We Do Not Live in Space and Time

We do not live in space and time because we do not live in a world created by human thought. We live in a world of material realities that are mutable like we are mutable.

To say that we live in space and time is to succumb to scientism. It belies an inability to distinguish thought from material reality. This inability is not simply the mental debility of our age. It borders on insanity by inverting the order of human knowledge. In human knowledge, the known precedes the knower. In the creative knowledge of God, the knower precedes the known. When humans place their thought in priority over material reality, they assume creative power akin to that of  God.

Besides scientism, another sign of this inability to distinguish thought from reality was the rise of the inclusive language movement, which resulted in an inversion of the order, which it alleged to be promoting. Along with scientism, it freed thought from material reality. This freedom imposed human thought and human will on material reality, which imposition has led to immorality such as the self-mutilation of transgenderism and gestational surrogacy.

Simplicity in Speech and Writing

I am not a philologist, but like you, I speak and understand English. In grammar school, we were taught that nouns are of three grammatical genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. For a few noun pairs, grammatical gender corresponded to biological sex, such as man/woman, father/mother, and boy/girl. There were a few other such noun pairs, where the masculine grammatical gender typically ended in r. The few such pairs included governor/governess, mister/mistress, and singer/songstress. We were taught that most nouns ending in r were masculine in gender, but lacked a grammatically feminine form. The grammatically masculine form was inclusive of both biological sexes, thereby avoiding the absurd verbosity of kicker and kickress, player and playress; swimmer and swimress, etc. The same grammatical rule applied to personal pronouns. The grammatically masculine form was inclusive of both biological sexes based on the context of use.

Some might view the simplicity of speech in English as slurring. I see it as beauty. Boatswain is bosun, mainsail is mains’l. To the Englishman by birth and accent, Joseph Pearce, St. Robert’s surname, Southwell, is Suttle. To Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English, as we know it, ‘every which one’ is ever ich on, or fully slurred, everichon. (Note: Some philologists claim Chaucer’s everichon is everich on, or “every one.”)

The Inclusive Language Movement

Some crackpots decided that there should be no distinction between gender in grammar (thought) and sex in biology (material reality). They decided that the masculine grammatical gender should not be grammatically inclusive of both biological sexes. They called their anti-inclusive program, the Inclusive Language Movement. They were in favor of verbosity and bland expression. Instead of promoting truth as the conformity of thought to reality, they blurred the distinction, which resulted in setting thought above material reality. Sadly, biblical scholars and liturgists conformed. Scripture and the liturgy were mugged to conform to such blandness in speech. The Church capitulated. She conceded the first battle and has never been able to regroup.

Just as the movement was the antithesis of its name, so too its thrust was not to conform thought to reality. Its thrust was to exalt thought over material reality and with thought, the exaltation of human will over material reality. This is evident in the natural outgrowth of the Inclusive Language Movement, namely, each individual’s choice of self-designating personal pronouns, irrespective of biological sex.

The Parallel Victories of Scientism

There is still some resistance to requiring biological reality to conform to human thought because some people still cling to a morality based on the material nature of humans. In contrast, scientism has almost universally succeeded in two other areas. These successes are evident in our common use of two expressions, namely, the laws of science and that we live in space and time.

Laws

In scientism, the laws of science are mathematical formulae external to material reality which force material obedience. These formulae are not viewed as the mathematical expressions of the natures of material entities. Gravitational attraction, for example, is not an expression of the nature of falling rain. Rather, the force of gravity is a completely extrinsic concept imposed upon the rainwater. The nature of rain is devoid of inherent intelligibility in this regard. According to scientism, intelligibility exists solely in the external conceptual law of gravity, F = (k × m₁ × m₂) / r²

The physicist Alexander Sich cited several examples of thought in scientism defying the reality of material entities. Perhaps the most striking of these examples was the statement of a university physicist, “We now know that the moon is not demonstrably there when no one is looking.”

Space and Time

“Space” and “Time” do not exist, except conceptually in the human mind. A good example of how scientism uses the concepts of space and time to exalt human thought over material reality is the subtle denial of material reality by cosmologist Sean Carroll. His total identification of an elementary material particle is by its coordinates in space, defined by the Cartesian coordinates of a point, plus the numerical value of a fourth linear variable, labeled time. Thus a point in Cartesian space is (x, y, z), while a material particle is (x, y, z, t). In the scientism of Carroll, material reality is not identified as what. Material reality is fully identified as where (x, y, z,) and when (, , , t).

In scientism, material reality has no material properties. The emperor’s new clothes are purely a set of dimensions.

Living in Space and Time

The View of Scientism

We accept the basic premise of scientism when we claim to live in space and time. Space is a definition in analytical geometry, while time in this phrase is a human activity, the conceptual comparison of one local motion with another. The basic premise of scientism is that we know all there is to know about material reality by mentally quantifying its location and mentally quantifying time.

The View of Perennial Philosophy

Space and its dimensions come into existence when a human being chooses an origin of coordinate axes and a standard for length as the basis of quantifying the property of extension of material things. Similarly, quantified time comes into existence when a human being chooses a standard of comparison for local motion. Space and quantified time are useful mental concepts. These human concepts are based on the property of extension of material things and their local motion.

We habitually think of time as a quantity. Time in itself is a quality, the condition of mutability of material entities. However, we will never recognize time as a quality unless we take the time to sit back and say, “Wait a minute. Let’s think this out again.” (Tongue in cheek to indicate how nonchalantly we accept the quantification of mutability as time)

We do not observe time. We observe change, which includes local motion. It is when we wish to coordinate one motion with another motion that we mentally quantify motion and call that quantification time. Nonetheless, the realities with which we are dealing are change and motion. To quantify change and motion as time, we must agree upon the choice of a standard of motion, preferably a cyclic motion, to which we all have access. Precision, though desirable, may not be necessary. The ancient Jews measured a day as sunset to sunset so that the standard varied throughout the year. Even the recent development of atomic clocks has a history of the pursuit of precision.

Quantified time is a human concept. It is the mental comparison of one motion or change to a standard of motion. There would be no quantification of time (i.e. of material change) without some human’s choosing a particular local motion as the standard for human comparison of one motion with another motion or change.

To avoid the exaltation of human thought over material reality, which is scientism, we must avoid referring to our daily lives as within or limited by space and time. Rather we are limited in this life on earth by being subject to mutability.

The Incarnation, Human Thought, and Material Reality

The current inability to distinguish thought from material reality is a modern form of Gnosticism. The Gnostics believed that spirit and thought were good and that material reality was evil. In its modern form, Gnosticism forces material reality to conform to human thought and desire even to the extent of self-mutilation. As scientism, modern Gnosticism identifies material reality not as what, but solely as where and when as the mental structure of space and time. The modern form of Gnosticism has tried to usurp the creative power of God by assigning creative power to the human mind.

The inherent goodness, beauty, and intelligibility of material reality were blessed even more so by God after he created it when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Incarnation celebrated in every Mass is the antidote to modern Gnosticism. “We adore thee, O Christ, and we praise thee because by thy holy cross thou hast redeemed the world.” Our salvation is a material act present to us as the Mass. The sacraments are not abstract formulae. They are material signs of grace.

Material reality is not defined by human thought, as the Gnosticism of modern morality and scientism would have us believe. We do not live in space and time. We live in a world of matter created by God and are made of that very matter. Our immaterial souls receive individuation; i.e., each soul receives its very identity from the individual matter it vivifies. Thanks to scientific inquiry, we know the individual matter is quite specifically characterized in code by the individual human’s inherited DNA. Our souls could not come into existence except by being identified by particular matter. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

Conclusion

God did not create space and time (where and when) and fill it up with “whats.” He created material “whats,” related to one another in their mutability by extension and motion. We humans quantify these relationships by choosing a standard of extension and a standard of cyclic motion as counting units, much like we chose our fingers as a counting base of ten.

Editor’s note: The original publication omitted the last five paragraphs in error.