Just a very brief post because this is my short morning.
Continuing our theme of the Necessary and Possible, we suggested yesterday that these would seem to go to the age-old debate about the One and the Many, to which we might add Absolute and Infinite.In whatever way we wish to characterize it, we can’t help noticing the unity and diversity -- or rather, that beneath or coequal to the diversity is an intuition of the One.
This much is obvious, nor do we need any supernatural assistance in order to see it -- except insofar as nature itself is supernatural, i.e., not self-explanatory. Just like anything else, nature requires a principle without which it cannot be.
But is the Principle One or Many? This we cannot know without a celestial hint. To be perfectly accurate, we know it can’t be the Many, because if that were the case, we could never know it, for, among other things, Truth is a unity of subject and object (or between subjects). In other words, the fact that we can know anything rests upon an implicit unity of knower and known.
At the same time, if the One is only One and nothing else, we land ourselves in a radical monism that has no room for ourselves, precisely.
We see the fruits of such absurdity in Islam or in various sects of Christianity that posit an occasionalism or double-predestination that turns our freedom into a trivial illusion, just a deceptive side-effect of the One being the One.
They say the Trinity is supposed to be a Big Mystery we can never penetrate, nor do I want to be presumptuous, but it sure makes sense to me that this should be the Ultimate Principle.
Of course, like anything else, it doesn’t make total sense due to that inevitable cosmic infirmity known as Finitude. Still, I don’t see it so much as unintelligible as infinitely intelligible. For example, right now I’m thinking about it, and out pops this post, for what it’s worth.
Maybe the most helpful thing about this principle is that it illuminates personhood and grounds it in the (supra)nature of things. After all, we know that man is created in the image and likeness of the Creator, so the meaning of this obviously depends on the nature of this Creator. What is It or He like?
That contains a couple of buried assumptions, because what if the question is, “What are They like?" Of course, Scripture is sprinkled with hints, for example, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Is this just the royal we, you know, the editorial we?
Let's just say that a lot of new stuff comes to light in the New Testament, which helps unlock such mysteries.
This looks relevant to our discussion, but I think I'll wait for the price to come down: The Irreducibility of the Human Person: A Catholic Synthesis:
ReplyDelete"Catholic philosophical anthropologists have defended views of the human person on which we are irreducible to anything non-personal. For example, it is not the case that we are nothing but matter, souls, or parts of society. But many Catholic anthropologies have overlooked ways in which we are irreducible and so have not given an adequate account of the uniqueness of each human person.
"This book presents a philosophical portrait of human persons that depicts each way in which we are irreducible, with the goal of guiding the reader to perceive, wonder at, and love all the unique features of human persons. It builds this portrait by showing how claims from many strands of the Catholic tradition can be synthesized. These strands include Thomism, Scotism, phenomenology, personalism, nouvelle théologie, analytic philosophy, and Greek and Russian thought...
"This book also explores irreducible features of our subjectivity, senses, intellect, freedom, and affections, and of our souls, bodies, and activities...."
For example, right now I’m thinking about it, and out pops this post, for what it’s worth.
ReplyDeleteJust so, and the intelligibility of your thoughts, though reliant on symbols for others to grasp, retain intelligibility as your thoughts are absorbed into the cerebral matter we refer to as our brains. As to their infiniteness, I do think the thoughts you put into symbols give them long legs, so to speak, as they travel through individuals' minds, and He knows and retains them, too.
Let's just say that a lot of new stuff comes to light in the New Testament, which helps unlock such mysteries.
Yes, and that is what keeps drawing me back into the NT each day. Also, it's not like The Creator is keeping things secret from us, but rather, I think, He gives us what we need to know in the Scriptures. All the other worldly stuff; politics, sports, news, what have you; is just dross.
There are many places in the OT which only make real sense in the light of the NT. Without that illumination, one would have to believe that God sometimes lies, for instance in His promise to David that a descendent would be raised up whose kingdom would be established forever.
ReplyDeleteVery true, Julie. The OT lights the way into the NT.
ReplyDeleteBob: That book looks great! Just bibliography alone points me to true Raccoonary!
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting looking one: From the Dust of the Earth: Benedict XVI, the Bible, and the Theory of Evolution.
ReplyDelete