After the prolegomena

Maritain in Degrees, Part I, chapter iii, section i:

… Gilson’s study ["Le réalisme méthodique" in Philosophia Perennis] is recommended because of the many correct and penetrating observations it contains, and it shows in excellent fashion that it would be a vain task to look for the principle of a realistic noetic from the Cartesian Cogito, no matter what changes are suggested in it. ‘Whoever begins as an idealist,’ he writes, ‘will necessarily end up an idealist. One does not make a passing acquaintence with idealism. That fact should have been suspected, since history is there to teach it. Cogito, ergo res sunt: that is Cartesianism, the very antithesis of what is looked upon as Scholastic realism, and the very cause of its ruination. No one has worked harder than Descartes to build a bridge from thought to thing. He rests his case on the principle of causality; he was the very first one who tried to do it because he was forced to, inasmuch as he placed the starting point of knowledge in the mind’s intuion. Thus, it is strictly true to say that every scholastic who considers himself a realist because he accepts that way of stating the problem, is in reality a Cartesian. … One may start with Descartes but can only end up with Berkeley or Kant. There is an internal necessity about metaphysical essences, and philosophy’s progress consists in the very fact of gaining clearer and clearer insight into the content of those essences…. Justification for St. Thomas’ relism will never be obtained from any cogito.’

Parallel threads

Johann Adam Möhler in Symbolism:

Let us hear now St. Thomas Aquinas, the head of another great school in the middle age. He thus enlarges on the subject of original sin: “As between things opposite, there is an opposite relation, so from original justice its opposite, original sin, my be explained. But the whole order of original justice consisted therein, that the will of man was obedient to God - an obedience which in an eminent degree was practiced by the will; for it is the province of the will to direct all other parts of the soul, in conformity to this, its highest destination. Hence, when the will fell away from God, disorder in all the other faculties of the soul ensued. Thus, in original sin the deprivation of original justice is the formal part, that is to say, the causal, determining, and essential part; but every other disorder in the faculties of the soul is the material part of original sin, that is to say, the thing determined - the consequence - the manifestation of the essence. The disorder of the other powers of the soul shows itself in the perverted affection to transitory good, a disorder which may be denoted by the well-known expression, wicked desire, concupiscentia. Thus in its essence (forma), original sin is the want of original justice; its manifestation (materia) is evil desire.”

In another place he says: “All the faculties of the soul have been, to a certain degree, displaced from their proper direction and destination - a displacement which is called the wound of nature. But there are four powers of the soul, which can become the conduits of virtue - namely, reason, wherein is recognition; the faculty of exertion, wherein is courage; the will, wherein is justice; the faculty of desire, wherein is temperance. …”

As original sin was represented by Bonaventura in the more practical tone of eloquent complaint, and by Thomas, with more scientific accuracy and subtlety of distinction; so we find the same generally expounded in the ecclesiastical schools prior to the period of the apostacy from the Church: so that anyone who judges the matter with sobriety, and with competent knowledge, will be utterly unable to discover in them any, even the slightest, traces of Pelagianism.

I wanted to post this by way of anticipation for the longer piece which is forthcoming in installments. Sorry my computer has been down. Back to work!

Jack Handey, where are you?

Classics:

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: “Mankind.” Basically, it’s made up of two separate words - “mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean ? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.

Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins the most? I’d say Flippy, wouldn’t you? You’d be wrong, though. It’s Hambone.

If you’re a young Mafia gangster out on your first date, I bet it’s real embarrassing if someone tries to kill you.

Children need encouragement. If a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way he develops a good, lucky feeling.

Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.

I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. And since he is so busy, you’d probably have to run up to him real quick and give it to him.

 

If you ever catch on fire, try to avoid looking in a mirror, because I bet that will really throw you into a panic.

 

Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead. No, wait, not me, you.

 

I can’t stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something like, “Hey, when are you going to pay me that $100 you owe me?” or “Do you have that $50 you borrowed?” Man, quit being so cheap!

 

I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed shrink is our friend.

 

If you ever reach total enlightenment while drinking beer, I bet you could shoot beer out of you nose.

 

I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children’s children, because I don’t think children should be having sex.

 

If you’re in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it’ll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.

 

I think a good product would be “Baby Duck Hat”. It’s a fake baby duck, which you strap on top of your head. Then you go swimming underwater until you find a mommy duck and her babies, and you join them. Then, all of a sudden, you stand up out of the water and roar like Godzilla. Man, those ducks really take off! Also, Baby Duck Hat is good for parties.

 

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

Sometimes, when I lie in bed at night and look up at the stars, I think to myself, “Man! I really need to fix that roof.”

If you lived in the Dark Ages and you were a catapult operator, I bet the most common question people would ask is, “Can’t you make it shoot farther?” “No, I’m sorry. That’s as far as it shoots.”

Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he’s carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he’s carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you’re drunk.

I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I’d just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway.

If you go flying back through time and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it’s probably best to avoid eye contact.

It’s easy to sit there and say you’d like to have more money. And I guess that’s what I like about it. It’s easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.

More From The Degrees of Knowledge

Maritain spells out the distinction between science and philosophy thusly:

Although it may happen that the material object of philosophy and science are the same - for example, the world of bodies - nevertheless, the formal object is essentially different in each case; and it is this that determines the specific nature of intellectual disciplines….

The scientist proceeds from the visible to the visible, from the observable to the observable (I mean “to what is at least indirectly observable”; I do not mean “to what is always able to be pictured or represented in imagination.”) …But the moment the scientist passes to an order [the atomic order] in which the very possibility of full and continuous observation of phenomena is eliminated, he passes from a world of objects imaginitively representable to a world of objects without any imaginable form. Such a world is unimaginable by default, or “privatively.”

The philosopher proceeds from the visible to the invisible, I mean to what is of itself outside the order of sensible observation…. Truth to tell, scientific explanations do not reveal the very being of things. Since they explain only proximate causes or even that kind of formal cause which is the conformity of phenomena to mathematical law (and such more-or-less arbitrarily constructed entities fashioned as a support for this type of law), they can never satisfy the mind. For the mind will always, and necessarily, raise questions of a higher order and strive to penetrate into the purely intelligible.

-Degrees of Knowledge, I, 15; pp 50-51 in the Notre Dame edition.

 

He does this after reminding that even though “we can be given a knowledge of God… at least in accordance with  the very transcendence of His Deity,” that “such a knowledge cannot possibly be obtained in purely intellectual way.” As I pointed out before, he says “We must pass through love.”

The object must be apprehended in a manner appropriate to its essence. In demonstrating in the most unimaginably glorious way possible His love for man, He granted to him the ability to apprehend Him Who is not apprehensible and yet is immanently apprehensible. As in the Trinity the Son and the Father are one in the unity of the Holy Spirit, so we are enabled to be united to Christ by the Holy Spirit. There is no blurring of lines here; we remain what we are by nature and grace, created beings. Still, as St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote and Athanasius later wrote, God became man that man might become divine. That is, that we might be made holy as He is holy by a participation in His life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Eastern Fathers particularly speak eloquently and at great length about this concept of theosis or deification, and I would refer the reader to many excellent works and compilations available elsewhere. I personally came into contact with them years ago through the Reformed writers Daniel Clendenin and Donald Fairbairn, particularly Clendenin’s edition of selections from Lossky, Schmemann, Bulgakov, et alia, but there are numerous ones to choose from.

More Maritain later today, God willing.

Real knowledge, contemplation, and grace

Maritain reminds us that the “saints do not contemplate to know, but to love.” Indeed, love of God is the reason for the desire for union with Him. Self-love becomes transformed into love “propter Deum et in Deo” (see S. Th. II-II, 19, especially 6, but also 8, 10, and 2). “For them, the end of ends is not to bring exultation to their intellect and nature and thus stop at themselves. It is to do the will of Another, to contribute to the good of the Good.”

This last point is a marvellous reminder of the divine mission to which we all have been called. Because God is love, He gives of Himself all that we are and all that we need. We are instantly but also progressively drawn into His presence and are made new creations and partakers of the divine nature. We are to be giving, not of ourselves, but after the manner of conduits (as it were), we are to pour out ourselves — as transformed beings — in the service of others (2 Timothy 4:6; Philippians 2:17). Compare those verses with Exodus 29:38ff where the “daily” offering of cereal and libation is made where the priests came into the entrance place where they met the Lord and He spoke to them. In a real sense, the Lord tells us in Matthew 25 (after parables of the virgins, where the foolish virgins are sent to buy oil which the wise virgins had prepared themselves for and brought with them, and the talents, where the servants who did not fear but risked all they were given to gain it again only to return it to the Master), we are meeting Him at the entrance to the Tabernacle when we are spending ourselves. It is granted to us, as to the Bride in Revelation 19:8, that we should clothe ourselves with righteous deeds, for Him, from Him, to Him, and with Him. We love because He first loved us. We give because He first gave Himself for us to the Father. “Be, therefore, imitators of me, as I imitate Christ,” St. Paul said.  

More on Maritain

I am saying that metaphysics suffers not only from the common necessity of abstraction and discourse; it also suffers a weakness proper to itself. It is a natural theology; its object is, above all, the Cause of causes. The Principle of all that is — that is what it would know. And since that alone is fully satisfying, how could it help wanting to know it in itself, in its essence, in that which properly constitutes it? If the desire of seeing the First Cause is natural to man (while remaining “conditional” and “ineffectual,” precisely because it does not arise from a source within us naturally proportioned to its object), it is natural to the metaphysician for a special reason because he, if he is worth his name, cannot fail to feel its spur. Now metaphysics makes God known to us only by analogy, known, I say, not in those things which are His very own, but in the commonness of transcendental perfections which exist at once in Him and in things — though in infinitely different modes. It is true knowledge, certain and absolute, the highest pleasure of reason, and worth being a man for; but it still falls infinitely short of vision and makes mystery all the more crushingly felt.

-Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, p. 6

If, indeed, it is natural to man to desire to “see the First Cause,” then natural theology is a good and proper way of preparing him for such a task. But, as we have seen elsewhere recently, this point is in contention. It will not do to gloss over it lightly, as the question is important. Really to examine the matter requires that we come to an adequate understanding of just what man is, what he was in his first estate, how he came to leave Paradise, and how he can get back.

This is the goal of the metaphysical exercise. As Maritain points out,

It is true to say, then, as a general thesis, that intellectual life is not enough for us. It needs a complement. Knowledge draws all forms and all that is good into our soul. But there they are stripped of their proper existence and reduced to the condition of objects of thought. They are there as so many graftings upon us, but in a mode of being that is essentially incomplete. They demand completion. They arouse forces of gravity within us. We desire to rejoin them in their own real and proper existence, to possess them no lonegr in an idea but in reality. Love thus arising impels the soul to a union in the real order, a union which intellect, left all to itself, cannot achieve except in the extreme case of the vision of God.

I will be presenting, over this series of posts, a more or less in-depth look at the concept of theosis along with the epistemological explorations of Maritain. The two are inseparable, and this is often forgotten in discussions and disputes. We must be clear what we can know, what we cannot know, and what limits there are on our knowledge.

Obviously, it is my contention that we retain an openness to God despite the fall from grace which occurred when our first and federal parents turned from the Creator unto the creature. I don’t wish to be seen as taking this for granted. I will, more than likely, examine Scriptural, Patristic, and Traditional passages that pertain to that contention and anticipate and/or address arguments against it.

Because of the overlap, I will at the same time bring up pertinent discussions of such works as Fr. Garrigou-LaGrange’s Christian Perfection and Contemplation: According to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul and Ascent of Mt. Carmel by St. John of the Cross, Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales, Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, and others.

Bear with me, readers, as this will take some time. I hope it will be worthwhile. I am going on vacation and will return to this blog some time next week, likely Thursday or Friday. God be with you until then.

Maritain, initially

This is a brief introduction to the seminal work of Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge. In it, and not coincidentally akin to the aforementioned crux of Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Maritain speaks of metaphysics:

Old Aristotle said that metaphysics is useless; it is of no service because it is above and beyond all service; useless because super-useful, good in and for itself. … Every metaphysics that is not measured by the mystery of what it is, but by the state of positive science at such and such an instant, is false from the beginning, whether it be the metaphysics of Descartes, Spinoza, or Kant.

… Metaphysics demands a certain purification of the intellect; it also takes for granted a certain purification of the will and assumes that one has the courage to cling to things which have no use, to useless truth.

However, nothing is more necessary to man than this uselessness. What we need is not truths that may serve us but a truth we may serve. For that truth is the food of the spirit. And, by the better part of ourselves, we are spirit. Useless metaphysics puts order — not any sort of police order, but the order which has sprung from eternity — in the speculative and practical intellect.

As one astute reviewer puts it, Maritain aims to defend “the dignity of the human person and the restoration of the intellect.”

God, in creating the cosmos, chose to craft a being after His image and likeness, Genesis 1:26. God could most certainly have planned to demonstrate His grandeur and glory by crafting, yet again, another creature after man’s fall, as He did after the fall of the sempiternal angelic beings, but He did not. He chose to endow man with a dignity of status concomitant with the love which He graciously bestowed on us. Herein lies part of the mystery of the Incarnation and redemption.

As I was attempting to indicate on the thread referenced in the previous post, this status, dignity, and love remain because God is true to Himself. He loves with an unchanging love, because He is unchanging. He loves what He creates. Because He loves what He creates, He despises that which He did not create. He did not create a deprivation of Himself. He nevertheless, for reasons inscrutable save for the greater good and more magnificent display of His boundless glory and graciousness, did not prevent the self-driven, self-directed deprivation which did occur.

He had not left Himself without a witness. Psalm 19 tells how His truth is made manifest to all. St. Paul tells us in Romans 1:18-23:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Initially, this does not seem to jibe with the passage from 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, particularly verse 14: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” But we need to read this in the preceding and succeeding context. Chapter 3, vv. 1-3a: “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh.”

Here we view, again, that juxtaposition of flesh and spirit, of death and life as elsewhere in Paul and in the Gospels. What does this mean? How are we to sort it out? How are we to view it in context of Acts 17’s Areopagus discourse? What does this have to do with Maritain?

We shall see, God willing.

He is not here

He is risen, as He said. Χριςτος ανεςθη! Christ is risen!

Deus, qui hodiérna die per Unigénitum tuum, æternitátis nobis áditum devícta morte reserásti : vota nostra, quæ prævéniéndo aspíras, étiam adjuvándo proséquere.  Per eúmdem Dóminum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum, qui tecum vívit et regnat, in unítate Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

(O God, who this day by thine only-begotten Son, vanquishing death, hast unlocked for us the gate of eternity, help us to attain the desires to which thou hast led us by thine inspirations.  Through the same Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, for always and unto ages of ages, amen.)

I hope that you all had a blessed Easter Feast. May He continue to richly bless you and all of yours.

Before I went into seclusion this past week, I was busy here having a discussion which is of interest only to religious geeks like me, I suppose. I posted again today, and I look forward to a fruitful and charitable discussion. Any criticism and/or exhortation (such as I have received from our revered friend Reginald de Piperno) is most welcome. I will be interacting with “Turretinfan” as long as he wishes to be engaged in discussion on these matters. Anyone else is invited to participate. I may very well post here for follow-up so as not to step on the Beggars All folks’ toes.

I will be shortly posting continued interaction with Röpke’s, Maritain’s, Gilson’s, and others’ works. I have a new post on Maritain in the offing. Look for it shortly. I will continue to bore you with musical musings.

 God be praised!

Be still and know that He is God

I am following Reginald de Piperno’s lead and taking this week off for the Sabbath of Sabbaths, Holy Week. Let us rest in Christ’s atoning work and gratefully receive His blessings.

Guitar geek stuff

I was digging some Bill Frisell this evening. I put on Nashville, which I love. There’s occasionally something magical that happens when genres collide: Peter Gabriel’s Passion,  where prog-synth meets Middle Eastern; Paul Simon’s Graceland, where neo-folk Americana meets Africana; Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression and Still Feel Gone, where punk meets country and bluegrass. On Nashville, Frisell takes his brilliant and melodic jazz to Music City and jams with Jerry Douglas on dobro, Viktor Krauss on stand-up bass, Ron Block on banjo, Adam Steffey on mandolin, and Pat Bergeson on harmonica. That Klein hollow body never sounded better, in my opinion. Evoking Chet Atkins is a hard thing to do; Frisell does it well.

The Black Crowes have a new one out. A solid return to form. The Faces, The Stones, Allmans, Marshall Tucker, the influences are all there. One of the finest live shows I ever went to was The Crowes at U.C. Davis in ‘92,  just before I deployed to Saudi Arabia. Have you ever been to Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?  The mountains are stunningly beautiful. The mosque in the photo has mutawin who wear pistols and shepherd the faithful Muslims with sticks that they thwap you on the legs with 5 times a day. When I was there, you had to be really careful and avoid the spitting and hateful glares of some of the locals, especially during the religious round-up, as we called it. A few of the souq owners, one in particular I remember who sold gold, were American or British educated and loved to talk to us. There was a bakery, probably built at around the time of the Hijra, which made the most astonishingly good flat bread in huge, great pizza-sized loaves that we bought for a riyal (about a quarter then). The bakers were Pakistani. (Everyone who worked there was either Pakistani, Filipino, or Indonesian. Manual labor is forbidden by law to all Saudi citizens.) I listened to the Crowes’ Southern Harmony and Musical Companion quite a lot while I was smoking Dunhill cigarettes (which I could buy at around 50 cents a pack) and wishing I had beer. There was an American civilian compound of General Dynamics employees which we visited occasionally to go to the bowling alley or get a haircut. Some of the families would have barbecues and invite us, and there was ubiquitous home-made hootch that tasted vaguely like gin, but it never seemed to affect me, and it wasn’t worth the bother. The tunes were good. The barbecue? I enjoyed the food at the Intercontinental Hotel in Taif, where we contracted to eat meals. There was a lot of lamb. At least, they told us it was lamb. Chicken, too. Very good chicken. And rice. Downtown, you ask? Lamb or chicken shawarma on pita bread. With or without rice. Oh, how I could have cried when we got to go R&R to Jiddah and saw — as if in a daze, Rod Serling over the shoulder — a Shakey’s Pizzeria. (Women entered the side door and took the kids upstairs, men ordered and sat downstairs.) In Jiddah, I got to snorkel and saw some of the most beautiful tropical fish anywhere in the world. I swam where Moses walked. At one of the malls, there was a Rolls Royce store. Also, I bought a few boxes of La Gloriana Cubana cigars which were actual Cubans, not the counterfeits most Americans get. What a smoke, man. I smuggled a box through British and American customs to bring it to my granddad. He flipped.

I seem to have digressed.