| ANAKAINOSIS | A Newsletter For Reformational Thought Volume Five, No. 4 June, 1983 Rank and Worth by Al Wolters Under the influence of a long Neoplatonic tradition, Christian thinkers of the West have tended to speak and think of degrees of "goodness" in reality. As we move up the hierarchical chain of being--from matter and body to soul, mind and spirit--we mect ever higher “perfections," being becomes more and more “concentrated,” as it were, and participates to an ever higher degree in absolute good- ness. Moving along that trajectory, and continuing along that road of increasing being and goodness, we finally arrive at the eummum ene and the summum bonum. That final stage of the journey is tradition- ally identified with God. This scheme of a Neoplatonic ontological hierarchy, with God at the top, matter at the bottom, and man in the middle, has provided the overall philosophical framework, it seems to me, of a great deal of orthodox Christian theology and philosophy from the days of Augustine to the twentieth century. This is illustrated, for example, by classical conceptions of the imago Det in man, and by traditional interpretations of the Logos of John 1. It seems to me that this whole scheme is fundamentally misconceived. Not only does it treat God as a kind of ontological capstone which completes a basically creaturely scale of being, but it also has a built-in tendency to equate good and evil with higher and lower on that same scale. Consequently creation, as such, is fundamentally deficient, and certain dimensions of our ecreaturehood (rationality, for example, or morality) are taken to be essentially more God-like than others (bodiliness, for example, or emotionality). The overall effect is a fundamentally Gnostic depreciation of creation in general, and in particular of those aspects of creation that are associated with our corporeality. Against this view, I submit that the goodness of creation does not allow of degrees, that God is not a member, however exalted, of an ascending scale of being, that nothing creaturely is more divine than anything else of the good creation, and that evil is fundamentally related, not to an ontological deficiency given with the scheme of things, but to a religious disobedience which is intrinsically alien to the world God made.One corollary of this alternative conception is that we must distin— guish clearly between rank and worth, "Worth," in this connection, refers to ereational goodness--the quality of being KaAdv, which the apostle Paul says attaches to every creature of God (I Tim. 4:4). Perhaps we could also use words like "excellence" or "worthwhileness" to express this notion. It is the quality which forbids rejection and depreciation, and requires acceptance, affirmation and thankful- ness. "Rank," on the other hand, refers to differences of order or relative position in a series. In this sense there is indeed a difference in rank between morality and. emotionality, and in general between “higher” human functions and those which they presuppose as substrate. But differences in rank are found in many other contexts in creation. There is a ranking of the different kingdoms in the world: humans, animals, plants, physical things, and a further rank~ ing within each of these realms. The full-grown ranks higher than ‘the embryonic, and the mammal ranks higher than the protozoan. With- in human society there are many differences of rank, some having to do with authority relations (parent and child), some with individual training (educated and uneducated), some with civilizational unfold- ing (differentiated and undifferentiated), some with individual growth (adult and child), and so on. The point of making the distinction between rank and worth is that differences of rank may never be confused with differences of worth. Mental functions may be higher than physiological ones, but they are not therefore “superior” in the sense of being intrinsically more valuable or worthwhile (to say nothing of being more divine"). A foreman may be in authority over his men, but he is not at all worth more than they. Adulthood ranks higher than childhood but there is no higher degree of goodness in the former than the latter. This does not mean that distinctions between good and evil, between excellent and deficient, between healthy and sick, do not apply in these areas. The point is that they apply equally everywhere. Adult hood is no more prone to perversion than childhood--and vice versa. Rationality is no less subject to distortion than emotionality-—and vice versa, An industrial society in not inherently more dehumanizing than an agrarian one--nor does the converse hold. In general, it is probably fair to say that the tradition of Greek metaphysics, which held sway until the nineteenth century in European thought, tended to confuse rank-differences of one sort (higher and lower human functions) with differences of worth, and that modern philosophy since Hegel and Darwin has tended to confuse rank-differ— ences of another sort (earlier and later historical phases, lower and higher kingdoms) with differences of worth. It seems to me that a Christian philosophy which takes seriously the unqualified goodness of creation in all its dimensions must oppose both confusions, and insist on the distinction between rank and worth throughout, speaking of deficiency or evil only (and always) where that original goodness is perverted. (A.W.)Recent Articles by David Caudill Part of the funetion of Anakainosis ts to inform its readers of publi- cations relating to a reformational understanding of the scientific enterprise. In this iseue, ve would like to introduce our readers to a number of articles by subscriber David S$. Caudill which have appeared in a number of American law journals in recent years. We reproduce a number of extracts from theee articles for the sake of those who may be interested in legal theory. Mr. Caudill ie a former pilot in the US Air Force, who graduated from Michigan State Univer- sity in 1973, has a doctorandus degree in philosophy from the Free Untversity in Amsterdam (1976), and a lav degree from the University of Houston (1981). He currently works as a lawyer in San Diego, Cali- fornia, and ie simultaneously engaged in research on the German legal theorist Otto Kirchheimer for the doctorate at the Free University. Probability Theory and Constructive Possession of Narcotics: On Finding that Winning Combination from the Houston Law Review 17 (1980) 541-71. Discussion of probability theory in legal decision-making typically begins with a recollection of Justice Holmes' famous speech, "The Path of the Law."72 In his mature years as a legal philosopher, he outlined his well-known reduction of law to the "prophecies of what the courts will do in fact."73 This appeared to be a stamp of approval on future applications of predictive theory to the practice of law, yet efforts toward integration of probability with the legal process take place today only on the radical fringe of legal thought.’4 Despite the ob- vious pragmatism which pervades American legal thought and practice, an avergion to mathematical models and computer-based analysis per- sists.’ Even Holmeg warned that the law cannot be dealt with as a book of mathematics. “6 The- contradiction between Holmes’ praise of statistical theory and skepticism of legal mathematization points to a crucial distinction: predictive theory may be employed either sim- plistically as a procrustean knife with which to prune the ragged edges of "thinking" and individuality from legal decisions, or it may be used to clarify the present approved methods of decision-making.7? In the latter view, quantitative analysis is no more than a systematization of thought patterns that practicing attorneys and judges use daily.” Indegg, lawyers have been considered masters of probabilistic think- ing.’?' The appraisal of one's chance of winning occurs at every stage of a case from pretrial research to appellate argumengg.50 Jury per- suasion can even be expressed in probabilistic terms. Yet an aver- sion 3 computers and mathematical formulae exists in the legal pro- cess, In the California case of People v. Collins ,83'a feeble attempt at mathematical precision overwhelmed the jury and won for the prosecutor a conviction based on sheer probabilities.°4 The Supreme Court of California reversed, noting the "mystique" of mathematical