20 | Jewish, Christian and Muslim Sacred Texts on Consciousness and “Things”

Welcome to the Cow Behind the Barn: A podcast exploring humanity, the world, and the divine, as experienced and interpreted by an artist. I’m Kevin Caldwell, a co-finder of the Table Collective.

I am continuing a sub-series of Episodes exploring the question, “Does anything in the cosmos have consciousness, and if so, what things (is it everything?), what type of consciousness, how?” 

I decided to begin with what religious heritages have said about this before bringing in philosophy and physics. And so far, dipped into animism, the Bhagavad Gita, the Budha and Lao Tzu. I won’t summarize those here but instead come back to what I found in those heritages near the end of this Episode, when I attempt to compare all the religious heritages I am consulting on this topic. I am referring to Jewish, Christian and Muslim approaches to this question. 

I am going to treat all three of these so-called western heritages within one Episode, and I will do so by relying initially and primarily on their main source texts, their sacred scriptures. I am taking this approach for two reasons.

First, in the case of Judaism and Christianity, those sacred sources were all in fact written by Jewish authors. Addressing those texts in one Episode makes sense to me. 

Second, relative to Islam, in the Quran it is clear that Muhammad understood that he was merely continuing the teaching and message of the prior scriptures of the Jews and Christians, not bringing a different religion or religious way.

Now, related especially to their understandings of the divine, these texts differ. And I plan to explore that in the future. Christians view the Jewish scriptures to be part of their canon, and Muslims understand that the Jewish and Christian scriptures, both, are heavenly books. 

As it happens, relative to the question at hand these sacred texts actually sing in harmony. That is an assertion on my part, so now let me present the evidence!

 

The Jewish Scriptures

Genesis:

Genesis 1 and 2 describe the creation of all things. In 1:30, the text describes, “all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground” as creatures which have, “the breath of life.” It would seem that plants are different, as a distinction is made when the text says that every plant is given as food for the creatures that have the breath of life, a phrase also used of human beings in Genesis 2 and is taken there to link breath and soul. 

 

The Psalms:

From the Psalms, a collection of poems, prayers, and hymns composed for use primarily in the temple, come these examples.

 

Psalm 104:26 says that God formed the sea creature called Leviathan “to play” in the sea, using a word that sometimes refers to ecstatic dancing. 

 

A more extended passage from Psalm 148:3-10 says,  

“Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens and you, waters above the skies.

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for at his command they were created,

and he established them for ever and ever; he issued a decree that will never pass away.

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you, mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds…”

 

Job:

The book of Job is also considered sacred by all three religions. The text says that the ostrich flaps its wings “joyously” (Job 39:13), and the beasts of the field “play” in their surroundings (Job 40:20).

In short, in the Jewish texts we find that all animate and inanimate creatures and beings are spoken to, and encouraged to speak, to offer praise. They play and experience emotions. Later I will come back to ask whether this is all metaphorical, or literal, or not.

 

The Christian Scriptures:

I will refer to two texts from what Christians call the New Testament: the Gospel of John, and a letter of Paul.

 

John:

I turn now to one of the texts that Christians hold sacred, but Jews do not, the Gospel of John. Whether this falls into what the Quran referred to as the Injil, the heavenly book given to Jesus, and thus a sacred text for Muslims, is a matter that not all Muslims agree upon (and for any who do hold it to be such, it would be interpreted very differently than in Christian understandings).

In John 1 we read about a Word that was with God and is also divine. This is not the place to discuss how and in what way the Word and God are to be understood. John goes on to say in verses 3 and 4 that through what John calls the Word “all things were made” and that in the Word “was life, and that this life was the light of all humanity.”

So created things came to be and have life in this divine Word. This hints that all created things are connected in some way to a divine consciousness. 

 

Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

Next, a text from the Christian canon, a text that neither Jews nor Muslims, or certainly very few, consider sacred: the letter from Paul to early Christians in Rome. Here are statements from Romans 8:18-22.

• The creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 
• Creation will be liberated and share in the freedom of the children of God.
• The whole creation has been groaning like a mother in childbirth.

In many ways Paul’s words are similar to the way the Psalms and Job refer to things: in both there is an attribution to plants and animals and “things” of what I would call personal qualities, in the sense of being qualities of a person, hence conscious (and aware of being conscious it seems).

 

The Muslim Scriptures: the Qur’an

Here are some of the most relevant verses from the Quran.

In 6:38, “There is not an animal on the earth, nor any being that wings its flight, but is a people like you.” 

22:11, “Do you not see that all things that are in the heavens and on the earth -the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, the animals, bow down to God in worship.”

17:44, “The seven heavens and the earth and all the beings in them proclaim His glory: There is nothing that does not celebrate His praise, but you do not understand how they declare His glory.”

13:15, “To God bow all beings in the heavens and the earth, either intentionally, with good will, or in spite of themselves.”

In many ways, the things we saw in the Jewish and Christian texts are resurfacing here as well: things, animals, planets are presented as “personal”, having voices and choices and actions, etc.

 

Summarizing:

Now I will try to summarize the picture of consciousness in relationship to non-human created things. All three of these sources paint a picture that is quite consistent.

Animals and plants and planets, for example, are portrayed as conscious of God. They praise and worship God.

Plants and animals are portrayed as living beings.

In some cases, they play and seem to enjoy living and being and may be waiting to enjoy it more in the future.

While I was preparing this Episode I was also responding to a creative prompt, as part of the Table Collective community I am part of. In the Table Collective, what we call Table Members are able to share things we create each month in response to themes and practices. One theme recently was the phrase “The Sound of Color.” 

While that theme does not automatically suggest having anything to do with the focus of this Episode, I began to work on a song inspired by both that theme, and this question about the cosmos and consciousness.

If colors have sounds, and vice versa, then might not a rock have feelings? In each case (the podcast and the prompt), I found myself sensing that our categories do not always correspond to reality. Categories, for example, of sound and color, thing and personhood.

And so this song emerged. 

 

The Sound of Color

Colors having sounds, and sounds having colors, and the cosmos having consciousness, and rocks singing, and fish playing, and so on and so on? All of this begs a huge question:

 

Is This True, or Metaphor?

The way I frame that question might suggest that I think metaphors are not true. In fact, I have a more nuanced approach and see metaphor as a way to express truth.  But that is a topic for another conversation about truth! What I am really asking here is not about what I think at all.

So far, I have primarily presented the texts of the sacred books themselves. I have not included mention of how those texts have been interpreted within their respective heritages.

In the case of Christian teaching, for example, I was always told, relative to passages like those in the Psalms about planets singing hymns etc., that this is all metaphor, anthropomorphism, a literary and artistic device. Implicit in this way of seeing things was a somewhat dismissive assumption about consciousness of non-human things (usually with the exception of animals).

And of course, that is quite possible. However, that assumption seems to me to be starting from a point of view that has already decided that “plants and rocks and planets and wind are not conscious so any language suggesting person-like qualities must be merely metaphorical.” 

I am interested in exploring how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers might answer this question about metaphor.

 

Jewish Thinking:

There are of course, different schools of thought within Judaism, as in every religious heritage. I can’t include all of them and will offer insights from two very influential streams: Orthodox Judaism and Kabbalah, a more mystical tradition.

In Orthodox Jewish thinking, at least according to some rabbi’s, plants and animals have souls. In fact, every created entity has a soul (though I found no evidence that anything other than plants and animals are included according to Orthodox Judaism).  

According to Kabbalah every created entity has a soul, including plants and animals. Thus far, this agrees with Orthodox Judaism. However, Kabbalah explicitly includes inanimate objects as well. Every blade of grass has a soul, and so does every grain of sand.

Having said that, in both streams of Judaism it is clear that the human soul is considered the most complex of all souls. For example, in Kabbalah, there are five different levels of the human soul. Given, then, that there are different levels of complexity of the soul, we should assume there are different ways of being conscious, aware. Different degrees of complexity in consciousness and awareness. 

We cannot simply ask whether this or that is conscious but must ask “in what way” as well.

 

Christian Thinking:

There are a variety of opinions among some of the more influential Christian thinkers. Thomas Aquinas attributed "soul" to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Martin Luther seemed to have believed that animals would be in heaven and would share in having transformed heavenly bodies. Calvin rejected the discussion on the souls of animals because he saw it as speculation that could not be demonstrated. John Wesley believed that animals had souls. Some Christian thinkers have gone even further and suggested that God is in some way “in” all creatures, including animals and plants. 

 

Muslim Thinkers:

I have been able to discover two main streams in Islamic thought on this matter.

According to some Islamic thinkers, inanimate objects, including rocks and plants etc., do not have souls. Inanimate objects lack the capacity for life and consciousness, and so the concept of a soul is strictly attributed to living beings, primarily humans but also including animals, though on a different scale. 

There is another stream within Islam which sees all things having souls, and acknowledging there is a great difference in the kinds of souls found in humans as compared to animals, plants, and so on. 

So, for example, vegetation grows and develops and for some Muslims thinkers this confirms that there is some sort of soul, and perhaps consciousness, in plants.  One scholar I came across was quite explicit in taking the language of the Quran literally to make his point. He cited the incident in which a stone is portrayed as pleading with Moses to intercede on its behalf, so that it may not be cast into hell. His conclusion was that this indicates the rock had the ability to communicate and to feel emotion.  

Summary:

So, is the language we found in the sacred texts of these three heritages metaphorical or not? That question is not explicitly or specifically addressed in most cases. It may be that most thinkers within these three main religious heritages do see the language of planets worshipping or creation having eager expectations or sea creatures playing or rocks speaking to be metaphors. 

However, the Jewish and Islamic heritages do share the view that there are many types of consciousness, and that many if not all the “things” and “beings” in the cosmos have some type of it. That view seems to be much less widely held within the Christian heritage. 

 

Summarizing the Religious Answers about Consciousness and Things

I am now giving myself the task of trying to briefly summarize seven different religious ways of understanding my main questions about consciousness. 

I will present them in the order in which I have discussed them during the Episodes:

 

Animism:

In animism, everything or at least most everything, is conscious in some way.  There are forms of animism which would suggest that there are multiple spirits or energies or forces that are conscious, and forms which say it is the same spirit animating everything. Animism sees all of life as a reciprocal relationship with the spirits or spirit of all things.

 

The Gita:

In the Gita there is a big “S” Self, a big “C” Consciousness, which is the Self and Consciousness of our every small “s” self.  This Self pervades everything and the visible, natural world, is a manifestation of its energy. What we experience as our individual consciousness is actually part of the natural world and is not our true self.

 

Buddha: 

In Buddhist teaching, consciousness is a flow of experiences and mental states. There is no self that “has” consciousness, every self is just the flow itself. In general Buddhist teaching is that inanimate objects do not experience consciousness in the same way that sentient beings do, though some Buddhists suggest they have potential for enlightenment and this some form of consciousness, and that there may be some kind of interconnectedness with “consciousness” at a fundamental level, even if such objects and things do not have awareness. I would assume that if this is the case, then inanimate objects would, as with human beings, have no inherent consciousness. Just the flow. 

 

Lao Tzu:

Lao Tzu does not directly address the question of inanimate or non-human things. But for point of comparison, relative to human beings, the Tao Te Ching encourages cultivation of awareness of one's thoughts and actions in order to live in alignment with the Tao, and with our Te, which can only be achieved through self-awareness. Consciousness, identified with awareness, is not something that just “is.” It is something to be sought and cultivated.

 

Jewish and Muslim and Christian:

Many things, perhaps most, and for some thinkers all, have consciousness in some measure. There are different ways of being conscious. Some thinkers, both Jewish and Muslim, attribute aspects of consciousness to inanimate objects which approaches qualities of what I would suggest would indicate that “things” may have some sort of personality. As I have indicated, the Christian heritage is much less homogenous or unified on this point than the Jewish and Muslims traditions seem to be.

There are differences, clearly, among these seven heritages. 

Two of them, namely Buddhism and Taoism, never really addressed the question of non-human objects and consciousness directly. I remain agnostic as to how Lao Tzu would respond, in fact. And relative to the Buddha, as I suggested in that Episode, if Buddhism does in fact see non-human things to possess consciousness in any way, it would be in keeping with how Buddhism sees all consciousness: as not existing except in the sense of being the chain of experiences and perceptions and feelings and thoughts that arise, and cease, in an endless flow. Nothing is consciousness. What consciousness is? It is that flow.

However, five of the seven heritages share in some way the view that the non-human world of things, plants, animals, rocks, and more have some sort of consciousness and awareness. I am including in these five religious streams that of animism, the Gita, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I do so because although the heritage of Christianity as a heritage seems to have a mixed response to my question, its source texts would seem in agreement with the Jewish and Muslim way of seeing. 

And that way of seeing is: in one way or another we live in a world that is “alive”, there is consciousness everywhere around us.

Is there a single supreme divine being? Multiple spirits that have consciousness and are somehow united with but distinct from the objects they are associated with? Is there a supreme Consciousness in which all things somehow exist? These heritages differ in how they would answer. But somehow consciousness of some sort, in some way, is connected to everything, or most things. 

I find myself wanting to say that the cosmos is humming with consciousness. Which brought to mind one of my poems, a poem I have shared in prior Episodes, “Touch the Ecstatic.” 

Though at the time I wrote it I had not done all the work I am presenting in these Episodes, in the poem I am trying to imagine and express this sense that the cosmos is alive, or is brimming with what is alive, in some mysterious but very real way.

Touch the Ecstatic

Inside that sway of grass in wind

This pulse, dull eyes, a dusty rose,

There is something.

Ecstatic.

I cannot say, but I know.

Believe.

 

More honest: I only want to live 

If I can believe, and touch.

 

Ecstasy is chaos dancing

         Electrons, protons 

         Morons, skeletons, put-ons 

         On and on, 

         Colliding on pulsing-universe-mystic-strobe light-floors 

         Loved on

 

Ecstasy is a god’s kiss

         Pressed on the first fleshy mouth

         Divine moist intimate breath through parted lips.

         Eyelids flicker open, embrace the gaze of God,

         Entwined lovers in the after-glow,

         In a raw green world

         Satiated

 

Ecstasy is me beside myself

         Seeing inside myself from outside myself

         Myself as myself.

         My own eyes seeing 

         Me for the first time, 

         Tender

 

Ecstasy is joy unbridled

         Lustrous lust, throbbing unholy godliness

         Walking naked carnal 

         Warm in the glow of Eden

         Wiping juice from giddy lips

         With the back of a wanton hand

         Unashamed

 

Loved on, satiated,

Tender, unashamed,

Joy unbridled, beside myself

A gods’ kiss, chaos dancing.

I touch, am touched.

Ecstatic.

 

For me those words express more than a way of thinking. The poem captures my longing, to not only know about or understand, but to touch. That longing is worth pausing for, worth allowing myself a few moments to experience and embrace and welcome. So, I plan to do just that when I conclude in a few moments.

But first I want to look ahead. 

 

Next?

Is anything or nothing or everything in the non-human world conscious? And if anything is, in what way, or what ways? Using my taxonomy from prior Episodes, in what type of “dimensions” is anything, nothing, or everything conscious:

One-Dimensional: a “subject” experiences what happens?

Two-Dimensional: a “subject” experiences what happens and is aware of that?

Three-Dimensional: a “subject” experiences what happens, is aware of that, and is aware of being aware?

As I continue to ask those questions, my plan next is to turn to the worlds of philosophy and physics. I cannot help but do so with the religious ways of seeing in my mind. I know that this will in many ways shape what I ask of philosophy and which schools of philosophy I find myself drawn towards. The same is true of physics, of course. My questions as well as the answers I feel satisfied with or at least am most interested in will inevitably be shaped by the time I have spent with animism, the Gita, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Until next time…