That's an order!
Sometimes it helps to know what something is by knowing what it isn't.
For example, we say that God is infinite. However, this is a wholly negative, apophatic characterization, since it simply means not finite: in other words God can't be finite, therefore he's infinite. Which we can't ever wrap our minds around, even though we know with 100% certitude that it is true.
Which is an intriguing proposition, because it means man can know with certitude things he can most certainly never understand. Call it a primordial orthoparadox if you like.
Similar examples abound, and I've been thinking about them since March of 1985, although I don't recall if I've ever posted on the subject.
For example, man is the being who knows he will die. But what is death? We can't say. Or, we can say (similar to in-finite) that it's not-life, but what is life? Life is the transcendence of matter, so is death the transcendence of life?
There's another one: tran-scend. What's that? To climb across, surmount; to rise above or go beyond the limits of: exceed. We can scarcely be human without the word transcend or some equivalent to it. So, humans routinely travel across and rise above & beyond. Yes, but to where? To in-finity, and beyond!
Back in March of 1985 I was in grad school, where I was learning all about the unconscious. What's that? Easy: un-conscious. Oh. Like, in-animate? No, inanimate things are not conscious. Okay, like death? No, that's... we don't know what that is. See paragraph six.
Eventually I realized that conscious / unconscious isn't a dualism but a complementarity. Nor is it an antithesis, like, say, good and evil, for in that case, evil is a privation. As mentioned in a comment yesterday, it has no positive ontological reality, but is only parasitic on it.
The unconscious isn't like that. It's not a privation or negation of consciousness. Rather, it's more like the dark side of the moon: we know -- with certitude! -- it's there. We just can't see it.
Likewise the unconscious, which, in my considered opinion, bears the same relation to consciousness as does Beyond-Being to Being, or perhaps even Father to Son, being that the latter is a kind of "specification" of the former.
Analogously speaking, of course. But again, if God goes to all the trouble of revealing his trinitarian innards to us, I think we should take it seriously as a way to deepen our understanding of what's going on down here. We need to use it as a way to bust out of our habitual approach to things, which is -- at least for pinheads -- too linear and rationalistic.
I see. So we should be ir-rational or anti-rational? No, not at all; rather, trans-rational. God is telling us what he's like, which is a good thing, because we can't get there via mere reason. Reason, limited to its own devices, leads to inevitable impasses and absurdities, if only because reason can never furnish its own premises. Theology -- at least trans-natural theology -- really comes down to reasoning about premises furnished by God.
Looked at in this manner, there is nothing irrational about trinitarian metaphysics, even though reason could never arrive at it unaided. But once it is revealed to us, we can reason about it all day long.
Focus! Yes, back to man. What can reason tell us about the nature of man? Not much, except to say that man is the rational animal, which is a tautology, unless we can track down the actual source of reason.
Revelation, which is trans- (not anti-!) rational, tells us we are in the image of the Creator, and now we're getting somewhere. To put it conversely, we can't get anywhere with a false image of man, and any image that excludes the Creator is a false one.
Certitude.
Human beings are uniquely able to stand aside, above, or beyond themselves and observe their own existence, and only a fundamentally im-material being can do this. Rocks can't escape themselves. They are incapable of ec-stacy.
Change my mind:
the Trinity is eternal, but not in the sense of being indifferent to or opposed to time. Rather, it is supratemporal and includes the reality of time, analogously, within itself. Thus, the Trinity is not merely timeless or atemporal. If it were, then eternity would be opposed to temporality as its transcendent negation (Chapp).
Just kidding. Some things will never change, and this is one of them. I want to say Bob's mind is made up, and it is, but that's merely the effect of a deeper cause. For example, if I look out my window and see a tree, I don't say, "My mind is made up: that's a tree, and you can't talk me out of it."
True, you can't talk me out of it, but that's because no one talked me into it. Rather, the tree is just there prior to my thinking about it. You are free to argue about whether the tree is really there or not there at all, but I've accepted its ex-istence and moved on. I'm out of here.
To Be con-tinuous...
36 comments:
The unconscious isn't like that. It's not a privation or negation of consciousness. Rather, it's more like the dark side of the moon: we know -- with certitude! -- it's there. We just can't see it.
I was just in a discussion this weekend about how there are apparently some people who have no inner dialog (that they are aware of). Yet clearly, such a person is conscious. In that case, where do you draw the line?
As God has become a four letter word maybe Potential would be a suitable synonym to be responsible for both creation and evolution while leaving ample wriggle room for free will.
That doesn't work, because something has to first exist in order to have potential. Potential by itself is nothing.
However, there does appear to be a dialectic within the Godhead between absolute and infinite that is the ground of eternal creativity (infinitude being the principle of potentiality or All-Possibility).
This was a thought-provoking post which brings up the unconscious.
Gagdad Bob wrote "...The unconscious isn't...a privation or negation of consciousness. Rather, it's more like the dark side of the moon: we know -- with certitude! -- it's there. We just can't see it."
Sigmund Freud thought the unconscious contained taboo sexual urges.
Is the unconscious the source of sexual deviation? We can build spaceships yet nobody has yet figured out why some people are homosexual, or why others like feet so much.
My neighbor organized a luxury car club called "Fags in Jags" and even he has no idea why he is gay. My other neighbor rides with her group "Dykes on Bikes" and also does not know why she is a lesbian. No clue. That is just plain weird. It has to be the unconscious.
Then there is hoarding. This affliction is most material, it is materialism carried out to the last jot. What can we learn from hoarding?
Update:
JFK Jr. was expected to show up in Dallas today, but turned up at Waffle House in Des Moines, Idaho instead.
JFK Jr., aged appropriately and looking very Presidential, stated he had faked his demise in a plane crash in 1999 with the express purpose of resurfacing later to take office as President.
JFK Jr. revealed a disagreement with former President Trump kept him away from Dallas. Trump had proposed a Trump/Kennedy political ticket, but Kennedy insisted on a JKF Jr/Trump ticket instead.
The disagreement could not be resolved, and for that reason Kennedy has not taken the reins of power as planned.
Kennedy revealed planning a fishing vacation Idaho after which he would take up residency in Hyannisport.
Gagdad Bob commented "...there does appear to be a dialectic within the Godhead between absolute and infinite that is the ground of eternal creativity (infinitude being the principle of potentiality or All-Possibility)."
Let's talk more about dialectic. What is the role of dialectic within the Cosmos?
Trialectic would be more accurate.
The trailectic from a person's point of view would possibly be the usual dialectic confrontations with other people and things, with the addition of God as an onlooker or participant.
The format of the Bildungsroman features so prominently in the Cosmos one must wonder. Protagonist has goals and dreams. Protagonist encounters obstacles, barriers, and hazards. Protagonist fails to overcome obstacles (tragedy), or does overcome them (romance). Either way, the protagonist undergoes SIGNIFICANT INTERNAL CHANGES.
I have a suspicion narrative is the Cosmic telos; it is the vital thing which happens to us which changes us and makes us more complete, wiser, and more beautiful. This would be the "vale of soul-making" envisioned by John Keats.
This is why everyone loves a story, needs a story, will gather round and listen to grand-father all night long.
This is why sports are so beloved of the masses. The conflict is so starkly defined and plays out in a short time. Very satisfying.
This is why the Proletariat will feel deprived and go after the Burgoiese. There you go. Marx's dialectical materialism. He thought it drove history, and it probably does partially drive certain conflicts.
Now, does God participate? Absolutely, but from the side-lines and keeping it subtle. Remember, what God wants are those significant internal changes that happen when a dialectic confrontation goes down. That's the pay dirt, the money shot. Over and over.
"Spoken" like a true progressive, where "progress" of human souls is the objective, and possible, and humanity is a plaything.
Progressivism is the wish to eliminate effects without wishing to eliminate their causes.
It is the protection, not of the weak, but of weakness and defects, immorality upheld in the name of liberty and sincerity, stupidity and idle chatter masquerading as "culture."
Its internal contradiction is that it wants to build a perfect humanity while destroying man.
They forget that charity is not to feel ourselves obliged to give our neighbor what, in our opinion, we would not deserve if we were in his place.
Come to think of it, the first act of charity is to rid the soul of illusions and irrational passions and thus rid the world of a maleficent being.
Making the world a better place, one assoul at a time.
Healing a paralytic while depriving him of his sight is what the left calls "progress."
“Progress” is most often the exchange of one evil for another, otherwise our age would be perfect and sanctified.
One is always reduced to the choice of a lesser evil, and in order to determine which evil is the less, there is no alternative but to relate the question to a hierarchy of values derived from eternal realities, and that is exactly what the progressive never does.
Again, perception is reality. Everybody knows what a tree is. But human opinions about trees differ, sometimes wildly. And then some people are only good at judging trees. And then some of them believe their opinion is the only one that matters. I don't go that way.
Still, it's part of the beauty of free will and individuality, doncha think?
The staunch judgers IMHO, seem like the kind who tend do be high in conscientiousness and low in openness. Me, I wouldn't judge them to be inferior. Just different. In my world there's a place for everybody, in the old tribal communistic order of the paleolithic age. Sadly ever since then the material world has been ruled by power gods who usually claim to be in league with the real God, as part of their MO.
Some imply (11/03/2021 06:44:00 AM) that maybe a weekend spent with a gay car club or lesbian bike club would change judgmental minds. But I'm not so sure. Me, I'd be hip, until any of them tried to touch me inappropriately or look at me weird. I am quite uncomfortable with the poorest quality of the crossdressers though. They remind me too much of Klinger from MASH. I keep suspecting they're trying to get out of something. Like a job.
Whatever it is that's broken in them, pretending to be the opposite sex won't fix it.
I would like to see the left start by trying to create their utopia on a smaller scale -- for example, in their own heads. Imagine, for example, living in the hellscape that is Joy Reid's head. If she could turn that around, I'd be willing listen.
I went to a Super Bowl party at my boss's house once, with gays present. He was married to my girlfriends boss who was a notorious "fag hag".
Her story was that she had disco fever in the worst way. Very attractive, she stayed out late with her girlfriends many times a week for the sheer joy of dancing the night away, until my boss laid down an ultimatum. She managed a compromise by promising to only go to male gay bars. So now she had male gay friends.
I was at their Super Bowl party looking for the rumored invited gay couple. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The looking I mean. I couldn't find them, since everybody walked and quacked so straight and normal. Then my girlfriend nodded at the two Nebraska farmboys sitting on the couch, apart, looking slightly nervous. "WTF?", I said.
Maybe Bob would chime in about gay rednecks. A womb thing? Kicked by a farm animal they were trying to do? The twang of one too many deliverance banjos?
My great aunt was another "fag hag". A Dakota farmgirl originally, she lived in LA and hung out with three men which our family affectionately knew as "The Boys". Yes, one was a full blown limp-wrist swishy, so full of flamboyant flair, but the other two seemed perfectly normal. In fact, they were retired executives for large corporations. I woulda asked them their stories, pried into their private lives, but that was back in the Dont Ask Dont Tell days. So there was anything wrong with that. The "why" remains a mystery.
So could Dupree go into more detail about what's going on with these people?
Eh. The existence of so much abnormality is a surprise only to the abnormal.
Liberty means being free to be whatever it is you want to be. As long as you're normal.
Liberty means being free to try to live according to that which is true, beautiful and good.
Trying to live a lie isn't freedom.
Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.
Freedom means you don't have to inform anyone of your pronouns or race.
There is a lot of bickering in this comment section about not much of nothing. I sense boredom.
Now here I come and you will REALLY get bored.
Front and Center: "A Christmas Carol" 1843 Novella Charles Dickens.
We've all read this or seen the movie. Ebeneezer Scrooge, the most vile of misers, undergoes a trial by multiple ghosts and cold reality which leaves Scrooge a A CHANGED MAN.
At the end of this story the reader senses Scrooge will not be returning to his former ways. The epiphany that other people matter is going to stick.
This Dickens story is freighted with more, much more, significance. But let us now consider Scrooge as a representative of a real person, lets say, yourself.
Perhaps you have overcome some character defect, lets say, a tendency to be insensitive and condescending, a poor listener, lacking in compassion, bitchy when you don't need to be, or some such thing. You've hurt someone you care about and this galls you. You didn't mean to. After a hard look at yourself, and perhaps after some grim outcomes, you make a determination.
You were at fault. Ouch. Accepting responsibility, you make the needed changes.
They stick. On your deathbed, people come around. They offer forgiveness for anything you might have done to them. You realize what is important in life. You feel glad you developed yourself.
At St. Peters gate, after your Earthly passing, you are bidden to stand before the Great One.
"You then. We have before us a record of how you have conducted yourself in life. You will be glad to know, we admire much of what you have done, particularly regarding particular defects and deficits which you had the sincerity to recognize and the courage to confront. Please, pass now through this gate and partake of your just reward."
You left behind 9 Million USD and a nice house for your kids.
But your personal victories, those went with you. These are perhaps the only gains one may take from the Earth when one leaves. They are eternal gains.
Word.
Julie says: Liberty means being free to try to live according to that which is true, beautiful and good.
Indeed. We live free or die trying to be true, beautiful and good.
But it seems that some yahoo dictator always comes along to then dictate who gets to be true, beautiful and good. And that never ends well. I once suggested that Jesus be that dictator. But the downtown people just walked on by, with guilty looks on their faces. (I was a street preacher back then.)
So then I suggested that artists do the dictating. But I cant count the number of times people walked by while mumbling: "Hitler was an artist, asshole."
It's a conundrum, for sure.
So I ponder what Nicolás said. For those who forgot already what he said, he said: Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.
I tried looking up what Nicolás said about the gays. But I googled, all I got was lots of pictures of gay men named Nicholas. Sometimes Roberto and Michel. Does anybody know what Nicolás says about the obvious conflict between freedom, gayness and equality?
The freedom to which modern man aspires is not that of the free man, but that of the slave on a holiday.
Hierarchies are heavenly. In Hell all are equal.
I probably could’ve just gone up to those Nebraska farmboys and just said: “What the hell’s wrong with you two?" "Slaves on a holiday?” "In hell all are equal!"
Sadly, I’ve never been very good at approaching two men rumored to be lovers. Do I snicker uncontrollably (intentional or not)? Do I mouth Deliverance banjo sounds? Do I slip em a pamphlet or something when I’m leaving so I can make a quick getaway without causing a ruckus?
I do realize that even in satanic san Francisco, gays make up less than 7% of the population. I’d think that the city getting shorter, thanks to all the Hispanic, Asian and computer geek immigrants would be a more serious concern. American is supposed to be not just straighter, but taller, than other less great nations.
Hello, I'm gay. Preferred pronouns he, she, it, them, her, him, hey you. I identify as Queer.
I would like to locate some slaves on a holiday. I have chores needing doing. I would only be borrowing.
Nebraska farmboys are said to be the gayest of the gay. There must be something in the water.
I'm OK, you're OK.
I was in a gay pride parade once.
I was driving alone to my parents anniversary party in the city. Late as always. I hastily got off the exit and in my hasty attempt to get to the anniversary party on time, somehow wound up stuck in traffic, between a pickup truck full of colorfully semi-clothed males waving rainbow flags, and another pickup truck full of colorfully semi-clothed males waving rainbow flags.
I'd forgotten that the gay pride parade was that day. It took a seemingly long time to extricate myself from that traffic situation. But there I was, in the gay pride parade, for what seemed to be a really long time.
Maybe this is what conservatives are so angsty about? Having to live horror stories like that one I just told? Seriously, I just dont get it. There are thousands of homeless tents all over the place and they're there every day, in that city.
Post a Comment