Meta-World & Meta-Man

Thanks to the luxury of time -- and the timelessness tucked away therein -- I've lately been engaged in what you might call a close reading of Schuon. Being that he already writes in such a compact style -- deploying a minimum of words to convey a maximum of meaning -- his works are uniquely suited to such a line-by-line...

I was about to say "analysis," but that would be inaccurate and misleading. More like a pondering-and-abiding, waiting for the associations -- the vertical ins & outs -- to stream into the cabeza. Lightning & thunder, respectively. 

Reminds me of what the rabbis say of scripture -- that a single blow of the hammer sets off a multitude of sparks. According to Schuon, this is because

the truth is above all in the symbol's effective power of illumination and not in its literalness, and that is all the more evident since God, whose wisdom goes beyond all words, puts multiple meanings into a single expression.

Yup. And speaking of up yonder, here's one to ponder:

The uncreated Word shatters created speech, whilst at the same time directing it towards concrete and saving truth (ibid.).

Sure does. But that's not our immediate focus. Rather, we've lately been pondering two subjects -- or questions -- 1) the ultimate ground of reality, or meta-cosmology, and 2) the ultimate nature of man, or meta-anthropology, i.e., What is reality?, What is man?, and What the heck is the nature of the relationship between them? 

In knowing these we would pretty much know everything worth knowing, or at least everything we need to know, leaving it to our STEMitic friends to fill in the details. 

Yes, I've already read all of Schuon's books more than once, and several of them many times, but this is different. It reminds me of slow-motion weight training, whereby, instead of doing a lot of repetitions, you do just a few, but verrrry slowwwwwly. Instead of doing fifty push-ups in one minute, do a single push-up in 30 seconds or whatever. 

Recall what Schuon said in the previous post: that the Science of Fundamental Principles, AKA philosophy, "operates with intuition, which 'perceives,' and not with reason alone, which 'concludes.'"  

This is because man is an open system, which means open to being and truth (or, to the truth-of-being which is constantly being-spoken in our cosmos).

Come to think of it, what is reality but Being-spoken? And what is man but understanding-being? Intelligibility and intelligence, respectively. A single lightbeam split into subject and object and meeting in the conceptual middle.

Conversely, postmodern sophistry is "hardly concerned with 'perceiving' and taking into account that which 'is.'" 

Rather, it "reasons" in such a way that reason is sealed off from the outside, to say nothing of the above. It is the proverbial snake attempting to devour its own tail. Schuon refers to it as "the codification of an acquired infirmity," an infirmity acquired way back in Genesis 3, when our adamant protodope deicided to unfriend God.

This is in no way to deny or denigrate the importance of reason. It's just that -- at risk of belaboring the point -- the principle of reason is not located in man. Rather, it was here long before we arrived on the scene. We didn't invent it. If we did, then the primordial link is broken between it and the world. 

"Man is not a closed system," writes Schuon, "although he can try to be so." In other words, just as man is free to reject freedom, he may choose to inhabit his own hermetically sealed matrix, which is one of the central themes of Genesis 3. Human nature never changes, but it can look that way because of the diverse simulations he constructs and inhabits, taking them for "reality." 

For example, there is nothing remotely real about progressivism or its many tentacles such as feminism, CRT, AGW, LGBTWTF, etc. But this hardly prevents these clueless anti-STEMites from living in their ontological tent cities.  

As we all know, matrix is etymologically related to mother and to womb, and isn't that convenient, because you could say that there are two possible wombs. Let's call them the wombs of Eve and of Mary. 

This cosmos just got interesting. And the subject of this post just got much bigger, but let's see if we can tame it in the time remaining. 

Chapp writes of 

the deep anthropological and ontological implications of the fact that we were not lowered into this world by God on the end of a crane as some sort of angelic visitor to a foreign land....

Rather, 

we were created along with this world precisely as temporal beings whose existence is characterized by the dynamic of event and sequential becoming.

Becoming. What, like in a womb?

Yes.

I'm a bit distracted this morning, since I have one ear on the Rittenhouse trial, which sucked me in. We'll try to refocus tomorrow. 

Meta-World & Meta-Man

Thanks to the luxury of time -- and the timelessness tucked away therein -- I've lately been engaged in what you might call a close reading of Schuon. Being that he already writes in such a compact style -- deploying a minimum of words to convey a maximum of meaning -- his works are uniquely suited to such a line-by-line...

I was about to say "analysis," but that would be inaccurate and misleading. More like a pondering-and-abiding, waiting for the associations -- the vertical ins & outs -- to stream into the cabeza. Lightning & thunder, respectively. 

Reminds me of what the rabbis say of scripture -- that a single blow of the hammer sets off a multitude of sparks. According to Schuon, this is because

the truth is above all in the symbol's effective power of illumination and not in its literalness, and that is all the more evident since God, whose wisdom goes beyond all words, puts multiple meanings into a single expression.

Yup. And speaking of up yonder, here's one to ponder:

The uncreated Word shatters created speech, whilst at the same time directing it towards concrete and saving truth (ibid.).

Sure does. But that's not our immediate focus. Rather, we've lately been pondering two subjects -- or questions -- 1) the ultimate ground of reality, or meta-cosmology, and 2) the ultimate nature of man, or meta-anthropology, i.e., What is reality?, What is man?, and What the heck is the nature of the relationship between them? 

In knowing these we would pretty much know everything worth knowing, or at least everything we need to know, leaving it to our STEMitic friends to fill in the details. 

Yes, I've already read all of Schuon's books more than once, and several of them many times, but this is different. It reminds me of slow-motion weight training, whereby, instead of doing a lot of repetitions, you do just a few, but verrrry slowwwwwly. Instead of doing fifty push-ups in one minute, do a single push-up in 30 seconds or whatever. 

Recall what Schuon said in the previous post: that the Science of Fundamental Principles, AKA philosophy, "operates with intuition, which 'perceives,' and not with reason alone, which 'concludes.'"  

This is because man is an open system, which means open to being and truth (or, to the truth-of-being which is constantly being-spoken in our cosmos).

Come to think of it, what is reality but Being-spoken? And what is man but understanding-being? Intelligibility and intelligence, respectively. A single lightbeam split into subject and object and meeting in the conceptual middle.

Conversely, postmodern sophistry is "hardly concerned with 'perceiving' and taking into account that which 'is.'" 

Rather, it "reasons" in such a way that reason is sealed off from the outside, to say nothing of the above. It is the proverbial snake attempting to devour its own tail. Schuon refers to it as "the codification of an acquired infirmity," an infirmity acquired way back in Genesis 3, when our adamant protodope deicided to unfriend God.

This is in no way to deny or denigrate the importance of reason. It's just that -- at risk of belaboring the point -- the principle of reason is not located in man. Rather, it was here long before we arrived on the scene. We didn't invent it. If we did, then the primordial link is broken between it and the world. 

"Man is not a closed system," writes Schuon, "although he can try to be so." In other words, just as man is free to reject freedom, he may choose to inhabit his own hermetically sealed matrix, which is one of the central themes of Genesis 3. Human nature never changes, but it can look that way because of the diverse simulations he constructs and inhabits, taking them for "reality." 

For example, there is nothing remotely real about progressivism or its many tentacles such as feminism, CRT, AGW, LGBTWTF, etc. But this hardly prevents these clueless anti-STEMites from living in their ontological tent cities.  

As we all know, matrix is etymologically related to mother and to womb, and isn't that convenient, because you could say that there are two possible wombs. Let's call them the wombs of Eve and of Mary. 

This cosmos just got interesting. And the subject of this post just got much bigger, but let's see if we can tame it in the time remaining. 

Chapp writes of 

the deep anthropological and ontological implications of the fact that we were not lowered into this world by God on the end of a crane as some sort of angelic visitor to a foreign land....

Rather, 

we were created along with this world precisely as temporal beings whose existence is characterized by the dynamic of event and sequential becoming.

Becoming. What, like in a womb?

Yes.

I'm a bit distracted this morning, since I have one ear on the Rittenhouse trial, which sucked me in. We'll try to refocus tomorrow. 

Focus on Man

That's an order!

Sometimes it helps to know what something is by knowing what it isn't. 

For example, we say that God is infinite. However, this is a wholly negative, apophatic characterization, since it simply means not finite: in other words God can't be finite, therefore he's infinite. Which we can't ever wrap our minds around, even though we know with 100% certitude that it is true.

Which is an intriguing proposition, because it means man can know with certitude things he can most certainly never understand. Call it a primordial orthoparadox if you like. 

Similar examples abound, and I've been thinking about them since March of 1985, although I don't recall if I've ever posted on the subject.

For example, man is the being who knows he will die. But what is death? We can't say. Or, we can say (similar to in-finite) that it's not-life, but what is life? Life is the transcendence of matter, so is death the transcendence of life?

There's another one: tran-scend. What's that? To climb across, surmount; to rise above or go beyond the limits of: exceed. We can scarcely be human without the word transcend or some equivalent to it. So, humans routinely travel across and rise above & beyond. Yes, but to where? To in-finity, and beyond!

Back in March of 1985 I was in grad school, where I was learning all about the unconscious. What's that? Easy: un-conscious. Oh. Like, in-animate? No, inanimate things are not conscious. Okay, like death? No, that's... we don't know what that is. See paragraph six.

Eventually I realized that conscious / unconscious isn't a dualism but a complementarity. Nor is it an antithesis, like, say, good and evil, for in that case, evil is a privation. As mentioned in a comment yesterday, it has no positive ontological reality, but is only parasitic on it.

The unconscious isn't like that. It's not a privation or negation of consciousness. Rather, it's more like the dark side of the moon: we know -- with certitude! -- it's there. We just can't see it. 

Likewise the unconscious, which, in my considered opinion, bears the same relation to consciousness as does Beyond-Being to Being, or perhaps even Father to Son, being that the latter is a kind of "specification" of the former.

Analogously speaking, of course. But again, if God goes to all the trouble of revealing his trinitarian innards to us, I think we should take it seriously as a way to deepen our understanding of what's going on down here. We need to use it as a way to bust out of our habitual approach to things, which is -- at least for pinheads -- too linear and rationalistic.

I see. So we should be ir-rational or anti-rational? No, not at all; rather, trans-rational. God is telling us what he's like, which is a good thing, because we can't get there via mere reason. Reason, limited to its own devices, leads to inevitable impasses and absurdities, if only because reason can never furnish its own premises. Theology -- at least trans-natural theology -- really comes down to reasoning about premises furnished by God.

Looked at in this manner, there is nothing irrational about trinitarian metaphysics, even though reason could never arrive at it unaided. But once it is revealed to us, we can reason about it all day long.

Focus! Yes, back to man. What can reason tell us about the nature of man? Not much, except to say that man is the rational animal, which is a tautology, unless we can track down the actual source of reason. 

Revelation, which is trans- (not anti-!) rational, tells us we are in the image of the Creator, and now we're getting somewhere. To put it conversely, we can't get anywhere with a false image of man, and any image that excludes the Creator is a false one. 

Certitude. 

Human beings are uniquely able to stand aside, above, or beyond themselves and observe their own existence, and only a fundamentally im-material being can do this. Rocks can't escape themselves. They are incapable of ec-stacy. 

Change my mind:

the Trinity is eternal, but not in the sense of being indifferent to or opposed to time. Rather, it is supratemporal and includes the reality of time, analogously, within itself. Thus, the Trinity is not merely timeless or atemporal. If it were, then eternity would be opposed to temporality as its transcendent negation (Chapp). 

Just kidding. Some things will never change, and this is one of them. I want to say Bob's mind is made up, and it is, but that's merely the effect of a deeper cause. For example, if I look out my window and see a tree, I don't say, "My mind is made up: that's a tree, and you can't talk me out of it."

True, you can't talk me out of it, but that's because no one talked me into it. Rather, the tree is just there prior to my thinking about it. You are free to argue about whether the tree is really there or not there at all, but I've accepted its ex-istence and moved on. I'm out of here.

To Be con-tinuous...

Focus on Man

That's an order!

Sometimes it helps to know what something is by knowing what it isn't. 

For example, we say that God is infinite. However, this is a wholly negative, apophatic characterization, since it simply means not finite: in other words God can't be finite, therefore he's infinite. Which we can't ever wrap our minds around, even though we know with 100% certitude that it is true.

Which is an intriguing proposition, because it means man can know with certitude things he can most certainly never understand. Call it a primordial orthoparadox if you like. 

Similar examples abound, and I've been thinking about them since March of 1985, although I don't recall if I've ever posted on the subject.

For example, man is the being who knows he will die. But what is death? We can't say. Or, we can say (similar to in-finite) that it's not-life, but what is life? Life is the transcendence of matter, so is death the transcendence of life?

There's another one: tran-scend. What's that? To climb across, surmount; to rise above or go beyond the limits of: exceed. We can scarcely be human without the word transcend or some equivalent to it. So, humans routinely travel across and rise above & beyond. Yes, but to where? To in-finity, and beyond!

Back in March of 1985 I was in grad school, where I was learning all about the unconscious. What's that? Easy: un-conscious. Oh. Like, in-animate? No, inanimate things are not conscious. Okay, like death? No, that's... we don't know what that is. See paragraph six.

Eventually I realized that conscious / unconscious isn't a dualism but a complementarity. Nor is it an antithesis, like, say, good and evil, for in that case, evil is a privation. As mentioned in a comment yesterday, it has no positive ontological reality, but is only parasitic on it.

The unconscious isn't like that. It's not a privation or negation of consciousness. Rather, it's more like the dark side of the moon: we know -- with certitude! -- it's there. We just can't see it. 

Likewise the unconscious, which, in my considered opinion, bears the same relation to consciousness as does Beyond-Being to Being, or perhaps even Father to Son, being that the latter is a kind of "specification" of the former.

Analogously speaking, of course. But again, if God goes to all the trouble of revealing his trinitarian innards to us, I think we should take it seriously as a way to deepen our understanding of what's going on down here. We need to use it as a way to bust out of our habitual approach to things, which is -- at least for pinheads -- too linear and rationalistic.

I see. So we should be ir-rational or anti-rational? No, not at all; rather, trans-rational. God is telling us what he's like, which is a good thing, because we can't get there via mere reason. Reason, limited to its own devices, leads to inevitable impasses and absurdities, if only because reason can never furnish its own premises. Theology -- at least trans-natural theology -- really comes down to reasoning about premises furnished by God.

Looked at in this manner, there is nothing irrational about trinitarian metaphysics, even though reason could never arrive at it unaided. But once it is revealed to us, we can reason about it all day long.

Focus! Yes, back to man. What can reason tell us about the nature of man? Not much, except to say that man is the rational animal, which is a tautology, unless we can track down the actual source of reason. 

Revelation, which is trans- (not anti-!) rational, tells us we are in the image of the Creator, and now we're getting somewhere. To put it conversely, we can't get anywhere with a false image of man, and any image that excludes the Creator is a false one. 

Certitude. 

Human beings are uniquely able to stand aside, above, or beyond themselves and observe their own existence, and only a fundamentally im-material being can do this. Rocks can't escape themselves. They are incapable of ec-stacy. 

Change my mind:

the Trinity is eternal, but not in the sense of being indifferent to or opposed to time. Rather, it is supratemporal and includes the reality of time, analogously, within itself. Thus, the Trinity is not merely timeless or atemporal. If it were, then eternity would be opposed to temporality as its transcendent negation (Chapp). 

Just kidding. Some things will never change, and this is one of them. I want to say Bob's mind is made up, and it is, but that's merely the effect of a deeper cause. For example, if I look out my window and see a tree, I don't say, "My mind is made up: that's a tree, and you can't talk me out of it."

True, you can't talk me out of it, but that's because no one talked me into it. Rather, the tree is just there prior to my thinking about it. You are free to argue about whether the tree is really there or not there at all, but I've accepted its ex-istence and moved on. I'm out of here.

To Be con-tinuous...

Trans-Cosmic Meta-Anthropology

I've read about certain bands that don't write songs in the usual way. Rather, they just jam and fool around until they stumble upon something that sounds like a song. Then the jam begins to suggest what it's about lyrically, and eventually crystallizes into a composition. The Rolling Stones sometimes did it this way. R.E.M. too. 

If it's good enough for ancient man -- i.e., Keith Richards -- then it's good enough for me. I'll just start jamming and see where it goes. 

What is man that man should be mindful of him? Other animals don't give a hoot, honk, or hiss about their nature. But humans never stop hollerin' about it, especially the ones who insist there is no such thing. Hee-haw!

If these asses are correct, then Homo sapiens is the animal whose nature it is to deny its nature. 

Moreover, we are the only such animal, since human beings -- even young children -- easily recognize the nature of other animals. We don't confuse dogs and cats, or snakes and birds -- nor, for that matter, do we mistake a cock for a hen. If we take a bull for a cow there will be serious consequences. Yes, that's a warning.  

Here again, Homo sapiens is the only species that can make systematic -- not merely accidental -- mistakes about its own nature. For example, from time to time we hear rumors of this or that animal that engages in same-sex behavior, but no animal does so systematically or it wouldn't exist. 

To put it another way, homosexuality is obviously contingent; if it were essential, then it would place an absurdity at the foundation of our nature. If we can't agree that sex has a telos, then we might as well say that babies come from storks, or that two men can marry.

The moment we say Everybody Knows this or that, Somebody will insist otherwise, hence the existence of tenure. 

As the cliche goes, there is nothing so stupid that a professional leftist hasn't believed it. It's their nature to believe the unbelievable. Credo quia absurdum, and the more absurd the more credible. Some on the left still believe the conspiracy theory that Biden legitimately won the election, albeit fewer every day.

But let's try to stay focused. Better yet, what is the focus of this post? I would say human nature, which, first of all, either does or doesn't exist. We, of course, believe the former, although we do not necessarily believe it's a slam dunk. The reason I say this is that I am still waiting to meet someone who reminds me of me, i.e., who shares my nature. Am I my own species? Or are there others? 

Yes, there's obvious overlap. But never a perfect fit. This is probably what Sartre meant with his crack about hell being the existence of other people. 

However, in his case the operational term is existence, being that he was an existentialist, and the essence of existentialism is the denial of essence, precisely. Therefore, each person is not only an island monad cut off from all the others, but man invents himself -- makes it up -- as he goes along. Which is why his most famous work of philosophy is called Being and Nothingness. 

(Spoiler alert: being is. You, on the other hand, are nothing.)

Believe it or not, this is one of the first philosophy books I ever read. It would have been back in the late '70s, when I assumed that philosophy, like science, must be progressive, so why not just skip ahead and get to the point? Reading Aristotle or Thomas to learn about man would be as anachronistic as reading Galen to learn medicine or Ptolemy to learn astronomy.

In reality, some things progress, some remain the same, and some deteriorate. Confusion enters because man is indeed capable of "progress," but only in certain areas. 

More to the point, the principle of progress is not, nor can it be, change or progress. Rather, the very possibility of progress is rooted in and oriented toward something that does not change. Call this principle what you like -- even just an empty placeholder such as O -- but without it, we are Ø. Without a paddle.

Well, that was fun. And easier than digging up quotes from other experts. I think we have the outlines of a melody. With any luck, the words to the song will further reveal themselves in the next post. But this I know: there is an objective and universal anthropology, and it is rooted in a trans-cosmic meta-anthropology. That's for certain.

 

Trans-Cosmic Meta-Anthropology

I've read about certain bands that don't write songs in the usual way. Rather, they just jam and fool around until they stumble upon something that sounds like a song. Then the jam begins to suggest what it's about lyrically, and eventually crystallizes into a composition. The Rolling Stones sometimes did it this way. R.E.M. too. 

If it's good enough for ancient man -- i.e., Keith Richards -- then it's good enough for me. I'll just start jamming and see where it goes. 

What is man that man should be mindful of him? Other animals don't give a hoot, honk, or hiss about their nature. But humans never stop hollerin' about it, especially the ones who insist there is no such thing. Hee-haw!

If these asses are correct, then Homo sapiens is the animal whose nature it is to deny its nature. 

Moreover, we are the only such animal, since human beings -- even young children -- easily recognize the nature of other animals. We don't confuse dogs and cats, or snakes and birds -- nor, for that matter, do we mistake a cock for a hen. If we take a bull for a cow there will be serious consequences. Yes, that's a warning.  

Here again, Homo sapiens is the only species that can make systematic -- not merely accidental -- mistakes about its own nature. For example, from time to time we hear rumors of this or that animal that engages in same-sex behavior, but no animal does so systematically or it wouldn't exist. 

To put it another way, homosexuality is obviously contingent; if it were essential, then it would place an absurdity at the foundation of our nature. If we can't agree that sex has a telos, then we might as well say that babies come from storks, or that two men can marry.

The moment we say Everybody Knows this or that, Somebody will insist otherwise, hence the existence of tenure. 

As the cliche goes, there is nothing so stupid that a professional leftist hasn't believed it. It's their nature to believe the unbelievable. Credo quia absurdum, and the more absurd the more credible. Some on the left still believe the conspiracy theory that Biden legitimately won the election, albeit fewer every day.

But let's try to stay focused. Better yet, what is the focus of this post? I would say human nature, which, first of all, either does or doesn't exist. We, of course, believe the former, although we do not necessarily believe it's a slam dunk. The reason I say this is that I am still waiting to meet someone who reminds me of me, i.e., who shares my nature. Am I my own species? Or are there others? 

Yes, there's obvious overlap. But never a perfect fit. This is probably what Sartre meant with his crack about hell being the existence of other people. 

However, in his case the operational term is existence, being that he was an existentialist, and the essence of existentialism is the denial of essence, precisely. Therefore, each person is not only an island monad cut off from all the others, but man invents himself -- makes it up -- as he goes along. Which is why his most famous work of philosophy is called Being and Nothingness. 

(Spoiler alert: being is. You, on the other hand, are nothing.)

Believe it or not, this is one of the first philosophy books I ever read. It would have been back in the late '70s, when I assumed that philosophy, like science, must be progressive, so why not just skip ahead and get to the point? Reading Aristotle or Thomas to learn about man would be as anachronistic as reading Galen to learn medicine or Ptolemy to learn astronomy.

In reality, some things progress, some remain the same, and some deteriorate. Confusion enters because man is indeed capable of "progress," but only in certain areas. 

More to the point, the principle of progress is not, nor can it be, change or progress. Rather, the very possibility of progress is rooted in and oriented toward something that does not change. Call this principle what you like -- even just an empty placeholder such as O -- but without it, we are Ø. Without a paddle.

Well, that was fun. And easier than digging up quotes from other experts. I think we have the outlines of a melody. With any luck, the words to the song will further reveal themselves in the next post. But this I know: there is an objective and universal anthropology, and it is rooted in a trans-cosmic meta-anthropology. That's for certain.

 

Abracadabra

According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words.... The Aramaic for "I create as I speak" is avara k'davara or, in magician's language, abracadabra. Not only are words the instrument of creation, in Judaism they are the primary reality itself. --Lawrence Kushner 

Ah ha. A cosmos made of language. That would explain a great deal -- in particular, it would shed additional obscurity on yesterday's post on the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of analogy, for an analogy is always between this and that word.

Now, a word is a form, and a form is a kind of word. In this context, it is noteworthy that Before the Beginning, when the Creator begins to begin, it is in the context of a void, which is to say, a complete absence of form. There are no words. Literally! 

It is also dark, which one would expect it to be with no words to light up the place. Think of, say, the world of Helen Keller before she made that infinite leap from the sensation of wetness to the concept of ¡water! That right there is an analogue of the moment man became man and left animality below.

To be perfectly accurate, we never left animality entirely. We are not angels. But that was the moment a link was established between. 

Yes, between, full stop. Between what? It almost doesn't matter, or, on the other hand, perhaps nothing matters more. 

I'm thinking of Voegelin's concept of the metaxy, which is the "in between" state where humans live, where we have always lived, and where we will always live. This space is humanness itself, hence its place of honor atop the comment box:

The quest, thus, has no external "object," but is reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable.

Some things will never change. Here is an exact definition of metaxy:

Between. Plato's symbol representing the experience of human existence as "between" lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, and so on. Equivalent to the symbol of "participation in being" (Webb).

"Between lower and upper poles" -- or in other words, within the space of verticality. With this firmly and clearly in mind, now you understand why we would never stoop to argue with someone who cannot or will not acknowledge something as soph-evident as our nonlocal verticality. 

By the way, this isn't just understood conceptually, or at least it shouldn't be. Rather, it is perceived by the intellect. Indeed, it is among the first things seen by the intellect upon opening its third eye on thinksgiving morn. 

With regard to verticality, you could say that man is suspended between animality and divinity; or -- and, rather -- time and eternity, spirit and matter, one and many, appearance and reality, angels above and demons below, etc.

Analogously, think of the space that is opened up with the local appearance of biological life in the cosmos. The other day, my son was inquiring as to why mosquitos exist. I think it's because this is a full-employment biosphere, or in other words, the very existence of a biosphere implies that every nook & cranny must be filled. 

Likewise our vertical world, filled as it is with so many crooks & loonies: it takes all kinds to make a pneumosphere. Alas, they will always be with us.

In the beginning we must begin with something that cannot be doubted, about which error is impossible, which presupposes no prior truth(s), and denial of which leads to absurdity. We're talking about the Truth by which truth is even possible. Thus, we're talking about necessary truth.

Which is kind of a trick, because a good working definition of truth is that which must be: 2 + 2 not only equals 4, but must equal 4. Certitude. 

Certitude! I'll let Schuon, with his limber mind, tie up the many strands unraveled in this post, emphases mine:

[P]hilosophy -- the “love of wisdom” -- is the science of all the fundamental principles; this science operates with intuition, which “perceives,” and not with reason alone, which “concludes.” 

Subjectively speaking, the essence of philosophy is certitude; for the moderns, on the contrary, the essence of philosophy is doubt: philosophy is supposed to reason without any premise, as if this condition were not itself a preconceived idea; this is the classical contradiction of all relativism. Everything is doubted except for doubt.

There is indeed "a source of certitude that transcends the mental mechanism, and this source -- the only one there is -- is the pure Intellect, or Intelligence as such." 

The intellect knows through its very substance all that is capable of being known and, like the blood flowing through even the tiniest arteries of the body, it traverses all the egos of which the universe is woven and opens out “vertically” on the Infinite (ibid.)

If anything is certain, it means that certitude is possible in principle. And what is the principle of certitude? Yes, God, the one thing of which -- of Whom -- we can be certain. For it is written:

If God were not a person, He would have died some time ago (Dávila).

In the spirit of shorter posts, I think I'll stop. Besides, 

God is the guest of silence.

Words and ears. Abracadabra! 

Abracadabra

According to the Hebrew Bible, God made the world with words.... The Aramaic for "I create as I speak" is avara k'davara or, in magician's language, abracadabra. Not only are words the instrument of creation, in Judaism they are the primary reality itself. --Lawrence Kushner 

Ah ha. A cosmos made of language. That would explain a great deal -- in particular, it would shed additional obscurity on yesterday's post on the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of analogy, for an analogy is always between this and that word.

Now, a word is a form, and a form is a kind of word. In this context, it is noteworthy that Before the Beginning, when the Creator begins to begin, it is in the context of a void, which is to say, a complete absence of form. There are no words. Literally! 

It is also dark, which one would expect it to be with no words to light up the place. Think of, say, the world of Helen Keller before she made that infinite leap from the sensation of wetness to the concept of ¡water! That right there is an analogue of the moment man became man and left animality below.

To be perfectly accurate, we never left animality entirely. We are not angels. But that was the moment a link was established between. 

Yes, between, full stop. Between what? It almost doesn't matter, or, on the other hand, perhaps nothing matters more. 

I'm thinking of Voegelin's concept of the metaxy, which is the "in between" state where humans live, where we have always lived, and where we will always live. This space is humanness itself, hence its place of honor atop the comment box:

The quest, thus, has no external "object," but is reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable.

Some things will never change. Here is an exact definition of metaxy:

Between. Plato's symbol representing the experience of human existence as "between" lower and upper poles: man and the divine, imperfection and perfection, ignorance and knowledge, and so on. Equivalent to the symbol of "participation in being" (Webb).

"Between lower and upper poles" -- or in other words, within the space of verticality. With this firmly and clearly in mind, now you understand why we would never stoop to argue with someone who cannot or will not acknowledge something as soph-evident as our nonlocal verticality. 

By the way, this isn't just understood conceptually, or at least it shouldn't be. Rather, it is perceived by the intellect. Indeed, it is among the first things seen by the intellect upon opening its third eye on thinksgiving morn. 

With regard to verticality, you could say that man is suspended between animality and divinity; or -- and, rather -- time and eternity, spirit and matter, one and many, appearance and reality, angels above and demons below, etc.

Analogously, think of the space that is opened up with the local appearance of biological life in the cosmos. The other day, my son was inquiring as to why mosquitos exist. I think it's because this is a full-employment biosphere, or in other words, the very existence of a biosphere implies that every nook & cranny must be filled. 

Likewise our vertical world, filled as it is with so many crooks & loonies: it takes all kinds to make a pneumosphere. Alas, they will always be with us.

In the beginning we must begin with something that cannot be doubted, about which error is impossible, which presupposes no prior truth(s), and denial of which leads to absurdity. We're talking about the Truth by which truth is even possible. Thus, we're talking about necessary truth.

Which is kind of a trick, because a good working definition of truth is that which must be: 2 + 2 not only equals 4, but must equal 4. Certitude. 

Certitude! I'll let Schuon, with his limber mind, tie up the many strands unraveled in this post, emphases mine:

[P]hilosophy -- the “love of wisdom” -- is the science of all the fundamental principles; this science operates with intuition, which “perceives,” and not with reason alone, which “concludes.” 

Subjectively speaking, the essence of philosophy is certitude; for the moderns, on the contrary, the essence of philosophy is doubt: philosophy is supposed to reason without any premise, as if this condition were not itself a preconceived idea; this is the classical contradiction of all relativism. Everything is doubted except for doubt.

There is indeed "a source of certitude that transcends the mental mechanism, and this source -- the only one there is -- is the pure Intellect, or Intelligence as such." 

The intellect knows through its very substance all that is capable of being known and, like the blood flowing through even the tiniest arteries of the body, it traverses all the egos of which the universe is woven and opens out “vertically” on the Infinite (ibid.)

If anything is certain, it means that certitude is possible in principle. And what is the principle of certitude? Yes, God, the one thing of which -- of Whom -- we can be certain. For it is written:

If God were not a person, He would have died some time ago (Dávila).

In the spirit of shorter posts, I think I'll stop. Besides, 

God is the guest of silence.

Words and ears. Abracadabra! 

What is Analogous to Analogy?

I suppose everything has its analogue in God, even analogy itself, being that the Son is -- so to speak-- analogous to the Father: 

exteriorization within God forms the ontological ground of possibility for the analogous exteriorization of a finite world, as well as for the exteriorization of God that we refer to as the Incarnation (emphasis mine).

Chapp adds that 

The concept of personhood, developed primarily to describe the relational hypostases within the Trinity and now applied analogously to describe spiritual creatures, allows us to overcome the autonomy/heteronomy impasse in our concept of freedom.

In other words, human persons (qua persons) are simultaneously free and subject to a higher authority. 

This is the ontological basis of our freedom to know truth and to choose the good. It is what gives a direction to both thought and action; it is why "progress" can even exist, and why "progressivism" is the denial of its real possibility (for in the horizontal flatland of the left, there can be no direction that isn't either arbitrary or rooted in the will to power).

Consider the many times Jesus makes reference to doing the will of the Father, and doing so freely: on the one hand, Not My will but Yours; on the other, No one takes its from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord.

This complementarity goes to the Ultimate Anthropology, the highest and deepest principle and context of human personhood. Thus, 

If human freedom is made in the image and likeness of this relational, Trinitarian God, then it can only come to itself by going out of itself and drawing close to the divine freedom in a dialogical relationship of love (Chapp).

A post or two ago we spoke of approaching God's "immutability" in an analogous manner, and the same can be said of his "timelessness." For in reality,

there exists within God something for which our creaturely experience of spatiality and duration are analogies. The exteriorization of the interiority of the Trinitarian hypostases demands that we posit the event-like quality of these relations... (ibid., emphasis mine).

That's exactly what I thought, but I never heard anyone but Petey express it this way. Hartshorne does, but in a manner that denies immutability and instead places process and becoming at the foundation of things. 

This is a metaphysical non-starter, because a cosmos of pure becoming equates to an eternal absence of identity. If this were true, then boys really could be girls, homosexuals really could marry, math really could be racist, and Biden's 2 trillion dollar giveaway to liberal parasites really could cost their host nothing.

This is not to deny or devalue becoming, merely to situate it in the proper context. In fact, 

the becoming of creatures in their relations with worldly others is an image and likeness of the event-like quality of the Trinitarian relations (ibid.).

Moreover, "We are able to call God 'other' precisely because of the distance and relationally within God himself" (ibid.). 

In short -- and this is important -- we now have a principle that explains how it is possible for anything other than God to actually exist. Put conversely, any conceptualization of God as a radical monad cannot explain -- and generally must deny -- human freedom as a limit on divine omnipotence. But this "limit" is -- analogously -- within the Godhead itself.

We're almost out of time, so we'll end with this:

The Father is, from all eternity, nothing more than the act of generating the Son in self-donation, while the Son is nothing more than the act of letting oneself be generated. Hence, the Son is the ground of possibility for all extra-divine "allowing oneself to be." The coming of the creaturely realm is therefore the finite analogue of the intra-trinitarian act of begetting the Son (ibid.).

Exactly. Abiding in God may look passive, but it's actually quite time-consuming. It takes all day to get nothing done.

What is Analogous to Analogy?

I suppose everything has its analogue in God, even analogy itself, being that the Son is -- so to speak-- analogous to the Father: 

exteriorization within God forms the ontological ground of possibility for the analogous exteriorization of a finite world, as well as for the exteriorization of God that we refer to as the Incarnation (emphasis mine).

Chapp adds that 

The concept of personhood, developed primarily to describe the relational hypostases within the Trinity and now applied analogously to describe spiritual creatures, allows us to overcome the autonomy/heteronomy impasse in our concept of freedom.

In other words, human persons (qua persons) are simultaneously free and subject to a higher authority. 

This is the ontological basis of our freedom to know truth and to choose the good. It is what gives a direction to both thought and action; it is why "progress" can even exist, and why "progressivism" is the denial of its real possibility (for in the horizontal flatland of the left, there can be no direction that isn't either arbitrary or rooted in the will to power).

Consider the many times Jesus makes reference to doing the will of the Father, and doing so freely: on the one hand, Not My will but Yours; on the other, No one takes its from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord.

This complementarity goes to the Ultimate Anthropology, the highest and deepest principle and context of human personhood. Thus, 

If human freedom is made in the image and likeness of this relational, Trinitarian God, then it can only come to itself by going out of itself and drawing close to the divine freedom in a dialogical relationship of love (Chapp).

A post or two ago we spoke of approaching God's "immutability" in an analogous manner, and the same can be said of his "timelessness." For in reality,

there exists within God something for which our creaturely experience of spatiality and duration are analogies. The exteriorization of the interiority of the Trinitarian hypostases demands that we posit the event-like quality of these relations... (ibid., emphasis mine).

That's exactly what I thought, but I never heard anyone but Petey express it this way. Hartshorne does, but in a manner that denies immutability and instead places process and becoming at the foundation of things. 

This is a metaphysical non-starter, because a cosmos of pure becoming equates to an eternal absence of identity. If this were true, then boys really could be girls, homosexuals really could marry, math really could be racist, and Biden's 2 trillion dollar giveaway to liberal parasites really could cost their host nothing.

This is not to deny or devalue becoming, merely to situate it in the proper context. In fact, 

the becoming of creatures in their relations with worldly others is an image and likeness of the event-like quality of the Trinitarian relations (ibid.).

Moreover, "We are able to call God 'other' precisely because of the distance and relationally within God himself" (ibid.). 

In short -- and this is important -- we now have a principle that explains how it is possible for anything other than God to actually exist. Put conversely, any conceptualization of God as a radical monad cannot explain -- and generally must deny -- human freedom as a limit on divine omnipotence. But this "limit" is -- analogously -- within the Godhead itself.

We're almost out of time, so we'll end with this:

The Father is, from all eternity, nothing more than the act of generating the Son in self-donation, while the Son is nothing more than the act of letting oneself be generated. Hence, the Son is the ground of possibility for all extra-divine "allowing oneself to be." The coming of the creaturely realm is therefore the finite analogue of the intra-trinitarian act of begetting the Son (ibid.).

Exactly. Abiding in God may look passive, but it's actually quite time-consuming. It takes all day to get nothing done.

Keep the Change

Let's zig over to Chapp's The God of Covenant and Creation, which we were discussing the post before last. Specifically, we pretty much agreed that divine immutability must be understood analogically -- like anything else we say of God, otherwise we will be led astray. 

Which is equally true of any idea about anything. Concepts help us to understand the object in question, but they aren't the object itself. Rather, they are the intelligible part of the object. (There are more elegant and official ways of saying that, but you get the point.)  

In this regard, Thomistic common sense occupies a nuanced third position between a naive and precritical realism on the one hand, and a Kantian phenomenalism on the other. The latter is the basis for the widespread barbarism that "perception is reality," AKA the absolute relativism of my truth, my lived experience, and other pathologies of the left. As if the cosmos starts and stops at their convenience!   

Everything, no matter how intelligible, is always partly unintelligible, which is precisely why our knowledge of things proceeds more deeply in an asymptotic manner. At the top of the asymptote is God himself; or, God is the origin of the infinite asymptotic ray(s) emanating from Celestial Central. Grab any one of them and ride it back to the top! Or, stop arbitrarily and call it a deity.

Come to think of it, these nonlocal rays form the warp of the cosmic area rug, while the circles around the center are the weft. As we've explained before, this is why the cosmos is both continuous and discontinuous: the rays account for the continuity, the concentric  circles for the discontinuity. 

If not for the rays, we could never, under any circumstances, pull the cosmos together via its timeless and universal principles. Rather, we would necessarily be reduced to nihilism, permanently banished to wanderment in blunderville.

But let's refocus! In last Saturday's post we made a passing comment about the principle by which the Incarnation is possible. Chapp agrees with our longstanding stand that it must be located in nature of the Trinity itself:

the sovereignty of God manifests itself in self-abandonment rather than a holding on to a static and univocal nature.... This exteriorization within God forms the ontological ground of possibility for the analogous exteriorization of a finite world, as well as for the exteriorization of God that we refer to as the Incarnation (emphasis mine).

In other words, the principle of both Creation and Incarnation is God-the-Father's own "prior" "exteriorization" of the Son-Logos. Except there's no "prior," rather, only this immutably continuous (so to speak) engendering.

This is why it's so misleading to say God is immutable and leave it at that, for the Trinity provides a way to understand such diverse things as relativity, change, time, contingency, multiplicity, human freedom, etc. -- you know, all those otherwise impenetrable and annoying things into which we are plunged.

It's a big deal, for it not only means "there exists within God something for which our creaturely experience of spatiality and duration are analogies," but that "the becoming of creatures in their relations with worldly others is an image and likeness of the event-like quality of the Trinitarian relations."

Again, we're trying to shorten the posts, so let's call a lid on this one.

Keep the Change

Let's zig over to Chapp's The God of Covenant and Creation, which we were discussing the post before last. Specifically, we pretty much agreed that divine immutability must be understood analogically -- like anything else we say of God, otherwise we will be led astray. 

Which is equally true of any idea about anything. Concepts help us to understand the object in question, but they aren't the object itself. Rather, they are the intelligible part of the object. (There are more elegant and official ways of saying that, but you get the point.)  

In this regard, Thomistic common sense occupies a nuanced third position between a naive and precritical realism on the one hand, and a Kantian phenomenalism on the other. The latter is the basis for the widespread barbarism that "perception is reality," AKA the absolute relativism of my truth, my lived experience, and other pathologies of the left. As if the cosmos starts and stops at their convenience!   

Everything, no matter how intelligible, is always partly unintelligible, which is precisely why our knowledge of things proceeds more deeply in an asymptotic manner. At the top of the asymptote is God himself; or, God is the origin of the infinite asymptotic ray(s) emanating from Celestial Central. Grab any one of them and ride it back to the top! Or, stop arbitrarily and call it a deity.

Come to think of it, these nonlocal rays form the warp of the cosmic area rug, while the circles around the center are the weft. As we've explained before, this is why the cosmos is both continuous and discontinuous: the rays account for the continuity, the concentric  circles for the discontinuity. 

If not for the rays, we could never, under any circumstances, pull the cosmos together via its timeless and universal principles. Rather, we would necessarily be reduced to nihilism, permanently banished to wanderment in blunderville.

But let's refocus! In last Saturday's post we made a passing comment about the principle by which the Incarnation is possible. Chapp agrees with our longstanding stand that it must be located in nature of the Trinity itself:

the sovereignty of God manifests itself in self-abandonment rather than a holding on to a static and univocal nature.... This exteriorization within God forms the ontological ground of possibility for the analogous exteriorization of a finite world, as well as for the exteriorization of God that we refer to as the Incarnation (emphasis mine).

In other words, the principle of both Creation and Incarnation is God-the-Father's own "prior" "exteriorization" of the Son-Logos. Except there's no "prior," rather, only this immutably continuous (so to speak) engendering.

This is why it's so misleading to say God is immutable and leave it at that, for the Trinity provides a way to understand such diverse things as relativity, change, time, contingency, multiplicity, human freedom, etc. -- you know, all those otherwise impenetrable and annoying things into which we are plunged.

It's a big deal, for it not only means "there exists within God something for which our creaturely experience of spatiality and duration are analogies," but that "the becoming of creatures in their relations with worldly others is an image and likeness of the event-like quality of the Trinitarian relations."

Again, we're trying to shorten the posts, so let's call a lid on this one.

Love -- and Truth -- at First Glance

Truly truly, one of the reasons we do not respond to trollbait is that Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time (NGD). To respond or even read them is to participate in the very stupidity one wishes to avoid. 

The only exception to the rule would involve a genuine argument over principles, but this is what the leftist scrupulously avoids, because to clarify his principles is to reveal their absurdity. 

Along these lines, a reader alerted me a helpful article called How Metaphysics Can Fix This American Mess, which is a somewhat unfortunate title, being that one of the most important metaphysical principles is the understanding that -- in the words of the Aphorist -- To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.  (https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/10/how-metaphysics-can-fix-this-american-mess-john-horvat.html?utm_source=The+Imaginative+Conservative+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5c9a2bb4e1-Weekly+Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6c8d563f42-5c9a2bb4e1-132498265&mc_cid=5c9a2bb4e1&mc_eid=4e99f8940d)

In short, one's metaphysic must in some form or fashion acknowledge our primordial catastrophe and our inability to save ourselves, otherwise we fall into a destructive promethean pride no less baleful than its sickular cousin. Obviously, a big part of metaphysics is knowing what man is and where he fits into the total cosmic scheme.  

Nor does anything in metaphysics -- i.e., on this side of heaven -- spare us the final leap of faith. To pretend man can live without faith leads to the implicit faith that man is a god, and we all know where that leads.

Moreover, metaphysics is abstract while life is concretely lived, such that one's metaphysical understanding must pass from vague to distinct to realized to lived to transmitted and back.

Consider the subject of this post: is it possible to adequately transmit what one hasn't realized and lived? You might counter that what Bob has realized is stupid or trivial, but you can't deny I've realized it and that I am thereby fully qualified to teach my brand of cosmic stupidity.

Now, while there is only one possible straight line between two points, an infinite number of lines can pass through a single point. At the moment I'm resting in the latter, meaning this post can take off in any number of directions and I have to pick one. Well, I don't literally have to, but if I don't limit myself, the post will never end.

So let's pick a line that's fresh in my mind, the last chapter of Garrigou-Lagrange's Thomistic Common Sense, called The Intellect's First Glance and Contemplation. It begins with the Padre noting the existence of a certain resemblance  

between the child's first intellectual glance and the simple contemplation experienced by the old man who has discovered the true meaning and value of life after the trials and disillusions that time brings in order to prepare us for eternity.

What G-L means by that first intellectual glance is the spontaneous understanding that the object of the intellect is being. Not to say this is consciously and distinctly realized or explicated, only that we vaguely apprehend the intelligible being of sensible things; the rest is commentary, no matter how deeply we subsequently penetrate into being

For "without the intellect's first glance on intelligible reality, all human, scientific, and philosophical knowledge would be impossible." Or better, "profound scientific knowledge, accompanied with humility, leads us to return to our primitive view of the whole of things seen from on high..."

Conversely, "in place of the primitive simplicity of an already-elevated glance, one finds the supposedly-learned complexity of a knowledge that in fact slides downward into decay.... If our life is not elevated to the heights of our thought, then the latter does not delay in descending to the level of our life."

And yet, it can cost close to 100k a year for the privilege of immersing oneself in this decay.

We all know the cliche that religion is for the intelligent-but-humble and ordinary-but-lofty souls, whereas it is beyond the reach of typical midwits of the politico-academic-media complex. Similarly, "A little science thus takes away the virtual richness of the first glance," but "much science brings one back to it." Or "much psychology" in my case. 

Once we are introduced as children to the intelligibility of being, we're off to the vertical races:

From this moment, the intellect seeks out something that surpasses the senses and imagination: the raisons d'être of things, their "why," their cause.... From this first contact with intelligible reality, our intellect grasps that the true is that which is and that a true judgment is is one that is conformed to reality.

Yes, common sense, but how uncommon -- and often illegal -- it has become in our day. As someone once said, political correctness is a war on noticing, especially commonsensical things such as boys = boys and girls = girls, or CRT = racist filth, or our president = demented crook. "Cancel culture" is just weaponized PC.

Which is understandable for reasons mentioned above: since these authoritarians cannot defend their principles without exposing their absurdity, they must harass, attack, cancel, and investigate those of us with common sense. 

Back to our common sense metaphysical principles. If one follows that first glance at intelligible being all the way up, one arrives at something like a Universal and Necessary Object -- or just call it UNO for short. 

If you're on the right track, the next thing you'll realize is that I am not that. Then again, I am not exactly not that either, depending upon how we look at it. For one thing, to realize it is to participate in it (or It in us, rather), and isn't that intriguing? This leads to a principle of Incarnation -- or a principle by which it is possible -- but we'll have to tackle that one in a subsequent post.

Penultimate bottomline for today: 

A beautiful life is a youthful thought realized in mature age. More beautiful still is the life that, up to its last breath, is the realization of a divine inspiration.

Bottom line goes to Sr. D:

A fulfilled life is one that after long years delivers to the grave an adolescent whom life did not corrupt.

At risk of sounding boastful, I have the adolescent part down. 

Love -- and Truth -- at First Glance

Truly truly, one of the reasons we do not respond to trollbait is that Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time (NGD). To respond or even read them is to participate in the very stupidity one wishes to avoid. 

The only exception to the rule would involve a genuine argument over principles, but this is what the leftist scrupulously avoids, because to clarify his principles is to reveal their absurdity. 

Along these lines, a reader alerted me a helpful article called How Metaphysics Can Fix This American Mess, which is a somewhat unfortunate title, being that one of the most important metaphysical principles is the understanding that -- in the words of the Aphorist -- To be a conservative is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.  (https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2021/10/how-metaphysics-can-fix-this-american-mess-john-horvat.html?utm_source=The+Imaginative+Conservative+Newsletter&utm_campaign=5c9a2bb4e1-Weekly+Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6c8d563f42-5c9a2bb4e1-132498265&mc_cid=5c9a2bb4e1&mc_eid=4e99f8940d)

In short, one's metaphysic must in some form or fashion acknowledge our primordial catastrophe and our inability to save ourselves, otherwise we fall into a destructive promethean pride no less baleful than its sickular cousin. Obviously, a big part of metaphysics is knowing what man is and where he fits into the total cosmic scheme.  

Nor does anything in metaphysics -- i.e., on this side of heaven -- spare us the final leap of faith. To pretend man can live without faith leads to the implicit faith that man is a god, and we all know where that leads.

Moreover, metaphysics is abstract while life is concretely lived, such that one's metaphysical understanding must pass from vague to distinct to realized to lived to transmitted and back.

Consider the subject of this post: is it possible to adequately transmit what one hasn't realized and lived? You might counter that what Bob has realized is stupid or trivial, but you can't deny I've realized it and that I am thereby fully qualified to teach my brand of cosmic stupidity.

Now, while there is only one possible straight line between two points, an infinite number of lines can pass through a single point. At the moment I'm resting in the latter, meaning this post can take off in any number of directions and I have to pick one. Well, I don't literally have to, but if I don't limit myself, the post will never end.

So let's pick a line that's fresh in my mind, the last chapter of Garrigou-Lagrange's Thomistic Common Sense, called The Intellect's First Glance and Contemplation. It begins with the Padre noting the existence of a certain resemblance  

between the child's first intellectual glance and the simple contemplation experienced by the old man who has discovered the true meaning and value of life after the trials and disillusions that time brings in order to prepare us for eternity.

What G-L means by that first intellectual glance is the spontaneous understanding that the object of the intellect is being. Not to say this is consciously and distinctly realized or explicated, only that we vaguely apprehend the intelligible being of sensible things; the rest is commentary, no matter how deeply we subsequently penetrate into being

For "without the intellect's first glance on intelligible reality, all human, scientific, and philosophical knowledge would be impossible." Or better, "profound scientific knowledge, accompanied with humility, leads us to return to our primitive view of the whole of things seen from on high..."

Conversely, "in place of the primitive simplicity of an already-elevated glance, one finds the supposedly-learned complexity of a knowledge that in fact slides downward into decay.... If our life is not elevated to the heights of our thought, then the latter does not delay in descending to the level of our life."

And yet, it can cost close to 100k a year for the privilege of immersing oneself in this decay.

We all know the cliche that religion is for the intelligent-but-humble and ordinary-but-lofty souls, whereas it is beyond the reach of typical midwits of the politico-academic-media complex. Similarly, "A little science thus takes away the virtual richness of the first glance," but "much science brings one back to it." Or "much psychology" in my case. 

Once we are introduced as children to the intelligibility of being, we're off to the vertical races:

From this moment, the intellect seeks out something that surpasses the senses and imagination: the raisons d'être of things, their "why," their cause.... From this first contact with intelligible reality, our intellect grasps that the true is that which is and that a true judgment is is one that is conformed to reality.

Yes, common sense, but how uncommon -- and often illegal -- it has become in our day. As someone once said, political correctness is a war on noticing, especially commonsensical things such as boys = boys and girls = girls, or CRT = racist filth, or our president = demented crook. "Cancel culture" is just weaponized PC.

Which is understandable for reasons mentioned above: since these authoritarians cannot defend their principles without exposing their absurdity, they must harass, attack, cancel, and investigate those of us with common sense. 

Back to our common sense metaphysical principles. If one follows that first glance at intelligible being all the way up, one arrives at something like a Universal and Necessary Object -- or just call it UNO for short. 

If you're on the right track, the next thing you'll realize is that I am not that. Then again, I am not exactly not that either, depending upon how we look at it. For one thing, to realize it is to participate in it (or It in us, rather), and isn't that intriguing? This leads to a principle of Incarnation -- or a principle by which it is possible -- but we'll have to tackle that one in a subsequent post.

Penultimate bottomline for today: 

A beautiful life is a youthful thought realized in mature age. More beautiful still is the life that, up to its last breath, is the realization of a divine inspiration.

Bottom line goes to Sr. D:

A fulfilled life is one that after long years delivers to the grave an adolescent whom life did not corrupt.

At risk of sounding boastful, I have the adolescent part down. 

Inspecting the Foundations of the Cosmos

We ended the previous post with something about a proposal to examine the foundations of our cosmic house, in order to better understand why the superstructure of Western Civilization is sliding off of it. What's going on? Is the problem termites? Mold? Bad plumbing? Holes in the roof? 

Did we build on sand, in which case the best foundation in the world won't help?  

And who is qualified to conduct the inspection? To do a proper job of it, one will first have to do a geological survey, venture down into the basement, climb up into the attic, etc., when most inspectors take only a superficial glance at the house itself, and assume their metaphysical assumptions are true enough to hold it up.  

They say our house is built on an alloy of Greek, Jewish, and Christian materials, which is true as far as it goes. But prior to this it's made of human nature, aspects of which are constrained by DNA (genetics being a necessary but not sufficient condition of humanness). 

Along these lines, I recently read a book by the theologian Larry Chapp called The God of Covenant and Creation: Scientific Naturalism and its Challenge to the Christian Faith. The first half is a little dry, but it picks up the pace in the second half, as indicated by the many times I have written YES in the margins.  

Let's review these enthusiastic YESes and try to make out the contours of the hyperdimensional object which evoked them.

A number of my YESes pertain to the so-called immutability of God. Now, this immutability has an undeniable appeal if we're going to build a civilization on top of it. Put conversely, how can one build on a process, a wave, a cloud of energy, a changeable opinion, man? 

However, as we know, anything we say about God -- or can say about God -- is strictly analogical. Thus, for example, we can say God is "good," when in actuality he is the ground of goodness itself; in other words, it's not a "trait," but rather, the substance.

But Chapp (via Balthasar) makes the subtle point -- and how stupid of me to not have thought of it! -- that we must also consider God's immutability in the same analogical way:

Why is it, asks Balthasar, that we rarely see warnings about the analogical nature of all language about God when we speak of God's immutability or self-possession as an Absolute Subject? 

In short, God is "immutable," so long as this is understood analogically. Pushed too far and taken too literally, God becomes as intelligent, living, and relatable as a rock. 

It is at this point that the YESes begin flying. For example, Chapp quotes one of our favorite celestial inspectors, Norris Clarke, who writes that

Given an infinitely good and loving personal being, it seems to me one can say it is inevitable that it will pour over in some way to share its goodness outside itself, though one cannot predict just how. 

This inevitability, or necessity if you will, is not an external compulsion or blind metaphysical force, but the very logic, the special logic of a loving nature, that will spontaneously pour over to share its goodness in some way... uncompelled by anything but love, yet inevitable, out of character for it not to happen.

Yes. That's exactly what I see. In the ultimate ground of being, "freedom and necessity come together in a transcendent synthesis, proper only to the nature of love" (ibid.). 

Except to say it can't literally be a synthesis, because this implies two separate strands that are united a posteriori, when they are really complementary aspects of their anterior unity, like justice/mercy, time/eternity, Father/Son, etc.

Much more to say, but we promised shorter posts and we're sticking to it.  

Inspecting the Foundations of the Cosmos

We ended the previous post with something about a proposal to examine the foundations of our cosmic house, in order to better understand why the superstructure of Western Civilization is sliding off of it. What's going on? Is the problem termites? Mold? Bad plumbing? Holes in the roof? 

Did we build on sand, in which case the best foundation in the world won't help?  

And who is qualified to conduct the inspection? To do a proper job of it, one will first have to do a geological survey, venture down into the basement, climb up into the attic, etc., when most inspectors take only a superficial glance at the house itself, and assume their metaphysical assumptions are true enough to hold it up.  

They say our house is built on an alloy of Greek, Jewish, and Christian materials, which is true as far as it goes. But prior to this it's made of human nature, aspects of which are constrained by DNA (genetics being a necessary but not sufficient condition of humanness). 

Along these lines, I recently read a book by the theologian Larry Chapp called The God of Covenant and Creation: Scientific Naturalism and its Challenge to the Christian Faith. The first half is a little dry, but it picks up the pace in the second half, as indicated by the many times I have written YES in the margins.  

Let's review these enthusiastic YESes and try to make out the contours of the hyperdimensional object which evoked them.

A number of my YESes pertain to the so-called immutability of God. Now, this immutability has an undeniable appeal if we're going to build a civilization on top of it. Put conversely, how can one build on a process, a wave, a cloud of energy, a changeable opinion, man? 

However, as we know, anything we say about God -- or can say about God -- is strictly analogical. Thus, for example, we can say God is "good," when in actuality he is the ground of goodness itself; in other words, it's not a "trait," but rather, the substance.

But Chapp (via Balthasar) makes the subtle point -- and how stupid of me to not have thought of it! -- that we must also consider God's immutability in the same analogical way:

Why is it, asks Balthasar, that we rarely see warnings about the analogical nature of all language about God when we speak of God's immutability or self-possession as an Absolute Subject? 

In short, God is "immutable," so long as this is understood analogically. Pushed too far and taken too literally, God becomes as intelligent, living, and relatable as a rock. 

It is at this point that the YESes begin flying. For example, Chapp quotes one of our favorite celestial inspectors, Norris Clarke, who writes that

Given an infinitely good and loving personal being, it seems to me one can say it is inevitable that it will pour over in some way to share its goodness outside itself, though one cannot predict just how. 

This inevitability, or necessity if you will, is not an external compulsion or blind metaphysical force, but the very logic, the special logic of a loving nature, that will spontaneously pour over to share its goodness in some way... uncompelled by anything but love, yet inevitable, out of character for it not to happen.

Yes. That's exactly what I see. In the ultimate ground of being, "freedom and necessity come together in a transcendent synthesis, proper only to the nature of love" (ibid.). 

Except to say it can't literally be a synthesis, because this implies two separate strands that are united a posteriori, when they are really complementary aspects of their anterior unity, like justice/mercy, time/eternity, Father/Son, etc.

Much more to say, but we promised shorter posts and we're sticking to it.  

Orphans, Bastards, and Snippets

As promised -- or threatened -- more fragments of unfinished and abandoned posts:

There exists no scientific theory -- nor can there exist any such theory -- capable of explaining the presence of free will. Which is not really surprising, since one can say the same of subjectivity itself. The famous "hard problem of consciousness" is only hard from the perspective of materialism, in which case it is quite literally impossible. 

However, consciousness isn't contingent, rather, necessary. Once that little metamuddle is unmuddled, the hard problem is, What motivates a person to use consciousness in order to deny consciousness? That's more than a waste of time, for it is a waste of timelessness.

I remember back in the day reading book called The Taboo of Subjectivity by Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace, which cites the truism that, "strictly speaking," "there is no scientific evidence even for the existence of consciousness." That's what you call soph-evident, for reasons we needn't re-re-re-peat. What's more important are the cosmic implications, which are not only many, but ultimately even One.

More self-evident truth:

All the direct evidence we have consists of nonscientific, first-person accounts of being conscious. 

He cites the International Dictionary of Psychology, where it says of consciousness that (as of 2000) 

it is impossible specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it.  

For example, that sentence. But in reality, many things worth reading have been written about it, for example, this post.

I don't remember much else about the book except that it confirmed what was already obvious to me: that consciousness is one of those things that cannot be explained by reducing it to something less. Rather, it can only be understood on its own terms -- or, to be perfectly accurate, by seeing it as an entailment of its own sufficient reason. Put conversely, the material world is entirely insufficient to even begin to account for it. There can be no greater category error than pretending otherwise.  

For me the matter was settled after going through the works of Alfred North Whitehead. But guess what?, Bob whispered creepily. I was only attracted to Whitehead because I already believed what he had to say about the matter. I just needed some big-name philosophical back-up, being that I was just a retail clerk at the time, and not yet a properly credentialed idiot.  

***    

Once free will is denied, one is no longer free to accept or reject the very theory that would deny it: it is neither falsifiable nor truifiable. In short, the denial of free will is not even unscientific. 

This goes to the necessary metacosmic relationship between Truth and Freedom, in that if we aren't free to know truth, then neither one -- truth nor freedom -- can exist. If truth is determined, then there is no exit from the closed circle of causation. 

The upshot is that the existence of freedom is one of the air holes in the Matrix. But it's more than that, for it is also a lifeline from and to God, possibly the most consequential ontological spiral of them all. 

As such, freedom is the sufficient cause of the left, albeit in an assbackward and reactionary manner, for each of their policies exists to thwart and vitiate freedom, whether freedom of speech, freedom to be born, freedom of self-defense, freedom of assembly, freedom of exchange, freedom from state indoctrination, etc. 

****

You've heard of micro- and macroeconomics. But these are situated below cosmo- or meta-economics, for it turns out that economics is grounded in a priori principles, meaning that on Mount Sinai they were handed down directly from God to Mises.

But let's begin at the Beginning, AKA Genesis. 

Now, in "paradise" -- in the Garden of Eden -- there is no economics and no possibility of economics. This isn't just because paradise is fun and economics dismal; rather, it is because the basis of economics is scarcity, and there's no scarcity in paradise. Simple as. If there's scarcity, you know you're not in heaven -- or that Pete Buttigieg is away on pretendity leave.   

And what is scarcity? The moment you think about it, you realize there's no such thing until human beings arrive on the scene, for scarcity is a function of desire. Animals have drives but they obviously don't have conscious desires.

For example, when our Great Dane wakes up in the morning she likes to bask in the sun. She prefers to do so on her comfy pad, but she can't form a connection between the sun over here and the pad over there in the shade. She'll stand in the sun until I drag the pad over, at which point she'll plop onto it.

There's probably a dog somewhere who has sense enough to drag a pad into the sun, but you get the point: dogs don't sit around wishing things were otherwise. Only human beings do that, nor do they ever stop doing it, and this is both a gift and a curse. We are always wishing things were different, which is the motive power for getting anything done. But even when things are perfect, we want more.

The other night I watched a Larry David episode in which he's in a waiting room with a beautiful view of the city. He asks the receptionist how long it took for her to take it for granted: "About a day and a half."

Me? I don't accomplish much because I'm pretty content the way things are. That makes me unusual, I guess, but it's the end result of a lot of wishing I didn't have to waste so much time wishing things were different. 

Rather, long ago I decided to conduct an experiment: why not be the guy who's content with the way things are, rather than exerting so much time and energy wishing they were otherwise? In other words, focus on the end rather than the means. In fact, just skip the latter altogether and get to the point. Just Be, and be done with it.

I know what you're thinkingt: Bob, you're just turning a defect into a virtue. You have no real skills or abilities, but you're just intelligent enough to realize that if you exerted more effort to be successful, you'd be revealed as the failure you are.

Perhaps, but one must nevertheless try! Now that I'm reflecting on this subject, I'm recalling those 12 years I spent working in a supermarket between 1976 and 1988, more often than not on the graveyard shift, which suited me perfectly because of the absence of authority. Every night was like having a substitute teacher in charge of the classroom.  

Anyway, during my ten minute breaks I'd spend 45 minutes or so flipping through magazines. I was especially influenced by People magazine, because it always featured stories about this or that famous and wealthy celebrity who was miserable: either their lives were caught up in addiction and scandal, or they were just out of rehab and rebuilding their lives and careers. 

In short, People was full of people who had gotten what they wanted -- fame, success, money -- but it had backfired; or, they were trying to do it all over again, but this time get it right by focusing on the things they should have valued all along, such as children, home, God, etc.  

Anyway, Mises, according to Prof. Wiki, conceived economic laws "as akin to geometric or mathematical  axioms: fixed, unchanging, objective and discernible through logical reasoning without the use of any empirical evidence." 

Every science has an object to which it is ordered, for example, physics to the material world, biology to the living organism, psychology to the human mind, etc. Religion is in one sense ordered to God or the Absolute, but that's really another way of saying it's ordered to "everything," since everything is God and God is everything -- and more.

This "science of Ultimate Reality," writes Nasr, is

attainable through intellect and not reason, of an essentially suprahuman character and including in its fullness the whole of man's being.

Bob, we know you are a mighty, mighty man, but suprahuman? Really? Sure, so long as everyone else is too:

to be human is to seek to be suprahuman. Man can in fact be defined as the being created to transcend himself and to seek the Transcendent as such. 

Circling back to where we started, if certain fundamental realities cannot be reduced to anything less, it is because their principle must be at the other end, i.e., "above." These things can never be defined from below, nor can they be contained by language, although, at the same time, language can nevertheless communicate directly some of their essence. This is an aspect of grace, which isn't God, but neither is it not God -- as the light streaming in my window isn't the sun, but not not the sun either.

Along these lines, there exist forms that communicate the formless, and exist to do so. Nevertheless, many folks misunderstand their function and reduce them to their form. Which is idolatry.

Well, now that we are caught up with these old bastards, we can move on to the next subject, which will  involve examining the foundation of the cosmos in order to better understand why the superstructure of Western Civilization is sliding off of it.