holism

"Have no fear, little flock, for your Father has approved of giving you the Kingdom."

"The man who persisted in calling himself the "son of God" — he later acknowledged that he had many brothers — was demanding nothing less than that the military ruler of all England should forthwith disavow all violence and all coercion, make Christ's law of love the supreme law of the land, and substitute the mild dictates of the Sermon on the Mount for the Instrument of Government by which he ruled. In a word, Fox would have him make England a kind of pilot project for the Kingdom of Heaven. Fox was a revolutionary. He had no patience with the relativities and compromises of political life. His testimony was an uncompromising testimony for the radical Christian ethic of love and non-violence, and he would apply it in the arena of politics as in every other sphere of life. It is not recorded that Cromwell took his advice. Neither is it recorded that Fox ever receded an inch from his radical perfectionism."

"A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called "the Kingdom of Heaven" had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, "it will all blow over now." Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet."

"The kingdom of God must be built upon the foundation, not of institutions, but of individuals in whom God dwells and who are glad to live for their fellow men."

"If the body yields to the claims of the spirit as it should, it is instrumental in bringing down the kingdom of heaven on earth. It becomes a vehicle for the release of divine life, and when it subserves this purpose it might aptly be called the temple of God on earth."

"Dear God I've heard your name from teachers, family and friends, you made the universe and so will live on when it ends. Everyone I know admits they’ve never seen your face, they’re not sure where you live and have no map to the place."

"His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?""

"The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd, a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite."

"This is by the decree of watchers, and the request is by the word of the holy ones, so that people living may know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind and that he gives it to whomever he wants, and he sets up over it even the lowliest of men."

"The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us."

"The salvific action of Jesus Christ, with and through his Spirit, extends beyond the visible boundaries of the Church to all humanity. [...] To state the inseparable relationship between Christ and the kingdom is not to overlook the fact that the kingdom of God - even if considered in its historical phase - is not identified with the Church in her visible and social reality. In fact, “the action of Christ and the Spirit outside the Church's visible boundaries”‌ must not be excluded."

"And to him there were given rulership, honor, and a kingdom, that the peoples, nations, and language groups should all serve him. His rulership is an everlasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed."

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom."

"Just when did teleological explanations, accounts in terms of use and the Good, become definitely abandoned in favour of the notion that true explanations, of man and his mind as well as of other things, must be in terms of their simplest parts?"

"The image of Gaia as a sentient being was the main implicit argument for the rejection of the Gaia hypothesis after its publication. Scientists expressed it by claiming that the hypothesis was unscientific because it was teleological..."

"A second possible approach to general systems theory is through the arrangement of theoretical systems and constructs in a hierarchy of complexity, roughly corresponding to the complexity of the "individuals" of the various empirical fields... leading towards a "system of systems."… I suggest below a possible arrangement of "levels" of theoretical discourse. ...(vi) ...the "animal" level, characterized by increased mobility, teleological behavior and self-awareness..."

"Mechanism... provides us with no grasp of the specific characteristics of organisms, of the organization of organic processes among one another, of organic 'wholeness', of the problem of the origin of organic 'teleology', or of the historical character of organisms... We must therefore try to establish a new standpoint which — as opposed to mechanism — takes account of organic wholeness, but... treats it in a manner which admits of scientific investigation."

"By strenuously opposing vitalist and teleological arguments, the mechanists still struggle with the Newtonian metaphor of God as a clockmaker. The currently emerging theory of living systems has finally overcome the debate between mechanism and teleology. ...it views living nature as mindful and intelligent without the need to assume any overall design or purpose."

"Today our main problem is that of organized complexity. Concepts like those of organization, wholeness, directiveness, teleology, control, self-regulation, differentiation and the like are alien to conventional physics. However, they pop up everywhere in the biological, behavioural and social sciences, and are, in fact, indispensable for dealing with living organisms or social groups. Thus, a basic problem posed to modern science is a general theory of organization."

"As we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes, and productions of effects: so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes."

"This misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great improficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes."

"What in the whole denotes a causal equilibrium process, appears for the part as a teleological event."

"The natural philosophy of Democritus and some others, who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself to infinite essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune, seemeth to me... in particularities of physical causes more real and better inquired than that of Aristotle and Plato; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those persons. Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province; but because their excursions into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that tract."

"If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy."

"The synthesis of paleontology, taxonomy, and comparative anatomy that Cuvier achieved was based on a teleological approach to nature, one that gave primacy to functional purpose over structural affinity."

"For the Middle Ages man was in every sense the centre of the universe. The whole world of nature was believed to be teleologically subordinate to him and his eternal destiny. Toward this conviction the two great movements which had become united in the medieval synthesis, Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian theology, had irresistibly led."

"The simultaneity of the disappearance of literature (as aesthetic) and history (as development), which we can observe around us in the academy, points to a fundamental commonality; unraveling one implies unraveling the other, since both are grounded in the same goal-oriented structures that postmodern sensibility opposes. Both civilizational history and autonomous literature are constitutively teleological, dependent on notions of progress toward goals, and they both therefore face resistance from the antidevelopmentalism of contemporary intellectual life."

"A cause that operates intellectually not only confers on the effect, in the act of producing it, all that is required for the result intended, but also, when the product is finished, controls its use, which is the end of the object. Thus a smith, in addition to forging a knife, has the disposition of its cutting efficiency. Man is made by God somewhat as an article is made by an artificer. Something of this sort is said in Isaiah 64:8: "And now, Lord, You art our Father and we are clay, and You art our Maker." Accordingly, just as an earthen vessel, if it were endowed with sense, might hope to be put to good use by the potter, so man ought to cherish the hope of being rightly provided for by God. Thus we are told in Jeremiah 18:6: "As clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.""

"The attachment to a rationalistic, teleological notion of progress indicates the absence of true progress; he whose life does not unfold satisfyingly under its own momentum is driven to moralize it, to set up goals and rationalize their achievement as progress."

"A teleology directed to material ends has been substituted for the lust for adventure, variety, and play."

"Because the Systems Age is teleologically oriented, it is preoccupied with systems that are goal-seeking or purposeful, that is, systems that can display choice of either means or ends, or both. It is interested in purely mechanical systems only."

"It is actually by experience of our teleology – our wish to exist further on as a subject, not our imputation of purposes on objects – that teleology becomes a real rather than an intellectual principle... before being scientists we are first living beings, and as such we have the evidence of intrinsic teleology in us. And, in observing other creatures struggling to continue their existence – starting from simple bacteria that actively swim away from a chemical repellent – we can, by our own evidence, understand teleology as the governing force of the realm of the living. Theories about the living can only be conceived from the fragile and concerned perspective of the living itself."

"Before the age of adulteration it was held that behind each work there stood some conception of its perfect execution. It was this that gave zest to labor and served to measure the degree of success. To the extent that the concept obtained, there was a teleology in work, since the laborer toiled not merely to win sustenance but to see this ideal embodied in his creation. Pride in craftsmanship is well explained by saying that to labor is to pray, for conscientious effort to realize an ideal is a kind of fidelity. The craftsman of old time did not hurry, because the perfect takes no account of time and shoddy work is a reproach to character. But character itself is an expression of self-control, which does not come of taking the easiest way. Where character forbids self-indulgence, transcendence still hovers around. When utilitarianism becomes enthroned and the worker is taught that work is use and not worship, interest in quality begins to decline. … There is a difference between expressing one’s self in form and producing quantity for a market with an eye to speculation. Péguy wished to know what had become of the honor of work. It has succumbed to the same forces as have all other expressions of honor."

"The famous palaeolithic paintings found in caves such as that at Lascaux in the Dordogne have been interpreted as evidence that, at least implicitly people were operating 20,000 or more years ago with teleological intent in terms of past, present, and future. It may well be that those responsible for the so-called 'Dancing Sorcerer' ...may have felt that the actual performance of the dance was insufficient, since they were concerned with the magical efficacy of the dance after it ended."

"The scientific world picture does not include … things that have not been constructed, that are not understood as artefacts … Instead of the final cause one starts to speak about purpose, which nature itself does not have. Only humans can set aims and achieve them by their activities if they know the laws of nature and set up various processes based on them and organise them purposively."

"Man is an agent... a center of unfolding impulsive activity—"teleological" activity... seeking... some concrete, objective, impersonal end. ...he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. He has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency and of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. This aptitude or propensity may be called the instinct of workmanship."

"Aristotle feels this so strongly with reference to Plato's external, as contrasted with his own immanent, teleology that, forgetting his own concession elsewhere, he once roundly asserts that the final cause is 'not touched by the Ideas'. Again, what is the relation of the Idea of the Good to other ends (Ideas) or to the special functions of things? Efficient causes Plato attributes at one time to Idea, at another to soul: which is his real doctrine? and what is the relation of Idea to soul? Aristotle, therefore, while willing to admit that Plato made 'stammering' efforts in the direction of efficient and final causes, was perfectly justified in thinking that he had not 'fully worked them out'."

"Time out of mind it has been by way of the "final cause," by the teleological concept of end, of purpose or of "design," in one of its many forms (for its moods are many), that men have been chiefly wont to explain the phenomena of the living world; and it will be so while men have eyes to see and ears to hear withal. With Galen, as with Aristotle, it was the physician's way; with John Ray, as with Aristotle, it was the naturalist's way; with Kant,as with Aristotle, it was the philosopher's way. It was the old Hebrew way, and has its splendid setting in the story that God made "every plant of the field before it grew." It is a common way, and a great way; for it brings with it a glimpse of a great vision, and it lies deep as the love of nature in the hearts of men."

"From the point of view of scientific analysis, the term “finalism” should not be too surprising, if it does not refer to an intentional purpose, but only to an interpretative strategy. The action of finalistic principles, in fact, is not new to other fields of science. Mathematical physics knows the principle of least action, which indicates how a physical system always takes the most advantageous path. The principles of classical thermodynamics are essentially finalistic principles, and chemistry also uses them when explaining chemical bonds, starting from the principle that each atom tends to complete its eight fundamental electron orbitals."

"Darwin discarded once and for all the last vestiges of Aristotelian thought concerning the evolution of living beings. A teleological explanation would no longer do. The evolution of life on Earth would no longer unfold according to a "grand design"; nor would it tend to a final cause. On the contrary, it developed at the whim of random mutations and was driven by natural selection."

"Men do all things for an end, namely, for that which is useful to them, and which they seek. Thus it comes to pass that they only look for a knowledge of the final causes of events, and when these are learned, they are content, as having no cause for further doubt. If they cannot learn such causes from external sources, they are compelled to turn to considering themselves, and reflecting what end would have induced them personally to bring about the given event, and thus they necessarily judge other natures by their own."

"...nature has no particular goal in view, and final causes are mere human figments. ...everything in nature proceeds from a sort of necessity, and with the utmost perfection."

"I would say that teleology is theology, and that God is not a "because," but rather an "in order to.""

"The first thing I would like to point out is that each of us have a different purpose that we have to serve in the evolutionary scheme of things. We are not all equally endowed to do everything. When I speak about teleological evolution, I speak about the idea of "telos," purpose."

"I am interested in a phase that I think we are entering. I call it "teleological evolution," evolution with a purpose. The idea of evolution by design, designing the future, anticipating the future. I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?"

"I speak about universal evolution and teleological evolution, because I think the process of evolution reflects the wisdom of nature. I see the need for wisdom to become operative. We need to try to put all of these things together in what I call an evolutionary philosophy of our time."

"The atomists asked the mechanistic question, and gave a mechanistic answer. Their successors, until the Renaissance, were more interested in the teleological question, and thus led science up a blind alley. In regard to both questions alike, there is a limitation which is often ignored, both in popular thought and in philosophy. Neither question can be asked intelligibly about reality, as a whole (including God), but only about parts of it. ...The conception of purpose, therefore, is only applicable within reality, not to reality as a whole."

"Maupertuis' attempt to introduce teleology into mechanics was met with sharp rebuffs from several scientists... Mixed into the debate were issues of priority, questions of natural philosophy and physics to do with measurement of motion, and fundamental questions concerning the ideological world view. At the center of the discussion was the question of conditionality or causality of the phenomena of the material world, or their teleological predestination through the creator's wisdom. Euler entered the debate in support of Maupertuis. For example, in his "Dissertation on the principle of least action" (1753) Euler criticized the attacks of S. König and certain other scientists... He also wrote that he himself "had conceived of this remarkable property... Only after a great many trials did I arrive at the formula that in motions of that type assumes its least value." …Writing about Maupertuis' principle... Euler emphasized that "all of dynamics and hydrodynamics can with astonishing ease be developed by the single method of maxima and minima." He concludes... "Nature in all her manifestations strives to make something smallest, and this smallest thing... is indisputably grasped by the concept of action.""

"Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle, but he thought very highly of Democritus, Although he did not deny that the course of nature exemplifies a Divine purpose, he objected to any admixture of teleological explanation in the actual investigation of phenomena; everything, he held, should be explained as following necessarily from efficient causes."

"Evolution disposes of teleology."