This would appear to be a Big Clue as to what is going on: The Inverted Parody of God's Creation. Therefore, by knowing how and why God creates, we may gain an insight into why the godless left "creates" -- which is to say, destroys.
For example, God is motivated to create -- or so we have heard from the Wise -- out of love. Therefore, we may reliably deduce from this principle that the nihilist must be motivated by hatred. And if we examine the world (or turn on the news) to seek confirmation of our thesis, it isn't difficult to find. For it is only everywhere.
Let's dig a little deeper into God's motivations. Although God is free to create this or that world, I don't believe he is "free" -- in a manner of speaking -- to create "nothing," or to not create at all. This is because creativity is in the very nature of God. We all have a thing, and creativity is God's.
Analogously, being that God is good, we could say that he is not free to be evil. These sound like limitations, but they aren't in reality, since nothingness and evil are privations.
Therefore, we might say that, paradoxically, we are "more free" than God himself, being that we may choose between good and evil.
But here again, choosing evil can only be a kind of parody of freedom, just as "false knowledge" can only be a parody of truth. Man is free to know truth or error, but we do not conclude that this renders him wiser than God. Likewise, we are free to love evil, but this doesn't make us more loving than God. Hitler's dog loved Hitler. Does this mean that Blondi was morally superior to us?
So, God has his "limits," in the sense that he is limited by his nature, a nature which is characterized by love, truth, beauty, unity, and other transcendentals. Another of God's limits is "existence." You might say that he is "constrained to exist," indeed, he is the only thing in existence that is so constrained. In other words, the rest of us are contingent: we may or may not have existed. Only God exists necessarily.
However, just as creation as such must exist, even if this or that particular creation is contingent, might we say that God must exist, even though this or that God is contingent? Here we are verging on heretical ground, and yet, there is a basis for thinking this is the case, if we draw the Eckhartian distinction between God and Godhead.
To back up a bit, we would again say that God is constrained to exist in some form or fashion. But prior to his existence is his sheer being-ness, or better, his "beyond-beingness." Of course I could be wrong, but I am drawn to the idea that beyond-being "crystalizes" in form of God's being.
Or perhaps we are just touching on the distinction between Godhead and Trinity, the dialectic between the oneness of God and his personhood (or his trans-subjectivity and his intersubjectivity). You might even say that the archetypes of verticality and horizontality exist in divinas, as they say. As does "relativity," God being "relative" to Godhead (and indeed, the Persons being relative to one another).
Which reminds me of something that brings us back to the main subject, the evil of the left. Having just read Steven Hayward's highly recommended Patriotism is Not Enough, I've been thinking about the intrinsic instability of liberalism that causes it to descend toward the abyss of nihilism.
The real question is, what is the nature of man? This question must be asked before any political theorizing, for if one arrives at the wrong answer, then the resultant system will be a nightmare, more or less (or sooner or later). Think of the nightmares that have resulted from believing that man is "socialist man," and proceeding to impose this definition on him.
Now, it is surely telling that for the left this is a nonsense question, for man either has no nature or has only a contingent one conferred by history, or culture, or "power," or privilege. It is precisely this "definition" of man that allows a man to pretend he is a woman.
Note again the paradox in this definition: that man is liberated from definitions, and thus more free even than God. God is constrained by his nature, but leftist man is completely free of his!
But if we follow the logic laid out in paragraph two -- the logic of inverse parody -- then what the left calls "freedom" must in reality be a form of slavery. Could this be the case? Well, if I am not mistaken, the Bible often compares sin to slavery. Conversely, "the truth sets you free." From which we may extrapolate that leftist equality sets you on fire.
Is there an appropriate equality that is in divinas? Why yes, glad you asked. It is of course between the Persons, who abide in Love. Now, what might this have to do with the nature of man -- that question we must ask prior to our political theorizing?
I obviously don't have time for an exhaustive excursus into the subject, but if we trace contemporary liberalism down to its roots, we might find a Lockean individualism favored by conservative liberals (especially libertarians), or the nature-less non-entity favored by the progressive left.
But real human nature is trinitarian in structure, such that one will find no "individual" beneath or behind it. Rather, our nature is to be relational; we are intersubjective right down to the ground (both vertically and horizontally), such that the I-We is an irreducible complementarity (as is the I-God vertically).
This in turn is grounded in the natural family; or rather, the natural family is its expression herebelow. Man cannot help being trinitarian, for he is constrained to be so. But this is precisely what releases his nature and therefore his real freedom.
The leftist alternative again devolves to nothingness. For example, the left posits the existence of special "group rights" that end up effacing the individual. A Clarence Thomas, for example, must be destroyed. Under the guise of increased freedom, he is not permitted to be free. Nor is Milo Yiannopoulos or any non-leftist woman.
As we've said before, it ultimately comes down to the choice of God or Nothing. If one is intellectually honest, there can be no alternative. For a while, the Nothing will feel "free," but this is because it necessarily begins closer to God. But as a ray of light becomes increasingly distant from the sun, so too does leftism end in a cold, dark, and lifeless universe.
God's freedom is not like that, for it is, among other things, hierarchical. But this goes to the difference between, say, the ordered liberty of the founders vs. the freedom of anarchy, which is no freedom at all.
Out of time. Not sure we got anywhere today, but we'll keep trying on Thursday (probably no post tomorrow). If nothing else, I guess we learned why this blog will never be popular.
14 comments:
If nothing else, I guess we learned why this blog will never be popular.
I think that speaks to the nature of man, too.
Which reminds me of something that brings us back to the main subject, the evil of the left.
Along those lines, I saw a video last week of the opening of a town hall meeting in Louisiana. It seems this particular township always begins the meetings with prayer - a fact the left cannot abide. Half the people in the room erupted into hissing, shrieking, actual cries of "praise Lucifer," howls of indignation... you'd think an exorcism had been threatened.
Evil reveals its true face in such displays.
1John 1:5. Here is the message we heard him give. GOD IS LIGHT. And not the faintest shadow of darkness can exist in him.
Nothing in John's characterization limits God's freedom, or decreases our freedom to choose darkness. Don Colacho! Not to speak of God is idiotic. "Every knee should bow."
we may gain an insight into why the godless left "creates" -- which is to say, destroys.
In “Genesis, Creation and Early Man”, Fr Seraphim Rose responds to a student (p 488):
“But man is going to get that which the devil lost, that is, Paradise and heaven. And that is why, to this day, the devil is just plain angry. Then there is this other being who is lower than you, who is not worth even spitting on, and he is going to get that which you lost. Of course, you are going to be terribly envious because there is no repentance for you. You are going to be trying every possible way to get him in the same state you are in.”
Anger and envy are the ancient evil pillars, being revealed daily as the standard operating procedure of the destroying, inviting spirit of the left.
I think envy may be as destructive as pride. At any rate, both are central to the left.
Envy and pride tend to go together. It may start with covetousness, but I can wish that I had my neighbors's truck without thinking that he ought to give it to me. It's when I start thinking that I deserve his truck because I'm really better than he is that we arrive at the sad state of society today.
Even sadder, perhaps, is that pride comes these days, not from competence and achievement but from how much of a victim we can paint ourselves. I actually got called a "cis white male" in an exchange last week. My facts and experiences were thereby rendered invalid as I have no victim credits.
For a while, the Nothing will feel "free," but this is because it necessarily begins closer to God.
So now Bob has me reading “Nihilism” again and wishing I could be the fly on the wall as he and Fr Seraphim discuss ideas. From the book, a simple sentence summarizes a lot about freedom and choice, and how the adamant choice of so many becomes so great an error (“misuse” -- what a mild word for go horrible a destiny!).
“He has created the world that it might live in enjoyment of Him, and everything in the world is oriented toward this end, which however men may miss by a misuse of their freedom.“ (p24)
"If nothing else, I guess we learned why this blog will never be popular."
Thank God. To imagine otherwise, would be like imagining pyramids with no tips. There's no having a Toppermost of the poppermost, without there being fewer at the top, than the bottom.
Hi Bob,
You were discussing the principle of "beyond-being"- do you think that Schuon's (Advaitan) Pure Absolute/ Relative Absolute maps onto the Eastern Orthodox Essence/ Energy distinction?
I do indeed. Also perhaps the passable vs. impassable God.
Or passible and impassible, rather.
It's interesting that some schools of Tibetan Buddhism talk about essence/energy/nature. Sort of a trinity in regards to manifestation that fits in with the distinction in Eastern Orthodoxy. Of course, this should not come of so strange since there was probably some cross pollination between religions during history.
Chris said "...Pure Absolute/ Relative Absolute maps onto the Eastern Orthodox Essence/ Energy distinction?"
Brings to mind an interesting assertion I heard a while back, about the generational cycle between East and West. There's an idea that goes back in some sense to the Romans, and can be (carefully) traced in operation from their time to ours, that there's an apprx 80 yr generational cycle that oscillates from aspects of individualism to collectivism, and back. I've no idea what basis they have for this additional comment, but someone who's supportive of that cycle theory, said that the East tends to be always in the opposing point of that cycle, to the West.
“If nothing else, I guess we learned why this blog will never be popular.”
As we know, all of the advent-ures of the cosmic bus appeals to a small -- and reactionary -- demographic!
Recall this report about Annie Dillard: A reporter once interviewed Annie Dillard over the phone: "You write so much about Eskimos in your book" she said, "How come there are so many Eskimos?" Dillard said: "The spare artcic landscape suggested the soul's emptying itself in readiness for the incursions of the divine." There was a pause. At last the reporter said: "I don't think my editor will go for that.”
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