Mono-realism vs. Oops²

Miracles. What are they? It depends. For flatlanders, a miracle, even if it occurs, cannot occur, therefore it didn't. I don't discount this philosophy, except to say that it is a philosophy -- a philosophy which regards it as axiomatic that miracles cannot exist.

The trouble with an a priori axiom such as this is that it forecloses a possible dimension of reality -- as mentioned in yesterday's post, we may unwittingly enclose ourselves in tautology and then imagine that our method of looking just so happens to coincide with all that can be seen.

What are the chances of this occurring in a random universe (which would actually no uni-verse at all)? Now, that would be miraculous -- as if the keys to the cosmos just happen to be left in the only place where we are constrained (e.g., by natural selection) to look.

But what if we are under no such constraint? In other words, what if the human mind isn't just a contingent epiphenomenon adapted to an accidental universe? What if our world isn't just an appearance mirroring appearances -- oops² -- but rather, consciousness of, and conformity to, the Absolute? What if we are the real mirrors of that which we may truly know?

Well, science -- whether explicitly or implicitly -- says as much: that real adequation is possible between mind and reality. It's just that we 1) take this seriously (i.e., draw out the implications), and 2) posit multiple dimensions of reality which require very different modes of knowing.

Not to insult your intelligence so early in the morning, but understanding a chemical reaction, a mathematical equation, a work of art, or a person, require very different approaches. And understanding God requires all of these and then some -- in part because all of these are mirrors of, and pathways back to, the divine mind.

In short, to say mono-theism is to say mono-realism: there is one reality, but with diverse modes of... how to put it... output and input. We are always situated in a spiral between Intelligence and Intelligibility, but there are diverse manifestations and modes of each.

My son, for example, is gifted with a musical intelligence that allows him to perceive things others can't. He has access to a whole world that is more or less silent to others. Conversely, it's looking like math is a closed book to him. At any rate, he has zero interest. Except to say that music is -- of course, and among other things -- flowing math. So he loves math, just not the frozen kind.

But miracles. It's always helpful to warm up the mind by conducting some stretching exercises with our favorite nonlocal trainers. Schuon, for example:

This phenomenon [the miraculous] has in itself nothing mysterious or problematical about it: the so-called natural laws of a lower degree of Existence can always be suspended through the intervention of a higher degree, whence the perfectly logical term “supernatural”: but this degree also has its laws, which means that the miracle is “natural” on the universal scale, while being “supernatural” on the earthly scale.

Here again, it isn't so much that natural and supernatural are "out there." Rather, if they aren't "in here" as well, neither will be seen.

For example, for a primitive animist there is no natural world, no world uninhabited by spirits -- just as for the primitive naturalist there is no spiritual world that can't be reduced to a preferred building block (e.g., atoms, chemistry, DNA, the dialectic of history, etc.). But of course, both (spirit-and-matter) always exist and cannot not exist together.

More Schuon:

The miraculous is that which is due to a direct, thus vertical intervention of a heavenly Power, and not to a horizontal progression of causality.

Recall what was said yesterday about how humans beings are at once links in the great chain of being, and yet, the broken (feel free to interpret that word in two ways) links where freedom intrudes. You could pose the question as a paradoxical koan: What is the cause of indeterminism? In other words, what compels freedom?

Perhaps a better way of approaching this crossroads is to say that there is an unbroken chain of horizontal causation from Big Bang (or whenever you wish to begin) to Little Now. But this must -- MUST! -- be supplemented by a vertical chain that dangles from -- let's call it O -- to... let's call it the Big Now, because it's where everything happens and can only happen (blindingly soph-evident, since the past is gone and the future doesn't exist).

Now, nothing can dangle from above if it isn't anchored in something. Let's say Dupree wants to hang a chandelier in his converted tool shed. He's afraid of heights, and also a little buzzed, so he doesn't want to use a ladder. He solves the problem by purchasing a very long chain. But no matter how long the chain... you get the picture.

Same with free will. Here we can agree with the naturalist, that if nature is all there is, then freedom simply cannot exist. We may imagine it exists, but this is just an illusion.

But this actually makes no sense, since knowledge of necessity is itself a manifestation of freedom. In other words, if we were wholly determined, we could never know it. Nor could we have any valid knowledge, of anything.

The problem is solved if we simply sober up (attain objectivity) and overcome our fear of heights (theophobia), and attach freedom and truth -- will and intellect -- to the ceiling.

If truth and freedom aren't anchored above, then they simply cannot be. Likewise beauty. Dávila:

Aesthetics cannot give recipes, because there are no methods for making miracles.

Not even with Auto-Tune, a drum machine, and the most sincere adolescent doggerel.

The free act is only conceivable in a created universe. In the universe that results from a free act.

To plagiaphrase Thomas, an error concerning the creation ends in false thinking about God and everything else. We're just about out of time this morning, but let's end by agreeing that there is really only one miracle, although everything else participates in it: the miracle of existence from being, or being from beyond-being. We'll sort it out in the next post.