A Little Lower Than the Angels

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than [b]the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet.”

Psalm 8:3-6 (NKJV)

Anthropocentrism is the belief that humans are the apex of creation. The belief is so common that the mere suggestion we might not be throws us into cognitive dissonance — “the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change.”

Cognitive dissonance runs especially hot when science threatens religious paradigms like the anthropocentric one in the Biblical passage above.[1] Biologist David Barash wrote his book to bring it on — this is from the Amazon promo:

 “Noted scientist David P. Barash explores the process by which science has, throughout time, cut humanity “down to size,” and how humanity has responded. A good paradigm is a tough thing to lose, especially when its replacement leaves us feeling more vulnerable and less special. And yet, as science has progressed, we find ourselves–like it or not–bereft of many of our most cherished beliefs, confronting an array of paradigms lost… Barash models his argument around a set of ‘old’ and ‘new’ paradigms that define humanity’s place in the universe.”

Through a Glass Brightly:  Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are

Here’s his old/new paradigm summary re: anthropocentrism:

Old:  Human beings are fundamentally important to the cosmos.
New:  We aren’t.

Old:  We are literally central to the universe, not only astronomically, but in other ways, too.
New:  We occupy a very small and peripheral place in a not terribly consequential galaxy, tucked away in just one insignificant corner of an unimaginably large universe.

Cognitive dissonance is  why non- anthropocentric paradigms come across as just plain weird — like Robert Lanza’s biocentrism:

“Every now and then, a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationships with the world.

“The whole of Western natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory. At the same time, these findings have increased our doubt and uncertainty about traditional physical explanations of the universe’s genesis and structure.

“Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around. In this new paradigm, life is not just an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics.

“Biocentrism shatters the reader’s ideas of life, time and space, and even death. At the same time, it releases us from the dull worldview that life is merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal.”

Anthropocentrism works closely with another human-centered belief practice:  “anthropomorphism,” which is “the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities” — for example those angels we’re just a little lower than, and God, who put the God-angels-us-the rest of creation hierarchy in place. The human trait we attribute to God and the angels is the same one we believe sets us apart from the rest of creation:  consciousness.

“When our anthropomorphism is applied to religious thought, it’s notably the mind, rather than the body, that’s universally applied to spirits and gods. In the diverse cultures of the world, gods come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they always share is a mind with the ability to think symbolically just like a human. This makes sense in light of the critical importance of theory of mind in the development of our social intelligence:  if other people have minds like ours, wouldn’t that be true of other agents we perceive to act intentionally in the world?”

The Patterning Instinct:  A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, Jeremy Lent (2017)

Anthropocentrism puts us in charge as far as our consciousness can reach. Anthropomorphism puts beings with higher consciousness in  charge of the rest. Both practices are truly anthropo- (human) centered; the beliefs they generate start and end with our own human consciousness. Which means our attempts to think beyond our range are inescapably idolatrous:  we create God and the angels in our image, and they return the favor.

There’s a philosophical term that describes what’s behind all this, called “teleology” — the search for explanation and design, purpose and meaning. We’ll look at that next time.

[1] The case for anthropocentrism starts in the first chapter of the Bible:  “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;    male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” Genesis 1: 26-30.The post-deluge version removed the vegetarian requirement:  “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ² The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. ³ Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” Genesis 9: 1-3.