346 becoming more human by becoming more godlikeunchanging laws of nature govern recurrent natural phenomena. Th is
Newtonian paradigm may work when deployed to explain parts of
nature. However, it fails when we try to apply it to the whole of the
universe and its history. We can then no longer distinguish between
explained phenomena and initial conditions, or observe or prepare
copies of the phenomena, or imagine the observer, placed, as if God,
outside the confi guration space. Th is cosmological fallacy— the un-
warranted universalization of an explanatory style suited to local
uses— represents a cosmological equivalent to the fallacy in moral the-
ory of turning an objection to the local uses of a contrast between the
is and the ought into a blanket prohibition of any such passage from
description to commitment.
If we consider the matter from the opposite perspective— that is to
say, from the vantage point of where we could fi nd support for an ori-
entation to life, rather than from the perspective of what authority our
comprehensive views have to guide the conduct of life— we reach the
same conclusion. Th ere can be no support for such an orientation other
than an inclusive account of our identity and of our place in the world.
It will always be a defective and defeasible grounding. However, it is the
only kind of basis that we can ever hope to fi nd. Th e salvation religions
are no exception to this rule, for they too anchor a view of how to live in
an understanding of ultimate reality, even if it is one that reason, unas-
sisted by revelation, is powerless to attain.
Th e complaint of an illegitimate passage from description to pre-
scription nevertheless holds an element of truth. As it becomes compre-
hensive, a conception also becomes contestable. What ever the degree of
inner conviction that we may experience in upholding it, we never have
enough reason to do so. It can always be challenged— and it remains
subject to doubt and to loss of faith— in the light of other aspects of
our knowledge and experience.
Moreover, it works as a self- fulfi lling prophecy. It asks us to change
the world— at least our world— according to its dictates. By so doing,
we make the world come closer to what, according to the comprehen-
sive view, the world already is. Th e facts, however, of natural, social, or
psychological reality fi ght back against the self- fulfi lling prophecy, pro-
viding a test, albeit an inconclusive one, for what always continues to be
an idea open to attack.