The Joys of Revelation Transcend Philosophy

Moses, revelation, commandments

The joys of revelation transcend philosophy more so than existence transcends the nature of every material being, including man’s nature, the ultimate material being.

The normal human experience is of the existence of material entities. Indeed, it is through normal human experience by way of our material senses that revelation has come to us from God, first to the Jews, the chosen people of God, and then to all humanity through Jesus of Nazareth. It is not through infused knowledge that we know revelation. Typically, it is in the normal mode of gaining knowledge that we know revelation. Pascal expressed this beautifully in Pensees:

789. As Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so His truth remains among common opinions without external difference. Thus the Eucharist among ordinary bread.

God did not choose to blow us out of the water with a Spectacle of Revelation. He chose to respect His creatures by revealing the gift of supernatural life within the ordinary mode of our gaining knowledge. Before considering how the joys of revelation transcend philosophy, let us first consider the philosophy by which we know that existence transcends the nature of every material being.

The Basis of All Intellectual Enquiry

Two self-evident principles form the basis of all intellectual inquiry. A self-evident principle is one, if denied, that renders all intellectual knowledge and communication impossible. The first principle is: Things exist. The second principle may be expressed in a multitude of ways. For this essay, it is: Everything has an explanation. That does not mean we may know the explanation. However, if there were even one exception, nothing would make sense. Reality is either self-consistent or fundamentally unintelligible/inexplicable.

A Contrast of Problems in Geometry and the Existence of God

In a geometry class, a student may be asked (1) to demonstrate that the opposite angles formed by two intersecting lines are equal, or (2) to demonstrate the general relationship, if any, of the opposite angles formed by two intersecting lines.

In philosophy class, it would not be analogous to ask a student (1) to demonstrate philosophically the existence of God or (2) to identify philosophically the efficient cause of the existence of a cat that the instructor has brought to class. The reason is that in proposition (1), in the case of geometry, the terms are defined before the demonstration, whereas the meaning of the word God, in the case of philosophy, does not arise prior to the conclusion of demonstration (2). Solely within the context of demonstration (1), the term God is undefined.

The typical wording of the conclusion of a philosophical demonstration that concludes with the existence of God is, “There must exist a being whose nature is to exist. This being we call God.” Unlike the case of geometry, it is not until a demonstration analogous to (2) has been accomplished that the word God can be defined in philosophy.

It is our recognition of the complete transcendence of existence over the natures of the material beings within our experience that we realize the existence of God. To explain the existence of an entity in which existence transcends its nature, there must exist a Being whose nature does not transcend existence because His nature is His existence and vice versa. In this Being, whom we call God, nature and existence are only logically distinct.

The God of Philosophy

The philosophical argument’s conclusion is the acknowledgment that existence transcends the nature of every created being; that is, each being whose existence is within our experience. Existence is totally separate from the nature of each being whose existence we experience. Adding existence to a material nature is the creation of a material being. It is the creation of both its nature and its existence. Nevertheless, we do not witness creation; instead, we conclude that it must have occurred.

One of the most important principles of philosophy, whose elucidation we owe to Aristotle, is the conservation of matter. It is the principle that material creation is not contemporary to human existence. What we experience is not the creation of new material beings ex nihilo but rather substantial change. That which materially exists through creation ex nihilo contains in potency that which comes into existence, not ex nihilo, but through substantial change. Matter subsists throughout the changes of natural form in the material beings, which we observe.

Substantial change implicitly acknowledges a minimum of four levels of existence among material things. These levels are the inanimate, the vegetatively animate, the animate possessing sense knowledge and appetite, and the animate possessing intellectual knowledge and will. The first level requires creation ex nihilo. Each of the next two requires an initiating act of creation. The fourth requires creating an immaterial human soul at the moment of conception of each human being.

The nature of man transcends the nature of every animal. The nature of every animal transcends the nature of every plant. The nature of every plant transcends the nature of everything inanimate. Within the animate categories, except that of humans (because all humans are of one species), the nature of one species may existentially transcend another.

At its creation, the immaterial human soul receives its individuality from the specific matter (the zygotal union of this sperm and this egg) at conception. Like every material entity of a species, a human’s nature could not exist alone, separate from matter. It comes to exist as an individual, identified in its particularity by the matter which it informs. No nature substantially identifiable with matter could exist except as an individual, material being.

It is remarkable how Aristotle was able to reconcile the common nature of beings of the same material species with the individuality of their real existence, when his mentor, Plato, had postulated a real world of ideas which were somehow merely reflected as a multiplicity in matter. Plato could not conceive how anything material could be inherently intelligible. In contrast, Aristotle identified matter as existential, thereby nixing even the possibility of an existing world of ideas while identifying material entities as inherently intelligible in their very existence.

The God of Revelation

God revealed himself to Moses as that being whose nature is to exist. His identity is I Am.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

His nature is his existence. His nature and existence are only logically distinguishable. In contrast, the nature of a dog, for instance, has nothing to do with existence. The coming into existence of a new dog through substantial change does not affect the nature of dog-ness. Neither would the extinction of all dogs change the nature of dog-ness.

The Philosophical Destiny of Man

Death will come to every human. As a material being, man experiences development to adulthood, followed, in too short a span, by the process of senescence and death. Death occurs when through senescence or some external cause, the human body deteriorates to such a condition that the soul can no longer inform it.

Because the human soul is immaterial, there is no reason to suppose it would cease with death, as do animal souls, which exist at the level of materiality. However, the human soul is extrinsically dependent upon the body for all of its activity. There is no sufficient reason, aside from revelation, to expect a human soul to exist after death except in the oblivion of unconsciousness.

The Revealed Destiny of Man

What a joyous destiny for us is that of the revelation given us by Jesus through his Church. It is eminently joyous even if we were to compare it to a paradise on earth rather than to the dismal fate of the oblivion of unconsciousness afforded us by philosophy.

Since the passion and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, these souls have seen and see the divine essense [sic] with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature by way of object of vision; rather the divine essence immediately manifests itself to them, plainly, clearly and openly, and in this vision they enjoy the divine essence. Moreover, by this vision and enjoyment the souls of those who have already died are truly blessed and have eternal life and rest. Also the souls of those who will die in the future will see the same divine essence and will enjoy it before the general judgment.

Such a vision and enjoyment of the divine essence do away with the acts of faith and hope in these souls, inasmuch as faith and hope are properly theological virtues. And after such intuitive and face-to-face vision and enjoyment has or will have begun for these souls, the same vision and enjoyment has continued and will continue without any interruption and without end until the last Judgment and from then on forever. (Pope Benedict XII, On the Beatific Vision [1334])

God’s Guarantee of the Beatific Vision

The manifest guarantee of God’s magnanimous love for each of us humans is the Incarnation in which he became one of us in every respect (Hebrews 2:17). If God would deign to become one of us by assuming a created human nature to His divine Personhood, then why would He not grant us a share in his life in this world, which life would come to fruition after death in the Beatific Vision? Similarly, another guarantee of His magnanimous love is His own bodily resurrection, portending our bodily resurrection at the end of the world. The Incarnation and the Resurrection, these joyous guarantees, we hold, of course, by faith in God’s revelation to us in the Catholic Church.

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5 thoughts on “The Joys of Revelation Transcend Philosophy”

  1. Pingback: EARLY VVEEKEND EDITION – Big Pulpit

  2. an ordinary papist

    Yes, I see your point now and conclude it was my lack of attention to detail which did not see the obvious. To the three analogies posed: 1. No matter how well the RB play they haven’t a clue as to how they are perceived by a trained set of eyes looking objectively. They can’t see their own mistakes nor missed opportunities that would cost points. They cannot see the big picture that even someone not of their league could identify. 2. But you could not teach a dog selflessness. A dog that risks its life to save someone they love is acting on a plane above the animate. Even humans will not necessarily risk their life for
    strangers. My point is rooted in Eastern deism and the transmigration of souls, which may re-ascend up the levels of material creation. This is my alternate “explanation” of your hypothesis that only human souls do not cease at death. 3. The foal, as does the human, have no choice but to walk. It’s a developmental stage that is relative to lifespan, body anatomy, ect. Anyway, once more, thank you for taking the time to explain, everything.

    1. I must thank you too. Communication is not necessarily to convince the other, but to delineate differences. I think we’ve done so fairly well.

  3. an ordinary papist

    The nature of every plant transcends the nature of everything inanimate. Within the animate categories, except that of humans (because all humans are of one species), the nature of one species may existentially transcend another.

    Neanderthal man was another species. Wild canines became not only domesticated but servants of man with enough intelligence to know in dozens of circumstances when man was in danger. It wasn’t there dog-ness that saved the man, it was transcendence from having studied man, not in imitation but in search for a high truth that they were aware could be learned. So it seems to me, that the nature of dog-ness can change. The extinction of all humans (quite possible) would have no more impact on the nature of our soulness that that of dogs.

    1. When I cited the nature of dogs as an example, I did not make it clear that I was contrasting every created material being (in every creature nature is not existence) to God (whose nature is existence). I could have cited humans rather than dogs.
      With regard to your example of ‘learning’ by dogs, I pose three analogies. (1) Last month the Chicago Bears hired a running backs coach, who played the position in college, but never played Pro-football. Haven’t the players, he will coach, ‘learned’ to play running back, better than he? Yet, he is going to ‘teach’ them how to play. (2) I would hire a human to teach dogs to signal danger to humans. (3) A foal learns to walk a lot faster than does a human. Do foals thereby transcend humans in ‘learning’?

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