORTUNATELY, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE, THERE, TO VIEW WHAT WAS FORMERLY “THE LIVING SEAS PRESHOW FILM.” THAT FILM HAS NOW BEEN REPLACED WITH A MUCH LESS THEOLOGICAL “NEMO’S ADVENTURES” RIDE. IT IS NEVERTHELESS WORTHWHILE TO WATCH (ALBEIT, A RATHER POOR COPY OF) THIS FILM AT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qdu3QCuzgg
I think a further explanation is appropriate here concerning the problem some have with the introduction by Genesis of the Sun, Moon and stars on Day Four. The Bible does not say plants were “created” before the sun, moon, and stars. The term “create” is used by Genesis only in terms of creating the “heavens and the earth” in 1:1 (which seems to imply [in the term “heavens”] that the Sun, Moon, and stars were already created by Day One), creating “the great creatures of the sea and every living” thing in the sea in 1:21 (the beginning of animal life), and God creating “man in his own image” in 1:27. The Bible only implies that on the 4th day, the sun, moon, and stars were made visible in the firmament, to divide day from night. On the implication of “visibility” in Day 4, what else could lights dividing day from night, being markers for seasons, days, and years, and shedding light upon the earth be? This chronological issue of when the Sun, Moon, and stars came into being seems to be the only serious objection non-believers cite regarding the order of creation in the first chapter of Genesis. Disney’s exhibits provide a visual tour of prehistory: The big bang happens, the earth is hot, there is light (from the hot magma and volcanoes) and the “waters” are so hot, they are nothing but vapors surrounding the earth so dense that no light from sun-moon-stars is visible, the earth starts to cool, water vapors begin to condense and gather into seas, vegetation begins, and finally the condensation is so thorough the sun-moon-stars are visible from the surface of the earth. The point I am making has to do with the fact that, at some time prior to the sun-moon-stars becoming visible from the surface of the earth, the earth’s waters were in a gaseous form, hovering above the land surfaces. We know that these water vapors, if they were suspended above the surface of the Earth in gaseous form would be impenetrable by sunlight since we can see that, after they condensed and became the sea, we need only go below the surface of the sea a few thousand feet before we encounter absolute darkness.

ASSIGNMENT #7: NOW THAT YOU HAVE THEOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF CREATION, DO WHAT GOD DID: TAKE SOME TIME TO REST AND ENJOY HIS CREATION (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER):

GO TO THE LAND PAVILION AT EPCOT AND TAKE THE RIDE “LIVING WITH THE LAND” TO ENJOY THE CREATION OF VEGETATION. FOR THAT MATTER, JUST TAKE IN ALL OF THE SCENIC LANDSCAPING OF ANY DISNEY PARK. ENJOY PLANT LIFE!

VIEW THE SHOW “IT’S TOUGH TO BE A BUG” AT THE ANIMAL KINGDOM TO GET A GLANCE AT REALLY SMALL ANIMAL LIFE.

ENJOY THE UNDERWATER CREATURES OF THE LIVING SEAS EXHIBIT AT EPCOT.
VISIT THE SHOW “FLIGHTS OF WONDER” AT THE ANIMAL KINGDOM TO BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE BIRDS OF THE AIR. YOU WILL SEE MORE BIRDS ON YOUR SAFARI AND WALKS THROUGH PANGANI FOREST AND THE JUNGLE TREK.

TAKE A JEEP RIDE AT KILIMANJARO SAFARIS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM TO SEE A WIDE VARIETY OF CREEPING THINGS (CROCODILES), LIVESTOCK, AND WILD ANIMALS.

WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR SAFARI, STROLL THROUGH MAHARAJAH JUNGLE TREK AT THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. THEN SEE THE HIGHEST LIFE FORMS BEFORE MAN—THE APES—AT PANGANI FOREST.

THROUGHOUT YOUR VISIT TO WALT DISNEY WORLD, YOU WILL ENCOUNTER GOD’S HIGHEST CREATION, GATHERED TOGETHER FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD: HUMAN BEINGS.

Hopefully, you will agree with God’s assessment in Genesis 1:3: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

Friday, January 8, 2010

Is God MIA at WDW?

ASSIGNMENT #5: VIEW THE FIREWORKS PRESENTATION (“WISHES”) AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM. COUNT THE NUMBER OF NONENTITIES THE DISNEY CORPORATION ENCOURAGES YOU TO “BELIEVE” IN—THE WISHING STAR, BLUE FAIRY, ETC. NOW, RECALL THE BRIEF ONE-MINUTE CAPSULE OF THE ORIGINS OF THE UNIVERSE, AT THE “UNIVERSE OF ENERGY.” DID YOU SEE ANY REFERENCE TO GOD, THERE? WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS TRUE? WHAT WOULD CHANGE, IF GOD WERE INSERTED INTO THE SEQUENCE?

If, as I have suggested in my previous Disneology commentaries,
• Those who believe the heavens and Earth took a long time to develop need not throw out Judeo-Christian theology, and
• The Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe is not at odds with a Judeo-Christian theology,
why does the “Universe of Energy” exhibit eliminate God from the picture of the origins of the universe?

The Magic Kingdom DOES have a Fantasy Land, something missing from Epcot. Clearly, the Disney imagineers viewed the Magic Kingdom from a perspective different from their perspective on Epcot. Peter Pan flies off with you to Never Never Land. You ride a Honey Pot on a blustery day with Winnie the Pooh. You help Seven Dwarfs rescue Snow White from the Quicked Ween, I mean Wicked Queen. So, it’s easy enough (with a wink and a nod) to suggest that you should believe in pixie dust, wishes, stars, and fairies. Yet, there is something eerie about Disney’s “Wishes” fireworks presentation. It seems to coalesce too closely with Disney’s Make-a-Wish Foundation. It suggests to children who may have serious or even fatal diseases that there “truly” is a force in the universe capable of performing miracles, if they truly believe. What is this force? Apparently, it is anything but God. Why is Disney so fearful of suggesting even the equivalent of what our country unabashedly proclaims on its currency: “In God we trust”? Disney does not need to protect itself against “separation of Church and State” charges; it’s a private company.

Just outside Epcot’s “American Adventure” in the “World Showcase,” during the Christmas season, quite explicit theological accolades are accorded to Jesus, every year, in the “Candlelight Processional.” The “American Adventure” shows Abraham Lincoln relying on God during the Civil War and does not shy away from the Declaration of Independence with its reference to our Creator. Yet, this Creator is strangely absent from Epcot’s account of the origins of the universe in “Universe of Energy.”

Blame it on something called “Occam’s Razor,” named for its inventor, William of Occam. Occam was an excommunicated English Franciscan thinker from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But, as Burke says, his razor is the “keystone of scientific terminologies.” Occam’s razor requires that explanations be abbreviated to eliminate any elements science might consider unnecessary to explain how things occur. Kenneth Burke refers to Occam’s razor in Attitudes Toward History, pages 59 and 166. He explains the Occamite principle in his Grammar of Motives, pages 80-81:

“If natural structure was the visible, tangible . . . embodiment of God’s will, one would simply be duplicating his terms if his accounts of motivation had both natural and supernatural terms. The natural terms should be enough, in accordance with the Occamite principle (the keystone of scientific terminologies) that ‘entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.’”

(See also Grammar of Motives 71, 95, 98, 107, 120, 138, 178, 248, and 324.)


I comment on Burke’s views concerning Occam on page 53 of my book Revelation: The Human Drama:

“[N]ature is equated with God, as the scene of man's acts, then later God and nature are turned into agonistic terms. What had begun as . . . the view that God created natural laws; hence nature could stand . . . for God . . . developed, due to the Occamite ‘principle’ . . . into the narrowing of a circumference of the scene to simply nature. The ‘natural’ then became contrasted with a no-longer-necessary ‘supernatural’ explanation."

Since the “Universe of Energy” exhibit is based on “scientific terminologies,” supernatural terminology is eliminated, in accordance with Occam’s razor. God is missing from the story. But, we cannot say that God is MIA (missing in “action”), because, without all of the elements of Burke’s Pentad—scene, act, agent, agency, purpose—THERE IS NO “ACTION.” There is no Act, if there is no Agent to perform the Act. Occam’s razor eliminated the Agent—God. There is no Purpose for the Universe, because it takes an Agent to have a Purpose.

But, why should we accept the premise of a William of Occam when the ancient Greek genius Aristotle (with his four causes) and the modern American genius Kenneth Burke (with his Dramatistic Pentad) point out the flaws in such an approach? In my earlier discussion of the syllogism, I point out that the syllogism works only if we accept the premises. Occam’s razor is a premise accepted by scientists, but shown to be flawed by Burke and Aristotle. So, what would change, if God were inserted into the “Universe of Energy” exhibit? The universe would again be endowed with meaning. Humans would be more than just the latest step in a continual, unending evolutionary process. Their symbol-using social nature would be an indication of the great purpose of God. Walt Disney’s motive of building a scene in which families could socialize would be comparable to the choice of God to build a scene in which His creatures, made in His image, could socialize with him. This seems to me to be more conducive to living “happily ever after,” a quite Disneyesque motive.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Disneology #4: The “Ding Dang,” Einstein, and Aristotle

ASSIGNMENT #4: IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER EVERYTHING FROM THE LAST ASSIGNMENT, VISIT THE ATTRACTION “UNIVERSE OF ENERGY” AT EPCOT AGAIN. THIS TIME, PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHAT BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY, CALLS THE “BIG BANG” AND ELLEN CALLS THE “DING DANG.” IF A SCULPTOR PLANS TO SCULPT A STATUE, S/HE MUST DECIDE WHETHER TO SCULPT IT OUT OF SOAP, ICE, ROCK, GOLD, BRONZE, WOOD, ETC. WHAT “MATERIAL” WAS USED TO FORM THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO THE FILM? HINT: IT MAY BE RELATED TO THE NAME OF THE ATTRACTION.

Two thousand three hundred years before Burke explained his Pentad, with its Agent and Purpose, another genius, Aristotle, contended that there was PURPOSE in the natural world. Aristotle’s term for Purpose was one of Aristotle’s four major causes of action. TELOS is known as the Final Cause—the purpose for which things in nature occur. Aristotle also saw an Agent in the natural world--the person, force, or cause that began the act. ARCHĒ is known as the Efficient Cause. Aristotle taught that the agent/ARCHĒ used a third type of cause to accomplish the Purpose. HULĒ is known as the Material Cause.


I explain how these causes of Aristotle relate to Kenneth Burke’s views in my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy. Here, I especially want to emphasize the Material Cause—HULĒ. If God created the heavens and the Earth, what material did He create them out of? Was there some sort of preexisting material (HULĒ) that God used?

Theologians since the second century A.D. have debated whether the universe was created EX NIHILO (out of nothing), EX MATERIA (out of some preexisting material), or EX DEO (out of God’s nature itself). If you hold the position (mentioned as a possibility in my previous commentary) that the exact point in the beginning of creating that the first day described in Genesis is somewhere in the beginning, but the Earth is apparently already in existence, albeit in a formless and chaotic state, it is possible (but not necessary) to hold an EX MATERIA “biblical position.” Actually, you are not required, by accepting this translation, to hold any specific position on the origin of the material used to form the universe. You could also hold an EX NIHILO or an EX DEO “biblical position.” Honestly, if you accept this translation, you could even hold an agnostic position on this issue, and still be a Bible believer. You could say that the Bible does not tell us, so we “do not know” (=meaning of the term agnostic).

On the other hand, there is John’s creation theology in the first chapter of his gospel. Even if Genesis 1:1 does not absolutely commit Judeo-Christians to a position that the material world is not eternal, the first chapter of John seems to do the trick, at least for Christians: “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. By [the Word] all things came into being. And without [the Word] nothing was made that was made.”

This is where Ellen’s “Ding Dang,” Bill Nye’s “Big Bang,” Einstein’s E=MC², Aristotle’s HULĒ, Disney’s Universe of Energy, and Kenneth Burke’s Logology all converge. And, theological discussions of EX NIHILO, DEO, and MATERIA are not far removed from this issue. According to Einstein, Mass (or Aristotle’s HULĒ) can be changed into Energy, and vice versa. Einstein explains his theory of relativity, as follows:

"It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing -- a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E is equal to m c-squared, in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa. The mass and energy were in fact equivalent, according to the formula mentioned above. This was demonstrated by Cockcroft and Walton in 1932, experimentally."

You may listen to Einstein make this statement “in his own voice” at http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/voice1.htm.

The Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe is based on the notion that “in the beginning” there was a huge conversion of Energy into Mass—a Big Bang. But what was the source of this tremendous supply of Energy? Theological answer: God. Even more specifically, for John, the energy present in the spoken Word of God. Although John eventually equates this spoken Word with Jesus, at first he is just stating the Jewish theological concept of the origins of the universe:
• God is Spirit.
• Spirit is spoken word.
• God’s Spirit was the energy source that created the heavens and Earth, originally it their chaotic (formless and void) conditions.
• God’s Word/Spirit brought into being all of the order in the universe.

This view is not at odds with a hypothetical Big Bang theory. In fact, this view supplies an important answer for adherents of the Big Bang Theory that physics and Disney’s Universe of Energy do not supply—the source of the tremendous supply of Energy that was converted into Mass.