How about the implications of a dualistic versus and hierarchical universe?

It all started with one of those comments you post on Facebook:

I wrote:Ron is pondering his next blog post. Any thoughts on what you'd like to pick my brain about? (fair warning, be careful what you ask for I just might write it!)

My friend Carl replied:How about the implications of a dualistic versus and hierarchical universe?

I don't think Carl thought I'd do it ... but here goes:

Readers Digest version of what Carl is talking about:

The following is quoted from Kheper.net:

Dualism assumes the existence of two distinct principles of being in the universe: spirit and matter, or soul and body. This was the basic understanding behind the teachings of Plato, according to which the physical world of sense phenomena is but a poor reflection or image of the true spiritual world; sense things being mere shadows of the eternal spiritual things or "Ideas". The goal of the philosopher was thus the elevation of consciousness, and the contemplation of these pure spiritual forms. Hence philosophy in its origin was a much more mystical or spiritual thing than it is today

Descartes Mind-Body Dualism in the current philosophical understanding of the term originates from one man, the seventeenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes. It was Descartes who gave the world that much quoted utterance "I think, therefore I am". He was also the one who popularised the idea of reality as a dichotomy of matter (extended or spatial substance) and spirit (thinking substance, including God). This form of mind-body dualism became known as "Cartesian Dualism", after the Latin pronunciation of Descartes (Cartes)

Translation: Dualism is the view of the universe (you, me, humanity, the cosmos and everything that can be found within it) that we are made up of the "spiritual" and the "physical." This view, while in some regards CAN include some tenets of Christian theology (God is after all spiritual, but he is also physical, in the form of Jesus) I personally feel the Dualistic view is much too broad and intended to offer the option of "God as you understand him", be it Hindu, Bhuddist, Muslim, Taoist, Wiccan, Celtic or Native American. We can all agree that there is the physical universe, its the spiritual aspect which the Christian needs to understand more clearly.

This next quotation is taken from the website of the Armagh Observatory which was founded in 1790. It is taken from a lecture by noted astronomer Ernst J. Öpik.

I intend to say a few words about communication and isolation in our hierarchical universe. Hierarchic means that the universe is built in stages; various solid bodies, the planets, the quite solid suns. Then the solar systems are joined into stellar systems, stellar systems make up galaxies and so forth, and this happens by interposition of so-called "empty space" - actually a background space which may, or may not, be filled uniformly with something else. Because interposition of this space. To the layman the strange thing is that higher order systems are always of lower density. It is self evident that it must be this because we put nothing in between. And this goes on from stage to stage and the big question, not solved yet, is "where does it end?"

I think, though he doesn't mention it in the text of this article, while Professor Öpik speaks of the building blocks of the larger universe, that the theory holds true when you turn away from the telescope and turn to the microscope, that our world is made up of building blocks as well, just much smaller ones.

The feel however, that I got from both pieces was an exclusion of the (pardon the PC terminology) an Intelligent Creator. To me, it feels a bit like "Well, we've got this all figured out how we think it should be, but what do we do with this extra bit? This IC? Trim it off? Right-O!" And off God goes to the scrap heap.

True, the Dualistic view does allow for something greater than ourselves, but it still leaves soooooooo many questions unanswered, while at the same time giving so many answers without asking questions about where they came from.

The point I want you, my friend, to take away from this is: Yes, the universe has a spiritual as well as a physical aspect. The physical, we see around us every day. We can see the spiritual as well, but we need to understand what that spiritual aspect is. And for those of you that know me, I think you know where I'm going with this, but I will say it anyway.

This spiritual aspect of which I speak, the Intelligent Creator, the "thinking substance", the King of kings and Lord of lords are all one and the same. It was God who created the building blocks of the hierarchical universe, and it was God who made us both physical and spiritual, and He did this all for His glory.