Creationism and the Spirit of Nature - Tikkun Magazine

unable to fully experience existence, or what might be
called the "inside" of the world. To understand what I
mean by this, think of a green plant near a window that
leans toward the sun. We have all seen this many
times-the upper leaves and branches seem to stretch
in a sensual way up toward the warmth and the light,
while the lower leaves and branches do the best they
can and curl around toward the sun with the same
apparent desire and intention. A scientist would tell us
that it is mere sentimentality or "personification" to
think that the plant is leaning toward anything, that
what is "reallyn going on is something called "photosyn-
thesis," a process by which the chlorophyll in the plant
combines with light to produce oxygen. Within the
scientific paradigm, the plant is drawn to the light not
because of any sensual desire for the warmth and light
of the sun, not, in other words because of any inten-
tional movement of the plant as an embodiment of life,
but simply because plants, in the words of a leading
biology text, "capture light energy and use it to form
carbohydrates and free oxygen from carbon dioxide and
water" as part of their natural functioning. Ascribing
intention or desire to the plant's movement attributes
an immanence or inner life to the plant that is not
observable by objective, impartial methods, and there-
fore cannot qualify as "knowledge" according to science.
Although most people I know would be inclined, if
asked, to explain the plant's movements by using this
kind of scientific model, there are a number of things
about it that are unconvincing. For example, anyone
who has actually watched a house plant grow toward
the window over a period of time can't help noticing
how unified the plant's movements are-or in other
words how much it seems to move toward the sun as a
whole organism. Science undoubtedly has an explanation
for this ("efficient conservation of energy" or the like),
but this kind of explanation cannot capture the sense
of sensual unity that one senses in the plant, the sense
of pleasure that seems so manifest in the bend of the
upper stem and the stretch of the highest leaves and
that seems to contrast so strikingly with the droop of
plants denied access to the same sunlight. To the scientist,
this may sound "merely subjective" and like a species-
centered projection, but this sense that I have (and that
I claim we have) that the meaning of the plant's living
movement exceeds the photosynthesis explanation is a
very strong one.
an this intuitive "sense" of the plant's life be the
basis of a kind of knowledge of the plant, a
kind of knowledge that may correspond more
closely to the plant's actual existence than the scientist's
knowledge can possibly do?
To answer this question, we must look more carefully
56 TIKKUN, VOL. 2, No. 5
at the method of gaining knowledge used by the scientist
and notice how this method may serve to limit what the
scientist is able to see. First of all, the scientist begins
his or her inquiry by taking the position of a detached
observer who treats the plant as an object. From this
position of detachment, the scientist cannot "sense"
anything about the meaning of the plant's movements
because to "sense" something in this way requires the
opposite of detachment-it requires engagement with
the plant's life through a kind of empathy or intuition.
Instead, the scientist sees only light rays, green goo in
the plant tissue (named "chlorophyll" by the scientist),
chemical transformations resulting for some unknowable
reason from their interaction, and the production of a
new chemical substance (called "oxygen" by the scien-
tist). What the scientist finally calls photosynthesis is
most certainly a kind of knowledge about what occurs
chemically in green plants exposed to sunlight, but it
is a kind of knowledge that derives from the objectifica-
tion of the plant, from treating the plant as a kind of
"thing," albeit a "living thing."
But if the plant isn't a thing, there is no way that the
scientist could know it, because the scientist's way of
looking can see only things and properties of things.
Objectification of phenomena allows one to see these
phenomena only from the outside, and if they have an
inside, we can know of it only through the use of some
other method-that is, through empathy and intuition.
There would be no problem with the theory of photo-
synthesis if scientists were content to show some humility
and limit themselves to the claim that green plants,
when observed like objects, reveal regular chemical
changes which lead to the production of oxygen. But
most natural scientists have long since abandoned this
kind of humility, assuming instead that the knowledge
of phenomena gathered by the use of the scientific method
corresponds to the nature or "being" of the phenomena
themselves. This is reflected in the notion that the plant
leans toward the window in order to fulfill its natural
function of producing oxygen through photosynthesis.
There is nothing in the scientists's observation of the
plant that could give him or her access to why the plant
moves as it does-on the contrary, as we have just seen,
the methodological constraints imposed by the twin
processes of detachment and objectification preclude
the acquisition of any knowledge of the meaning of the
plant's movements as a living organism. The "nature"
of the plant, its capacity to sprout from a buried seed
and to produce the green life of "chlorophyll" and to
lean toward the sun and, for that matter, its capacity to
wilt and die-all of these things are inaccessible to
science, and science can never hope to explain them.
What we might call the existence of the plant, the
unique presence that animates the branches and leaves,