chapter 7 Emergence Theory and the Demonic
In this book so far we have reviewed the history of demonology, explored social scientific analyses of possession phenomena, and inquired into philosophical theories to determine if and how spiritual realities might causally interact with the physical world. If our historical overviews have forced us to recognize the plurality of experiences with the demonic and the multiplicity of perspectives on the demonic, and if our social scien- tific assessments have insisted that we look beyond reductionist, materi- alist, or merely anthropological explanations of possession, the preceding chapter gives us some hope for forging a contemporary theology of the de- monic that is philosophically cogent, scientifically plausible, and historically responsible. We, therefore, turn in this chapter to a more complete explication of the emergence theory of the demonic initially sketched in the introduc- tion. I propound that non-reductive physicalism produces a scaffold around which to build an emergentist demonology that is philosophically and scientifically viable. Additionally, drawing on insights from the phi- losophy of the mind, emergence theory also offers some promising impli- cations for top-down causation without subscribing to supernaturalistic interventionism. I begin by providing a detailed historical and conceptual explanation of emergence theory. Then, in dialogue with Philip Clayton and Amos Yong, I propose that we can use emergence theory to develop a robust theology of the demonic. Our goal is to argue that such an emergence demonology offers a preferable model to traditionalist, dualist, and supernaturalist views on one side – various forms of which have been common views throughout the history of Christian thought – and on the other side liberal, demythologiz- ing, and reductionist approaches that are popular in academic, scientistic, and elite environments. But an emergent theology of the demonic not only offers a via media between these alternatives, it also assists in formulating a viable theory of demonic causation that is scientifically and philosophically sound for the twenty-first century. Along the way, I hope to demonstrate that such a proposal is able to embrace the gains we have made along the way in this book while avoiding the pitfalls that other demonologies have not been able to avoid.
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A Emergence Theory
The following begins by overviewing the origination and progression of emer- gence theory within the history of philosophical thought and then analyzes its major precepts. The third subsection will pay special attention to mind- body interaction as well as the social dimensions of an emergence theory of causality.
1 The History of Emergence Theory in Philosophical Thought In the 1920s a number of British philosophers, including George Henry Lewes, Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, and C.D. Broad, began to propose a new philosophical perspective that developed metaphysics in light of the burgeon- ing field of evolution.1 They coined their philosophy “Emergent Evolutionism,” and later it came to be known as emergence theory (or emergentism). Ansgar Beckermann summarizes emergent evolutionism in this manner:
The whole universe develops in such a way that the configurations of its basic material elements become more and more complex. This growth in complexity, however, is not a gradual process exhaustively describ- able in purely quantitative terms. For when the complexity of material configurations reaches a certain critical level, genuinely novel properties emerge, properties that have never been instantiated before. This evolu- tionary process is moreover hierarchically structured. For complex ob- jects with their emergent properties may also combine to form still more complex entities so that further novel properties emerge.2
These early emergentists embraced evolutionary theories and attempted to find ways of incorporating these ideas into a cogent philosophical system. Emergence theory was significant because it provided an alternative to Aristotelean substance metaphysics and Cartesian-based mechanical and
1 Some suggest that the roots of emergence can be traced back to John Stuart Mill and Alexander Bain. Historians of philosophy especially recognize Mill’s A System of Logic (1843) as influential upon the early emergentists. See Achim Stephan, “Emergence – A Systematic View on Its Historical Aspects,” in Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonre- ductive Physicalism, eds. Ansgar Beckermann, Hans Flohr, and Jaegwon Kim (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), 25. 2 Beckermann, “Introduction,” 15.