Cleaning Windows and Repairing Ruptures

Let’s start with some definitions, because Schuon uses the term “metaphysics” in a specific way:

For Schuon, metaphysics is not a branch of philosophy concerned with what lies beyond physics. Nor is it in fact a purely human knowledge bound by the context and categories of the human mind (Nasr).

Rather, it is 

the science of Ultimate Reality, attainable through the intellect and not reason, of an essentially suprahuman character and including in its fullness the whole of man’s being. 

The question is, 1) is this true?, and 2) if so, how might we understand it (if it is indeed understandable) in a Christian context?

First, is it true that knowledge of Ultimate Reality is accessible to us in a direct is way that isn't filtered through revelation? To put it another way, every Christian or Jew, by virtue of being one, would agree that we have knowledge of Ultimate Reality by means of faith. 

But even this is rather tricksy if we think about it, because is this faith actually in God, or in ourselves? In other words, suppose I have faith in God. Don’t I first have to have faith in myself in order to place it in God? 

For this very reason, it is said that faith in God is already God acting in us, thus bypassing, so to speak, the merely human element, in which we would have to be the ultimate source of authority.

But does this not imply that God is acting directly in us with regard to the presence of faith? Well, why limit this direct action to faith only? For once we have established the principle that God is present and acting directly in us, what prevents us from affirming that it manifests in ways other than faith, for example, via (lower case) gnosis, intellection, or the jñana of Vedanta?

I can think of one reason and that is the snare of presumption, hubris, chutzpah, and gnosis-all asshattery in general. 

Nevertheless, focusing on the Christian perspective, I have in my hands an everyday, mundane glossary of Essential Theological Terms by the Spanish Fr. Banálitar Innócuez Conventionál, in which there is a lengthy entry for Reason and Faith. 

Fr. Conventionál makes the commonplace point that this tired question of the role of reason and how far up it goes has been debated ever since it (the divine Logos) came all the way down into human nature. Nevertheless, some parties -- especially post-Luther party-poopers -- have insisted that revelation has nothing to do with reason, even though it is Reason Himself (AKA Logos) who has been revealed, precisely.

Perhaps I should emphasize before we go any further that the stupid, broken, ignorant, and crazy generally ought not push reason too far, since they will only push it that much further into error. Rather, it is precisely such people who should cling tightly to revelation as such. It will keep them out of a lot of trouble. 

Anyway, we might say that the two tendencies can be carried all the way to their extremes in both directions: one way points to an intellect so disfigured by the fall that it is better off not speculating about anything beyond this world. It sarcastically asks what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, while the other says God becomes man that man -- or Athens -- might become God -- or Jerusalem, so to speak. 

However, I think a more sensible way is to see these as complementary. And really, this complementarity is given to us in otherwise somewhat paradoxical mythopoetic terms, for on the one hand we are fallen, but on the other, the very image and likeness of the Creator. These extremes meet in the lowly omniscience or humble grandiosity of Petey, for example. 

Or Eckart, for that matter. Those who have committed our bOOk to memory will recall that passage by Eckart at the beginning, immediatly below the black page full of nothing:

There is something in the soul which is above the soul, divine, simple, an absolute nothing: rather unnamed than named; unknowing than known…. higher than knowledge, higher than love, higher than grace, for in all these there is still a distention.

This may sound suspiciously nondualistic or acosmic, but bear in mind that Eckhart -- like Christ -- often uses hyperbole to make a point. He wants to shock the listener out of conventional modes of thought into the realm where intellection rules the night. 

I say this because even someone as sober as Thomas expresses the same point in a less extravagant manner than does Eckhart, much less that multi-undisciplined scoundrel Bob. Let’s see if we can find some examples. Here’s a good one:

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.

But we could easily reverse the terms and say that the intellect is the Infinite extended to us. 

Here again, however, I should emphasize that there is both deuscontinuity and discontinuity, and that the ratio varies from person to person. The fall as such introduces a break in this ray of infinitude, but the very purpose of baptism is to repair the rupture and restore the continuity. Or at least provide a sacred truss.

This one is even better, and is quite similar to what Eckhart and Schuon say:

The intellectual light dwelling in us is nothing else than a kind of participated image of the uncreated light… 

So, we are a bit like the moon to the sun, and therefore more or less lunatic. Again, the stream of light itself is disrupted by the fall, and there are many in whom this redounds to a total Oclipse, or Ø.

But with God’s grace, we can do a lot to clean the mirror, wipe the windows, and widen the doorway. Grace, of course is a necessary condition, without which the mirror remains broken and dirty. 

But faith and effort on our part are the sufficient condition, and big Mr. Clean has even provisioned us with metaphysical Windex to help with the job.