On Circularity and Absurcularity

I think it's accurate to say that while Thomas begins with the material senses and ascends to the immaterial Principle, Schuon begins at the other end, with the Principle -- or Absolute -- and skis down the mountain to the manifestation below. 

However, once Thomas rises to the Principle, he too schusses down the mountainside, taking everything below into consideration, as illuminated by the Principle(s).

Here's how Fr. Reg describes Thomas's vertical circularity: he 

marches steadily onward to that superior simplicity..., a simplicity pregnant with virtual multiplicity.... the saint's progress is a slow, hard climb to the summit of the mountain, whence alone you can  survey all these problems in a unified solution....

He exemplifies his own teaching on "circular" contemplation, which returns always to one central, pre-eminent thought, better to seize all the force of its irradiation. His principles, few in number but immense in reach, illumine from on high a great number of questions.

Again, the Great Cosmic Circle of coontomplation begins from below, ascends upward, and then returns down, only equipped with the principles that illuminate this downward path.  

Herebelow, things can either exist or not exist, irrespective of their essence. Only at the summit of metaphysics do essence and existence converge, such that in God alone are they one: God's essence is to exist, and existence is his essence. This is the final truth arrived at by reason:

this supreme truth is the terminus, the goal, of the ascending road which rises from the sense world to God, and the point of departure on the descending road, which deduces the attributes of God and determines the relation between God and world.

Snowboarding back down,

Many positions which we have already met on the ascending road now reappear, seen as we follow the road descending from on high. 

So, be nice to those discarnate nonlocal intelligences on the way up, because you'll meet the same ones on the way down.  

For Schuon, all of this is true enough, except he would say it is possible to start at the summit -- or, to be more precise, the "meta-summit." 

He would essentially say that there is Reality and that there are appearances, the latter being a consequence and prolongation of the former. Thus, appearances are at once distinct from the Principle, and yet "not not" the sophsame principle in the mode of appearances.

This realization is possible not just because of the ascent described by Thomas, but because we too are "not not" the Principle. Obviously we are not God, but the fact that we are in his image and likeness means we're not exactly not God either. Frankly, anything purely not-God would be nonexistent.  

This brings to mind our two subjective centers -- the local material ego and the nonlocal self. Importantly, these are not a duality but a complementarity that  -- in my opinion -- can be traced all the way up and in to God. For example, "Father" and "Son" are two subjectivities or "personal centers" within a radical unity.

. . . But we're out of time, so we'll pick up this towline of thought in the next. . . 

On Circularity and Absurcularity

I think it's accurate to say that while Thomas begins with the material senses and ascends to the immaterial Principle, Schuon begins at the other end, with the Principle -- or Absolute -- and skis down the mountain to the manifestation below. 

However, once Thomas rises to the Principle, he too schusses down the mountainside, taking everything below into consideration, as illuminated by the Principle(s).

Here's how Fr. Reg describes Thomas's vertical circularity: he 

marches steadily onward to that superior simplicity..., a simplicity pregnant with virtual multiplicity.... the saint's progress is a slow, hard climb to the summit of the mountain, whence alone you can  survey all these problems in a unified solution....

He exemplifies his own teaching on "circular" contemplation, which returns always to one central, pre-eminent thought, better to seize all the force of its irradiation. His principles, few in number but immense in reach, illumine from on high a great number of questions.

Again, the Great Cosmic Circle of coontomplation begins from below, ascends upward, and then returns down, only equipped with the principles that illuminate this downward path.  

Herebelow, things can either exist or not exist, irrespective of their essence. Only at the summit of metaphysics do essence and existence converge, such that in God alone are they one: God's essence is to exist, and existence is his essence. This is the final truth arrived at by reason:

this supreme truth is the terminus, the goal, of the ascending road which rises from the sense world to God, and the point of departure on the descending road, which deduces the attributes of God and determines the relation between God and world.

Snowboarding back down,

Many positions which we have already met on the ascending road now reappear, seen as we follow the road descending from on high. 

So, be nice to those discarnate nonlocal intelligences on the way up, because you'll meet the same ones on the way down.  

For Schuon, all of this is true enough, except he would say it is possible to start at the summit -- or, to be more precise, the "meta-summit." 

He would essentially say that there is Reality and that there are appearances, the latter being a consequence and prolongation of the former. Thus, appearances are at once distinct from the Principle, and yet "not not" the sophsame principle in the mode of appearances.

This realization is possible not just because of the ascent described by Thomas, but because we too are "not not" the Principle. Obviously we are not God, but the fact that we are in his image and likeness means we're not exactly not God either. Frankly, anything purely not-God would be nonexistent.  

This brings to mind our two subjective centers -- the local material ego and the nonlocal self. Importantly, these are not a duality but a complementarity that  -- in my opinion -- can be traced all the way up and in to God. For example, "Father" and "Son" are two subjectivities or "personal centers" within a radical unity.

. . . But we're out of time, so we'll pick up this towline of thought in the next. . . 

Random Thoughts on the Passing (Please!) Scene

St. Thomas thought about everything, including politics. When a degenerate people hand power over to demagogues, then "the elective power should, if it be possible, be taken from the multitude and restored to those who are good."

This seems too sensible to be remotely possible. Still, why should a bad and degenerate people have the right to make Biden the most powerful vegetable on earth?

St. Augustine was also on the case over 1500 years ago: "If a people gradually becomes depraved, if it sells its votes, if it hands over the government to wicked and criminal men, then that power of conferring honors is rightly taken from such a people and restored to those who are good."

Now, in our world we have one party that shamelessly purchases votes with cash and other valuable prizes stolen from the productive half of the population; this would of course be the Democrats. 

At the other extreme, we have a party that pretends not to do the same thing, i.e., Republicans. This is why the self-dealing degenerates of both parties so hated (and hate) Trump, and by extension, us. They are united in their contempt for the Good. 

The Founders of course knew that democracy eventually degenerates into mob rule, and thus tried to design a government around this melancholy fact. Everything the left does is designed to transform this M.F. into a principle -- a principle designed to counter and undo the work of the Founders.

But it's not really a principle -- unless an utter lack of principle can be elevated to one. This is why it is so futile to point out the daily hypocrisies of the left -- e.g., yesterday only the tinfoil hat crowd believed COVID was invented by the Chinese, today everyone knows it was. That's not hypocrisy, just the usual absence of principle. 

Note that the lack of principle is the left's version of "freedom." Any controlling principle would place constraints on the exercise of power, and in the struggle between principle and power, it's no contest. Expediency wins every time. 

This is also why the self-styled progressive does indeed progress: in the direction of absurdity. We are beyond the age of mere stupidity and well into the Age of Absurdity. 

This is what makes it all so unsettling. We'd like to think that what cannot continue won't continue, but this is probably what Augustine thought on the occasion of that previous barbarian invasion. They're just a disorganized bunch of illiterate malcontents. Besides, Twitter hasn't even been invented. What harm can they do to Civilization?

The current barbarian invasion has already breached the walls of nearly every institution of western civilization, e.g., the family, education at every level, journalism, science, art, entertainment. Even supposing we yanked on the brake right now, sheer momentum would carry the graveyard train forward another 50 years.

Which, in the Chinese perspective on history, is known as "six months."

You know how the left says "the personal is political?" Well, yes. If you can only manage to destroy the person, then there will be no limit to your political power. Regarding politics, Aristotle

starts from the study of the family, the first human community. The father, who rules the family, must deal, in one fashion with his wife, in another with his children, in still another with his slaves ["slave" is not the preferred nomenclature: helot-American laborer of color, please].

Hence, the family has been under constant assault by the left since forever, with predicable results: less stable families, more power for the left. It's why they want women to deny their natural inclinations and toil outside the home, why they want to subsidize bureaucratcare for children, why they disparage masculinity, why they redefine marriage, etc. You can't say the effort hasn't paid off. 

This is producing hordes of people who are simply unfit for the rigors of freedom -- even of free speech! Paraphrasing Thomas, Fr. Reginald writes that

the man who cannot provide for himself should work for, and be directed by, one wiser than himself.

Clearly not everyone is cut out for freedom. Indeed, there are whole continents and cultures that can't manage it. Problem is, the left once again elevates this to a kind of principle -- as if none of us can get by without the aggressive intervention of Big Sister because some can't. 

This reminds me of an observation by Schuon to the effect that we must recognize that there are indeed a great many adults that can't get by without adult supervision. It's a caste thing. 

There exist people --  e.g., the criminal, the revolutionary, the tenured -- for whom mere obedience to human norms would constitute their great virtue. All are badly in need of a proper Father. All evoke the reurn of the primordial Father, except in the form of the tyrant. Or perhaps a harmless looking vegetable as the face of tyranny. 

Random Thoughts on the Passing (Please!) Scene

St. Thomas thought about everything, including politics. When a degenerate people hand power over to demagogues, then "the elective power should, if it be possible, be taken from the multitude and restored to those who are good."

This seems too sensible to be remotely possible. Still, why should a bad and degenerate people have the right to make Biden the most powerful vegetable on earth?

St. Augustine was also on the case over 1500 years ago: "If a people gradually becomes depraved, if it sells its votes, if it hands over the government to wicked and criminal men, then that power of conferring honors is rightly taken from such a people and restored to those who are good."

Now, in our world we have one party that shamelessly purchases votes with cash and other valuable prizes stolen from the productive half of the population; this would of course be the Democrats. 

At the other extreme, we have a party that pretends not to do the same thing, i.e., Republicans. This is why the self-dealing degenerates of both parties so hated (and hate) Trump, and by extension, us. They are united in their contempt for the Good. 

The Founders of course knew that democracy eventually degenerates into mob rule, and thus tried to design a government around this melancholy fact. Everything the left does is designed to transform this M.F. into a principle -- a principle designed to counter and undo the work of the Founders.

But it's not really a principle -- unless an utter lack of principle can be elevated to one. This is why it is so futile to point out the daily hypocrisies of the left -- e.g., yesterday only the tinfoil hat crowd believed COVID was invented by the Chinese, today everyone knows it was. That's not hypocrisy, just the usual absence of principle. 

Note that the lack of principle is the left's version of "freedom." Any controlling principle would place constraints on the exercise of power, and in the struggle between principle and power, it's no contest. Expediency wins every time. 

This is also why the self-styled progressive does indeed progress: in the direction of absurdity. We are beyond the age of mere stupidity and well into the Age of Absurdity. 

This is what makes it all so unsettling. We'd like to think that what cannot continue won't continue, but this is probably what Augustine thought on the occasion of that previous barbarian invasion. They're just a disorganized bunch of illiterate malcontents. Besides, Twitter hasn't even been invented. What harm can they do to Civilization?

The current barbarian invasion has already breached the walls of nearly every institution of western civilization, e.g., the family, education at every level, journalism, science, art, entertainment. Even supposing we yanked on the brake right now, sheer momentum would carry the graveyard train forward another 50 years.

Which, in the Chinese perspective on history, is known as "six months."

You know how the left says "the personal is political?" Well, yes. If you can only manage to destroy the person, then there will be no limit to your political power. Regarding politics, Aristotle

starts from the study of the family, the first human community. The father, who rules the family, must deal, in one fashion with his wife, in another with his children, in still another with his slaves ["slave" is not the preferred nomenclature: helot-American laborer of color, please].

Hence, the family has been under constant assault by the left since forever, with predicable results: less stable families, more power for the left. It's why they want women to deny their natural inclinations and toil outside the home, why they want to subsidize bureaucratcare for children, why they disparage masculinity, why they redefine marriage, etc. You can't say the effort hasn't paid off. 

This is producing hordes of people who are simply unfit for the rigors of freedom -- even of free speech! Paraphrasing Thomas, Fr. Reginald writes that

the man who cannot provide for himself should work for, and be directed by, one wiser than himself.

Clearly not everyone is cut out for freedom. Indeed, there are whole continents and cultures that can't manage it. Problem is, the left once again elevates this to a kind of principle -- as if none of us can get by without the aggressive intervention of Big Sister because some can't. 

This reminds me of an observation by Schuon to the effect that we must recognize that there are indeed a great many adults that can't get by without adult supervision. It's a caste thing. 

There exist people --  e.g., the criminal, the revolutionary, the tenured -- for whom mere obedience to human norms would constitute their great virtue. All are badly in need of a proper Father. All evoke the reurn of the primordial Father, except in the form of the tyrant. Or perhaps a harmless looking vegetable as the face of tyranny. 

Codgertations

In the past, posts have generally appeared between around 8:00 and 10:00 AM. Since there's no longer any morning rush, expect them to appear closer to midday. 

This isn't a post, just some loose ends before moving on to another subject.

In everything there is a shadow of nothing, but also an echo of eternity. A tension known only to man, and which defines man. 

The distance between man and God isn't as great as the distance between God and man. Thank God!

The present moment is the only place where one may fall upward or struggle downward. No one is obligated to cooperate with grace, but why use wings for digging?

What is implied by the Son and not Father incarnating? Probably the same as the Son being engendered: the Incarnation must be a fractal of the Trinity. Like everything else.

If ultimate reality is an irreducible Substance-in-Relation, then Father-Son is the one substance in eternal relation. Thus, in the giving of his Substance Christ gives the Relation.

If God is the Supreme Cause, then isn't he also the Supreme Effect? Perhaps the Farther is the First Cause, the Son the First Effect. Only from eternity.  

Unity and multiplicity, the anabolism of catabolism of being, constituting the metabolism of spirit.

Supreme Being implies Supreme Becoming. Absolute and Infinite, Creator and Creativity, One and Many.

Who came first, the Person or the Persons? Neither. Person presupposes the principle of Relation. Except the Relation is also a person. 

Codgertations

In the past, posts have generally appeared between around 8:00 and 10:00 AM. Since there's no longer any morning rush, expect them to appear closer to midday. 

This isn't a post, just some loose ends before moving on to another subject.

In everything there is a shadow of nothing, but also an echo of eternity. A tension known only to man, and which defines man. 

The distance between man and God isn't as great as the distance between God and man. Thank God!

The present moment is the only place where one may fall upward or struggle downward. No one is obligated to cooperate with grace, but why use wings for digging?

What is implied by the Son and not Father incarnating? Probably the same as the Son being engendered: the Incarnation must be a fractal of the Trinity. Like everything else.

If ultimate reality is an irreducible Substance-in-Relation, then Father-Son is the one substance in eternal relation. Thus, in the giving of his Substance Christ gives the Relation.

If God is the Supreme Cause, then isn't he also the Supreme Effect? Perhaps the Farther is the First Cause, the Son the First Effect. Only from eternity.  

Unity and multiplicity, the anabolism of catabolism of being, constituting the metabolism of spirit.

Supreme Being implies Supreme Becoming. Absolute and Infinite, Creator and Creativity, One and Many.

Who came first, the Person or the Persons? Neither. Person presupposes the principle of Relation. Except the Relation is also a person. 

Down the Rabbit Hole of Experience

We're just flipping through Keys to the Beyond, looking for one that might unlock the doors. Of perception. And of realization, i.e., intellect and heart, respectively. Knowledge is one thing, its realization another -- at least for this kind of knowledge, which is always experiential. 

Which is interesting, for what is "experience" anyway? In a moment I'll look it up, but obviously any conceivable definition presumes someone there to experience it -- in both the writer and reader. Like "being," it's too general to be defined with precision, as it encompasses everything. 

We've been down this rabbit hole before, but who is "I" but the experience of pure subjectivity? And what is "AM" but its specification? Thus, I AM WHO I AM is more than a mythful. I AM applies to us, but goes double for God.

Ex•pe•ri•ence: direct observation of or participation in events: an encountering, undergoing, or living through things in general as they take place in the course of time.

Observation, participation, encountering, undergoing, living, time. Now, to define, according to the same dictionary, is to determine, limit, conclude, bring to an end, etc. The problem is, experience is literally boundless and unlimited, so it can't actually be defined. It is what it is, but more importantly, it is who I am, and more.

So let's not pretend we know what experience is, much less the experience of experience. That latter is purely immaterial, but this doesn't convey much, since 1) we don't know what matter is, and 2) "immaterial" is just the negation of the matter of which we already stipulated we are ignorant. Does this mean that the immaterial world is just ignorance²?

That can't be right, since the immaterial world is precisely where everything happens -- knowledge, experience, being, etc. 

I'm always trying to think of the title of the unwritten book. If I could only come up with the perfect title, the book would write itself. One rejected title was The Metaphysics of Jesus. The idea was to go through his words line by line in order to explicate the deepest structure of reality. 

First of all, if Jesus is the Truth, then not only should everything he say be true in the colloquial sense, but also relate the truth about the nature of things, about ultimate reality. 

Example. His first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark are The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. There are many ways to interpret these words -- for example, what they mean in the context of Judaism, but what is the deeper principle by virtue of which they are true? Or, what is the ultimate principle they explicate? 

"Time is fulfilled," for example, clearly implies that temporality must be something more than mere quantitative duration or meaningless change. Rather, to say that time can be "fulfilled" means at the very least that time had theretofore been unfulfilled, but what can this mean?  

To the dictionary! Fulfill: to make full; to supply the missing parts of: make whole; integrate: to carry out: accomplish, execute; to finish out, bring to an end; etc. 

Once again our definition doesn't de-limit or reduce, but rather, is incredibly expansive. But if Jesus is correct, it certainly means that "prior" to his presence, time is an impoverished thing: it is wounded and scattered instead of complete or integrated, nor has it accomplished its purpose and achieved its end.

That's a lot to ponder. 

Anyway, back to the Keys. Laude quotes Schuon in a footnote, who says

The desire to enclose universal Reality in an exclusive and exhaustive "explanation" brings with it a permanent disequilibrium due to the interferences of Maya; moreover, it is just this disequilibrium and this anxiety that are the life of modern philosophy.

Well, first of all, this desire to enclose reality within our own categories has been declared against the Law by Deputy Gödel. But whence the disequilibrium? This occurs because any manmode explanation not only excludes a great deal, but necessarily excludes a great deal more than it can ever include. And what we exclude always comes back to bite us in the aseity.

For example, how much bigger is infinitude than finitude? Now you know why the tenured not only explain such an infinitesimally small portion of reality, but unexplain so much more in the process. 

Laude talks about the need for a coherent metalanguage with which to map supra-reality. In the case of Jesus mentioned above, we see that he generally uses ordinary language to advert to the extra-ordinary. What would the same point look like in strict meta-language?

Let's face it, infinitude is a big place. How do we tame it, or cut it down to size? Think about linear thought and language. It can never do the job. Okay, how about circular? Now we're getting somewhere, but it all depends on the size of your circle. Laude alludes to the "spherical" quality of Schuon's writing. This is the way to go.

To be continued...

Down the Rabbit Hole of Experience

We're just flipping through Keys to the Beyond, looking for one that might unlock the doors. Of perception. And of realization, i.e., intellect and heart, respectively. Knowledge is one thing, its realization another -- at least for this kind of knowledge, which is always experiential. 

Which is interesting, for what is "experience" anyway? In a moment I'll look it up, but obviously any conceivable definition presumes someone there to experience it -- in both the writer and reader. Like "being," it's too general to be defined with precision, as it encompasses everything. 

We've been down this rabbit hole before, but who is "I" but the experience of pure subjectivity? And what is "AM" but its specification? Thus, I AM WHO I AM is more than a mythful. I AM applies to us, but goes double for God.

Ex•pe•ri•ence: direct observation of or participation in events: an encountering, undergoing, or living through things in general as they take place in the course of time.

Observation, participation, encountering, undergoing, living, time. Now, to define, according to the same dictionary, is to determine, limit, conclude, bring to an end, etc. The problem is, experience is literally boundless and unlimited, so it can't actually be defined. It is what it is, but more importantly, it is who I am, and more.

So let's not pretend we know what experience is, much less the experience of experience. That latter is purely immaterial, but this doesn't convey much, since 1) we don't know what matter is, and 2) "immaterial" is just the negation of the matter of which we already stipulated we are ignorant. Does this mean that the immaterial world is just ignorance²?

That can't be right, since the immaterial world is precisely where everything happens -- knowledge, experience, being, etc. 

I'm always trying to think of the title of the unwritten book. If I could only come up with the perfect title, the book would write itself. One rejected title was The Metaphysics of Jesus. The idea was to go through his words line by line in order to explicate the deepest structure of reality. 

First of all, if Jesus is the Truth, then not only should everything he say be true in the colloquial sense, but also relate the truth about the nature of things, about ultimate reality. 

Example. His first recorded words in the Gospel of Mark are The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. There are many ways to interpret these words -- for example, what they mean in the context of Judaism, but what is the deeper principle by virtue of which they are true? Or, what is the ultimate principle they explicate? 

"Time is fulfilled," for example, clearly implies that temporality must be something more than mere quantitative duration or meaningless change. Rather, to say that time can be "fulfilled" means at the very least that time had theretofore been unfulfilled, but what can this mean?  

To the dictionary! Fulfill: to make full; to supply the missing parts of: make whole; integrate: to carry out: accomplish, execute; to finish out, bring to an end; etc. 

Once again our definition doesn't de-limit or reduce, but rather, is incredibly expansive. But if Jesus is correct, it certainly means that "prior" to his presence, time is an impoverished thing: it is wounded and scattered instead of complete or integrated, nor has it accomplished its purpose and achieved its end.

That's a lot to ponder. 

Anyway, back to the Keys. Laude quotes Schuon in a footnote, who says

The desire to enclose universal Reality in an exclusive and exhaustive "explanation" brings with it a permanent disequilibrium due to the interferences of Maya; moreover, it is just this disequilibrium and this anxiety that are the life of modern philosophy.

Well, first of all, this desire to enclose reality within our own categories has been declared against the Law by Deputy Gödel. But whence the disequilibrium? This occurs because any manmode explanation not only excludes a great deal, but necessarily excludes a great deal more than it can ever include. And what we exclude always comes back to bite us in the aseity.

For example, how much bigger is infinitude than finitude? Now you know why the tenured not only explain such an infinitesimally small portion of reality, but unexplain so much more in the process. 

Laude talks about the need for a coherent metalanguage with which to map supra-reality. In the case of Jesus mentioned above, we see that he generally uses ordinary language to advert to the extra-ordinary. What would the same point look like in strict meta-language?

Let's face it, infinitude is a big place. How do we tame it, or cut it down to size? Think about linear thought and language. It can never do the job. Okay, how about circular? Now we're getting somewhere, but it all depends on the size of your circle. Laude alludes to the "spherical" quality of Schuon's writing. This is the way to go.

To be continued...

Outer and Inner Limits

This post goes over a lot of well-trod ground. I suppose it might be helpful to newbies, if such readers exist. It lays a foundation, but that's all. The next post will take a flying leap from the foundation to the ground.

 "Metaphysics," writes Laude, "pertains to the super-ontological realm, or to Beyond-Being, the Essence, and can be best characterized, therefore, by paradoxical expressions: it is the science of the limitless and the knowledge of the unknowable."

For some readers this will make perfect nonsense, while for others it will be the other way around. 

One thing we need to get out of the way at the outset: no, we're not just trying to be abstruse or mystagogic, much less clever or cute. We hate cute as much as the next guy.

Consider mundane science: of necessity it operates within limits. The moment it steps outside its own proper limits it becomes either oogily-boogily scientism or woohoo deepakery, thus proving that extremists meet.

Metaphysics is to science as, say, paragraph is to story -- except to say that this story must ultimately be circular, more on which as we proceed. For now let's just nod in silent agreement with the Aphorist, who points out that

Without philosophy, the sciences do not know what they know.

Moreover,

Properly speaking, the social sciences are not inexact sciences, but sciences of the inexact.

Thus, a science of the limitless is equally a science of the inexact, bearing in mind that the latter is not synonymous with incertitude. True, God is a mathematician, but not only a mathematician. As it pertains to metaphysics, Einstein was no Einstein.

I'm suddenly reminded of a book by Stanley Jaki called The Limits of a Limitless Science. Supposing the scientific method reveals (lower case) truth -- which it does -- then

since no tool used by man matches even remotely the effectiveness and range of the tool called science, one may rightly say that there is nothing so important as to ascertain the limits to which science can rightfully be put to use.

I've been thinking about this lately vis-a-vis the undeniable power of genetics to illuminate human intelligence, personality, and behavior. Nevertheless, while reductionism is a permanent temptation, it must always be rejected on pain of placing an arbitrary limit on the limitless. 

How could a limited method yield a limitless result? This is like the proverbial frog at the bottom of a well proclaiming with complete certitude that the sky is a little blue circle. 

Which it is, granted a limited perspective. And all perspectives are limited, save one: the perspective of metaphysics, which provides a meta-language to vault us into the meta-limits.  

One (1) is a quantity, and in fact, the basis of any and all quantities, being that the latter are multiples of one. But one is also -- and even prior to quantity -- a quality. This is because one plus one cannot actually equal two in the absence of a prior unicity in which the two can reveal their oneness.  Placing one rock atop another doesn't actually make them one rock. 

"Science ceases to be competent"  

whenever a proposition is such as to have no quantitative bearing. The alternatives -- to be or not to be, to be free or not to be free, to act for a purpose or no purpose at all, to have inalienable rights or to not have them -- cannot be evaluated in inches or ounces, in volts or in amperes, in frequencies or in wavelengths (Jaki). 

A moment's reflection on this axiomatic truth reveals "that the limits of science are vast as well as very specific." Indeed, language itself -- which is obviously not a mere quantity -- "must point far beyond the limits of science" (ibid.). 

And in any event, "as long as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems are valid, the mathematical structure of [a final] theory cannot contain within itself its own proof of consistency" (ibid.). Which means that the most Ultimate Theory conceivable by man can only be penultimate. For obviously, 

Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything (Dávila). 

Another way of framing our analysis is to affirm that subjectivity and objectivity are complementary, but that the former can never be reduced to the latter. Just what is the subject? An object? A quantity? An illusion? 

C'mon man! The Subject is either a primordial category or it isn't, and if not, then you are facing the wrong way. Stop pretending your limits are the limits. You're like a chicken that can't find its way out when placed in a corner.

Metaphysical Dunning-Kruger. You'd better believe it's real. And 

Those who reject all metaphysics secretly harbor the coarsest.

Outer and Inner Limits

This post goes over a lot of well-trod ground. I suppose it might be helpful to newbies, if such readers exist. It lays a foundation, but that's all. The next post will take a flying leap from the foundation to the ground.

 "Metaphysics," writes Laude, "pertains to the super-ontological realm, or to Beyond-Being, the Essence, and can be best characterized, therefore, by paradoxical expressions: it is the science of the limitless and the knowledge of the unknowable."

For some readers this will make perfect nonsense, while for others it will be the other way around. 

One thing we need to get out of the way at the outset: no, we're not just trying to be abstruse or mystagogic, much less clever or cute. We hate cute as much as the next guy.

Consider mundane science: of necessity it operates within limits. The moment it steps outside its own proper limits it becomes either oogily-boogily scientism or woohoo deepakery, thus proving that extremists meet.

Metaphysics is to science as, say, paragraph is to story -- except to say that this story must ultimately be circular, more on which as we proceed. For now let's just nod in silent agreement with the Aphorist, who points out that

Without philosophy, the sciences do not know what they know.

Moreover,

Properly speaking, the social sciences are not inexact sciences, but sciences of the inexact.

Thus, a science of the limitless is equally a science of the inexact, bearing in mind that the latter is not synonymous with incertitude. True, God is a mathematician, but not only a mathematician. As it pertains to metaphysics, Einstein was no Einstein.

I'm suddenly reminded of a book by Stanley Jaki called The Limits of a Limitless Science. Supposing the scientific method reveals (lower case) truth -- which it does -- then

since no tool used by man matches even remotely the effectiveness and range of the tool called science, one may rightly say that there is nothing so important as to ascertain the limits to which science can rightfully be put to use.

I've been thinking about this lately vis-a-vis the undeniable power of genetics to illuminate human intelligence, personality, and behavior. Nevertheless, while reductionism is a permanent temptation, it must always be rejected on pain of placing an arbitrary limit on the limitless. 

How could a limited method yield a limitless result? This is like the proverbial frog at the bottom of a well proclaiming with complete certitude that the sky is a little blue circle. 

Which it is, granted a limited perspective. And all perspectives are limited, save one: the perspective of metaphysics, which provides a meta-language to vault us into the meta-limits.  

One (1) is a quantity, and in fact, the basis of any and all quantities, being that the latter are multiples of one. But one is also -- and even prior to quantity -- a quality. This is because one plus one cannot actually equal two in the absence of a prior unicity in which the two can reveal their oneness.  Placing one rock atop another doesn't actually make them one rock. 

"Science ceases to be competent"  

whenever a proposition is such as to have no quantitative bearing. The alternatives -- to be or not to be, to be free or not to be free, to act for a purpose or no purpose at all, to have inalienable rights or to not have them -- cannot be evaluated in inches or ounces, in volts or in amperes, in frequencies or in wavelengths (Jaki). 

A moment's reflection on this axiomatic truth reveals "that the limits of science are vast as well as very specific." Indeed, language itself -- which is obviously not a mere quantity -- "must point far beyond the limits of science" (ibid.). 

And in any event, "as long as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems are valid, the mathematical structure of [a final] theory cannot contain within itself its own proof of consistency" (ibid.). Which means that the most Ultimate Theory conceivable by man can only be penultimate. For obviously, 

Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything (Dávila). 

Another way of framing our analysis is to affirm that subjectivity and objectivity are complementary, but that the former can never be reduced to the latter. Just what is the subject? An object? A quantity? An illusion? 

C'mon man! The Subject is either a primordial category or it isn't, and if not, then you are facing the wrong way. Stop pretending your limits are the limits. You're like a chicken that can't find its way out when placed in a corner.

Metaphysical Dunning-Kruger. You'd better believe it's real. And 

Those who reject all metaphysics secretly harbor the coarsest.

To Reality, and Beyond!

I mentioned in a comment that I've been leisurely alternating between two books, one called Reality, the other called Keys to the Beyond. It's a little like going back and forth between alternate universes -- I was about to say "parallel" universes, but that can't be right, since there can only be one.  

Nor is it like choosing a neighborhood to live in -- for example, this one is more expensive but has better schools, while that one is more... vibrant but has more crime.

If one of these cosmic neighborhoods is Reality, the other is Beyond Reality, so they're not really parallel, but rather, perpendicular. Assuming there's something beyond reality.

But wait: how can there be something more real than reality? We'll get to that, but let's start with this: 

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

Are we not men? Check. Is not the mind our highest power? Check. Is not God the highest intelligible object? Check. Thomas:

man must immortalize himself, by striving with all his might to live according to what is most excellent in himself. This principle is higher than all the rest. It is the spirit which makes man essentially man.

Immortalizing ourselves by living in accord with what is most excellent in ourselves, whatever the cost... Isn't that what makes a man? Ummm, sure. That and a pair of testicles. 

You're joking. But perhaps man is only man when surpassing himself, which would imply that reality too is a descent from something more real. This probably wasn't clear, but soon it will be, perhaps even to me.

The point is that reality is always pregnant with possibilities, and the possibilities are infinite. This being the case, to say reality is to advert to a deeper or higher source, i.e., something paradoxically beyond what we call reality. 

Let's remind ourselves that the metacosmos is circular, or a kind of nonlocal spiraling movement that ceaselessly goes out of, and returns to, its source. At the summit of metaphysics is the convergence of essence and existence, AKA God:

This supreme truth is the terminus, the goal, of the ascending road [↑] which rises from the sense world to God, and the point of departure on the descending road [↓], which deduces the attributes of God and determines the relation between God and world.

In reality, it is ↺, since God is the ultimate cause of both movements. The first movement is from effects to cause, while the second is from cause to effects or entailments. Or, we could say many-to-One and One-to-many, or just unity and diversity, bearing in mind that the former is inconceivable in a universe of pure multiplicity. While the two are complementary, Unity is necessarily prior.

Here's where things get a little ambiguous in this cosmic neighborhood. Fr. Reginald points out that

The first cause, being uncaused, must have in itself the reason for its existence. But the reason why it cannot cause itself is that it must be before it can cause. Hence, not having received existence, it must be existence (emphases mine). 

True enough. But what if it receives Being from Beyond-Being? "In God alone are essence and existence identified." In other words, God is the the being whose essence is to exist. But who's to say this is the end of the line? 

In the next post we'll tour the other cosmic neighborhood.  

To Reality, and Beyond!

I mentioned in a comment that I've been leisurely alternating between two books, one called Reality, the other called Keys to the Beyond. It's a little like going back and forth between alternate universes -- I was about to say "parallel" universes, but that can't be right, since there can only be one.  

Nor is it like choosing a neighborhood to live in -- for example, this one is more expensive but has better schools, while that one is more... vibrant but has more crime.

If one of these cosmic neighborhoods is Reality, the other is Beyond Reality, so they're not really parallel, but rather, perpendicular. Assuming there's something beyond reality.

But wait: how can there be something more real than reality? We'll get to that, but let's start with this: 

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

Are we not men? Check. Is not the mind our highest power? Check. Is not God the highest intelligible object? Check. Thomas:

man must immortalize himself, by striving with all his might to live according to what is most excellent in himself. This principle is higher than all the rest. It is the spirit which makes man essentially man.

Immortalizing ourselves by living in accord with what is most excellent in ourselves, whatever the cost... Isn't that what makes a man? Ummm, sure. That and a pair of testicles. 

You're joking. But perhaps man is only man when surpassing himself, which would imply that reality too is a descent from something more real. This probably wasn't clear, but soon it will be, perhaps even to me.

The point is that reality is always pregnant with possibilities, and the possibilities are infinite. This being the case, to say reality is to advert to a deeper or higher source, i.e., something paradoxically beyond what we call reality. 

Let's remind ourselves that the metacosmos is circular, or a kind of nonlocal spiraling movement that ceaselessly goes out of, and returns to, its source. At the summit of metaphysics is the convergence of essence and existence, AKA God:

This supreme truth is the terminus, the goal, of the ascending road [↑] which rises from the sense world to God, and the point of departure on the descending road [↓], which deduces the attributes of God and determines the relation between God and world.

In reality, it is ↺, since God is the ultimate cause of both movements. The first movement is from effects to cause, while the second is from cause to effects or entailments. Or, we could say many-to-One and One-to-many, or just unity and diversity, bearing in mind that the former is inconceivable in a universe of pure multiplicity. While the two are complementary, Unity is necessarily prior.

Here's where things get a little ambiguous in this cosmic neighborhood. Fr. Reginald points out that

The first cause, being uncaused, must have in itself the reason for its existence. But the reason why it cannot cause itself is that it must be before it can cause. Hence, not having received existence, it must be existence (emphases mine). 

True enough. But what if it receives Being from Beyond-Being? "In God alone are essence and existence identified." In other words, God is the the being whose essence is to exist. But who's to say this is the end of the line? 

In the next post we'll tour the other cosmic neighborhood.  

Everything New is Old Again

Yesterday an idea occurred to me that may provide an explanatory key to the surreal -- or subreal, rather -- times we're living in. I was about to say "living through," but this presupposes we'll actually get through them, and who knows? We may have reached the final naked, insurmountable contradiction of...

Marxists like to highlight the contradictions inherent to capitalism, but if I am correct, the trouble with Marxism is that it's not nearly radical enough. For what if I told you that... 

Before getting to my thoughts on the subject, this is from the CPUSA's *very own* website:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of capitalism are holding us back. We live in the richest, most productive, most interconnected society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* some of us are overworked, others are underemployed, and millions live in poverty.

This glaring social contradiction, the class divide, comes about because capitalism is *designed* to allow a few individuals profit from the work of the vast majority. The *purpose* of capitalism is to make profits for the few individuals *lucky* enough to own a big piece of the pie. It’s very efficient at making rich people richer.

Let's analyze this passage, but first a word from our sponsor: yes,

THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S GOT SWAG! (https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-communist-partys-got-swag/)

For quite some time now, we have been receiving requests from comrades all over the country who are interested in purchasing CPUSA merchandise. You have been heard – we are excited to announce the launch of our first ever official web store! Three unique t-shirts are available for purchase. Bulk orders are eligible for special pricing. 

No piece the pie for you! 

Marxists and their progressive children continue to be convinced that they've "dug down to the bottom of things." Problem is, if you're a materialist you don't have to dig very far before you reach the bottom. And yet, leftists keeps digging long after they've hit bottom. 

Why? You'd think the left would put away their shovels once they've established that Bruce is Caitlyn, George Floyd is a hero, paleface Liz is an Indian, Michelle Obama is oppressed by something other than her low IQ, race riots are peaceful, a man's spouse is his husband, and Joe Biden is competent. 

Come to think of it, for a materialist the bottom is the top, and vice versa: one makes extremes meet by simply eliminating one of them. I get it: a simpleminded explanation appeals to the simpleminded. But why eradicate the fun side, AKA the soul? 

Regarding the Inchoate Idea that Occurred to Me Yesterday, let's reframe what our comrade says above about getting to the bottom of the trouble:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of HUMAN NATURE are holding us back. We live in the FREEST society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* it results in INEQUALITY.

Now, anyone but the village progressive will quickly realize that what the left calls a "contradiction" is actually a logical entailment: that the more people are free to reveal their preferences, their abilities, their intelligence, etc., the more inequality will result. This is an insight worthy of Captain Obvious.

But let's "really dig down to the bottom." First of all, as it pertains to human beings, what is the bottom? Once we've ruled out all the red herrings such as "class," "privilege," "patriarchy," "profit motive," et al, we're left with human nature. D'oh!

Now, first of all, materialists deny that such a thing exists, which is in turn the principle upon which the left is founded; in short, leftist polices can only succeed if there is no such thing as human nature (or, they can succeed, but only on a species with a different nature).

We're seeing this principle play out in real time with the Great Mystery of how unemployment can be up *despite* the fact that people are being paid not to work. How can this be? Some might suggest that perhaps it has to do with human nature -- that people understand incentives and know what's in their best interests. But the left knows better. 

Here again, preference can only be revealed in the context of freedom. If people are free to get paid for not working, guess what will happen?

The same thing occurs when men and women are free to choose their vocational paths: men are far more likely to choose careers involving abstractions or objects, while women are more apt to pursue careers involving interpersonal relations. Freedom reveals human nature. Equality would require forcing women into fields for which they have no intrinsic interest, i.e, are against their nature.

We're still in Captain Obvious territory and still haven't gotten to the main point, which is this: yes, these are crazy times we're living in. But what if the regime of Wokeness isn't some sort of mysterious aberration? What if it's just raw human nature, what man is if he is allowed to be, i.e., if there are no constraints on its expression?

Come to think of it, many Aphorisms go precisely to this subject. I might add that, when we really dig down to the bottom of things, we see that there is 1) human nature, and 2) a cure for human nature, about which we'll have more to say later. Suffice it to say, human nature is a genuine diagnosis, so don't get confused by this or that symptom, for example, envy, or hatred of reality, or sexual conflict.

And certainly don't be surprised at mob behavior, scapegoating, projection, and appeasement of imaginary gods via human sacrifice. It's what humans do and have always done.  Nor do humans have the power to cure human nature. That would require an intervention from on high, from something transcending humanness.

We'll conclude with a dozen aphorisms, each of which touches on a different aspect of the deep down problem of human nature:

--To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.

--Human nature always takes the progressive by surprise.

--Liberals can be divided into those who believe that wickedness is curable and those who deny that it exists.

--Man is not educated through knowledge of things but through knowledge of man.

--Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.

--Those who remove man’s chains free only an animal. 

--Authentic humanism is built upon the discernment of human insufficiency.

--Today the individual rebels against inalterable human nature in order to refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

--The conservative is a simple pathologist. He defines sickness and health. But God is the only therapist.

--What is called the modern mentality is the process of exonerating the deadly sins.

--Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

--An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how imbecilic it may be. --Dávila x 12

Everything New is Old Again

Yesterday an idea occurred to me that may provide an explanatory key to the surreal -- or subreal, rather -- times we're living in. I was about to say "living through," but this presupposes we'll actually get through them, and who knows? We may have reached the final naked, insurmountable contradiction of...

Marxists like to highlight the contradictions inherent to capitalism, but if I am correct, the trouble with Marxism is that it's not nearly radical enough. For what if I told you that... 

Before getting to my thoughts on the subject, this is from the CPUSA's *very own* website:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of capitalism are holding us back. We live in the richest, most productive, most interconnected society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* some of us are overworked, others are underemployed, and millions live in poverty.

This glaring social contradiction, the class divide, comes about because capitalism is *designed* to allow a few individuals profit from the work of the vast majority. The *purpose* of capitalism is to make profits for the few individuals *lucky* enough to own a big piece of the pie. It’s very efficient at making rich people richer.

Let's analyze this passage, but first a word from our sponsor: yes,

THE COMMUNIST PARTY'S GOT SWAG! (https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-communist-partys-got-swag/)

For quite some time now, we have been receiving requests from comrades all over the country who are interested in purchasing CPUSA merchandise. You have been heard – we are excited to announce the launch of our first ever official web store! Three unique t-shirts are available for purchase. Bulk orders are eligible for special pricing. 

No piece the pie for you! 

Marxists and their progressive children continue to be convinced that they've "dug down to the bottom of things." Problem is, if you're a materialist you don't have to dig very far before you reach the bottom. And yet, leftists keeps digging long after they've hit bottom. 

Why? You'd think the left would put away their shovels once they've established that Bruce is Caitlyn, George Floyd is a hero, paleface Liz is an Indian, Michelle Obama is oppressed by something other than her low IQ, race riots are peaceful, a man's spouse is his husband, and Joe Biden is competent. 

Come to think of it, for a materialist the bottom is the top, and vice versa: one makes extremes meet by simply eliminating one of them. I get it: a simpleminded explanation appeals to the simpleminded. But why eradicate the fun side, AKA the soul? 

Regarding the Inchoate Idea that Occurred to Me Yesterday, let's reframe what our comrade says above about getting to the bottom of the trouble:

When we really dig down to the bottom of things, the contradictions of HUMAN NATURE are holding us back. We live in the FREEST society that has ever existed on Earth, *and yet* it results in INEQUALITY.

Now, anyone but the village progressive will quickly realize that what the left calls a "contradiction" is actually a logical entailment: that the more people are free to reveal their preferences, their abilities, their intelligence, etc., the more inequality will result. This is an insight worthy of Captain Obvious.

But let's "really dig down to the bottom." First of all, as it pertains to human beings, what is the bottom? Once we've ruled out all the red herrings such as "class," "privilege," "patriarchy," "profit motive," et al, we're left with human nature. D'oh!

Now, first of all, materialists deny that such a thing exists, which is in turn the principle upon which the left is founded; in short, leftist polices can only succeed if there is no such thing as human nature (or, they can succeed, but only on a species with a different nature).

We're seeing this principle play out in real time with the Great Mystery of how unemployment can be up *despite* the fact that people are being paid not to work. How can this be? Some might suggest that perhaps it has to do with human nature -- that people understand incentives and know what's in their best interests. But the left knows better. 

Here again, preference can only be revealed in the context of freedom. If people are free to get paid for not working, guess what will happen?

The same thing occurs when men and women are free to choose their vocational paths: men are far more likely to choose careers involving abstractions or objects, while women are more apt to pursue careers involving interpersonal relations. Freedom reveals human nature. Equality would require forcing women into fields for which they have no intrinsic interest, i.e, are against their nature.

We're still in Captain Obvious territory and still haven't gotten to the main point, which is this: yes, these are crazy times we're living in. But what if the regime of Wokeness isn't some sort of mysterious aberration? What if it's just raw human nature, what man is if he is allowed to be, i.e., if there are no constraints on its expression?

Come to think of it, many Aphorisms go precisely to this subject. I might add that, when we really dig down to the bottom of things, we see that there is 1) human nature, and 2) a cure for human nature, about which we'll have more to say later. Suffice it to say, human nature is a genuine diagnosis, so don't get confused by this or that symptom, for example, envy, or hatred of reality, or sexual conflict.

And certainly don't be surprised at mob behavior, scapegoating, projection, and appeasement of imaginary gods via human sacrifice. It's what humans do and have always done.  Nor do humans have the power to cure human nature. That would require an intervention from on high, from something transcending humanness.

We'll conclude with a dozen aphorisms, each of which touches on a different aspect of the deep down problem of human nature:

--To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.

--Human nature always takes the progressive by surprise.

--Liberals can be divided into those who believe that wickedness is curable and those who deny that it exists.

--Man is not educated through knowledge of things but through knowledge of man.

--Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.

--Those who remove man’s chains free only an animal. 

--Authentic humanism is built upon the discernment of human insufficiency.

--Today the individual rebels against inalterable human nature in order to refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

--The conservative is a simple pathologist. He defines sickness and health. But God is the only therapist.

--What is called the modern mentality is the process of exonerating the deadly sins.

--Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.

--An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how imbecilic it may be. --Dávila x 12

Escaping into Reality

Do you sometimes want to just leave politics behind and escape into reality? 

I know I do, but let me first get some aphorisms off my chest: 

God gave man the miraculous power to name things. True, but Satan gives progressives the magical power to rename them. 

"Hate speech," "spreading disinformation," and "community standards" are to language as the Fugitive Slave Act was to freedom.

The materialist can never make ends meet. 

You can't fix your own life by meddling in other people's lives. Progressive: hold my cruelty-free nonalcoholic soybrew!

In four months, Biden has proved himself unfit to conduct peace.

The credo of the left: in weakness, victimhood; in strength, revenge. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the authority of the progressive State, the right of George Soros to fund BLM and AntiFa shall not be infringed.

Man is a political animal. The progressive tribalist is an animal with politics.

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding the oppressive dialectic between indoctrination and stupidity.

Africans live in a world of pure black privilege. Unless they can escape to a place with white privilege.

A decadent paradigm becomes more complex in order to account for its lack of explanatory power. Anti-racism is the search for epicycles within epicycles to account for black failure. 

Social and economic problems are answers to the left's solutions.

The left says Israel's response to the Palestinians is disproportionate. True, but do they really want Israel to commit genocide? 

Reality. See sidebar for details. I'm reading it at a leisurely pace because I am a Man of Leisure, and Leisure isn't just anything, let alone nothing, but perhaps -- now that I think about it -- the key to Reality, but only literally. 

Business is to Isness as is Toil to Leisure, the latter being the telos of the former (which is one way to make ends meet, alluding to the cryptic aphorism above). Not for nothing is Leisure the very Basis of Culture.

I'm referring of course to Josef Pieper's koon klassic, Leisure, which I haven't flipped through in years, but I'll bet has something to say about this post. From the Amazon page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586172565?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1586172565):

Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper.... points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. 

Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves (emphases mine).

That little passage has a bit of everything: mind, soul, culture, perception, God, world, reality, contemplation, silence, insight, and non-doing, and/or their destruction. In short: Slack and the unending conspiracy against it.   

"But I'm a novice at this reality isness. Where do I begin?"

Are you a troll? Because I don't troll on Shabbos. 

I don't know. What would Jesus do?

Wrong question. Rather, who would Jesus be.

Now interestingly, Pieper begins with a slightly tweaked quote from the Bible: Have leisure and know that I am God. 

And who is God but I AM? Which is precisely who Jesus would be, irrespective of whether he is doing or non-doing. 

In fact, I would say that the goal (for us) is to bring non-doing into doing, so that we're always doing a bit of nothing even in the midst of doing it. Like Yin and Yang, the Siamese twins of ontology: they can't be separated without killing them.

And speaking of ontology, this is the subtitle of the very next section of Reality. Metaphysics is the science of reality; it is

conceived as wisdom, science pre-eminent. Now science is the knowledge of things by their causes. Metaphysics, therefore, is the knowledge of all things by their supreme causes.

All sentient humans can agree that being is. Everything that isn't God has a cause, and being is no exception. Being is intelligible reality; it is the cause of our knowing it. Fr. Reginald speaks of the contemplative life, AKA the life of leisure:

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

If knowing truth is nice, being it is even better. Now, Jesus makes the startling metaphysical claim that I am the truth, the way, and the life. In other words, "I am the living truth and the way to it."

You know how with the left everything comes down to Who and Whom? With us it all comes down to I AM and We Are.

Escaping into Reality

Do you sometimes want to just leave politics behind and escape into reality? 

I know I do, but let me first get some aphorisms off my chest: 

God gave man the miraculous power to name things. True, but Satan gives progressives the magical power to rename them. 

"Hate speech," "spreading disinformation," and "community standards" are to language as the Fugitive Slave Act was to freedom.

The materialist can never make ends meet. 

You can't fix your own life by meddling in other people's lives. Progressive: hold my cruelty-free nonalcoholic soybrew!

In four months, Biden has proved himself unfit to conduct peace.

The credo of the left: in weakness, victimhood; in strength, revenge. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the authority of the progressive State, the right of George Soros to fund BLM and AntiFa shall not be infringed.

Man is a political animal. The progressive tribalist is an animal with politics.

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding the oppressive dialectic between indoctrination and stupidity.

Africans live in a world of pure black privilege. Unless they can escape to a place with white privilege.

A decadent paradigm becomes more complex in order to account for its lack of explanatory power. Anti-racism is the search for epicycles within epicycles to account for black failure. 

Social and economic problems are answers to the left's solutions.

The left says Israel's response to the Palestinians is disproportionate. True, but do they really want Israel to commit genocide? 

Reality. See sidebar for details. I'm reading it at a leisurely pace because I am a Man of Leisure, and Leisure isn't just anything, let alone nothing, but perhaps -- now that I think about it -- the key to Reality, but only literally. 

Business is to Isness as is Toil to Leisure, the latter being the telos of the former (which is one way to make ends meet, alluding to the cryptic aphorism above). Not for nothing is Leisure the very Basis of Culture.

I'm referring of course to Josef Pieper's koon klassic, Leisure, which I haven't flipped through in years, but I'll bet has something to say about this post. From the Amazon page (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586172565?ie=UTF8&tag=onecos-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1586172565):

Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper.... points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. 

Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves (emphases mine).

That little passage has a bit of everything: mind, soul, culture, perception, God, world, reality, contemplation, silence, insight, and non-doing, and/or their destruction. In short: Slack and the unending conspiracy against it.   

"But I'm a novice at this reality isness. Where do I begin?"

Are you a troll? Because I don't troll on Shabbos. 

I don't know. What would Jesus do?

Wrong question. Rather, who would Jesus be.

Now interestingly, Pieper begins with a slightly tweaked quote from the Bible: Have leisure and know that I am God. 

And who is God but I AM? Which is precisely who Jesus would be, irrespective of whether he is doing or non-doing. 

In fact, I would say that the goal (for us) is to bring non-doing into doing, so that we're always doing a bit of nothing even in the midst of doing it. Like Yin and Yang, the Siamese twins of ontology: they can't be separated without killing them.

And speaking of ontology, this is the subtitle of the very next section of Reality. Metaphysics is the science of reality; it is

conceived as wisdom, science pre-eminent. Now science is the knowledge of things by their causes. Metaphysics, therefore, is the knowledge of all things by their supreme causes.

All sentient humans can agree that being is. Everything that isn't God has a cause, and being is no exception. Being is intelligible reality; it is the cause of our knowing it. Fr. Reginald speaks of the contemplative life, AKA the life of leisure:

the deepest joy arises from the activity of man's highest power, namely, his mind, when that power is occupied in contemplating its highest object, which is God, the Supreme Truth, the Supreme Intelligible.

If knowing truth is nice, being it is even better. Now, Jesus makes the startling metaphysical claim that I am the truth, the way, and the life. In other words, "I am the living truth and the way to it."

You know how with the left everything comes down to Who and Whom? With us it all comes down to I AM and We Are.

Fooling Around with Ultimate Reality

Here are some timeless bon mots from Thomas, which may or may not provoke additional commentary on my part, depending on your luck. I've selected them on the basis of being 1) the foundation, or beginning of proper thinking, and 2) the end of thinking. How can they be both? Let's find out!

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.

In other words, there is nothing man cannot understand, supposing it is in accordance with reason; things not in accordance with reason are called absurd, and even God can't understand the absurd, e.g., a "square circle" or "a woman in a man's body."  

On the one hand, the intellect is (potentially) in conformity to everything that exists; or, you might say that it is "pre-conformed" to existence. Everything out there is just waiting and hoping to be known by us!

At the same time, nothing in existence conforms to the infinitude of the intellect, which is the last thing we would expect of a wholly material and contingent being. For which reason Thomas says

This ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge.   

This infinite object of knowledge is also the object of infinite knowledge, which folks in the celestial lOʘp typically call God.

Here things get a little tricky, for the object of infinite knowledge is also the object of absolute knowledge, or knowledge of the Absolute. This implies that all knowledge reduces to knowledge of the One (who is surely simple but not simplistic). What? Schuon has asked me to hold his beverage:

The idea that the Supreme Principle is both Absolute Reality and, for that very reason, Infinite Possibility... contains everything, notably the necessity for a universal Manifestation.

Or the manifestation of a universe, if you like. It didn't have to be this universe, but it has to be something, for it is written: Creators gonna create, and the Creator who doesn't create is a contradiction in terms.

Principles. As we've said in the past, there is nothing quite like a principle for tidying up around the Intellect and its Cosmos, and what else is there? About them, Thomas writes that "The principles of reason are those which are conformed to nature," i.e., to the nature of things. In a word, to reality.

How do we know a Principle when we find one, especially if we've never seen one before? For the simple reason that "it is not even possible to think it can be false" (Thomas).  They are self-evident, meaning that they cannot be understood without being believed (in other words, if you understand them, your mind spontaneously assents to them).

Name one!

Okay, the principle of non-contradiction, which is equally the principle of identity. This may not sound like much, but it is the root of anything we can say of being and reality: a thing either is or is not, and these are truth (if it is) and falsehood (if it is not). 

Bottom line: being is, things are, and we can know them. This reduces to intelligence and intelligibility, which further reduces to Absolute Intellect and Infinite Intelligibility. If there's something better than that, God keeps it for himselves.

Come to think of it, there is something better, or at least higher, or maybe that's not the best way to express it. It's the idea that there is a Beyond-Being.

In the traditional view, God is Absolute Being or Pure Act. But there's another way of looking at it: that Being itself is a function of Beyond-Being. The natural born mystic will have no difficulty swallowing this, where as the more conventional type may prefer to stop chewing with Being. 

As I've mentioned before, I prefer to think of it as a -- or the -- eternal complementarity between Being and Beyond-Being. 

Moreover, I would situate the Trinity on the Being side, but this doesn't in any way diminish it; rather, it is to say that the Trinity is the first fruit of Beyond Being, with which it is in an eternally creative and renewing trialogue on the horizon of Absolute and Infinite. It's why things are never boring.

Since things tend to be fractally organized in this cosmos, is it possible to find some kind of trinitarian analogue within Beyond-Being? Yes, in the sense that anything that Is must first be Possible. Such mysteries are above our praygrade, and it is somewhat vain to think about things which thought can never adequately formulate, for the simple reason that the Formless surpasses any Form we might give it.

The best we can do -- or the furthest we can go -- is to say with Schuon that there is a primordial trinity (leaving aside the specifically Christian formulation) that comes down to the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Perfect. Everything that is participates in these.

Absoluteness of the Real, infinitude of the Possible, perfection of the Good; these are the "initial dimensions" of the Divine Order.

Just for kicks, what if we were to attempt to translight this into Christian terms?

Let's say the Absolute is the Father. "The Absolute is infinite; therefore it radiates, and in radiating, it projects itself; the content of this projection being the Good." This latter sounds to me like Logos or Son, and the radiation between reminds me of the Spirit. 

All in a manner of speaking.