What's It All About, and Why Is There Even an About?

Yesterday we mentioned that a sentence can be perfectly grammatical but meaningless, such as Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Reader Julie wonders what would happen if we typed this sentence into an image generator? Let's find out:

Not only can it not generate an image, it can't even accurately reproduce the sentence; or, the image is a less accurate version of the meaningless sentence, with the insertion of some seemingly random noise. 

It reminds me of how natural selection is supposed to work, via poorly copied genetic sentences. Again, DNA is a language, and like any language it points to something beyond itself. When there's a copying error, it usually results in something dysfunctional, but occasionally points to something that turns out to be beneficial. 

It's another one of those things that I get, but don't really get at all. For example, I know how a CD works, but then again, I have no idea how shining a laser beam on encoded digital bits results in Aretha appearing in my living room. 

Yesterday we touched on the idea that theology is a sort of grammar; the church is the community that speaks Christianese, while theologians formulate the syntax and semantics of the language. Again, syntax and semantics are very different things, and the latter can never be reduced to the former. 

When you think about it, it's a very tricksy business, because which comes first, the meaning or the syntax? Do we first have meaning that we encode in sentences, or do sentences generate the meaning? And how can either of these occur in a cosmos that is non-linguistic, i.e., that has no syntactical structure and therefore no means of encoding and conveying information? 

This prior condition, I suppose, is what Christians call God. Not just any God, but a... logogenetic (?) one that is the source and generator of meaning. Gemini, is that even a word?

While "logogenetic" might not be a widely recognized everyday word, it does appear in certain academic contexts, particularly within the field of systemic functional linguistics. 

It is derived from "logos" (Greek for "word" or "reason") and "genesis" (origin). Therefore, "logogenetic" relates to the origin or generation of meaning, particularly in the context of how meaning is created within a text or a communicative event.

The term is used, especially in systemic functional linguistics, to describe the creation of meaning within a text as it unfolds. It refers to the moment-by-moment genesis of meaning.

Well, the world is a text that is loaded with meaningful information.

Moreover, the whole point of Genesis is that reality itself is a "communicative event." We know that it is ordered -- i.e., has a syntactical structure -- and that this structure points to a meaning. Except the meaning proceeds in two direction: "upward" it points to God, hence the old gag that the things that are seen point to the things that are not seen, i.e., the contingent to the eternal.

But they also point downward to all the various forms that are implicit in the world, such as its mathematical structure. 

These latter forms, cut off from the ultimate meaning at the top, are difficult to account for. Doing so results in a kind of "meaningless meaning," in the sense that, for example, the laws of physics are on the one hand meaningful but on the other hand meaningless in any ultimate sense. Rather, they just are.

But why should anything mean anything in any context? Again we go back to Jaki's idea that every philosopher, in order to do any kind of philosophy at all, presumes a cosmos in which one thing can stand for another and communicate meaning. For which reason we agree with the Aphorist that 

Metaphor supposes a universe in which each object mysteriously contains the others. 

He also says 

Either God or chance: all other terms are disguises for one or the other. 

But chance has no creative function, rather, it can only be parasitic on an existing order. Properly speaking, it doesn't actually exist as any kind of positive entity. For example, if we flip a coin, we say that chance determines whether it lands heads or tails, but chance isn't an actual thing, rather, a measure of probability. It has no power of its own; it cannot do anything because it isn't anything. 

Chance is not an entity. It is not a thing that has power to affect other things. It is no thing. To be more precise, it is nothing. Nothing cannot do something. Nothing is not. It has no "isness."

What are the chances that chance can do anything? Not a chance. It has no more chance to do something than nothing has to do something (Sproul). 

Rosen points out that languages are "about something outside the languages themselves. It is their essence to express things about external referents." 

Again, irrespective of this or that meaning, what we want to know is the ontological status of this aboutness. How can anything be about anything else other than itself? How is it that things point to other things? 

Syntax eliminates this question: "What is left of a language when the referents are stripped away constitutes syntax." It appeals to science because it appears objective, whereas "Semantic aspects, by contrast, possess ineluctable subjective features." 

Rosen objects to the idea that there could be a syntax so perfectly detailed that it could effectively replace semantics. Rather, he is saying that this is impossible in principle. He cites Gödel, who proved that

syntactical rules captured only an infinitesimal part of "real" mathematics.... So, in this realm, there is no way to reduce semantic aspects to syntactic ones in general...

In short, the most complete syntax will always leave a semantic residue. 

This is not the first time we've been down this rabbit hole. For example, a post from last November says

"Metaphor is even built into the basic structure of creation." For example, "DNA is a code," and "A code is a kind of language" (Klavan).  Creation itself

is a fractal: it is metaphors all the way down. The three-part Logos creates man, man creates metaphors for reality, reality is a metaphor for the Logos (ibid.).

Everything points every which way, beyond itself, to its immaterial meaning. And as we've discussed on many occasions, in just what kind of cosmos is this possible? 

Our interaction with the world is fractal work: creation within creation, metaphor within metaphor, trinity within trinity proceeding out of and representing the Trinity that is the source and life of it all (ibid.). 

We've often pondered the fact that the first thing said of God is that he creates. Well, 

When we understand our inner experience as a little Genesis, the ongoing creation of creation, we begin to understand that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God (ibid.).

Again, a fractal of the Fractal. 

Why fractal? I don't know about Klavan, but for me it's the most adequate metaphor I can think of for oneness-in-manyness, and vice versa, of both the Trinity and its reflection in everything and everyone herebelow.

Now, where does this leave us in our discussion of Christianese? It leaves us at the end of this post and the beginning of tomorrow's. 

Is Christianese a Universal Tongue?

Even supposing the Trinity is the grammar of being, isn't that a bit general? How is it helpful?

I don't know. This blog does not proceed in a linear way, rather, via hunches, suspicions, and sometimes coincidences. For example, the word "grammar" rarely comes up in my literary peregrinations, so yesterday I was surprised to read in a randomly selected book that theology

is best described as a sort of grammar. The church, we may say, is the community that speaks Christianese, and theology formulates the syntax and semantics of the language (Jenson). 

"Theological opinions of individual theologians or schools are attempts to point out" the proper rules of this grammar. But "even an enduring majority" can fall into "speaking Christianese ungrammatically."  

Most famously, this was the role of the seven ecumenical councils, each in succession laying down the grammatical laws of Christianese, as if to say "speak this way and not in that other way" -- for example, that the Trinity is three persons in one godhead, or that Christ is begotten and not made, or that he is not two persons, etc. To ignore these rules is to no longer speak grammatically correct Christianese.

Recall that grammar is universal whereas language is particular. Theology tries to articulate this universal grammar, as does philosophy. Or rather, theology begins with a grammar of being revealed by God, whereas philosophy endeavors (or used to) to discern this grammar from natural reason and empirical evidence. Aquinas tried to formulate a grammar that combined both. 

As do I, since -- I suspect -- there must be a single Grammar of the various grammars of being. I say this grammar is either impossible or it is necessary. Therefore, since it's not impossible, it must be necessary; and that which is necessary is eternal, and can never fail to be or to happen.

However, we know the laws of nature cannot be the true grammar of being, since they are contingent and not necessary. They are not eternal, but must have a cause or genesis. Logogenesis? Logos must be among the most loaded words in all of existence, for it connotes both natural, rational, and judicial law, not to mention -- take it away, Gemini --

Logos often signifies the rational principle that governs the universe. It represents the underlying order and logic of reality. 

It's associated with the capacity for human reason and understanding. Logos is closely tied to the principles of logical thought and argumentation. It emphasizes the importance of clear, coherent, and reasoned discourse. 

In its original Greek context, logos also meant "word" or "speech." This connotation highlights the power of language to express reason and communicate truth. 

In Aristotle's rhetoric, logos is one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and pathos. It refers to the use of logical arguments, evidence, and reasoning to persuade an audience. It is the appeal to the audiences sense of reason. 

Logos can also refer to an underlying principle or pattern that structures and organizes things. 

In Christian theology, particularly in the Gospel of John, logos refers to the divine Word, which is identified with Jesus Christ. This connotation emphasizes Christ as the embodiment of God's reason and revelation. It is the divine reason that creates and sustains the universe. 

Logos is also tied to the idea of divine revelation, or the way in which God communicates with humanity.

In conclusion,

Logos implies a sense of order, structure, and coherence. It is often associated with the pursuit of truth and knowledge, and highlights the importance of effective communication and dialogue.

So, probably the best word ever, because where would we be without it? Of course we don't mean the word itself but that to which it points, e.g., law, order, logic, reason, understanding, pattern, coherence, revelation, et al. 

It seems that this Logos is none other than the long lost Cosmic Area Rug. Which is to say, a valued--

Yes, and which modern philosophy says we can never find or recover. A secular philosopher will still discern a grammar of being, but in scientism, for example, this grammar reduces to physics. The question is, is the grammar of physics rich enough to account for life and consciousness? If not, what is the grammar of life? And of mind?

I don't know whom to ask except Robert Rosen, whose whole project involves proving that the grammar of physics is insufficient to account for complex systems such as life. That it to say, language has its syntactical aspect and its semantic aspect, and the latter cannot be reduced to the former. In short, meaning cannot be reduced to word order. 

Indeed, it is possible for a perfectly grammatically correct sentence to be devoid of meaning (e.g. the famous Colorless green ideas sleep furiously), just as different sentences may convey an identical meaning. 

Everything communicates to us via a language, and that's just weird. For example, math is a language that is curiously spoken by material reality. Likewise, there is the language of DNA spoken by living organisms. 

What is at least equally weird is that we understand the languages. These are two very different grammars, each valid on its own level. But if Rosen is correct, you can't translate Biologese into Mathese, because the latter is too comparatively impoverished a language. 

We have to end this post prematurely because of chores, errands, and other distractions. Perhaps these ideas will marinate and simmer over the next 24 hours and emerge more fully cooked.

Grammar ∞

Yesterday's post didn't do justice to the idea that atheism is but bad grammar, mainly because I myself don't know what the statement means, but it sounds intriguing enough to make me want to find out. 

Let's begin with Grammar 101 -- i.e., bonehead grammar -- before moving on to Grammar ∞, which is to say, our grammar vs. God's. Grammar is 

the system of rules that govern how a language works. It encompasses how words are combined, structured, and used to create meaningful communication. It provides the framework for constructing sentences, phrases, and clauses, and involves understanding how words relate to each other and how their forms can change.

What comes first, the language or its grammar? Oddly enough, according to Chomsky, the latter: he posits a universal grammar that serves as the deep structure of any particular language. It is said to be "hardwired" into the human brain, and although Chomsky assumes it to be biological, he concedes that no one really knows: rather, he limits himself to describing the what, but there is no explanation as to the how it presumably evolved.

Whatever the case, human beings have an implicit grammar that other animals lack, which is why even the most intelligent chimp can't really learn language. What a child accomplishes effortlessly, the chimp cannot accomplish with any amount of effort. 

The Bible has a kind of theory of language, in that God speaks creation into existence, crowning this with the creation of a being made in the image and likeness of the Creator-Speaker, for which reason man is assigned the task of naming all the other creatures. That's not something you could ask a chimp or dog to do. Indeed, you could point to this or that animal and ask the dog what it is, but they'll only stare at your finger.

Now, a name is a universal, so naming the animals presupposes knowledge of universals. Here again, this is precisely what a chimp that is taught sign language cannot do. While they can can use signs to refer to objects and actions, they soon hit a wall that excludes them from abstract and conceptual thinking. They cannot truly get "inside" language, but at best can only enact a facsimile of this. 

It seems that we cannot even speak of human language without a concept of interiority: we can only be "inside" language because there is an inside to begin with. But how is it even possible for an inside to exist in an externally related universe? 

In other words, scientism assumes a universe of externally related parts with no inside, so how did interiority ever arise in such a setting? How do we get from objects to the subjects that know, understand, and communicate about them? This strikes me as the most inconceivable leap conceivable. Hence Schuon's remark that 

The first thing that should strike a man when he reflects on the nature of the Universe is the primacy of the miracle of intelligence -- or consciousness or subjectivity -- whence the incommensurability between it and material objects, whether a grain of sand or the sun, or any creature whatever as an object of the senses.

As far as I can recall, it was Stanley Jaki's Means to Message: A Treatise on Truth that first alerted me to what all philosophers and philosophies naively presuppose. I've discussed the book on numerous occasions, for example, in a post called How to Exist:

All philosophers, intellectuals, thinkers, pundits, and professors, despite different conclusions, must agree on one thing: that "They all use tangible means for the delivery of their respective messages" (Jaki). In order to effectively communicate meaning, there must be a means of effective communication. 

Therefore, if philosophers are logical, their primary concern should be about the extent to which their particular philosophy justifies the use of any such means, indeed its very reality and all the consequences, both numerous and momentous, that follow from this.

Take Darwinism, for example. Is there anything in this philosophy that permits the entities explained by it to explain themselves? 

No there is not. "Yet only in the measure in which that justification is done, implicitly or, what is far better, explicitly, may the philosopher's message become truly about truth" (Jaki). Which means that 99% of philosophers imagine they are finished, when they haven't actually even begun. In other words, they haven't begun to explain how the communication of truth between humans is possible

In a subsequent post called The Message of the Cosmos, I wrote that

In order for existence to ex-ist, there must be this primordial distinction between means and message. Typically we think of the foundation of things as consisting of matter, or energy, or law, but these are all somewhat beside the point if there is no Message and no Means to encode and transmit it.

Bob goes on to say that 

There are diverse methods for encoding and unpacking these messages, from poetry to science, philosophy to theology, math to music. 

More generally, you might say there are qualitative ways and quantitative ways. In our Age of Stupidity, there is a widespread belief that only the quantitative ways are valid, but guess what? As soon as you say that, you've made a qualitative argument, one that obviously cannot be reduced to numbers....

Science not only deals with material reality, but conflates it with existence itself. But as Schuon writes, matter is only "the sensible manifestation of existence," so existence is obviously more than what science can say about it. Or, put conversely, if you were to consider all the things science says about matter, they wouldn't add up to existence itself, for existence is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.

But the deeper point is that science simply assumes not only that "matter talks," but -- more bizarrely -- that scientists can hear and understand what it is saying.

To which the only sensible response is ?!, because this communication of intelligibility to the intellect is the first thing we assume but the last thing we'd expect. (Literally, as in Einstein's remark that "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.")

This is getting way out ahead of our skis, but in another post I wrote that

If the totality of reality is completely intelligible, then God exists.

But the totality of reality is completely intelligible.

Therefore God exists.

Now, everyone I know assumes that reality is intelligible. Indeed, that's what reality is. There are people for whom reality is unintelligible -- or who live "outside reality" -- but we call them crazy.

The point is, knowledge of, and conformity to, reality, is not only our standard of sanity, but the whole basis of education, not to mention justice. But the question is, in what kind of cosmos are reality, truth, and justice even possible? 

A grammatical cosmos?

Well, let's go back to our initial definition of grammar, which is the system of rules that govern how a language works. It encompasses how words are combined, structured, and used to create meaningful communication. 

It seems to me that the cosmos must be grammatical before we are, which is why it can meaningfully communicate to us, so this grammar cannot be biological, rather, biology is one of the consequences of the grammatical structure of reality. As are biologists and linguists. 

I suspect we need to further consider the grammar of the Trinity -- which is to say, Grammar ∞ -- in order to get to the bottom of this.

Calvinism, Calvinball, and the Grammar of God

Calvinism is not a game, and actually makes games impossible, because games are predicated on an unknown outcome. If the outcome is known, why would you bother playing the game? Even the Dodgers, as loaded with talent as they are, will not go undefeated this season. 

Conversely, in Calvinball there are no rules, so nothing is predetermined:

Its defining characteristic is that it has virtually no set rules. Instead, the rules are made up and changed by the players as the game progresses. The rules are fluid and constantly evolving, and players create new rules on the fly. No two games of Calvinball are alike, and the game's direction can shift dramatically at any moment.  

It has also entered into general use, to describe situations where rules are arbitrary and constantly changing.

In point of fact, both Calvinism and Calvinball make a real game impossible, the first because it is too rigid and deterministic, the second because it is too elastic and lawless. Too much order and too much chaos are both fatal to any game. 

That right there is the sort of banality this blog tries to avoid. But is existence itself some kind of game?  Or are we just putting in time in a meaningless dead-end job? 

Of course, this is not 'Nam, and there are rules! But what are the rules? For example, if predeterminism is the case, then how could there be any human rules? What happens is bound to happen -- it has been decreed from all eternity -- so man is powerless to deviate from God's plan:

if the reality of God remains unchanged whatever we do, there is really very little point in performing one act rather than another..., [and] it would appear to follow that no act can, in its consequences, be better than any other, for the same unchanging reality remains in either case (Gunton).

From the standpoint of God's eternity, "no act of finite being can make the slightest difference to the over-all state of affairs (ibid.). Since worship can have no effect on God, "it can only be self-regarding," or not even self-regarding, just meaningless noise. God's plan is God's plan, and we're just along for the ride, which Hartshorne calls "the greatest intellectual error mankind has ever made."

I mean, there are a lot of bad ideas in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human error, but if predestination is true, these ideas can't even be errors because they were foreordained. 

When we examine the cosmos, we find rules at every level, i.e., laws of nature. We also find a natural law inscribed in the human heart, which is a curious thing to exist if reality reduces to God's atemporal Is. 

If this is the case, then our own intuition of an Ought is just another vain illusion, since we are powerless to do what we ought. Rather, what is, is, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Recall the words of yesterday's commenter, that "All moments are present to God now, all at once, as facts." Again, it is as if the present and future have already happened, and are as concretely settled as the past.

Why does this bug you so much?

Well, partly because it is so implausible that people reject it in favor of a postmodern metaphysical Calvinball predicated on an absolute relativism and subjectivism. Your rules are as arbitrary as mine, so instead of God's truth people default to my truth. It seems to me that postmodernism is just the shadow of determinism, and that both are fatal to any possible understanding of the actual rules of the game.   

Speaking of rules, I've also been thinking about the "grammar of God," which at first glance might seem eccentric, but the Christian revelation says that God is not only Logos -- which implies that he is "linguistic," so to speak -- but also that he also has pronouns, for example, the I, Thou, and We implied by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There can be no substance "beneath" these grammatical relations, since the relations are the substance. 

I'm also thinking of Wittgenstein's cryptic remark that "theology is grammar," and a comment by Hartshorne to the effect that "atheism is bad grammar."  

First of all, what did Wittgenstein mean? Gemini? 

It's not about traditional sentence structure; rather, it refers to rules of language use. Wittgenstein shifted from viewing language as a mirror of reality to seeing it as a set of "language games" governed by rules. These rules dictate how words are used within specific contexts.... Grammar in this sense, describes the ways in which words acquire meaning through their use within these social contexts. 

He emphasized that meaning isn't inherent in words themselves but arises from their application within specific contexts. Therefore, to understand theological language, we must examine how it is used within the "language game" of religious practice. 

Applying this to theology, Wittgenstein suggests that theological statements should be understood by analyzing their grammatical role within religious practices. Essentially he is saying that the way that words like "God" or "soul" are used, give those words their meaning, within the context of the religious language game.

We disagree, because God himself is a language game with a grammatical structure in a social context, this context being the Trinity, and its grammar involving the eternal Word spoken by the Father. Therefore, grammar isn't just a human game but a divine one. It also means that our theological language can indeed be a reflection of reality, not just a postmodern self-enclosed linguistic house of mirrors.

This being the case, we can see how atheism could be just a case of bad grammar. I don't have time to track down the context of Hartshorne's remark, so let's once again consult with our artificial friend:

When Hartshorne said "atheism is bad grammar," he meant that it violates the fundamental grammar of reality as he understood it. In his view, reality is inherently relational and interactive. To deny the existence of a being (God) that is essentially involved in this relational process is to misuse the very language that describes reality.

I'll buy that: God is the grammar of reality, so denying God is inherently un- or even anti-grammatical. 

He felt that the very structure of reality required a God, and therefore, to deny God was to deny that structure, which resulted in a grammatical error.

In summary, Hartshorne's statement is not about linguistic grammar in the traditional sense, but about the "grammar" of existence itself.

The grammar of existence is a consequence of the grammar of God? This works for me. For which reason it is written that Your seenill grammar and gravidad may not be malapropriate for my laughty revelation. 

Waitwut?

Well, let's break it down: it seems that a certain outmoded use of grammar may result in seeing nil, and that describing God may require a more playful approach to language. Certainly Eckhart thought so, what with his puns, wordplay, paranomasia, paradox, antinomy, negation, oxymoron, hyperbole, chiasmus, and all the rest. For McGinn, Eckhart's word games "are meant to be both playful and serious," or "to confuse in order to enlighten."

Yesterday we spoke of God's infinitude, which is to say All-Possibility. Again, in the traditional view God is pure Act, and therefore No Possibility.

Supposing there is a proper theological grammar, what might this look like? Well, for Eckhart, "The Father's speaking is his giving birth; the Son's hearing is his being born." And that's a conversation -- and a birth -- that never ends.

Is there something more primordial than this conversation? If so, what might it be?

Experience?

Hmm. That's a good candidate, but what is it? It seems that it cannot be defined, because any definition presupposes the experience of it. There can be no definitions without definers. But is this a fruitful avenue? Or just an ensuing train wreck? 

Well, we may not be able to define experience, but perhaps we can say what must be true of all any and all experience? There can be no truths prior to experience, but what is the truth of experience? 

Perhaps we can rule out some metaphysical nonstarters, such as the immutable "block godhead" mentioned in yesterday's post. In that case, there is nothing to experience, because there is no distinction between experience and experiencer. In other words, if God were to have an experience of something, the something would have to be distinct from God. For the same reason, God cannot literally know anything, because there is nothing outside God to be known.

But the Trinity is not like this at all. Analogously, consider what distinguishes animal from human experience. Animals have experiences, but they do not experience experience, as do humans. But how did we acquire this ability?

In a word, via the Other. Infants are full of experiences, but only via an intimate relationship with caregivers is this experience converted to meaning and eventually speech and self-reflection. For example, it is common to see patients who have a problem "mentalizing" their experiences. The experiences just happen to them in a passive way, below the level of mentalizing speech. 

Ever had a panic attack? They are quite the experience, and yet quite difficult to put into words.  

So, perhaps the experience of experience is grounded in what Eckhart says above about the eternal conversation between Father and Son? For again, in a monist God there is nothing to experience and no one to converse with.

Well, I don't know if this post is a train wreck or just a flameout, but I'm out of gas. Any thoughts, Gemini?

In essence, the author is searching for a way to understand existence that avoids the pitfalls of both rigid determinism and chaotic relativism, finding potential answers in a relational theology that emphasizes the dynamic and linguistic nature of God.

Nothing is Written, Least of All this Post

Well, it's written now, which is to say, it has become a concrete member of the past, unchanging and unchangeable. 

But even then, not really, because I am not above making little tweaks after the post has been written. Readers probably don't notice this (obvious mistakes such as typos notwithstanding), because they presumably only read the post once, so they will encounter a particular version of it. But like God, I like to engage with my creations and make little adjustments in real time.

"Alt orthodoxy" is of course a takeoff on alt country, which some people think was invented by Gram Parsons in 1967, but Rick Nelson made a country album in 1966, and so too did Michael Nesmith of the Monkees begin writing and recording offbeat country tunes that year:

According to the All Music guide, alt country "refers to country bands that play traditional country but bend the rules slightly." Gemini adds that it often incorporates elements from other genres (check), tends to be less polished (check), is characterized by a "do-it-yourself" spirit (check), works outside the industry spotlight (check), and represents a more independent and often more experimental approach (check).

So, here at One Cosmos we bend the rules, borrow promiscuously from all and sundry, are spontaneous and unpolished, adopt a do-it-oursoph approach, toil outside the mainstream, and indulge in experimental contemplation. 

Is any of this compatible with existing forms of religion? 

Of course. It's parasitic on them.

Gram Parsons' pursuit of "cosmic American music" is also relevant, for it was "his vision of a musical blend that drew from a wide range of American musical traditions," breaking down barriers and synthesizing various genres while trying to "get back to a more pure and real form of American music."

Same, in the sense that I'm American, raised a WASP and still a culural WASP despite my efforts to be Catholic. The one doesn't preclude the other, but still. This is not a Catholic country. There's a reason why the Vatican swamp doesn't much care for American style frontier Catholicism, nor do we much care for a socialist pope.

These preliminary comments have been interrupted by a first challenge to Alt Orthodoxy (AO) by a perennialist commenter who believes God and time, perhaps like sex and honesty, just don't mix: 

It’s simple. In eternity there is no before, so no foreknowledge or predestination; such terms treat eternity as if it were temporal. Which is silly. All time is in eternity, all at once, without compromise to any moment thereof (as to its freedom, or anything else). So God does not know about things before they happen, as if he were a time bound soothsayer such as we. For him, there is no time before now. All moments are present to him now, all at once, as facts.

So, no need for open theism. The problem it would solve is not real, but the result of a category error.

Now, it seems to me that the commenter asserts what needs to be proved, which is to say, whether God is in or out of time. But supposing he creates, then he's in for the win. In other words, so long as he's a carefree radical monist God, then he hasn't a care in the world. But if his creation is in time, that makes him in time too, if only because of his immanence. 

Let's unpack the comment in more detail. In it the assertion is made that God's Eternity is radically atemporal, whereas in the AO view time and eternity are necessarily complementary; they coarise. There is actually no time in the absence of eternity, and vice versa (more on which below).

Second, the commenter essentially spatializes time in his assertion that all time is present to God. This is similar to Einstein's conception of the "block universe" which renders our perception of time illusory. But the whole point is that time is not space, rather, a much more queer entity. Besides, it takes time to deny time.

For an alt-perennialist (admittedly an oxymoron, but a fun one), we agree that God by definition transcends time, but we disagree with the assertion that this transcendence necessitates a static, simultaneous view of all events. Rather, God's relationship with time is more dynamic and interactive. Otherwise, why even bother creating at all if creation is literally identical to God?

From the perspective of AO, we believe that the future contains genuine freedom, possibility, creativity, and contingency, so God's knowledge of it is not exhaustive in the sense of knowing every detail as if it were already determined (like Einstein's block universe that spatializes time).

While God is not bound by time like we are, he interacts with it, responding to events as they unfold. This interaction implies that the future is not a fully formed, pre-existing reality for God. It reminds me of Lawrence of Arabia's critique of Islam's fatalism, i.e., that Nothing is written, not even this post!

Freedom is a problem, God's and ours. It is God's problem for the same reason my son is my problem. I brought him into this world, but, Bill Cosby's father to the contrary notwithstanding, I can't just take him out of it when he disappoints me. I mean theoretically I could, like a Roman father, but that would be wrong. It would violate the Covenant, in which God says Never again. No matter how irritating be these creatures, no more floods to destroy the earth and take out its inhabitants. 

In the AO view, genuine human freedom -- which is to say freedom -- is incompatible with exhaustive divine foreknowledge. If God already knows every future action with certainty, then those actions are no longer free. Rather, they are determined, undermining the very possibility of free will.

But God is free and so are we: Now, the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, boom, there is liberty (2 Cor 3:17). 

Put it this way: in God, freedom and love are prior to knowledge. God creates free beings in order that they may love, which they cannot do if this love be determined. For it is written, Can't buy me love, even if everybody tells me otherwise, for this would be a coerced love and no longer love.

Does the Father force the Son to love him? If so, what is the point of the Trinity? Analogously it reduces to a "block Trintity" in which all is determined and freedom and love are only illusions.

Our commenter maintains that it is a category error to attribute freedom, contingency, or time to God. I say the very principle of time is grounded in the timeless time it takes to engender the Son. This is none other than "eternal time," but it is still a kind of time, only preeminent, like "supra-time." Our time is, of course, only distant echo of this perfect time. 

AO does not spatialize time, but rather, treats it on its own terms, whereas divine foreknowledge entails a predestination that solves one problem while creating many others. These problems are not just mysterious or contradictory, rather, absurd. But God is not absurd, rather, the opposite. 

For if the future is fixed, then prayer, repentance, and human choices become meaningless. We are just appendages of a kind of relentless machine-God, not a creator God who is the very ground of human creativity. Indeed, if determinism is real, then there is no such thing as error or contingency: rather, everything that happens must happen. 

It is also to say that God is devoid of potential, which is just another way of saying that he cannot actually create, unless creation is defined out of existence. God is still omniscient, but this doesn't mean that God can know a square circle. In other words, even God cannot know logical absurdities, one of which is a man that is "free and determined," which makes as much sense as a square circle. 

God knows everything that could happen, which, when you think about it, is far more impressive than a God who only knows the one thing that will inevitably happen. Properly speaking the former isn't even knowledge, because knowledge requires a knower and a known. But God knows. Which is a verb, and verbs imply time. 

Again, to cleanse God of verbs is to turn him into a static block with no verbish attributes such as creating, loving, begetting (the Son), proceeding (the Spirit), revealing, redeeming, etc. But our God is a might-y God, for he allows for contingencies that might or might not happen, including this post. I might be wrong, but I'm free to be wrong. But if this post is determined from all eternity, then it is neither right nor wrong, rather, like everything else, it just is.

If possibility is reduced to inevitability, then the result is meaninglessness. If the future is fixed, then the present and future are already effectively in the past, which is to de-temporalize time. It doesn't solve the problem of time, it just defines it out of existence.   

Now, even -- or especially -- a perennialist should know that God is All Possibility, and possibility is not necessity. Rather, necessity pertains to God's absoluteness, but the first entailment of Absolute is Infinitude, the latter being the very principle of creativity. From the AO perspective, God cannot not create, because the Absolute cannot not be Infinite. Infinitude is also bound up with freedom, because it is unspecified. 

Now, even if all moments are present to God, this does not resolve the issue of free will, because what about the moments that are a consequence of truly free choices that haven't yet happened? Are these free choices actually fixed, or are they undetermined? Have they really already happened for God? This leads to our Instinctive Distaste for Calvinism and its variants, and you can't argue with an instinct.

Is God free to respond to our free choices? Or nah? We say that a God who responds to, and interacts with, the changing events of the world, is superior to the wire monkee deity of the block Godhead. God is not static and impersonal, but rather, a dynamic and eternal complementarity of stasis and creativity, or, as revealed in the sacred sidebar, The perfect, unchanging God must be a gyroscope of energy and activity and at the same time a stable rock. 

My Journey to Alt Orthodoxy

Which I arrived at just a moment ago when that term -- "alt orthodoxy" -- popped into my head.

Yesterday I mentioned an instinctive distaste for Calvinism, but then, I suppose I have an instinctive distaste for all forms of Christianity but my own (I exaggerate). But I once had an instinctive distaste for all forms of Christianity, period. 

As for Calvin, there is simply no part of me that could ever assent to the idea of a supreme being who creates people only to predestine them to eternal punishment. There are some things a decent -- not to mention commonsensical -- God just doesn't do. Supposing this ultimate sadist existed, I would spit in his eye, secure in the knowledge that I am a more moral being than he is, and besides, He's not my real daddy!

I am also a theological libertarian, and there's not a thing I can do about it. For me, freedom descends from, and returns to, God. In other words, God is its source and telos, but we are always free to deviate from, or cooperate with, it. 

We are of course fallen, but God is a necessary and not sufficient condition for our salvation. We still have to do our bit and cooperate with grace, no matter how comparatively modest our contribution.

But for Calvin, the will is bound by sin, so there's nothing we can do to please God except accidentally. Salvation comes 100% from his end, with no participation on our part, which renders our existence entirely superfluous and meaningless. In other words, there are two types of meaninglessness, all freedom (existentialism) and no freedom (double predestination). 

My instinctive distaste for Christianity began way back in Sunday school. My mother was a nominal Christian Scientist, which started back when my grandmother had some sort of mysterious healing after being hit by a bus, probably in the 1930s or 1940s. At the time she was living in Hollywood, where Christian Science had become something of a fad, like Scientology would later.

Gemini, what was that all about?

It's accurate to say that Christian Science had a notable presence among Hollywood celebrities, and this was particularly true in the early to mid-20th century. 

Celebrity Connection: 

Many prominent figures in Hollywood were either raised in Christian Science or became adherents. This included well-known names like Mary Pickford, Mickey Rooney, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor, and Carol Channing. This created a certain level of visibility for the religion within the Hollywood community. 

Factors Contributing to its Popularity: 

Christian Science's emphasis on spiritual healing may have appealed to those in the demanding and often stressful environment of Hollywood. The religion's focus on positive thinking and mental discipline could also have resonated with individuals seeking control and well-being.

Wikipedia says that even Albert Einstein admired the founder, Mary Baker Eddy, and studied her main text, Science and Health, while his son became a full convert. 

Anyway, as a child I was forced to attend Christian Science Sunday school, which never made the least bit of sense to me, partly because my mother didn't hesitate to rush me to the doctor for so much as a sniffle. But it also created a division in my psyche between things that were true on Sunday and things that were true the rest of the week. 

By the age of eleven I gave up the struggle to reconcile them and declared myself an atheist. (To be perfectly accurate, I adopted the consistent position of knowing nothing on Sunday and on every other day of the week.)

After that I developed my instinctive distaste for Christianity, assuming that all versions were the same, except perhaps Catholicism which was even worse.  

Many years later, by the age of 13 or so, my attitude toward religion softened somewhat, based upon the Beatles' interest in Hinduism and other forms of Eastern spirituality. If it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for me. 

But I didn't take any formal plunge until... let's see, must have been when I was in my mid-twenties, after reading Ken Wilber's Spectrum of Consciousness. Afterwards I began studying and practicing yoga, not just the Hatha part but the Raja and Jnana parts too, i.e., the meditation and metaphysics of it all.

After much dabbling, I guess you could say things got pretty serious after the mid-1990s, when I would have called myself a full-on Vedantin. I suppose I didn't make that much progress in eliminating Bob and merging with Brahman, but it was while meditating that the idea for the book popped into my head unbidden.

It came in the form of a vision of the whole story of cosmic evolution, from the mind of the Creator prior to the Big Bang, through the realms of matter, life, and mind, culminating in the mystical union with God. 

And you know the rest of the story.

Do tell it again.

Really? I don't think the audience, such as it is, is interested. 

Tell it for your own benefit. Maybe you'll learn something.

Well, I suppose my instinctive distaste for Christianity continued into the third millennium, but in conducting the totally random and unsystematic research for my book, I began dabbling in Christian mysticism, beginning with a book called A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought. 

Now, here was a form of Christianity that made sense to me, because it could easily be reconciled with other forms of mysticism, i.e., Vedanta, Zen, Taoism, et al. It might even be ground zero for the whole Raccoon Sensibility. Just look at the book's description:

This book presents the esoteric original core of Christianity, with its concern for illuminating and healing the inner life of the individual. It is a bridge to the often difficult doctrines of the early church fathers, explaining their spiritual psychology.... 

Christianity possesses and always has possessed an inner tradition: not a system, but what might be called a discipline. To those with sufficient experience in investigating this field, I believe that this book will convey the same conviction. In addition, I would add to the idea that the inner tradition is one -- although with local variations....

It was through this book that I was alerted to way-out Christian authors such as Boris Mouravieff and Valentin Tomberg, which we discussed at length in the early days of the blog.

But then I started getting my own ideas. Recall what was said a couple of posts back about the three identifiable periods in the lives of creative folk, the first being when one is still assimilating influences and learning one's craft, so "the artist has usually not fully discovered his individual voice." So, I was still mostly playgiarizing with others rather than letting 'er rip with my own peculiar take on things.

But who should care about my own peculiar take on things, including me? Who died and left me in charge of the cosmos? Then along came Schuon, whom I had tried to read before, but didn't connect with. I didn't really get him, plus he sounded too authoritarian -- not nearly as fun and freewheeling as people like Mouravieff and Tomberg. 

Schuon is out there enough to satisfy my instinctive need for speculative woo woo metaphysics, but he also emphasized that metaphysics isn't enough. Rather, one must practice a single God-given path, whether it be Buddhism, Vedanta, Taoism, Judaism, Sufism, or Christianity. 

As in the old Zen saying, Chase two rabbits, catch none. In my case I was chasing every rabbit down every rabbit hole, so it was time grow up, pick one, and settle down. 

That's when the blog started to have a more Catholic sensibility, and I was only received into the Church a few years ago, in 2022. But over the past year or so, I find myself getting restless and unsatisfied again. For example, lately we've been blogging about open theology, which makes much more sense to me than the traditional view. Gemini, is there any way to square this with Catholic doctrine?

The Catholic Church has historically upheld the classical understanding of God's omniscience and foreknowledge. This creates tension with the core tenets of open theology. Concerns exist that open theology may diminish God's power and sovereignty, potentially leading to a less robust understanding of divine providence.

Points of Consideration: 

There are discussions within theological circles exploring ways to understand God's relationship with time and human freedom in a more nuanced manner. The emphasis in open theology on God's relationality and love can resonate with certain aspects of Catholic theology, but significant doctrinal differences exist between open theology and traditional Catholic theology, particularly regarding divine foreknowledge and omniscience.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, at the end of the deity, this absolute divine foreknowledge and omniscience doesn't differ all that much from Calvin. Rather, it simply asserts that both are true, i.e., predestination and human freedom, but I don't buy it. Rather, one has to go.

So, what is alt orthodoxy?

I can't tell you but I know it's mine. In other words, I'm working on it. The point is, I don't want to invent my own religion, like Luther or Calvin, even though, like them, I have my issues. Bottom line it for us, Gemini:

This text is a portrait of a restless and inquisitive mind engaged in a lifelong quest for spiritual truth. It's a testament to the fact that faith is often a complex and evolving journey, marked by doubt, discovery, and a persistent search for meaning.

What's Your Thing?

We're just flippin' through this compilation of essays on the trinity in search of blogfodder. I have no recollection of how I stumbled onto this particular author, nor even what is his thing. According to wiki, Gunton was an "English Reformed sytematic theologian," whatever that is. 

Hmm: Calvinism. Did not see that coming. He seems rather broadminded, when I think of Calvinists as grim, dour, pinched, controlling, and severe, the very antithesis of preformed coonology. Like this guy -->

My son once asked me if they had color in Olden Times. In Calvin's case, probably not. Gemini, what were John Calvin's thoughts on color?

Calvin emphasized a strict adherence to scripture and was generally wary of anything that might distract from a pure focus on God. Therefore, he was critical of decorations within church settings, including excessive use of colors, that might divert attention from the word of God.

What's the appeal? Above I tossed off the word "preformed," but Calvinism must indeed conform to a pre-existing sensibility or personality style, no? Supposing you are a grim, dour, pinched, controlling, and severe sort of fellow, then Calvinism is just the thing.

Am I being uncharitable? I know I wouldn't appreciate some tight-assed theocrat snooping around my house looking for playing cards, adult beverages, or negro rhythm & blues records.

I remember a comedy routine by Bill Cosby, in which he said everybody has a thing -- as in the classic negro rhythm & blues number by the Isley Brothers, It's Your Thing, so, do what you wanna do. Nor can anyone presume to tell you who to sock it to.

Which leads to an interesting irony, being that Calvinism and Puritanism were dominant forces in the early days of the land of the free. Lucky for us, 

The political thought of many founders reflected a Calvinist understanding of human nature, leading to a focus on checks and balances and the separation of powers in the Constitution.

In other words, since they had no illusions about man's rottenness, they established a system of government in which the rottenness was spread around and couldn't inhere in a single center of power. 

And ironically, rotten progressives such as Woodrow Wilson -- whose religious background was deeply rooted in Calvinism -- explicitly wished to eliminate these checks so as to vest more power in a rotten executive such as Woodrow Wilson, who wanted to run the U.S. like Calvin ran Geneva.

The question is, what is my thing? Here again, as touched on in yesterday's post, it's not so easy to define, because it has more to do with a peculiar sensibility -- or even frivolous nonsensibility -- than the content per se. 

I know I'm always looking for other thinkers who share this sensibility, although they are few & far between. People who write about religion tend to be s'durn serious, which I get, since religion, whatever else it is, has to do with what Paul Tillich called one's Ultimate Concern:

He argued that whatever a person holds as their ultimate concern, that is, what truly matters most to them, functions as their "god."

My only sacred cow is irreverence.

Someone once said that all human conflict is ultimately theological, and I believe this can be seen most transparently in the theological antics of the Woke. 

Why do they hate us so? Because we are irreverent toward what they revere -- in short, because we don't respect and bow down before their tribal gods. In the old days this could get you exiled, crucified, or burnt at the stake, whereas now it is liable to get your Tesla dealership torched.

Even my local rag, the Agoura Acorn, has letters from angry readers outraged by Trump's latest outrage, for example, from an uptight scold who writes that

As an elder, I've lived through many political crises in this country -- but I have never seen an attack on our democracy like this. In the past, there was bipartisan opposition to lawlessness. Our democracy, our way of life, the entire world order since the end of WWII is being flipped upside down.

One can hope, at any rate. But my hope is her nightmare. Or, my thing is not her thing. 

Back to Gunton. He quotes a passage by theologian named John Macmurray that very much reflects my own sensibility:

As persons we only are what we are in relation to other persons: the Self exists only in dynamic relation to the Other [and] has its being in relationship.

Gunton comments that "We must therefore center our attention first not on the identity of the individual, but on the matrix within which the individual takes shape" -- the Coon and the den.

Since mutuality is constitutive for the personal, it follows that "I" need "you" in order to be myself (Macmurray). 

Which for me goes to the intersubjectivity of the person, which is in turn grounded in the intersubjectivity of the Trinity. 

On the one hand, 

For there to be love, it must be directed towards another. But the love of the two for each other is inadequate, likely on its own simply to be swallowed up in itself... (Gunton).

This suggests that my thing must be our thing, alluding to a mysterious third which the two share, or something? Gunton certainly thinks so: "If it is truly to be love, the two will seek a third in order to be able to share their love," and "Shared love is properly said to exist when a third person is loved by two persons harmoniously and in community."

Here again, the Trinity is the model for human love. 

Two people in love can be "merged together," so to speak. But there is another kind of merger described by the psychoanalyst D.W. Winicott, in which takes place in the transitional space co-created by infant and mother, in which they are "alone together" with reference to a "third" transitional object. According to wiki,

the transitional object is not the mother substitute but represents the infant's transition from a state of being merged with the mother to a state of being in relation to the mother as something outside and separate.

Within this shared space

cultural experience, creativity, play, and the use of symbols all originate. Winnicott theorised that this potential space -- occurring between baby and mother, child and family, individual and society -- develops through experiences that build trust. He considered this space vital to the individual, as it forms the foundation where creative living and cultural experience take place. 

The point is, the two together create this trusting and loving space of "thirdness" where everything happens. Conversely, if there is a total merger at one end, or abandonment at the other, then this living and vibrantly imaginative space is foreclosed or never comes into being. 

Now, I say this magical and creative transitional space somehow reflects what goes on in the Trinity, but we've already exhausted the daily allotment. Let's just say that creative trinitarian love is God's thing, and follow up tomorrow.