The Perennial Pslackology

Last night I dreamt that I wrote, or was writing, a post called The Perennial Pslackology. So I guess dreams do come true, or at least we're about to find out.

What prompted this dream? I don't normally think about psychology any longer. Must be because last night I ordered a copy of McGilchrist's ginormous The Matter With Things, and he's a psychiatrist. 

I was skimming the preview on amazon, trying to determine whether any book is worth $85, and whether its entire thesis is beneath and behind us, or rather, if it might expand and complement our perspective. 

Almost everything and everyone has a narrower perspective than we do, so that's the concern. These Others may say things that are true on their own level and within a certain framework, but they take their framework for the framework. Which has been an understandable temptation ever since Genesis 3.

Speaking of which, yesterday I read a short book by Ratzinger called The Divine Project, containing some recently discovered lectures on the subject of creation, which is pretty much the largest conceivable subject. All other subjects are number two or lower, on the assumption that Creator and creation are not separately thinkable. After all, a Creator without creation is like a Father without a Son. Sad! 

The other reason I dreamt about psychology may be because I reread Norris Clarke's little book called Person and Being, one of our favorites. Now, it turns out that "person-and-being" is really just another way of saying "Creator-and-creation" (or creativity) and the relation between the two. 

And if there's one concept I retain from my former career as a psychologist, it's this principle of relation. Humanly speaking it is everything, for an "unrelated human" isn't one. It's not thinkable, whether we're talking about a baby born just now or the very first Homo who lifted his head and looked around 50,000 years ago and said WTF?!     

Problem is, "relation" is a tricksy concept, easy to over- or underlook, or to just assume. But it's not some accidental property, rather, absolutely essential, which -- in my opinion -- is precisely why God goes to all the trouble and expense of revealing it to us again this weekend. 

After all, any minimally sentient and curious primate (barring tenure) is able to arrive at the First Principle, the Unmoved Mover and Uncaused Cause. But to understand that this Being is irreducible substance-in-relation.... Well, this requires a little vertical assistance, AKA revelation, whether direct or indirect.

Coincidentally, Clarke quotes Ratzinger on the subject:

In the relational notion of person developed within the theology of the Trinity... lies concealed a revolution in man's view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid mode of reality (emphasis mine).

Perhaps you already understand just how revolutionary, but it's a rather big deal, and here is where I think McGilchrist can contribute, because relation is something apprehended via the right cerebral hemisphere. 

But modernity has resulted in a kind of cerebral eclipse, such that the left brain has become hypertrophied to the detriment of the right. Again, this is a simplistic way of conceptualizing it, but close enough for blogging.

Whatever the cause, this whole idea of substance-in-relation seems difficult for folks to grasp instead of being the most obvious thing. Once heard, it should ring every bell in your cabeza instead of eliciting the bovine stare.

The bottom line is that God is not substance, nor the relation between, but substance-in-relation. Once seen, it can never be unseen: "To be fully is to be substance-in-relation" (Clarke).

If you're the sentimental type you could even call this luv, but it is also knowledge and beauty, and even their very possibility. Each of these categories is an adeqation, which is why knowledge of anything is knowledge of and in God. Barring tenure, of course. 

It is also why, in the words of the Aphorist, 

Every genuine work of art speaks to us of God. No matter what it says.

Think about Homo sapiens, who are (not is!) the image and likeness of the Principle. 

No, seriously, think about it. Or, if that's too hard, just look at that wall over there. Notice that the wall is related to you. But you are not related to the wall. Walls are not related to anything. They're just walls. Especially if they're tenured.

Relationality is not somehow accidental to the human condition, but absolutely essential: no relationality, no human, simple as. 

Nor is this merely "external relations," like billiard balls, or walls in the university. Rather, we're talking about interiority and irreducible intersubjectivity, which is just about the queerest thing imagineable in a heretofore "objective" universe. 

In other words, roughly 13.8 billion years of objects flying around and then boom, intersubjectivity.

You're damn right WTF?!

Put it this way: if you don't say WTF?!, you're just wrong, or possibly autistic. Or tenured, of course.

Do we even have time to dive into The Divine Project, or is that enough for one morning? 

Understood. We'll get to it tomorrow, unless the Dreamer has other ideas.