I Just Want to Cerebrate

Let’s put on our most abstract thinking caps and see if we can't sneak past the cherubim. How formidable could they be? Depends. Could be these:

Or this:

Or even these, in which case we may have met our match:

To back up just a bit, I’ve been pondering the question of why I’ll never be as beloved as Gerard. No, not in the self-pitying way discussed in yesterday’s post, but in a totally objective way. 

I’ve concluded -- yeah, I'm a little slow -- that I’m just not very likeable. Except for a tiny preselected group of misfits for whom I like to think I am somewhat likable after all. These would be people who are built a bit like me, who have the same sorts of preoccupations, and can feel rather alienated because of our cosmic minority status.

The more general unlikeabilty troubles me for reasons particular to Christianity and its seeming emphasis on caritas, i.e., that if I do not have love, I am nothing. That sounds rather categorical, but what if we just aren’t the sloppy sentimental type?  

In the book, I said something to the effect that I did a lot of searching and researching for it, but concluded that it couldn’t be found anywhere. Therefore, it fell upon me to write it. At first, you might say I was trying to find a religion acceptable to me, even if I had to invent it myself. But now I would say that I fully accept religion as it is, but that I still need to make it intelligible to myself. Otherwise I'm just fooling myself, pretending to believe something I cannot believe. 

God doesn't give us our most miraculous faculty -- the intellect -- only to expect us to ignore it with regard to his most important message. How could there be such a disjunction between truth and intellect? Correct: the fall. For what is fallenness but a rupture between human intelligence and divine truth? We’ll return to this subject later.

Maybe I’m out of line, but in my defense, 1) this is just the way I am, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, 2) surely there must be others, and 3) just because we are the way we are, why should we be excluded from religion? We are not special, just different. If God “loves us the way we are,” but is presented to us in a way that is unintelligible to the way we are, then what are we supposed to do, become atheists? Doing so would constitute a total rejection of the miraculous gift of intelligence. Talk about ingratitude.

Now, is there a danger here of hubris? Yes, you bet, and you’d better know it. Abiding awareness of this danger is one of the extra-intellectual tools we must keep in our backpack. 

In short, intelligence that is not acutely aware of humility is no longer even intelligent. It has parted ways with the very truth it seeks to know. Thus, there is an irreducible complementarity between intelligence and humility. Schuon:

the same intelligence that makes us aware of a superiority, also makes us aware of the relativity of this superiority and, more than this, it makes us aware of all our limitations. This means that an essential function of intelligence is self-knowledge: hence the knowledge -- positive or negative according to the aspects in view -- of our own nature.

We all know intelligent but pompous assess whose intelligence betrays them precisely at this point of rupture depicted in Genesis 3. It may even lead the relatively good-willed seeker to engage in a kind of manic or drunk and disorderly speculation that is a mixture of light and darkness. I know this because I used to be this way.  

Now, around these parts we insist upon a thoroughly drunken sobriety or sober drunkenness. Yes, I am here to amuse you, but never in a purely frivolous way. Rather, the frivolity is always in service to the deadly serious. Sometimes laughter is required in order to shake the rust from the mirror -- especially laughter at oneself. It is in this sense that Petey says If you’re not laughing, you’re wrong. It is the best remedy, and it begins at home.

With this preliminary hemhaw out of the way, back to our climb. If we are going to sneak past the cherubim, we'll have to clothe ourselves in darkness. Thus, we will need some sort of night vision device, a way to “see” in the divine darkness. 

We’ve already spoken of Absolute and Infinite, the one being unthinkable without the other -- just as the Father is unthinkable without the Son. Why? Because there is a relation between them, and this relation goes to a common substance. 

Now, what is this substance? Yes, we could say it is love. But we can also say truth and beauty. These all go to the superglue that holds things together in the Godhead.  

But if there were only this superglue, then we couldn’t be here, because there would be no sharing of all the love, light, truth, and beauty with the restavus. 

It reminds me of the Big Bang, which is governed by certain precise variables that determine its rate of expansion. Last I checked, there are four fundamental forces, and if the strong one were too weak or the weak one too strong, then it either collapses in on itself or else scatters and dissipates before anything interesting can develop.

Well, it's the same with the Divine Principle, and I’ll bet the Big Bang is the way it is because the Godhead is the way it is. That is, it can't keep to itself, but flows out into creation, sharing itself with all and sundry. This leads into a Very Large Subject, and is probably a good place to end for the day.

I Just Want to Cerebrate

Let’s put on our most abstract thinking caps and see if we can't sneak past the cherubim. How formidable could they be? Depends. Could be these:

Or this:

Or even these, in which case we may have met our match:

To back up just a bit, I’ve been pondering the question of why I’ll never be as beloved as Gerard. No, not in the self-pitying way discussed in yesterday’s post, but in a totally objective way. 

I’ve concluded -- yeah, I'm a little slow -- that I’m just not very likeable. Except for a tiny preselected group of misfits for whom I like to think I am somewhat likable after all. These would be people who are built a bit like me, who have the same sorts of preoccupations, and can feel rather alienated because of our cosmic minority status.

The more general unlikeabilty troubles me for reasons particular to Christianity and its seeming emphasis on caritas, i.e., that if I do not have love, I am nothing. That sounds rather categorical, but what if we just aren’t the sloppy sentimental type?  

In the book, I said something to the effect that I did a lot of searching and researching for it, but concluded that it couldn’t be found anywhere. Therefore, it fell upon me to write it. At first, you might say I was trying to find a religion acceptable to me, even if I had to invent it myself. But now I would say that I fully accept religion as it is, but that I still need to make it intelligible to myself. Otherwise I'm just fooling myself, pretending to believe something I cannot believe. 

God doesn't give us our most miraculous faculty -- the intellect -- only to expect us to ignore it with regard to his most important message. How could there be such a disjunction between truth and intellect? Correct: the fall. For what is fallenness but a rupture between human intelligence and divine truth? We’ll return to this subject later.

Maybe I’m out of line, but in my defense, 1) this is just the way I am, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, 2) surely there must be others, and 3) just because we are the way we are, why should we be excluded from religion? We are not special, just different. If God “loves us the way we are,” but is presented to us in a way that is unintelligible to the way we are, then what are we supposed to do, become atheists? Doing so would constitute a total rejection of the miraculous gift of intelligence. Talk about ingratitude.

Now, is there a danger here of hubris? Yes, you bet, and you’d better know it. Abiding awareness of this danger is one of the extra-intellectual tools we must keep in our backpack. 

In short, intelligence that is not acutely aware of humility is no longer even intelligent. It has parted ways with the very truth it seeks to know. Thus, there is an irreducible complementarity between intelligence and humility. Schuon:

the same intelligence that makes us aware of a superiority, also makes us aware of the relativity of this superiority and, more than this, it makes us aware of all our limitations. This means that an essential function of intelligence is self-knowledge: hence the knowledge -- positive or negative according to the aspects in view -- of our own nature.

We all know intelligent but pompous assess whose intelligence betrays them precisely at this point of rupture depicted in Genesis 3. It may even lead the relatively good-willed seeker to engage in a kind of manic or drunk and disorderly speculation that is a mixture of light and darkness. I know this because I used to be this way.  

Now, around these parts we insist upon a thoroughly drunken sobriety or sober drunkenness. Yes, I am here to amuse you, but never in a purely frivolous way. Rather, the frivolity is always in service to the deadly serious. Sometimes laughter is required in order to shake the rust from the mirror -- especially laughter at oneself. It is in this sense that Petey says If you’re not laughing, you’re wrong. It is the best remedy, and it begins at home.

With this preliminary hemhaw out of the way, back to our climb. If we are going to sneak past the cherubim, we'll have to clothe ourselves in darkness. Thus, we will need some sort of night vision device, a way to “see” in the divine darkness. 

We’ve already spoken of Absolute and Infinite, the one being unthinkable without the other -- just as the Father is unthinkable without the Son. Why? Because there is a relation between them, and this relation goes to a common substance. 

Now, what is this substance? Yes, we could say it is love. But we can also say truth and beauty. These all go to the superglue that holds things together in the Godhead.  

But if there were only this superglue, then we couldn’t be here, because there would be no sharing of all the love, light, truth, and beauty with the restavus. 

It reminds me of the Big Bang, which is governed by certain precise variables that determine its rate of expansion. Last I checked, there are four fundamental forces, and if the strong one were too weak or the weak one too strong, then it either collapses in on itself or else scatters and dissipates before anything interesting can develop.

Well, it's the same with the Divine Principle, and I’ll bet the Big Bang is the way it is because the Godhead is the way it is. That is, it can't keep to itself, but flows out into creation, sharing itself with all and sundry. This leads into a Very Large Subject, and is probably a good place to end for the day.

Our Poor Laddie

A brief interlude while we contemplate the eternal question of whether these are sour grapes or sweet lemons.

A perceptive or insolent reader asks if the pathetic (my word) neediness expressed in yesterday’s whining (my word) post is another tiresome (my word) instance of "the cyclical depression about lack of readers or worthy commenters you are prone to every couple of years?” 

Don’t be ridiculous. First of all, it's more like every six months. But it’s a bit more acute this time, what with Gerard’s situation. How many OG long form bloggers are left? And what do I win even if I do prevail in my grim struggle to outlast Lileks?

In these cycles, I always revert back to Davila, reclusive OG master of the short form. 

Come to think of it, I also go back to a conversation along these lines with a coworker that must have taken place fifteen years ago. Can’t recall the exact words, but it was something like Do you really want more attention? Except the emphasis was more on the “you” (of all people) than the “attention.” In other words, on Bob's peculiar personality style. 

For just as I waver between megalomania and self-pity, I also waver between exhibitionism and contemplative withdrawal from the world. The former is fine while it lasts, but I couldn’t function without the latter. 

People who meet me in the flesh tend to be surprised that I’m not always such a flamboyant extrovert. I am, but only in way analogous to one of those flying fish. It’s remarkable to see them soar through the air, but nevertheless, 99% of their time is spent under water, away from the light and air. 

Likewise, my peculiar lifestyle requires a great deal of time spent aimlessly paddling about in the ocean of being. Don't be fooled by the brief aerial exhibition.  

Here are a few of our home aphorisms, or at least permanent rationalizations:

We need to write simultaneously as if no one whatsoever will read us and as if everyone will read us.

To write honestly for others, one must write fundamentally for oneself.

He who longs to write for more than a hundred readers capitulates. 

To write for posterity is not to worry whether they will read us tomorrow, it is to aspire to a certain quality of writing. Even if no one reads us.

There is the occasional convergence of artistry and commercial success, but

No one is important for long without becoming an idiot.

Careful there, Jordan. Next stop Crowderville. 

I think of the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney, who peaked over half a century ago, and since then have been coasting on self-parody. It seems that only a disdainful crank like Van Morrison escapes the pull. 

My coworker’s comment goes to the fact that supposing I did have more attention, I’d probably freeze with self-consciousness. Trolls are amusing, but 100,000 of them might be a bit much. One might find oneself reacting to them, when the reactive mind is one of those things that just don’t mix with the contemplative life:

Nothing is more stupid than to disdain stupidity when we solicit its applause.

Indeed,

Those who write in order to convince always lie. In order not to entrap, one must write with a certain disdain.

I disdain these grapes and those non-readers! 

I don’t doubt that Davila rolled this way, so he is always an inspiration. Here are some of the ways he dealt with the attention of imbeciles:

--Let us not give stupid opinions the pleasure of upsetting us.

--The partisans of a cause are often the best arguments against it.

--It is enough to know nothing more than that certain beings have adopted an idea to know that it is false.

And

When everyone wants to be something, it is only decent to be nothing.

Done!

One last ode to Our Poor Laddie:

I'm a quiet living man,
who prefers to spend the evening in the silence of his room,
who likes an atmosphere as restful as
an undiscovered tomb.
A pensive man am I, of philosophical joys,
who likes to meditate, contemplate,
far from humanity's mad inhuman noise.
A quiet living man....

But let a reader in your life! 

Our Poor Laddie

A brief interlude while we contemplate the eternal question of whether these are sour grapes or sweet lemons.

A perceptive or insolent reader asks if the pathetic (my word) neediness expressed in yesterday’s whining (my word) post is another tiresome (my word) instance of "the cyclical depression about lack of readers or worthy commenters you are prone to every couple of years?” 

Don’t be ridiculous. First of all, it's more like every six months. But it’s a bit more acute this time, what with Gerard’s situation. How many OG long form bloggers are left? And what do I win even if I do prevail in my grim struggle to outlast Lileks?

In these cycles, I always revert back to Davila, reclusive OG master of the short form. 

Come to think of it, I also go back to a conversation along these lines with a coworker that must have taken place fifteen years ago. Can’t recall the exact words, but it was something like Do you really want more attention? Except the emphasis was more on the “you” (of all people) than the “attention.” In other words, on Bob's peculiar personality style. 

For just as I waver between megalomania and self-pity, I also waver between exhibitionism and contemplative withdrawal from the world. The former is fine while it lasts, but I couldn’t function without the latter. 

People who meet me in the flesh tend to be surprised that I’m not always such a flamboyant extrovert. I am, but only in way analogous to one of those flying fish. It’s remarkable to see them soar through the air, but nevertheless, 99% of their time is spent under water, away from the light and air. 

Likewise, my peculiar lifestyle requires a great deal of time spent aimlessly paddling about in the ocean of being. Don't be fooled by the brief aerial exhibition.  

Here are a few of our home aphorisms, or at least permanent rationalizations:

We need to write simultaneously as if no one whatsoever will read us and as if everyone will read us.

To write honestly for others, one must write fundamentally for oneself.

He who longs to write for more than a hundred readers capitulates. 

To write for posterity is not to worry whether they will read us tomorrow, it is to aspire to a certain quality of writing. Even if no one reads us.

There is the occasional convergence of artistry and commercial success, but

No one is important for long without becoming an idiot.

Careful there, Jordan. Next stop Crowderville. 

I think of the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney, who peaked over half a century ago, and since then have been coasting on self-parody. It seems that only a disdainful crank like Van Morrison escapes the pull. 

My coworker’s comment goes to the fact that supposing I did have more attention, I’d probably freeze with self-consciousness. Trolls are amusing, but 100,000 of them might be a bit much. One might find oneself reacting to them, when the reactive mind is one of those things that just don’t mix with the contemplative life:

Nothing is more stupid than to disdain stupidity when we solicit its applause.

Indeed,

Those who write in order to convince always lie. In order not to entrap, one must write with a certain disdain.

I disdain these grapes and those non-readers! 

I don’t doubt that Davila rolled this way, so he is always an inspiration. Here are some of the ways he dealt with the attention of imbeciles:

--Let us not give stupid opinions the pleasure of upsetting us.

--The partisans of a cause are often the best arguments against it.

--It is enough to know nothing more than that certain beings have adopted an idea to know that it is false.

And

When everyone wants to be something, it is only decent to be nothing.

Done!

One last ode to Our Poor Laddie:

I'm a quiet living man,
who prefers to spend the evening in the silence of his room,
who likes an atmosphere as restful as
an undiscovered tomb.
A pensive man am I, of philosophical joys,
who likes to meditate, contemplate,
far from humanity's mad inhuman noise.
A quiet living man....

But let a reader in your life! 

Three and Threeness

In Professor Commentbox’s brief compilation of pithy cosmic sayings, he quotes Voegelin to the effect that the quest -- that would be our quest and every quest -- has no external 'object,' but is reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable. 

Our mountain metaphor is still moving, or at least twitching, so we’re not yet finished beating it. But if Voegelin is correct, it implies that this mountain we're staring at is not external to us, but rather, internal. Thus, it is the projection or externalization of a fundamentally spiritual or vertical reality.

However, this is not to say the mountain is unreal, because Voegelin says that it is reality, precisely; or rather, bestwecando is regard life as midway between two effing ineffabilities. There is progress, because there is a top, even though it’s always up ahead, like a mirage in the road on the way to Vegas.

Transposing the image of the mountain from the exterior-horizontal to interior-vertical, we are always between the top and the bottom. No one reaches the top in this life, although your mohelage may vary, depending upon your rabbi. 

Some would argue that it is indeed possible to reach the top, but this is not something to which I give a great deal of thought, since I am not a Boddisattva shining in Japan or sparkling your China, let alone a black diamond Godman skiing down to basecamp!

Rather, just a midlevel slackpacker looking for a vertical break from folks above my praygrade -- or who loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey or anyone else. All I do, and all I can do, is stare at this screen while remurmuring a little help?   

Anyway, translighting Voegelin’s quote, we might say that the climb is a luminous moment between downhere and upthere, or between immanence and transcendence. It’s this light. Shining in the darkness. 

Now, although I am a metacosmic trinitarian, I often wonder which comes first, the principle or the expression, or in this case, the Trinity or “the trinity.” In other words, is this ultimate truth of Christianity but the form of an even higher and deeper substance? I go back and forth. 

Which may be the point, because this tension between form and substance is for me a generative one. Fruitful. 

Meaning what, Bob? Well, for starters, three is both a number and not a number at all; rather, we might say it is fundamentally a quality expressed quantitatively, in part because it is much easier for man to count his fingers than to wrap his hand around “the quality of threeness,” so to speak. But if God is a mathematician, it is because every mathematician is a person who transcends math.  

Analogously, it is much easier for a man to see life as a climb up the mountain than to understand it as reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable. Otherwise, Voegelin and I would have more readers. 

Going back to Schuon’s assertion that it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite, we see that this implies a kind of twoness in the One: Absolute + Infinite, even though this does not in any way depart from a strict monotheism -- unless it is a “trans-monotheism,” more on which as things become more luminous on this trail.

It is not difficult to think of Absolute-Infinite as One-Many, or perhaps even Creator-Creation. Nor is it difficult for me to imagine that the Creator cannot not create, because otherwise he wouldn’t be the Creator, now would he? And what is the “first” creation, bearing in mind that we are again not talking about numbers but qualities? 

Little help?

The Son!

I’ll continue up this path tomorrow, but frankly, sometimes I feel like I’m just an irritant to readers.  

Three and Threeness

In Professor Commentbox’s brief compilation of pithy cosmic sayings, he quotes Voegelin to the effect that the quest -- that would be our quest and every quest -- has no external 'object,' but is reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable. 

Our mountain metaphor is still moving, or at least twitching, so we’re not yet finished beating it. But if Voegelin is correct, it implies that this mountain we're staring at is not external to us, but rather, internal. Thus, it is the projection or externalization of a fundamentally spiritual or vertical reality.

However, this is not to say the mountain is unreal, because Voegelin says that it is reality, precisely; or rather, bestwecando is regard life as midway between two effing ineffabilities. There is progress, because there is a top, even though it’s always up ahead, like a mirage in the road on the way to Vegas.

Transposing the image of the mountain from the exterior-horizontal to interior-vertical, we are always between the top and the bottom. No one reaches the top in this life, although your mohelage may vary, depending upon your rabbi. 

Some would argue that it is indeed possible to reach the top, but this is not something to which I give a great deal of thought, since I am not a Boddisattva shining in Japan or sparkling your China, let alone a black diamond Godman skiing down to basecamp!

Rather, just a midlevel slackpacker looking for a vertical break from folks above my praygrade -- or who loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey or anyone else. All I do, and all I can do, is stare at this screen while remurmuring a little help?   

Anyway, translighting Voegelin’s quote, we might say that the climb is a luminous moment between downhere and upthere, or between immanence and transcendence. It’s this light. Shining in the darkness. 

Now, although I am a metacosmic trinitarian, I often wonder which comes first, the principle or the expression, or in this case, the Trinity or “the trinity.” In other words, is this ultimate truth of Christianity but the form of an even higher and deeper substance? I go back and forth. 

Which may be the point, because this tension between form and substance is for me a generative one. Fruitful. 

Meaning what, Bob? Well, for starters, three is both a number and not a number at all; rather, we might say it is fundamentally a quality expressed quantitatively, in part because it is much easier for man to count his fingers than to wrap his hand around “the quality of threeness,” so to speak. But if God is a mathematician, it is because every mathematician is a person who transcends math.  

Analogously, it is much easier for a man to see life as a climb up the mountain than to understand it as reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable. Otherwise, Voegelin and I would have more readers. 

Going back to Schuon’s assertion that it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite, we see that this implies a kind of twoness in the One: Absolute + Infinite, even though this does not in any way depart from a strict monotheism -- unless it is a “trans-monotheism,” more on which as things become more luminous on this trail.

It is not difficult to think of Absolute-Infinite as One-Many, or perhaps even Creator-Creation. Nor is it difficult for me to imagine that the Creator cannot not create, because otherwise he wouldn’t be the Creator, now would he? And what is the “first” creation, bearing in mind that we are again not talking about numbers but qualities? 

Little help?

The Son!

I’ll continue up this path tomorrow, but frankly, sometimes I feel like I’m just an irritant to readers.  

Really True and Really Real

Or really self-indulgent? You decide. But look before you leap. Hesitate. 

Yesterday we stipulated that it is necessary to begin our climb with the ideas of Absolute and Infinite. 

Now, to begin the trek with any idea already lands us in controversy, so we can’t actually just stipulate this and move along. The whole Aristotelian-Thomist tradition begins at the other end, with the senses. 

This certainly has its virtues, since it seemingly anchors us in something a little less flimsy than ideas, of all things. For is there any idea so stupid that it hasn’t formed the basis of some tenured lunacy?

Confused ideas and murky ponds seem deep.

Yes, but we’re talking about the Supreme Idea, or idea of the Supreme Being. Perhaps, but so what? As if the idea of God hasn't brought about as many problems as it has solved!

We can start with the idea that matter or class or race is supreme, and there’s nothing we can do about it once we concede that we can begin with ideas.

There’s a response to that, and let’s t-try to f-figure out what it might be. Note that our hesitation is not a bug but a feature, for

As long as we can respond without hesitating we do not know the subject.

Rather, proof of our mastery of the subject is in our, uh, you know, man, that this whole mountain thing may just be, not as simple as, uh, you know? Besides, 

That which is incomprehensible increases with the growth of the intelligence.

Now you're talkin', because the more we know the less we really know, am I right? 

And the operative word here is really, because we all know stuff, but what do we really know? 

Which leads immediately to the question of what is really real. If something is really true, it must conform to what is really real. And if man can know what is really real, that says a great deal about what man really is. 

Another provocative aphorism:

Nothing is more superficial than intelligences that comprehend everything.

Why should this be? Because the principle of our comprehension is located in a higher principle -- the Principle, as we hope to demonstrate. 

Let’s say that man can only comprehend anything because he is in turn comprehended. I mean this literally, for com-prehend connotes something like “grasp-around,” which means that we are “contained” by something that transcends us. We can know a great deal, which means we contain a lot of knowledge. But it’s only because we are contained. 

Contained by what? Here is where vulgar reductionism goes off the rails, because to say, for example, that we are contained by matter is to enclose us in eternal stupidity. It explains nothing, or not even nothing.

Here we have to draw an important distinction between reduction and reductionism, similar to the distinction between science and scientism, or matter and materialism, or ideas and idealism. 

The real problem is “ismism" in its diverse forms. And for me, the real meaning of Genesis 3 is this descent from the Really Real to some manmode ismism, which is both naive idolatry and the uncritical cosmic onanism of infertile eggheads.

Here we touch on humility, not for its own sake, but because it is the… how to put it… ontological stance necessary for certain perceptions of what is really real. After all, we are contingent. And we are contingent full stop, end of story, do not pass go, unless we are somehow connected or related to what is not contingent, rather to what is necessary, AKA Necessary Being.

Which is none other than the Absolute mentioned above in paragraph one. To say Man is -- in one way or another, explicitly or implicitly -- to say Absolute. 

For example, you can say man is “nothing but” a randomly evolved animal. But in so saying this, do you not see how you have covertly partaken of the Absolute? But by virtue of what principle? What’s your excuse? 

Here is the shocking bottom line, or at least I find it to be a perpetual shock:

Truth is a person.

Which means that what is really real is the principle of Personhood.  

But what is a person, really?

Two favorite aphorisms before we stop for the day:

The truth is objective but not impersonal.

And 

All truth goes from flesh to flesh.

We are here. The mountaintop is there. The distance between is at once infinite and as close as our jugular. Or so we have heard from the wise.

Really True and Really Real

Or really self-indulgent? You decide. But look before you leap. Hesitate. 

Yesterday we stipulated that it is necessary to begin our climb with the ideas of Absolute and Infinite. 

Now, to begin the trek with any idea already lands us in controversy, so we can’t actually just stipulate this and move along. The whole Aristotelian-Thomist tradition begins at the other end, with the senses. 

This certainly has its virtues, since it seemingly anchors us in something a little less flimsy than ideas, of all things. For is there any idea so stupid that it hasn’t formed the basis of some tenured lunacy?

Confused ideas and murky ponds seem deep.

Yes, but we’re talking about the Supreme Idea, or idea of the Supreme Being. Perhaps, but so what? As if the idea of God hasn't brought about as many problems as it has solved!

We can start with the idea that matter or class or race is supreme, and there’s nothing we can do about it once we concede that we can begin with ideas.

There’s a response to that, and let’s t-try to f-figure out what it might be. Note that our hesitation is not a bug but a feature, for

As long as we can respond without hesitating we do not know the subject.

Rather, proof of our mastery of the subject is in our, uh, you know, man, that this whole mountain thing may just be, not as simple as, uh, you know? Besides, 

That which is incomprehensible increases with the growth of the intelligence.

Now you're talkin', because the more we know the less we really know, am I right? 

And the operative word here is really, because we all know stuff, but what do we really know? 

Which leads immediately to the question of what is really real. If something is really true, it must conform to what is really real. And if man can know what is really real, that says a great deal about what man really is. 

Another provocative aphorism:

Nothing is more superficial than intelligences that comprehend everything.

Why should this be? Because the principle of our comprehension is located in a higher principle -- the Principle, as we hope to demonstrate. 

Let’s say that man can only comprehend anything because he is in turn comprehended. I mean this literally, for com-prehend connotes something like “grasp-around,” which means that we are “contained” by something that transcends us. We can know a great deal, which means we contain a lot of knowledge. But it’s only because we are contained. 

Contained by what? Here is where vulgar reductionism goes off the rails, because to say, for example, that we are contained by matter is to enclose us in eternal stupidity. It explains nothing, or not even nothing.

Here we have to draw an important distinction between reduction and reductionism, similar to the distinction between science and scientism, or matter and materialism, or ideas and idealism. 

The real problem is “ismism" in its diverse forms. And for me, the real meaning of Genesis 3 is this descent from the Really Real to some manmode ismism, which is both naive idolatry and the uncritical cosmic onanism of infertile eggheads.

Here we touch on humility, not for its own sake, but because it is the… how to put it… ontological stance necessary for certain perceptions of what is really real. After all, we are contingent. And we are contingent full stop, end of story, do not pass go, unless we are somehow connected or related to what is not contingent, rather to what is necessary, AKA Necessary Being.

Which is none other than the Absolute mentioned above in paragraph one. To say Man is -- in one way or another, explicitly or implicitly -- to say Absolute. 

For example, you can say man is “nothing but” a randomly evolved animal. But in so saying this, do you not see how you have covertly partaken of the Absolute? But by virtue of what principle? What’s your excuse? 

Here is the shocking bottom line, or at least I find it to be a perpetual shock:

Truth is a person.

Which means that what is really real is the principle of Personhood.  

But what is a person, really?

Two favorite aphorisms before we stop for the day:

The truth is objective but not impersonal.

And 

All truth goes from flesh to flesh.

We are here. The mountaintop is there. The distance between is at once infinite and as close as our jugular. Or so we have heard from the wise.

I Don't Roll on Shabbos, I Rappel

Let’s learn something. Before scaling the metaphysical mountain,  

it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite (Schuon).

Now, Aristotle invented metaphysics, and while it is called “first philosophy,” he doesn't start with it. Indeed, for him “meta” did not imply transcendence per se, only the fact that this study of ultimate principles comes at the end:

since they are to be studied only by one who has already studied nature (which is the subject matter of the Physics), they are quite appropriately described as coming “after the Physics” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/). 

It is also worth highlighting that although metaphysics is the study of being qua being, this doesn’t imply an undifferentiated blob, rather, 

his description involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).

Also,

Whereas natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that although not subject to change are nevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there is still room for a science that studies things that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter. Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. 

Thank you, Aristotle. You may leave the witness stand. We will call you back should we have any additional questions.

This reminds me that last summer I read a book called The Seat of Wisdom that provides a systematic account of the historical development of metaphysics, which is helpful to a guy like me who has no plan and enough spare time to execute it. 

Which, it turns out, is a kind of prerequisite after all, in that there can only exist useless and ridiculous people such as myself if all the other more important stuff is taken care of:

The other sciences are more necessary because we cannot survive without them. For example, we need agriculture and mathematics and architecture and engineering if we are going to live in a civilized fashion. If these sciences are successful, we no longer need to struggle to survive. But this success would then raise a very different problem: what should we do with free time, with leisure, so as not to waste it? For this reason Aristotle says philosophy is the fruit of leisure (Jacobs).

Note the emboldened word: should, which goes back to what we said yesterday about an Ought being built into the nature of things. In short, if there is truth, then surely we ought to know it, no? Am I wrong? AM I WRONG?!

And if it is the fruit of leisure, then this indeed makes me a farmer, after a fashion. True, the trees grow by themselves, but someone has to tend the orchard and pick the fruit.  

There’s a paradox here, in that we usually think of leisure as being the opposite of work, or at least its cessation. Even God rests. Or perhaps we should say especially, because I recall certain esteemed rabbis saying that the the Whole Point of the Genesis story is that it converges upon the sabbath: the six days of creation are for the sake of the seventh. Come to think of it, the Catholic philosopher Stanley Jaki interprets it the same way.

I concur with Many European Languages:

the word for work in many European languages is associated with pain or even torture…. In contrast to this labor, free time or leisure is glorious: we have everything we need, so we do something simply because it is good in itself.

Of course, for us, even “doing” is a bridge too far. Rather, non-doing, which is also non-doodling, even if it looks to more productive people such as my in-laws that I’m just doodling around. Look, someone has to exit the absurcularity of life and bring back souvenirs for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t join us on our glorious mountain adventure:

If leisure were simply rest, life would be a vicious circle since it would have no point other than work. The idea of “working for the weekend,” where we play so that we can work again on Monday, is a life bereft of purpose.

So, look man, has it ever occurred to you that, given the nature of reality, that, uh, instead of blaming me, that this whole thing may just be, not, you know, not just a simple, but uh -- you know? I have not failed to achieve. I just don’t want to get bumped into a higher tax bracket.

Consider the fact -- the ontological fact -- that creation indeed has a big fat hole in it called the sabbath. 

Note also that even when it was necessary for everyone, children included, to contribute to production, one seventh of the time was still devoted to the leisure for the sake of which the other six days exist. 

Nowadays we have much more free time than ever before in history, so I think we ought -- there’s that word again -- to spend more time in that sabbath consciousness, i.e., dilate time, grab one of those ropes and climb upward. But how did the rope get here, and can we trust it? To what is it anchored?

I Don't Roll on Shabbos, I Rappel

Let’s learn something. Before scaling the metaphysical mountain,  

it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite (Schuon).

Now, Aristotle invented metaphysics, and while it is called “first philosophy,” he doesn't start with it. Indeed, for him “meta” did not imply transcendence per se, only the fact that this study of ultimate principles comes at the end:

since they are to be studied only by one who has already studied nature (which is the subject matter of the Physics), they are quite appropriately described as coming “after the Physics” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/). 

It is also worth highlighting that although metaphysics is the study of being qua being, this doesn’t imply an undifferentiated blob, rather, 

his description involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).

Also,

Whereas natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that although not subject to change are nevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there is still room for a science that studies things that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter. Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. 

Thank you, Aristotle. You may leave the witness stand. We will call you back should we have any additional questions.

This reminds me that last summer I read a book called The Seat of Wisdom that provides a systematic account of the historical development of metaphysics, which is helpful to a guy like me who has no plan and enough spare time to execute it. 

Which, it turns out, is a kind of prerequisite after all, in that there can only exist useless and ridiculous people such as myself if all the other more important stuff is taken care of:

The other sciences are more necessary because we cannot survive without them. For example, we need agriculture and mathematics and architecture and engineering if we are going to live in a civilized fashion. If these sciences are successful, we no longer need to struggle to survive. But this success would then raise a very different problem: what should we do with free time, with leisure, so as not to waste it? For this reason Aristotle says philosophy is the fruit of leisure (Jacobs).

Note the emboldened word: should, which goes back to what we said yesterday about an Ought being built into the nature of things. In short, if there is truth, then surely we ought to know it, no? Am I wrong? AM I WRONG?!

And if it is the fruit of leisure, then this indeed makes me a farmer, after a fashion. True, the trees grow by themselves, but someone has to tend the orchard and pick the fruit.  

There’s a paradox here, in that we usually think of leisure as being the opposite of work, or at least its cessation. Even God rests. Or perhaps we should say especially, because I recall certain esteemed rabbis saying that the the Whole Point of the Genesis story is that it converges upon the sabbath: the six days of creation are for the sake of the seventh. Come to think of it, the Catholic philosopher Stanley Jaki interprets it the same way.

I concur with Many European Languages:

the word for work in many European languages is associated with pain or even torture…. In contrast to this labor, free time or leisure is glorious: we have everything we need, so we do something simply because it is good in itself.

Of course, for us, even “doing” is a bridge too far. Rather, non-doing, which is also non-doodling, even if it looks to more productive people such as my in-laws that I’m just doodling around. Look, someone has to exit the absurcularity of life and bring back souvenirs for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t join us on our glorious mountain adventure:

If leisure were simply rest, life would be a vicious circle since it would have no point other than work. The idea of “working for the weekend,” where we play so that we can work again on Monday, is a life bereft of purpose.

So, look man, has it ever occurred to you that, given the nature of reality, that, uh, instead of blaming me, that this whole thing may just be, not, you know, not just a simple, but uh -- you know? I have not failed to achieve. I just don’t want to get bumped into a higher tax bracket.

Consider the fact -- the ontological fact -- that creation indeed has a big fat hole in it called the sabbath. 

Note also that even when it was necessary for everyone, children included, to contribute to production, one seventh of the time was still devoted to the leisure for the sake of which the other six days exist. 

Nowadays we have much more free time than ever before in history, so I think we ought -- there’s that word again -- to spend more time in that sabbath consciousness, i.e., dilate time, grab one of those ropes and climb upward. But how did the rope get here, and can we trust it? To what is it anchored?