A little while back, I mentioned a project on sovereignty and choice sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.  The other day I came across another project the foundation is sponsoring, this one having to do with this intriguing question:  what is the place of the human mind in nature?
     I won't pretend to answer this question fully in this little blog, but I will observe that many people have asked, if the human race were to suddenly disappear, would the earth be any worse off?  Others, driven by various religious perspectives, suggest that the human race is essential to the earth, that human beings have been called to watch over the planet.
     If the latter is true, a fair minded person might respond that to this point humans have done a rather poor job at managing the resources with which they had been entrusted.  In other words, does nature really need the human mind and vision?  Absent some sort of purpose for the planet, it in fact does not.  The world does not need the human mind to be the world.  The human mind does not add to the goodness or greatness of the world.
     So what is the role of the human mind in nature?  Again, unless nature is grounded and encompassed by a larger purpose, a purpose that affirms the necessity and importance of human beings in the creation, there really isn't one.
     In ourselves, we cannot insist that we have a point.