A Philosophy to Generate and Sustain Better Societies
A Feature Review of
All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life
David Bentley Hart
Hardcover: Yale University Press, 2024
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Reviewed by Alec Worrell-Welch
Is there a real, categorical distinction between humans and “artificially intelligent” machines? What about between a living, self-replicating cell and complex-but-lifeless, spontaneously repeating chemical structures? Does consciousness belong in a separate category of being from raw computation, or is it merely an illusion that accompanies sufficiently advanced mechanical processes? In my experience, inquiries like these make for interesting conversations at parties, stimulating and open-ended. But what happens when someone really expects a satisfying answer? When questions like this start to snowball, do their bewildering abstractions amount to more than just an arbitrary inquisition? Do our answers make a real difference to how people live and how societies take shape?
In his monumental tome, All Things Are Full of Gods, Christian philosopher David Bentley Hart contends that they already have, whether we’ve articulated them or not. It is already a simple matter to assert that “life” and “consciousness” are merely the products of advanced, random, mechanical operations, while transcendentals like beauty, purpose, spirit, logic—even consciousness itself—can be dismissed as illusions, inert and fully reducible to more “fundamental” and mindless physical interactions. Reductive materialism has come to shape not just academia but also the deep-seated and widespread “common sense” that guides and constrains contemporary public western life. But Hart resists these claims, articulating both a method and final solution that demand much of their readers but yield the rich insight, in return, that “all acts of the mind are participations in the mind of God” (7).
Hart’s philosophical proposal rests on nothing less than a fresh understanding of what matter is, and his work’s structure and mode of argumentation are primed to do a lot of heavy lifting. The book unfolds as a dialogue between four Hellenistic gods—Psyche, Hermes, Eros, and Hephaistos—split into six conversations that each fit into a single day; when all is done, the cast enjoys their well-earned Sabbath. Each divine speaker brings a unique set of priorities and assumptions to their investigation of philosophy, science, and mysticism, but the quartet settles neatly into two positions: the first three (who respectively embody soul/life, language, and love) supply and defend Hart’s own metaphysical idealism, while the last (who embodies craftsmanship) represents reductive materialism on his own. Conspicuously absent is any champion of the system that many will find most familiar—dualism between human matter and spirit—though detailed critique of its explanatory powers awaits the patient reader.
Through this cast, Hart subtly decenters both the scientific method within the body of human knowledge and the materialist worldviews it has hewn. Despite their contemporary dominance, he asserts, materialist approaches can neither examine nor exceed all that their philosophical forebears explore. Indeed, Hart’s idealist trio dwells at length on the ways the scientific method has mutated beyond its proper scope: Though it was born as a “narrowing of investigative focus,” a mental magnifying glass able to block out all but reality’s mathematical skeleton, science’s view has effectively become “the very shape of reality itself” (65-67). Hart seeks to reintegrate the sciences into a broader lens that can perceive the existence of “abstract reality”—the values, categories, and even teleological purposes that make life and knowledge into theoretical possibilities, at all. “Nature is visible spirit and spirit is invisible nature,” Hart eventually articulates, citing Schelling (438); down to the smallest quantum particle, every bit of creation participates in the creative impulse of the Divine Mind.
Not every section of the book will hit home with equal force or significance, but its final conclusions deserve the full journey. All Things Are Full of Gods represents nearly a full decade of Hart’s research and reasoning through not only philosophy but multiple disciplines of modern science. Hart’s opening primer on logic quickly races through western and eastern history of thought before neurology, psychology, Newtonian and quantum physics, chemistry, and biology are pulled apart and analyzed through the lenses and conclusions of several of their most significant contributors. At several points, I struggled just to keep pace with his thinking, much less analyze and apply it. However, Hart set my heart to dancing with his application of human subjectivity—our dreams and longings, personal preferences and intentionality, art, and above all the utterly coherence of symbolic language—to rescue us from the post-Enlightenment West’s mechanistic nihilism, “No machine ventures out from itself in desire—in love—toward the whole of reality, engaging with all the particular things of the world under the canopy of transcendental yearnings,” Hart’s Eros declares (292); creaturely consciousness, however—alight in Divine Love more original than psychological event—does this and more. All creation, in fact, is orientated to love, which spurs matter to evolve, to understand what is real and participate in it. Mechanistic materialism divorces matter from this fundamental telos. “The history of modern disenchantment,” Hart laments, “is the history of humankind’s long, ever deepening self-exile [from communion with creation],” and materialism’s current hypothesis—“that [we] too are only machines”—leaves the whole world mute, defenseless before nihilistic wills to power (480-482). After all, what could ever be saved if it loses its soul?
Hart’s driving concern is to promote a better philosophy of life that can generate and sustain better societies, but at times his tone and method of dialogue work against these higher aims. His characters communicate primarily through lengthy monologues and could model better postures of listening. Instead, they frequently interrupt or slight one another, and except when consensus grants him the driver’s seat, Hart’s “antagonist” Hephaistos is denied more than just passing remarks. Hart’s tone itself lives closer to “acerbic and witty” than “conversational,” and readers with an aversion to apologetic debates may struggle to find their home in much of his prose. Despite these hard edges, All Things Are Full of Gods resists the final exclusion and marginalization that debates tend to foster. Each “Day” of conversation ends with a party where all are welcome, and when the book’s arguments hit the inevitable wall of theodicy, pretense shatters into something gentler. Hart’s small pantheon, after all, embodies not only philosophy’s global trends but his own internal conflict, and he ultimately welcomes every divided part to remain. “We may not be able to agree…,” he concludes in Hephaistos’ voice, “but I know we both love the tormented, beautiful world…. So, then, let’s leave the matter there, where at least our hearts are in accord, if not our beliefs” (483).
All Things Are Full of Gods is a bracing examination of what human consciousness might reveal about human, divine, and material nature. Its heady nature perhaps suits it better to personal or academic pursuit of philosophy than to a typical congregational study group, but those who remain on the fence can take heart: David Bentley Hart wants his readers to understand. He frequently reframes, dissects, and explains his own arguments in order to make the journey more manageable. Occasionally, he even sprinkles in a touch of humor. A serious read-through will sharpen your reasoning and give you a fresh grip on the ideas supporting and driving current social trends. Grant All Things Are Full of Gods a month of attention, and its words will give you counsel for years to come.
Alec Worrell-Welch
Alec Worrell-Welch is a campus minister to international students living in Johnson City, Tennessee. He is a recent graduate of Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University and loves books, games, and discussing the mysteries of the world with his wife.
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