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global interactions among systems of cells. Moreover, when it comes to scientifically
inquiring into the nature and origins of consciousness and other mental events, the
principle of reductionism may actually obscure the phenomena one is trying to
investigate.
The Closure Principle. The adoption of the principle of reductionism as it was formulated
in twentieth-century scientific materialism implies another of the principles of this
metaphysical dogma: what has come to be known as the closure principle. According to
this belief, the physical world is  causally closed  that is, there are no causal influences
on physical events besides other physical events.
The closure principle has proved to be a useful hypothesis for the investigation of
a wide range of interactions among physical phenomena; but if there are any nonphysical
influences on physical events, unquestioning acceptance of this belief will ensure that
those influences will not be recognized. Some scientific materialists have misleadingly
argued that the closure principle must be a universal truth because scientific research has
found no evidence of any nonphysical influences in the natural world.16 The
distinguished biologist Edward O. Wilson, for instance, declares that the religious belief
in a God who directs organic evolution and intervenes in human affairs  is increasingly
contravened by biology and the brain sciences. 17
Natural philosophy, as it was envisioned by Descartes and other participants in
the Scientific Revolution, had only the physical world as its proper domain, and this has
been largely true of science ever since. Moreover, never in the history of modern science
have instruments or methods been devised to detect the presence of nonphysical
influences of any kind. Research in modern biology and the brain sciences is conducted
with the assumption, hardly ever questioned, that there are no nonphysical influences in
organic evolution or in human affairs. So the fact that scientists have not discovered any
such influences should hardly come as a surprise. And at this point in history, it is
certainly premature to declare that scientific knowledge of organic evolution and brain
activity is so complete that nonphysical influences can be absolutely ruled out on purely
empirical grounds.
Particularly with regard to the human mind, the closure principle seems to be
incompatible with experience, for our conscious mental processes, which have not been
demonstrated to be composed of configurations of mass and energy, certainly do appear
to influence human behavior. Advocates of the closure principle assume that the apparent
influence of our desires, beliefs, and intentions on our behavior is actually an
illusion all behavior is in fact determined solely by the interaction of the nervous
system with the rest of the body and the physical environment. However, contemporary
neuroscience does not even remotely possess sufficient understanding of the brain to
verify this assumption on the grounds of empirical evidence. If for no other reason, the
fact that modern science does not know how or why consciousness first appeared in terms
of the evolution of life on our planet or in the development of a human embryo should
make it abundantly clear that the closure principle is a metaphysical belief and not a
scientific fact.
Physicalism. With the widespread adoption of reductionism and the closure principle in
the nineteenth century, due in part to the widespread acceptance of the principle of the
conservation of energy,18 scientific materialism abandoned its Judeo-Christian origins.
No longer could this metaphysical dogma conform to the Judeo-Christian belief in a
nonphysical, personal God who intervenes in the course of nature and human history and
who responds to the prayers of individuals. By the nineteenth century, the only religion
with which scientific materialism remained compatible was Deism, a religion contrived
in part by the proponents of scientific materialism itself.
Albert Einstein was among the most eminent scientists educated in the nineteenth
century to declare that the concept of a personal God is utterly incompatible with science
and that it is the major source of conflict between religion and science. This theological
stance, however, did not prevent him from believing in a universal Superior Mind that
reveals itself in the world of experience. This Deist view retains the Christian belief that
God possesses an absolute perspective on reality, but it denies that God influences natural
events in any way.19 In other words, God is conceived of as an ideal scientist, a purely
objective observer who sees reality as it is without any personal, subjective intervention.
Twentieth-century scientific materialism abandoned belief in any form of theism
by adopting the principle of physicalism, which states that in reality only physical objects
and processes exist. In other words, only configurations of space and of mass/energy and
its functions, properties, and emergent epiphenomena are real. A closely related principle
maintains that everything that exists is quantifiable, including the individual elements of
physical reality, as well as the laws that govern their interactions. At this point scientific
materialism becomes compatible only with some of the more primitive nature religions.
The  God s-eye view of reality that was the earlier ideal of scientific materialism has
been replaced by the ideal of the  view from nowhere. 20 That is, the ideal of pure
objectivity has been retained, but it has been divorced from the theological underpinnings [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]