No abstract

Here we discuss the challenge posed by self-organization to the Darwinian conception of evolution. As we point out, natural selection can only be the major creative agency in evolution if all or most of the adaptive complexity manifest in living organisms is built up over many generations by the cumulative selection of naturally occurring small, random mutations or variants, i.e., additive, incremental steps over an extended period of time. Biological self-organization-witnessed classically in the folding of a protein, or in the formation of the cell membrane-is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity. We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by selection and that self-organization may be therefore considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major creative agency in evolution. We also point out that although complex self-organizing systems are easy to create in the electronic realm of cellular automata, to date translating in silico simulations into real material structures that self-organize into complex forms from local interactions between their constituents has not proved easy. This suggests that self-organizing systems analogous to those utilized by biological systems are at least rare and may indeed represent, as pre-Darwinists believed, a unique ascending hierarchy of natural forms. Such a unique adaptive hierarchy would pose another major challenge to the current Darwinian view of evolution, as it would mean the basic forms of life are necessary features of the order of nature and that the major pathways of evolution are

I respond to three articles about my book, Hindu Theology and Biology, from David Gosling, Thomas Ellis, and Varadaraja Raman. I attempt to clarify misconceptions about Hindu intellectual history and the science and religion dialogue. I discuss the role of Hindu theologies in the contemporary world in response to the three articles, each of which highlights important areas of future research. I suggest that Hindu theology should be a critical discipline in which Hindu authors are interpreted in their own terms and in conversation with contemporary authors. I argue that Hinduism and science can find an intellectual space between New Atheism (which denies the intellectual value of religion) and Neo-Hinduism (which neglects the critical discourse within the history of Hindu thought).

Devotion (bhakti) is the defining religious practice and central theological concept of the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition, and this article is about the catalytic event that is said to instigate bhakti in the non-devoted. I examine how Jīva Gosvāmin (c. 1517–1608) and Viśvanātha Cakravartin (fl. 1679–1709), two important theologians in this tradition, argue that the cause of bhakti in the non-devoted is a meeting with a devotee. In this meeting, the non-devoted may develop conviction (śraddhā), which in turn gives him or her the motivation to continue along the path of bhakti, the steps of which were charted in the Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu of Rūpa Gosvāmin (c. 1470–1555). Based on a few key passages from the Gauḍīya’s primary scriptural source, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Jīva and Viśvanātha argue that this conviction for bhakti is developed spontaneously (yadṛcchayā). Since the spontaneous conviction to practice bhakti can only occur in sādhu-saṅga, or a meeting with a devotee, what causes that meeting? The devotee always acts freely and independently (like the Lord Kṛṣṇa himself); thus his or her motivation to meet and inspire conviction in the non-devoted is not reducible to a divine plan, divine grace, the piety (or impiety) of the receiver, special features of the receiver’s soul, high birth, or any other designation. Rather, the cause of sādhu-saṅga is the bhakti “living in the heart” of a devotee. This bhakti makes the devotee feel compassion (kṛpā) toward the non-devoted, which leads him or her to provide sādhu-saṅga, which then creates conviction (śraddhā), which eventually leads to bhakti.