The Bigger the Bang, the Bigger the Mystery

Time only for a brief one, but we'll do our best to pack in some concentrated vertamins.

Let's begin with the aphoristic stipulation that

Myths, like the aesthetic presentation, can be truths without being realities (Dávila).

Conversely, science can be true without being reality, to such an extent that

Science easily degrades into fools’ mythology.

And 

To believe that science is enough is the most naive of superstitions.

This reminds me of something I read the other day -- that some physicists are panicking because some of the new photos from deep space seem to imply that the Big Bang theory must be false. 

The google machine suggests this is fake news, but the Bang itself was considered fake news at first -- as are all truly revolutionary scientific discoveries. Just as somebody always gets hurt in a courtroom, every scientific discovery threatens the interests of the prevailing orthodoxy. 

In any event, the whole dispute is way below my post-academic pay grade. My point is that even I was a bit unsettled when I read an article by a physicist assuring me that the Big Bang couldn't possibly have happened. It was dis-orienting -- literally, since I had become accustomed to orienting the physical cosmos to this unimaginable "event" of 13.8 billion years ago. If it didn't happen, it's like our cosmic area rug has been stolen by nihilists.

Of course, this has no effect one way or the other on metaphysics or revelation, which are the real "controlling paradigms," so to speak. Still, it left me wondering: What other so-called "truths" are just a patch-up job on the matrix? Is the border really secure? Was the November 2020 election really the cleanest in history? Was January 6 really an insurrection? Does Joe Biden even know what day it is? So many questions!

In reality, despite any and all advances in science and technology, we are plunged into mystery at all the key places -- the joints and hinges, so to speak -- of the matrix. On these questions there has been no advance over what was known 2,000 years ago. These include

--Why is there something instead of nothing?

--What is life, and how did it originate?

--What is consciousness?

--Who am I?

--How should I live, i.e., what ought I do?

--Why is there evil? Or, come to think of it, goodness, truth, love, and beauty? 

You will notice that such questions always revolve around the mysteries of origins, present being, and ultimate ends. It's not that science has answered any of these, rather, it simply stops asking questions at a certain point, for 

Natural laws are irreducible to explanation, like any mystery.

But a vertical mystery is not the same as horizontal question. There is an "answer" to the mystery, but it's an even bigger mystery, indeed, the biggest one (in)conceivable, which is why we symbolize it O. 

Note that there is mystery at "both ends" of O, in that the infinitude flows in both directions, up and down. Thus, the only way we can approach it is by becoming infinite ourselves, i.e., via radical openness.

Here we link up to Celestial Central, which is the ground of what was said above about origins, end, and present being. This may be a little difficult to conceptualize, or, on the other hand, very difficult to conceptualize. Put it this way:

Every beginning is an image of the Beginning; every end is an image of the End.

The "Big Bang," for example, is but a scientific image of beginning-ness per se. It is not and cannot be The beginning, because that beginning is and must be metaphysical, not merely physical. Irrespective of whether we are living in the midst of this ongrowing bang, the banging is nevertheless contingent, and dependent upon something -- or someOne -- necessary.

This necessary mystery is O, and it is never going away. 

You know the old saying about how if you don't know both sides of an argument, you don't know either side? Likewise, if you don't know both sides of science, you don't know either side. 

Long story short, on one side of science is the material world, and in particular, its mysterious intelligibility. On the other side is the human being and our even more mysterious immaterial intellect. Science can only presume both, but never account for them with its own resources. Which is why

The life of the intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.

And

He who understands the least is he who insists on understanding more than what can be understood.

What is the most that can be understood? I -- or , rather Dávila -- can answer that in four words, but you'll have to fill in some of the gaps, since I'm out of time:

Truth is a person.

Okay, here's a hint:

Thought can avoid the idea of God as long as it limits itself to meditating on minor problems.