Eros Shot Through the Heart

Just a short post, because we ran out of time.

The unstated point of yesterday's post is that my avocational interest in philosophy has never wavered, but that it's been a wrong and windy road from there to here. 

Viewing it from past to future, it looks like I was hacking my way through a dense jungle with a denser blade, but if we turn the telos-scope around, it looks more like a con-spiracy (breathing-together) of grace (or of some other vertical breeze, whatever we call it). 

Come to think of it, in the b ʘʘk, I just called the latter (↓), because I didn't want to make any assumptions about it; whatever we call it, it is that experience-near tingle that intermingles with (↑) and meets us halfway. 

If I'm not mistaken, this generic nonlocal assistance is called "operating" or "prevenient" grace, as it is anterior to our conscious cooperation with it. It seems that every man is given sufficient grace to arrive at the truth, or we'd never arrive there.

If it weren't operating, then there would indeed be no path back from there to here. Rather, each man would have to hack his own way through the ontological jungle, with no common endpoint. 

As it pertains to epistemology, we'd all exist in our own relativistic silo, each his own philosophy department, every man condemned to eternal tenure.

But there is an end, which is where we must begin, even if we don't know it the first time 'round. 

In other words, let's say I don't know anything about anything, which is precisely what I knew at age 25: nothing. I would like to know what's going on. 

Where do we begin? In hindsight, I'm gonna say that even asking this question -- so long as it asked honestly, persistently, and selflessly -- is already a consequence of operating grace. 

This same grace prevents us from accepting the many partial truths we encounter along the way as final.  

Rather, we recognize that half-, or three-quarters, or even ninety-nine and a-half won't do (https://youtu.be/yhX4liVtuCc). 

Theosis or bust!

Furthermore, I'm gonna say that the Incarnation is the last word -- the last possible and actual word -- on this (↓) not only meeting us halfway, but all the way and thensome. 

It is precisely this grace that is on offer, but not without our free cooperation. 

Which is also a grace in the overall circular scheme of things.