Could the Immaterial Evolve, Leaving God Out as a Necessary Explanation for at Least All But One Non-Spatial Existence?

Immaterial evolution?

In my last post revisiting consciousness, I wrote:

"Here I would like to think of what I have come to call 'mere bluster.' An example is something I heard in tenth grade: matter got so complex it made something that's not physical, and humans are so great we were able to make truth. This defies arguments I have made earlier, the best read being my original post.
"As you might have realized, it's just a claim without evidence. If there is no explanation how it is right, why believe it? If both sides cannot explain why they are right and outweigh the other, because there just simply isn't enough information to come to a conclusion, then the objective rational route is agnosticism."

The one post before that on the subject, it says: 

"Then is the fallacy of applying a physical process to what does not physically exist. Immaterials cannot evolve! You cannot stack what takes up no space on top of each other! They are not there to manipulate. The supernatural connection between mind and brain is not identification, and so even advancing the physical side cannot affect what isn't physically present."

I was critiquing the idea that perhaps one immaterial existence, like DNA storing information programming for a part of our body, could evolve into our conscious mind. This would go to serve God isn't needed in the picture.

With this as an example, I can reason and show whether or not we can come to a reasonable conclusion or the answer should be agnosticism.

First and foremost, it should be realized that naturalism has no power here. Because the supernatural power that holds minds and brains together isn't physical (by definition matter isn't supernatural, you can read the start of this post for more philosophy on that), the way matter will be arranged won't cause anything. It's only because the way the immaterial existences are that something happens to them.

Then, is considering the fundamentals of evolution. What even is evolution? It's something getting added to something else. The result is something more complex, but fundamentally nothing gets more complex. Think atoms. Even if you divide an atom into subatomic particles, they themselves still don't change. It is only because something else adds to them, and underlying laws of nature allow them to work together, that there is any evolution. One of the six atheists I cited in this blog to support my argument for consciousness, Colin McGinn wrote,  "It looks as if with consciousness a new kind of reality has been injected into the universe, instead of just a recombination of the old realities." That's evolution: just a combination of the old realities. Also, because immaterials take up no space, they can't collide with one another.

Then is the question of our mind's evolution. People have the capability to think up many different things, and go unconscious, dream, etc. When the brain is affected (and I believe vice versa), part of our mind can go dormant, or maybe cease to exist and only a part of us is left. So our mind evolves, right?

One way of saying we think about different things is our thoughts morph. But another way is, we have different thoughts. (There is still a fundamental part, like a mind or feelings, even if they are about different things or different types.)

The question is the cause. How can these things come into existence? How can we have different thoughts? How can immaterials change?

You can't get something out of nothing. An unconscious bit of information for a foot can't turn itself into our reasoning mind. Only if one cause is supernatural can -- well, He -- produce with His supernatural power a new existence. God has supernatural power to create what He knows... and He knows the truth.

Different parts are reachable because "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28) With God, a supernatural absolutely intelligent Spirit, as our sustainer and source of life, our existence makes sense. God creates us with faculties.

How our mind and brain interact, our ability to think, all of this is in Him. But it is impossible to take one immaterial thing and create something entirely new. His power must be there generating something new. If it is distinct from us -- like instead of just being smarter being DNA information for a foot -- then it is a whole new creation. It's the same problem of adding a new reality, not old ones.

I realize I have just delved in further into what I thought of back in the start of this year, written in the first post on consciousness and intelligence:

"We can believe there is no truth about some things, but that doesn’t change the obvious facts, and, ironically, we would end up subconsciously believing that it is true that there is no truth about anything. This shows us that truth is not up to the human intelligence. You try making it true that truth does not exist! Even though we are immaterial (we are our mind and feelings, which makes up our soul), we still can’t create anything that doesn't exist which is beyond ourselves. I would say that in order to create the laws of logic humans would need God-like abilities, but that is an understatement. In order to create the fixed laws of logic we would need the full ability of God."

Since we know enough about both sides, there is no room for agnosticism. To borrow a phrase from Roy Varghese quoted in that same post, it would take "blind and baseless faith" to say our mind could evolve the fixed laws of logic by themselves, without God.

Hive Mind?

One time in a high school class, I didn't do a really good job of sharing why I believe God is the grounder of the laws of logic. An atheist said I thought we were in some sort of "hive mind."

I really don't like that way of describing my view, because a hive mind is pictured as one leader commanding others, who will just do whatever they say unquestioningly. That's misleading. It is very different from a God creating other spirits and letting them make free decisions. 

No one has a problem saying the forces of nature hold us up. We are sustained by our bodies. It has been mentioned multiple times in my education that our heart just beats and so on. Aren't we glad we don't have to run all of our processes?

Moreover, arguing assumes a hive mind. When two people argue (or if you prefer, discuss; the point is just exchanging contrary ideas, not attitude), they are trying to say someone else is wrong and they are right. That means there is an objective truth which both people could realize and believe. We all live in the same reality. Humans are all different, but fundamentally the same. (Of course, because the term human by definition includes fundamental similarities and excludes differences.)

I've even heard in junior high, and it made complete sense to me, that people who die without Jesus as their Savior will lose the ability to reason. Why? God departs that from them. God is a supernatural Spirit who creates us and share with us whatever His loving Being wants. 

The early church martyr Stephen said to the unbelieving Jewish leaders in Acts 7:51, "You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. ... You always resist the Holy Spirit! " 

The thing is, while the Holy Spirit was trying to persuade them, and therefore was with them in a way, they had free will. God holds up people, as the only reasonable cause for free will (nothing else is free, just a falling domino effect, and therefore because nothing has freedom it can't be triggered). God allows people to freely choose. We sinners have to sit in His lap to slap His face.

But.......?

If there's room for ignorance, perhaps we shouldn't believe it fully anyway. For example, I say a free Spirit creates other free spirits, but can't even picture this. (Of course I can't picture an immaterial existence creating another out of nothing.) I believe God grounds truth in His mind, how can He share it with us without making us part of Him? (But really what He does is best described by me as witnessing. He is a Spirit. We are made in His image, also immaterial and able to reason. It's not like He has to rip out a chunk of Himself to give to us. It's more like... I guess... He made us capable of understanding Him, so we can grasp truth.)

You might already have the easy, general answer to questions like this, and realized it quickly. What I've got is just an extra illustration. Imagine this conversation between my skeptical non-Christian and Christian sides:

"If you really want to prove something, you have to be able to fully explain it."

"What do you think holds together materials?"

"The laws of physics."

"What holds them in existence?"

"Nothing. They exist independently. I don't believe in God, because I see no good evidence for Him. So of course I don't believe in a further Sustainer."

"Well, you don't even see the laws of physics, we just learn how the world works and label them. How can anyone know they just exist independently? It makes sense that since they began to exist, they couldn't hold themselves together. But I guess you might be right."

The point is, even if we can't fully explain something, we still believe in something or Someone if they make the best, and only, sense, like a free Cause creating free will. C.S. Lewis has a beautiful illustration:

"I think we must take a leaf out of the scientists' book. They are quite familiar with the fact that for example, Light has to be regarded both as a wave and as a stream of particles. No one can make these two views consistent. Of course reality must be self-consistent; but till (if ever) we can see the consistency it is better to hold two inconsistent views than to ignore one side of the evidence. The real inter-relation between God's omnipotence and Man's freedom is something we can't find out." (1)

Here I must quickly point out I don't know anything about his example. Maybe scientists have solved it now. The principle is what I am getting at. This so perfectly fits with God saying to mankind, "You are free" (Genesis 2:16; just one example because all throughout the Bible He offers our race the freedom to repent and choose life), and the ending of my first post revisiting consciousness and free will. (I wrote in a few older post that sometimes I see God's guiding hand in the way information is brought before me without my intentions. Here is one. That quote is better for this situation than the simple part of just us not fully understanding how God made us free.)

C.S. Lewis said no one really ultimately knows God's relationship with our free will, and I agree. I also agree we should still believe in Him because of what we can reason with. 

Again, it comes down to: How much can we know about this subject? Do we know enough to come to a conclusion because it outweighs other arguments?

Citations:

1. Letter dated August 3, 1953, in Collected Letters III. Cited in C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, annot. ed by Paul McCusker., (HarperOne: 2013), 162.