Month: May 2023

The Two Natures and the Real Presence: A Note on Frithjof Schuon

 Schuon FrithjofI have been reading Frithjof Schuon off and on since the mid-'70s.  But this is my first weblog entry that mentions him. I don't expect it will be my last.

The orthodox, Chalcedonian, view of Christ is that he is at once fully divine and fully human, true God and true man, and thus one substance (hypokeimenon, suppositum) in two natures. The doctrine presents quite the challenge to the discursive intellect: how can one thing have two natures, when each nature includes attributes logically incompatible with attributes included in the other nature? For example, how could one individual substance be both omnipotent and not omnipotent, impassible and passible, immortal and mortal, necessary and contingent, and so on?

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that on the underlying Aristotelian general-metaphysical framework, the natures in question are individual natures; they are not universals.  This has to be the case with respect to the divine nature since this nature cannot be multiply exemplified. (A universal, by definition, is multiply exemplifiable.) God cannot possibly be an instance of the universal, Godhood, or a Platonic participant in Godhood.  If he were, then God would be dependent on something other than himself to be what he is, contrary to the divine aseity. The divine substance is (identically) his nature. Something analogous holds for Socrates and  Plato as well, despite their non-aseity. Neither exemplifies or participates in a universal Manhood; each is in some sense identical to his individual nature.  When we come to Christ we have two radically different individual natures that are somehow both one with each other and one with the substance of which they are the two natures. How make sense of the double duality in this unity and the unity in this double duality?  

The various Christological heresies may be viewed as good-faith attempts to make sense of the two natures conundrum. Fides quarens intellectum, and intellectum, understanding, does not abide logical contradictions or what appear to be such. Eager to avoid contradiction, theologians fell into heresy. The monophysites solved the problem by maintaining that Christ has only one nature, the divine nature.  And now we come to a brilliant observation of Schuon that had never occurred to me:

The justification of the monophysites appears, quite paradoxically, in the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation: it seems to us that it would be appropriate to apply to the Eucharistic elements what is affirmed dogmatically of Christ, namely, that he is "true man and true God"; if this is so, one could equally admit that the Eucharist is "true bread and true Body" or "true wine and true Blood" without compromising its divinity. To say that the bread is but an appearance is to apply to the Eucharist the doctrine —- judged heretical—of the monophysites, for whom Christ is, precisely, only apparently a man since he is really God; now just as the quality of “true man” in Catholic and Orthodox doctrine does not preclude Christ from being “true God”, so should the quality of “true bread” not preclude the host from being “true Body” in the minds of theologians, all the more so as both things — the created and the Uncreated — are incommensurable, which means that the physical reality of the elements does not exclude their divine content, any more than the real corporeality of Christ prevents the presence of the divine nature. ("The Mystery of the Two Natures" in The Fullness of God, 145-146)

What Schuon is telling us is that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is structurally similar to the monophysite heresy.  Now what the monophysites actually maintained is a matter of debate among scholars; so to keep this discussion manageable I will just assume that monophysitism is the doctrine Schuon says it is, namely the doctrine that (i) there is one physis, one nature, in Christ and that this nature is the divine nature, and that consequently (ii)  Christ is only apparently a man.  The orthodox consider this view heretical because the orthodox line is that Christ is true God and true man. He is really divine and really a man, as opposed to really divine and only apparently a man.

What Schuon is telling us, then, is that if you reject the monophysite Christology, then "it would be appropriate to" also reject the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist,  and if you accept the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, then "it would be appropriate to" also accept the monophysite Christology.  I now turn to the details.

The Eucharistic elements are bread and wine.   If the bread at the moment of consecration in the mass becomes the body of Christ, what happens to the bread? And if the wine becomes the blood of Christ, what becomes of the wine? According to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the bit of bread and the quantity of wine cease to exist: they are converted into the body and blood of Christ. The conversion is a substantial, not an accidental, change. A substantial change occurs when a thing, an individual or primary substance (prote ousia), either comes into or passes out of existence. An accidental change occurs when a substance, self-same over time,  alters in respect of one or more accidents.  Transubstantiation is so-called because one substance (a bit of bread) is converted into and replaced by a numerically different substance, a bit of flesh.  The accidents, however, remain the same through the conversion: what was bread and is now, after the consecration, the body of Christ,  continues to look, smell, taste, etc. like ordinary bread, and similarly for the wine. The sensible qualities, the accidents, remain the same while the underlying substances are different. 

Transubstantiation is a difficult doctrine, to put it mildly, and I may in subsequent entries set forth some of the perplexities. For now I am merely reporting on Schuon's suggestion.  I take him to be saying that if the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements is understood in terms of transubstantiation, according to which the Eucharistic elements after the consecration merely appear to be ordinary bread and wine, then one may and perhaps should say the same thing about the real presence of God the Son in the flesh-and-blood man, Jesus Christ: he is really of only one nature, the divine, and he is only apparently a man. 

Corrigendum (6/3)  I wrote above, "Transubstantiation is so-called because one substance (a bit of bread) is converted into and replaced by a numerically different substance, a bit of flesh." But that's not quite the right way to put it. The numerically different substance that replaces the bit of bread is not a bit of flesh, but the glorified body of Christ in heaven.  And as emerged in the comment thread, this glorified body of Christ possesses a human soul and is one with the Second Person of the Trinity.  But of course this correction only adds to our difficulties in understanding the Transubstantiation doctrine. What the doctrine implies is that the process of transubstantiation is not the transmutation of a physical primary substance, the communion wafer, into a numerically different physical primary substance, but into a meta-physical, super-natural substance  which is, nonetheless, not wholly spiritual because Christ in heaven retains his earthly body, but in a glorified, spiritualized form!

The Assault on Merit

Here:

In the case at issue, the leaders of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, or TJ—a highly selective public magnet school in Fairfax County, Virginia—bemoaned the demographic imbalance that resulted from the school’s academics-focused admission policies. (The class of 2024, for example, is more than 70 percent Asian, and Hispanics and blacks fall far short of their general-population proportions in the overall school district.) The school board then switched TJ to a different system that, while not considering race directly, reduced Asian admissions by about a quarter. Among other changes, the new policy ditches standardized testing and guarantees admission to at least 1.5 percent of each middle school’s eighth-grade class.

For the record, I am not now and never have been Asian.

I will now pose a question to those of you who have taught high school or college classes, a question none of you will answer. Who were your best and worst students by race/ethnicity? Comments enabled.

The Left’s Destruction of the Universities

Said destruction is a special case of the Left's destruction of everything it touches. Here we read about a professor failing a student for refusing to condemn her Christian faith. This case is a few years old, but characteristic. Things are worse now.

Since the Left has captured the Democrat Party in the USA, if you vote Democrat you are voting against freedom of religion, and thus against the First Amendment, which in its very first clause states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The educational institution in question, Polk State, is not private; hence the First Amendment applies. But even if it didn't, it is anti-American to oppose the spirit of 1A's opening clause, which is the spirit of religious liberty.

Religious liberty includes the liberty to practice no religion, to criticize religion, and of course to practice some religion other than Christianity as long as that other religion is not antithetical to the values enshrined in the founding documents. Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism, but of course toleration has limits: the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

To vote Democrat is to vote for the continuing politicization of the universities and their ongoing transformation into leftist seminaries. This is part of the reason decent Dems have jumped ship. Prominent examples of those who have left the party include Tulsi Gabbard and Tammy Bruce.

An Interview with Michael Walzer

Liberal Commitments.  Excerpt:

Liberals are people who are best defined morally or psychologically; they’re what Lauren Bacall, my favorite actress, called “people who don’t have small minds.” A liberal is someone who’s tolerant of ambiguity, who can join arguments that he doesn’t have to win, who can live with people who disagree, who have different religions or different ideologies. That’s a liberal. 

Walzer is an old man living in the past, and what he says is true of the liberals of yesteryear. It has little or nothing to do with the 'liberals' of the present day.

Walzer is the author of an important post-9/11 article, Can There be a Decent Left?

Why Mix Politics with Philosophy?

I have been asked why I intersperse political entries with narrowly philosophical ones.  But in every case the question was put to me by someone who tilts leftward.  If my politics were leftist, would anyone complain?  Probably not.  Academe and academic philosophy are dominated by leftists, and to these types it seems entirely natural that one should be a bien-pensant  lefty.  Well, I'm here to prove otherwise.  Shocking as it will  seem to some, leftist views are entirely optional, and a bad option at that. The hard left in its now-dominant 'woke' incarnation is inimical to just about everything worth preserving. There is of course  a broad spectrum of leftist position, not all equally anti-civilizational, and some not at all anti-civilizational. Some good things can be said about some leftists of yesteryear.  

I could of course post my political thoughts to a separate site.  Now a while back I did effect such a segregation, sending my political rants and ruminations to my Facebook page. But given that philosophy attracts more leftists than conservatives, it is good for them to be exposed to views  that they do not encounter within the enclaves they inhabit.  Or are contemporary liberals precisely illiberal in their close-minded-ness to opposing views?  One gets that impression. We  conservatives are the 'new liberals.' We conservatives are classically liberal in that we support free speech and open inquiry. You say you want an example? Consider Newsmax. It is a conservative outlet that regularly allows leftists such as Ellis Henican and Barney Frank to have their say. No so with the leftist outlets: they do not allow political adversaries to have their say.

Posting the political to a separate weblog would also violate my 'theory' of blogging.  My blog is micro to my life's macro.  It mirrors my life in all its facets as a sort of coincidentia oppositorum of this situated thinker's existence.

Why did I leave Facebook? The mendacious FB admins went on a phishing expedition: they wanted me to reveal my smartphone number. I refused. In any case FB is not a serious venue in the main and the comments I received on carefully crafted posts were  mostly crap. My most valued interlocutors refused to follow me over there. FB is a place for narcissists to post selfies  and pictures of what they had for lunch. Am I being fair? Fair enough.

Pluralities

To what does the plural referring expression, 'the cats in my house,' refer? Not to plurality, but to a plurality. A plurality is one item, not many items. It is one item with many members. 'The guitars in my house' refers to a numerically different plurality. It too refers to one item with many members.  It follows that a plurality cannot be identical to its members.  For if it were there would be no 'it.'

I am not saying that a plurality is a mathematical set. I am saying that a plurality is not just its members.  I am rejecting Composition as Identity. If the Londonistas do not agree with the Phoenician on this one, then I fear that there is little point to further discussion. We are at the non-negotiable.  We are at bedrock and "my spade is turned." 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Americana

Buffy Sainte-Marie, I'm Gonna be a Country Girl Again

Hoyt Axton, Greenback Dollar

Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather

16 Horsepower, Wayfaring Stranger

Stanley Bros., Rank Strangers

Bob Dylan, I am a Lonesome Hobo. Have you heard this version?

Bob Dylan, As I Went Out One Morning

Highwaymen, The City of New Orleans

Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Buffy Sainte-Marie, Cod'ine

Bob Dylan, Only a Hobo, 1963

Highwaymen, Ghost Riders in the Sky

As the riders loped on by him
He heard one call his name
'If you wanna save your soul
From hell a-riding on our range
Then, cowboy change your ways today
Or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the devil's herd
Across these endless skies.'

‘Nuclear’ Thoughts on Dylan’s Birthday

We've gotten used to living under the Sword of Damocles:

One of its more famous [invocations] came in 1961 during the Cold War, when President John F. Kennedy gave a speech before the United Nations in which he said that “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness.”

We seem not too worried these days. If anything, the threat of nuclear war is greater now than it was in '61 and this, in no small measure, because we now have a doofus for POTUS. I shudder to think what would have become of us had Joey B. been president in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. People were worried back then, but now we have worse threats to worry about such as white supremacy and climate change.  In those days  people were so worried that they built fallout shelters. There was much discussion of their efficacy and of the mentality of their builders. Rod Serling provided memorable commentary in the Twilight Zone episode, The Shelter, that aired on 29 September, 1961.  

Thomas Merton, in his journal entry of 16 August 1961, his former contemptus mundi on the wane and his new-found amor mundi on the rise, writes  

The absurdity of American civil defense propaganda — for a shelter in the cellar –  "come out in two weeks and resume the American way of life."

. . . I see no reason why I should go out of my way to survive a thermonuclear attack on the U. S. A. It seems to me nobler and simpler to share, with all consent and love, in what is bound to be the lot of the majority . . . . (Vol. 4, 152)

In the entry of 31 May 1962 (Ascension Day), Merton reports that a friend

Sent a clipping about the Fallout shelter the Trappists at O. L. [Our Lady] of the Genesee have built for themselves. It is sickening to to think that my writing against nuclear war is regarded as scandalous, and this folly of building a shelter  for monks is accepted without question as quite fitting. We no longer know what a monk is. (Italics in original. Vol. 4, 222)

Now today is Bob Dylan's birthday. Born in 1941, he turns 82.  As you know, Merton, though born in 1915, was by the mid-'60s a big Dylan fan.  And so in honor of both of these acolytes of the '60s Zeitgeist, I introduce to you young guys  Dylan's Let Me Die in My Footsteps which evokes that far-off and fabulous time with as much authority as do Rod Serling and Tom Merton. A Joan Baez rendition. The Steep Canyon Rangers do an impressive job with it.

Dylan hails from Hibbing, Minnesota hard by the Canadian border near the Mesabi Iron Range. The young Dylan, old beyond his years, tells a tale from a woman's point of view in North Country Blues.

I have often wondered why there are so many Minnesotans where I live. Minnesota, gone 'woke,' is bleeding population. High taxes is one reason. Another is crime:

The second, and even more important reason I'm leaving Minnesota is that crime has destroyed much of what I used to enjoy in the Twin Cities. Up until a few years ago, I thought to avoid being a victim of violent crime all I needed to do was avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But today in the metro area, every place could be the wrong place at any time of every day.

A few weeks ago, a resident of bucolic St. Anthony Park was shot dead outside his home at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Car thefts are up 95% this year in Minneapolis, and carjackings, a crime seldom heard of before 2020, occur every week throughout the metro. At the recent Art-A-Whirl studio tour in northeast Minneapolis, a 70-year-old woman was sent to the hospital when she was randomly punched in the face as she crossed the street to go to a restaurant on a Friday evening.

Because of high crime, the downtown Minneapolis restaurants I used to enjoy are closing early or permanently. The Basilica Block Party is gone, and you couldn't pay me to attend the new Taste of Minnesota July 4th block party on Nicollet Mall after last year's July 4th mass shooting and private fireworks anarchy. Even the State Fair at night has become a risky proposition.

As Rep. Ilhan Omar asked recently, "What happens if I am killed?" But unlike her, I don't have armed security — instead, I have to rely on the police for protection. Yet Minneapolis remains more than 100 officers short of the minimum required by its charter, and the too-few applicants who do apply should be automatically rejected for bad judgment in wanting the job.

Again, contrast this with Southwest Florida, where the police ranks are full, the restaurants are open, and violent crime is still a rarity. It's a pretty easy decision to live in an area where I don't have to plan my exit from a concert as if I were leaving a Philadelphia Eagles home game wearing a Vikings jersey.

The last reason I'm leaving Minnesota is because of a lack of hope. I'm a realist, and realism tells me there's nothing more I can do to help prevent Minnesota's decline. Not only its declining public safety, but also its declining public schools, its hopelessly irrational light-rail transit system and its eroding future.

I know our current leaders won't solve these problems because they won't even acknowledge they exist. Minneapolis recently unveiled a new multimillion-dollar ad campaign to draw visitors into the city to "see what all the fuss is about" because "negative perceptions" have "overshadowed" the positive. Unfortunately for that campaign's credibility, the "fuss" on the day it was announced was about six people under the age of 18 shot in Brooklyn Center.

Do you like crime? Then vote Democrat early and often.

‘2A’ a Terrorist Marker?

It emerged in the Congressional FBI whistleblower hearings that the abbreviation '2A' is a "terrorist marker." That came as news to me. (But see here.) I have been using '2A' from time to time as an innocuous abbreviation of 'Second Amendment.'  The context, of course, is the Bill of Rights which are the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.

I have written sentences like this:

2A does not confer, but protects, the citizen's right to keep and bear arms.

My use of the harmless abbreviation makes me a terrorist, a white supremacist, and what all else in the eyes of the regime.  What does it make the regime? A police state.

So I suppose it is a good thing that it has been a very long time since I attended a Latin mass. These masses, as is now well-known, are notorious gathering points for insurrectionists, militiamen, and other violent extremists out to overthrow 'democracy.'  Much less known, however, is that these masses are conducted, not in old Church Latin, but in coded Latin.  Thus hoc est corpus meum is code for create mayhem. De mortuis resurrexit means: he rose up and committed insurrection.  There really are very few threats to the powers that be stronger and more insidious than the Latin mass, which is why Pope Francis, that faithful custodian of the depositum fidei, is such a staunch defender of the old mass against the forces of reform.

Sarcasm aside, part of understanding  the destructive Left is understanding their commitment to the hermeneutics of suspicion.  You can learn about said hermeneutics, and cognate topics, from my essay From Democrat to Dissident section 16.4. It is published in Hillman and Borland, eds., Dissident Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy, Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.  Available via Amazon where you can read some editorial reviews.