Perfection

The desire for perfect and unconditional truth, love, justice/goodness, beauty, and home distinguish human consciousness from animal consciousness, and explain why humans have creative capacity beyond preset rules, and why human beings have a natural propensity toward the spiritual and transcendent.

These activities reveal the specialness of human beings, which makes them deserving of special value.

They are called “transcendental” because they all seem to have a limitless horizon, and human beings seem to be aware of their limitless possibilities, and seem to desire their perfect (limitless) fulfillment.

There is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome(DNA). God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

If the human genome can be viewed as the language of God, then human beings can be viewed as the consummate expression of that language, and it is not unwarranted to say, from a scientific and faith perspective, that human beings are made in the image of God (Gen 1:27 – “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”).

Human thinking is not based on a set of prescribed axioms, rules, or programs, and is, by nature, beyond such prescribed rules and programs.

If one is to deny this transmaterial dimension, one will simply have to ignore the stark differences between animal and human consciousness; to ignore human awareness of limitless horizons of truth, love, goodness/justice, beauty, and Being/home; to ignore the remarkable properties of human creativity, and to ignore the natural human capacity to seek a transcendent God.  

It is unjustifiable to rush into materialistic reductionism, naïve identifications of animal and human intelligence, and a denial of the human capacity for self-transcendence. If one stops short of these simplistic positions, one remains open to the specialness of human beings, and therefore open to their special value.

What gives us the capacity to experience what seems to be transcendent  joy–love–awe–unity–holiness–quiet? Indeed, what enables us to sense transcendent otherness, and to be able to bridge the gap between ourselves and this transcendent Other? Does not the transcendent Other have to bridge the gap to us? If so, then our sense of perfect and unconditional home further reveals our connection and participation with a transmaterial (spiritual), self-transcendent domain.

If we examine our own desires and capacities in the domains of truth, love, goodness/justice, beauty, and being/home, it is difficult to deny the presence of transmaterial awareness and desire which seems to indicate a connection with a transmaterial source of that desire. This connection, in turn, reveals the transmaterial dimension of human beings.

If we wish to reduce humanity to mere materiality, to mere artificial intelligence, and to mere animalic consciousness, we will not only have to ignore Gödel’s proof for non-reductionistic (not programmed or restricted) human intelligence, we will also have to equate ourselves with beings that lapse into sleep without the stimulus of biological opportunities and dangers. More than this, we will have to deny the presence of all the above transcendental desires within ourselves (desires which cannot be explained through algorithmically finite – physical – structures). This seems a rather high price to pay, for it would mean condemning ourselves to ignore everything that matters – truth, love, goodness/justice, beauty, being/home – at its highest possible level. Do we really want to do this, all for the cause of defending materialism or justifying serious violations of the principle of non-maleficence? (we should act in ways that do not inflict evil or cause harm to others).  It would seem to be complete self-negation in the effort to negate the true dignity of every human being. This is probably not the best way to make the most of our lives.

For more details: http://magisgodwiki.org/index.php?title=The_Transcendentals