Science Fiction & Fictional Religion

This post kinda ran out of gas because my brain ran out of glucose, as often happens, being that I try to keep my BS as low as possible, so I'm often flirting with hypoglycemia.

Doesn't bother me -- it's all a part of Life's Rich Pageant -- but blogging without a brain, although a popular pastime, is not my thing. Nor, come to think of it, is blogging with a brain. But intellection requires some cooperation with physiology, at least in this life. 

We’re still wondering about the Line, and yesterday I thought we made some progress with the idea that if we can establish a metaphysical truth that clearly contradicts revelation, then we need to reevaluate the passage or doctrine in light of it. But we do not throw out the exoteric baby with the esoteric bongwater.

I find this tremendously liberating. Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant for wishful thinking, rationalization, and metacosmic narcissism. It’s so easy to fool people, especially oneself. Serious liberation is one thing, fatuous gliberation another.

As there is science fiction, so too is there fictional religion. Vis-a-vis the latter, the intentional kind is generally self-limiting, whereas the unintentional kind is Highly Problematic and thensome. 

Sometimes there can even be a combination of the two, as in Scientology or the Nation of Islam, both of which combining bad science fiction with intentional religious fiction.

Which brings us to a problem: just as our most intellectually gifted idiots would say that metaphysics is impossible, -- i.e., that there are no grand narratives (how grand!) -- religion as such is pure fiction, let alone such-and-such a religion, which is not even fiction. Rather, just opium. 

Unless it is some nonwestern religious fiction practiced by marginalized and oppressed victims of color, in which case, grand!

How to convince an entire class of credentialed NPCs otherwise? Which comes down to deprograming them from their religious fiction and talking them down from their own grand narrative which conveniently features them at the center of the bland narrative of activist scholarship.  

I have no idea, nor do I have in my possession a single farque to give. 

Just now in my inbox: A Spotlight on Black Trailblazers.

Okay, I’ll bite. I hope there’s something in here about religion, or at least spirituality, to keep this post a-rollin’.

Only a prog racist (BIRM) could make this up:

Black culture is the sole of sneaker culture. Stay tuned as we retrace the footsteps of some of the legendary icons who turned loving sneakers into a lifestyle.

A Grand Narrative of Religious Fiction revolving around black people and their extravagent footwear.

Makes you long for the Church of John Coltrane, no?

Let’s back away from this toxic vertical spring and get back to our exploration of the Line. 

Even that word -- Line -- is most mysterious, for how do they get here, especially the invisible / vertical / nonlocal ones? 

Dogs, for example, don’t know anything about any lines, which is why they think nothing of mounting your leg or taking a leak in public, as they shamelessly do in Europe or in Democrat-run cities. 

Dogs, of course, do have lines, but they possess no conscious knowledge of them. These lines fall under the heading of “instinct,” which is why they pee on fire hydrants but don’t mount them.

Now, man has an instinct for the Absolute, and I wish I could say that only comedy results from confusing the absolute with sneakers, or with sneaky L. Ron,  or with any other manmade artifact or ideology. Rather, the most massive crimes and tragedies result from violations of the commandment against idolatry.

Yes, but isn’t one man’s idolatry another man’s sacred footwear? Isn’t it all relative?

This is indeed the Line we’re probing, and sometimes you have to go over the line in order to know where the line is.  

I’m thinking of two of Schuon’s essays, The Sense of the Absolute in Religions and The Human Margin. I don’t want to so much review them as engage and dialogue with them, beginning, I guess, with the second, since the margin is synonymous the Line. Let’s conduct what they call a Close Reading of this essay. 

First sentence:

Christ, in rejecting certain rabbinical prescriptions as “human” and not “Divine,” shows that according to God’s scale of measurement there is a sector which, while being orthodox and traditional, is nonetheless human in a certain sense…

Say, is there such a thing as jazz science fiction? You bet! Dancing on the moon with Sun Ra:

Explore the cosmos with him:

Open the door & c'mon in:

Revelation and Metaphysics

Yesterday I was thinking about the boundary -- the one between orthodoxy and heresy, both intrinsic, and extrinsic -- when I had a brainwave. It will have to be fleshed out and all, but it may help resolve some of my vertical neuroticism.

Vertical neuroticism? Oh, that. Petey just now called me a V.N., but as usual, left it up to me to figure out what it means. Obviously, it is an allusion to one of the “big five” personality traits, these being conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, introversion/extraversion, and neuroticism. 

Neuroticism on the horizontal plane correlates with internal conflict, worry, and moodiness (both anxiety and depression), but what does this have to do with verticality, which ultimately transcends all that worldly mishegas? 

Perhaps Petey was being a bit careless with language, because I rather like to think of myself as simply vertically conscientious. 

My son is the same way, so it must be genetic. He’s a tad querulous, but I didn’t make him that way (my DNA notwithstanding), since I never complain nor argue with other people, only with myself. I’m auto-querulous only. Ninety percent, anyway.  

Petey can be hard to read at times, but perhaps he thinks of me as being on the OCD spectrum. However, I would disagree there as well. Except for my compulsive music collecting, but shut-up. It's none of his business.

Rather, I just want to dot all the i's and cross all the t’s. I mean, metaphysics isn’t rocket science. No no no, it is much more important and consequential than that. Get your metaphysics wrong, and whole civilizations have fallen. 

I remember something Charles Krauthammer wrote, even though he was decidedly not the metaphysical type. Technically he was referring to political philosophy, but in America, our politics is (or was, anyway) uniquely rooted in a distinct Judeo-Christian metaphysic. K-hammer hit the nail on the head when he wrote that

Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything -- high and low and, most especially, high -- lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away.

If we are eyewitnesses to everything being swept away, this is why. 

Dennis Prager is another practical man who isn't given to metaphysical flights of funzy, and he says something similar in his most recent columnar rumination, What Are Judeo-Christian Values? Among the top ten values (I would say principles so as to avoid any hint of subjectivism) is  

the most revolutionary moral idea in history: that there are objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths. Without God as the source of moral standards, there is no moral truth; there are only moral opinions.

Others include the principle that

God -- not man, not government, not popular opinion, not a democratic vote -- is the source of our rights. All men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” 

Another principle is that 

The human being is “created in the image of God.” Therefore, each human life is precious. Therefore, race is of no significance since we are all created in God’s image, and God has no race.

And 

The world is based on a divine order, meaning divinely ordained distinctions. Among these divine distinctions are God and man, man and woman, human and animal, good and evil, nature and God, and the holy and the profane.

Nor is man 

basically good. Christians speak of “original sin” in referring to man’s sinful nature; Jews cite God Himself in Genesis: “The will of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). They are not identical beliefs, but they are both worlds apart from the naive Enlightenment belief that man is basically good. 

And finally,

Human beings have free will. In the secular world, there is no free will because all human behavior is attributed to biology and environment. Only a religious worldview, because it posits the existence of a divine soul — something independent of biology and environment — allows for free will.

Bob, will you ever get to the point -- to your so-called "big brainwave"? Yes I will, and right now. Above, Prager alludes to there being "objective moral truths just as there are mathematical and scientific truths.” Similarly, the Catechism….

Damn, it’s in the other room, where the mother-in-law slumbers. Do I dare disturb the universe? 

Sure, I disturb it all the time. Just not hers. I love Wodehouse, but I’m not about to insert myself into one of his farcical plots. I could probably get away with it, because she removes her hearing aid at night, but she doesn’t remove her eyeballs, nor I mine, and what is seen can't be unseen, so we’ll let just have to rough it and proceed from memory

The Church magnanimously teaches that if a well-established scientific finding contradicts scripture, then so much for the latter. 

I mean, it doesn’t put it as bluntly as that, but the last thing the Church wants to do is have a repetition of the “Galileo affair,” even though it has been systematically distorted so as to serve as one of the founding myths of a self-styled “enlightened” modernity" accompanied by a barbarous materialism and crude scientism.

Why then do mainstream theologians become such prissy homos the moment you cross or even get close to the Line? Isn’t this what a theologian should do -- test everything in order to give a robust defense? Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?

So, this was my brainwave -- which I still haven’t thought through -- that there is no intrinsic reason why we shouldn't be able to adopt the same attitude toward metaphysical truth as we do scientific truth as they pertain to revelation.

In other words, if a metaphysical truth contradicts revelation, then we don’t simply toss out the latter, rather, we reinterpret it in light of the new truth. It is still true, but has simply been shorn of false a interpretation.

Example. 

Although the Church has never taken Genesis literally, a lot of folks seemingly did. Once it was established that the cosmos came into being 13.8 billion years ago, then the whole six-day creation thing became even more untenable. 

But this hardly rendered it literally “untrue.” The underlying principles remain as sound and unassailable as ever, for example, that the universe is created and not just random, that it evolves over time, and that man as such is a special creation.

Above we alluded to “metaphysical truth,” as if it is a settled thing and not contested and controverted on all sides. Indeed, an infertile egghead -- a man of tenure -- can almost be defined as one who rejects even the possibility of metaphysics, let alone that there might be a universally true one.

But there is and must be, and I don’t see any problem with interpreting revelation in terms of it, which is the brainwave alluded to in paragraph one. 

Having said that, we must approach this with all due humility, modesty, conscientiousness, and neuroticism in order to avoid falling into an even deeper hole than the one we find ourselves in. 

But this is my short morn, so there’s not nearly enough time to do it justice. However, even before getting into details, we should all be able to agree that there can be no higher privilege than truth.

You're welcome.

The New Pervitanism and Bowling with God

Where is the invisible line, exactly, and how do we know when we’ve crossed it? 

This itself can be tricksy, but it’s downright irrelevant in a culture that, perhaps for the first time in history, combines a depraved inversion of the vertical order with a sadistic and puritanical wokeness.

“Woke” is such a frivolous sounding term (as was its hideous mother, "political correctness"). Back in the early days of the blog, I called it “totolerantarian,” which is as frivolous, plus it’s a mouthful. 

The New Pervitans?

A word like “heresy” can mean literally nothing in an age that combines the absolute relativism of an antinomian nihilism with a boneheaded caricature of an "Old Testament God" with 613 impossible commandments. No one can avoid breaking them, but the Pervitans decide who will be punished. 

Anyway, if we’re going to bowl with God, we need to know where the lines and lanes are, not to mention the loons. For there are plenty of the latter as well, as anyone with even a little familiarity with religion as such can attest.

That last sentence adverts to a useful distinction we might make at the top, between “religion as such” and “such and such a religion.” (By the way, I’m going to approach this with a totally open mind, putting aside my own religious commitment.) 

Aaaand once again that last sentence adverts to another helpful distinction, which we might compare to the phenomenon of  music as such vs. playing such and such an instrument. 

Clearly, not only does music exist, but without it life would be a mistake. But the existence of music is not the same as learning how to play it. It doesn’t matter which instrument one picks -- guitar, piano, saxophone, etc. -- but you do have to pick one if you want to get anywhere. However, I would avoid the accordion.

Now, what if practicing a religion has the same relationship to Religion as Such as does an instrument to Music as Such? Schuon essentially says as much, but at the same time, this is by no means intended to denigrate religion or God. Rather, he always emphasizes that you can’t just skip the instrument and jump straight to the music.

Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, and the free jazz movement of the 1960s did attempt to make the leap into pure music without the structure of chords and harmony. It occasionally succeeded, but only if the player was already a musical genius such as John Coltrane or Eric Dolphy. Short of this, one can only generate noise and call it “music.” Lotta pretenders, and a lot more who pretended to understand it.

Speaking of which, how is this different from the realm of religion? For what is the New Age but a whole lotta pretenders, which comes down to trying to bowl with God in 'Nam, where there are no rules. I told that fucking Kraut Nietzshe a thousand times...

Now, is it possible to ascend all the way to God with no rules at all? Yes and no, for 1) it takes all kinds, and 2) anything that’s not impossible is possible, I suppose. 

Okay, name one. NAME ME ONE!

Hmm. Who is the John Coltrane of religion? I mean, other than John Coltrane?

There was a time when I would have said there are many, e.g., Plotinus, Lao Tse, Ramakrishna, even Krishnamurti if you’re desperate and stupid. To be honest, I myself dabbled in Advaita nondualism, until I discovered that I wasn’t.

What I mean by this is that I dabscovered (to my own satisfaction, anyway) that there are indeed rules that were there long before I arrived -- i.e., a vertical structure and axiological hierarchy that one can only pretend to avoid. 

This is why at various times I refer to The Great Attractor, Celestial Central, Nonlocal Operators standing by and ready to assist you, etc. In short, a pattern or phase space emerged out of… come to think of it, out of the supposedly formless void.

Which leads to the question -- again, since it was here when I got here -- who separates the darkness from the Light, the order from the chaos, the land from the water, the spirit from the matter, man from the animals, male from female, the normal from the Pervitans, etc., etc., etc.?  

Not I.

Then again, I, precisely.  

Here I want to highlight a distinction between I and I AM, for the I goes to the pure interiority beyond being, whereas the AM goes to being. Could this go to the Ultimate Structure?

I think so, but not without some additional yada yada.

Before closing our yappe for the day, I want to come back to the point about music and musician. Not only could I have chosen any instrument, but, you might say, I seem to be somewhat musically inclined, so I fooled around with a number of them. Including Zen. And there’s an old Zen saying, Chase two rabbits, catch none.

There is also an old Coon saying. Damn. I can’t remember how it goes, but it’s something to the effect that you can only explore one rabbit hole -- excuse me, vertical spring -- at a time. Moreover, it turns out that fully exploring just one of these literally takes longer than a single lifetime. So, how to choose?

A full account will try your patience again, so we’ll resume tomorrow.

John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. One of my favorite things:

Poking and Probing the Crack in the Cosmic Egg

To simplify matters, I suppose we could say that wideawake intelligence and cutandry reason are to the horizontal as intellection is to the vertical.

Verticality cannot be seen or even suspected without the intellect, although then again, so many anomalies pile up with a purely horizontal view, that one might begin to posit some hidden variable in order to account for them.

In a way, -- my way, to be exact -- we could say that this is Gödel’s whole point: that logic itself proves with total absurditude that logic isn’t enough. Most völks don’t know about Gödel, and even those who do take him to mean that since reason cannot know reality, reality cannot be known. 

Wrong.  

Problem is, beyond this point -- the point at which the rock of logic peters out -- Gödel is not our best guide, since he became frankly psychotic by the end of his life. Nevertheless, he got the biggest thing right, and he provides the basis -- or at least a permission slip -- for the slide upto a genuine metatheology of extreme reality:

the mind, being in fact “alive,” can always go one better than any formal, ossified, dead [“nonliving” is a better term] system can. Thanks to Gödel’s theorem[s], the mind always has the last word (Goldstein). 

I appreciate the point, but that’s not quite true, since this would equally confine us -- in this case, to our own minds. 

Rather, if we’re on the right track, the last word must be the Word. And fortunately, this Word has not only paid us a visit, but provides the very means for us to be grafted on to it and participate in its transcosmic Life. 

Is this logical? Please. It is logical & thensome, AKA mega- and metalogical. I would say this is the very logic that can be no logiker.

In terms of the positivist nest from which Gödel hatched, unknowability was regarded as but a symptom of disordered language -- the nonsensical answer to a nonsensical question. But Gödel flew that coop and came to realize that people like me would eventually come along: for it is 

to be expected that sooner or later my proof will be made useful for religion, since that is doubtless also justified in a certain sense.

A “certain sense,” because exoteric religiosity is vulnerable to the same Gödelian critique as any other system that would presume to constrain us.

Yes, but revelation comes from God, not man! And the Bible -- I saw an ad on TV using these very words -- is the #1 selling book in all of history, because it contains God’s word from cover to cover, and every single word of it is literally true!

Now, am I going to throw shade on this assertion? No I am not. Let’s just say with the Aphorist that The Bible is not the voice of God but that of the man who encounters Him, and move along.

That is far from the only commercial I saw during the Super Bowl that wasn't intended for us. Rather, it is aimed at a very different audience, and I am not going to pretend that that audience is my audience. 

Nor will I pretend that we are somehow superior to them, since we ought never conflate the “superiority,” so to speak, of the message, with a presumed superiority of the messenger. This is an easy trap to fall into, for which reason there exist so many vertical scoundrels (creepy perverticaloids) who get many things right but fail at some of the biggest, e.g., humility, charity, self-mastery, etc.

We alluded to one of these big ones in yesterday’s post, and won’t rehearse or exhumine it here. I'm not a mortician, rather, I only undertake living arguments, so let the dead post bury itself.

Did you hear that? That’s the sound of language dissolving before our very ears. 

Having shed insufficient obscurity on the subject, I do enjoy probing and poking at the edges to find out where the Line is. As mentioned a couple of posts back, there is extrinsic heresy and intrinsic heresy, or cosmic and religious, and someday we ought to explore the difference, but that day will be tomorrow. 

 

For me, this one will always be the soundtrack of a tomorrow that never arrived, provoking gnostalgia for a brighter future that isn't what it used to be:

Poking and Probing the Crack in the Cosmic Egg

To simplify matters, I suppose we could say that wideawake intelligence and cutandry reason are to the horizontal as intellection is to the vertical.

Verticality cannot be seen or even suspected without the intellect, although then again, so many anomalies pile up with a purely horizontal view, that one might begin to posit some hidden variable in order to account for them.

In a way, -- my way, to be exact -- we could say that this is Gödel’s whole point: that logic itself proves with total absurditude that logic isn’t enough. Most völks don’t know about Gödel, and even those who do take him to mean that since reason cannot know reality, reality cannot be known. 

Wrong.  

Problem is, beyond this point -- the point at which the rock of logic peters out -- Gödel is not our best guide, since he became frankly psychotic by the end of his life. Nevertheless, he got the biggest thing right, and he provides the basis -- or at least a permission slip -- for the slide upto a genuine metatheology of extreme reality:

the mind, being in fact “alive,” can always go one better than any formal, ossified, dead [“nonliving” is a better term] system can. Thanks to Gödel’s theorem[s], the mind always has the last word (Goldstein). 

I appreciate the point, but that’s not quite true, since this would equally confine us -- in this case, to our own minds. 

Rather, if we’re on the right track, the last word must be the Word. And fortunately, this Word has not only paid us a visit, but provides the very means for us to be grafted on to it and participate in its transcosmic Life. 

Is this logical? Please. It is logical & thensome, AKA mega- and metalogical. I would say this is the very logic that can be no logiker.

In terms of the positivist nest from which Gödel hatched, unknowability was regarded as but a symptom of disordered language -- the nonsensical answer to a nonsensical question. But Gödel flew that coop and came to realize that people like me would eventually come along: for it is 

to be expected that sooner or later my proof will be made useful for religion, since that is doubtless also justified in a certain sense.

A “certain sense,” because exoteric religiosity is vulnerable to the same Gödelian critique as any other system that would presume to constrain us.

Yes, but revelation comes from God, not man! And the Bible -- I saw an ad on TV using these very words -- is the #1 selling book in all of history, because it contains God’s word from cover to cover, and every single word of it is literally true!

Now, am I going to throw shade on this assertion? No I am not. Let’s just say with the Aphorist that The Bible is not the voice of God but that of the man who encounters Him, and move along.

That is far from the only commercial I saw during the Super Bowl that wasn't intended for us. Rather, it is aimed at a very different audience, and I am not going to pretend that that audience is my audience. 

Nor will I pretend that we are somehow superior to them, since we ought never conflate the “superiority,” so to speak, of the message, with a presumed superiority of the messenger. This is an easy trap to fall into, for which reason there exist so many vertical scoundrels (creepy perverticaloids) who get many things right but fail at some of the biggest, e.g., humility, charity, self-mastery, etc.

We alluded to one of these big ones in yesterday’s post, and won’t rehearse or exhumine it here. I'm not a mortician, rather, I only undertake living arguments, so let the dead post bury itself.

Did you hear that? That’s the sound of language dissolving before our very ears. 

Having shed insufficient obscurity on the subject, I do enjoy probing and poking at the edges to find out where the Line is. As mentioned a couple of posts back, there is extrinsic heresy and intrinsic heresy, or cosmic and religious, and someday we ought to explore the difference, but that day will be tomorrow. 

 

For me, this one will always be the soundtrack of a tomorrow that never arrived, provoking gnostalgia for a brighter future that isn't what it used to be:

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.

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.

Abiding in the Place from Which

Picking up right where we left off, a big question is whether our distinction between the Absolute Absolute (AA) and Relative Absolute (RA) is ontological or merely epistemological -- i.e., really real or really just our opinion, man. 

In other words, there is one sense in which the RA cannot be the AA, otherwise we'd be God: our knowledge of God is not and cannot be the same as God’s knowledge of himself. Or just say that finitude is not infinitude. Forever.

Having screed that, if I’m not totally out of my element here, then nor is finitude not infinitude, full stop, end of story. By way of analogy, we don’t live inside the sun, but then again, who can draw an ontological distinction between the sun and the rays streaming in through my window? Somewhat like the Trinity, there is distinction but no substantial difference, because light is light and heat is heat.

So, we’re simultaneously inside the sun but not inside the sun. So much for Aristotelian logic. Big rabbit hole here, but suffice it to say that Aristotelian logic is still valid -- duh -- but either situated within, or complementary to, another logic. 

Come to think of it, there is ultimately a kind of “tri-logic” that involves a complementarity between symmetrical and asymmetrical logics on the horizontal plane, situated vertically within the logos as such. 

Not only is this an even bigger hole, off in the distance I see a hookah-smoking caterpillar more than willing to sell us some pot and other edibles. No thanks. Caffeine is enough for now.

Think of other distinctions we routinely make, say, between heart and brain, or mind and body, or intellect and truth, or human and animal, etc. Who can draw a literal line between these? No, I’m serious: name me one. NAME ME ONE!

If you follow this line of thought -- or have another toke -- you not only begin to wonder where the line is, but whether we’ve crossed it. Isn’t this what heresy is? (One toke) over the line, Smokey! Excuse me! MARK IT ZERO! Next paragraph.

But this is something I think about a great deal, that is, cosmic heresy vs. mere religious heresy, which are again real but by no means identical. Of all the religious thinkers of whom I am aware, only Schuon is astute or deluded enough to make this distinction, referring to them as intrinsic and extrinsic heresy (or what we just now called cosmic and religious, respectively).

It just now occurred to me that the deeper I get into retirement, the more I am surrounded by these rabbit holes. For “retirement” isn't merely an absence of toil, it is -- for me at any rate -- a nonstop vertical plunge into the source or ground or something. 

This may sound off-the-Walter, but I’ve always envied the seemingly Dude-like life of Bob Dylan. No, not the money or fame or any worldly perks, rather precisely the opposite: that he seems to float along in the otherworldly world from which creativity arises. 

Perhaps someday I’ll write a post on this subject, but at any rate, if I have a bucket list, the only thing in the bucket is a desire to penetrate this annoying worldly world and dwell inside the real one. Back when I owed my allegiance to what 99% of human call the “real world,” I had to render myself unreal in order to live there. 

Granted, most people aren't built this way, and thank God, because if they were, we’d be in big trouble. But a few of us are, and I like to think that we pneumatics provide the vertical innertainment. Yes, we are here to amuse you, accent on the muse -- even if no one else seems to find it amusing except for me, Dupree, Julie, Ted, and occasionally the late Vanderleun, Slack be upon him, there where poetic champions compose!

Matter of fact, yesterday at the library sale I picked up a biography of one of my literary heroes, P.G. Wodehouse, who most definitely lived in the Dylanworld mentioned above. 

Like anyone else, he was at times forced "to take account of the rest of the world. But he never cared for it.” He was “remarkably unresponsive to many aspects of the world around him,” but here again, this was not fundamentally an avoidance but a total plunge into that place from which creativity arises.

Example. I was thinking about taking weekends off in order to give readers a break. But guess what? My mother-in-law is visiting, which will require much more attention to that other world than Bob is comfortable with. Therefore, I need to come back to this world for a little oxygen, or what the voice in Brandon’s head calls a little breathing room.  

And here’s a coincidence: the Wodehouse bio is my nighttome read, while in broad daylight I’m reading a book on the implicit theology of Tolkien, who is very much in the same boat as Dylan and Wodehouse. He hardly ever left his "legendarium," just as I am ill at ease outside my jestarium (https://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Dogmatics-Theology-Mythology-Middle-earth/dp/1683596676/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P1QM5VK5MEFQ&keywords=austin+freeman&qid=1676221198&s=books&sprefix=austin+freeman%2Cstripbooks%2C163&sr=1-1.)

I guess the bottom line is: STFU, I’m not avoiding anything, least of all reality. Rather, I'm nondoing whatever I feel like I want to, gosh!

There's a dream where the contents are visible / Where the poetic champions compose

Abiding in the Place from Which

Picking up right where we left off, a big question is whether our distinction between the Absolute Absolute (AA) and Relative Absolute (RA) is ontological or merely epistemological -- i.e., really real or really just our opinion, man. 

In other words, there is one sense in which the RA cannot be the AA, otherwise we'd be God: our knowledge of God is not and cannot be the same as God’s knowledge of himself. Or just say that finitude is not infinitude. Forever.

Having screed that, if I’m not totally out of my element here, then nor is finitude not infinitude, full stop, end of story. By way of analogy, we don’t live inside the sun, but then again, who can draw an ontological distinction between the sun and the rays streaming in through my window? Somewhat like the Trinity, there is distinction but no substantial difference, because light is light and heat is heat.

So, we’re simultaneously inside the sun but not inside the sun. So much for Aristotelian logic. Big rabbit hole here, but suffice it to say that Aristotelian logic is still valid -- duh -- but either situated within, or complementary to, another logic. 

Come to think of it, there is ultimately a kind of “tri-logic” that involves a complementarity between symmetrical and asymmetrical logics on the horizontal plane, situated vertically within the logos as such. 

Not only is this an even bigger hole, off in the distance I see a hookah-smoking caterpillar more than willing to sell us some pot and other edibles. No thanks. Caffeine is enough for now.

Think of other distinctions we routinely make, say, between heart and brain, or mind and body, or intellect and truth, or human and animal, etc. Who can draw a literal line between these? No, I’m serious: name me one. NAME ME ONE!

If you follow this line of thought -- or have another toke -- you not only begin to wonder where the line is, but whether we’ve crossed it. Isn’t this what heresy is? (One toke) over the line, Smokey! Excuse me! MARK IT ZERO! Next paragraph.

But this is something I think about a great deal, that is, cosmic heresy vs. mere religious heresy, which are again real but by no means identical. Of all the religious thinkers of whom I am aware, only Schuon is astute or deluded enough to make this distinction, referring to them as intrinsic and extrinsic heresy (or what we just now called cosmic and religious, respectively).

It just now occurred to me that the deeper I get into retirement, the more I am surrounded by these rabbit holes. For “retirement” isn't merely an absence of toil, it is -- for me at any rate -- a nonstop vertical plunge into the source or ground or something. 

This may sound off-the-Walter, but I’ve always envied the seemingly Dude-like life of Bob Dylan. No, not the money or fame or any worldly perks, rather precisely the opposite: that he seems to float along in the otherworldly world from which creativity arises. 

Perhaps someday I’ll write a post on this subject, but at any rate, if I have a bucket list, the only thing in the bucket is a desire to penetrate this annoying worldly world and dwell inside the real one. Back when I owed my allegiance to what 99% of human call the “real world,” I had to render myself unreal in order to live there. 

Granted, most people aren't built this way, and thank God, because if they were, we’d be in big trouble. But a few of us are, and I like to think that we pneumatics provide the vertical innertainment. Yes, we are here to amuse you, accent on the muse -- even if no one else seems to find it amusing except for me, Dupree, Julie, Ted, and occasionally the late Vanderleun, Slack be upon him, there where poetic champions compose!

Matter of fact, yesterday at the library sale I picked up a biography of one of my literary heroes, P.G. Wodehouse, who most definitely lived in the Dylanworld mentioned above. 

Like anyone else, he was at times forced "to take account of the rest of the world. But he never cared for it.” He was “remarkably unresponsive to many aspects of the world around him,” but here again, this was not fundamentally an avoidance but a total plunge into that place from which creativity arises.

Example. I was thinking about taking weekends off in order to give readers a break. But guess what? My mother-in-law is visiting, which will require much more attention to that other world than Bob is comfortable with. Therefore, I need to come back to this world for a little oxygen, or what the voice in Brandon’s head calls a little breathing room.  

And here’s a coincidence: the Wodehouse bio is my nighttome read, while in broad daylight I’m reading a book on the implicit theology of Tolkien, who is very much in the same boat as Dylan and Wodehouse. He hardly ever left his "legendarium," just as I am ill at ease outside my jestarium (https://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Dogmatics-Theology-Mythology-Middle-earth/dp/1683596676/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P1QM5VK5MEFQ&keywords=austin+freeman&qid=1676221198&s=books&sprefix=austin+freeman%2Cstripbooks%2C163&sr=1-1.)

I guess the bottom line is: STFU, I’m not avoiding anything, least of all reality. Rather, I'm nondoing whatever I feel like I want to, gosh!

There's a dream where the contents are visible / Where the poetic champions compose