Читать книгу Reality - Wynand De Beer - Страница 8

The most basic division within cosmic reality is that between the higher, metaphysical world and the lower, physical world. We contend that this is a more accurate view of reality than the more commonly found differentiation between spiritual and material, since this physical world in which we live is already a combination of the levels of soul and matter. It is therefore, strictly speaking, wrong to say that we live in a material world, because the matter that we can perceive through our senses is formed matter, i.e., matter formed by soul. In contrast, unformed matter can be mentally conceived but not perceived, since it requires the addition of form to become accessible to sense perception.

Plato outlines the metaphysical view of reality as follows: “As I see it, then, we must begin by making the following distinction: What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which always becomes but never is? The former is grasped by understanding, which involves a reasoned account. It is unchanging. The latter is grasped by opinion, which involves unreasoning sense perception. It comes to be and passes away, but never really is” (Tim, 27d–28a). Later in the same work, Plato adds that the first kind neither receives into itself anything else nor enters into anything else. It is invisible and cannot be perceived by any of the senses. In contrast, the second kind is constantly borne along, now coming to be in a certain place and then perishing out of it (Tim, 52a). In the Platonic tradition these realms are usually denoted as the intelligible world (to noēton) and the sensible world (to horaton), respectively. The adjectives ‘intelligible’ and ‘sensible’ indicate the respective means by which these worlds may be known, namely rational thought and sense perception.

The metaphysical and physical worlds are also known as the realms of being and becoming, which are respectively related to eternity and time. Whereas being is eternal, unchanging, and perfect, becoming is temporal, ever-changing, and imperfect. Since the primary elements of earth, air, water, and fire change into each other (e.g., in the process of condensation) and thus possess no stability, Plato concludes that everything which has becoming is unstable. It is therefore better to say ‘what is such’ than ‘this’ or ‘that’ to describe physical objects (Tim, 49c–50a). Incidentally, this recognition of the fluidity and impermanence of everything in the sensible world rebuts the oft-repeated charge that Platonism entails a static world-view.

Martin Heidegger has remarked that the opposition between being and becoming stands at the inception of the ontological question. He adds: “What becomes, is not yet. What is, no longer needs to become. That which ‘is’ has left all becoming behind it, if indeed it ever became or could become. What ‘is’ in the authentic sense also stands up against every onslaught from becoming.” The German philosopher concludes that Heraclitus, to whom the doctrine of becoming is ascribed, is therefore saying the same thing as Parmenides, who introduced the doctrine of being in his famous didactic poem.55

One of the the greatest Christian thinkers of all time, Meister Eckhart, relates the distinction between being and becoming to their origins. He writes: “The first point to be made is that becoming is from secondary causes, but the existence of everything, either natural or artificial, in that it is what is first and perfect, is immediately from God alone.”56 Here the German theologian appears to suggest two distinct realms: an eternal world (‘first and perfect’), derived directly from God; and a temporal cosmos, produced by secondary causes. However, if one keeps in mind Eckhart’s view that all things exist only through participation in God, then even temporal things (i.e., the realm of becoming) exist insofar as they are supra-temporal. As Wolfgang Smith comments, the difference between the temporal and the eternal orders thus lies not in a kind of being, but rather in a lack of being. We could say that temporal things had not yet fully attained their being, but are “striving to be,” as is indeed suggested by the term ‘becoming.’ Moreover, nothing can ‘become’ unless in some way it ‘is.’ It could therefore be said in conclusion that temporal things both ‘are’ and ‘are not,’ since they consist of both being and non-being.57

The term ‘metaphysics’ first appears in the writings of Aristotle, Plato’s most famous student and founder of his own philosophical school at the Lyceum (an Athenian temple dedicated to Apollo, the god of light, truth, healing, and music). Aristotle’s extant writings were collected and published in the first century B.C. by Andronicus of Rhodes. A major work therein was titled ta meta ta physika, which means ‘after the physics’—i.e., following Aristotle’s writings on physical phenomena. In it, Aristotle declares the theoretical science called metaphysics to be the first philosophy (protē philosophia). Its object of study is being as such and the attributes which belong to being (Met IV.1003a).58 Since the Greek prefix meta also means ‘over beyond,’ Martin Heidegger points out that philosophizing about beings as such is precisely meta ta physika, or metaphysics.59 Evidently, in the Aristotelian view metaphysics is practically indistinguishable from ontology.

Moreover, for Aristotle metaphysics is closely related to theology. This term is derived from the Greek theologia, which means discourse on the nature of God or the gods. Aristotle views theology as the first and highest science, since it deals with things which both exist separately and are immovable; in other words, theology deals with the realm of the divine (Met VI.1026a). Several centuries later, theology is similarly conceived by Proclus as a branch of theoretical philosophy.60 This is particularly evident in his main works, Elements of Theology and Platonic Theology, which together contains the fullest extant exposition of Platonism.

It is important to note that the recognition of a fundamental differentiation between the metaphysical and physical realms does not imply an ontological dualism, since both these worlds obtain their reality from a transcendent Principle. As we have noted earlier, this Principle is variously referred to as God, Brahman, or the One. But an important distinction should be made regarding the origins of these worlds: whereas the intelligible realm arises directly from the Principle, the sensible world comes into being through the intelligible world. The cosmic chain of causality may therefore be stated as follows: Principle → metaphysical/intelligible world → physical/sensible world.

The relation between God, the intelligible world, and the sensible world has been elegantly described by Maximus the Confessor, who in his writings combined the Greek Christian theology of his predecessors with the Aristotelian theories of time, eternity, motion, and rest. He depicts a triadic universe of Being (ousia), Power (dynamis), and Act (energeia), which he probably obtained from the Neoplatonist Porphyry. In terms thereof, a being is (ousia), has the capacity (dynamis) to do something, and does it (energeia). Maximus reasons further that God is the Bestower of being, the Creator of becoming, and the Prime Mover (the latter being Aristotle’s term for God). In this way, He is the Efficient Cause (archē) of the eternal, intelligible world which starts from being; of the contingent, physical world which starts from becoming; and of that motion which, as mutability, is the means whereby the sensible world reaches its end. Thus, Maximus views being as the mode of existence of the intelligible world, while becoming is the mode of existence of the sensible world.61

Participation

How does the metaphysical and physical realms obtain their reality? In the case of both these worlds, their existence is obtained by means of participation (Greek metechein, Latin participatio) in a higher level of reality. The metaphysical realm participates directly in the Principle, while the physical world participates in the intelligible realm and thus indirectly in the Principle. In this way, a specific level of reality obtains its being from the level directly above it by means of participation: the physical world receives its being from the metaphysical world, while the latter receives its being from the Principle, which is therefore the ultimate source of all being, whether directly or indirectly.

According to Plato’s celebrated Theory of Forms, particular things share in or participate of the forms, while each form provides a pattern (paradeigma) to which the particulars approximate.62 The notion of Forms (also called Ideas) is defined by Socrates in the dialogue Parmenides: “These forms are like patterns set in nature, and other things resemble them and are likenesses; and this partaking of the forms is, for the other things, simply being modelled on them” (132d). Since Plato insists that the participation of immanent things in the transcendent reality of the Forms is what constitutes cosmic reality, it is erroneous to accuse the Athenian thinker of emphasizing transcendence at the cost of immanence. Contrary to this charge by Nietzsche, inter alia, the Platonic notion of participation entails ‘a shining affirmation of immanence,’ as poetically stated by a recent commentator. Through their participation in the transcendent reality, the immanent things obtain an ontological weight and durability that would have been impossible without such participation. Consequently, the rejection of immanence cannot be attributed to Platonism, but rather to the Gnostic deviations from it and the modernist continuation of these deviations.63

The South African philosopher Petrus Dreyer has pointed out that for Plato the Forms are the only real being outside the domains of time and space. And since the Forms represent the limited (peras), they are the opposite of the unlimited (apeiron), which is represented by the non-being of empty space (to kenon). It could also be said that as the negation of being, empty space exists only as a possibility. Dreyer adds that in Plato’s cosmology the world of phenomena is interposed between the extremes of that which is (to on) and that which is not (to mē on)—in other words, between true being and non-being. As Plato states in the dialogue Politeia, the sensible realm participates in both being and non-being (478d-e). The physical world is thus conceived as simultaneously real, through participating in the Forms, and unreal, through existing in non-being.64 In this way Plato establishes an ontological hierarchy of first the intelligible world (true being), then the sensible world (relative being, or becoming), and finally the abstract realm of non-being.

Ultimately, Philip Sherrard writes, Plato conceives of all things as partaking to some degree of the divine (since the Forms receive their reality from the Good, i.e., the One). It is precisely this phenomenon of participation which links the spiritual (or intelligible) world to the sensible world, including even the formless and the irrational. As Plato states in one of his late dialogues, the Timaeus (at 92c), the world (kosmos) is a sensible God made in the image of the Intelligible (eikon tou noētou theos aisthētos).65

As was done by his Platonic predecessors, so also Proclus explains the relation between the One and the many through the notion of participation. In his seminal work Elements of Theology, Proclus distinguishes between that which participates, that which is participated in, and that which is unparticipated (Propositions 23 and 24). This threefold scheme of participation has been illustrated by means of the following example: (i) a large thing, (ii) the largeness in the large thing, and (iii) the entity that possesses largeness paradigmatically (i.e., the Form of largeness).66

The Platonic concept of participation was employed by outstanding Christian thinkers such as Dionysius the Areopagite in the Greek tradition and John Scottus Eriugena in the Latin tradition. As Plato explains in the Phaedo, that which is determined (the effect) participates in its determination (the cause), through which the effect obtains the nature or attribute of the cause. Eric Perl comments that only by understanding Platonic participation can we understand the relation between cause and effect in Neoplatonism, and thus the sense in which, for Dionysius, God is the cause of all things.67 And Eriugena, within his profound synthesis of Greek and Latin Christian theology and Neoplatonic philosophy, presents participation as follows: the Creator (i.e., God as the beginning of all things) does not participate but is participated in; the primordial causes (i.e., the Forms, through which God creates the sensible world) participate in the Creator and is participated in; and the created effects participate in their primordial causes (Per III, 630). Only God as the end of all things neither participates nor is participated in.68

Continuing the Platonic and Patristic doctrine that the created world receives its being from God through participation, the Scholastic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas opens his Treatise on Creation as follows: “All beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation.” Commenting on this quote, Wolfgang Smith suggests both an exoteric and an esoteric interpretation. From an exoteric viewpoint, it means that all things in the created order derive their being from God. This ontological dependence is illustrated by the example of red-hot iron, which receives its heat from fire, to which heat belongs essentially. However, from an esoteric viewpoint the above statement means that creatures possess a mere semblance of being, which actually belongs to none but God. In reality, the cosmos is a self-manifestation of God, which implies that in its theological conception as an ‘other than God’ the cosmos is really a pure nothing (Latin, purus nihil), as Meister Eckhart held. In the light of this reasoning, Smith concludes that the dichotomy of ‘Uncreated versus created,’ which is fundamental in Christian theology, may exist from the human point of view, but not in the sense of absolute truth.69

However, due to the lower receiving its being from the higher, the sensible world displays at least a measure of intelligibility.70 The Orthodox philosopher Philip Sherrard has remarked that the multiple Forms (or Ideas) are both transcendent in relation to the sensible objects determined by them, and immanent in these objects. As a result, he writes, “the creature possesses its own intelligible nature through actual participation in the creative cause which brought it into being.”71 We are able to discern harmony, proportion, and regularity in, for example: (a) the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets, and therefore in the rhythms of day and night and of the seasons; (b) the life-cycles of organisms, from microbes through plants and animals to humans; and (c) the movements of sub-atomic particles as they interact to constitute material reality. Evidently, the physical world is not devoid of intelligibility, for example as order and harmony, even though it represents a lower reality than the metaphysical world.

By combining the concepts of being and non-being, as well the metaphysical and the physical, we arrive at the following hierarchy (arranged from most real to least real), which encompasses the totality of ‘something and nothing’:

i. Beyond-being (or God), which precedes the distinction between being and non-being;

ii. True being, which comprises the intelligible realm of unchanging Forms, at the apex of which is the universal Mind, or Intellect;

iii. Relative being (or becoming), which is the sensible world of ever-changing phenomena;

iv. Relative non-being, which is unformed matter;

v. Absolute non-being (or nothingness), which exists as an abstraction in human thought.

Relevance

Does this traditional ontology and metaphysics we have been discussing so far have any relevance to the physical world, including its sciences? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes.’ It has been argued, for example, that the standard model of quantum physics allows for the return of metaphysics in the sense in which Aristotle conceived it, after its expulsion from philosophy by Immanuel Kant and from science by nineteenth century materialism. Not only did it bring Being back into the picture of theoretical physics, but also Mind, as experimentation followed theorizing.72 Here are some quotes from eminent scientists:

a. Theoretical physicist Amit Goswami in The Self-aware Universe (1993): “From a fully idealist point of view, we say that a measurement always means an observation by a conscious observer in the presence of awareness”; and therefore “the universe exists as formless potentia [Latin, force or power]73 in myriad possible branches in the transcendent domain and becomes manifested only when observed by conscious beings.”

b. Theoretical physicist Brian Greene in The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004) on the illusory nature of space and time: “Space and time may similarly dissolve when scrutinized with the most fundamental formulation of nature’s laws.”

c. Mathematician Roger Penrose in The Road to Reality (2004): “Any universe that can be observed must, as a logical necessity, be capable of supporting conscious mentality, since consciousness is precisely what plays the ultimate role of ‘observer.’ This fundamental requirement could well provide constraints of the universe’s physical laws, or physical parameters, in order that conscious mentality can (and will) exist.”

d. Astrophysicist Arthur Eddington in Space, Time and Gravitation (1920): “Where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature what the mind has put into nature.”74 That is to say, Mind precedes nature, and the metaphysical is prior to the physical.

More recently, a number of Greek and Serbian scholars have argued that the Big Bang Theory is eminently compatible with the early Christian teaching on the creation of the universe out of nothing. Both conceptions assert that the universe, space, and time have a beginning, so that there is nothing ‘before’ this initial point of cosmic origin. In addition, there is a Greek Patristic notion that the non-being out of which God creates is not pure nothingness, but rather indicates an imperceptible state beyond space and time. This view appears to find a reflection in the astrophysical concept of the false vacuum, which is not entirely stable (unlike a true vacuum) but may nevertheless last for a very long time.75

The transition of the natural sciences from the gross materialism of the nineteenth century to the more ‘metaphysical’ paradigms of the twentieth century has been outlined by Francis Parker Yockey in his magnum opus. To begin with, science (in its materialistic conception) served as the supreme religion of the nineteenth century, so that ‘unscientific’ became the term of damnation. This went hand in hand with the ‘progress’ ideology, with the latter understood not as more knowledge, but as more technique. Some examples thereof are mentioned by Yockey: the problem of poverty was to be solved with more machinery; the horrible conditions that had arisen out of a machine-civilization would be alleviated by more machines; the problem of old age was to be overcome with ‘rejuvenation’; racial problems would be solved by ‘eugenics’; the weather would be ‘harnessed’ and all natural forces brought under absolute control; international problems would vanish, since the world would become one huge scientific unit. In this manner, Yockey writes, all Life, all Death, and all Nature would be reduced to absolute order, in the custody of scientific theocrats.76

However, as Yockey points out, there were already signs that this lifeless, mechanical picture would not last. When the Theory of Entropy introduced the idea of irreversibility into the picture, science was on the road that was to culminate in physical relativity and the subjectivity of physical concepts. Next appeared the Theory of Radioactivity, which again contains strong subjective elements and requires the Calculus of Probabilities to describe its results. Because of these and related scientific theories, Yockey writes, concepts like mass, energy, electricity, heat, and radiation, merged into one another, and it became increasingly clear that was really under study was the human soul. In other words, physical science returned to its foundation in mind, or consciousness. Consequently, “Scientific theories reached the point where they signified nothing less that the complete collapse of science as a mental discipline.” On the one extreme, that of the macrocosm, the cosmos is depicted as finite but unlimited, and boundless but bounded. On the other extreme, that of the microcosm, “the closer it is studied, the more spiritual it becomes, for the nucleus of the atom is a mere charge of electricity, having neither weight, volume, inertia nor any other classic properties of matter.”77

“In its last great saga,” Yockey continues, “science dissolved its own psychical foundations, and moved outside the world of the senses into the world of the soul. Absolute time was dissolved, and time became a function of position. Mass became spiritualized into energy. The idea of simultaneity was discarded, motion became relative, parallels cut one another, two distances could no longer be said absolutely equal to one another. The profound knowledge was realized through the very study of matter itself that matter is only the envelope of the soul . . . matter cannot be explained materialistically. Its whole significance derives from the soul.” Ultimately, “Man possesses a metaphysical sense as the hall-mark of his humanity.”78 There can be no doubt that Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the whole of the metaphysical tradition would have agreed wholeheartedly with this assessment.

55. Heidegger, Introduction, 100–101, 103.

56. Quoted in Smith, Christian Gnosis, 166.

57. Smith, Christian Gnosis, 167–168.

58. Dreyer, Wysbegeerte, 128–129.

59. Heidegger, Introduction, 18.

60. Dillon and Gerson, Neoplatonic Philosophy, 264, 287.

61. Sheldon-Williams, “Greek Christian Platonist,” 492–496.

62. Lee, Republic, 261.

63. Goosen, Nihilisme, 200–201.

64. Dreyer, Wysbegeerte, 100.

65. Sherrard, Greek East, 11.

66. Goosen, Nihilisme, 93; Gerson, Aristotle, 212.

67. Perl, Theophany, 19.

68. Carabine, Eriugena, 58.

69. Smith, Christian Gnosis, 157–158, 166.

70. Dillon and Gerson, Neoplatonic Philosophy, xx.

71. Sherrard, Greek East, 6.

72. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 89–90.

73. https://latin-dictionary.net/definition/31066/potentia-potentiae

74. Geldard, Anaxagoras, 90–96.

75. Kalachanis, Theory of Big Bang, 31–32, 36–37; Wikipedia: False vacuum.

76. Yockey, Imperium, 99–101.

77. Yockey, Imperium, 102–104.

78. Yockey, Imperium, 104–105.