Summary of text [comment] page 45

I now return to page 45, where Schoonenberg accepts that “evil is a statistical necessity” for God’s creation and wonders whether it applies to the realm of freedom and morality, that is, to us.

[There are two types of statistical necessity.

One relates to instrumental causes.  Instrumental (dyadic) causea and effects build situations₂, such as those found in de Chardin’s interscoping nested forms.  Consider the workings of homeostasis₂, metabolism₂, and definition₂.

Statistical chances of instrumental failure account for why we slip from actuality back into possibility, through illness, poisoning and violence.

The other relates to formal requirements.  These explain our particular designs. Consider the designs of homeostasis₂, metabolism₂ and definition₂.

Often, we slip from actuality back into possibility with respect to some level of the interscoping forms because our particular design could endure only a certain statistical range of challenges.  Each one of us exhibits a slightly different design with its corresponding vulnerabilities.

Both types of failure are familiar to us.  These statistical necessities appear in the production and maintenance of all designed forms.]

[What did de Chardin see as our illusion?

We long to be above the participation.  We long to be like God.

Consider those who have arranged that they never slip back into Nothingness.  Consider Lenin and now, Chavez.  Their plasticized remains are on display for all to see.  They are preserved as demonic apparitions beneath glass facades.

Compare them to the famous Christian relics, which are preserved in equally beautiful, sublime and scary apparatuses.  The saints did not ask to be so preserved.  In a way, their admirers preserved their bodies against the wishes of the saints.

Relics are icons of a “remembering”.  They are our way of asking God to not forget this moment, or that moment, when the spontaneous order held this person of great gravity and intensity.

We cannot imagine that this moment, every moment, is God Recognizing Himself.   Even though we physically return to Nothingness, something remains.

God remains.]

[But what of Nothingness?

Consider the clinging that Buddha let slip, back, into what?

Perhaps, this is what Tielhard was hoping to evoke.  Rather than taking the Buddhist perspective that all striving is illusion, which is technically correct since all arises then returns to Nothingness, Tielhard revels in the creativity and destruction – the beauty and the terror – the Mythos of the “Illusion Being Actual”.

The Logos follows.  Even Buddha did not slip back into Nothingness.

God’s spontaneous order brings us into being then lets us slip away. Yet, God does not create for Nothing.  God creates for Himself.]

Summary of text [comment] page 44

[The “shame of participation”?

Yes, each one of us faces “the shame of not being beautiful forever” along with the shame of “not being alive forever”.

“To be alive” is simply more beautiful than “to be dead”.

In my shame, I want to lure God into preserving me, at cost to all others, from the ravages of slipping back into Nothingness.]

[Evil^physical  and evil^metaphysical necessarily occur in the context of creation through spontaneous order, which means that failure is inevitable and success is always contingent.

So we must admit that natural evil is part of God’s creation.

At the same time, the drama and the abundance of the spontaneous orders are beautiful to behold, far more beautiful than any designed order.

Plus, without the spontaneous order, none of us would have come into existence.

Perhaps, we can parody St. Paul in saying that the abundance of beauty is greater than the shame of participation.]

[Recall that

Evil^physical is that portion of the nested form:

___₃(situated as evil₂(event₁))

This corresponds to an event that produces a negatively stressful situation or a privation of a good.

Evil^metaphysical is that portion of the nested form:

normal context₃(situated as evil₂(__₁))

This corresponds to a limitation tested by the negatively stressful situation.]

[Here, we can pause and savor the artistry of embalming Hugo Chavez, I am the Change, and placing him in a glass coffin for all to worship.

Here is the counter example to God’s creation. The spontaneous orders of Venezuelan Society were reduced by a sovereign^infra Public Cult into perverts worshipping a plastic corpse in a glass coffin.

Preservation and poverty are the signs of a dying spontaneous order.

Consider the Inca civilization, which the Chavez Cult unwittingly imitates.

Their empire was structured as the domains of kings who had conquered territory.  Each conquered territory belonged to the conquering king (even though that king may have died).  Each royal generation expanded the empire’s territory in order to support its own court, while the earlier courts continued to rule their respective lands, with the embalmed king still on his throne.]

Summary of text [comment] page 44

[From de Chardin’s perspective, “slipping back into complex forms, simple elements and Nothingness” must be part and parcel with “emerging from complex forms, simple elements and Nothingness”.

If God stopped the process, He would violate the integrity of His Creation.  Preservation (of one possibility, at the expense of all other possibilities) cannot occur in the realm of actuality, unless that realm is fixed, frozen, or embalmed.]

[Let me state the previous blog another way:  Natural evil gives rise to a situation that shows that the normal context is no longer capable.  The actualities have limitations.

On the lowest level, the membranes₃ are no longer capable.  Death is the situation that membranes cannot contain.

On the middle level, arranging, … groping₃, desists. Illness challenges the cell’s ability to handle its own metabolism.

On the highest level, the cell₃ is no longer viable.  Distress challenges the integrity of the cell.

Each nested form has its own limitations (evil^metaphysical) that are breached when challenged by (evil^physical).]

Summary of text [comment] page 44

[Now, let us explore natural evil (what Schoonenberg calls “physical evil”) in terms of these interscoping nested forms, starting with the example of the cell.

On the lowest level, when inside versus outside₂ slips into Nothingness₁: death.

On the middle level, when metabolic pathways₂ slip into biological constituents₁: illness.

On the higher level, when homeostasis₂ slips into the loss of coordination among organelles and receptors₁: distress (or “cellular pain”).

This implies that natural evil corresponds to a spontaneous order slipping back into whatever it emerges from.  The actuality is somehow challenged or compromised. The normal context cannot hold.]