Proper functionality is something generally relegated to the ivory towers of epistemologists, philosophers whom study knowledge and how we can know things.[1] The image of God is usually relegated to theologians, those who study the things of God[2], and the pulpit. What happens if we combine the two studies: proper functionality and the image of God? In my humble opinion, we would get a very well founded and rounded biblical view of the doctrine. But before we go into doing that, it is helpful to take a look at proper functionality which I will be calling PF from now on.
PF as a theory of epistemology, popularized by Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame, says that when a person’s cognitive faculties are not hindered by anything and are behaving, or functioning, in the way they were intended (that is, properly) the person is able to come to a relatively good sense of reality and how the world really is.[3] It is not the task here to make a case for only the cognitive faculties of humanity but to then generalize it to the entire person so that the entire person, his mind, will, and emotions, are in line with our original design/designer. The question becomes then what makes a person to be properly functioning?
Since the theory we will be working with has its origins in epistemology, it will be helpful to get a basic grasp of the epistemological theory before generalizing it to the entire person. PF begins with the faculties of the mind. The mind here is the thing that allows us to rationalize the world around us so that we can make sense of it. On PF, our beliefs need not to have any warrant beyond what our cognitive faculties know when working correctly. Essentially, we can only come to an accurate representation of reality when our cognitive functions are working as they were originally intended. No external evidence is needed for the beliefs to be found true. There is, however, purpose attached to these cognitive functions.
To work as intended necessarily implies that there is a purpose found within it. As an example, the cognitive function of something like hunger has a purpose of self-sustaining/nourishing the body. Purpose is built in to the function of hunger by the fact of its existence. Yet we can come to this knowledge without any real hard evidence other than our own experiences. We get hungry, therefore we eat life-sustaining food. We do not need to know how it works or why we need to sustain ourselves in order to believe that we need food to survive. Nonetheless, there is a purpose to hunger. Even babies experience this type of cognitive function. They know for a fact when they are hungry and they will alert their mother as to when it is feeding time so they can continue to survive.
Something like hunger can be willfully overridden for various reasons while maintaining PF of the hunger as a cognitive function. As I wrote this, I had just eaten lunch. I had willfully grabbed an orange Gatorade on my way back up to my office to continue working and writing. I take notice that I grow increasingly thirsty as I type but for the sake of not wanting to ruin a thought train, I willfully refrain from allowing my cognitive function of hunger to cause me to take a sip. My cognitive function is very much intact and functioning properly (even though I am forcing myself to finish the paragraph that I am on because I know that I get easily distracted which would potentially lead to a loss of the idea I am working on).
The purpose of that cognitive function is there for a reason and in the instance of hunger, the purpose is to fuel my body to continue writing these words. The same goes for you reading this. I have no doubt that you may or may not have a bite to eat or a drink to sip while you read this yet taking a break from reading to indulge that PF of hunger may result in a loss of your place in the paragraph or page. Thus a willful suspension of a PF cognitive faculty by a PF cognitive faculty does not necessitate a malfunctioning cognitive faculty of any sort. They are mutually exclusive. There was a purpose to both of these cognitive faculties and with purpose the concept of a design needs to be introduced
Everything that has a purpose must have a design to give it that purpose. Like with hunger, the purpose is to feed our bodies for life-sustaining reasons. The design then must therefore be PF in order for the purpose to actually work out as intended. A design is like a set of instructions for the cognitive faculty to be properly carried out. You cannot get a PF cognitive faculty without a PF design for that PF cognitive faculty. In other words, if the design is not PF then the purpose is not PF. A flawed set of instructions will get you a flawed product. The design for hunger then is for us to find a food-source, acquire food, and then consume food by way of oral ingestion. If any one of those things in the design is flawed, like the inability to find a food-source, then we cannot feed ourselves. That is to say if we were isolated from anyone else because the introduction of someone else with that PF design would allow for a way around the flaw. Therefore, to have a a PF cognitive faculty, there needs to be a purpose and a PF design of that faculty for it to work as intended by the designer.
Yes, proper functionality requires a designer to be introduced into the mix. Our design for hunger needs a design to set it all up in the right fashion. Let the order of feeding ourselves be: 1) find the food-source; 2) acquire food; and 3) consume food by oral ingestion. If any one of these is switched we cannot effectively feed ourselves and there is no way for this to come about just by sheer chance and have it apply to every living thing that needs to find a food-source outside itself. The designer needs to set things up, or fine tune things, to the degree that this is the order of feeding because any other order would just not work. The person that starts eating before finding a food-source would quite literally end up eating nothing and therefore die of starvation. For if he thought he was eating something when he really was not then he would be experiencing a malfunction of more than one cognitive function. Not only would the feeding function be malfunctioning but the eyesight or perception cognitive function would be malfunctioning as well. And if the designer were to make it so those were in fact the designs, we would have to conclude that the designer is a cruel being with a twisted sense of humor or that we never were meant to survive at all. We do not see a designer with a twisted sense of humor. We see that the designer designed us and the world in such a way that when we are functioning properly as a majority we are flourishing as a majority. If this designer actually does exist, then by logical necessity it would have to be greater than all things in this world because he would have had to design all things in this world. In other words, this designer would fall into the categories of uncaused, changeless, spaceless, beginningless, timeless, immaterial, and immensely powerful which were laid out by William Lane Craig as a result of his work in developing the Kalam Cosmological Argument.[4]
All this means that in our original design, we have a PF. The way humanity is and was originally designed is PF in every way. Meaning that the designer’s plan for humanity is perfect and if we follow with that original design plan then we will be PF. The question is then, “Can we know what our original design was so that we can be PF?” I would say, “yes,” but with a qualifier of leaning into the religious. My intention is not to invoke any specific religion at this point because I want to build a good picture of what humanity looks like. Religion then will come in when we reach the end of the road of observable and philosophical inquiry.
Taking into consideration the qualities set out by William Lane Craig in his Kalam formulation, this means that the ultimate purpose and our proper functionality is bigger than just survival. Surviving just to survive does not give survival any ultimate meaning. Rather, when we are PF we survive. But it is not mere survival that happens but flourishing. Why, though? What is the purpose for surviving? Is it the propagation of our DNA like the naturalists think? No. It cannot be mere propagation because propagation itself has a purpose beyond multiplication. This purpose needs to go beyond the physical and into the metaphysical with its roots in the designer.
To be rooted in our designer is the way we can know what our original design is if we are to be PF. This also leans into the religious sector a bit because of the implication of something or someone that lies outside our universe and therefore outside physical observation. In being rooted in a designer, the purpose for our PF design is able to be accessed. All we need to do, is ask the right questions. Questions like, “is our design modeled after something?”, “Are we still within our original design or is there something wrong?” will open us up to have access to our designer. If we really are designed, we would want to know that designer so we can get to know how to, if possible, become PF humans. Getting to know that designer would provide us insight into how to flourish as a whole by way of acting according to our design as originally intended by the designer. If we can do that, life would be much simpler and mutually beneficial for all.
What can be drawn out from here as something we can apply to life? That we can and do have cognitive faculties that can malfunction and we ought to make sure that they stay intact and resilient. How do we do that? For one, we can seek to understand what our cognitive faculties are and figure out if ours are functioning correctly or not so that we can understand reality as it really is. Secondly, we can utilize the normative field of psychology to help us figure out what really is normal for our cognitive faculties. Thirdly, we can be okay with cognitive discomfort. Having the cognitive discomfort will force us to make sense of the world around us, and if our cognitive faculties are operating properly, dealing with the cognitive discomfort will increase our stamina to deal with more and to deal with it quicker than the last time it arose.
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theology
[3] https://iep.utm.edu/prop-fun/
[4] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-kalam-cosmological-argument
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