There's Only One Way to Skin a Catechism

Okay, let's circle back to Garrigou-Lagrange's The Philosophy of Being & The Development of Doctrine. We hadn't gotten very far, and left off with the claim that

there are fundamental metaphysical principles constituting the ground of enduring dogmatic truth, that people know without need for study. These principles allow dogmatic propositions to be ontologically understandable by all...

I want to say that there is metaphysical truth and theological truth, and that these two should be susceptible to harmonization, whether explicitly or (more likely) implicitly. Not only do we reject any "two truths" approach to science and religion, even moreso do we reject it with regard to the deeper science of metaphysics. 

For there is only One Truth; or, perhaps better, Truth is One, allowing for the multiplicity of truths that are only possible because each is anchored in the One and a reflection of it: at the center of everything is the Truth of its Being. Otherwise it cannot exist.

Truth is at once at the center, origin, and end of things. It's why everything makes so much sense without ever making Total Sense, which is reserved for God allone (or someOne who might as well be). 

It is also why atheism makes no sense except within its own projected artificial world -- like a blind man whose first principle is that color does not exist. As always, bad philosophy is just unwitting autobiography.

Now, most people are either incapable of, or not interested in, metaphysics per se. Nevertheless, metaphysics is always interested in you! 

For Homo sapiens is the metaphysical animal: the divide between animal and man is a metaphysical one -- or, more precisely, on one side of the gap is animality, on the far side our homoerotic sapience, AKA love of wisdom. The latter is a kind of "space," or better, spacetime, since it is also developmental and teleological. It's why we live in history and not just a sterile duration. Unless you're watching CNN. 

Note that -- obviously -- only a being who has transcended evolution can know about evolution. Conversely, if our thoughts are merely a function of evolution (or genes), then we are pulled back to the animal side. To a materialist, the human side is just an illusion.  

But matter itself is but an idea; and, thanks to God, a very good and fruitful idea! If you don't think so, let's see you figure out how to create a unity of material body and immaterial soul without reducing one to the other or resorting to a crude metaphysical dualism. 

Matthew Levering, in the foreword, states that while G-L

knows that a dogmatic truth cannot be reduced to its specific formulation, he sees that the crux of the debate is whether the Church has been given a knowable, propositionally enunciable deposit of faith.

In other words, must we just take the deposit of faith on faith, or is it possible to situate it within a translogical network of axioms, principles, and propositions?  

Well, we already know that fideism is an epistemological nonstarter. However, this doesn't necessarily mean it it inefficacious. Farfromit. It just means you have different intellectual needs, and that an implicit metaphysic works just fine for you.

Schuon has something important to say about this. The question is, where among these 20 or 30 titles? 

Ah, here, in an essay called Vicissitudes of Spiritual Temperaments: "Human nature is made in such a way that it tends to enclose itself in some limitation" -- as illustrated above in the example of the blind man enclosed in his limited vision -- "and this tendency can only be accentuated in an age that is everywhere engaged in destroying the framework of universality" -- AKA, the understanding that Truth is One. 

Now, a purely fideistic approach to God generally has much in common with a bhaktic one that emphasizes devotion over intellection, or love over knowledge. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, but knowledge without love of Truth is a roadmap to hell. 

Nevertheless, good luck explaining this faith to a cynical, worldly, and credentialed yahoo whose social standing depends partly on being too sophisticated for Imaginary Sky Gods and Flying Spaghetti Monsters. There's a way of talking about religion that makes it easy for such midwits and mediocretins to ridicule and reject it. Our trolls never stop reminding us of this ironyclad principle.

Schuon compares a faith without intellect to a body without a skeleton, while a purely intellectual approach is like a skeleton with no flesh. In order to stand up on our own two wings, we need both:

Metaphysics is beyond charity, it is true, but a metaphysician without charity seriously risks compromising the doctrine because of the indirect repercussions of his vice on the workings of his intelligence.

Why is this? Again, because of Oneness: love + intellection are unified in God but separable down here. Consider: "it is not enough to be 'harmless as doves,' it is also necessary to be 'wise as serpents.'" Put conversely, do not be like the tenured, who are wise as pigeons and harmless as rattlesnakes.

Secular humanism. What could possibly go wrong (asked the serpent)? 

"humanitarianism" in fact puts itself forward as a philosophy founded on the idea that man is good; but to believe that man is good is almost always to believe that God is bad.... It is a satanic inversion of the traditional axiom that God is good and man is bad (Schuon).

Even Pope Francis (quoted in the foreword) agrees that "love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment.... Without truth, love is incapable of establishing a firm bond."

One last quote from the foreword: "dogmatic formulations rely upon 'the underlying realities of universal human experience' as cognitionally available to everyone, philosopher and non-philosopher."

Let's conclude by suggesting that metaphysics gives us the widest possible horizon of being, and that God himself is always just over that horizon. And revelation is the link between.