Memos From God to Himself: Cosmic Continuity and Deuscontinuity

At further risk of tawdry-sounding self-promotion, I want to get back to what I was saying the other day about how the chapters of my book are simultaneously discontinuous (indeed, like any other book) and continuous (like no other book of which I am aware, but I'm sure there must be at least one!). The purpose of this, don't you know, was to emphasize the fact that the universe is obviously One, and yet, diverse in ways for which science can never account, for reasons that are principial, not contingent.

And again, this wouldn't pose a such a deep philosophical problem if the discontinuity were simply dispersed "outwardly" in a purely horizontal manner. There would still be the problem of how it is possible for discrete wholes manifesting internal relations (and therefore interiority) to arise, but that is simply none other than "existence," for to exist is to manifest as a relatively autonomous and definable whole, or a part in relation to the Whole. In other words, if you are not a discrete and identifiable whole, then you are simply merged with your surroundings and don't really ex-ist.

But our cosmos has the baffling property of vertical discontinuity, of "ontological leaps" to entirely different modes of being, e.g., Bupkis-->Matter-->Life-->Mind-->Spirit-->Meta-bupkis (there are others, but those are the big ones). In fact, this weekend I happened across a passage by Schuon, who wrote that "When all is said and done there are only three miracles: existence, life, intelligence." And "with intelligence, the curve springing from God closes on itself, like a ring which in reality has never been parted from the Infinite.”

So you see, there is one of those quotes I was mentioning that also justify the circular structure of the book (for when Schuon uses the word "intelligence," he means it in terms of the higher intellect in its "uncreated" mode; as such, he's ultimately talking about the metacosmic journey that begins with creatio ex nihilo and ends in egobliteration and therefore cosmonihilation back to the One. So you could actually say that there are only two miracles: Existence and Redemption; or perhaps just one miracle, Redemption.

So “in reality," writes Schuon, "if God is the ‘omega,’ He is of necessity also the ‘alpha,” on pain of absurdity. The cosmos is a ‘message from God to Himself by Himself.’”

Either that, or we could adopt the scientistic view, which necessarily regards the cosmos as "a message from matter to itself by itself." But of course, this begs the question of how matter can have the capacity to encode any messages at all, for doesn't the capacity to do so transcend the properties of matter? Furthermore, wouldn't "knowing" this be reducible to matter, and therefore, stupidity?

Yes. This pernicious error goes by the name of "the invincible stupidity of the Lizards," or "the eternal religion of the kosbags," and is the "false circle" that unites the shrill extremes of left and right wing. (Again, LGF is not a conservative blog, but a right wing one; and kos is obviously not a liberal blog, but a leftist one, and left and right necessarily meet on the horizontal plane, since both deny transcendence a priori).

Again: the True Unbroken Circle -- which is esoterically symbolized by the ring-tailed Raccoon with "circles 'round the eyes" -- is the Open Spiral that is grounded in the Alpha and Omega that we call -- not coincidentally -- O (for this "O" is open, among other properties).

Now, the material world is made of "impermanence," or ceaseless change, while the intellect is made of timeless Truth, which is its "substance." But this ceaseless material change has a ground of transcendent permanence, otherwise we could not understand the change, any more than one can determine which of two bodies is moving in a two-body system. For example, it would be impossible to say if the sun were revolving around the earth or vice versa unless we could view the situation from a "higher third," transcendent position.

Likewise, we could not know the four-dimensional Adventure of Consciousness (i.e., evolution) if we were not capable of stepping outside of it and viewing it "from above." If you don't believe me, I suggest that you consult your pet monkey on the matter, and see what he has to say (or throw).

One might pose the question as follows: if human beings had never existed, would Darwinism still be "true?" (And please bear in mind that Darwinists are quite insistent on the point that the emergence of human beings was wholly random, to such an extent that if the "film" of evolution could be "replayed," it would never have resulted in humans.)

In other words, the question comes down to this: does truth "evolve?" Or, is it merely a result of evolution? If so, it cannot really be truth, since it is a wholly contingent thing in a wholly contingent cosmos: remember, in the scientistic cosmos, humans are just adam & evesdropping on matter having an intrinsically stupid conversation with itself. Needless to say, the question of transcendent or eternal "truth" doesn't enter the equation.

But it is precisely here where religion enters the picture to save these pompous asses from themselves, for religion is none other than an awareness of the Absolute shining through the relative, or eternity "within" time (for it is actually the converse i.e., time as an intrinsic property of timelessness), and Truth amidst appearances. Again, in the open spiral, appearances are struggling back up to Truth, so to speak, whereas in the closed horizontal cosmos of scientism, appearances are merely revealing other appearances, which is no revelation at all, just a double deception. It is what we call "scientistic insanity," for it is just a very elaborate and circuitous way of going nowhere except closer to tenure.

I don't know about you, but when I talk about Truth, I am talking either about the Absolute, or about something that makes no sense unless it is "in the light of the Absolute," so to speak. Thus, the "relative truths" of science are certainly permitted, so long as it is understood that these truths can never be justified on their own level, but only with the implicit understanding that no rational discourse is possible in the absence of the Intelligible Whole that sponsors all real knowledge and knowing -- which are in turn reflections of the exterior and interior of this Whole, respectively.

Let's take, oh, the Buddha. He was quite certain that he was revealing eternal truth when he declared that attachment to the impermanent was the source of suffering. This is not an "evolved truth," much less a truth that will somehow be transcended or gotten around with further "evolution." Rather, once again, this truth is the saving presence of the Absolute within the relative.

Or when Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Door, the Life," he most assuredly did not mean to add the qualifier, "until something better comes along." No. For he is talking about the Way back to the Absolute, the vertical Door, or passageway that miraculously abides here in the horizontal, and the eternal, nonlocal Life of which biology is a mere local property.

Another way of saying it is that God is the immutable center around which mutable appearances "rotate" like planets around the central sun. When we are aware of the Sun's light, it is not so much a matter of "straining" to see it, but simply removing the obstacles, clouds, or impurities that obscure it. Which is why the Eternal Vocation of the humble Raccoon is simply "cleaning windows." But as I keep trying to remind our trolls, I don't do installations.

To be discontinuously continued....

What's my line?
I'm a working man in my prime
Cleaning windows... --Van Morrison, Cleaning Windows