EPISTEMOLOGY
The first step in philosophy is to admit that the essence of being is knowable
or intelligible. While the esse of a thing is in itself unknowable, its qualities
are made manifest as 'essence.'14 Thus the essence of God is knowable
as Divine love and Divine wisdom, thus as Divinely Human.15 But man's
mind is finite, limited. What the Infinite and Eternal is in itself cannot be
comprehended, for no finite idea can 'contain' the Infinite; yet by means of
ideas abstracted from space and time it can be seen that a thing is although
not what it is.16
There is an absolute Truth which, being infinite, is above human or angelic
comprehension, yet must be the source and origin of all perception. This Divine
truth, in its proceeding, is the same in all creation, in all substance and
in all phenomena - and thus represents itself in matter and in spirit, in nature
and in mind. The essence of material things is represented to our minds in terms
of sensations of space, time, and motion, and can be evaluated only by these.
The physical reality of a thing-in-itself can be attested only by experience,
scientific analysis, and checked research, which thus become the criteria of
natural actualities. Nature represents the Divine truth which operates therein
as laws of order.
The essence of spiritual things is represented to our minds in terms of states
- as moods and emotions and thoughts, or as goods and truths and perceptions
of use. The reality or essence of spiritual things can be estimated only by
the experiences of the mind which sees its own phenomena (or noumena) to be
independent of, and antithetical to, physical phenomena and their causal sequences.
In the Word, the Divine truth regarding spiritual things is revealed as sequences
of spiritual causes and spiritual effects, represented correspondentially in
the letter and formally in doctrine; and the Word is therefore the criterion
of all spiritual truth.
There is no absolute or "pure" human truth." 17 In
both worlds the essence of the thing-in-itself is knowable so far as it can
be inferred from its results and qualities. But the perceiving intellect is
limited (even as are the senses of both men and angels), and is disturbed in
its functions by the affections of the will and by the fact that the media of
perception may be lacking, wholly or in part. This accounts for errors of sense,
information, and judgment. Since the will motivates the understanding, a true
philosopher must not only have a love of truth for the sake of truth, but have
modesty and a love of Deity.18 Yet so long as men debate whether
a thing is so, they cannot advance into anything of wisdom.19
ONTOLOGY
The source of reality lies in Substance.20 Nothing is without substance.21
And what is, also exists.22 There is no essence, form, attribute,
accident, or mode, except that possessed by a substance or subject.23
Substance is therefore the prime category and is to be defined as that
of which something can be predicated, and "a subject is that in which are
all the things that can be predicated of it." 24 A substance
without form is not anything, for nothing can be predicated of it, and "a
subject without predicates is also an entity of no reason." 25
The only independent substance is the Infinite or the Divine, which is Substance
in Se, and thus the only possible origin of finite substances.26
The essence of the Divine substance is love and wisdom. 27
But every finite, created thing is also a substance and a subject - a finite
substance by virtue of having finite attributes.28 Matter is
a substance29; but is dead, having as its essential "properties"
Space and Time,30 and also motion. 31 Spiritual substances
are also finite and created,32 yet are essentially definable
in terms, not of motion but of conatus,33 nor in terms of space and
time, nor as something possessing spatial parts34; although analogues
or correspondences of all these must be used to represent them.35
It is important to recognize this distinct dualism of Matter and Spirit,
without confusing them or transferring to one the terms of reality by which
the other should be described. But note that spiritual things are "more
real" than natural things; the dead matter which clothes the spiritual
in organic nature does not increase its reality but lessens it.36
And the veriest reality in the universe is the Divine truth proceeding.37
Man is a finite substance because he was created by God. From this every created
thing, and - first of all - man with the love and the wisdom in him, are something,
and not merely an idea of being.38
The finite substances created by the Lord cannot be conceived as "parts"
of the infinite Substance, because they are not substance in se and possess
nothing of the Divine, but exist only by virtue of the Infinite.39
Yet they do not negate or limit the Infinite or any of its attributes of omnipresence
and omnipotence, for they cannot exclude the Infinite or interfere with it.
LOGIC
There are no connate ideas.40 Animals have no ideas of thought but
they have instincts which can be called 'connate knowledges' corresponding to
their affections; but man's perfection is in part due to his being born ignorant.
41 All his knowledge of individual things is gained a posteriori, through
sense experience, and is cumulative and incomplete, never absolute.42 Yet
what we call 'sensation' is not a physical influx into the mind, but it results
from the influx of what is spiritual which forms itself into memories in accommodation
to, or correspondence with, the state of the sensories.43
It is thus the spiritual which endows a sensory impulse with 'meaning,' whether
this meaning be felt consciously or not. This would be impossible unless the
spiritual soul were in the constant endeavor to "represent to itself the
universe," and (even in the embryo) acted as if omniscient of all the possible
states of its finite realm of both body and mind.44
The soul is entirely beyond the compass of conscious thought. Nor can the soul
instruct the mind.45 Man is not born rational but is born with the
faculties of rationality and liberty.46 The soul endows the mind
with the faculty of drawing meanings from the changes of its sensories, and
also with spontaneous patterns or inherent laws for rational thinking: patterns
which the mind may fill in, or - from free will - avoid.47
This inborn faculty of rationality, or of seeing truths in light, enables a
man to raise his understanding above his native will and to recognize truth
contrary to his self interest.48
Certain laws of reason operate as connate endowments above man's consciousness
and enable him to have a direct intuitive perception or acknowledgment of universals
a priori. 49 The laws of "logic" are therefore inscribed
on the mind from the first, and operate even in a babe.50 As man,
consciously and a posteriori, fills out and confirms some of its patterns, he
recognizes the resulting concept as an a priori doctrine from which he views
his further experience.51
|
