23 June, 2000

How It All Comes Together: God - Life - Soul

I have been induced to write this essay by a personal compulsion to understand some very important things and to make a permanent record of my understanding of them in some sort of order; a record I can refer back to when I have the need to express myself on rather complex abstract ideas. The important things I am referring to encompass metaphysical and theological conjectures and beliefs.

Having started on this journey of important intellectual discoveries rather late in life, I do not have the time, the requisite training, or the energy that it would take to acquire the very large volume of knowledge necessary in order to become truly competent in all aspects of the philosophies involved. I am, therefore, driven by a certain degree of impatience and haste. I am going to make my own conjectures so that I can round out my own beliefs and comprehension, aware of the fact that I base them on a relatively scant exposure to the thoughts of the philosophers of record which extend back some 2500 years. I am prepared to modify or alter my views later, if I find that I have taken a wrong turn. A navigator knows that there is nothing irresolute about adjusting one's course; in fact, it is the proper thing to do. I am also quite aware that my conjectures, uninformed by sufficient study, are most likely naive expressions of what has already been proposed centuries before. Karl Popper, a noted philosopher of the 20th century, tells of what happened to him once long ago. He thought that perhaps he had ideated a novel philosophical principle, only to find out afterwards that it had been stated long before by Xenophanes (c. 570-475 BCE). Therefore, I hope that philosophers will kindly tolerate any declarations I may make in ignorance of, and without proper accreditation to, the primary authors of the ideas in question. I would never usurp someone else's ideas intentionally.

I thought that "How it all comes together" is an appropriate title for this tale, because "it" really did all come together for me like a flash of enlightenment one day, the "it" being the interweaving of the concepts of God the Creator, life, soul, moral values, and natural law into one fabric of understanding. How this sudden revelation of the conceptual entirety came about deserves explanation because it bears testimony to the great benefits that accrue from casual discussion of ideas with a compatible partner.

I have been pursuing my random philosophical studies for the past three years, or so. While so engaged, I have been a frequent visitor to the local public library. An outlet for one of the chains of coffee-shop franchises is located right in the library, and the franchisee (he is addressed as CK) has become my very good discussion partner. We have already worked our way through religious beliefs, evolution, the creation of this universe, and natural law, to name the big issues. About a year ago, Mortimer J. Adler's works got me interested in Aristotle and, specifically, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. I had prepared a synopsis of the Aristotelian ethics, again mostly to organize my own understanding of them. As usual, I passed a copy of my essay to CK. As usual, having read the essay, CK asked some probing, valuable questions on the subject the next time we met. CK has served as a great intellectual invigorant to me. Many times his questions have spurred my investigations onto new and ultimately very rewarding departures.

CK is an intellectually devoted Christian. That is, he takes his religion seriously in an intellectual manner, rather than that of a simple and simplistic member of the flock. On this occasion, while discussing Aristotle's teaching about what constitutes a good life and also the fact that we must reserve judgment on the life in question until it is over, CK asked me whether Aristotle believed that we have an immortal soul. We had previously discussed the soul question at length on several occasions, mainly in the context of religion. Although we have our differences of opinion regarding the soul and its fate after death, we have agreed to disagree on the topic, since there is no certain evidence to be had either way, only belief and conjecture. As to what Aristotle believed re the soul, I couldn't give CK a definite answer. But his question set me off on another investigation.

First, I returned to The Self and Its Brain, by Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles (1977), which I had read before some time ago. This work is perhaps the most complete, scientifically leading-edge testimonial to the hypothesis that an incorporeal soul exists. Furthermore, I discovered that in chapter P4 of that work, Popper provides an excellent summary of the ancient Greek concepts on the soul, which was really very useful for my present purpose. I also decided to consult Aristotle's De Anima and re-visit the Nicomachean Ethics in order to find out what Aristotle had to say specifically on the nature of the soul.

Besides questions about the soul, CK and I have also had the usual encounters with several other of the ages-old dilemmas: what is this universe; what is time; how did life begin here on earth and perhaps elsewhere as well; who or what is the Creator - the entity which made it; who or what runs this system (if anything runs it) and how does who or what run it. There are also the dilemmas with good and evil, free will and predestination, human nature, natural law, etc.

During our encounters with these dilemmas I have had occasional sparks of "what-if" conjectures flash through my mind, concerning the several riddles of our existence, but these sparks remained isolated incidents which I did not pursue further. Then, during one of our recent discussions about the soul, CK posed this question: Physical life is known to begin when the spermatozoon penetrates the egg. At what point does the soul of the individual so conceived begins to exist within that individual?

For some minutes I was left in thought. My initial reaction to the riddle in CK's question was to concede that here we have another of those unfathomable mysteries of the kind that we had encountered so often while in pursuit of an understanding of existence. But then, something like an epiphany flooded my mind. I suddenly grasped hold of a reasonable conjecture that would answer CK's question, at least to my own satisfaction. What is more, I quickly realized that by answering CK's question with this conjecture I was opening an avenue for further conjectures that would provide answers, in my opinion (mixed with a dose of pure belief), to some of the questions of the other riddles. (As Adler says in a related context, "truth of doxa, never the truth of episteme"). What follows, then, is my attempt to do that.

The Agenda

I wish to organize the presentation of my arguments in what I consider to be a logical sequence of the several components of the subject. The components belong within the general subject of the meaning of the All, of our concepts of everything that we see, feel and think in the universe. Here I want to confine my arguments mainly to facts and conjectures about the beginning and development of living things, including Homo sapiens, and the convergence of moral philosophy with natural law. The points of the agenda are:

A. Beginning and development of life on earth;

B. Development of the understanding of a "soul";

C. A theory of linkage of life and soul;

D. How it all comes together: God, life, soul, natural law.

A. Beginning and development of life on earth

In cosmology, the most commonly accepted theory of the formation of our universe is colloquially called "the big bang" -- a huge explosion of energy from an infinitesimally tiny source in an infinitesimally small moment of time. I will not venture into the complex physical theory underlying this conjecture, because for my purposes I can stipulate the creation of the universe as a given. But it is worth noting here that Mortimer Adler offers a comparable philosophical concept to the "big bang", called "exnihilation" [1, p.34]. This term denotes the creation of something out of nothing. It should be noted that our concept of "nothing" in this instance simply means that we cannot possibly conceive of the "what" from which the "something" was created. Physicists, in their turn, will also admit that they do not preclude the existence of "something" else before the big bang. I will describe later on how the concept of exnihilation has served my purposes in a somewhat different application.

In my opinion, one of the nicest efforts to reconcile the creation as described in Genesis with the complexities of the physical theory of creation is by Gerald L. Schroeder [2]. Schroeder presents a most interesting exposition on the meaning and measurement of time according to cosmological theories and compares this time scale to the "days" of creation in Genesis. However, we don't need to linger on the early moments of creation, but rather must make a quantum leap forward in time to the creation of life on earth.

The great majority of scientists agree that the very formation of life on earth is beyond any meaningful expression in terms of probability. If we rather go with the most recent hypothesis according to which a proto-life form arrived on earth via an asteroid, that does not change the odds for the creation of life, per se, in the universe. As Popper puts it:

... the probability or propensity of any atom, taken at random in the universe, to become (within a chosen unit of time) part of a living organism, has always been and still is indistinguishable from zero. ... we cannot give an explanation for the origin of life; ... [3, ch. P1].

Schroeder cites the mathematician Roger Penrose on the chances for life in the universe:

The renowned Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose quantified the precision needed in nature's quirks for the conditions and energy distribution at the moment of the big bang to have eventually produced an environment suitable for life. The likelihood, or better the unlikelihood, that those initial conditions might produce such a universe is less than one chance out of ten to the power of ten to the power of 123. [2, p.186]

However miraculous is the very existence of biological life as we know it, that too is not quite the subject of my argument. Let me stipulate the miracle of life and proceed to the next level -- its amazing, explosive development here on earth. That is, indeed, another miracle.

At this point I must digress briefly to talk about a "cover-up" the likes of which is not uncommon in the scientific community. These kinds of cover-up involve the ignoring, or discarding, or explaining away as unreliable those observations and data obtained in experiments and investigations that clash with and tend to disprove a currently-popular hypothesis. This particular cover-up evokes a rather personal feeling of anger in me because it was perpetrated in the discipline of geological sciences, which happens to be the field of my academic training.

The facts of the cover-up are as follows. Early in the past century, a noted professor of geology from one of the prestigious eastern universities in the United States was on a field trip in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. He came unto a fossil-rich formation of shale (known as the Burgess shale) from which he collected many samples of various fossils. He took the samples back to his laboratory for examination.

This professor of geology observed that many of the fossilized animals found in the samples from the Burgess shale layer were not supposed to be there, according to the evolutionary sequence of appearance of animal phyla set by the rigid dogma of the Darwinian theory.

Sedimentary rock strata are dated on the geological time scale by establishing the sequence of their deposition in relation to other strata, and by radioactive isotope dating techniques. The Burgess shale was dated to be 530 million years old. Because of the way that the Burgess shale deposit was formed, the fossil remains are exceptionally well preserved, in some cases showing the details of internal organs and ingested matter. Shale is formed from the mud that accumulates on the sea floor. The exceptional condition in the formation of the Burgess shale was that the mud was deposited on a sloping bottom near the edge of the continental shelf. Periodic earth-quakes dislodged the mud and made it cascade, as large mud slides, down into great depths. The marine life forms, inhabiting the continental shelf waters in large numbers and variety, were swept into the depths by the catastrophic mud slides. There they were quickly entombed and compacted in an anaerobic environment. That explains why the anatomical details of the animals are so well preserved.

Our professor of geology saw that many of the animal forms in the Burgess shale were not supposed to be there, because they were supposed to come along on the Darwinian ladder of evolution at a much later time than 530 million years ago. As a dutiful servant of the established dogma, he fudged the interpretation of some of his discoveries; he hid much of the most controversial fossil evidence in his laboratory drawers and did not report on it at all. These fossils were only found again decades later, after the death of the good professor.

As I mentioned above, these kinds of acts that violate the very principles by which a scientist is to work in pursuit of the truth are not uncommon. Unfortunately, organized science is as dogmatic and stifling as organized religion. A prime example of this dogmatic tyranny is the fate of that reviled heretic of established science, Immanuel Velikovsky. It is best left to Schroeder to state the scientific importance of the Burgess shale fossils.

Sponges, rotifers, annelids, arthropods, primitive fish, and all the other body plans represented in the thirty-four animal phyla extant today appear as a single burst in the fossil record [of the Burgess shale]. And it happened 530 million years ago. Those are the data. No one disputes them.

Based on radioactive dating of rocks that bracket the Cambrian explosion, the development occurred within a period of five million years. The sediment deposits of the five-million-year span are at places 300 meters thick. Throughout the depth of this sediment, and therefore over the entire five million years, there is little or no change in the morphologies of these animals. In a leap, life moved from single-celled protozoa and the amorphous Ediacaran clumps to multicellular complexity. According to the fossil record as we currently know it, the simultaneity was literally true. [2, p.89]

The reason why I am reporting on this particular deception in considerable detail is because it tried to hide another miraculous event in the development of life on this planet. Of course, the deception, or cover-up, was perpetrated because the Burgess fossil evidence knocked the Darwinian theory of evolution off the rails. To me, the miracle of it is that the entire, immense set of genetic codes -- the building blocks for every life form imaginable -- appeared on earth at the same time. The evolutionary process comes into play only insofar as certain environmental conditions and climate change -- gradual, or catastrophic -- favors the prominent development of some genetic combinations while suppressing the development of others. It is a known fact that in the genetic make-up of any one animal or plant phylum there are many genes that are dormant. Quoting Schroeder again, first on the over-abundance of genes in very simple life forms and then on the distinctiveness of the genetic make-up of the different phyla:

Molecular biology has discovered that some forms of single-celled algae have as much as one hundred times the amount of DNA (genetic information) per cell as do mammals. A genetic library that large could indeed contain the basic information for the forms of plant life that appeared much later. [2, p.204]

[The vertebrates] have many similarities. All resemble a more ancient form of a land-dwelling quadruped. All fall within the same type, or phylum, of animals known as Chordata (animals with vertebrae). In brief, their genomes (i.e. the genetic information held on the DNA of their chromosomes) share a common background that started 530 million years ago. With such a long common ancestry it is to be expected that their genetic material contains many similar inherited genes with which to construct similar organs.

Animals of different phyla do not share this common ancestral history. Approximately 530 million years ago the basic anatomies of all currently existing animals, from sponges to vertebrates, appeared simultaneously. Because all the phyla appeared suddenly and simultaneously, the different phyla do not share a common genetic history above the level of protozoans. [2, p.104]

In summary, when we talk about life on earth, we must recognize three highly improbable events to have taken place: (1) the creation of life itself in the universe, (2) the creation of the huge set of genetic codes and, (3) with respect to life on earth -- its sudden explosion in all its many forms. I will conclude with another quote from Schroeder:

Cosmology has come to agree that there was a beginning (Gen. 1:1). Biology has discovered that indeed life on Earth started shortly after the appearance of liquid water (Gen. 1:9-12) and that three billion years later animal life exploded in a burst of aquatic organisms (Gen. 1:20-21) hosting all phyla alive today. [2, p.33]

B. Development of the understanding of the "soul"

The discussion of the beginning and development of life on earth is a foundation for, and has a bearing on, the discussion of the meaning of the soul. If we reach back into ancient times, even into primitive times, we find that a majority of men have believed that human beings have a soul. Different opinions have been held on whether the soul is a material substance or an incorporeal, abstract entity which has also been called a spirit, or ghost. The other major difference in belief has been whether the soul dies with the body or whether it possesses immortality of some sort, which includes various forms of belief in reincarnation.

Here I am concerned mainly with how the Greeks thought of the soul, because it is the Greek philosophical heritage which is the foundation for our current concepts of the soul. In particular, I am focusing on Aristotle's understanding of the soul because it has a direct bearing on the moral and ethical component of the soul which is found in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics [5]. In addition, I have discovered that Aristotle's conjectures about the soul, found in De Anima [4], are the most explicatory and most acceptable to me.

To the modern, 21st-century person who is not familiar with ancient Greek philosophy (that includes most of us), much of the speculation by the Greeks on what is matter and what is soul seems on first look to be downright childish. And yet, even if their scientific knowledge was primitive, the basic ideas behind many of their conjectures were pointing in the right direction. For a brief summary of how the ancient Greeks dealt with the concept of soul, I have excerpted and paraphrased from Section 46 of Chapter P5 of The Self and Its Brain [3].

In Greek philosophy the soul was an entity, a substance, which sums up the conscious experience of the self. Already in fifth century BCE Pythagoreanism considered the soul to be incorporeal. The Greek concepts of nous and psyche corresponds closely to the modern concept of "mind". The concepts of "mind" and "soul" are quite similar, and often are used interchangeably.

Popper sketches the history of the concept of soul in three stages: (I) the material soul from Anaximenes (d. 502 BCE) to Democritus (460-370) and Epicurus (341-271) (including the location of the mind); (II) the dematerialization or spiritualization of the mind, from the Pythagoreans and Xenophanes to Plato and Aristotle; (III) the moral conception of the soul or mind, from Pythagoras to Democritus, Socrates, and Plato.

I

Homer thought the soul was a vaporous breath. To the philosophers from Anaximenes to Diogenes of Appolonia (6th century BCE) the soul consisted of air. They regarded soul (in the general sense) as air and the individual soul as a portion of the air that one breathes in, because air to them was the finest and lightest form of matter.

Anaxagoras (500-428) may have been moving away from the concept of a purely material soul. To him the mind is the principle of motion and order -- the principle of life. He said (DK 59 B12): "Mind (nous) ... is the most rarefied of things and the purest; it has all the knowledge with respect to everything, and it has the greatest power. And all that has life (psyche), the biggest [organisms] and the smallest, all these the mind rules."

Heraclitus (535-475) interpreted all material substances and especially the soul as material processes. All material things were in flux, they were all processes, including the universe itself. All were ruled by law (logos). The soul was fire; like fire it could be killed by water.

All these thinkers were what are called "dualists" because they gave the soul a very special status in the universe. The medical thinkers of the time were also materialists and dualists. Alcmaeon of Croton (c. 535) was the first to locate sensation and thought in the brain. Theophrastus (c. 371-287) reports "that he spoke of passages (poroi) leading from the sense organs to the brain." This concept was continued by Hippocrates (c. 460-370) and Plato (428-347).

The Hippocratic medical treatise On The Sacred Disease asserts with great emphasis that the brain "tells the limbs how to act", and that the brain "is the messenger to consciousness (sunesis) and tells it what is happening. "It also describes the brain as the interpreter (hermeneous) of consciousness. Of course, sunesis can also be translated as "intelligence" or "sagacity" or "understanding". Hippocrates explains that it is the air one breathes in that gives the brain intelligence, because the air is soul.

Democritus explained all material and psychological processes mechanically, by the movement and collision of atoms, and by their joining or separating, composition or dissociation. In Democritean physics, soul consisted of the smallest atoms -- the same as those of fire -- round and able to penetrate into and move other things.

Democritus was a monistic (soul and body made of the same material) atomist. But he also ascribed moral concepts to the soul: "Men don't get happiness from bodies or from money but by acting right and thinking wide." (DK B40); "Who chooses the goods of the soul, chooses the more divine; who chooses those of the body chooses the more human." (DK B37); "He who commits an act of injustice is more unhappy than he who suffers it." (DK B45).

II

Another idea introduced by Pythagoras (c. 530) or the Pythagorean Philolaus was that the essence of a thing is something abstract (like a number or a ratio of numbers). In the tradition of incorporeality, Xenophanes (570-475) introduced the idea of monotheism. Pythagoras and his followers were fascinated by numbers and things numerical. Thus they looked for a numerical solution to everything, including the soul.

The philosophers who followed the Pythagoreans in proposing a theory of the soul and/or of the mind which interpreted them as incorporeal essences were (possibly) Socrates (469-399) and (certainly) Plato and Aristotle (384-322). They were later followed by the Neo-Platonists, by St. Augustine and other Christian thinkers, and by Descartes.

Plato extended his theory of Forms and Ideas to a theory of the true nature or essence of things in general. The soul is, very nearly, the essence of the living body. Aristotle's theory is again similar. He describes the soul as the "first entelechy" of the living body; and the first entelechy is, more or less, its form or its essence. The main difference between Plato's and Aristotle's theory of the soul is that Aristotle is a cosmological optimist, but Plato rather a pessimist. Aristotle's world is essentially teleological: everything progresses towards perfection. Plato's world is created by God, and it is, when created, the best world: it does not progress towards something better. Similarly, Plato's soul is not progressive; if anything it is conservative. But Aristotle's entelechy is progressive: it strives towards an end, an aim.

It is probable that Aristotle's teleological theory -- the striving of the soul towards an end, the good -- goes back to Socrates who taught that acting for the best purpose, and with the best aim, follows with necessity upon knowing what is best, and that the mind, or the soul, was always trying to act so as to bring about what is best.

Plato regards the body as a prison of the soul, but also thinks that the soul, or mind, or reason ought to be the ruler of the body. Plato, like Freud, upholds the theory that the mind has three parts: (1) reason; (2) activity or energy, i.e spirit or courage; and (3) the lower natural appetites. Plato, like Freud, assumes a struggle exists between the lower and higher parts of the soul. Plato describes the mind as the pilot of the body.

Aristotle too has a theory of lower (irrational) and higher (rational) parts of the soul; but his theory is biologically rather than ethically inspired. The irrational souls or essences of Aristotle may be said to be anticipations of modern gene theory: like DNA they plan the actions of the organism and steer it to its telos, to its perfection. Aristotle's psychology does possess the notion of the self-consciousness of self.

III

In the development of the theory of the soul or the mind or the self, the development of ethical ideas plays a major role. The promise of a better world to come -- if the right religion with the right rituals was adopted -- was the first step on the way to the Socratic and the Kantian point of view in which the moral action is done for its own sake, not as a price for rewards in the next life.

Both Democritus and Socrates thought that to commit an act of injustice was to debase one's soul. Socrates was the first to realize that morality was not God-given, but a World 3 product of the human mind. Socrates decided that mind, or thought, or reason always pursued an aim, or an end: it always pursued a purpose, doing what was best. Socrates also recognized another important concept, that in terms of ends, purposes, and decisions the most relevant is the conscious choice of the ends and means. This is a statement within an ethical context. It makes it clear that the ethical idea of a responsible moral self has played a decisive part in the ancient discussions connected with the mind-body problem, and the consciousness of self.

The above completes the summary of Popper's Section 46 of Chapter P5. The point I want to stress here is that, notwithstanding all the simplistic suppositions about the material world and a material soul by some of the early Greek philosophers, there were many others who, from the times of Pythagoras, conjectured an incorporeal soul, or mind. Furthermore, many of them conjectured that the soul or mind resides in the brain and controls the actions of the body. Even more significant is the recognition by several early philosophers, particularly Socrates, that the incorporeal mind or soul is the centre where moral decisions and choices are made. Socrates is the precursor of Aristotle who expanded the concept of a "responsible moral self," into a natural moral code.

In my opinion a most significant development in the soul/mind concept was achieved by Aristotle. As Lawson-Tancred says in the Introduction to De Anima, to Aristotle the meaning of the Greek word "psyche" was "that in virtue of which something is alive". Aristotle himself writes, "the soul is, so to speak, the first principle of living things," and adds, "In general, and in all ways, it is one of the hardest things to gain any conviction about the soul." [4, Bk I, ch. 1]. Indeed, for us as well as Aristotle, it is difficult to conceive of the incorporeal soul.

It is Aristotle's emphasis of his view that all living things, and only living things, of the material world have a soul that has great significance. He says, "... soul is the first actuality of a natural body which potentially has life. Now this kind will include any body that has organs -- and even the parts of plants are organs, ..." [4, Bk II, ch.1]. Aristotle later comments further on this point, saying that "... the ensouled is distinguished from the unsouled by its being alive. ... we say that the thing is alive, if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay. It is for this reason that all the plants are also held to be alive ..."; and "... the soul is the first principle of these things that we have mentioned and is defined by these things, the nutritive, perceptive and intellectual faculties and movement." [4, Bk II, ch.2].

It is the generous endowment of the intellectual faculties, faculties of mind and soul, that make us human. Thus, although many people view Aristotle's investigation of the soul as being merely from a biological point of view, Aristotle, having recognized the intellectual activity of the soul, unavoidably had to, like several other philosophers, designate the soul as the responsible agent for making important moral decisions. It could be, as Popper says above, that Aristotle's theory of the soul was biologically inspired, but Aristotle also postulated different levels of activity for different souls, and the human soul was in charge of the highest form of activity, i.e. the intellectual activity. Some quotations from the Nicomachean Ethics will confirm that this is the case:

Certainly, as sight is in the body, so is reason in the soul. [5, Bk I, ch. 6];

Now if the function of man is an activity of the soul which follows or implies a rational principle, ... we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence, and if there are more than one excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete. [5, Bk I, ch.7];

... happiness ... has been said to be a virtuous activity of the soul, of a certain kind. [5, Bk I, ch.9];

Praise is appropriate to virtue, for as a result of virtue men tend to do noble deeds; but encomia are bestowed on acts whether of the body or of the soul. [5, Bk I, ch.12];

... happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue, ... [5, Bk I, ch.13];

By human virtue we mean not that of the body but that of the soul; and happiness also we call an activity of the soul. [5, Bk I, ch.13].

Finally, I must incorporate into this discussion on the development of our understanding of the soul one of the most definitive combined neurological and philosophical studies of our time by Popper and Eccles.[3]

Popper declares without reservation that he believes "in the ghost in the machine" [3, ch. P4, sec. 30]. That is a popular expression used by neurologists and others who have concluded from observations of the activity of the brain that the brain appears to be receiving instructions from the incorporeal mind or from what Popper and Eccles call the self-conscious self, or what can also be called the soul. Further on Popper says, "The analogy between the brain and computer may be admitted; and it may be pointed out that the computer is helpless without the programmer." [3, ch. P4, sec. 33]. By the programmer Popper means the self-conscious self, which can also be the soul. In concluding the section on the relationship between the brain and the self (i.e. the soul), Popper states:

I have called this section "The Self and Its Brain", because I intend here to suggest that the brain is owned by the self, rather than the other way around. The self is almost always active. The activity of selves is, I suggest, the only genuine activity we know. The active, psycho-physical self is the active programmer of the brain (which is the computer), it is the executant whose instrument is the brain. The mind is, as Plato said, the pilot. It is not, as David Hume and William James suggested, the sum total, or the bundle, or the stream of its experiences: this suggests passivity. It is, I suppose, a view that results from passively trying to observe oneself, instead of thinking back and reviewing one's past actions.

I suggest that these considerations show that the self is not a "pure ego" ... that is, a mere subject. Rather, it is incredibly rich. Like a pilot, it observes and takes action at the same time. It is acting and suffering, recalling the past and planning and programming the future; expecting and disposing. It contains, in quick succession, or all at once, wishes, plans, hopes, decisions to act, and a vivid consciousness of being an acting self, a centre of action. And it owes its selfhood largely to interaction with other persons, other selves, and with World 3.

And all this closely interacts with the tremendous "activity" going on in the brain. [3, ch. P4, sec. 33]

Popper is known for his rational philosophy and understanding of scientific theory. He does not subscribe to the immortality of the soul because, of course, that cannot be conjectured on a rational basis, but must be left to belief. However, he does not exclude the subject from legitimate consideration as is indicated by this statement: "If there is anything in the idea of survival [of the soul], then I think that those who say that this cannot be just in space and time, and that it cannot be just a temporal eternity, have to be taken very seriously." [3, Dialogue XI]. In conversation with Eccles, Popper explains his approach to the question as follows:

Now, in connection with the question "What is the self-conscious mind?" I might say first, as a preliminary answer ... "It is something utterly different from anything which, to our knowledge, has previously existed in the world." This is an answer to the question, but it is a negative answer. It just stresses the difference between the mind and anything that has gone before. If you then ask: is it really so totally different, then I can say: Oh, it may have some sort of forerunner in the not self-conscious but perhaps conscious perception of animals. There may be some sort of forerunner of the human mind in the experience of pleasure and pain by animals, but it is, of course, completely different from these animal experiences because it can be self-reflexive; that is to say, the ego can be conscious of itself. This is what we mean by the self-conscious mind. And if we ask how that is possible, then I think that the answer is that it is only possible via language and via the development of imagination in that language. That is to say, only if we can imagine ourselves as acting bodies, and as acting bodies somehow inspired by mind, that is to say, by our selves, only then, by way of all this reflexiveness -- by way of what could be called liaison reflexiveness -- can we really speak of a self.

From an evolutionary point of view, I regard the self-conscious mind as an emergent product of the brain; ...

I am quite sure that you [Eccles] and Dobzhansky are right in stressing that the realization of death -- of the danger of death and of the inevitability of death -- is one of the greatest discoveries which led to full self-consciousness. But, if that is so, then we can say that self-consciousness arises to full self-consciousness only slowly in a child, because I don't think that children are fully self-conscious before they are fully conscious of death. [3, Dialogue XI]

I see a definite connection of thought between Popper's conceding of the possibility that the human mind "may have some sort of forerunner in the not self-conscious but perhaps conscious perception of animals" and Aristotle's theory about all living things possessing a soul. Also of significance to me is the statement "we can say that self-consciousness arises to full self-consciousness only slowly in a child, because I don't think that children are fully self-conscious before they are fully conscious of death." That implies that the self-conscious self, or soul, undergoes development and maturation along with the physical body.

The co-author of The Self and Its Brain, John C. Eccles is a distinguished neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. He has thorough and copious experience with mind-body interaction phenomena. He is much more inclined to believe in the possibility of the self-conscious mind, or soul, surviving the physical death of the brain. Eccles expresses his feeling in eloquent fashion in Dialogue XI:

The self-conscious mind is responsible for the act of attention, selecting from all the immense activities of our brain, the neural bases of our experience from moment to moment. The unity of conscious experience with all its perceptual qualities is also there in memory and in the other higher aspects of mental activity. But the self-conscious mind is not just receiving. In all these respects, both in the perceptual side and in the higher intellectual side, it is actively engaged in modifying the brain. So it is in a dynamically active relationship with the brain and undoubtedly has a position of superiority. [3, Dialogue XI]

Eccles then proceeds to pose the age-old questions, answers to which must largely be left to belief:

I wanted to stress this pre-eminence of the self-conscious mind because now I raise the questions: What is the self-conscious mind? How does it come to exist? How is it attached to the brain in all its intimate relationships of give and take? How does it come to be? And in the end, not only how does it come to be, but what is its ultimate fate when, in due course, the brain disintegrates? [3, Dialogue XI]

Of course, neither Karl Popper the philosopher, nor John Eccles the neurologist can answer these questions by purely rational reasoning. But Eccles expresses an optimistic conjecture (of faith, that is) which is also very much my own, in the following statements:

I will read just a paragraph from my book Facing Reality, on page 83. "I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin; and, that being so, I must believe similarly for each human being. And just as I can't give a scientific account of my personal origin -- I woke up in life as it were to find myself existing as an embodied self with this body and brain -- so I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions." ... I try, as it were, to face up fully to the wonder, to the terror, and to the adventure of my self-conscious life. All of these words can be used, but ultimately it's beyond my imagination or power of expression.

I believe that there is some incredible mystery about [life after death]. What does this life mean: firstly coming-to-be, then finally ceasing-to-be? We find ourselves here in this wonderful rich and vivid conscious experience and it goes on through life, but what is the end? This self-conscious mind of ours has this mysterious relationship with the brain and as a consequence achieves experiences of human love and friendship, of the wonderful natural beauties, and of the intellectual excitement and joy given by appreciation and understanding of our cultural heritages. Is this present life all to finish in death or can we hope that there will be further meaning to be discovered? ... I think there is complete oblivion about the future, but we come from oblivion. Is it that this life of ours is simply an episode of consciousness between two oblivions, or is there some further transcendent experience of which we know nothing? I think I'd leave these questions open at this time.

The self-conscious mind is to my way of thinking in a position of superiority over the brain in World 1. It is intimately associated with it and of course it is dependent on the brain for all detailed memories, but in its essential being it may rise superior to the brain as we have proposed in creative imagination. Thus there may be some central core, the inmost self, that survives the death of the brain to achieve some other existence which is quite beyond anything we can imagine. The uniqueness of individuality that I experience myself to have cannot be attributed to the uniqueness of my DNA inheritance, ... Our coming-to-be is as mysterious as our ceasing-to-be at death. Can we therefore not derive hope because our ignorance about our origin matches our ignorance about our destiny? Cannot life be lived as a challenging and wonderful adventure that has meaning to be discovered?" [3, Dialogue XI].

Eccles concludes his statement of faith by quoting a fellow neuroscientist:

I would like to add a quotation from Wilder Penfield [1969], the great neuroscientist and neurosurgeon. "The physical basis of the mind is the brain action in each individual; it accompanies the activity of the spirit, but the spirit is free; it is capable of some degree of initiative." Penfield goes on to say: "The spirit is the man one knows. He must have continuity through periods of sleep and coma. I assume, then, that this spirit must live on somehow after death. I cannot doubt that many make contact with God and have guidance from a greater spirit. But these are personal beliefs that every man must adopt for himself. If he had only a brain and not a mind, this difficult decision would not be his." [3, Dialogue XI].

I wholeheartedly subscribe to John Eccles belief. His question whether "this life of ours is simply an episode of consciousness between two oblivions, or is there some further transcendent experience of which we know nothing" is also a statement to the effect that it makes no sense to have an episode of consciousness between two oblivions. Surely, then, it also would make no sense to the Supreme Being, the Creator.

C. A theory of linkage of life and soul

I will now proceed to state, in as reasoned a way as I can, my conjectures and beliefs about what I have covered so far. The morality and natural law aspects are best discussed afterwards.

The catalyst for my "epiphany" which I recounted at the start of this essay was the concept of exnihilation. It was my "missing link" in the sequence of necessary facts and conjectures that would knit all the parts into a whole. I will argue that my missing link -- exnihilation -- is actually a more honest conjecture than the missing link of the Darwinians, by which legerdemain (never mind that it can't be found, just imagine that it was there once) they would like to prove the evolution of one species from another. The Burgess shale tells us that the Darwinian missing link(s) are entirely unnecessary. But exnihilation, or an equivalent of it, like the "big bang", is essential for us to set a beginning to everything.

Like most people, I have to start my argument with a statement of pure belief. I believe that there is a Creator or Supreme Being. Along with Anselm and Mortimer Adler I believe that "God is a being that which no greater can be thought of" [1, ch. 8, p.70].

I also agree with Adler that God is not my personal minder, an anthropomorphic image with an unkempt beard, but rather, as Adler writes:

To acknowledge God's omnipotence and omniscience, as we must, is to acknowledge that he knows and understands us better than we understand ourselves, that nothing about us is hidden from him, and that, within the bounds of possibility, he can do with us as he wills. ... However, to acknowledge this is not to be assured that God is concerned with our conduct or cares what happens to us. [1, Epilogue, p.167].

Adler delineates the boundary (which he calls a chasm) between reason and faith concerning men's expectations from God; expectations which are much greater, more particular, and very individualistic when the belief in God is based in religion. Adler says that,

... subjects that are treated in sacred theology can have no place in natural theology or philosophical inquiry. They lie beyond the power of reason to consider when rational inquiry is conducted in a pagan context and is, therefore, totally unilluminated and undirected by religious faith. As compared with the thickness of sacred theology, natural theology is very, very thin. ... Purely philosophical theology begins with the consideration of all the prerequisites of a cautious and critical inquiry concerning God's existence, and terminates with a cautious and critical appraisal of how far it can go in providing reasonable grounds for belief in God. It can go no further. It carries us up to the edge of the chasm that separates what Pascal called "the God of the philosophers" from "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob", and of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. [1, ch.17, p.154]

My belief is mostly in "the God of the philosophers", but I do step over the boundary, or chasm, just a little bit. Adler says:

... the cosmological argument ... enabled us to conclude that we have reasonable grounds for believing in God as exnihilator of the cosmos - either positively, by sustaining it in existence and preventing it from being reduced to nothingness, or creatively, by bringing it into existence out of nothing, or both creatively and preservatively. [1, ch.18, p.164]

Adler explains that exnihilation, the making of something out of nothing, "... involves the action of a supernatural cause. No natural cause exnihilates anything, either creatively or preservatively.[1, ch.14, p.132].

I believe that God -- to put it very simply -- "runs this universe" like the manager of a large enterprise. A manager delegates authority to his assistants. God delegates his authority to a set of dynamic, self-enforcing laws, which operate as a multitude of "if - then" statements in a perpetually-running computer program. In my opinion, this concept, which fits into the concept of God as sustainer of the cosmos, is not that big a step from reason into faith. My other departure from the rational is the conjecture of on-going acts of exnihilation of incorporeal souls. I would like to argue that God's exnihilation of incorporeal souls is another form of the creative process; it is different from the creative exnihilation of the physical universe in that what is exnihilated is not physical or material, nor is it in any sense understandable to us.

I can return now to the incident which provided me with the sudden understanding of the interconnectedness of all these things. I was pondering upon CK's question about when does an individual's soul commence to be. CK, being a Christian, of course was referring only to the soul of a human being.

A series of concepts assembled themselves quickly in my mind. Aristotle believed that all living things have a soul, and he defined as a living thing one that has one or more of the following faculties: nutritive, perceptive, desirative, locomotive and intellective. Some living things have only the nutritive faculty, others also the perceptive.

Let us recall what Popper says of Aristotle's conjecture about the soul:

Aristotle too has a theory of lower (irrational) and higher (rational) parts of the soul; but his theory is biologically rather than ethically inspired. The irrational souls or essences of Aristotle may be said to be anticipations of modern gene theory: like DNA they plan the actions of the organism and steer it to its telos, to its perfection. Aristotle's psychology does possess the notion of the self-consciousness of self. [3, ch. P5, sec. 46]

In other words, Aristotle saw the soul as having parts whose functions ranged from the very basic biological ones to complex intellectual ones. Aristotle himself says that "the thing is alive if, for instance, there is intellect or perception or spatial movement connected with nourishment and growth and decay." [4, Bk 2, ch.2]. But perhaps the most significant statement of all in De Anima follows shortly thereafter. It talks of different kinds of souls, some being separable from the body upon death and immortal, others being the kind that die along with the body. In Aristotle's words:

But nothing is yet clear on the subject of the intellect and the contemplative faculty. However, it seems to be another kind of soul, and this alone admits of being separated, as that which is eternal from that which is perishable, while it is clear from these remarks that the other parts of the soul are not separable, as some assert them to be, though it is obvious that they are conceptually distinct. [4, Bk 2, ch.2].

I arranged Aristotle's "faculties" of a living thing in what to me was the most logical order of sophistication, that is: nourishment, growth, locomotion, perception, intellect, reasoning. The unique property of a living thing is that it exercises these faculties on its own internal volition. The only thing that can provide this internal volition is the soul. Thus, to answer CK's question re the egg and the sperm, I conjecture that an incorporeal proto-soul is exnihilated by the Creator to the biological host at the moment when the fertilized egg begins the process of nourishment and growth that eventually leads to the first division of the cell. I consider this soul -- which I call a proto-soul -- to be at this initial stage at the same basic, primitive level as the basic incipient life form itself.

The nature and potential of the exnihilated proto-soul is tailored to the expectations of the genetic code of the life form in question. Let us recall that the genetic codes for all imaginable life forms on earth, above the simple proto-life form, appeared simultaneously (by a statistically impossible miracle, or an act of exnihilation?, take your choice). Each life form aims for what is its perfection. For man it is as stated in the Nicomachean Ethics [5]. Simpler life forms have comparably less demanding perfections to achieve. My confidence in my conjecture is reinforced by Karl Popper's comment that:

The irrational souls or essences of Aristotle may be said to be anticipations of modern gene theory: like DNA they plan the actions of the organism and steer it to its telos, to its perfection. [3, ch. P5, sec. 46].

Continuing with my conjecture: The development of the proto-soul into a soul and then into a mature soul proceeds in tandem with the growth and maturation of its biological host. As the genetic and biological complexity of the host, determined by its DNA, increases, so does the extent of development of, and demands on, its soul. As the standards of perfection grow more complex along with the more complex biological host, so does its vulnerability to external factors which can hinder the development of both the soul and the biological host, or destroy both entirely. The soul is obliged to develop more sophisticated responses and counter-moves to the more complex threats to the perfection of its biological host. The soul does not always measure up to the challenge. We all have heard, or have used, the expression "it/he/she has lost the will to live." By this we mean that the soul of that plant or animal or human has succumbed.

At this point I must divide further discussion of the life-soul linkage between that of other life forms on earth, and humans. We have indeed been endowed with an exceptional soul which merits its own, separate discussion.

Let me first describe how my hypothesis applies to the lower life forms. I am going to do that in a fashion reminiscent of the ancient Greek philosophers, thereby demonstrating that their methods still have utility today.

I begin with the simple unicellular life. Its perfection is simply to be a perfect cell and, as is the case with most unicellular life, to achieve growth by dividing itself. The demand on its soul is small: develop into the perfect cell and then divide and be annihilated. Two new souls are exnihilated for the two new cells each of which repeats the simple cycle of exnihilation - division - annihilation.

Next, lets look at a tiny animal called a radiolarium. The radiolarium builds a perfect spherical skeleton whose surface consists of an exquisite, perfectly-patterned geometrical frame. It seems logical to me to conclude that the demand on the soul of the radiolarium, however primitive otherwise, is substantial in that it is in charge of the building of this geometrically perfect skeleton.

It is not necessary to dwell in detail on how the responsibility of the soul increases in more complex life forms. The tree is a complex form of plant life; its soul must guide its complex biological system to the perfect state of maturity, guiding the growth of roots and branches to best advantage for exploiting energy from the sun and the moisture and nourishment from the soil.

When we come to the complex biological life forms of birds and mammals, the soul must manage a sentient organism with a very complicated pattern of existence. This soul has consciousness and a level of intellect and reasoning. It must manage its biological host through the complexities of gestating, birthing, nourishing, rearing and teaching the young; through the gathering of, or hunting for, food, and storing of the food for later use; through seeking or building of shelter against the elements. This soul, if it can develop unimpeded by internal genetic defects, or external agents (e.g. an impediment being the bird or mammal being placed in a cage), seeks the perfection in all the aspects pertinent to its biological host. The perfect life for a bird or mammal is to be physically strong and healthy, to be a smart and capable gatherer or hunter of food, to be a good rearer and educator of one's progeny.

Man, too, is a mammal, so, in order to meet the basic needs common to mammals, the soul of man must also strive for the attainment of perfection of its human host by using the same survival skills that are important to the souls of other mammals. However, man's soul is a very special exnihilated creation; its perfection culminates in self-consciousness, which is not the case for other mammals whose souls have only consciousness. This self-consciousness is what sets man apart from all other living things.

The self-conscious mind, or soul of man has been discussed at length by Popper and Eccles [3], some passages from which I have quoted above. Eccles presents a schematic diagram of brain-mind interaction; he lists the several names -- ego, self, soul, will -- by which this enigmatic incorporeal entity is known. The schematic shows the soul to be interacting with a specific area of the brain, called the liaison brain. [3, ch. E7, sec.50].

We say that self-consciousness of the mind or soul is what differentiates us from other animals. But what exactly do we mean by that? It is basically an awareness by the self that he/she is an individual. Now, I have conjectured that the soul of every life form starts out as an exnihilated proto-soul, with a potential for development proportionate to the genetic make-up of its biological host. The highest level of development, and one unique to the human soul, is self-consciousness. Therefore, the human soul must undergo a considerable development to reach its full potential. Popper puts it this way:

Is a new-born baby a self? Yes and no. It feels: it is capable of feeling pain and pleasure. But it is not yet a person in the sense of Kant's two statements: "A person is a subject that is responsible for his actions", and "A person is something that is conscious, at different times, of the numerical identity of its self." Thus a baby is a body -- a developing human body -- before it becomes a person, a unity of body and mind. [3, ch. P4, sec.33].

When one thinks of oneself, one is thinking of something other than one's material body or its parts. When I think of myself, I do not think of my brain or my heart. However, I am capable of thinking of my brain or my heart, and when I do, I'm thinking of my brain or heart, not of myself. Therefore, when I think of myself, or of anything in relation to myself, I am resorting to my self-consciousness.

In the above quote, Popper refers to Kant's definition of a person. I assume the definition applies to a mature individual. I think that the second criterion, regarding numerical identity of self, is common to all humans and develops early in life. The first criterion, regarding responsibility for one's actions, is ambiguous. I must assume that it refers to a sense of responsibility by the person for his/her own actions, not what actions of that person others might hold them to be responsible for. An inner sense of responsibility by a person calls for a much higher level of development of the soul, and this level of development is not attained by all human souls.

We have now arrived at the critical point of discrimination between a human soul that is merely self-conscious and one that is self-conscious and, to put it simply, also has a conscience. Conscience is the understanding by the soul of the difference between right and wrong thinking and acting, and a persistent inner force which compels the soul always to think and do right to the best of one's ability.

Conscience is both backward- and forward-looking. It is a faculty that the human soul is capable of developing for self-examination as to what it has done and what it will do. It is the only attribute of the human soul that raises it above the souls of other life forms. The attribute of a superior intelligence alone would make man only a smarter animal. The potential for the development of a conscience is the unique attribute inherent in the proto-soul which the Creator exnihilates to the human genome. This extraordinary potential is what makes many religious people of varied faiths think that they are made in the image of God, or at least are specifically favored by God, and are made immortal by God.

I believe that the fully-developed, but incorporeal and self-conscious soul with a conscience enters into the domain of the logos of the Creator, and thus avoids the annihilation that comes to other souls at the moment of physical death of their biological host.

There is still another question regarding conscience as the determinant for survivability of a human's soul: does it matter if, for whatever reason, a human's soul has functioned without a conscience for most of that human's lifetime and then develops one shortly before physical death? I know that a Christian would answer that it does not matter; the Christian believes that one's soul can be "saved" at any time before death. There is the fact that we all know of some exceptionally cruel and evil persons who have committed despicable acts during a part of their life and then have developed a conscience and spent the rest of their life expiating the bad deeds of the past with good deeds now. It seems reasonable to me that a mere backward-looking regretfulness of past misdeeds does not translate into a conscience. The development of a conscience must be demonstrated by choices, decisions, and deeds over a period of time. The length of this period of affirmation would depend on the kind of endeavors and the intensity of effort the individual is engaged in. In the final analysis, only the soul itself and its exnihilator -- the Creator -- know whether it has or has not developed a conscience.

We know that Eccles believes in the survival of the soul after physical death of the brain. But Eccles does not differentiate between souls with different levels of development. Of course, he is expressing his belief as a fully developed self-conscious soul with a conscience. One does not necessarily have to believe in some form of immortality of the soul for it to be so for that soul. Popper is skeptical about immortality of the soul, but I, for one, consider Popper's soul to have a fully-developed self-consciousness and conscience. Popper does concede the possibility of a state of survival which we cannot even fathom by stating that he would have to consider seriously "... those who say that this [immortality] cannot be just in space and time, and that it cannot be just a temporal eternity, ..." [3, Dialogue XI].

To conclude this part on the life-soul linkage, I quote some advice from Aristotle:

We must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. That what is best and most pleasant for a given creature is that which is proper to it. Therefore for man, too, the best and the most pleasant life is the life of the intellect, since the intellect is in the fullest sense the man. So this life will also be the happiest. [5, Bk X, ch.7]

To that I would like to add what I quoted earlier from Aristotle:

... we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul exhibiting excellence, and if there are more than one excellence, in accordance with the best and most complete." [5, Bk I, ch.7]

I think that I can assume that when Aristotle talks about straining ourselves to be immortal and living in accordance with the best thing in us, and when he says that our life consists of actions of our soul, and that a good man is so defined by his good and noble performance, and that human good is an activity of the soul exhibiting excellence, Aristotle is saying the same thing as I am, i.e., that survival (immortality, if you will) is achieved by that soul which has developed fully its self-consciousness and its conscience.

D. How it all comes together: God, life, soul, natural law

I recall reading some years ago the book Natural Law and Natural Rights, by John Finnis; Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980. On page 18 of that book Finnis defines natural law thus: "A sound theory of natural law is one that ... claims to be able to identify conditions and principles of practical right-mindedness, of good and proper order among men and in individual conduct." Elsewhere in the book Finnis says that natural law embodies the practically reasonable, pre-moral principles of right and wrong which are 'per se nota' (self-evident). I posed a question at the time of reading this, which asks whether this theory of natural law could be the link to other laws of nature obeyed by the animate and inanimate components of the universe? To my knowledge, most thinkers and philosophers about natural law are adamant in keeping the moral law which applies to human conduct separate from physical laws of nature.

Now, having conjectured that the human soul is but a very special case of the souls that are exnihilated to all living things, I am inclined more than ever to say that that which we designate as the natural law of human conduct is, at the least, part of the Creator's (natural) laws which apply to other living things, and most likely the natural law that applies to living things is just a sub-set of the set of dynamic, self-enforcing laws to which, as I said before, God delegates his authority in the functioning and maintenance of all his creation. The self-consciousness and conscience of our souls, along with their greater potential for developing a high level of intelligence, is what allows us to comprehend the logic of these laws, whereas lower life forms without these attributes of the soul do not enjoy the privilege of understanding them. Our souls are exnihilated with a much greater potential for the development of intelligence than souls of lower life forms. Therefore, our souls have many more options to choose from in deciding on a course of action in response to a particular circumstance in life.

I think that the laws I refer to are identical with natural laws, and that what Finnis terms the practically reasonable, pre-moral principles of right and wrong which are self-evident, are so described by us because they apply specifically to us humans. I dispute the term "pre-moral". It is my contention that the principles of right and wrong are parts of God's natural laws and as such they always have been equivalent to -- if one so prefers -- moral principles.

The Nicomachean Ethics remains, still, after 2400 years, the most comprehensive, non-religious treatment of ethics and morals ever written. A man of our own times, Mortimer J. Adler, is arguably the greatest-ever expounder and popularizer of Aristotle's philosophy in general and Aristotelian ethics in particular. With regard to the commonsense natural moral philosophy of Aristotle and Adler, I have yet to come across anything significant that I would disagree with. I will conclude making the linkage between the soul and natural law by drawing on the thoughts of both men.

Aristotle's understanding of ethics, and Adler's elaboration of them into a natural moral code, is based on a few key concepts which I will summarize and remark on from my perspective of the soul and natural law. To begin, the purpose of every action we take is to achieve what we think is some good for us. This is a self-evident truth, because we would never deliberately do something that we think is bad for us. The problem is that we may be pursuing what is only an apparent good, which could be innocuous, but could also be empty of value or even harmful for us, rather than a real good which we, like every other human being, actually need. Furthermore, since we obviously must, first of all, desire something before we pursue it, our choice of a good must be based on the right desire.

In my view, the right desire for a real good and the proper means for achieving it can be determined only by the human soul which has developed a certain level of intelligence, self-consciousness, and conscience.

Another of Aristotle's and Adler's key concepts is that of happiness. We spend our life pursuing goods that enable us to pursue further goods. But there is one ultimate end to all the goods that we pursue, which we seek for its own sake and that is happiness. Adler says: "So conceived, happiness is the totum bonum (the whole of goods) ... As the totum bonum, happiness or a whole good life is a normative, not a terminal, end -- an end that takes a complete life to achieve, and therefore an end that is not achieved at any moment in the time of our lives." [6, App. II, p.169]

Here I am going to make a daring comparison of concepts: I conjecture that Adler's abstract idea of "happiness" is equivalent to my idea of the fully developed self-conscious soul with a fully developed conscience transcending into God's logos, and by so doing being spared annihilation.

Of course, men do not make natural law, although they rely on it when making positive laws of their own. A law is a form of prescription cloaked in advice. The gist of a law is the "ought" and/or "oughtnot" it prescribes. When we deal with natural law and natural rights we do not prescribe "oughts" and "oughtnots" by ourselves, which we do when making positive law; rather, we derive the contents of the natural "oughts" and "oughtnots" by using our common sense to deduce them. We interpret the "oughts" and "oughtnots" by observing the Creator's natural processes at work and by using our very capable intelligence to learn what is good and what is bad for us to do.

Aristotle was a genius with few equals. Among his many pioneering accomplishments we can include sociology and psychology. Aristotle was very insightful in observing and interpreting the behavior of human beings, and, I would like to add, his soul had reached such a level of development that he could perceive, down to the smallest nuances, practically all of the "oughts" and "oughtnots" of natural law applicable to human beings. Aristotle understood the meaning of "good" and "bad" -- necessary criteria for "ought" and "oughtnot" prescriptions -- to be indefinable, primitive and self-evident concepts. I would like to remark here that their indefinable and self-evident nature is precisely what identifies them as concepts of the Creator's natural law and, therefore, it requires a soul with a well-developed self-consciousness and conscience to fully understand them.

Much time had to pass before Mortimer J. Adler -- another man of genius -- came along to interpret Aristotle's writings correctly. Adler has expanded and explained Aristotle's thoughts in easily-understood language in his many books and lectures on the subject. Here I will insert some quotes from Adler's work which, in my opinion, show the connection between the Aristotelian ethics and natural law.

Resting on the distinction between the real and the apparent good, a basic tenet of the common-sense view is that what is really good for any single individual is good in exactly the same sense for every other human being, precisely because that which is really good is that which satisfies desires or needs inherent in human nature -- the make-up that is common to all men because they are members of the same biological species. The totum bonum -- happiness or the good life -- is the same for all men, and each man is under the same basic moral obligation as every other -- to make a good life for himself. [7, ch. 14, p.140]

... when I understand that each real good and the totum bonum as the sum of all of them are common goods, the same for all men, I can then discern the natural rights each individual has -- rights that others have which impose moral obligations upon me, and rights that I have which impose moral obligations upon others.

Moral rights are natural rights, rights inherent in man's common or specific nature, just as his natural desires or needs are. Such rights, being antecedent to society and government, may be recognized and enforced by society or they may be transgressed and violated, but they are inalienable in the sense that, not being the gift of legal enactment, they cannot be taken away or annulled by acts of government. [7, ch. 14, p.141]

... the set of basic notions that are inseparably connected with one another [are]: (a) natural needs, (b) real goods, (c) the duties or moral obligations that I have in the conduct of my own life, (d) moral or natural rights, and (e) the duties or moral obligations I have in my conduct toward others. [7, ch. 4, p.142]

The moral and natural rights and duties cited by Adler are, in my opinion, the core for the "oughts" and "oughtnots" of natural law which applies to humans. Adler implies as much when he says that they cannot be taken away or annulled by men. I would like to add to the basic notion in (e) "... and toward other living things in God's creation." I think that a human soul has developed its conscience to the fullest extent only when it treats other life forms with the same sense of moral obligation and respect which it must accord to other humans. I seem to have an instinctive sense that the natural laws that concern human-kind are but a component of the entire body of laws which governs the universe, and which, I believe, are the active agents instituted by the exnihilating Creator, also know as God, the Supreme Being, and by many other comparable designations.

Recapitulation

To repeat in short form of "how it all comes together" for me:

(1) there is God, the being that which no greater can be thought of, who is the exnihilator of the physical universe;

(2) life is one of God's most unique creations; its presence in the universe is outside the bounds of ordinary probabilities;

(3) another of God's unique creative acts is the exnihilation of all the myriad genetic codes for all the life forms found on earth (past, present, and future) some 530 million years ago;

(4) another of God's unique creative acts is the exnihilation of a soul for every living thing; the soul is the manager of all activities by the living thing;

(5) the ultimate of God's creation is the soul of a human being, which has the potential to develop self-consciousness and a conscience;

(6) all souls which do not develop a self-consciousness -- those of animals and plants -- are annihilated when the living host they inhabit dies;

(7) the human soul has been given the potential to develop the intelligence for understanding the Creator's laws, which we know as natural laws and which include laws prescribing our own behavior;

(8) in addition, the human soul has been given the potential to develop a self-consciousness and conscience; the soul is obligated to develop both faculties, because both are essential for the full understanding of, and for complying with, the natural laws.

(9) the souls of humans which do not develop self-consciousness and a conscience are annihilated upon physical death of their human hosts;

(10) the souls of humans which develop self-consciousness and a conscience survive the physical death of their human hosts; the subsequent disposition of these souls is within the Creator's logos which is beyond our understanding or imagination.

I find that I have now arrived back at the beginning of the story: there is God, the being that which no greater can be thought of.

Sources

1. How to Think About God; by Mortimer J. Adler;Macmillan Publ. (1980)

2. The Science of God; by Gerald L. Schroeder; Free Press (1997)

3. The Self and Its Brain; by Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles; Routledge (1977)

4. De Anima (On the Soul); by Aristotle; translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred; Penguin Books (1986)

5. The Nicomachean Ethics; by Aristotle; translated by David Ross; Oxford Univ. Press (1980)

6. Desires, Right & Wrong; by Mortimer J. Adler; Macmillan (1991)

7. The Time of Our Lives; by Mortimer J. Adler (1970); reprint by Fordham Univ. Press (1996)