Necessary Idiocy and Unnecessary Cuteness

Turns out the title of yesterday’s post was no joke: 

[Man] must know that God is necessary Being, which therefore suffices unto Itself; that It is that which cannot not be, whereas the world is merely the possible, which may or may not be; all other distinctions and valuations derive from this fundamental distinction (Schuon, emphasis mine).

All? That’s a bold statement. And if it’s so important, why did no one tell me until June 2006? 

In any event, let’s cogitate on this Fundamental Distinction and try to figure out why it’s s'durned important and what we can derive from it. 

A couple of posts back we alluded to what Schuon calls the “principial” realm, which involves those principles that are irreducible to anything else, and ultimately run the show herebelow. 

In other words, these principles have any number of entailments but are not entailed by anything else, unless it is the Divine Mind, and that’s not a principle but a person. Put another way, the ultimate principle is the Divine Person(s), which means that the principial realm must be penultimate.

Perhaps it is that which is so lavishly praised in the book of Proverbs. I could pluck any number of examples, but the passage from 8:22-36 drives home the point, for example, "When He prepared the heavens, I was there,” likewise "When He drew a circle on the face of the deep.” That's pretty early.

I’m no expert, but this can’t be the Son, since the text specifies a she who “was beside him” and “Rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world.” This is way before people started confusing sons and daughters, i.e., last week.

In fact, it says here in the introduction to Proverbs in this Orthodox Bible that “The personification of wisdom in 8:22-35 is applied to the Theotokos, the Mother of God…” (it employs a different numbering system, ending in 35 rather than 36).

Back to our primordial distinction between that which must be and that which may or may not be, AKA the Necessary and the Possible.

Now, ironically, it seems to me that Necessity must include Possibility, such that it is necessary for possibility to exist, even if no possibility as such must exist. Moreover, as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, once a possibility exists, it partakes of necessity. If it didn’t, it would be impossible.

But this has been well understood for a long time, because if God is Necessary Being in whom essence and existence are one, we participate in this Necessary Being to the extent that we in fact exist. Well, we do exist -- change my mind -- which, it turns out, gives us unique access to Necessary Being, or I couldn’t be writing this post about it at this very moment.

Gosh. It’s difficult to write about this subject without sounding cute or clever. Let’s toss in a Schuon grenade, since he is never cute and way beyond clever. Again, we most certainly exist, and even knowing this bare fact situates us infinitely above the animals, who

have no reason because they are incapable of conceiving the Absolute; in other words, if man possesses reason, together with language, it is because he has access in principle to the suprarational vision of the Real and consequently to metaphysical certitude.

Faith. Yes, it is important, but I want to say — paradoxically — that it is founded upon this metaphysical certitude described by Schuon. Put in plain English, since God necessarily exists, what rational choice do we have but to have faith in Him?

Cute, Bob. Okay, put it this way:

The intelligence of animals is partial, that of man total; and this totality is explained only by a transcendent reality to which the intelligence is proportioned (ibid.).

Animals have no idea that their intelligence is partial (in fact, no ideas at all), nor even that they are intelligent. Well, man is an animal. How did he escape this animality and find himself in a transcendent space proportioned to the Absolute, AKA Necessary Being? 

That’s not rhetorical, and don’t give me some cute answer. This may not be the first question any philosophy needs to answer, but it’s right up there, after What’s for lunch? Or, Do you know her phone number? 

You really can’t help it, can you Bob?

So sue me. This is blogging, not life or death. Oh, really? 

All those who hate me love death (Proverbs 8:35).

Now, that explains a lot, because it goes to the two tribes that are always at war, and have been since Genesis. One tribe believes man is proportioned to Necessary Being but falls short of this ideal, while the other tribe consists of idiots. The war may not be necessary but it's nevertheless ineveateapple.