A Flood of Meaning

Time only for a short one...

A commenter to the previous post alluded to the old question of how to reconcile an evil world (or evil in the world) with a good God. Schuon bats it away in a single sentence: 

Manifestation is not the Principle, and the effect is not the cause; that which is "other than God" could not possess the perfections of God, hence in the final analysis and within the general imperfection of the created, there results that privative and subversive phenomenon we call evil.  

Taken out of context and in isolation from his many other discussions of the subject, this may appear glib and simplistic. Nevertheless, it gets to the heart of nub of the gist of the essence of the problem in a purely demythologized way. In my view, Genesis 3 makes the same point, only clothed in mythopoetic garb. 

In a prescientific world, important transnatural and metaphysical truths and meanings are conveyed via narrative. As with great art, it is important not to get hung up on the what but to penetrate to the why of the story -- the theme and not just the plot, the former being the reason for the latter. 

Analogously, I've been using the pandemic as an excuse to introduce my son to great American films, for example, Casablanca. While I suppose it can be enjoyed as a "romance," that is obviously only the vehicle and not the destination -- the means and not the message. 

Many aphorisms come to mind, but I'll try to limit myself to five, arranged in ascending order:

Appearance is not the veil, but the vehicle, of reality.

The meanings are the reality; their material vehicles are the appearance.

The bridge between nature and man is not science, but myth.

The modern aberration consists in believing that the only thing that is real is what the vulgar soul can perceive.

Whoever does not believe in myths believes in fables. 

Speaking of fables and the vulgarians who swallow them, the commenter mentioned above adopts a literal and simplistic reading of the biblical flood in order to cleverly deduce from it that God must be evil. Gotcha!, exclaims the Village Atheist. We've been dunked upon.

In another aphorism, Dávila pointedly points out that The simplistic ideas in which the unbeliever ends up believing are his punishment. 

We all have our philosophical preoccupations, and moreover, we have time for only so many. I myself am not troubled by the fantastic stories of the Old Testament. If I'm truly curious about one, then the first thing I will do is consult the Rabbis and Church Fathers for guidance as to what it means. If I want to know about the flood, for example, it's not difficult to obtain any number of rich and provocative exegeses.  

Enough said about that. Back to the existence of evil. Indeed, there is so much evil in the world, one sometimes wonders why God doesn't just end it all with a giant flood or something. Better yet, maybe leave a single righteous man to start all over -- like a new Adam or whatever.

Even supposing God did allow us to be reborn and begin anew, something or someone inevitably tries to oppose and subvert the regenerating power of the baptismal waters. Schuon:

strictly speaking, evil or the devil cannot oppose the Divinity, who has no opposite; it opposes man who is the mirror of God and the movement towards the divine.

Mirror and movement. Now that is a pithy and pregnant formulation, for it goes to both our immanence and our transcendence; or to our atemporal essence and our temporal journey towards it, which in turn forms  the basis of "the meaning of life."  

This meaning stretches out before us (horizontally) because it first stretches out above us (vertically).  If not, then to hell with it. Bring on the flood. Or maybe it's always already here.