The ‘God Question’ –a Final Review
In the course of my definition of the nature of the Grounding of Reality –at the heading of this account my ‘The New Monadology’’ -I made it clear that that any question of a theistic personhood was absolutely ruled out However, as the paragraphs added immediately above about the Processing of Reality’ make clear, I did not make the mistake of dismissing the wine with the lees (the customary metaphor –of ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ is perversely inappropriate in the present context!). Here are the Trinitarian inferences to be drawn from this overview of evolution and eschatology.
(1) Within the depths of the Ungrund we can only speak of the origins of divinity in terms of the highest of abstractions –a unity, spiritual in nature that stands aloof of all Trinitarian questions
(2) During the ‘unfurlment’ of the Ungrund, Trinity’s First Person –the begetter of personhood who is not himself a person- emerges. He guides the process through a kind of relaxational dynamics –a ‘letting go’ resulting in a divergent appearance of the category or realm of articulate Potentiality. In this guidance –quite distinct from the ‘Invariance --> Covariance’ logic. I have spoken of the analogy of metalinguistics in which ideas and concepts are mentioned and moved around, rather than used. It is an expansion of a very different kind in which a master invariant undergoes a relaxation into a hierarchy of lesser variances that lie hidden within it.
(3) Personhood itself emerges first in finite form –during organic evolution. We come first -ahead of the Second person of the Trinity- rather than arriving as after-thoughts of a pre-existant personal God.
(4) The Historical Aspect of Trinity’s Second Person arrives ahead of His Divine upper face. He starts as ‘one of us’.
(5) The Completed Trinity in all its maturity only arrives at the apocalyptic moment that terminates the world which has converged to Omega. Unlike the Second person of Christianity, this ‘Nous’ as I have termed him is a hybrid Holistic’ Individualistic entity. Each of us shall be Nous, from our unique individuality and point of view. The personhood concept embodied in Nous absolutely demands our co-presence.
The initial appearance of the Trinity in terms of the first person who is not even active as a begetter is not to be dismissed as a consolation prize needed to rescue us from atheism. He is the grand Source of all aspects of Divinity and the sole member of the trilogy that stands uniquely above us. I suspect that Islamic theologians have something of this in mind in speaking of ‘Allah’. I have always felt that this latter day emergence of theism was in protest at the decay of monotheism within the minds and writings of Christian theologians.
I feel in urgent need of summarizing the nature of the reconfiguration of the Trinity to which my ontology of
" < = " leads us. The issue is a delicate one. Neutral monism caries us a giant stride beyond ‘begottenness’ which already stands unambiguously aloof from the creatio ex nihilo of orthodox Christianity. Regardless, I want to be quite clear that the ontology which I am proposing does nothing deprive Holistic Being of its essential prerogatives. These start within the Ungrund and propagate directly into the unfurlment process of the stirrings of Transcendence as the realm of configured potentiality is brought into existence. In proportion as one can say anything about the Ungrund at all is that, on balance it is of a spiritual nature, and that it is a Unity unsullied by any trace of multiplicity. And finally, once again ‘…in proportion as….’ It enjoys an axiological and ethical perfection –clearly something that leaves us out; however, it is a perfection of innocence –for this spiritual presence has no knowledge of -nor participation in- Nonbeing.Throughout the ‘unfurlment’ process preceding the creation of the cosmos, the necessary guidance is not at all one of bringing covariant instances out of an invariant Source, but of a ‘relaxation’ dynamics in which a diverging cornucopia of differentia are released, or allowed to let fall. Again, in the parlance of metalingistics one might say that there is a discourse in which the elements of the subject matter are being mentioned rather than used or engaged. Though the pluralism of individuality’s potential presence, we take no active role in this process. We are simply carried along. We do have to be there, to do what God at any of His levels could not do for Himself The First Person of the Trinity –as Eckhart’s ‘Gottheit’ could never bring the needed personal living God into existence.
I have postulated that ‘Becoming’ is initiated by the breaking of one of the links uniting Being to its Nonbeing counterpart. What this does is to cut one of the connections between holistic and individualistic spirituality. It frees the apex from entanglements in Nonbeing so that it can stand aloof within the privacy of its unique haecceity. As such, the spirituality of this positive Being enjoys an axiological and ethical perfection –if at the level of innocence rather than virtue. Virtue can only be arrived at through the engagement and creative transcendence over Nonbeing –and that is why we are here. It is for us to do for the Gottheit what it cannot do for itself, His contribution of this evolution-long engagement is that of a begetter and redeemer. Although it is true that we contribute to this ongoing act of begetting, the gift of redemption is simply that. Unlike the state of affairs during the unfurlment, our begetting is no passive process but one in which we take a sotto voce hand in the game. We decide what form the incrementation to our persona takes at each fresh instant (though the form of the endowment from germinal mind plays a dominant role in the nature of the mindset that immerges over time.
I believe that without question Omega will –uniquely- acquire a Holistic, unshared component to his ontology, hence causing him to become dyophysite in the process. Such an ontological constitution is, of course, in accordance with central Christian dogma –so evidently, my reordering of priorities within the Christian Trinity leaves this unchanged. Now despite my repeated avowal that that omega is ‘one of us’, how does He come by this unique privilege? Does it simply follow from the unique complexity of his dispositional mind as a configuration grounded upon finite’s limiting
γ-set? Is serendipity to endow him with an ‘unearned increment’? As I have previously maintained, surely there’s more to it than that. Granted that He shall be no redemptive figure in the Christological sense, yet I believe He will end up paying a redemptive price of a unique and special kind. Recall that our Tau lifelines could never have been deposited within the depths of ψ-Logos had it not be rectified by the Gottheit I suspect that the same is true of the creation of β-Omega; it could not be received into the cardinal domain unless it had been cleansed of ethical imperfections of every kind. These latter will surely have their presence in α-omega, despite the fact that he shall be about as close to perfection as a person can come. Therefore, moment by moment, as Alpha is transformed into Beta, some kind of painful restitution shall be made. We’re not speaking here of anything cruciform or of horrendous character, but something stressful and unpleasant. In paying this price, Omega shall not be alone. This is inevitable because redemption of every kind can only take origin within the Holism of the Gottheit –so it shall be a shared burden. Something that points to the manageability of this burden is the absolutely minimal density of the Dyophysite increment. It shall be but the paper-tin surface of a personal that is overwhelmingly of Natural constitution. This will do nothing to impede our relationship to Omega within Nous –when we all take up our residence within post-apocalyptic Eternity. The " < = " aspect asymmetry will be as strongly in force as ever, to make of us participants within this upgrade ontology. Finally, this will do nothing to efface the fundamental distinction between Omega and us; He shall be a dyophysicte Being whose upper, truly holistic face comes first.Let me attempt to summarize this very delicate matter of the relationship between the Holism of Divinity, and the pluralism of individuality. The
" < = " or ‘aspect’ ontology –in which each of us is the whole from our unique viewpoint- is to be found at two places within the reach of the ‘becoming’ of Reality. The first is our begetting at every moment of conscious existence. At these moments it is the Third person of the Trinity within whom we participate; though it be true that the Third Person is but the First in action, the distinction between the two levels remains. Their distinctness has its origins in the very early stirrings of the Ungrund in which the pure Gottheit first draws Himself out of the depths of the Ungrund. At this point he is free of pluralist complications and as such enjoys the perfection of innocence. While it is true that a slender –and very necessary- connection exists with his pluralist aspect still hidden within the Ungrund, this connection is logical or causal, rather than ontological. It is only at the next moment that the pure Gottheit draws the sequestered pluralist aspect or potentiality that this second, lower face –that shall manifest as the Third Person shall be acquired. An exactly analogous situation shall hold in eternal Life. This life of Nous shall have both a unique divine upper face, and a lower one in which we are " < = " participants. We participate in the natural face of resurrected Omega while the upper is privately owned within an ontological self-closure. This distinction does nothing to efface our participation within this upper face, during each moment of conscious life; it is the strength of the logical asymmetry that has changed. It is no longer one of " < = " but rather of " < ".
Figure 19 has been added by way of a final comment on my ‘aspect
" < = " ontology. As may be seen, it stands foursquare .between Buddhism and Hindu Monism. I have spoken so far only of this latter benchmark. It has the virtue of offering a powerful corrective to Western pluralist excesses that even holds fields under suspicion. It reminds us that whatever else, Holism must have the upper hand –a demand that applies equally to theistic and secularist world views. But its danger is that of overlooking the immediacy of the present moment as it is experienced –this applying alike for eternal and finite beings. But Eastern Monisms fail badly because of their underplay of life and active mind –assiging both to the ontologically shadow world of Maya..It is remarkable that the most robust of existentialist philosophies should have arisen in that part of the world beset by such strong holistic leanings. What is so extraordinary about Buddhism is its denial; existential moments are isolated, individualistic and ontologically self-sufficient; they hang there suspended in space as a vast and unlimited set of ontological danglers. And they are pluralist in the most extreme epochalism. There is no unification along the lifeline of any being to impart a consolidated ‘monadship’ extending over time."......Buddhism has frequently compared the course of time to the apparent motion of a wave, wherein the actual water only moves up and down, creating the illusion of a 'piece' of water moving over the surface. It is a similar illusion that there is a constant 'self' moving through successive experiences, constituting a link between them in such a way that the youth becomes the man who becomes the greybeard who becomes the corpse." -Alan Watts
Part of the process of 'waking up' experienced by those who have come out of the far aside of their quest for regeneration is a vivid awareness of this temporal immediacy; in contrast, the quality of everyday experience is distorted and corrupted by a hanging-on to phenomena, as though in an attempt to cancel the absolute dependence of existence upon the emanational influx of each instant:
"......Pluck a flower and it dies. Take up water from the stream and it flows no longer. Pull down the blind but the sunbeam is not trapped in the room. Snatch the wind in a bag and you have only stagnant air.......To enjoy and know reality you must let go of it and realise that it possesses us. Beauty grasped turns into pain.......to clutch the splendour of flame is to be burned." -Alan Watts
The affirmation of ontological self-sufficiency is coupled to a denial of a transcendent source of existence; Buddhism is an atheistic religion. However:
"......A person is in process of continuous change, with no fixed underlying identity.......Buddhism declares that everything has been brought about by causes, that there is no permanent substratum of existence". Yet
"....such a denial (of an enduring ego) however, does not connote nihilism or materialism. The Buddha clearly expressed what the self is not, but he did not give any clear account of what it is". This clearly opens the door to emanationism: ".....though it is true that the Buddha avoided discussion of the ultimate reality that lay beyond the categories of the phenomenal world, he did not seem to have any doubts about the Absolute. He said: '....that there is an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, an uncompounded; were there not there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, the made and the compounded"
[all of these quotes from the Encyclopaedia Britannica].
On the face of it then, Buddhism appears to be grounding existence upon an unending sequence of ontological danglers. only the grins are real; the Cheshire cat is illusory at either of the levels of transcendence or existence. But this is really not quite the case; a Source is allowed -though not of a personal, theistic kind. With respect to both both its atheism and is plurality display striking departures from their Western counterparts. They differ in their stress of the subjective aspect of the moment and in the numinous warmth that suffuses the whole worldview.
There is this final –very striking contrast- between the ontologies of Buddhism and Hinduism. The first has the upper hand for the way in which it recognizes that Actual value manifests only within the living moment –this being true alike for eternal as for finite personhood. This is stusiouly denied by classical monism in its dismissal of the realm of existence as somehow unreal –as suggest by the analogy of the ‘Veil of Maya’. But Hinduism has the clear advantage in its insistence that the ontological grounding of Reality is holistic and unitary, not pluralistic, as Buddhism claims. It is my belief that the novel ontology that I am proposing enables us to have it both ways.
Figures 20 and 21 have been put together in an attempt to clarify some of the tricky interrelationships described in the text. What Figure 20 tries to drive home is the unexpected route through which Divine eternal personhood –the Second person of the Trinity- shall take His origin. In what is an exact reverse of Biblical ordering, I am asserting that Personhood makes its initial appearance in us (and, of course, in all individuals who shall come to be during cosmic evolution). Contrast this with the Biblical account in which the ‘Son’ arises –is born- from Trinity’s First person of the Father –you and I being but later after-thoughts. However, as the figure also shows, the ontogenesis of the Second person is a complex matter in which we are -at one and the same time- components of Nous’s embryogenesis, and -thanks to out enjoyment of the very powerful " < = " ontological inequality- surrogate anticipations of Nous itself.
As we have seen, others dissatisfied with mainstream Christian theology have come to take up intermediate positions. Tillich –following Böhme- believes that the second person has the power to pull Himself directly out of the Ungrund; however, this implies a much stronger offset of Positive Being over its Nonbeing counterpart, while seeming tom jump the gun over matters of incarnation. Panenheists of ‘process theology’ persuasion have moved closer towards my position in their postulate that the completion of the divine Person needs our cooperative efforts to bring Himself to completion.
The primary purpose of Figure 21 is to caution us against overstating the significance of the –admittedly- very strong ontology as symbolized by the " < = " inequality. Properly understood and interpreted, it does nothing to undermine the prerogatives of Divinity. The First Person of the Trinity stands aloof from us in His constitution. This offset may be seen at two places within this figure –at the opposite ends of the eschatological process. First of all, as shown in the second image of the figure, we stand, in our origins we stand astride two distinct domains within the larger reality. That which is most essentially ourselves initially resides within the Nonbeing node –where it is the essence of negative being. At this level within Reality we have yet to come into our powerful ot our " < = " ontology –which must await further developments.upon two feet within the deeper reality. In ourselves we stand primarily and firmly within the Nonbeing node where we constitute the very essence of the negatives of Nonbeing. Were it not for our adoption by the First person, we would indeed be lost; this is displayed in the third image of the figure. Finally, in the closing chapter of eschatology, Omega acquires a dyophysite constitution that shall be unique to His person. Hence Omega shall come to stand within both ontological domains; in his initially emerging human presence He’ll be very much one of us. But in his divine face He shall come yto enjoy a privileged position. I believe that in terms of mystical encounter, the biblical affirmation is indeed the case in its assertion that ‘…no man cometh to the father save through the Son….’ –or words to that effect
The final figure 22 has been added to bring us full circle to the metaformalism that dominates the larger Reality of the world view I am presenting. In particular it sets the various aspects of the trinity into correspondence with density of the formalism upon which they rest. The left-hand column in the figure displays the progressive weakening of this density, in moving from the Ungrund to the laiunching of the realm of existence at the ‘Big Bang’. In this ‘unfurlment’ of the Ungrund, successive steps are linked by a characteristic topological singularity that is unique to each. The Ungrund is is the ultimate Invariant which is transcendent over Being itself –through its inclusion of its Nonbeing counterpart. Each of theswe members is multimodal as it initially emerges; it is only as we reach the lower levels that modality is whittled down to what is addressed by conventional logic and mathematics.
The left-hand column shows the way in which this formal divergence is reversed during the eschatological events that terminate cosmic and organic existence –to usher in eternal life. Perhaps a word of caution is in order here that this ascending series is with respect to actual entities; no reversal of the ‘unfurlment’ shown displayed within the left-hand column is implied. Also, the reader may recall that there is one further topological singularity –a second ‘anamorphic’ one that stands astride the ψ and μ domains; it is not displayed ion this figure. It may be thought of as standing orthogonal to the final stage at the bottom of the figure, separating the subjectivity of agency and meaning from the objectivity into it takes articulate form.