The Reluctant Cosmonaut

“Rabbit hole” is such a cliche, and around here we detest cliches. Nor does the term really apply to our situation, since it connotes a mere distraction or beguilement, when we generally mean a… 

A vertical spring bubbling forth into surface consciousness. To the extent that it is indeed a vertical spring, then it might well be distracting, but it is not merely a distraction. Earthquakes and typhoons are distracting, but this doesn’t mean we should ignore them.

When God speaks --

Wo wo wo, Gagdad -- you’re not suggesting, because if you are, then I suggest you put down the bong. 

This is not what we're suggesting, at least not without all due reluctance. 

But if no one at any time is qualified to suggest it, then where does this leave us? It would imply that we -- Homo sapiens -- are absolutely barred from making pronouncements about the nature of reality. Not only would it negate the possibility of “revelation” (AKA vertical murmurandoms), it would also reduce epistemology to delusion. You can kill God, but not without destroying man. 

We mean this literally, for truly truly, it is cutting off your nous despite the grace -- the very grace that “supernaturalizes,” so to speak, our intelligence. 

In other words, truly human intelligence is downgraded to a form of animal intelligence, which in turn transmogrifies into cunning, cleverness, scheming, campaigning, journalism, tenure, etc.

Is God silent? If he were, we wouldn’t even have the word.

Since “rabbit hole” is hereby banned, let’s just say that we are surrounded by vertical springs. That’s the good news. 

However, because of the nature of the subject, we are also surrounded by landmines, and which is which? 

It isn't necessarily obvious, which is why this subject is so pervaded by dark & light, sense & nonsense, bangs & bongs, Andy & Barney, shanti & blarney, cleansing waters & tsunamis of bullshit, penetrating intelligence & intelligent stupidity. It’s easy to fool most of the people much the time, but not everyone at all times. Jack Burns was no Don Knotts.

Think about the two terms we’ve been bandying about for the past couple of weeks, absolute and relative. Even saying these words implies a great deal, but only if you dive into the spring and follow it all the way to the nonlocal source.

My readers already know this, so I’ll be brief, but just in case a new one has “mistakenly" bumbled his way into the Cosmos, there is no -- and can be no -- naturalistic explanation of how animals with no awareness of the Absolute suddenly transform into a being who is not only aware of the Absolute, but is conformed to it. 

If this doesn’t blow your mind, then you may not have one in the literal sense of the term. Rather, you may be cunning, clever, scheming, running for office, a journalist, a being of tenure, etc.

More traditional Thomists like to begin with the senses at the object end, and I'm not about to pick a fight with someone whose intellect surpasses the common run by an order of magnitude. I will say, however, that in the ultimate scheme of things, not only are there no objects without a subject, it is possible to begin at the other end, with the subject.

This latter approach is called “transcendental Thomism,” but the more traditional Thomists would likely call it a drunk & disorderly plunge into subjectivism, and I suppose much of the time they’d be correct, what with all the landmines surrounding us.

But darn it, there is something downright miraculous about the existence of the human subject, -- or frankly, any subject at all. But a subject who knows? For what is knowledge? If it is knowledge, then it is knowledge of reality, change my mind. And what is reality? It is what man can -- and therefore must -- know.

There’s that Ought again, where we least expect it. For just as virtue and beauty are the telos of the will, truth and reality are the telos of the intellect, don’t even try to change my mind, because if you succeed, you've only proven the point that the intellect may know truth and reality.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, whatever that means, and provide some intellectual backup for our transcendental Thomism. Come to think of it, is there a way to stroll confidently over this landscape, not caring at all if one steps on a landmine? Put another way, is there a way to inoculate ourselves against being blown to bits?

Yes. Yes there is.

Well, what is it?

Jesus touched on it Saturday evening, when he was dilating on the proper be-attitude, or attitude toward being, for example, cultivating a kind of poverty of spirit that brings into focus something he calls the “kingdom of heaven.”

Heaven is, of course, the transcendental pole of the intellect (and will), and as such is a pointer, not a place we can forge or inhabit in this life. You could say it is our ultimate telos, or even the light streaming into this world, and let’s call the Aphorist into the discussion, since I suspect this post has reached its ex-spiration dolt:

 Christianity does not deny the splendor of the world but encourages us to seek its origin, to ascend to its pure snow.

“Irrationalist” is shouted at the reason that does not keep quiet about the vices of rationalism.

God does not ask for the submission of the intelligence, but rather an intelligent submission.

Anyone can learn what it is possible to know, but knowing it intelligently is within the reach of few. 

In certain moments of abundance, God overflows into the world like a spring gushing into the peace of midday.

Boom. That’s the one. The rest is silence.