Man's Godward Tendencies and God's Manward Tendencies

What is the first truth without which there can be no others? A truth to which all must assent before even beginning the search for truth, and for which there can be no prior truths or principles? Can it really be, for example, I think therefore I am? No, because that assumes, among other things, the principle of noncontradiction, i.e., that it is not equally true to say I think therefore I am not. 

God's first principle is apparently I am that I am, which can be variously translated as I am who am, I will be what I will be, or even I will become what I choose to become. In short, God simply Is. He is being itself, transcending any particular or limited instance of being.

However, adding the "I" to the "am" suggests that being is personal -- that it has an interiority. In other words, being is not merely objective but subjective. And this person -- as are all persons -- is free from necessity, as implied in the last version, i.e., "choose to become."  

But to whom is God speaking? To Moses, of course, with whom he has a relationship. In fact, we could know nothing of God of he weren't related to us. Nor could we know anything if there weren't a relationship between knowing and being. 

But we do know being, and if God is the act of being, this implies that in any act of knowing we know God, even if only an itsy bitsy. That was Aquinas' opinion, and why not? An explicit finite truth points toward, and is related to, the implicit infinite source of truth; why, our very ability to understand is a participation in the divine intellect.  

Now, if God is a person with an intellect, this too implies relation, and it turns out that this relation is between a Father-Intellect and a Son-Logos: the Son is the perfect and complete expression of the Father's being, wisdom, and will. Prior to any particular creation -- ours included -- the Son is the "revelation" of the Father, and this same Logos is responsible for the creation of the universe, i.e., "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

The Father, as the ultimate source and initiator, acts through the Son (the Logos) as the agent in bringing creation into being.

So our official position is that to be at all is to be related, and that to be unrelated is to not be, or to be nothing: unrelated being is non-being, precisely. Even -- especially -- God is irreducibly related, and so are we. This alone makes me suspect we are made in the image of the Principle of Principles, even without revelation telling me so. Otherwise, we possess godlike abilities with no God to account for them.

As we said in yesterday's post, both space and time are quintessentially relational: as there is no up without a down, nor an outside without an inside, there is no present without a past and future. Newtonian mechanics made it possible to predict the future based upon unvarying law, thus the temptation to enclose us in determinism. 

But the present moment in which I am is imbued with a freedom that is undetermined; in fact, if it weren't undetermined, we could have no knowledge of Newtonian mechanics, because we would be machines and not persons. We would have no relation to these laws, but rather, would be instantiations of them. But again, being as such is personal, interior, and free, so that's a nonstarter. We -- like God -- always transcend any specification or formal system that would presume to enclose us.

Picking up where we left off yesterday, we were addressing some avenues of thought suggested by Gemini, specifically addressing the enigma of time. It suggested that we 

Consider the problem of divine temporality: If God is conscious and consciousness is linked to time (as per Clarke's argument), does this necessitate some form of divine temporality, even if different from human experience? 

You betcha'! We made this argument a few weeks ago, with the idea of a super- or preeminent temporality in God, which in my mind is like eternity only better (and certainly less boring): it "moves beyond the traditional view of God as being entirely outside of time and proposes a more dynamic interaction," to wit,

The concept of preeminent time implies a form of temporality that is beyond our comprehension, infinitely richer and more complex than our linear, sequential time, and capable of encompassing all moments simultaneously, yet also allowing for dynamic interaction with them.  

This view allows for a more personal and interactive God, one who is not detached from the flow of events. It can address the problem of how God can answer prayers or intervene in history if God is entirely outside of time.

(BTW, this idea of "a form of temporality that is infinitely richer and more complex than our linear, sequential time, and capable of encompassing all moments simultaneously," is why I am intrigued by Finnegans Wake, because that is precisely the model of time it articulates. Obviously it is anything but linear, and it's certainly beyond our comprehension. But I will resist the urge to go down that enticing rabbit hole, for no one can swallow that rabbit whole. Just like infinite being itself.)

Speaking of holofractal metahistory, Genesis also made a point about  

Addressing the "Bloody Point of the Drama of History": 

Reconcile the idea of a knowing God with the apparent contingency and meaning of human history: If God's knowledge is of possibilities, how does this preserve the significance of our choices and actions?

Wrong question: rather, how do our choices have meaning and significance if they are really a result of divine necessity? Again, the unrestricted interior dynamism of the human person is ordered to the limitless horizon of intelligible being, and this space is full of possibilities. What accounts for this endlessly intelligible intelligibility? In other words, what is the sufficient reason for an intellect that is open to the limitless horizon of intelligibility? 

Must be a God who is likewise open to his own limitless horizon of being, and who "will become who I choose to become." Apparently, he first chooses to "become" (or beget) the Logos, and this same Logos is the Light that lights every man.  

One can reason upward from the beings of our world of experience to its ultimate principle, which Clarke calls the cosmic or outer path, as exemplified by Aquinas' five ways; alternatively, one can begin by 

exploring the depths of our own inner conscious life to find God as the Ultimate Goal of one's inner drive toward the fullness of Truth....  

Let's go with path #2, because it addresses Gemini's next suggestion, which is to

Explore the concept of meaning in a universe where the future is open: Does the lack of a predetermined outcome enhance or diminish the potential for meaning? 

To be sure, the future is open and the outcome undetermined. In fact, in our restless engagement with the limitless horizon of being, any finite, limited, determinate truth only causes us to "rebound beyond it and search for more": the intellect is such that it "can never be completely satisfied or fulfilled by any finite being or good." Rather, 

I must always implicitly refer each one to a wider, richer horizon beyond, to which I then spontaneously tend. It follows that only an unqualified infinity, or unlimited fullness of being and goodness could ever satisfy this innate drive.... my very nature as a human person is to be an ineradicable implicit drive toward the Infinite (Clarke).

Now, as to Gemini's question about the possibility of meaning in an open universe, there is no possibility if the dynamism of the intellect isn't ordered to the Infinite, as outlined in the paragraph above. But it seems that the meaning is located in the search and not in the finding, since we could never actually arrive at Infinitude, only engage with it. 

Now,"could an endless supply finites be enough to satisfy" our drive for the Infinite? 

No. Once we knew this was all there ever could be or would be, we might be forced to put up with it in lieu of anything better, but there would still remain a deep unfilled void within us, a radical emptiness that nothing could ever fill.   

In other words, Infinitude or nothing. Literally. But it's a choice, since we are of course free: "Either there exists a positive Infinite Fullness of being..., which is somehow possible to be attained by me," in which case -- good news -- "my human nature becomes luminously and completely meaningful, intelligible, [and] sense-making."

Or in fact, there exists no such real Infinite at all. And then my nature conceals in its depth a radical defect of meaningfulness, of coherence, an unfillable void of unintelligibility, a kind of tragic emptiness; a natural desire that defines my nature as a dynamic unity, but is in principle unfulfillable, incurably frustrated, a "useless passion"..., oriented by its very nature toward a non-existent void, toward nothing real, kept going only by an ineradicable illusion.

When you put it that way.

Thus, either God exists or I am absurd: that is the basic option that confronts me, if I am willing to go to the depth of the human condition.

However, I have a question: this primordial choice assumes the freedom to make it, and where does the freedom come from? Clarke suggests that 

there is a lived contradiction between affirming theoretically that the universe or myself is unintelligible and continuing to live and use my mind as though it were intelligible.... Thus it is finally up to each one of us either to accept his or her infinite-oriented nature as meaningful and revelatory of the real or as an opaque, illusory surd.

But what good reason can one have for choosing darkness over light, illusion over meaning, for not choosing the light? Only if the darkness is more intelligible? But this does not make sense! Why not then accept my nature as meaningful gift, pointing the way to what is, rather than to what is not? 

Genesis 3, maybe? That text relates the story of choosing darkness over light and illusion over meaning, but even more deeply, it is rejecting our first truth that to be is to be in relation, in particular, in relation to a God who is himself relational, both internally and externally, by way of creation. 

How do you like them apples, Gemini?

Overall, the text presents a sophisticated theological and philosophical argument for the fundamental nature of relationality, rooted in the being of God. It moves from questioning the first truth to exploring the implications of God's self-revelation as "I am," ultimately arguing that our relational nature and our innate drive for the Infinite point towards a personal and relational God, in whose image we are made.

And what does the post look like to you?