PhDr. Mgr. Jeroným Klimeš, Ph.D. 2026-09-11
Czech version 2008
The second chapter from the Czech book
A psychologist testimony on Christ (English version).
Klimeš, Jeroným:
Psycholog a jeho svědectví o Kristu
. Portal, Praha, 2008, 312p. ISBN 978-80-7367-451-9
Translated with kind help of DeepL.
Previous, first chapter https://christ.klimes.us
An integral part of the above mentioned concept of slavery has always been the fact that we are all subject to death. From this also follows the universal Christian belief in human immortality. Here, too, Christian teaching is based primarily on personal, human experience with the risen Christ, and not on any philosophical constructs. The question is not whether the disciples knew if it was possible for someone to rise from the dead. Nor is it about how to prove that the human soul is immortal, or whether a person even has an immortal soul at all. All of these are, in a sense, irrelevant, secondary questions. The only important thing in their message is this: “We met several times with someone whom we knew for certain had been executed on the cross.”
Although this experience, passed down through generations, is the foundation of the Christian faith, no one — not even the disciples themselves — could avoid the technical questions: How is this possible? What does this mean for us? These are not unimportant questions. They are simply somewhat less important than the disciples’ experience of encountering the living Christ, who had been executed. It is good to keep in mind that all the constructs of philosophers and theologians — definitions of the soul and the subsequent proofs of its immortality — are merely supporting tools based on axioms accepted at one time or another.
At the beginning of this book, I suggested that Christianity is a psychological religion. It is based not on logical constructs, but on human experience and the human psyche. Logical constructs have always been added to it as an afterthought, because we somehow need them to live. These logical constructs may change over the course of history without altering the very essence of faith — that enthusiastic testimony: “We have seen the [risen] Lord!”
It is precisely the belief in human immortality that is undergoing its greatest crisis today. What was taken for granted for millennia is no longer a given. For example, the conviction that every person has an immortal soul that survives them. The proof of its existence stemmed from that striking qualitative difference between humans and animals. This belief is not Christian in essence, but it was more or less universal throughout the world until the 20th century. We can trace it back to Plato, and it was inextricably linked to belief in spiritual beings such as ghosts, angels, demons, God, or other spirits.
Recently, however, it has been fading for two reasons. The thick, impenetrable wall that separated humans from animals has disappeared. In virtually all fields, we can trace an evolutionary lineage that sufficiently and comprehensively links humans to their animal ancestors. Another reason is that, despite all their efforts, scientists have not found a single convincing experimental demonstration of the existence of any spiritual being. There are even foundations that promise a million-dollar reward to anyone who can convincingly demonstrate any paranormal phenomenon (The James Randi Educational Foundation; http://www.randi.org/).
In this way, modern science has effectively undermined the once-unshakable pillars that supported the evidence for the immortality of the human soul. Christianity struggles to come to terms with this. Although faith is grounded in the experience of the risen Christ, we nevertheless have a natural desire for this experience to be further supported by some neat and appealing theory. In the absence of such a theory, Christianity does not collapse, but it certainly does not add to its peace of mind.
We are waiting for some new and dextrous thinker who can reconcile Christianity with modern science, especially in the fields of psychology and evolutionary theories, where the tensions are most acute. Christian history has seen a whole series of such thinkers. The most famous of them is St. Thomas Aquinas, who reconciled Christianity with Aristotle. At the time, he was considered a heretical, pagan philosopher, favored only by non-believers and Muslim Moors. After St. Thomas Aquinas, the situation swung to the opposite extreme. For several centuries, Aristotle was so closely associated with Christianity that people grew weary of the Peripatetics and metaphysics. This is simply the historical development of science and its paradigms, which are bound to have their time. There’s no point in deluding ourselves. I, too, know of no elegant theory that I would consider satisfactory proof of the existence of human immortality. I can, however, show why the old theories do not satisfy me and where I expect new theories to emerge.
I have always found Aristotle’s idea — that the soul is the structure of the body (to use modern terminology) — to be the best. It is not, therefore, a matter of what particles a human being is composed of, but rather what structure these particles are embedded in. If they are embedded properly, they give life to the organism. The soul is then defined as the structure of particles that transforms inanimate particles into a living organism. As Jesus says (John 6:63): “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.” So far, these are generally accepted theories to which even modern biology raises no objection, since it, too, shows that genetic information is transmitted through the structure of DNA — appropriately arranged amino acids.
The problem arises only when someone attempts to claim that a soul defined in this way completely disintegrates and ceases to exist upon an animal’s death, but in the case of a human being, remains somehow preserved after death. Such preservation of the human soul would grant it the possibility of renewal, and thus offer people a certain hope for immortality.
All ancient arguments for the immortality of the soul followed the same pattern. They sought to demonstrate that the soul is immaterial, and thus concluded that it is simple. They then applied the premise that a simple, uncompounded thing cannot be broken down into parts; ergo, it is indestructible and immortal. Simply put, ancient philosophers could only conceive of an indestructible entity as being simple and uncompounded. The question is whether this is the correct line of reasoning.
The Immortality of Dynamic Structures in Natural Science
Modern science destroys many ideas but builds others. It has destoyed the belief in a sudden, discontinuous difference between animals and humans, but on the other hand, it shows that even complex things can be indestructible within a given system. Take, for example, life on Earth. It is a dynamic, constantly changing structure that is indestructible as long as living conditions on Earth are not destroyed by some external intervention (an asteroid, a solar flare). No one on Earth can destroy all life. The popular conception of Earth as Gaia — a living organism — possesses all the attributes of an immortal being, even though it is a highly complex and dynamic structure.
Similarly, “immortal” are phyla or even classes. Yes, we can wipe out individual species of fish, but the entire class of fish is indestructible within the prevailing ecological system. Even if humanity invested all its resources into wiping out fish, it would not succeed. Not to mention that the necessary consensus for such an action would be impossible to achieve. (Not even mice — which are a single species — can be eradicated, let alone fish.) It was perhaps the impact of the Chicxulub meteorite in Yucatán that ended the era of reptiles 65 million years ago. Without such an external intervention, reptiles would still be at the top of the food pyramid today. Humans — or, more precisely, sentient beings — would have evolved from them, rather than from the evolutionarily younger mammals. An ecological structure with a reptile at the top was therefore indestructible as long as the conditions of the Mesozoic world were preserved.
Every structure has a component that is indestructible from within and that inevitably follows from the laws defining that system. The best example is the entire universe — within it, the Standard Model of subatomic particles is established. It defines various forces and fundamental constants, which in turn define the entire current and historical structure of the universe. This structure of the universe is fixed until the fundamental constants change. When we scatter elementary particles — which are subject to the rules of the Standard Model — into space, not only do atoms naturally begin to form, but eventually a dark universe emerges; then the first stars ignite, followed by supernovae, and planets are formed from their material…
The Temporal Structure of the Universe’s Evolution
Physicists’ certainty regarding the evolution of the universe and its structure is based on the given “rules of the game” — the laws of physics that give the universe a certain unchanging and predetermined structure. In short, given these laws, the universe could not have come into existence through any sequence (i.e., temporal structure) other than that of a dark universe, followed by the first stars, supernovae, and planets.
This applies not only to the laws of nature but also to any system governed by specific rules. For example, the rules of movement on a chessboard allow only certain arrangements of pieces and rule out others. These same rules determine which openings are advantageous and which are not. Even if a deceptive chess virus were to wipe out all chess players and we were to burn all literature on chess, new players would inevitably rediscover the King’s Gambit within a few years. This structure is simply “immortal” as long as the rules of chess are preserved. Similarly, there are piece arrangements that cannot arise during a game as long as the rules of chess are followed. For example, Cimrman’s famous out in the history of chess — moving the bishop to G12 — or the fact that it is impossible to checkmate an opponent’s isolated king with two knights and a king.
Similarly, there is no force that could change the arrangement of letters on a computer keyboard. This archaic and ergonomically disadvantageous structure, dating back to the era of the first typewriters, will be indestructible as long as our information civilization endures. The same reasoning applies to the laws governing the human psyche. Whether we let people live on Earth or on Mars, they will always form cities and families. In short, if immutable rules are established in any system, certain structures will subsequently emerge that are indestructible within that system.
But our entire universe, with all its known and unknown natural laws, is also a certain structure; ergo, we must draw the same conclusion. Structures arise within it as well that are indestructible or historically inevitable. For example, temporal sequences. First, we must understand mechanics in order to understand electricity; only then can we have radio communication. These are thus dynamic spacetime structures whose immutability or indestructibility is determined precisely by the universality of the laws of nature.
Today’s natural scientists are convinced that, thanks to evolution, living structures arise naturally and inexorably in our universe, whether at the level of individual organisms, entire ecological systems, or the entire planet Earth. Likewise, natural scientists are convinced that intelligence also arises naturally through evolution. Let’s imagine what would happen if these three processes were to intertwine. A structure would emerge that is — at once — alive, intelligent, and indestructible. This idea does not in any way contradict current scientific knowledge, and yet we arrive at a phenomenon traditionally referred to as immortality. Of course, this need not refer solely to carbon-based life on Earth or to humans alone, but also to beings we know as angels or demons.
It is evolution itself that, at its slow pace, constantly creates structures or living creatures that are increasingly resistant to catastrophes. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a scientific theory for this resistance of structures to change that would elegantly capture it. We would need some kind of variable that would measure and compare the degree of indestructibility of a given structure. Something similar to the potential well of strong and weak binding forces illustrates how difficult it is to break an atom.
Measuring Complexity and Balance with Parasites
Although the term “complexity” is accepted in biology (Flegr, 2005; May, 2001), unfortunately even biologists themselves do not yet have any tool or methodology for measuring or quantifying this complexity. I fear this will be an order of magnitude more complicated than measuring intelligence. Three possibilities come to mind for grasping complexity:
An inventory of a given structure’s capabilities
One approach is to list the tasks that a given organism — or, more generally, any structure — is capable of performing. Let’s look at a practical example. Let’s compare a weasel and a chicken, which are roughly the same size and are in danger (someone is aiming an air gun at them). Let’s assume that both are looking toward the point from which the shot will come. The weasel can turn on the spot and run away from the shot. The hen dashes in the direction she is looking — that is, toward the shot — and turns as she goes. This is a more primitive strategy that has cost many hens their lives. After all, this is how farmers herd them into pens. They wait until the hen turns toward the pen door, then say “Shoo,” and the hen obediently runs through the door. Because of this primitiveness, the hen doesn’t stand a chance against the weasel.
We must also take into account time and, in the case of a community, the number of individuals — the complexity is greater for those who can handle the same set of tasks in less time and with fewer individuals. For example, in the Mesozoic Era, reptiles stood at the top of the food pyramid, even though their brains were perhaps more primitive than those of contemporary mammals; but reptiles simply arrived earlier and were more numerous. Thus, their temporal and numerical superiority compensated for what they lacked in individual complexity compared to mammals. This dominance was temporary, metastable, and shifted at the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. Since then, mammals have been the rulers of the planet.
Balance Among Organisms
This brings us to a second tool for comparing the complexity of organisms — through the balance between individual structures. Mutual exclusion relationships between predator and prey or between parasite and host are particularly suitable examples. For instance, in the relationship between the running speed of a lion and that of an antelope, coevolution occurs. The faster one runs, the faster the other must run; or, generally speaking, the advantage of one must be compensated for — that is, it must be in balance with other advantages of the other species.
This balance is even more evident in parasites, which simplify their structure to a minimum, reproduce rapidly (r-strategy, see glossary), and undergo rapid evolution. Their strength lies in their simplicity. However, their reproductive potential — virulence — is in balance with the host’s complexity. Compared to them, the host is always a slow K-strategist and counterbalances the parasites’ advantages in various ways — in animals, through the development of a more complex immune system, care for offspring, and cleaning or scratching the skin; and in humans, through other means — intelligence, hygiene, disinfection, or pest control. Every parasite reduces its host’s reproductive potential to a greater or lesser extent, so over time they form a compromise or oscillating equilibrium (Flegr, 2005).
We can therefore compare the complexity of two animal species in relation to a given parasite by determining the extent to which that parasite threatens the host population. For example, both mice and humans are intermediate hosts for Toxoplasma, but humans have much more powerful means of combating this parasite. Simply by being aware of it, by developing drugs against it, and by the fact that the infection does not affect their psyche enough to cause them to let themselves be eaten by a cat, as is the case with mice. Unlike in mice, therefore, Toxoplasma hinders human reproduction to a much lesser extent, so humans are a more complex organism than mice with respect to this parasite.
Of course, an individual is not the only conceivable structure whose complexity we can compare. Using the principle of equilibrium, we can compare the strength of the plant Bohemian knotweed relative to other plants that grow in our country. Complexity also varies across entire communities. Hitler compared the complexity of his state and ideology to the collective complexity of the rest of the world. A single state managed to keep the entire rest of the world in check, and had it not been for a lack of power, the world would have been one big Germany. Here, too, we see the power with which evolutionary compression manifests itself.
There is another connection between complexity and parasites. For every increase in complexity, an organism pays a price — at the very least, by becoming more attractive to potential parasites. From a purely biological standpoint, an increase in complexity leads to an evolutionary advantage and, consequently, to an increase in the number of individuals of a given species. A whole host of parasites and predators, in turn, would love to feast on them. Thus, every increase in complexity goes hand in hand with the need to defend against a growing number of parasites and predators. This also holds true in the social sphere. For example, if you know how to repair computers — you immediately find yourself in danger of half your relatives calling you to fix their broken and virus-infected machines. Jesus met the same fate — as soon as word got out that he could turn water into wine, there were immediately some poor souls who had run out of wine at a wedding.
Every increase in complexity means the need to defend against another potential parasite that seeks to exploit the products of this very new ability. In contrast, a parasite seeks to simplify its own structure and tries to shift most of its vital functions onto the host. This, in turn, prevents any other parasite from exploiting it. Where there is nothing, there is nothing to steal. Thus, we can also measure an organism’s complexity by the number of structures with which it is in equilibrium — and against which it is able to defend itself. For example, a tapeworm does not deal with tax issues, does not plant beets, and does not read books about parasites. If evolution is moving toward maximum complexity in organisms, this means, in other words, that the goal is a structure capable of defending itself against any danger. For example, with increasing technological progress (which is also a form of complexity), humanity is gradually becoming capable of defending itself against even an asteroid impact — something that was previously unthinkable. The goal of evolution, then, is invulnerable, immortal structures.
Cellular Automata
Theoretical biology deals with so-called cellular automata. These are self-sustaining structures defined by their arrangement and a few elementary rules. The best-known automaton is the so-called Game of Life, devised by the English mathematician John Conway. It is defined on a square grid, where each square represents a single cell. The basic rules governing the creation and destruction of cells are incredibly simple:
- Each cell can be either alive (black) or dead (white).
- A cell dies when it has fewer than two live cells surrounding it.
- A cell dies when it is surrounded by more than three live cells.
- Life is born in a cell when it is surrounded by at least three cells.
Various Examples of Cellular Automata
When we apply the rules described above to every cell in this grid, we discover a few interesting facts. Structures with one or two cells (a, b) spontaneously disappear in the next generation. Persistence, as a new property, appears only in structures with three or more cells (c–f). Here, growth to four cells and oscillations also appear for the first time. Glider motion first appears in a structure of five cells arranged in the shape of f. For example, it is not known how many cells are needed to construct a structure that can reproduce itself indefinitely and create copies of itself. This has not been proven in this game, but it already exists in automata with more than two states.
More important than the rules is the arrangement that the living cells form. As the number of cells increases and with the right arrangement, a phenomenon always emerges that is not observable with a smaller number of cells. For example, two cells cannot survive or oscillate, but three can. Three cells can oscillate but cannot move forward. Forward movement only appears with five cells or more. I recommend typing the words “cellular automaton” or “Game of Life” into your browser; you’ll find many links to a vast number of articles, programs, and impressive demonstrations of how these automata work.
In fact, it’s possible to build a self-sustaining computer, self-replicating structures, and more from these automata. It’s no surprise that many scientists are convinced that even our universe is just one large structure (for example, Stephen Wolfram). This structure is based on a few very simple laws, which, when arranged appropriately, create complex formations. However, as complexity increases, new phenomena and natural laws continually emerge that do not exist at lower levels. More complex organisms, which acquired these laws earlier than others, benefit from them.
Evolutionary Compression
Today, life as a whole is resilient to any catastrophe that may naturally occur on Earth. In fact, a much larger part of this structure is resilient to catastrophes — estimated to extend down to the level of phyla or classes. However, this resilience to catastrophes clearly proceeds in two directions.
First, this indestructibility progresses downward — from the largest structures through kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species, all the way down to the individual. Then it moves from large scales to small ones — it compresses. Just as a pump inflates a small ball with a huge volume of air, so too does evolution gradually compress into an individual or a species the functions that were initially possessed by the entire large system, or even the entire ecological niche.
Let’s illustrate this at the very beginning of life. In a relatively cold environment, such as a glacier, chemical substances began to freeze out of the prebiotic soup. As their concentration increased, primitive sugars — the building blocks of ribonucleic acid (RNA) — began to polymerize. According to Ridley (2001), RNA can replicate on its own and does not require proteins to do so.
These nucleotide chains were relatively short, unstable, and broke apart, split, and rejoined in a rather random and chaotic manner. At that time, it is likely that no proteins or enzymes were being systematically produced. This copying process initially had no “reproductive function” — the chains multiplied simply because their strands were broken apart by some physical or chemical process.
Around some of the pools or tubes in the glacier, other reactions began to occur. For example, one polymer that was unraveling and re-forming began, by chance, to produce a primitive protein, which started to form a slime-like substance around the pool. This slime then provided it with some protection against the ebb and flow of water. This simple function represented an evolutionary advantage and spread the primitive polymer, with its slime-forming function, along the entire shoreline. We can hardly call the chemical mechanism described here “life” yet, but evolution is not limited solely to living organisms. As biologists say, life has a physical history, not a genealogical one (Woese 1998). It is a manifestation of interacting structures. However, through a similarly slow process, the slime evolved into a lipid cell membrane. Suddenly, the function that had originally been performed by the entire shoreline or a millimeter-sized pool was acquired by a single small cell, which we now consider to be alive. Millimeter-sized clumps of slime compressed into miniature cells.
Multicellular organisms arose in the same way — from many cells living side by side, a multicellular organism emerged that condensed all the functions originally possessed by the entire vast community of diverse cells. From many individual polyps living together in various stages of development, organs gradually emerged; see the Portuguese man-of-war, which will be discussed in the chapter “The Church as the Body of Christ.”
Even the eye evolved through the consolidation of the light-sensitivity of many skin cells. Light strikes the organism from one side, but not from the other. Organisms that respond to this difference through movement — phototaxis — have an advantage. Thanks to a random mutation, some of these organisms have light-sensitive cells that are curved. They benefit from this curvature because they can also distinguish the direction of the incident light — from the right or from the left. This is because, under side lighting, the curvature casts a shadow on a specific part of the eye. Already, the light-sensing function is confined to only a part of the body, and the eye begins to form. This initially arises from a further curvature of the light-sensitive cells into the shape of a pinhole camera without a lens, which already possesses good optical properties for imaging objects and thus all the prerequisites for the emergence of perception.
Evolutionary Compression of the Eye
At first, only the part of organisms that is near the light benefits from it. Then organisms begin to approach it on their own, or conversely, flee from it (phototaxis). They then begin to distinguish direction and, ultimately, to perceive. Once again, the function of an entire animal kingdom was taken over by a single small organ, a single small structure — the eye. The result is, once again, greater resistance to danger and destruction.
Planaria
Planaria (flatworms) have light-sensitive cells called ocelli (eyepots), with which they perceive only the intensity of light, from which they flee. As this “eye” curves, a pinhole chamber gradually forms, capable of sharply projecting an image onto the retina.
In this way, functions that we find scattered throughout complex animal communities have become embedded even in individual humans. This primarily refers to intelligence. It is a kind of “software programmability” that enables individuals to adapt quickly to current circumstances and resolve complex situations. However, people endowed with above-average intelligence do not tend to have more children these days. This is particularly tragic in our modern age of prosperity, when people with low intelligence and those who are socially unsuccessful tend to have the most children. In contrast, intelligent people are dying out because they do not marry or because they divorce more frequently. When we have two groups, each with one evolutionary advantage that currently excludes the other, it is only a matter of time before the process of evolutionary compression squeezes these two advantages into a single individual.(*) Thus, those who are intelligent and at the same time desire to have children are constantly favored. This is a trend that is fully in line with Catholic pro-family morality and with how Jesus loved children (Mark 10:13):
People were bringing children to him so that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will certainly not enter it.” He embraced them, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
(*) A striking example of such a fusion is the merging of an archaeon and a bacterium into the first eukaryotic cell, without which multicellular organisms would not have emerged. Heterotrophic bacteria consume oxygen and organic matter and produce hydrogen as a byproduct. Hydrogen is rare on Earth, but it is vital for archaea. The archaea therefore fused with bacteria, which gradually evolved into cellular mitochondria — the “lungs” of the cell. (Flegr, 2005, p. 331)
But let us return to the main question — why are we concerned with evolutionary compression? We are interested in whether the trait of indestructibility — that is, immortality — which we observe in other structures has also been compressed into individual human beings. The answer, based on today’s scientific understanding, is obvious at first glance: No. Every human being dies just like members of all other species. Not even the fact that humans have a desire for immortality plays any role. It is merely a rational manifestation of the self-preservation instincts that every organism possesses.
This indisputable scientific fact stands in contrast to the attested experience of the disciples with the resurrected Christ. He miraculously rose from the dead. The Virgin Mary, too, is said to have met a special fate upon her death; reportedly, she left no body behind but was taken directly into heaven. Immortality was also a quality attributed to the first humans — Adam and Eve — but they lost it for a reason traditionally referred to as original sin.
If the testimony of the disciples is true, as Christians believe, a person can exist in two modes. We are familiar with the mode involving original sin from contemporary biology — classical evolution based on genes that inherently include human mortality. Modes without original sin represent a kind of metastable state that a person can lose through their own decision and which they acquire either from their parents or simply directly from God.
We can imagine a kind of unusual epigenetic mutation that occurs only in highly complex organisms. Like most mutations, it occurs only rarely. The first humans, whom history named Adam and Eve, possessed it. Then, for many thousands of years, nothing — until Mary and Jesus. Thanks to this mutation, these people had extraordinary abilities, particularly the aforementioned immortality — at some point, a person somehow passes into another dimension, and their body disappears from our world (the Assumption).
Evolution as a Generator of New Natural Laws and Life Energy
From a human perspective, evolution is a reservoir of an unimaginable amount of energy and a generator of new natural laws (Tresmontant, 1997, p. 32). At the beginning of the universe, there were no stars, and thus the laws governing supernovae did not apply. Without the emergence of life, there would be no living organisms and no laws of genetics. The laws of biology, therefore, exist or came into play only from the time of the first organisms onward. This also applies to the laws governing animal behavior — ethology — as well as to psychological or sociological laws. These, too, come into play only when structures with a certain degree of complexity begin to exist. Every natural law, in fact, requires a structure with a corresponding minimum level of complexity. Without this complexity, the natural law in question is unable to take effect and appears to an outside observer as if it did not exist.
Let’s imagine, for example, a time when the atmosphere contained no oxygen. We had to wait for stromatolites to emerge and utilize the dormant laws of photosynthesis. They flooded the entire world and produced wasteful, toxic oxygen that no organism on Earth was capable of processing. Suddenly, the atmosphere was full of oxygen, and dead cells — killed by the oxygen — floated at the sea’s surface. This represented an incredible amount of accumulated energy, just waiting for a new species capable of utilizing it. That long-awaited organism was apparently a modified form of cyanobacteria, which suddenly began to consume organic matter while using up oxygen in the process. For some time, they lived without competing with one another in a nutritionally rich environment. However, the abundance of oxygen and nutrients gradually ran out, and the organisms began to compete with one another for resources in the oceans. Over time, lungfish discovered that there was also an incredible amount of untapped energy on land, and amphibians emerged. And that’s how it has been ever since. There is always a vast amount of untapped energy accumulating and lying idle somewhere, waiting for a new species capable of harnessing it. This species will not only exhaust that energy but will also bring with it new methods — new laws of nature — for how such energy can be utilized. Of course, this doesn’t apply only to cyanobacteria, but also to giraffes, for example, which, thanks to their long necks, discovered the treetops, where there was plenty of uneaten foliage. It also applies to humans, who have extracted vast amounts of accumulated energy from fossil fuels. Even entrepreneurs look for gaps in the market — that is, the accumulated energy of demand.
Evolution is at work wherever there are complex structures. The energy released by the increasing complexity of organisms acts as a counterbalance to the law of entropy. Although organisms’ resilience to catastrophes increases with ongoing evolution, the question remains whether rapidly evolving humanity will be able to cope with them. Do we have sufficient resources to withstand a collision with a stray asteroid? Will we be able to protect ourselves in the future from a solar explosion, for example, by relocating to another planetary system? Can humanity manage the energy it releases in such a way that it does not destroy itself?
Throughout evolution, the challenges accompanying newly discovered abilities have been precisely the tools that led to the compression of these new functions into smaller yet increasingly complex structures. Only those species that thoughtfully and non-destructively integrate these newly discovered functions into their organisms will survive. If humanity releases energy faster than it can simultaneously mature internally, self-destruction is the only fate that awaits it. After all, we can already see the fragility of our civilization in the case of the Twin Towers in New York — who has ever seen, in the past, ten people manage to kill four thousand individuals in a matter of minutes? Today, all it takes is to fly through a high-rise building… In short, society’s internal — or, if you will, moral — maturation cannot keep pace with technological progress and the energy being released.
No one seems to doubt that humans will be succeeded by organisms that will evolutionarily surpass them. It would be absurd to assume that evolution ends with humans. If humans have unleashed atomic energy, what kind of energy will these more evolutionarily advanced organisms possess? I am convinced that these organisms also included those whom theology denies have original sin.
So let’s try to look at Jesus as a human being without original sin, one who has evolved further than we have. It is entirely consistent with our experience of evolution to date that he must have possessed accumulated energy and utilized those laws of nature that are hidden from us. Just as the laws governing bird flight are hidden from jellyfish, so too have humans made perfect use of them. This ever-refining and more thorough exploitation of the world’s possibilities is a hallmark of evolution. If humanity has been able to crisscross the entire world with highways and communication channels, what abilities must Jesus have possessed to have outpaced us evolutionarily? And how precisely must he have been attuned to the consistent fulfillment of God’s will so that that same energy would not slip from his grasp and destroy him, as it threatens to do to us?
However, Jesus’ extraordinary nature does not mean that he necessarily had to cease being human. In biology, a species is defined by its ability to reproduce. No one — neither theologians nor atheists — denies that Jesus could have had children with a woman. There is therefore no reason to assume that he would have had to cease being human simply because he possessed extraordinary abilities.
In these reflections, I find it helpful to imagine that animal species — or even individual organisms — are like archers trying to hit a target from a great distance. The closer someone hits the center of the target, the more energy they have at their disposal. The fact that Christ possessed unimaginable abilities is simply a consequence of his having hit the bullseye. We, too, live in our own world, and the more we are able to read the signs of the times — to hit the bullseye — the more energy we can draw from it. I see this reflected in my success in the media. I attribute the fact that I am in demand primarily to the fact that I am a servant to journalists. I try to grasp exactly what they need and then provide it to them. In addition, I strive to understand other people’s suffering as accurately as possible. The closer I hit the center of the target, the more energy is released from people, and the more popular I become. This is not a quest for extreme power, but for absolute precision.
In this context, Jesus used the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–23):
A sower went out to sow. As he was sowing, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up immediately because they were not deep in the ground. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Still other seeds fell among thorns; the thorns grew up and choked them. And other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop — some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. Whoever has ears, let them hear!
The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
He replied, “Because it has been given to you to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. That is why I speak to them in parables: though they look, they do not see; though they listen, they do not hear or understand. And the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in them: ‘You will keep on hearing but will not understand; you will keep on looking but will not see. For the heart of this people has grown callous; their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, so that they may not see with their eyes, nor hear with their ears, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn — and I will not heal them.’ … Listen, then, to the explanation of the parable of the sower.
Whenever anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart; this is the one on whom the seed was sown along the path. The one on whom the seed was sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; but it has no root in him, and he is fickle: when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, he immediately falls away. The one sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this world and the allure of wealth choke the word, and it yields no crop. The one sown on good soil is the one who hears and understands the word and bears fruit — one a hundredfold, another sixtyfold, and another thirtyfold.
The success of the seed is proportional to its ability to fall on fertile soil, which represents accumulated energy. To achieve this, we must have a pure heart; otherwise, we cannot see or hear. This striving for purity of heart is, in other words, a striving for holiness. The parable also contains another idea. Thanks to their connection with him, Jesus’ disciples are much closer to the center of the target than other people. A seeming injustice arises, but it logically follows from the precision of the hit: “To those who have, more will be given, and they will have even more; but from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.” I don’t know about you, but I see an inverse relationship in this sentence.
An inverse relationship between the complexity of an organism and entropy
In many parables, Jesus expresses the idea that it is not quantity that matters, but precision and quality. A mustard seed is small, yet it possesses tremendous vitality. Yeast permeates a vast amount of flour without being consumed. A pinch of salt is added to food, but it must not lose its extraordinary flavor. We, too, have an incredible amount of energy at our disposal; it’s just a matter of using it precisely.
Communities possess greater capabilities than individuals, but unfortunately also greater potential for self-destruction. However, as long as they do not exceed a certain level of complexity (proximity to the center of the target), the differences in the energy released between an individual and a community are not as vast as they are among humans.
This observation about untapped energy applies to us as individuals as well, because we often use only a tiny fraction of our abilities. For example, solving a Sudoku puzzle or working through problems in a physics textbook requires roughly the same amount of effort, yet knowledge of physics is far more practical than solving hundreds of crossword puzzles. Practicing a musical instrument isn’t much harder than listening to music. Similarly, watching evening TV shows is only slightly easier than reading a popular book on any subject, but books are far more beneficial. People spend a lot of money on skiing, tennis, and golf, but then they hire a company to install, say, an automatic sprinkler system for the lawn around their house. The work involved is the same; it’s just that many so-called sports are an end in themselves. We’re increasingly eating out at restaurants on our own, even though this means we’re missing out on the time spent together preparing meals, which seems to be an irreplaceable source of family communication. In other words, all we need to do is stop acting like “kings of fools” (see dictionary) and channel our energy a bit more wisely, and we’ll immediately have an incredible number of possibilities at our fingertips.
Many physical quantities manifest only within a certain range of values, but are unmeasurable elsewhere. For example, we would never have believed that we move in waves if we hadn’t discovered subatomic particles.
De Broglie’s wave equation applies not only to photons and electrons, where it is easily measurable, but to every object — including us. However, when we substitute a human’s mass into the equation, the resulting wavelength is immeasurably small. (h: Planck’s constant; p: momentum; m: mass; v: velocity; λ: de Broglie wavelength)
Let’s imagine that the amount of energy — and with it, the degree of indestructibility — possessed by an organism, a species, or any structure in general were similarly proportional to the complexity of that organism:
Similar to de Broglie’s law, we could verify this formula only by measuring it at very high levels of complexity. For example, humanity as a whole is capable of releasing a large amount of energy corresponding to immense complexity. This increase in available energy has only recently become measurable, since today we possess extensive scientific knowledge and benefit from strong cooperation among various technological sectors (complexity). If society’s level of complexity were low, a similar law would be masked by measurement error or other statistical errors, even though it might hold universally. Complexity and the energy it unleashes go hand in hand with the pursuit of indestructibility or immortality. For example, medical care is also a manifestation of the complexity of human society, which undoubtedly leads to the prolongation of human life and the quest for longevity.
You can see that I dream of new theories. However, this is the same kind of unscientific thinking as that of Darwin, whose contemporary and opponent was the brilliant physicist William Thomson, better known today as Lord Kelvin (Youngson, 2004). Using the energy sources known at the time, he calculated that even if the Sun were made entirely of coal or hydrogen, it could not burn and shine so intensely for more than 98 million years. But that would mean Darwin, with his theory of evolution, would not have gotten any further than the lizards of the Cretaceous period, by the end of the Mesozoic Era. So what was Darwin supposed to do? Should he have respected the scientific knowledge of his time and thrown his entire nascent theory in the trash, simply because there wasn’t enough time for it? Or should he have unscientifically assumed that a new form of energy might be discovered in the future? Today, after the discovery of radioactivity, we’re all experts, but during Darwin’s lifetime, this was a serious — and nearly fatal — objection to his theory.
Here I am sketching the vague outlines of a theory that would map the extent to which indestructibility is a concomitant phenomenon of surpassing the critical level of complexity in living structures. Evolution drives this compression into living organisms, and this leap manifests itself not only in known dimensions but also in those we do not yet know.
Christianity refers to several pivotal, singular events in human history where these dimensions might have penetrated our world. For lack of better terminology, we describe these phenomena using traditional religious terms — the Ascension, original sin, miracle, grace, and so on.
Myth
Before we address original sin, let’s say a few words about the interpretation of myths. A myth is a type of literary work that, in the form of a story, answers the fundamental questions of life for the people who tell and pass it down orally. In this sense, the Bible does not contain many mythical texts, because the Apocalypses, the Gospels, the Epistles, the Psalms, and other poems are not myths from a literary perspective. The difference between a written myth and a living, orally transmitted myth is roughly the same as that between Pharaoh Tutankhamun and his mummy.
The story of the creation of the world and humankind at the beginning of the Book of Genesis is such a preserved mummy of a once-living myth. It originated many tens to hundreds of thousands of years after the actual origin of humankind. The reliability of oral tradition is approximately two hundred years — six generations, that is, the span from my grandparents to my great-grandchildren — so that after a thousand years, only fragments remain of the information passed down orally (Vachala, 2004). The author of the myth could not have had any information from the time of humanity’s origin. What we have in the Bible is therefore undoubtedly a fabrication. But it is not just any fabrication. It has one peculiarity — it is an authorized fabrication. What does that mean?
Let’s imagine a contest: Try writing me a short story about how I met my wife. I’ll read those stories — they’ll all undoubtedly be fabrications, but one of them will come very close to how it actually happened. I will then authorize this story and confirm that, of all the entries, this one most closely resembles what actually happened back then. The same is true of the myth of the origin of humankind. Both Jews and Christians consider the Bible to be inspired and regard even this, undoubtedly fictional, story as authorized by God Himself. The myth of the creation of humankind is, at most, merely an authorized version of a description of events for which no direct or indirect memory has been preserved.
We believers are, quite simply, capable of believing just about anything; however, every person — believer or non-believer — seeks a boundary between what they will still believe and what they will no longer believe. For example, I certainly do not share the ancient belief that the world was created about six thousand years ago. This belief dates back to pre-Christian times and arose from a fairly straightforward line of reasoning. The Jews were very particular about genealogies. Knowing one’s genealogy was like having an ID card today; it was the foundation of one’s identity. One day, someone had the idea to add up all the biblical generations and arrived at this number. That is also why the Jewish calendar begins with the presumed date of the world’s creation. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of people who believe this nonsensical reasoning. It is not for nothing that Saint Paul criticizes the futile preoccupation with genealogies (1 Tim. 1:3–4):
When I was leaving for Macedonia, I urged you [Timothy] not to let anyone get involved in myths and endless genealogies, which promote useless speculation rather than the faith that comes from God’s purpose.
A myth is a narrative — something analogous to the family stories already mentioned — that is triggered by a question from the listener. We cannot understand a myth until we find this triggering question: “Dad, why does the week have seven days, and why don’t we work on Saturday?” “You see, son, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” And suddenly we have the myth of the creation of the world in seven days and of how God rested at the end of His work on the seventh day — that is, on Saturday. Similarly, the myth of the creation of humankind is the answer to the question: “And why, Dad, do men live with women, and not with their parents or, say, with animals?”
“Because God created woman from the rib of man, and he exclaimed: ‘This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She shall be called “woman,” for she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’”
Like any story, a myth has one central idea, a plot, and is further embellished with various details — fabrications. These embellishments do not convey any important idea, and it is a mistake to draw any conclusions from them. For example, the text of Genesis erroneously suggests that birds were created before reptiles, but that is precisely the kind of embellishment that is not the central framework — the plot — of the entire story. The plot is the answer to the question of why we do not work on Saturday. It is not difficult to relate myths to evolutionary theories, because no myth answers the question: “Dad, how did humans evolve from apes?” Myths and evolutionary theories simply do not intersect historically.
Original Sin
Life does not unfold solely within the framework of known laws. Electricity did not come into existence with Faraday, nor did gravity with Newton. Our lives, Christianity, and evolution all unfold within the framework of all existing laws, even those not yet known. People in the Middle Ages did not know the nature of lightning, yet they could observe it. Even though they did not know that the circular motion of celestial bodies is driven by the same force that binds them to the earth, they still saw its consequences. Even religious experience can point us to the consequences of natural laws of which we have no inkling today.
Biology recognizes several types of epigenetic inheritance that are not encoded in DNA (Flegr, 2005). Original sin may thus be one of many unknown types of epigenetic inheritance, or it may be a mutation in those physical dimensions and variables of which we have no inkling today. Even unknown mutations can increase or decrease an organism’s adaptability to a given environment.
We can imagine that Adam and Eve were two people born with some mutation outside the known laws of nature. According to theology, the original sin of the first humans caused the loss of a certain trait that enabled immortality. They possessed this trait in an extraordinary way, from birth or creation. Interestingly, the same trait — namely, being born without original sin — is attributed to two other people: Mary and Jesus. Surprisingly, completely independent of the doctrine of original sin, a dogma emerged in 1950 stating that the Virgin Mary was taken up into heaven immediately after her death, body and all, and thus possessed the immortality that Adam and Eve had in Paradise.
However, those two lost this ability because of their sin. Their children were therefore born without it. Thus, people waited for another mutation of the same kind(*), which did not occur until much later in the case of the Virgin Mary. She did not squander this ability and passed it on to her son — Jesus. However, he had no biological descendants, so this ability, which is inherited from parents to children, was lost once again. There is another theological analogy between Mary and Adam: both were able to reproduce asexually, always with a person of the opposite sex. These two beliefs also arose independently of one another.
(*) The term “original sin” raises the question of whether it refers to one and the same trait in all four people to whom it is attributed, or whether it refers to four different traits of the same kind. For example, let’s compare the terms “white” and “colored.” When we say that someone is “colored,” they could be white, Black, Asian, etc. If the absence of original sin also constitutes a collective term like the word “colored,” then in Jesus it could have had a different character than in Adam. Unfortunately, these considerations cause the number of Bulgarian constants to exceed reasonable limits, and if we are unable to distinguish between these types of original sin, we should consider them identical based on the principle of the identity of the indiscernible (see dictionary).
The idea that a man reproduces through some sort of sprouting from a “rib” strikes me as a bit far-fetched. Therefore, I am inclined to believe that Adam — the first human — was a woman, not a man. This is not a fundamental problem from a theological standpoint (unless male vanity becomes an issue). Of course, Genesis does not provide a historical record, but rather an authoritative myth that merely approximates the truth. It is more plausible that both the Virgin Mary and Adam were a kind of “parthenogenetic female.”
Evolution is moving toward beings that substantially transcend humans. Even in the Mesozoic Era, evolution was moving toward humans who infinitely surpassed the pinnacle of development at that time — namely, reptiles. Humans without original sin may therefore represent the future continuation of evolution toward humans with new characteristics. Why couldn’t one of those future characteristics be precisely the one that humanity lost due to original sin? Evolution will certainly produce more advanced beings, but unfortunately, much like God’s mills, it takes its time with everything, so let’s not get our hopes up that we’ll live to see these beings. However, if Christianity is correct, we have four accounts of the first — and not very successful — attempts to establish such a new human “species”: Adam, Eve, Mary, and Jesus.
However, this was not a new species in the biological sense. No one denies that the Virgin Mary could theoretically have had other children with Saint Joseph. The ability to produce offspring capable of further reproduction is the definition of a species. Thus, original sin is a trait which, despite its exceptional nature, does not constitute a new biological species. Similarly, Tibetans have a genetic difference that allows them to avoid suffering from oxygen deprivation in high-altitude regions, and yet they are still human beings — a Czech man can have children with a Tibetan woman (Rogozov, 2004).
The Afterlife versus Reincarnation and Karma
After the Velvet Revolution, there was a rapid rise in Buddhism and other theories of reincarnation in our country. To non-believers, the difference between reincarnation and the afterlife, as understood by Christians, may seem insignificant. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. The Christian faith is based on the experience of the risen Christ — a man whom the disciples knew both before his death and after his death, following his resurrection. He was one and the same person, though in a different way. Psychologically speaking, both before and after death, he had the same memories, opinions, identity, and ego. He was the same person. Therefore, if Christians believe in their own resurrection, they believe that even after rising from the dead, they will still be themselves — with their own bodies, memories, identities, and egos.
Reincarnation theories, however, deny this continuity of the individual. They regard a person’s personality and body as a kind of garment that we can cast aside. After death, I am supposedly able to reincarnate as anything or anyone else. Right now I am a Czech; after reincarnation, I might be, for example, a Bushman woman, or even — according to some schools of thought — an animal or merely an object.
Purely theoretically, I have no idea what the continuity between me and a Bushman woman would be based on. A mere moral or karmic justification strikes me as shallow. Perhaps this is merely a symptom of decadent Buddhism, but I have firsthand knowledge of a statement made by Lama Olé (Diamond Way Buddhism) during a dinner. According to him, starving children in Africa are reincarnated Nazis. It strikes me as absurd that the continuity between a Nazi and an African boy dying of starvation is based solely on morality — punishment for crimes that someone else must atone for.
If we’re to speak of reincarnational continuity between two individuals, I would expect it to be a natural continuity — some part remains physically the same, while another changes. However, I don’t know what is supposed to remain the same according to Buddhism. To put it cynically, I couldn’t care less about the fate of the Bushwoman who comes after me. Why should I feel compassion for someone with whom I share nothing — neither memories, nor body, nor mind, nor opinions, nor personality, simply nothing that we consider important?
While Christians believe in a kind of multiculturalism in the world after the resurrection, Buddhism strives for the dissolution of individuality. This is an insurmountable theoretical contradiction, because it relates to a person’s attitudes toward the various evils that befall them.
While Christ explains much evil as a challenge for the future, karmic systems always explain evil in terms of the past — and always in an egocentric way (their logical system allows for no other possibility): “You are suffering because you did something wrong in a past life. You were attacked by a gang of skinheads because you were cruel in this or a previous life.” The fact that every evil must stem from one’s personal past is also the basis for the “humorous” quip: “You’re a cripple — you know very well why.”
Egocentric, of course, does not mean selfish, but rather one who always places the self at the center of the frame of reference. In short, karmic systems do not recognize processes that arise without a connection to the self and its past. They cannot, for example, accept the idea that a meteor might fall on me for no reason, that I might get cancer just like that, that it would have nothing to do with my sins in this or a past life. Simply that it would just happen…
In contrast to these egocentric systems, Jesus tells the apostles: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed in him” — that is, so that I might heal him now, or so that we Christians might help these afflicted people live meaningful lives, thereby building the Kingdom of God. Evil exists so that, now or in the future, the power of God and the power of our love for our neighbor may be revealed. Yes, in some cases, a person may be responsible for the evil that has befallen them, but it is absurd to have a moral system that claims this of every evil that befalls a person. This is a theocentric way of thinking, which I consider more sound than other views on evil.
Therefore, even Buddhist compassion is not, in essence, identical to Christian love. Compassion for someone who is ultimately responsible for their own suffering is not the kind of love that bestows itself upon those who have simply received less than we have. Christian love is, in a sense, non-moralizing; it does not presuppose the inherent guilt of the other.
However, I would not want to be misunderstood. I am not speaking here about Buddhists and Christians as people. I know good Buddhists and Christians, and vice versa. I am simply explaining where I see weaknesses — and thus the unacceptability — of the Buddhist worldview. On the other hand, I must say that various types of Buddhist meditations (breathing or walking) have given me a great deal, and I recommend them to clients when appropriate.
Resurrection
According to the Creed (see glossary), after his death, Christ “descended into hell.” This means that he somehow came into contact with the dead and that the same thing happened to him as happens to every other person who has died.
However, Christ’s resurrection was probably not as straightforward an event as it might seem. If he remained in the state of the dead for a little over two days, there were likely serious reasons for it. Reading the Scriptures, one might get the impression that everything went like clockwork after his death, that he remained in that state merely so that Scripture might be fulfilled. Wasn’t it rather the other way around? Christ is not here for the sake of Scripture, but Scripture is here for the sake of Christ. Scripture merely described what would happen in the future, but it was neither the cause of it nor does it explain the reasons behind it.
In his miracles, we observe a process of gradual learning. At first, he uses mud and other aids. Toward the end of his ministry, a mere word or his will is enough. Even though he can raise others from the dead, that does not yet mean he can apply it to himself. He had yet to acquire this ability. For Jesus is a human being, and as such, he must constantly develop and learn, regardless of death or the fact that he is also God. That is why it took him three days to discover this path back, because it was no easy task. During those three days, Jesus sought a way to rise from the dead, to revive his body.
The possibility of our own resurrection is derived from Jesus’ resurrection. Nor will this be a straightforward process. When we examine his statements on this topic, we see that it is to be a selective process that does not apply to all people, and it will be Jesus himself who will raise the dead (John 6):
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is the Father’s will that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the last day. All whom the Father gives me will come to me; and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
However, this resurrection will not be possible without a truly physical union of the person with Jesus, just as a branch draws life from the tree’s trunk. This union is already taking place today in the Eucharist:
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats me will have life from me.”
Let’s put the statements about the end of the world and the resurrection into context. At the end of the world, there will apparently be a change in physical conditions, which will partially reactivate the souls — that is, the bodies of people who have already died (John 5:28–29):
The hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
However, no one except Jesus has the power to restore his own body. Therefore, our resurrection will be possible only if we physically unite with him and participate in his body. At first glance, this seems simple, but it will likely be quite challenging for our ego. For it breaks down the boundaries between individuals who, according to our experience, are now clearly separate. Jesus therefore emphatically warns us of these strange realities in advance: “You must eat me, then you will have life from me, just as I have life from the Father.” Similarly, the idea of the Church as a vast meta-organism — the mystical Body of Christ — arises. Mystical, yes, but entirely physical, not illusory.
The Last Judgment is essentially a stress test. It will reveal who is capable of uniting with Christ and who is not. The outcome of this test may in fact be decided at the moment of a person’s death, but that does not change the fact that it will likely not be easy. In any case, there is no need for anyone to judge anyone else. Each person will be judged solely by their confrontation with the new reality, and so we will all see where everyone stands. Some will be able to unite with Jesus sooner, some later, and some, unfortunately, not at all (Luke 13:23–24):
Someone asked him, “Lord, are there really so few who will be saved?”
He replied, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will try to enter but will not be able to.”
Christianity is a psychological religion; thus, what will prevent people from being resurrected will not be external circumstances, but their inner disposition — their inner conflicts, which are called sin — a self-destructive contradiction between the knowledge and actions of one and the same person. Yet such contradictions are already destroying us today, whether we are believers or atheists. Believers simply have a greater motivation to rid themselves of them in time, while they still can.
The Theory of Immortality
Christians believe that Christ discovered a way to restore to people the ability that the first humans lost because of their transgression. This loss was not simply reversible. Once Adam and Eve lost it, they regressed to the level of animals and became mortal like their ancestors. Within the framework of theories of immortality, there are several possibilities:
Extreme monism asserts that nothing about a person survives death, and that after death, a person ceases to exist irrevocably. Somewhere in the middle lies the Jewish conception that only something like a shadow — Sheol, that is, a vague imprint of their being — remains of the deceased. Next come dualistic theories, which operate with the concepts of body and soul, which exist more or less independently of one another. The extreme position among dualistic theories is represented by systems of reincarnation, according to which a person is more or less just a soul that changes bodies, much like we change clothes.
Christianity, in its time, wavered as to which of the anthropological theories was best suited to describe human immortality. Throughout history, a wide variety of theories from the ancient Greek philosophers and their more recent derivatives were studied, but the concept of Plato and Aristotle maintained the strongest position. Ultimately, Aristotle prevailed. However, even his theory has reached a dead end due to the findings of modern science. The reason is an assumption not shared by modern science — namely, that there is such an obvious, gulf-like, and insurmountable difference between humans and animals that it can be proven that humans and animals function on the basis of two completely different principles.
In its time, this was not a foolish idea, because the continuity of abilities between animals and humans has only recently come to light. Let’s illustrate this line of reasoning with the following example. In the figure, we see two triangles that should have the same area, since they have the same aspect ratio (13 ÷ 5) and are composed of the same pieces. However, when one is assembled, there is one square left over. How is that possible?
I believe that with a little thought, you’ll figure out where the previous reasoning has its Achilles’ heel, since all it takes is elementary school-level math. With this example, I want to show that we can solve such a problem only thanks to our knowledge of geometry (the solution is in the glossary at the end of the book). No amount of intuition, keen perception, or generally sharper senses can resolve such dilemmas. To understand and refute it requires something that you cannot teach to any dog or monkey. Only humans possess this unique ability for rational thinking in its fully developed form. Until the continuity of the seeds of rational thought in animals became apparent, it was natural for scientists to view reason as something entirely distinct, existing and functioning thanks to a “machine or mechanism” other than sensory perception. Many books have already been written about overcoming this belief, so there is no point in repeating arguments that have been made a hundred times over — except, perhaps, for an autobiographical note.
I myself used to be a proponent of these dualistic theories. I contemplated a sort of symbiotic coexistence between an immortal rational soul and the body. The body would gain the new capabilities of the rational soul, and the soul, in turn, would benefit from the body’s ability to perceive and feel. In the end, I abandoned this theory as well. Why? Let’s imagine that God creates an immortal, immaterial soul for every fertilized egg. It struck me as absurd that we could force God to create souls on demand by separating individual dividing cells from one another. After forcing God in this way to create two or fifteen immortal souls, we would then drive them all out of their new bodies if we killed the separated cells. This kind of manipulation of God strikes me as absurd.
I am much more drawn to theories according to which immortality is a property that an organism acquires once it reaches a certain critical stage of development. Just as physics recognizes a critical concentration of radioactive material that triggers a chain fission reaction, evolutionary biology recognizes critical levels of complexity — for example, the minimum complexity required for reproduction and, thus, life (Flegr, 2005). However, we have no idea that a fission reaction is possible if we have too little radioactive material or do not understand the nature of radioactivity. Similarly, one can conceive of a sort of critical level of development beyond which organisms acquire not only species immortality but also individual immortality; after all, this resilience or persistence is what evolution is all about (Flegr, 2005).
According to theology, we humans are just below this level, because Adam and Eve lost it. It is therefore no wonder that biologists cannot find any signs of human immortality, since there are none. If I lose a hundred, I can’t see it in my wallet either. Unlike radioactivity, we don’t know much about this lost property. (After all, we’ve only known about radioactivity for a little over a hundred years.) The only certainty is that it will be related to the degree of an organism’s complexity.
Within the framework of the laws of nature, living organisms are interesting in that they constantly strive toward ever-greater complexity, which guarantees ever-greater resilience — the possibility of both species-level and individual survival. Structural complexity also unlocks previously untapped energy. This is different from mere evolutionary adaptation to the environment. If people today are already devoting enormous energy to extending human lifespan, how much more so will the more complex species that come after us? Even if the desire for personal immortality may be merely an epiphenomenon of evolution and will never be fulfilled, it nevertheless seems that evolution is moving toward not only species-level but also personal immortality.
Chain Fission Reaction
A chain fission reaction is observable only at a certain, supercritical amount of radioactive material. Similarly, the indestructibility or immortality of a certain structure could emerge once an organism reaches a certain critical level of complexity.
In evolution, we see two distinct trends — an increase in the complexity of organisms and, along with it, an increase in care for offspring, including altruism. The species that come after us will not be larger or smaller than the animals of today. They will differ from us in that they will be far more complex and sophisticated, and that they will care even more than we do for their offspring and the survival of other members of their species. A cat and a jellyfish are roughly the same size, yet the cat is far more complex. It therefore has many more tools at its disposal for self-defense — from claws to caring for kittens to intelligence.
This is not a philosophical fantasy. There is a clear evolutionary trend that we have observed from the very beginning. Fish care for their fry more than mollusks do, reptiles more than fish, and mammals, in turn, surpass reptiles — both in the complexity of their organisms and in caring for their offspring and protecting members of their species. When Christ commands, “Love God and your neighbor as yourself,” he is pointing in the same direction that evolution points us toward.
Even though Mary possessed the ability that guaranteed her immortality, she was unable to pass it on to other people. And who knows if she was even aware of this ability. Christ sought to restore this lost immortality to humanity (John 10:10): “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
As Jesus explored his abilities, he also discovered that he had the power to raise someone from the dead. There are several key moments here. First and foremost is the raising of several people from the dead — Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter, and others. The story of Jairus’s daughter is particularly illustrative (Luke 8:40ff):
As Jesus was returning, the crowd welcomed him, for everyone was already waiting for him. Then a man named Jairus, who was a synagogue leader, came to him. He fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded earnestly with him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. While he was still speaking, someone came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead; don’t trouble the Teacher any further.”
When Jesus heard this, he said, “Do not be afraid; just believe, and she will be saved.” When he arrived at the house, he did not allow anyone to go in with him except Peter, John, and James, along with the girl’s father and mother. Everyone was weeping and wailing over the dead girl.
He said, “Do not weep. She has not died, but is asleep.” They laughed at him, because they knew she had died. But he took her by the hand and called out, “Little girl, get up!” Immediately her spirit returned, and she got up. He ordered that they give her something to eat. Her parents were overcome with amazement. But he commanded them not to tell anyone what had happened.
People laugh at him when he says the girl is sleeping. For they had far more experience with death than we do, who see perhaps five dead people in our entire lives. For them, death was a part of everyday life. People were born and died at home; public executions, wars, looting, and raids were commonplace. Back then, just about everyone knew better than we do what a dead person looks like.
But why does Christ command them not to tell anyone what happened? After all, everyone had heard that the girl was already dead, and then everyone saw her alive — you can’t keep a miracle like that a secret! So why does Christ act illogically? Probably because the evangelist captures him at the very moment when he is just discovering these abilities. He didn’t raise the dead every day, nor was it routine for him. Until he forms his own opinion, he wants his ability to raise people from the dead to remain a secret. Keeping silent about strange things was a defensive reaction typical of his entire family ever since his miraculous conception (Luke 2:51): “His mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
We saw the same thing at the beginning of his ministry. Jesus has extraordinary abilities that he cannot help but use for the benefit of others, but he would prefer not to have to use them. He is not a fantasy hero who is elevated above other people and intoxicated by his physical superiority. On the contrary, he is a real, conflicted person who cannot help but assist others, yet at the same time fears the consequences that this entails for him.
The resurrection of Jairus’s daughter is followed by the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, marking the transition from the middle to the late period of Jesus’ ministry. Christ gradually realizes that death holds no power over him. He is able to heal, raise the dead, transform his body, and encounter the greatest deceased authorities of his time. He is no longer merely experimenting with his abilities as an amateur, as he did at the beginning (with saliva and mud). Suddenly, he has them firmly under control. But this opens the path to the cross for him: Could he open the gate of death from the other side? Can he revive his own dead body after death? Is that his mission? If these questions occur to us, they must have occurred to him as well. How did he find the answers?
He sought them in the prophecies, he sought them in his personal experiences, he had compassion for people in need, he prayed and reflected for long hours, until he finally decided to take the path of the cross (Luke 9:22ff):
“The Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and be raised on the third day.” Then he said to everyone: “Whoever wants to follow me must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it. What good is it for a person to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit their very self?”
The reference to the cross is quite puzzling before his death. In the original language, Christ never uses the word “cross,” but rather “stauros” — a stake — which, when translated into Aramaic, could also mean a shepherd’s staff. Perhaps it is merely an allusion to poverty: “Go with only a staff, without possessions”.
Note that here, too, Christ speaks of personal identity, as if to say: “What good is it to me that I have abilities that no one else in the world has or will ever have, if I cannot use them for the benefit of those around me?” This, after all, is a theme we’ve been hearing since the wedding at Cana in Galilee. Christ, however, continually thinks this through to its logical conclusion. Gradually, he comes to terms with the fact that he will take upon himself the foretold destiny of the Messiah — he will allow himself to be killed so that, from the other side, he may blaze the trail that no human being before him has ever traversed by their own strength. He will blaze this trail for us — a trail that people born without original sin do not need. He will find the path that will later be followed by people who bear the burden of their ancestors’ original sin.
The question is not whether he could or could not have escaped his murderers. Physically, he certainly could have, but he knew that doing so would be impossible because it would mean failing his mission. He allows himself to be put to death in a relatively cruel manner, one that had many more dimensions than just that pertaining to the afterlife. Yet that dimension was the most important. It also most closely resembles the redemption of a slave from bondage, rather than the appeasement of an angry God. A passage must be created through which a person can return from death to life.
His public mission also ends with his public death. His resurrection is no longer intended to convince the Pharisees and his opponents. The fact that he chose to walk the path of the cross meant, among other things, that he had to resign himself to the fact that he would not be able to convince his opponents and convert them to the faith. This, too, is a major turning point. After his resurrection, he appears only to his disciples, because it is them he plans to bring from death to life. Paul’s letters speak of his appearing to five hundred brothers (1 Cor 15:6), but not to any of his opponents. The resurrection is not a spectacle for the general public. It is an internal experience of the Church — a joyful message passed down through generations. Christ’s supernatural abilities were indeed sufficiently — yet in vain — attested to by his past deeds. The resurrection from the dead is not meant to be such proof, because — to put it somewhat bluntly — it is actually none of the unbelievers’ business.
This may seem paradoxical to you, but if I were to classify his philosophy among atheistic-monistic positions and those involving reincarnation, it would be closer to the atheistic ones. Reincarnation systems take it for granted that a person has a soul, which is the dominant component of the personality and merely borrows various bodies. Neither Christianity nor Judaism takes this for granted. Were it not for Christ, there would be no possibility of returning from death to life, and Christians would have to agree with the monists who say, “Once brain function ceases, there is no longer any way to revive the personality of a particular person.” Were it not for Christ, the fate of human beings would be the same as that of animals, to whom no possibility of immortality is attributed. Christians have a handed-down experience of the risen Christ, and this gives them an empirical certainty for which contemporary science has no explanation — nor is it likely ever to have one. It is certainly closer to this certainty than to systems that postulate the existence of independent souls that change bodies as easily as one changes socks.
The Czech name Ježíš is derived from the Latin Iesus. In Aramaic, however, it was Yeshua, derived from Yehoshua, or Joshua. He was the military leader and successor to Moses who led Israel into the free Promised Land (see the Book of Exodus). Jesus had the same mission: to lead people out of the bondage of original sin and death into the freedom of the afterlife and resurrection. In this sense, his name truly captures his life’s mission — he came so that people might have life, and have it in abundance.
The End of the World
Reflections on the end of the world are linked (correlated) with psychological distress (Klimeš, 1996). The worse a person feels, the more they subconsciously sense that the end of the world cannot be far off. That is why I personally prefer not to dwell on the end of the world and stick to the advice about the fig tree: When the end of the world is within reach, it will be as obvious as when buds swell in the spring and the landscape and weather change completely. Until then, it is foolish to dwell too much on these reflections. Nevertheless, they are a cornerstone of Christianity, so we cannot ignore them.
Buds in Spring
When the buds are so full of sap, no one can doubt that spring has arrived. When the end of the world is within reach, it will be clear to everyone. Any debate will be pointless. Thus, the very existence of such debates means that the end of the world is still a long way off.
There is a problem with Jesus’ statements about the end of the world, because the Gospel texts clearly intermingle warnings about two different events. His disciples misunderstood him on so many things. It should come as no surprise that they got this wrong as well. These are warnings and advice on what to do during the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Roman troops around the year 56, which was the Romans’ punishment for the Jewish revolt. The second piece of confusing information was the warning about the end of the world. However, the mixing of these two pieces of information has one useful side effect for us. It is proof that one of the Gospels was written before that year. Judge for yourselves how everything can be combined into three verses (Matt. 24:1–3):
As Jesus was leaving the temple and walking away, the disciples came up to him and pointed out the temple buildings. But he said to them, “Do you see all these things? Amen, I say to you, not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives and they were alone, the disciples came to him and said, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
The text is so intertwined that the individual strands of information cannot be separated from one another. It is as if there were two very similar brothers whom we would consider to be one person. Something was written about this person two thousand years ago. Today, someone would try to determine which part of the story belonged to one brother or the other. Nevertheless, I hope readers will forgive me if, at my discretion, I attempt to extract from the text only that part of the information concerning the end of the world, and skip over the specific instructions on what to do in the event of the desecration and destruction of the temple (Matt. 24:30ff).
When they tell you, “Look, (the Son of Man = Christ — author’s note) is in the desert,” do not go out! “Look, in secret hiding places” — do not believe it! For just as lightning flashes across the sky from east to west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Where there is a corpse, vultures will gather. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its radiance, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky; and then all the peoples of the earth will wail, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. He will send out his angels with a mighty trumpet blast, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four corners of the earth, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Learn a lesson from the fig tree: When its branch becomes tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, know that the time is near, at the very door. But no one knows about that day or hour — not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son — only the Father alone. When the Son of Man comes, it will be just as it was in the days of Noah: Just as they were feasting and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, right up to the day Noah entered the ark — and they knew nothing about it until the flood came and swept them all away — so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Christ spoke several times about the end of the world, which could very well be the transition of physical reality from a metastable state to a stable one. In many places, Jesus points out that the end will come without warning signs, that it will come independently of all created beings, and that it will not occur in an isolated place on Earth but will be present everywhere, just as water boils throughout the entire volume of a liquid.
An avalanche can be triggered by a human scream
Earthquakes and avalanches are processes in which accumulated energy is suddenly released. Similarly, Christ, through His resurrection, did not need to expend all the energy required to resurrect every single person. If a single human cry can trigger an avalanche, why couldn’t Christ’s resurrection set off a similar domino effect — one that, however, has an unexpected consequence for us: the restoration of our personalities at the end of the world.
The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, just like his resurrection, suggests that Christ’s new existence lies beyond current physical conditions. It is simply as if our world were a kind of metastable state that exists only thanks to a certain temporary physical equilibrium. For physicists working on string theory, the idea that our world is merely a certain transient — metastable — equilibrium of the physical world is by no means foreign. The problem is that even they themselves have no empirical experience with other physical states — just as they have none with their superstrings.
Who knows what formed the image of the crucified man on the famous Shroud of Turin? It is a highly controversial object precisely because we have no idea what historical and physical causes could have produced such an artifact. If it were the work of medieval scientists, it would be a mystery where they obtained information about crucifixion and the perfectly depicted anatomy — not to mention that by that time, ancient methods of weaving and bleaching had long been forgotten. If it were an imprint of a human being, how is it that the radiation seems to emanate from within him?
In short, throughout all of known history and physics, we lack the tools capable of explaining this phenomenon. Imagine digging up a porcelain cup with a handle and the inscription “Made in Czechoslovakia 2004” from undisturbed Paleozoic strata. According to geological and historical laws, such a cup simply has no right to exist, yet there it stands before you, and you cannot imagine the force that created it in the Paleozoic era.
In the case of the Shroud of Turin, it’s all the more intriguing because even today we are unable to replicate such a cloth — it’s as if the cup were made using a technology unknown to anyone. Even if it were a hoax, we know of no method and no one capable of pulling off such a feat. Simply a disparate collage of physical phenomena… What will you do in the end? What else can you do — shrug your shoulders and tuck the cup onto a shelf labeled “Mysteries, Possible Hoaxes, or God Knows What…” — and life will go on.
All references suggest that the phenomena surrounding Christ had a sort of quantum nature — emanating from within matter: The end of the world is not localized; it will be everywhere at once. Christ and his robe on Mount Tabor shine as if light were emanating from him. Some of Christ’s deeds are accompanied by strange “clouds” and a rumbling sound resembling a voice. The Shroud of Turin appears to have been seared by a radiant object.
Photograph of the Shroud of Turin Negative of this photograph
What is particularly absurd about the Shroud of Turin is the fact that the positive image is visible only in a negative. This was unknown before the invention of photography. No forger before the 19th century would have created a forgery in negative form, because every fraudster is a child of his time. The Shroud of Turin therefore contradicts not only known laws of physics, but also the psychological makeup of forgers.
Clouds When Breaking the Speed of Sound
The perception of a cloud does not necessarily arise as a result of water vapor condensation. We will also perceive something resembling a cloud when the air or space changes its optical properties and its usual transparency to light is disrupted. For example, above a hot road, the homogeneity of the air is disrupted, and as a result, the view is blurred or distorted; see the following image. Similarly, as evolution and history unfold, phenomena emerge that no one in antiquity or the Middle Ages could have observed. When the sound barrier is broken, water vapor condenses due to adiabatic expansion, but none of the apostles could have seen this cloud. On the other hand, did the apostles see something that we, in turn, will never see?
When fundamental constants change, phenomena emerge for which no human has the vocabulary — neither today nor in the past. Because of this limitation in our vocabulary, we resort to using familiar terms out of necessity. For example, if we did not know what an elephant was and did not know what a trunk is, we would most likely refer to this organ as a “second tail.” That is why we must take with a grain of salt, for example, when the evangelist Matthew writes about a “bright cloud” (Matt. 17:5). It could have been steam, but it is equally possible that it was a quantum phenomenon never seen before and never seen by anyone since.
The Road to Nowhere
A mirage above the road reflects the sky. See the previous image for the caption.
Mila Zinkova http://home.comcast.net/~milazinkova/Fogshadow.html
Christians, and Catholics in particular, emphasize that their faith describes real and physical states of the world. Not subjective or symbolic phenomena. Thus, while Adam and Eve are fictional names, they refer to the first humans who actually existed physically and who are truly to blame for the fact that humans cannot, by their own abilities, overcome their physical mortality — unlike, for example, the Virgin Mary.
Similarly, Christians believe that Christ truly died and then rose to life. It was not a state of sleep or a coma. Although his new life is somewhat different from ours, it is nonetheless the real existence of the same psychophysical personality as before — he has the same memories and opinions — and after death, he continues the development of his personality from where he left off before death. Nor is the Eucharist merely a symbol, but the actual physical presence of Christ in the forms of bread and wine, and the means by which a physical connection is formed between Christ and the believer — a connection that is then essential for the resurrection. Given all this, it is not surprising that Christians also believe in the actual end of the world.
People usually imagine the end of the world as some kind of natural or military catastrophe, but it could just as easily be a catastrophe on the quantum level — the world shifting from one metastable state to a stable one. When you shake supercooled water, it suddenly turns into ice throughout its entire volume.(*) Similarly, the entire universe would change instantly if the fundamental constants were to change. In a similar vein, Jesus used the parable of leaven: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven that a woman mixes into three measures of flour [40 kg] until the whole batch is leavened.” This vision is also consistent with the idea of recrystallization or a kind of catalyst — a pinch of a substance triggers an unstoppable avalanche of reactions, yet the substance itself is not consumed in the process.
Will this happen? Who knows? In any case, I prefer a vision that portrays the end of the world as an impersonal, physical event rather than a consequence of moral decay or social pressures within society.
(*) You can find some nice footage of the behavior of supercooled water in your browser by searching for “supercooled water”.
Resurrection versus Ascension
Christianity consists of several mutually independent theories. These must be kept separate and not mixed together, because each explains different events. Christ’s resurrection does not explain the end of the world, nor does it explain his ascension. These are two distinct, chronologically separate events that follow different logics. The first event is described in detail in all the Gospels, but the second is mentioned in only a single line. Only Luke writes about it in more detail at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:1ff):
“The first book, Theophilus, I wrote about everything Jesus did and taught from the very beginning until the day he, in the Holy Spirit, gave instructions to his chosen apostles on how they should act, and was taken up to God; and after his suffering, he proved to them in many ways that he was alive; for forty days he appeared to them and taught them about the kingdom of God.”
While he was at table with them, he instructed them not to leave Jerusalem: “Wait until the promise of the Father, which you have heard from me, is fulfilled. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.” Those who were with him asked him, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom for Israel?”
He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or dates that the Father has reserved for his own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
And as they were gazing intently into heaven as he went up, behold, two men in white robes stood beside them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you saw him go.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called the Mount of Olives; it is not far, only about the distance permitted to walk on the Sabbath.
Compared to the Resurrection, the Ascension is a completely marginal event. This is because it follows that Christ was born without original sin, just as Adam, Eve, and Mary were. Even without Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the dead, he would have been taken up into heaven, just like his mother Mary, and this would have had no bearing whatsoever on our lives. Unlike those four, we were born with original sin. We, too, await not the Ascension but the resurrection, and for that we will have to wait until the end of the world. But we owe it to Jesus that this is even possible.
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