The previous posts have been dealing with three historical approaches to epistemology in the Western tradition in an effort to contextualize Postmodern theories of knowledge. So far, the Band has considered top-down and empirical philosophies, but the third is a bit different, since it deals with faith.
The Band is resolutely empirical in focus, since this is the best frame for exposing the lies and phantasms of Postmodern theory. But this also limits it to things that are knowable through evidence and logic. Humans exist as physical beings in a vastly larger material universe that we understand poorly. What tools we have are necessarily limited and material as well. Supernatural questions, understood literally as above or outside the natural world, are by definition beyond the scope of empiricism to resolve. These belong to the realm of faith, and to assert otherwise is what is referred to in logic as a category error. However, while the truth claims of faith may not be empirically verifiable, we can observe and analyze the ways in which people conceptualize and interact with transcendence. These behaviors can then be assessed empirically for social value. This post is a bit a bit of an exploration for the Band, and any feedback is particularly welcome.
Before continuing, it is necessary to introduce a couple more technical terms, since we are heading into realms of speculation that lie outside everyday experience:
Ontology is another technical term in philosophy that refers to speculation on the fundamental basis of existence or reality. The "true nature" of the universe is an ontological question.
Ontology is a subset of metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with aspects of reality that lie beyond the physical world. It is speculative, in that it seeks insights into that which cannot be known in concrete material terms.
An ontology like Aristotle's, which is based on causal relationships between categories of substances, has to accommodate the experience of the immediate physical environment, large-scale phenomena like the movement of heavenly bodies, and an extra-rational human desire for transcendence. To be universal, the ontology must bind together the microcosm (the small-scale universe of individual experience), the macrocosm (the larger universe we share), and the metaphysical (supernatural matters literally beyond the physical universe).
Causal relations are easy to determine in one's immediate experience, but incorporating macrocosmic and metaphysical phenomena is trickier, since these are difficult to impossible to verify or falsify empirically. In late Antiquity, Aristotle's essentially bottom-up reasoning coexisted with a dizzying assortment of isolated mathematical and scientific thoughts, baseless speculations by various Philosopher's Names, numerous religions and cult practices, and a rich set of magical beliefs. It is testament to antique ingenuity that they managed to bring these more-or-less together within a single cosmology.
Roman statues of Persephone/Isis, Cerberus, and Pluto/Serapis, Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, Crete
Syncretism is the term used to describe the thought of the late antique world. It describes the amalgamation of different belief systems without serious consideration of their incompatibilities. Ancient paganism could accommodate any number so shifting deities, cults, and philosophies without fundamentally changing. Here, we see syncretic fusions of Greco-Roman and Egyptian gods.
This portable shrine from the late 2nd century AD depicts a man holding symbols of rebirth between cult images of Isis and Serapis. In a syncretic system, individuals more or less pick and choose between essentially interchangeable options. There are interesting parallels between the late antiquity and postmoderity
Any ancient ontology had to account for the movements of celestial bodies, as understood from Babylonian astronomical observations dating back to the early Bronze Age. The Three Magi or Wise Men in the Christmas story who follow the star to Bethlehem exemplify this eastern interest in the heavens.
Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, 7th century BC, cuneiform writing on clay, 17.14 x 9.2 x 2.22 cm, British Museum, London
This Babylonian tablet records the rising and setting of Venus over a period of 21 years in the 17th century BC, data already a millennium old when this copy was written.
This Babylonian tablet records the rising and setting of Venus over a period of 21 years in the 17th century BC, data already a millennium old when this copy was written.
Ancient astronomy was connected to astrology, the widespread belief that heavenly bodies influenced human affairs through their movements.
Stela of Nabonidus, with
astrological symbols, Neo-Babylonian dynasty, 555-539 BC, British Museum
Babylonian astrology was connected to their astronomy. They believed that the movements of the heavens could foretell things in the world, so watching the stars was incredibly important. The development of astronomy (observing the heavens) was driven by the need for more accurate astrological predictions. Here, a Babylonian king appears under favorable signs.
The idea that observing the heavens reveals information about is an aspect of ancient epistemology.
Astrology linked celestial bodies with the gods of mythology - consider the names in the solar system today - combining supernatural forces and astronomical observation. The movements of the heavens offered a key to understanding the will of the gods that seemed more "scientific" than consulting oracles.
The four elements of the Earth with the twelve signs of the zodiac, from Des Proprietez des Choses by Barthelemy l’Anglais, 1445-50
This picture from a late medieval manuscript shows a simpified relationship between the earth and the heavens. The ancients believed that the world was comprised of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water since at least the time of Empedocles. The zodiac represents the effect of the heaven on the world below.
The arrangement of the ancient cosmos drew on different sources. The notion that the planets move in circular orbits goes back at least as far as Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580-c. 500 BC), who introduced an important concept known as the Harmony of the Spheres.
Pythagoras proposed that the Earth, Moon, Sun and planets revolve around an unseen "Central Fire". Although this system was not gercentric (earth at the center), it was not heliocentric either, because the central point is not the Sun. Pythagoras imagined a Counter-Earth (Antichthon) opposite the earth to bring the number of elements to the magic number 10, which he believed represented perfection. Beyond the planets were the "fixed stars" which did not move independently.
This model could explain eclipses, but could not account for other phenomena.
The Pythagoreans believed that the movements of the planets defined perfect, crystaline, interlocking spheres separated by fixed intervals. The constant motion of the spheres created a sort of music, perceptible to some through mystical enlightenment, based on the distances between them. The ratios of these distances were assumed to correspond to the progessive shortenings of a instrument string to create the different intervals of the harmonic scale. The distance between the earth to the sphere of fixed stars represented the equivalent of one octave, with the planetary spheres subdividing this harmoniously. The idea of the harmony of the spheres continued after Pythagoreas' central fire was replaced by geocentric models of the cosmos with the earth at the center.
The harmony of the spheres, from Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, 1617-19
In this fantastic image by a late Neoplatonist, the Aristotelian cosmos aligns with a cosmic monochord tuned by the hand of God, where each planet corresponds to a musical tone.
Brackets connect the spheres, with labels to identify the harmonic relationships.
In this fantastic image by a late Neoplatonist, the Aristotelian cosmos aligns with a cosmic monochord tuned by the hand of God, where each planet corresponds to a musical tone.
Brackets connect the spheres, with labels to identify the harmonic relationships.
The Pythagorean system couldn’t account for irregular astronomical movements other than eclipses, an empirical failure that led Plato to propose a geocentric model that better corresponded to astronomical observation. It was unthinkable that this would be based on any shape other than the circle. The flawless regularity of circles appealed to the Greek association of perfection with simplicity. Historically, Classical Greece emerged from a chaotic “Dark Age” following the Bronze Age collapse, with a completely different language and culture than the Mycenaean civilization that preceded them. Their myths describe a constant struggle to maintain order in a world created from Chaos. What could be more perfectly simple than a circle; a single-lined shape that is symmetrical on all axes and has no beginning or end?
Doryphoros (Spear Bearer), Roman copy after Polykleitos of ca. 450-440 BC, marble, 2 m, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Athens
Riace Warrior A, ca. 450 BCE, bronze, 2.03 m, Museo Archeologico, Reggio Calabria
In his lost Canon, Greek sculptor Polykleitos established the ideal proportions for a human figure. His work only survives in relatively crude Roman copies like the one on the left, but the consistent application of his compositional principles can be seen in the stunning original Greek bronze on the right.
Like a visual analogy of Plato's Forms, Classical sculpture stripped away accidents, variance, and imperfection to express a simplified, ideal essence.
The problem, as is the case with all top-down approaches, is that the world doesn't conform to ideal perfection, and any system based on concentric circles cannot capture the complicated motions of the solar system. Plato tried to compensate by proposing that the spheres moved on different axes, creating complex composite movements that might explain the irregularities recorded by astronomical observers. Subsequent thinkers refined the model, adding spheres and creating increasingly complicated combinations until Ptolemy (c. 100-170 AD) proposed a final iteration that carried into medieval Christendom.
Andreas Cellarius, Ptolemaic Cosmography from Harmonia Macrocosmica, Plate 2, 1660
In this fine engraving, the planetary spheres are indicated by the colored rings while the "fixed" stars or Sphaera Zodiaci are shown by the outer ring.
In the Ptolemaic cosmos shown above, the fusion of ancient astronomy, astrology, and mythology with Aristotelian causality is complete. The universe becomes a vast pertpetual motion machine of spinning, interlocking parts, the movements of which drive causal action in the Earth at the center. The interaction between spheres accounts for observed planetary motion, and provides an explanatory mechanism for astrology: the signs read by astrologers are indices of the movement of the spheres that drive worldly events. One final issue to account for was change; things in the world are always shifting - birth, growth, decay, etc. - while things in the sky seem changeless. Aristotle argued that the sublunary zone, or innermost space within the moons's orbit and including the Earth, was subject to change, while the cosmic spheres were timeless.
The one thing Aristotle's cosmology could not account for was the problem of origin. How did it all start? He postulated the existence of a Prime, or Unmoved Mover beyond the sphere of fixed stars that was timeless, eternal, and provided the motivating energy for the entire system. Recognizing the limits of human reason and evidence, he had little to say about the nature of the Prime Mover, only that the logic of causality required that such an entity exist. In the Cellarius engraving above, it is indicated by the cloudy space beyond the zodiac.
Earth at the center of the Spheres, 13th-century illumination, from L'Image du monde, written by Gautier de Metz in 1245, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MF14964, f. 117
This image depicts the absorption of the Aristotelian cosmology into Christian ontology. The central Earth ringed concentrically by elemental, planetary, and stellar spheres is identical to Cellarius' engraving. Only in the place of the Prime Mover, we find God enthroned in heaven. Given that Genesis describes God as beginning the universe with the Creation, it was possible to conceptualize Him in this manner.
But this is only part of the story.
The unique nature of Christian theology added a new dimension that Aristotle didn't have to contend with: the difference between an abstract, infinitely remote Prime Mover and a God who communicated His will to humanity directly and incarnated in mortal form. While Western Christianity assumed a rationally-knowable universe - the reason for the unique development of scientific thought in Europe (click for a good video) - God's ability to intervene directly through miracle or prophecy had to be accounted for. Here too, ancient epistemology offered a way forward, only in this case, it was the top-down structures of the Neoplatonists.
In the wild syncretism of late antiquity, Platonic philosophy merged with the currents of ancient Egyptian mystical thought distilled in the Corpus Hermeticum and became essentially a mystical religion of it's own.
Thoth, detail from The Judgment of Hunefer before Osiris, painted papyrus illustration from a Book of the Dead, Nineteenth Dynasty, c. 1285 BC, British Museum
Hermes Trismegistus, or Thrice-Great, is a shadowy figure in antiquity. A syncretic combination of the Greek and Egyptian deities Hermes (shown here in his Roman form Mercury) and the Egyptian Thoth, he was described as god, king and priest, and thought to have lived at the time of Moses.
"His" writings, the Corpus Hermeticum, had a huge influence on Renaissance occultism. The text was proven a late antique forgery in the early seventeenth century, but modern scholars believe it draw on some older Egyptian sources.
What the various thinkers in this tradition shared was Plato's basic idea that the material world is merely a reflection or image of the perfection of the Forms. Over time, they developed it into a multi-layered ontology, or theory of being, akin to a religion or spirituality through which initiates could attain higher knowledge. The most influential of these Neoplatonists was certainly Plotinus (204-270 AD), a complex abstract thinker who conceived of the universe as emanations from an absolute unity, through the higher planes, to our world. The fundamental basis of reality for Plotinus was the One, an absolute transcendence that does not “exist” in any rational sense of the word, because it precedes all conceptions of existence. Infinitely perfect and self-contained, it is the ultimate source of all reality, which “overflows” or emanates, becoming less “real” as it gets metaphysically “further” from the source until it reaches our material reality. By this process, absolute unity can produce a universe of countless, apparently individual, entities, solving the philosophical problem of the One and the Many.
The Neoplatonic Ontology of Plotinus
Graphic representations makes Plotinus’ ontology look like creation spreads out from the One. But the One is not only the “source”, it is also all-encompassing. To be accurate you have to visualize this “outward” emanation as all occurring "within" the limitless One.
By "contemplating" (not exactly, but good enough) itself, the One generates a "surplus" that becomes the Nous, or the basis of Being that Plato called the Forms. (Plotinus' concepts are impossible to describe succinctly, so the wording always seems a bit silly). This descends to the soul, both natural causalities and the human soul, with base matter at the bottom. But lower emanations contemplate the higher, creating a path for the enlightened human soul to move up.
Most ancient civilizations were dualistic, meaning that they believed humans have two aspects: a material mortal body, and an immaterial immortal soul. For the Greeks, this meant that humans were unique in creation for their ability to move up or down the ontological totem pole, either living like beasts or rising to the higher planes.
Steve Ditko, detail from Strange Tales # 110, page 2, Stan Lee dialogue, Terry Szenics lettering, Stan Goldberg colors, Marvel Comics, July 1963
This old comic panel illustrates the basics of Neoplatonic dualism. Marvel wizard Dr. Strange splits into an inert material body and a purely spiritual form that can access higher planes of reality.
The flourishing Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity developed these ideas in different directions, using them to support all sorts of odd magical and mystical practices and rituals. But all shared a belief in a metaphysical unity that could be accessed through contemplation because of this dual human nature. This is not Aristotle's crystaline spheres spinning above us, but an ontological reunification with the fundamental essence of existence. The world soul is analogous to Aristotle's planetary chain of causality, while higher states fall beyond the scope of empirical inference, and are knowable only through contemplative enlightenment. It must be stressed that this movement is spiritual or metaphysical, not physical.
Title page to Robert Fludd's Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica (History of the Macrocosm and Microcosm), 1617-19.
The notion of man as the microcosm, or universe in miniature rests on Neoplatonic analogies between human body and soul and the ontological distinction between material and metaphysical levels of reality.
In this picture, it is the human body superimposed over the cosmos to stress these correspondences, while higher occult states are signified by clouds and a genius pulling the string that drives the world machine.
Christian theologians used Neoplatonic structures to conceptualize the relationship between human beings and a transcendent, omnipotent God, but altered them in significant ways to correspond to the fundamental transformation of Greek ontology brought about by a motivated God and the unique nature of Christ. This image from seventeenth-century polymath Athanasius Kircher captures the affinity:
Kircher, title page to Arithmologia, pub. Varesij, 1665.
The title page to this work of numerical mysticism visualizes the emanation of the cosmos, but characterized the transcendent source with symbols associated with God. This sense of projection is enhanced by the wings bearing the intellectual structure of the universe towards the material world of human experience.
The shift from Neoplatonism to Christian theology is most apparent in the writings of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, where language and culture gave pagan Greek thought a much greater foothold. St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394 AD) is an early example of this, racalling Plotinus in describing God as an infinite sea of Good, and creation as an overflowing, or emanation, of this. Salvation occurs when the soul is drawn by the Beauty of God's Good back to the source, but since this is infinite, the soul journeys eternally deeper into bliss beyond comprehension. The key difference from Neoplatonic ontology is in the divine Love that impels all this. The One, or the Forms, are dispassionate, whereas God would sacrifice Himself for His creation.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, apse mosaic detail, early 11th century, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Boeotia, Greece
Here, St. Gregory is shown as a link between us and the infinite of the divine represented by the formless golden background. He followed Plato in is belief that beauty awakens eros (love and desire), concluding that the divine beauty of God's Goodness impels a deep longing in the soul. This desire is endless; no matter how close the soul draws to the source, the infinite nature of God leaves it wanting more.
The desire of the soul to return to this infinite good opens the path to mysticism, or direct union of the soul with God.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is a mysterious figure historically, but he wrote a number of works that were highly influential sources of Neoplatonic ideas both in Eastern, and more indirectly, Western Christendom. Most likely a 5th or 6th-century Syrian Christian, his identity has been confused with a judge converted by St. Paul in the Book of Acts named Dionysius the Areopagite, and St. Denis of France. His writings are extraordinarily abstract, but they establish an essentially Neoplatonic Christian ontology where God is infinite Good, Beauty, and Love simultaneously radiating out and drawing in all things in a great chain of being. From this, he maps out a path to divine union through the complete abandonment of the self in contemplation. The notion that the soul can temporarily escape the mortal prison through religious devotion is fundamental to Christian mysticism.
Francesco Botticini, Assumption of the Virgin, circa 1475-6, 228.6 × 377.2 cm, National Gallery, London
Pseudo-Dionysius also defined the hierarchy of angels in Neoplatonic terms, as tiers radiating from the divine center like emanations from the One. Here, Botticini depicts the nine orders of angels descending in concentric circles.
In the West, the Neoplatonic influence on theology is less overt, but still profound. In his City of God, perhaps the most significant theological contribition by a Western Father of the Church, St. Augustine (354-430 AD) defined the relationship between heaven and earth in essentially Neoplatonic terms, with this world cast as a debased shadow or image of the ultimate reality of God. Greek sources like Pseudo-Dionysius only trickle in slowly, but shaped European mysticism in the later Middle Ages and beyond.
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Lucas Cranach, The Creation, frontispiece to the Luther Bible, 1534 ed., colored woodcut
Creation from the Catechism of St Pius V
Gustave Doré, Dante and Beatrice Gaze upon the Highest Heaven, The Empyrean,1867,
engraving for Canto XXXI of Paradise, book 3 of Dante’s Divine Comedy
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This passage from Colossians illustrates the basic affinity between Christian theology of creation and Neoplatonic thought.
First all creation projects outward from God, who is infinite in Goodness, but motivated.
Then an anonymous catechism image nicely visualizes God's preeminence and the days of creation in Genesis as a series of emanations.
Finally, Dante's vision captures the pull of divine love and beauty drawing souls back towards itself.
By adapting both Aristotelian and Neoplatonic sources to Scripture, Christianity fashioned an ontology that could accommodate empirical understanding of the natural world, while accounting for the transcendence of God. This is expressed in the two branches of theology: postitive (kataphatic) theology, and mystical or negative (apophatic) theology. The former deals with things that can be known about God, including scriptural revelation, logical theology like that of Aquinas, and the various schools of natural theology that find evidence of God in creation. The latter concerns what God is not; the infinite nature of his transcendence means that humans can never "know" him rationally, so the soul longs to reunite with something beyond comprehension.
Jean Restout, The Ecstasy of St. Benedict, St. Gilles-St. Leu, Bourg-la-Reine, France
This image depicts the positive and mystical aspects of theology. To the left, we see a Bible, and below that the crown and staff that mark his position as bishop in the Church. However, his attention is captured by a supernatural enlightenment, as the clouds part, and light floods from a dark unknowable source. The elements on the left express God's nature positively, while the direct contact with transcendence is mystical.
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This draw was complicated and enriched by the unique nature of Christ as both fully human and fully divine. The notion of man as a universal microcosm takes on a new dimension with an entity that is, in Neoplatonic terms, the utter transcendence of the One and the base carnality of a material body at the same time. How is such a thing possible? The answer to that question brings us back to faith as a form of epistemology.
Carl Heinrich Bloch, The Annunciation,circa 1880's, Frederiksborg Palace, Copenhagen
While Christianity is typical of major religions for its it's acceptance of divine revelations on faith, it is unique in having a central figure that is both fully human and fully divine.
The Annunciation refers to the archangel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she will be the mortal vessel for God's assumption of human form. It is difficult to overstate the ontological significance of the divination of matter in this way. The potential for good literally reentered a fallen world on a metaphysical level infinitely beyond any prophecy or enlightenment.
This picture captures the awesome grandeur of this event at a time when the art books tell us Modernism is the only thing worth seeing.
It is worth taking a closer look at the unique nature of Christ, given the Postmodernist love of indeterminate "spiritualities," New Age notions of Christ the "teacher," and theological portmanteaus like "Judeo-Christian" that are literally blasphemous, all of which are intended to undermine the position of Christianity in Western culture. The point about Judeo-Christian not rhetoric. Consider the following: Oxford Reference defines blasphemy as "the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk," and Christianity and Judaism disagree on the divinity of Christ, ie. the nature of God, or the fundamental basis of everything. Therefore conflating the two necessitates rejecting either or both of their theological cores. In other words, basphemy.
Clockwise from top left:
Seated Amitabha Buddha, 794-1185), lacquer and gold on wood, the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
Moritz Oppenheim, Moses with the Law, 1818, S. Wiener Family, London
Confucius, circa 1770, gouache on paper, Encyclopedia Britannica.
Zoroaster, 20th-century, stained glass window, Tata Fire Temple, Bandra, India
All these leaders of ancient religions were believed to be inspired prophets and sages, privy to truths about the transcendent nature of reality, but all were considered fully human.
In contrast, the Incarnation brings together the lowest and highest levels of the ontological hierarchy - the suffering of the Passion and the transcendence of the Ascension - in a single entity:
Matthias Grünewald, Crucifixion and Resurrection from the Isenheim Altarpiece, circa 1509-15, oil on panel, each wing 269 x 142 cm, center 269 x 341 cm, Musee d'Unterlinden, Colmar, France
Few artists have better captured the contrast between the utter bodily abasement and soaring transcendence juxtaposed in Christ than Grünewald in these panels from his masterpiece.
Addressing the unique nature of Christ is not academic; it is largely responsible for the cultural achievements of the Christian West, for two seemingly opposing reasons. The actual entry of God into the world tied transcendence and creation together in a way that metaphysical emanations cannot, ennobling creation in general and the human form in particular. At the same time, Christ's divine aspect ensures no one can claim his mantle, since no one else can redeem mankind. Perfection is literally out of this world.
God the Geometer, frontispiece to the Bible Moralisée de Tolède (Bible of St. Louis), circa 1220-40, illumination on parchment, 37.5 × 26.2 cm, folio 1v.
It was common in the Middle Ages to show God with a compass, a tool of mathematicians and architects, to indicate the logical, structured nature of his creation. Something designed with this instrument of logical precision had to be fundamentally rational. It is this logical cosmology that opens the way to natural theology and medieval science, since it is self-evidently worthwhile to study God's creation.
By entering the world, God asserted that it had essential value. The more radically split monotheisms like Judaism, Islam, and Plotinus' Neoplatonism see the world as a divine creation, but radically separate as well.
The Bible states that man was created in God's image, but understanding God as absolute transcendence makes this resemblance a metaphorical one. However, the Incarnation divinized the human body and made "God's image" significant on a literal level. Humans could actually be thought of as inferior "copies" of God in a Platonic sense, which opened the way for the rich tradition of Christian religious art. It was Christ that countered the prohibition on imagery in the Second Commandment that was the basis for the rejection of images in the Jewish and Muslim traditions. God would not have presented a knowable human face had He not wished to be seen.
Giovanni di Paolo, St. Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata, tempera and gold on wood, 27.9 x 20 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Catherine, the most significant mystic in the Dominican order, demonstrates the importance of the bodily aspect of God in this image of her receiving the stigmata, or wounds of Christ, as a reward for her piety. Note how her pose mirrors that of the crucifix as the marks are imprinted on her body. The use of a crucifix as an image of the divine, and the way that Catherine's inner virtues are demonstrated physically, shows the importance of Christ as an intermediary between materiality and transcendence, and the value of the visual world, both the body and imagery, for the transmission of spiritual truths.
There is no equivalent in other monotheistic traditions because God remains utterly remote.
The ennobling of man and creation is only once side of the unique ontology that made Christianity essential to the development of Western culture; the other essential development was to move the possibility of true perfection out of this world entirely, no matter how ennobled it might be.
Carl Heinrich Bloch, The Transfiguration, 1872, oil on copper, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, Denmark
The Transfiguration, as described in the Gospels, occurred when Christ revealed his divine nature for the only time, and briefly ascended. No other major religious figure has a similar event in their legend, and there is no possible way any human aspirant could replicate it. There is a transcendent perfection inherent in Christ that, like the limit of a bounded function, can be infinitely approached but never reached.
Only God has the power to redeem man and bridge the ontological gap between heaven and earth.
If we consider the image of St. Catherine above, the implications of Christ's status become apparent. We are shown someone so perfect in faith and in emulating Christ that God touches her mystically, enlightening her mind and imprinting His signs on her body. She literally starts to look like Him. At the same time, it is obvious from The Transfiguration that she could never truly be the same as Him. Like St. Francis, who was stigmatized as the living image of Christ over a century earlier, actual divinity is out of reach. The popes claim authority on basically Neoplatonic grounds - if Christendom is the earthly image of heaven, the pope is the image of God at its head - but this relationship is at best a representational one.
Christ is also uniquely humble, and provides no road map to secular power. On the contrary, the Bible records instances where he directly rejects status in this world. The famous quotation from Matthew: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (KJV. Matthew 22:21) forms the basis for a separation of secular and spiritual authority that is uniquely Christian. The notion that religion is a matter of personal conscience had a profound impact on the development of ideas of individual dignity.
Duccio, The Temptation on the Mount, 1308-11, tempera on wood, 43 x 46 cm, The Frick Collection, New York
Duccio depicts Christ emphatically rejecting Satan's offer of worldly glories. It is hard to find a stronger contrast with "spiritual" leaders who use their religious authority for political profit.
The notion of deferred perfection, that perfection is outside the limits of human existence, runs through every aspect of Christian thought. Salvation, or the reunification of fallen humanity with God, only occurs in the afterlife, which means that even the most virtuous person is working towards a final goal that cannot be attained in this lifetime. The spiritual leader of the faith likewise exists outside of this world, and is not scheduled to return until the end of time. The Bible claims to be the revealed word of God, but acknowledges that it is, at best, a darkling glass, and that the true nature of transcendence lies beyond the limited, kataphatic expressions of imperfect human representation.
Mulla Ala Bik Tabrizi (?), Koran Carpet Page, second half 16th century, 38.1 x 25.7 cm, Bodleian Library MS. Ouseley Add. 178, fol. 2a
Islam makes for a good comparison because it is monotheistic, but has no equivalent to Christ. The Koran differs from the Bible because it is considered the exact word of God; it cannot be translated without losing authenticity, and does not recognize the representational limits of the darkling glass. Likewise, Mohammed is considered the "perfect man". Yet both the book and its author remain of this world.There is no external check on the leader's power; the caliph can claim absolute spiritual, legal, and political authority. At the same time, there is no bridge to transcendence to ennoble man and the world. Note the absence of figural imagery in Islamic art. This illumination is skillfully done, but it is purely abstract. Without the inherent dignity of the individual, the human rights record of the Islamic world ensues, while without inherent value in the world, closing the Gates of Ijtihad becomes possible.
Christian ontology is far more complex that its critics grasp, combining top-down and bottom-up epistemologies, Plato and Aristotle, apophasis and kataphasis, into a framework capable of borning the Western tradition. The inherent dignity of the individual, a world goverened by causal logic, limits to human ambition, and the correct placement of transcendence outside of the material world are all necessary preconditions to our artistic, scientific, and moral heritage.
A graphic comparison clarifies the epistemological compatibility between empiricism and Christianity.
Both accept the human perspective as limited and clouded by adversity. Both accept that the universe runs causally, so that evidence + logic provide reliable knowledge of the environment. And both accept an ontological limit to human understanding.
To move beyond that requires a different epistemological foundation: faith. Having moved past the range of his tools, the empiricist must remain agnostic on the nature of transcendence. The Christian can fill this in with Biblical revelation, without undermining the previous understanding of the nature of the physical world.
Postmodern Faith
It is for this reason, and not any "logical" rejection of magical thinking that drives Postmodern hatred for Christianity. Notice how this most benign of religions in terms of global strife draws all the venom, while far more sinister belief systems are given a pass. The logic here is uncharacteristically straightforward: destroy Christianity and you destroy the Western tradition. Yet history shows that those most hostile to Christianity are equally hostile to empiricism, if less vociferous about it. They claim the mantle of science and reason to attack "superstition" but a cursory glance at their arguments reveal that they are entirely predicated on faith. Of course, they are as terrible at religion as they are at science. At best they can pervert, offering debased notions of science and faith without any of the intellectual integrity or rigor of the originals, to further their own dyscivic ends. The empiricist would call them liars and idiots, while the Christian would call them Satanic.
The work of J. R. R. Tolkien is steeped in northern European history, but written from his Christian perspective. In his Silmarillion, Melkor is a Satanic figure who falls into pride and the will to power. But for all his desire to rival the Creator, creating is beyond him; all he can do is pervert and destroy.
The affinity with Postmodernism doesn't need highlighting.
In attempting to do away with faith, Postmodern thought falls into the most ludicrous self-contradictions. Let's begin with atheism, a long-running canard with pretensions of logical objectivity. The premise that finite creatures can reject certainty about transcendence with an alternative certainty about transcendence is as self-detonating as poststructuralist claims to demonstrate that language has no meaning linguistically. It is an archetypal category error. And the notion that disbelieving one thing automatically makes your preferred whim true is moronic, yet commonplace in Postmodern theory, likely due to the simplistic binary thinking at its heart. One may reject a set of dogma, but this offers no insight into that which is impossible to know. Put this epistemological fact next to the purile gotcha logic games played by atheist "luminaries" like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. Could either of these flyweights define ontology if you spelled it for them?
Katyn Forest Massacre, Poland 1943.
Just another of Stalin's history of atrocities. Note that Western leftists supported an arrangement where Poland was placed under control of this monster. Marxism, like so many bloodthirsty, dehumanizing ideologies, was atheist.
Simply put, atheism as a hypothesis is not falsifiable, and therefore is not scientific as empirically understood. Consequently, it must be an article of faith, though an unusually evasive one, and anyone professing otherwise is, intentionally or not, dishonest. Atheism is, however, a central feature in the ghastly series of secular transcendences leading up to the emergence of Postmodernism. Much of the nonsense passing as science today has its roots in the ill-founded faith masquerading as a-theistic "reason" that began over two centuries ago in the Enlightenment. Yet rationalism, or faith in the supremacy of human reason is not reason, and many Enlightenment "axioms" are actually anti-empirical. A proclamation like blank slate human egalitarianism is an expression of faith in something demonstrably false, as anyone who has participated in a footrace is aware.
Newton is a complex figure for the rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment. His Principia (1687) seemed to offer a rational, mathematical solution to the obvious empirical shortcomings of the old Aristotelian cosmology by identifying the "universal" force of gravity and deriving a mathematical basis for Kepler's observation of elliptical planetary movement.
Illustration of Kepler's three laws of planetary motion with two planetary orbits.
(1) The orbits are ellipses, with focal points ƒ1 and ƒ2 for the first planet and ƒ1 and ƒ3 for the second planet. The Sun is placed in focal point ƒ1.
(2) The two shaded sectors A1 and A2 have the same surface area and the time for planet 1 to cover segment A1 is equal to the time to cover segment A2.
(3) The total orbit times for planet 1 and planet 2 have a ratio a13/2 : a23/2
Kepler determined his laws empirically, but Newton derived the mathematical proof for them, seemingly revealing cosmic order.
The problems with Newton's mathematical cosmology were twofold; it assumed a homogeneous universe, and it cannot account for the problem of origin. Assuming the eternal existence of a vast celestial machine is ultimately little different from assuming an eternal creator. Newton himself was a firm believer in scriptural prophecy, and much of his writings focus on religious issues, though these are kept carefully hidden by secular educators.
Scheme of the book of Revelation that Isaac Newton gave to John Locke, 1691, Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 27, f. 88r.
Many people, deceived by a Marxist-influenced educational system, find it hard to imagine that someone with such profound mathematical insights into the material world would be a devout Christian. But we know that there is no epistemological problem whatsoever with dealing with the material world empirically and addressing transcendence through faith.
Rationalism, which is just an irrational faith in the power of human reason, fails because its universal conclusions invariably wind up empirically disproven, leading to endless spinning and repackaging. The cosmos doesn't seem to be universally homogeneous, and Newtonian physics breaks down around the edges leaving a far cloudier cosmological picture than the optimistic geometries of the Enlightenment. A cursory scan of some popular theories today turns up a list of strings, multiverses, quantum computers, dark matter, perpetual expansion, perpetual oscillation, turtles all the way down - the list is endless - but the take home message is that we really aren't sure. How can we be, when we are using temporal minds to "look" outside time? Alternatively, what is the difference structurally between the singularity in physics, described in transcendent terms of incoherence and self-contradiction, and apophatic mysticism?
First, a quote from a site discussing singularities, and cited astrophysicist Kip Thorne.
Compare this sentiment to the apophatic mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius.
Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, 18th century Greek icon, 41.5 x 28 cm, Private Collection
Even the imagery is telling...
As the false rationales pile up, it becomes increasingly difficult to hold the intellectual posture. Romanticism brought a backlash against Enlightenment reason by focusing on emotional, irrational, and subjective experiences. The human desire for transcendence had not disappeared, it had merely been relocated to a highly idealized image of nature. The philosophical notion of the sublime, or an overwhelming experience of awe beyond comprehension was once the province of divinity, but was now moved to "enhanced" representations of natural splendor.
Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, 1868, oil on canvas, 6’ x 10’, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington
The transcendental aspect of nature is evident in the landscape painting movement known as the American Sublime. Bierstadt is a fine example.
Caspar David Friedrich, Morning in the Riesengebirge, 108 x 170 cm, Berlin Nationalgalerie and Alte Nationalgalerie
Pioneering Romantic painter Friedrich captures the spiritual aspect of the sublime when he includes a prominent cross above this awesome landscape.
It is almost certainly this Romantic shifting of transcendence into the world that informed Hagel's myth of the spirit of history, which metastasized into Marx' far more self-contradictory, and consequently murderous notion of teleological history in a materialist ontology. Of course these atheistic "philosophies" are empirically incoherent; they require the same profession of faith in the logically impossible as a religion, but incorrectly place the object of that faith in the material world, where it becomes falsifiable. The advantage is the ability to claim absolute authority, but the downside is the loss of transcendence to grinding monotony and the brute lust for power. Ever see a public housing project anywhere that uplifted the human spirit?
Postmodernism brings new aspects of incoherence, but remains equally incompatible with empiricism or Christianity. Supposedly diversity is a strength, but we are also all fundamentally the same; a circle as impossible to square logically as the Incarnation, only improperly placed ontologically, and far less compelling. Worldly phenomena are not transcendentals; they are material phenomena subject to empirical verification. Transcendent ideals give imperfect humans something to strive for, but perfection is impossible in the present.
Both are expressions of faith in the mystical union of the one and the many. But only one is empirically consistent.
One place where the notion that Postmodernism is a perversion of Christian faith rather than an alternative is clearest is in the concept of the abject. This "brainchild" of feminist scholars seeks to "invert" "traditional hierarchies" by rejecting transcendentals like beauty and wallowing in the filth, carnality, and detritus of our material aspect. But in doing so, it accepts the basic epistemological structure that places the transcendent outside of material existence before merrily occupying the bottom rung of that ontological ladder. Postmodernism could have used some sharper thinkers.
A slight modification of the chart shows where Postmodernism fits
This has been a long post and this is a good time to stop, rather than carry the epistemology discussion on any further. No doubt these issues will come up again as we cycle around the porcelain bowl that is Postmodernism.For now, it is clear that this cultural pathology is as much a failure as a faith then it is a science or philosophy. The next post will shift direction a little, and look at Postmodern "history."
Thank you. This blog is exactly what I need right now.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it. Thanks for reading.
DeleteПрекрасная статья. Спасибо большое.
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