I Thank You, Lord, for Making Me, Me
Seeing Kansas in Black-and-White
Modern science has been good at analysing the biological and physical world into its components,
and showing how it is built up – bottom-up approach to reality.
With onlythis approach, it is hard to say:What makes a person;
What marks out this collection of particles as an individual;
What makes this collection a really special collection (a person);
How we get from biological structure to “the soul”;
How we get from neural structure to mind and will;
How far we can change the components and remain human.
There is a recurring temptation to reduce reality to one or a few components, or types of component:
Thales: it’s all water;
Pythagoras: it’s all ratios;
Democritus, Descartes and Dawkins: it’s all little lumps of stuff
(actually, Descartes sees the body as an hydraulic machine, but the principle and the conclusion are
roughly the same: animals are not conscious, and don’t have emotions; with the added thesis that
the ‘human tank’ is steered via the pineal gland by the “angel-driver” in the control turret).
If with Gilbert Ryle we exorcise the ghost from the machine, we are left with consciousness… as
“emerging properties”
so: Does “complexity theory” help?It balances bottom-up & top-down causation;
But does it still see the components as more real than the whole?
Do we live in a “flat” “monochrome” cosmos consisting of clumps of lumps?
Over the Rainbow: a Technicolour World
Albert: Der Mensch steht in der Mitte der Schöpfung, zwischenStoff und Geist, zwischenZeit und Ewigkeit.
Thomas draws on Aristotle and “Denys” to say (or imply):
A. There isn’t one kind of stuff (lumps); there aren’t two kinds of “stuff” (matter and spirit); there are lots!
… among natural things the species seem to be ordered step by step, so that mixed bodies are more perfect than the elements, & plants are more perfect than minerals, & animals are more perfect than plants, & men are more perfect than the other animals; & within each of these divisions, onespecies is found to be more perfect than another. Therefore, just as God’s wisdom is the cause of the diversity among things for the sake of the perfection of the whole universe, so too it is the cause of the inequality among things. For the universe would not be perfect if just one grade of goodness were found (ST, I, 47, 2; cf. I, 6, 4)
B. We can validly approach human nature (especially fallen human nature) “from the bottom up”, so that in ST, I, 75-82, we see how the human soul “forms” “materiality” into an organic living body and exercises a hierarchy of potentiae (“dynamics”) such that the ones we share with the plants support those we share with the other animals, which in turn support those we share with the angels (and which in themselves are not the actualisation of a bodily organ); the lower powers are subsumed into higher forms of life:
… there is no other substantial form in man besides the intellectual soul; and that the soul, as it virtually contains the sensitive and nutritive souls, so does it virtually contain all inferior forms, and itself alone does whatever the imperfect forms do in other things. The same is to be said of the sensitive soul in brute animals, & of the nutritive soul in plants, & universally of all more perfect forms with regard to the imperfect (ST, I, 76, 4)
C. We can also validly approach human nature (especially unfallen human nature) “from the top down”, so that the human soul (i.e. the human form of life) is “a spiritual substance”, but with an intellect so much feebler than those of the angels that it properly needs support from the senses and the imagination, and the will needs support from the “emotions”:
… the human soul, which is the lowest in the order of spiritual substances, can communicate its own actual being to the human body, which is the highest in dignity, so that from the soul and the body, as from form and matter, a single being results. (Disputed question on spiritual creatures a. 2; cf. ST, I, 75, 7 ad 3 & 79, 2)
D.This is neither monism nor dualism; it is “pluralism”, where what really exists are cabbages, cats, human beings, many kinds of angel, several kinds of archangel… and everything has its own coherence.
Is this actually closer to Quantum Mechanics? – an electron is not a tiny “billiard ball” but a located pattern
of interaction whose “wave function” depends on and contributes to the whole it is part of.
and closer to biology and experience? – of course animals are (in varying degrees) conscious.
Thomas enables us to identify individual beings – and expect increasing “fuzziness” as we go down the scale;
to recognise beings that are rational by nature, hence “persons” & images of the Trinity;
to expect sleep, alcohol, brain lesions, strong emotions… to affect human thinking.
Does Thomas properly (or improperly) give priority (at least in a fallen world) to the bottom-up approach?
Hence sacramentality, virtue ethics…
And does Rahnerimproperly (or properly) give priority to the top-down approach (Geist im Weld)?
Can we dismiss the objections?If matter individuates, can the soul after death be an individual being?
If the soul is the form of the body, can it meaningfully survive death?
If human knowledge relies on the senses, how can it continue after death?
Are these difficulties symptoms of a deeper tension? Namely:
On an “Aristotelico-Thomist” approach, our individuality seems (at first sight) to be a function of our “materiality”, but what (especially in a modern world) is most precious to us, our “personhood”, seems
to be a function of our “spirituality”.
[But cf:The soul communicates that existence in which it subsists to the corporeal matter, out of which &
the intellectual soul there results unity of existence; so that the existence of the whole composite is
also the existence of the soul. This is not the case with other non-subsistent forms. (ST, I, 76, 1 ad 5)]
This tension is more-or-less that between an “analytical-reductionist-scientistic” world-view,
and a “personalist” world view that can seem un- or anti-scientific.
Thomas’ position only works if we accept:degrees of being,
hence degrees of unity, truth, goodness, beauty & life.
If we refuse to have “metaphysics”, he can only leave us in Kansas, and merely invite us over the rainbow.
A rainbow world with many kinds of existing thing is a “metaphysical” world; it points “beyond”, to God.
Not just because human souls are more-than-biological, but by “the wonder of being, goodness…”
“There’s No Place Like Home”: a 3-D World with “Depth”
Let’s not “put God in the picture” – He is not another, but greater, reality (“The Great Intelligence”).
Let’s not put God on (or even “beyond”) the scale of being, unity, goodness, truth, beauty & life
(cf. Denys’ Mystical Theology, and Thomas on analogy).
Let God be YHWH(Exod. 3:14-15, cf. 6:3; also Thomas, ST, I, 13, 11).
The Name has a connection with existence (I AM WHO AM; in Septuagint);
may be 3rd masc. sing. imperf. ofHiph‛il of HWH, archaic form of HYH, “to be”, hence:
if causative: He is causing things to be;if declarative: “His Being is resplendent”.
God possesses being; all creatures receive being (implying radical difference and intimate involvement).
[All images fall short, e.g. the whiteboard on which the causal relations in the world are drawn.]
God is Alpha and Omega, the First Source and Ultimate Goal of all things (Goal for each, each in its way).
In that light, every thing “falls into place”, for God is the “Supreme Artist” who “conceives ‘beforehand’”:
kinds of things
and individuals.
God causes all realities to be what they are, precisely in the way they are;
to have the powers they have, and to do what they do in the way they do it.
See Prima Pars 14, article 8 on God’s creative knowledge
article 11 on God’s scientia of singularia
article 13 on God’s knowledge of all details, even “contingent” ones;
Prima Pars 15, on the divine “ideas”, which (pace Plato) are of kinds, and of individuals;
Prima Pars 19, articles 2-4 on God’s free will that goes out creatively to things in their goodness
article 8 on how this causes contingent things to happen contingently (hence we are free
because of God, not in spite of God – Herbert McCabe, God Matters, essay 2);
Prima Pars 20, on God’s pro-active love, issuing in the exact goodness of each thing and person;
Prima Pars 22, on God’s all-embracing providence.
The other side of this coin is that being created belongs to composite things (e.g. us) & spiritual beings:
what God holds in being is me, with my material-based individuality and my subsisting soul, as
“aspects” of me; form & matter, like space & time, are “co-created” (ST, I, 44, 2; 45, 4…)
Psalm 139(138):14I praise You on account of [all] the awesome things;
[among which] I stand out – [each & every one of] your works stand out!
[Grail: I thank you for the wonder of my being, for the wonders of all your creation;
NJB: For so many marvels I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders.]
The proper reaction to our ex-sistence is “eucharist”.
Cf. Prima secundae 110, 1 on gratia as good will > free gift > gratitude
- which leads on to the personal and Trinitarian:
We are made in the image of the Trinity for communion with the Trinity (Prima Pars 43, 93);
who wish to give Themselves to us to be known, loved, possessed, enjoyed;
hence we are fore-known in the Logos and fore-loved in the Spirit (Prima Pars 34, 3; 37, 2 ad 3)
and made to be exactly what and who we are so that we can personally journey to that Goal
in the way that suits precisely the kind of being we are (Prima secundae 5, 7)
Faith enables us to see the world and ourselves in the right light, leading to hope;
Wisdom and Charity enable us to share the divine “vision” for and delight in ourselves and each other.
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