Guardians of the Metaphysical Galaxy

We're down to the last chapter of Christ, the Logos of Creation, which begins with a discussion of one of our favorite subjects, the relationship between metaphysics and theology. 

These two sciences approach the same ultimate reality from different vantage points:

Whereas classical metaphysics, commencing from a philosophical starting point, looks to this One from the vantage of the many, theological metaphysics considers all things from the vantage of God's own self-revelation.

Put another way, metaphysics "begins with things and searches for a Logos that might explain them," while theology "commences with the [a priori] reality of this Logos." 

Except I don't know that this is true of Schuon's metaphysics, which he would also consider to be a priori, and not a posteriori. 

That is, Schuon doesn't begin with material things -- with creation -- and work his way up the the Principle; rather, be begins with the self-evident Principle and deduces its entailments. 

Moreover, I believe he would say that the Principle and its entailments are more or less adequately or obscurely expressed via this or that revelation.  

There's more to it, but we shall return to this question later, perhaps in the next post. One argument at a time.

Betz tosses in an interesting observation by Balthasar, that Christians, are "guardians of a metaphysics of the whole person in an age which has forgotten both Being and God," and thus "are entrusted with the weighty responsibility" of maintaining and propagating it.

How's that working out?

Hey, I'm doing my bit. It's not my fault if readers are repelled by my wares. 

Here's a thought: instead of seeing philosophy and theology as competing approaches, how about looking upon them as complementary, indeed, as the very essence of the analogy of being?  

The question is -- recalling our remarks above about Schuon -- which is analogous to which?  The answer may surprise or even repel you. Or at least it will surprise me, since I haven't yet worked it out.

One way of looking at it -- Betz's way -- is that "any philosophical metaphysics is not destroyed but stands to be perfected by theological metaphysics," and why not? 

Recalling Voegelin's Tension between immanence and transcendence, Betz situates philosophy in the former (even though it points toward transcendence, ultimately to Plato's Good), and theology in the latter (which not only points to immanence but indeed descends all the way into it via the Incarnation). 

Christ, you might say, is the union of theology and metaphysics -- not to mention immanence and transcendence, essence and existence -- in his very Person. 

For again, he is the first and last Word in the analogy of being. Ultimately the Son is the analogy (so to speak) of the Father. He is both man's icon of God and God's icon of man. 

Can't go too far wrong with that: "the Son of God simply is the Father's self-revelation, apart from whom the Father would be hidden in a state of spiritual potency." But "by the eternal Spirit the Father is eternally actualized, realized, and revealed in the Son..."

Moreover, in keeping with the great Raccoon Circle of Being, "the Son eternally returns his existence to the Father," while "the Spirit is Spirit of the eternal gift and return of love," and again why not? 

The bottom line is that "the Son's Incarnation as a temporal extension of his eternal Ex-istence from the Father and our own existence as an analogous existence" are (re)unified in Christ; he is the union of essence and existence in which we may participate via adoption. For again, "Being becomes nothing, as it were, in order that nothing might be."

Ultimately "the Way up and the Way down are one and the same Way of the one Logos," and I'll buy that, for how could it otherwise if reality is both one and an analogy of the One-in-Three, and vice versa? 

That's not necessarily a rhetorical question. Let's consider how Schuon might answer it. For him, metaphysics "is the science of Ultimate Reality, attainable through the intellect and not reason." 

It is "of an essentially suprahuman character and including in its fullness the whole of man's being" (Nasr, ibid below).

That sounds suspiciously Gnostic, the bad kind. No, Schuon would say that it is esoteric, and that it partakes of the good and proper kind of gnosis that even St. Paul talks about, which simply means spiritual knowledge: "It is gnosis in the original non-sectarian meaning of the term."

For Schuon, metaphysics is not actually "a branch of philosophy," rather, it is "knowledge of the Absolute" that "resides in the very substance of the intelligence." 

It is "the science of the Real," but is at the same time "inseparable from tradition" and from the "spiritual realization" that is only possible via the grace transmitted thereby.

And as alluded to above, Schuon "does not begin with [immanent] Being but with [the transcendent] Ultimate Reality which is at once the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Perfect Good." 

He doesn't say this, but I'm thinking that these three might actually line up nicely with the Absolute Father, the Infinite Son, and the Perfect (loving) Good that circulates between them. 

I still want to say that the two approaches are complementary, only in an even deeper way than we might suspect. But that's about it for this morning. We'll further explore these parallel galaxies of metaphysical discourse in the next post.