Is it language? Is it reason? Is it math maybe? It is utility? Is it longer term planning? Is it the realization that one will die at some point? Is it religious and philosophical inquiry? Is it systematic thought?
It seems to be all of that. But can we abstract one value to account for all of these? Yes, we can. We can because it is Abstraction itself that is unique about all these abilities and that is unique about us, human beings.
Here is a thought. If we–in our religious or materialist-reductionist-scientific thinking–are so committed to the idea that nature is united, wouldn’t it be just abstraction to believe it has One source? It can’t have many distinctive sources and it can’t come out of no source, both of these alternatives would not be sufficient to explain the unity in the extreme diversity of all existing phenomena.
The belief in One Creator is simply the outcome of the practice of what is so fundamental about human beings. It is being human, in other words.
