Descartes, René

Descartes Coffee, Chicago: Larry Miller

Descartes, René (1596-1650)

French lawyer, philosopher and mathematician often hailed as the father of modern philosophy.

While serving in the Bavarian army he devised an ambitious scheme for unifying truth with a rationalistic model based on mathematics, physics and morality as implicated through medicine.

As a philosopher Descartes questioned so many issues that he’s known for his ‘method of doubt,’ outlined in Discours de la Méthode (1637), the Meditationes de prima Philosophia (1641) and the Principia Philosophiae (1644).

Descartes made a fundamental distinction between mind and matter, the latter to include the body. The philosopher Gilbert Ryle said, somewhat pejoratively, that for Descartes the mind is like a “ghost in the machine,” the machine representing the body.

Descartes is probably best known for arguing that the very act of thinking proves one’s existence: cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). His next question, not unlike that of solipsism, was: “how do I know that the outside world truly exists?”

He was not the first to look at things this way. Thomas Leahey notes that

St. Augustine [354–430 CE] had said, “If I am deceived, I exist,” and Parmenides [515-445 BCE] had said, “For it is the same thing to think and to be.”¹

Descartes’ answer to the problem of truth seeming to be only inside oneself involved God. For Descartes, God exists by necessity. God must exist in order to be perfect. A perfect God also by necessity is Good. And a God that is Good would not deceive his creatures into believing in an outside world if no such thing existed.

Often lampooned by contemporary hack professors for saying the pineal gland mediates among body, mind and soul, we’d do well to remember that this was an innovative attempt on the part of Descartes to explain the relation between body and spirit and arguably a rational choice given the medical knowledge of his day.

In mathematics Descartes developed algebra and contributed to major innovations in geometry.

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¹Leahey, Thomas H. A History of Psychology, Prentice Hall, 1980, p. 92.

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Theodicy

Showdown Between Good and Evil by Markus Aaron Brechbiel

Theodicy

A theological term describing attempts to understand God’s absolute goodness and power with the reality of evil in the world.

In Christian theology evil is often seen as a necessary component of God’s plan of salvation. Here one accepts as an article of faith that God permits evil for some greater good, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals (see Isaiah 55:8-9).

One school of thought, begun by Irenaeus and popularized by John Hick, argues that evil is permitted but not caused by God.

Why, one might ask, would a good and all-powerful God permit evil?

For the Irenaean school the answer lies with the idea of ’soul making.’ A soul freely choosing to abstain from evil is of greater value than one that automatically avoids evil like a robot. The free soul apparently better glorifies God than a sinless automaton.

Although evil may ravage, test and torment good souls living on earth, the true goal of our finite, earthly life is to be made worthy of eternal heavenly life.

According to this viewpoint, evil acts as a crucible. Souls not succumbing to but resisting evil are purified and strengthened towards the good. Evil, then, is necessary. It acts as a kind of ‘hammer’ that pounds out the soul’s impurities.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in keeping with the final winnowing of the Apocalypse (Luke 3:17, Matthew 3:12), writes that

God permits some evils lest the good things should be obstructed.

Another argument, influenced by Plato’s idea of the Forms, is forwarded by St. Augustine. Augustine sees evil as a privatio boni–the absence of good. Augustine says that, because God is good, evil must be where God is not present. God doesn’t create evil. It’s a choice.

Needless to say not everyone is happy with this conclusion. Some, usually religious believers, see it as self-evident while others, often atheists, say it’s philosophically unsatisfying.

» Fatalism, Felix culpa, Hick (John), Providence

On the Web:

• A humorous video presenting the Irenaean theodicy:

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Theism

By God's Grace by night86mare

Theism

The term ‘Theism’ was coined by the Cambridge Platonist scholar, Ralph Cudworth (1617-88), in 1678.

Theism is the belief in a wholly-other creator God, ruling over creation and intervening with Divine presence, power and grace.

Theism is often contrasted with Deism, the belief in a wholly-other creator God who does not intervene after the initial creation of the universe.

» Akhenaton, Atheism, Neo-Paganism, Pagan, Pantheism

On the Web:

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Unitarianism

Unitarian Church, St Stephen's Green, Dublin by infomatique

Unitarianism

A religious movement found mostly in Europe and North America that emerged from John Calvin’s Puritanism, emphasizing the oneness of God and denying the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Unitarianism is said to be based on reason and individual conscience and does not rely on any scriptural or religious authority.

A diverse movement, some groups may embrace aspects of traditional religions, along with transcendental literature and folklore.

Unitarians may also advocate an awareness of current social and global issues.

On the World Wide Web:

• “A short history of the Unitarian Church, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.”

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Lot’s Wife

Lot's Wife near the Dead Sea DSCF8241 by GflaiG

Lot’s Wife

An Old Testament character.

Lot’s wife has become a cautionary figure with regard to the dangers in not trusting God.

When delivered from Sodom, Lot and his wife are warned by the Lord to not look back because the city is being utterly destroyed since “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly” (Genesis 13:13).

Lot’s wife disobeys. As she turns to look back she is transformed into a pillar of salt. Lot, however, doesn’t look back and survives the ordeal.

Feminists point out that the name of Lot’s wife is not mentioned in the Bible.

Historians, tour guides and geologists each have their own spin on what really happened. Two prevailing naturalistic theories are:

1. Lot’s wife is a natural rock salt formation that occurs in the Dead Sea area, which can still be viewed today.
2. Salt floes in the dead sea were thrust upward by surging waters, “hence legend is created out of what can now be explained as a simple geological phenomenon.”¹

From a practical perspective we could say that the story of Lot’s wife instructs us to “not look back” when life and, perhaps, our very physical, economic, psychological or spiritual survival demands that we move forward and not get stuck in the past.

» Eurydice, Orpheus

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¹ “The geologists said that Lot’s wife did not appear to turn into a pillar of salt because she dared to look back but because of the briny nature of the Dead Sea. But the research shows it was more likely a case of mistaken identity. Mr. Harris said by telephone from Canada that the Dead Sea was full of salt floes that might have been thrown up by surging water to resemble a female outline. ‘Hence legend is created out of what can now be explained as a simple geological phenomenon.’” Source: “Geologists Zero In on Sodom and Lot’s Wife” in New York Times » http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E0D71739F934A25751C1A963958260

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Underhill, Evelyn

Evelyn Underhill and Michael Ramsey by mberry

Underhill, Evelyn (1850-1941)

Respected British author on the subject of mysticism.

Underhill is often described as an Anglo-Catholic. Her book, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (1911) is widely regarded as a Christian classic.

Sincere mystics, she writes, are aware of the need for intense rational discernment and self-analysis.

Ecstasies, no less than visions and voices, must, they declare, be subjected to unsparing criticism before they are recognized as divine: whilst some are undoubtably “of God,” others are no less clearly “of the devil.”¹

In Practical Mysticism: A little book for normal people (1914), published at the outbreak of WW-I, Underhill makes a distinction between meditation and contemplation.

While these two terms often overlap, Underhill suggests that, for the most part, meditation may lead to more elevated forms of contemplative understanding. As Underhill puts it:

Now meditation is a half-way house between thinking and contemplating: and as a discipline, it derives its chief value from this transitional character.²

Arguably the strength of this definition is that it’s not ‘this or that,’ ‘black or white,’ as so many fundamentalists and conservatives depict the world. Rather, it represents a developmental approach. » Alice in Wonderland, Aurobindo (Sri), Clairaudience, Kabbala

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¹ Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness (New York: The New American Library, 1955 [1911]), p. 361.

² ___, Practical Mysticism: A little book for normal people (London: Dent, 1914), p. 46.

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Venial Sin

where to sin in sf

Originally uploaded by chotda

Venial Sin According to Catholic teaching, this is an offence against the Laws of God not grave enough to cause a complete loss of sanctifying grace.

It is seen as an illness of the soul rather than its death.

Because the soul committing a venial sin falls short of perfection but is still united with God and capable of charity, it does not receive eternal damnation, as we find with the unforgiven mortal sin.

Instead, venial sins merit temporary punishments which purify the soul so as to prepare it for everlasting life in heaven.

The excellent – if old – Catholic Encyclopedia (1912) outlines some scriptural references held by some to support the classification of venial vs. mortal sin.

The distinction between mortal and venial sin is set forth in Scripture. From St. John (1 John 5:16-17) it is clear there are some sins “unto death” and some sins not “unto death”, i.e. mortal and venial. The classic text for the distinction of mortal and venial sin is that of St. Paul (1 Corinthians 3:8-15), where he explains in detail the distinction between mortal and venial sin.

Source: O’Neil, A.C. (1912). Sin. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved October 11, 2008 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

» Mortal sin, Original sin, Sin

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Vanaprashta

Vashist Forest 2

Originally uploaded by ElPablo!

Vanaprashta (Skt: ‘home in the forest or woods’)

In traditional Hinduism this is the third asrama (Vedic stage of life) in which the male, having fulfilled his matrimonial dharma as a householder, generally retreats to the forest to study the deeper meaning of sacred texts and become adept at meditation.

A difficult path to follow, especially today, within the changing face of Hinduism its contemporary translation is more a psychosocial rather than geographical withdrawal–that is, the Hindu meditator, whether he be male or female, may withdraw into the deeper aspects of the psyche (and perhaps beyond) without necessarily leaving the household as in former times.

This shift is made evident in Pauline Kolenda’s ethnographic study conducted in Khalapur, where she notes:

Jivan Mal was a Gandhian. Like Gandhi, he tried to live his life according to the four ashramas, and when we knew him, he was in the third ashrama; he was a vanaprashta one who had retired from ordinary life to devote himself to religion. He explained that he and his wife were “like brother and sister”; he had given up sexual activity. Consistent with his religiosity and his Gandhianism was his strict vegetarian diet, but inconsistent with his Gandhianism was his inability to consort with untouchables, to be near them or to take food or drink from them or with them.

Source » Pauline Kolenda, “Micro-Ideology and Micro-Utopia in Khalapur: Changes in the Discourse on Caste over Thirty Years,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No. 32 (Aug. 12, 1989: 1831-1838), pp. 1833-1834.

Of course, one may rightly ask how such unsavory snobbishness could be taken as sign of positive spirituality and in keeping with God’s will.

» Asrama, Dharma, Hinduism

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Wisdom

Woman of Wisdom

Originally uploaded by Fort Photo

Wisdom

When a person seems to know through insight, intuition and experience the best course of action or the possible outcomes of situations, we might say they are wiser than those who make superficial, snap or conventional judgments.

Wisdom may or may not involve scholarly, specialized or factual knowledge. The intuitive aspects of wisdom may involve revealed, infused, illuminated or ‘transcendental’ knowledge–that is, knowledge that seers and mystics from most world religions say extends beyond the conventional understanding of space and time.

The notion of wisdom is sometimes hotly debated among various religious traditions. Some Hindus, for example, might see Christians as slaves to externally imposed dogmas and rituals that lock them up in ignorance, while some Christians may see the works of the devil binding Hindus to false or incomplete beliefs which deny or ‘water down’ the belief that Christ is the unique and only human incarnation truly equal to God.

But even within a given world religion, opposing viewpoints can be found as to the nature of wisdom. Fundamentalist Christians, for instance, often have knee-jerk, hypocritical and perhaps sometimes violent reactions to the deeper aspects of Christian mysticism that they themselves haven’t experienced. In fact some Christians go as far to say that all mysticism is of the devil.

The Protestant Josh McDowell seems to lean in this direction. In The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict McDowell begins by noting in a sentence or two that there are many types of mysticism but proceeds to only discuss his perception of the errors of the “pantheistic mysticism of the East” (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999: 643-658 ). And his discussion equates the general term ‘mysticism’ as if it only applied to Eastern mysticism, most notably that of Zen Buddhism.

McDowell’s argument overlooks the plain and obvious fact that the term ‘mysticism’ applies to a wide variety of religious experiences along with the key question as to their place of origin and related ethical orientation–e.g. (a) God as ‘wholly other’ (b) God as conceptualized in pantheism or (c) an evil being hostile to God.

In fact, Catholics and other Protestants take great pains to differentiate those interior experiences which are from God and those which are not.

» Alchemy, Ancestor Cults, Anselm (St.), Ashram, Bible, Book of Job, Bowie (David), Brahman, Clairaudience, Cupid, Dhammapada, DSM-IV-TR, Ego, Hero, I Ching, Jnana yoga, Levels of Knowledge, Kabbala, Koan, Kowalska (Saint Maria Faustina Helena), Manichaeism, Mystic, Neurosis, Odin, Paranormal, Pericles, Ramakrishna (Sri), Reincarnation, Seer, Serenity Prayer, Theosophy, Theravada Buddhism, Tiresias

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Wave

Hokusai – The Great Wave

Originally uploaded by Dystopos

Wave In physics a physical wave is defined as a regular disturbance in a medium, the net result being a transfer of energy.

Electromagnetic waves, however, may travel through a medium or a vacuum.

Many contemporary New Age writers dubiously liken waves to both matter-energy and spirit. According to this view, the Holy Spirit potentially could be measured with some kind of metering system.

This perspective seems lacking because it excludes a whole realm of grace and spirit said to exist beyond but within the world of matter and energy.

And arguably those who have not experienced the uniquely numinous quality of the spirit for themselves will most likely continue to suppose that matter-energy is equivalent to spirit, or perhaps reduce all things spiritual to vulgar materialistic or purely psychoanalytic explanations.

In Christian theological terms, God’s grace is said to be immanent within but qualitatively different from experiences stemming from the natural world of matter-energy (e.g. the aesthetic appreciation of a sunset or endorphin rushes from exercise).

Again, this distinction is seems to elude some New Age enthusiasts. And to complicate matters, poets, depth psychologists and mystics make the case for different types of spiritual experience–each type being qualitatively different from the realm of matter-energy.

» Adamski (George), Berkeley (George), Eliade (Mircea), Interference, Jung (Carl Gustav), Lenard, (Philipp Eduard Anton), Meditation, Otto (Rudolf), Particle, Particle-Wave Duality, Schrodinger (Erwin), Standing Wave, Swedenborg (Emanuel), Young (Thomas)

Image:

• Animation of standing wave in the stationary medium with marked wave nodes

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