Does God Have a Left and Right Brain?

Of course not. God is immaterial. But is there a kind of bilateral or maybe even trilateral asymmetry in God? 

You won't find the answer in this post, but by the end of it you will have some idea of why we're asking such a strange question, and how I'll be spending the next several weeks. Let's just say if it's good enough for nematodes, it ought to be good enough for God.    

Here's a good way to summarize our recent explorations of the necessity of possibility. 

But before getting to that, a thought just barged into my head: that while necessity and possibility -- or Absolute and Infinite -- are true complementarities, as is always the case, one must be prior, and in this case it must be the necessity. 

This is because it makes sense to say "the necessity of possibility," but makes no sense to say "the possibility of necessity." Rather, necessity is necessary, which is why we ground any and all thinkin' in Necessary Being. Remove it, and the cosmic archway collapses and nihilism prevails. 

Speaking of thinkin', I think "creation" and "possibility" must be two words for the same principle. FWIW, I have never liked the idea that the Creator creates without himself undergoing any kind of change. Of course I've heard the arguments, but I find these as persuasive as aerodynamical arguments proving bees can't fly.  

Schuon even goes so far as to suggest that God and creation are "coeternal," which may sound a tad off key until you realize that what he really means is simply the tautology that Creators gonna create. So,

cosmic and coeternal manifestation is necessary because God is necessary, whereas "creation" is free because it is not "the manifestation" but "a manifestation" (emphasis mine).

This strikes me as simultaneously self-evident and none of our isness. It's enough to know that this world is created. As for other hypothetical creations, I don't spend a moment trying to imagine what they might be like. My plate is full just dealing with this one.

"God is in fact free in His 'modes of expression,'" and who on earth is presumptuous enough to place limits on this creative freedom? Perhaps it's not even presumption, rather, just an anthropomorphic projection of one's own limitations. I'm hardly one to talk. I once believed rock stars were gods.

As touched on in yesterday's post, "the perfection of freedom and the perfection of necessity must both be found in the divine Nature," even though, from the human standpoint it is impossible for us to harmonize them, since necessity would seem to be the opposite of freedom. But in God, necessity does not imply constraint, nor freedom arbitrariness.  

For our purposes it is enough to know that the cosmic area rug is woven of necessity and freedom, which are mirrors herebelow of Absolute and Infinite, respectively. 

But that's not the end of it, rather, just the beginning, because yesterday I began reading McGilchrist's massive The Matter With Things, and couldn't help wondering to myself if all the highly abstract nonsense above -- so typical of this blog -- is somehow reflected in the concrete bifurcation of left and right cerebral hemispheres?

Maybe it's because my mind was cluttered with ideas about necessity and possibility, but the first thing that pops into my noggin while making my way through the introduction is, "Hey, Bob, left brain is a little like Necessity, and right brain a bit like Possibility, no?" 

I noted the question but put it in abeyance until I could examine it more closely in a post. So, let's take an initial stab at it, shall we?

Oof. I'm not sure how many stabs I can manage, this being my short morning. We can start by saying that this cerebral bifurcation business didn't just start with humans but goes waaaay back. 

Not to sound like Jordan Peterson and his macho lobsters, but it seems there is evidence of it in trilobites from 500 million ago. But that's nothing compared to the nematodes of 600 million years ago, who may boast of only 302 neurones that nevertheless express "chemoreceptors with left-right differences."

As if I didn't already know that.

Obviously I have no idea where McGilchrist is going with this, since I have 1,500 pages to go. But whereas he may want to trace our cerebral asymmetry back to nematodes, my instinct is to anchor it in a Divine Reality reflected herebelow in neurology.