Consequences Flowing from the Mystery of Subjectivity

That's the title of an essay by Schuon, but one could equally say "miracle of subjectivity." Because what, after all, is a miracle? It is something that deviates from the known laws of nature, and you tell me: what law of physical nature accounts for the existence of immaterial knowers of the laws of nature? 

Nothing is more absurd than to have intelligence derive from matter, hence the greater from the lesser; the evolutionary leap from matter to intelligence is from every point of view the most inconceivable thing that could be (Schuon).

Nevertheless, here it is. Nor do we say that evolution plays no role, except that a material process cannot be the sufficient reason for an immaterial reality; this is quite literally inconceivable, while the converse is not. That is to say,

If one starts from the recognition of the immediately tangible mystery that is subjectivity or intelligence, then it is easy to understand that the origin of the Universe is not inert and unconscious matter but a spiritual Substance... (ibid.).

Still mysterious but at least not impossible. What does Sherlock Holmes say? "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." 

But is an intelligent Creator -- or rather, let's just say Intelligence -- really that improbable? That intelligence exists we can be certain. But by virtue of what principle? And can this principle be less than intelligent? Or less than personal? 

"It will be objected that there is no proof of this." Well, for starters, intelligence "comprises this proof precisely." In other words, there is no intelligent way to disprove the existence of intelligence, let alone an unintelligent way. 

What is it, anyway, that makes an otherwise intelligent man want to argue that "the miracle of consciousness" can "spring from a pile of earth or stones, metaphorically speaking"? 

A love of truth?

Ironically, yes. Intelligence is ordered to truth. If it isn't, then truly truly, the hell with it. 

The other day I caught a bit of a discussion between Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins touching on the existence of God. Probably if you asked Dawkins, he would say that he is not only motivated by the disinterested pursuit of truth, but much more so than the next (religious) guy. 

Problem is, his metaphysic can account for neither truth nor the beings capable of pursuing and knowing -- not to mention loving -- truth. It wasn't so much that they were talking past each other, rather, more like conversing with an autistic person about the nature of empathic attunement. 

Intelligence is guided more by sympathies and by aversions than by reasonings.

Including an irrational aversion to religion.

Broadly speaking, "religion" is a way of talking about and aligning oneself with a deeper reality that transcends appearances. But Dawkins approaches this reality in a way that is more literal than the most concrete literalist. He is very much like the Flatlander who insists that spheres are just fantasies of circles.

But to repeat something from a few posts ago, The Church -- I would say religion more generally -- gives us not a system, but a key. The question is, does the key work? Does it "unlock" something? If so, what?  

Given the existence of many religions, there is more than one key. Man cannot not be religious, in the sense that he cannot exist separate from the ground or source of his being. He can pretend to so exist, but this has no effect on the source. "Even prior to symbols, doctrines, and rites, our very subjectivity"

points as clearly as possible to our relationship with the Spirit and the Absolute; were it not for the absolute primacy of Spirit, relative subjectivity would be neither possible nor conceivable, it would be like an effect without a cause.  

The Aphorist reminds us that 

In order to abolish all mystery, it is enough to view the world with the eyes of a pig.

And

A fool is he who thinks that what he knows is without mystery.

But 

When the authentic mystery is eclipsed, humanity becomes drunk on imbecilic mysteries.

Let's not do that. Rather, let's remain focused on the authentic mystery -- the mystery of subjectivity alluded to in the title. "The primacy of the Invisible" is "natural to man" -- unless this invisible transcendent reality is viewed through the eyes of something less than a man, say, a pig. 

"What is natural to human consciousness"

is distinguished from animal consciousness by its objectivity and its totality -- its capacity for the absolute and the infinite (Schuon).

Again, "the reason for the existence of intelligence is its adequation to the real," just as "the wings of birds prove the existence of air." And "there is no more argumentative a reasoner than a negator of intellectual efficacy," who is like someone who argues that birds can't fly since air is invisible.

Nevertheless,

Rather than to yield to the obvious fact of the Spirit, proud reason will deny its own nature which nonetheless enables it to think.... tons of intelligence are wasted to circumvent the essential while brilliantly proving the absurd, namely to prove that the spirit sprung in the end from a clod of earth -- or, we could say, from an inert substance...

Nicolás, play us out: 

He who speaks of the farthest regions of the soul soon needs a theological vocabulary.

Faith is not an irrational assent to a proposition; it is perception of a special order of realities. 

Religion is not a set of solutions to known problems, but a new dimension of the universe. 

Religious thought does not go forward like scientific thought does, but rather goes deeper. 

The simplistic ideas in which the unbeliever ends up believing are his punishment.