The biggest little words in all of creation must be I and Be, and I suppose in that order. We've written a great deal about the former, not as much about the latter, except insofar as I AM -- which simply means that ultimate reality is, and is personal.
"Be" is an innocent enough sounding word, and yet, it is of the greatest consequence. For example, every debate, every dispute, every argument at every level, from the silly to the profound, comes down to what is. I say 2+2 is 4. You say math is a white supremacist conspiracy. Which is it?
Granted, the business of isness can get murkier as we ascend the vertical hierarchy into morality, philosophy, and politics. Or so we have heard from the worldly wise, which is to say, terrestrial tools.
In truth, the higher we ascend, the more we converge upon the apex of absolute and necessary, hence eternal, truths. No truths can more secure than these, because the very possibility of truth is grounded in them.
Science, for example, is at the base of an epistemological and ontological pyramid that flows from the top down and back up; in other words, it can trace the real because it is actually retracing it. It doesn't invent, but dis-covers.
That little prelude was inspired by the title of a chapter in The Sense of Mystery called The Verb "To Be -- Its Sense and Its Scope.
Every noun comes down to Is it?, It is, or It isn't. This truism is grounded in the principle of non-contradiction, in that a thing either is or isn't. But so too can every verb be so reduced. To say "Peter runs" is to say "Peter is running," such that running is the case. It exists.
From here Fr. Reginald highlights the gulf between "to have" and "to be." We, for example, can have truth. But can we be truth, full stop? Can anyone?
Yes, if I AM is the case, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
At the top of the cosmic hierarchy is necessary being:
Only God is His Existence; He alone is Being Itself and was able to say, "I am that I am," or, "He who is." In contrast, every other being has existence.
You and I surely exist. But we aren't existence itself. We aren't necessary. We are contingent, wholly dependent upon that which exists necessarily. So, "There is an abyss that separates being and having."
Now, as alluded to in paragraph two, every dispute comes down to what is and isn't (and what could be, based upon real potential).
"To be" is "at the basis of all judgments," and is indeed "the soul of judgment." Someone with poor judgment, for example, makes decisions rooted in things that are not the case, that have no being (or potential being, like socialism or "social justice").
Conversely, prudence -- rightly ordered practical judgment -- is founded upon conformity with reality:
true judgment itself corresponds to reality -- that is, to the existence of things.... Judgment is true if it affirms that which is and if it denies that which is not.
For this reason, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness....'
It's a little hard to continue, because I just found out that Rush has died. Now, Rush was a great man -- which is to say, he had greatness. He was not greatness itself, of course. Rather, as he was quick to point out, his talent was on loan from God. The loan has been repayed in full, but let's be thankful for all the hearts and minds he transformed with that modest loan of human capital from the First Bank of Realville.
And let's even be thankful for the unhinged hatred his passing will provoke on the left, because of the clarity it provides. Still, woe to the left, who call greatness evil and evil great.
In this spirit, please ignore any trollish comments today, except insofar as to learn from them the true nature of the left and to recall There but for the grace of God go I....
No comments:
Post a Comment