There is an infinite gap between knowledge of ignorance and ignorance of ignorance. The gap is infinite because Infinitude per se is inexhaustible, being the extension of the Absolute into space, time, matter, relativity, diversity, multiplicity, etc.
To reduce Infinitude to the finite is to implicitly affirm an absoluteness that man can mirror but never "contain." I could drone on about Gödel, but you know the drill: admit your map is incomplete and move on. And up.
And yet, it seems that human beings are addicted to this grandiose usurpation. Ever since the first couple decided to be as gods, man has been getting high on his own epistemological supply, from the Tower of Babel to Prometheus to the Inflation Reduction Act.
Man is not just stupid, but infinitely so. Unlike animals, who don't pretend to know it all, it seems that man can't help doing so. At least modern man, since to say "post-Christian" is to say either naive rationalism (scientism) or naive irrationalism (postmodernism); the former are too clever to know their limitations, the latter too stupid.
Both campfs "know it all," but
Nothing is more superficial than intelligences that comprehend everything.
That which is incomprehensible increases with the growth of the intelligence.
But you will have no doubt noticed that
Intelligence is a train from which few do not deboard, one after the other, in successive stations (Dávila x 3).
Only the mystic or saint take the train all the way to the highest station. The rest of these congenitally incurious yahoos end their journey at some provincial stop and pretend they're in Shangri-La.
Hayek calls it the "synoptic delusion," but it's the same as Voegelin's "closed existence," which is
the mode of existence in which there are internal impediments to a free flow of truth into consciousness and the pull of the transcendental (Webb).
Which results in what Voegelin calls "deformation," i.e.,
the destruction of the order of the soul, which should be "formed" by the love of transcendental perfection inherent in the fundamental tension of existence (ibid.).
As you can see, this goes beyond a mere psychopathology, or even existential pathology, as it is more onto- and cosmological. Cosmopathology? Is that a thing?
Yes it's a thing, and I am quite sure it's the same thing that is expressed mythopoetically in Genesis 3.
Let's start with the Cosmos: what is it? Well, if you reduce it to its material qualities, you have already placed -- plunged -- yourself outside it, into a false reality. In terms of Genesis 3, you have fallen.
The real Cosmos is "the whole of ordered reality including animate and inmate nature" -- or in other words, conscious and "nonconscious," transcendent and immanent, vertical and horizontal. How hard is this to keep in mind? Very hard for the tenured. This real -- or at least not-unreal -- world encompasses
the full range of the tension between of existence toward the transcendental. Noetic and pneumatic differentiations of consciousness separate this cosmos into the immanent "world" and the transcendent "divine ground."
Now, you can call this fundamental tension and its poles by other names, but you can't deny their existence -- or presence -- without denying yourself and everything else. This tension is where we live, have always lived, and must live. It can never be "escaped," only denied, and this denial results in one's model being conflated with the reality it can only symbolically represent.
Voegelin also uses the term "Gnosticism" for this disordered movement, which is "A type of thinking that claims absolute cognitive mastery of reality," and which "may take [either] transcendentalizing or immanentizing forms" (e.g., idealism or rationalism at one end, Marxism or scientism at the other).
Well, "who cares?," you might asking. "So what if man thinks he knows more than he can know?"
Hayek writes that all totalitarian doctrines -- of which socialism is but a sssofter and more ssseductvie version --
are false, not because of the values on which they are based, but because of a misconception of the forces which have made the Great Society and civilization possible.
These differences are the differences between an open and closed world, and "ultimately rest on purely intellectual issues capable of scientific resolution" -- at least so long as science isn't reduced to scientism.
To be continued...
12 comments:
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Any claim of absolute cognitive mastery of reality is refuted by the fact that science, whether as actual science or its current manifestation as scientism, will never be able to measure or quantify the act of a free man choosing.
Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything.
I like the use of spirituality to help strengthen focus and resolve and calm fears so that hope can grow. Life can be rough, but spirituality can help smooth it out. But when spirituality is used to rationalize dysfunction and evil blind spots, almost always for selfish self-interests regardless of the needs of others, it becomes easily discredited.
Maybe there’s a subtle touch required. Maybe spirituality and power are oxymoronic. Maybe there’s a guidebook for discerning real prophets from the false ones. I’d suggest a science of spirituality, but I fear that even the most scientific of peer-reviews and debates would devolve into childish namecalling.
Man is not just stupid, but infinitely so. Unlike animals, who don't pretend to know it all, it seems that man can't help doing so.
It would be funny, if stupid man weren't so prone to meddle in things he has no business even touching, like a monkey pressing the giant red self-destruct (or was that "reset") button just to see what will happen.
Generic "spirituality" is neither here nor there -- usually there, as it's associated with a lot of social & psychological problems.
I saw a study somewhere recently (take it for what it's worth, but it "sounds" right) which showed people who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" tend to have a lot more mental illness than the traditionally religious.
Exactly. As if there aren't evil spirits!
Spirituality is merely a connotation word. It is utilized in writing and speech, as above, to signify a Christ centered outlook, but lacks any meaning.
I don't know about "Christ-centered." Most (not all, but most) people I've known who describe themselves that way believe in astrology, crystals, ghosts, wicca, and/ or pretty much anything and everything except the possibility that Christ really is the Son of God - or that there even is a God. Maybe a Goddess or a universal consciousness, or even intelligent design (by what? who knows?), or whatever else flatters their perception of themselves, but certainly not a Person who has Standards and expects people to at least try to stick with them because if they don't those people will suffer.
That's just mean.
Therefore, spiritual, but not religious (ew!).
Spiritual, but Not Religious = Religion - Dogmatic Rules on Sex + Experiential Dabbling - Obedience + Niceness = neurotic people screwing around
Julie, what you wrote clarifies what I attempted to say. The so-called spiritual people are as you describe.
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