0050 The myth is hylomorphic. So is the phantasm1b that the myth’s telling1a inspires.
The hylomorphism of the myth1a is some real event [hides within and gives rise to] a story.
The hylomporhism of the phantasm2b is a configuration of matter and form by way of the imagination1b. Matter or being (in Latin, ens) should substantiate the form.
0051 Here is how that looks.
Figure 13
0052 What does an independent corroboration of the stories of Adam and Eve accomplish?
It changes what is happening3a by revealing an esse_ce that lends the story2aa realness that we cannot ignore1a.
To the modern, the stories of Adam and Eve are suppposed to be fairy tales. Adam and Eve are not supposed to serve as harbingers of civilization. They are not supposed to be weirdly consistent with a scientific hypothesis on the potentiation of unconstrained social complexity, that is, the first singularity. They are not supposed to be witnesses.
In light of the first singularity, the Genesis myth becomes counterintuitive to the modern imagination. It becomes monstrous. Essence without esse_ce can be ignored. Essence with esse_ce cannot.
0053 Strangely, this may be one of Lonenecker’s subtle contentions. As soon as one adds esse_ce to essence, a fantasy becomes more real than previously imagined. Myths may become monsters.
The same surprise works for the phantasm generated by the myth. The monstrosity of a monster comes from an unanticipated balance between esse_ce and essence.
0054 Premodern monsters have this character.
For example, the minotaur is a monster dwelling within the labyrinth of King Midas. The minotaur is half-bull and half-human. Its esse_ce is human. Its essence is a bull.
What a monster!
But, there is something natural to this monster, because it informs us of a familiar actuality, the matter of a human [substantiating] the essence of a bull. Here is a monster worth pondering. Where does the word, “bully”, come from?
Premodern monsters have an imbalance between esse_ce and essence.
0055 Moderns take this imbalance to the limit, making two radical discoveries. Both discoveries are built on one insight. We can lose touch with the contiguity between matter and form. We have discovered (indeed, even actualized) worlds without substance.
I label these two discoveries, the zeroth order of existence and form. I label then existence0 and form0.
This is how they work.
Figure 14
0056 Existence0 is esse_ce without substance.
Form0 is essence without substance.
Work serves as an example.
Humans are designed to work. Work gives people purpose and honor. Work goes with the essence of a civilized human.
So, what is work without humans?
What is pure work without substance?
May I mention the industrial revolution?
How modern can I get?
The modern era is full of monsters.
0057 Machines do work. Then, humans work machines. Sometimes, this takes great skill.
Now, with robots, humans get in the way. The robot is awarded the status of purpose and honor. Today, postmodern economists call the robots, “the fourth industrial revolution”. Make room for the pure existence0 of robots and the pure form0 of robotic work. Robots are not aware of what they are making. Robots do not know why they are working.
0058 Here is a picture.
Figure 15
0059 How does this play out in our phantasms?
Humans become less than human.
Consumers are a type of monster. We choose among flavors of peanut butter without knowing what a peanut is.
One may reply, “Robots manufacture things that consumers buy. So this is an essence.”
Here is an essence that denies humans the dignity of work, turning humans into things (that is, consumers).
Savor the word, “consumer”.
0060 A consumer dies, leaving an estate filled with manufactured momentos, icons of life as a consumer. This monstrosity must be dealt with. Maybe a robot can be designed to do the job. The sheer bulk of the consumer’s life weighs down the world. Imagine the cynicism required to build a robot that performs this work.
0061 The sequence of movies, titled “The Matrix” (1999), portrays a cyncial resolution to these two great philosophical discoveries. The human becomes (1) a battery that powers a machine world and (2) the one who accepts the illusionary works of the machine world. The matrix is the deception that allows humans to be used as batteries.
0062 Both the machine world and the matrix are monsters.
Figure 16
0063 In these movies, the hero’s journey gives substance to these twin monsters through a sacrifice. This is not any sacrifice. This is a human sacrifice. In doing so, the hero humanizes the two monsters. He provides substance, allowing the monsters to continue for another iteration.
If Rene Girard is correct, this plotline is as ancient as the most ancient civilizations. This plotline begins with the first singularity.
0064 Modern monsters are exemplars of things without substance.
Where does substance come from?All substance flows from God. God’s grace pours into the interstices between matter and form, body and soul, and a real event and its myth. Substance is the contiguity between being and form. God is foundation of substance.
Many Jungian commentators of the Matrix movies say that the hero, named “Neo”, is a Christ-like figure.
Is the comparison appropriate?
If it is, then Jesus gives substance to twin monsters through a human sacrifice. In doing so, he humanizes them.
0066 What are the monsters?
The Roman empire is like the machine world.
The fixation of the Jewish law into ritual is like the matrix.
Here is a picture.
Figure 17
0067 Every monster is an actuality2. Every monster is an ill-proportioned thing. Esse_ce and essence are out of balance. That tells us something. It produces phantasms that serve as warnings.
0068 Remember the minotaur?
Do you have some money to invest?
Most investors have met a minotaur. He is someone so bullish that it makes him dangerous. He survives in a labyrith of rules, conditions, and documentation filled with fine print. Once your money is in, it cannot come out of the investment. The financial minotaur is completely confident. He is fully capable of losing your investment.
0069 Longenecker may talk about monsters like the minotaur.
0070 Perhaps, he will talk about the most horrifying monstrosities. These monsters lack substance. Such is the case for the monsters of Roman power and Jewish ritual law.
Roman power is like esse_ce without substance. Rome serves the order that it imposes. Sure, Romans pay tribute to their gods. But, their gods did not order them to construct an empire. Roman power survives because trade flourishes under its rule. Romans place tariffs on trade. Romans rule foreign subjects and tax their wealth. Romans take slaves and sell them at their markets. How does this serve Jupiter?
Jewish ritual law is like essence without substance. Self-described scholars examine the Pentateuch for legal proscriptions. By the time of Christ, scholars accrue lists with hundreds of regulations. There is no way that a Jew could fulfill all these proscriptions correctly. Of course, wealth provides options. One can hire a scholar to manage one’s divine legalities for a reasonable fee.
That fee, of course, is unreasonable for the common person.
0071 Roman power is existential, existence0.
Jewish legalisms are formalisms, form0.
0072 Is there a relation between these two monsters?
At first, it seems that Roman rule2b situates Jewish legalism2a. Standard histories of first-century Palestine make this assumption. These histories try to establish what happened. They propose material and instrumental reasons for conditions and parameters.
In the context of modern history, the following sensible two-level interscope applies. The following configuration is one answer to the question, what does this mean to me3b. That answer is proximate. It addresses the esse_ce, not the essenceof history.
Figure 18
0073 There are other answers. After all, history does not reduce to conditions and parameters. Is there an essence to history?
These are the answers – or perhaps, the questions – that Longenecker addresses.
In the context of what it ultimately means to me3b, Roman law2 does not situate Jewish legalism2. One monster cannot honestly situate the other, because something is missing on a higher level. Rome does not have righteousness and Jerusalem cannot impose order. What brings them into relation?
0074 The passion of Christ, depicted in the four gospels, is masterful. It reads like a fantasy. It reads like a historical document. The four gospels embody and transcend myth.
Both Roman rule2 and Jewish legalisms2 play out in the contradiction-filled theological and political arenas of first century Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a provincial capital for Rome. Jerusalem is the center of message, meaning and presencefor the Jews.
0075 Two monsters occupy Jerusalem. Each accommodates and resists the other. Neither wants to see anyone like Jesus. Jesus appears to threaten Roman order. That is easy to accomplish. Gathering a crowd will do. Crowds intimidate the lion. Also, Jesus obviously undermines the letters of Jewish legalities. He upsets the sheep. He insists that the Jewish Law has a substance, a moral and theological vision.
0076 Monsters do not necessarily create mysteries. No, monsters are drawn into mysteries.
One way to appreciate how Jesus unites both Roman rule2 and Jewish legalism2 is found in a permutation of the previous diagram.
Figure 19
0077 In the life and passion of Jesus Christ, Roman rule2 and Jewish legalism2, one monster filled with esse_ce and the other full of essence, are drawn into a single actuality2. For this moment in history, two monsters coalesce. This is the type of event that eventually leads to myths. It happens right before the eyes of the disciples.
0078 What is this single actuality2?
If Roman rule2 does not honestly situate Jewish legalism2, or visa versa, then they cannot align. Their normal contexts3are mutually exclusive. They may accommodate one another. But, in the encounter with Jesus, they coalesce, forming a single actuality that resists Jesus.
This is the way of theodrama3. The essence of history is theodramatic.
The theodrama of power3 appears independent of the theodrama of revelation3. Until, of course, they are not. They are never independent in the eyes of God. They are never independent in the presence of God.
0079 Intersections are mysteries. Intersections are described in the chapter on message in How To Define the Word “Religion”.
Here is a picture of the intersection.
Figure 20
0080 Indeed, before the eyes of the disciples, Roman law2 and Jewish legalism2 coalesce into one intersection, one mystery.
What is the single actuality that labels this intersection?
The most appropriate label is the name of Jesus Christ, who rises from the dead to defy Roman rule2 and who offers a pathway to the Father in defiance of Jewish legalism2.
0081 In mythic terms, Jesus tames two monsters. The lion lies with the lamb. The power of the state and the legalism of religious institutions come into conflict, but that conflict is contained within the object that brings us all into relation, Jesus Christ.Without Jesus, two monsters are set loose upon the world.
0082 Longenecker introduces a podcast entitled “Myths, Monsters and Mysteries”. My guess is that he intends to proceed through these three topics using insights from Jungian psychology. This is good, but not complete.
Jungian psychology addresses essence. Longenecker may argue that if the essence is convincing, in terms of patterns of the human psyche, then esse_ce needs not be actual. He may argue this even though his previous independent research locates the magi, not as Persians, but as traders living between Persia and Israel.
0083 Myth has a hylomorphic structure, requiring attention to both esse_ce and essence. Without substance, the myth becomes a fantasy (pure essence) as opposed to a historical documentary (pure esse_ce).
0084 The doctrine of original sin rests on the esse_ce and essence of the Genesis stories of Adam and Eve, even though they are fairy tales.
Augustine paints Adam and Eve as the first humans.
The hypothesis of the first singularity pictures Adam and Eve as fairy tale figures that encapsulatethe theodramatic appearance of the Ubaid culture. Speech-alone talk is realized and sets the Ubaid on an irreversible course towards unconstrained social complexity.
0085 In terms of mystery, a single actuality forms out of two. The Lebenswelt that we evolved in intersects with our current Lebenswelt.
Figure 21
0086 This intersection depicts the first singularity. Adam and Eve stand at this intersection. So does the esse_ce and essence of the doctrine of original sin.
The myth Adam and Eve is a fairy tale. As such, the metaphor of grain of sand [hides within and gives rise to] a pearlapplies. The oyster is the human mind. The oyster is also our world of unconstrained social complexity.
0087 In sum, the stories of Adam and Eve bring us to the beginning of our current Lebenswelt.
Ours is a world of mysteries.
Ours is a world of monsters.
Ours is a world of myths.
0088 A grain of sand hides within and gives rise to a pearl.
Figure 22
00892 The myth of Adam and Eve sets the stage for the two monsters that Jesus brings into one. Roman rule2 is all about state power. State power maintains order1. Jewish legalism2 is all about the routinization of righteousness1. Legalities2confer righteousness in the eyes of God1.
Jesus Christ stands as the single actuality2 containing Roman rule2 and Jewish legalism2. This intersection serves as the starting point for all political theology. In Roman rule2, the state does not serve the people. In Christian political theology, it does. In Jewish legalism, the deed does not stand for the intention1. In Christian ethics, it does.
Jesus is the one who tames the two monsters of state and church. One without the other leads to catastrophe. Both without Jesus leads to devastating conflict.
0090 In sum, political theology transforms one of the mysteries of Jesus Christ into a hylomorphism, a thing to be discussed and explored.
Here is a picture.
Figure 23
0091 Myths are like pearls, expressing both esse_ce (being as existent) and essence.
Myths offer monsters to perceive.
Our perception of monsters allows us to appreciate imbalances between esse_ce and essence.
0075 The most horrifying monsters are articulated in the modern era. They are existence0 (esse_ce without substance) and form0 (essence without substance).
They are not confined to the modern era. Indeed, they have been here since the beginning. They include Roman rule2and Jewish legalism2.
The life and passion of Jesus Christ takes on the characteristics of myth. Jesus brings two historic monsters into a single actuality. Jesus both contains and transcends these monsters. Jesus serves as their intersection. All roads lead through Christ.
Political theology brings this mystery back into Aristotle’s hylomorphism. The mystery becomes a field of inquiry. That inquiry is called, “political theology”.
0076 This concludes my comments on Fr. Dwight Longnecker’s Podcast (2020) on myths, monsters and mysteries.The progression from myths to monsters to mysteries constitutes a profound insight that inspires these comments. My gratitude for Fr. Longnecker’s intiative.
These comments are posted as an advertisement of the series titled, “Peirce’s Secondness and Aristotle’s Hylomorphism”.
This series should be of interest to high-school and college students interested in science and religion in the upcoming Age of Triadic Relations.
Short introductions are found on the page of each e-work appearing in smashwords dotcom. The entire series offers more than a dozen commentaries.
In 2004, Armand Maurer publishes a brief history of primary and secondary causalities. They first appear in the Neoplatonic Book of Causes, which Aquinas comments on. It is popularized by Suarez. Darwin accesses them, as potential avenues for appreciating his theory of evolution. These comments examine this story using the category-based nested form.
0001 Armand Maurer publishes a short paper tracing a path, through time, of the idea of secondary and primary causes. I follow the timeline, which starts in section three.
Around two decades after the death of the seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’mun, in 6633 U0’, someone puts pen to paper. Centuries later, when the Book of Causes is translated into Latin, some medieval scholastics assume that this “someone” is Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas writes a commentary on the work.
0003 The irony?
Al Ma’mun’s story as caliph calls to mind our world, in the 7800s.
First, al Ma’mun tries to directly reconcile Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam. This approach dramatically fails within his lifetime.
Second, during his remaining 15 years, he tries an indirect reconciliation by promoting Islamic thinkers familiar with the rationalist methods of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers. He encourages translations from Greek into Arabic. He promotes an academy called, “The House of Wisdom”, in Baghdad. Again, this approach fails. Many of his subjects refuse to believe that the Qur’an is a “created” work.
Thus, the Book of Causes may address a question relevant to our time.
Could the the Qur’an be ascribed to secondary causation, in concert with a primary cause, God’s Will and Presence?
0004 Here is how this might look as a category-based nested form. See required reading.
Figure 1
Note that God’s Presence1 is the potential underlying the normal context of God’s Will3.
0005 Okay, on to Thomas Aquinas (7025-7074 U0’).
In 7068, he notices a similarity between The Book of Causes and a newly translated work, The Elements of Theology, by Neoplatonist Proclus (6210-6285 U0’). This suggests that the idea of primary and secondary causation is much older than the Arabic translation of The Book of Causes.
0006 What does Aquinas say about The Book of Causes?
He focuses on two propositions (A and B).
0007 First (A), primary cause has greater impact than secondary cause.
Thomas notes (more or less), “This is true for God as a primary cause. God causes being to exist.”
The Latin term, ‘esse’, refers to being as existent, in contrast to “ens”, being as being.
God may bring things into being (esse) from nothing, that is, without a pre-existing ens.
Otherwise, God creates ens, being as being, then ens enters form and becomes esse, being as existent.
The pattern of ens preceding esse appears in the Genesis Creation Story. On several days, God says, “Let there be (ens)…” and then, the earth brings forth, (esse).
In this, the earth has the power to bring forth.
These powers go with secondary causation.
0008 Second (B), we see causes in the nature of things.
Things have their own powers. These are not the powers of the Divine. Rather, these are particular powers, characteristic of the substance of each creature. These powers specify one or another outcome. They are called, “secondary causes”.
0009 These two propositions, A and B, associate to a nested form in the following manner.
Figure 2
0010 The actuality is dyadic. This is typical in the category of secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. In the above notation, one real element [is contiguous with] another real element. The contiguity is placed in brackets. The contiguity bears the marks of causality.
There is a certain circularity to this actuality. The earth holds creatures, even though it brings creatures forth as existent beings. Existent beings that the earth brings forth participate in the earth’s powers, once they are present. So, as the earth brings forth, the earth appears to increase in its powers. Each additional type of creature adds to the capacities of the earth. When a type of creature disappears, the earth loses the power to make that specific creature.
Does that sound sufficiently circular?
0011 Compare this circularity to the following example of secondary causation.
Consider a pen.
A pen cannot write a note to a my friend.
Instead, the pen is an instrument for me, the writer.
So, if I am going to be a writer, I better acquire a pen.
0012 The writer and the note constitute a dyad. The writer is a real element. The letter is a real element. The pen is the instrument that brings the two real elements together. Is it not curious that the word, “pen”, is also a verb?
Here is a picture of this actuality.
Figure 3
0013 The pen is an instrument. The actuality2 has been alchemically isolated from its nested form. So, no one can determine the aims and designs of the note.
Here I may ask, “Does the instrumentality of the pen account for the realness of the writer and the note?”
Of course, a scientist may reply, “If I observe the writer and all the notes that the writer produces, then I can generate a mechanical model accounting the use of a pen, and publish the results in the EmpiricalJournal of Pens.”
In short, the scientist focuses on actuality2.
0014 However, the instrumental causality of the pen occurs within the actuality2 itself. It offers no clue to the question that everyone asks.
Why is the writer penning a letter?
Material, final and formal cuases address this question. Once answers come to light, the actuality2 is no longer alone. It participates in a category-based nested form.
0015 Here is a picture of the way that Aristotle’s four causes, starting from within actuality2, intimate normal context3 and potential1.
Figure 4
0016 What does this imply (C and D)?
0017 Instrumental causes are secondary causes (C), without the primary cause.
Consequently, I anticipate that instrumental causes may be confounded with secondary causes.
In the above example, the scientist does this. The scientist focuses on the instrumental and material causality of the pento the exclusion of final and formal causes for the writer and note.
0018 Aristotle’s remaining four causes (D) construct a nested form around a dyad in actuality.
Material causes link actuality2 to the possibility of ‘something’1.
Final causes connects the actuality2 to both normal context3 and potential1.
In this example, the writer [pens] a letter2occurs in a particular normal context3, say, remembering an old friend3. Plus, there is an incentive to say ‘something’1, recalling a fond memory.
Formal causes draw the writer to compose the note2 in a certain style, suitable for conveying a particular mood.
0019 Here is how that looks.
Figure 5
0020 Overall, Aristotle’s four causes are neither secondary or primary causes. Rather, they draw a creaturely power (the power of the pen) into its corresponding category-based nested form. This corresponds to a transition from instrumental to secondary cause2, as well as a transition from the remaining causes to elements that point to a primary cause3,1.
0021 Are these surprising claims?
Consider a thing2 or event2.
How do Aristotle’s four causes come into play?
When we explore its instrumental causes, actuality may become a dyad in secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.
When we look at its2 material causality, potential1 comes into consciousness.
When we consider final attributes. Potential1 is clarified. Normal context3 comes to consciousness.
When we think about formal requirements and design, normal context3 is clarified.
Secondary causality associates to actuality2 in a category-based nested form.
Primary causality associates to normal context3 and potential1 in a category-based nested form.
0022 At the time of Thomas Aquinas, several philosophical schools argue that secondary causes detract from the idea that all causation rests in God. So, actuality2 is just a residue of the divine.
Aquinas argues against this proposition, saying that this point of view reduces the dignity of the creature and by extension, God’s creation.
If the Ash’arite school is correct, then the creature cannot be responsible for its own actions. Only God is responsible.
If creatures are not responsible, then why do they take care of themselves so well?
If the claims of Bonaventure and his followers are correct, and secondary causes are not sufficient, then how do creatures get along in the world?
Indeed, they get along so well that the seem designed to do what they do.
0023 Aquinas never envisions that the word, “adaptation”, could replace the word, “design”. Why? Aquinas lives in the enternal now. Species of plant and animal are always the same. Each bears according to its kind.
0024 Franscisco Suarez (7348-7417 U0’) lives at the time of Galileo. He continues the scholastic tradition. He comments on Aquinas, just as previously, Aquinas comments on the Book of Causes. The doctrine of secondary causes is well established, not as I portray it here, using category-based nested forms, but as a foil to primary causation and a mirror to instrumental causes.
Suarez writes the first systematic treatise on metaphysics in the Western world. His book is translated and read across Europe.
0025 He makes four points about primary and secondary causes (C-F).
The first created thing is being (C). God is the primary cause of being (A).
Secondary causes are true causes (D). They are not symptoms of primary causation (B). Creatures have powers that make events happen.
Secondary causes cannot be divorced from primary causality (E). This point distinguishes secondary from instrumental causality.
The claim that creatures exhibit true active powers gives a greater dignity to creatures and their Creator, than claims that secondary powers are symptoms of primary causation (F).
0026 Darwin grasps this last point (F) as a metaphysical justification for his theory of evolution through natural selection.
0027 Darwin justifies his hypothesis on the origin of species to Christians, by contemplating secondary causation. God grants adaptive powers to living creatures, allowing descent with modification.
Does God endow biological creatures with powers more subtle than instrumental and material causality?
The power to be reproductively successful means that, over time, a creature (species) can substantially change.
0028 How?
Something independent of the biological species offers an advantage to exploit or a disadvantage to avoid. This takes place in the eternal now. In each generation, those creatures that have the ability to exploit the advantage or avoid the disadvantage produce more offspring. Over the course of many generations, a species may substantially change, depending on the nature of the advantage or disadvantage.
0029 What word is under contention?
The word is “substance”. One never witnesses an adaptation so radical as to render a plant into an animal or the other way around. Plus, only one genus goes from animal to rational, implying the uniqueness of the human niche.
0030 However, if one fashions a narrower definition of substance, then one places the word in the path of descent with modification.
For example, a common ancestor ends up as two species, wolf and dog. They are substantially different, according to a consensus among biologists. Why? Each population no longer breeds with the other.
Okay, there is debate about that for wolves and dogs, but not between wolves and whales.
0031 There is more to the picture than this scientific criterion.
As species evolve, their particular substance changes over generations. Yet, at any moment in the Earth’s history, biological species appear to be stable, even during rapid ecological change. So, each species is really present only in the eternal now.
Time is required to note trends in biological evolution. So, evolution implies that species must be placed in a different normal context than everyday life. They may be compared to selective breeding of populations over time.
0032 Did Darwin grasp secondary causes in order to place a metaphorical fig leaf over his theory of natural selection?
Descent with modification implies that God (primary cause) endows creatures with powers to exploit advantages and avoid disadvantages (secondary causes) in the environment of evolutionary adaptation (EEA). Creatures do not strive to change over generations. Rather, they strive to survive and reproduce. Adaptation occurs, over many generations, as a consequence of striving in the etermal now.
0033 In order to get an idea how this looks in terms of category-based nested forms, let me conclude that there are two actualities. One actuality virtually situates the other.
Here is a diagram of actuality for a two-level interscope. See requried reading.
Figure 6
0034 In the normal context of natural selection3b, the situation-level actuality becomes adaptation2b.
In the normal context of natural selection3b, the situation-level potential becomes a niche1b.
A niche1b is a potential of an actuality independent of the adapting species2a.
As far as biologists are concerned, the content-level normal context3a and potential1a, accounting for the actuality independent of the adapting species2a may be ignored, except for one difficulty.
There is a chance that the adaptation2b will alter the actuality independent of the adapting species2a, as in the case of a beaver building a dam on a fast moving stream. The alteration produces similar results, time and time again. Reproducible results become the actuality independent of the adapting species2a. This permutation is called “niche construction”.
0035 Here is the diagram of Darwinian evolution.
Figure 7
0036 So far, so good.
Where do primary and secondary causations come in?
Does the situation-level of Darwinian selection compare to the category-based nested form for primary and secondary causation?
0037 Let me start by considering the two actualities.
Adaptation2b renders as a simple actuality (without Darwin’s normal context3b and potential1b), living creature [has powers to] survive and reproduce2b.
This compares favorably to the idea that secondary causation applies to actuality2 embedded in the primary causality of a normal context3 and potential1. The actuality2 may be rendered as the dyad, the esse of the thing [has power to cause] certain results2.
0038 Here is a picture of the match.
Figure 8
0039 Darwin hones in on secondary causes as a way to accept adaptation2b, as the esse of a living thing [has power to cause] results, including surviving and reproducing.
However, the concept of secondary causation for creatures, already promoted by Aquinas and again, by Suarez, regards the Divine Will3b and the Divine Presence1b as presiding in the eternal now, corresponding to the moment when the future becomes the past.
There a difference between “right now” and “over many generations”, just as there is a difference between “living creatures [have the power to] survive and reproduce” and “adaptation”.
0040 The creature’s power associates to the term, “substance”.
One question posed by Thomists to Darwinists, asks, “How can an adaptation, an accidental change, alter the creature’s substance, when accidents cannot add up to a substantial change?”
The answer is, “A creature’s [power] to survive and reproduce operates, over generations, in the normal context of natural selection3b and with a salient niche1b. A salient niche1b is one that offers novel opportunities and disadvantages, so that natural selection3b is not purely random. Natural selection favors certain accidents over others, leading to substantial change over generations.”
0041 So, what about the following comparison?
Figure 9
0042 The upper nested form applies to the eternal now.
The latter nested form occurs over time.
0043 Other than that, let me compare at face value.
The logic of thirdness is exclusion, alignment and complement. Any normal context3 will exclude, align with or complement another normal context3.
Thirty years before the publication of Origin of Species in 7659 U0’, Darwin entertains the idea that biological evolution may be accepted by Christians on the basis of secondary causation. If this is the case, then the Divine Will3 and natural selection3b must either align or complement.
0044 After publication, Catholic biologist, St. George Mivart (7622-7700), and American botanist, Asa Gray (7610-7688) address this if-then construct.
0045 Here, I pause and wonder.
Doesn’t the idea of secondary causes, the living creature[ has the power to] survive and reproduce, fit the pattern of declaration and development found in the six days of Creation in Genesis?
God says, “Let the earth bring forth…”, then “the earth brings forth.”
Surely, the declaration goes with normal context3 and potential1.
The development associates to actuality2.
0046 The problem?
The Spirit of the Age of the 7600s proclaims that natural selection3b excludes the Creator’s Will3. The niche1b is solely a material advantage or disadvantage offered by the environment of evolutionary adaptation2a. No Divine Presence1 is manifest. Biological evolution is godless, all the way through.
Mivart and Gray are horrified.
Both become staunch critics of Darwinism.
0047 Despite this, Mivart admits that natural selection could be one factor in biological evolution. It cannot be the only factor. After all, natural selection3b and the niche1b are external to the adaptatation2b. There must be something else, something internal, that completes the account of biological evolution.
Today, the ‘something’ that Mivart refers to is genetics. Body development3b’ completes the account that natural selection3b starts.
0048 In the normal context of body development3b, the phenotype2b emerges from (and situates) the genotype1b, where the genotype1b is the potential1b of the creature’s DNA2a.
The “Neo-“ of NeoDarwinism has precisely the same relational structure as Darwinism. Thus, a species’ internal DNA2aparallels an external actuality independent of the adapting species2a.
Here is how that looks.
Figure 10
0049 I will not discuss the implications of the fact that adaptation2b and phenotype2b are independent actualities that apply to the same creature. See Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome.
Instead, I will expand the working comparison between primary and secondary causality to NeoDarwinism, as opposed to only Darwinism.
Here is the diagram.
Figure 11
0050 After the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA2a in the 7750s, influence-peddlers of the modern Zeitgeist work overtime insisting that both natural selection3b and body development3b exclude the Divine Will3b.
They struggle against a crucial insight. The category of firstness, the monadic realm of possibility1, operates according to the logics of inclusion. It1 allows contradictions. So, the niche1 and the genotype1 do not exclude the Divine Presence1, the potential underlying the Divine Will3.
0051 Say what?
Consider the niche1b.
The niche1b is the potential of ‘something’ outside the adapting species2a. Natural selection3b is potentiated1b by ‘something’ outside itself2a. Naturalists must insist that this potential1b arises solely from material and instrumental causes.
However, less ideologically supine biologists never keep up with the naturalist’s agenda. They routinely evoke final attributes and formal requirements and design. Birds have wings to fly. Fish have fins to swim. Final attributes and formal designs cannot be distilled down to instrumental and material causalities. They cannot be observed and measured. Instead, they are simply obvious to us.
In a way, this seems miraculous.
0052 Similarly, the genotype1b is the potential of the creature’s DNA2a. Body development3b is potentiated1b by ‘something’ inside itself2a. Naturalists must claim that this potential1b arises solely from material and instrumental causes.
But, less ideologically sensitive biologists make statements like, “Such and such gene is responsible for such and such anatomical or physiological feature.”
For example, say a new gene arises from a novel repair of the DNA2a after a strand break. How does a gamma ray select the exact location to create this fissure that is then repaired in a fashion as to produce a slightly different protein (or genotype1b)?
Talk about miracles.
0053 Of course, Darwin does not know that genetics is the mechanism of inheritance.
Suarez and Aquinas do not know that creatures evolve over geological time.
0054 Yet, here we are, on the verge of an insight.
Neither the niche1b nor the genotype1b fully exclude the Divine Presence1.
After all, the Divine Presence1 sustains the actualities of an environment of evolutionary adaptation2a and DNA2a.
How can natural selection3b and body development3b completely exclude the Divine Will3?
0055 Jacques Maritain (7682-7773 U0’) pops thought bubbles. Sometimes, he succeeds. Sometimes, he does not.
In 7773, he takes a jab at a bubble that still pervades the modern Zeitgeist. Natural selection3b and body development3bexclude the Divine Will3.
Maritain pens an essay. The title is “Towards a Thomistic Idea of Evolution”. The word, “towards”, conveys the tentative character of his argument. He aims to take secondary causality to the… um… next level.
0056 Maritain points out that living beings embody immanent and self-perpetuating activities. Such activities give living beings an active role in evolution. This point reflects a general principle. God gives, to created beings, the dignity of secondary causation, under the guidance of primary causality.
Maritain draws a distinction about the living being’s powers of immanent activity.
0057 First, these powers reside in each individual of a species, even though they govern and perpetuate the entire species.
To me, this sounds like a fusion of the eternal now and the evolutionary eon, allowing a comparison between secondary causality2 and adaptation2b.
0058 Second, living beings have a self-regulating power that is subtle. It does not appear on the surface. This power appears to work against entropy. Matter may acquire higher form under the elevating action of God.
To me, this sounds like a fusion of secondary causality2 with the dynamics underlying the phenotype2b.
0059 Does Maritain draw on Mivart’s intuition that evolution requires an external and an internal account?
Not really, Maritain and Mivart do not contradict one another. Secondary causality2 compares to adaptation2b and phenotype2b, formulated as dyads.
Here is how that looks.
Figure 12
0060 Maritain ascribes primary causality to God, but not to the exclusion of the secondary agency of created beings.
The two normal contexts3b for NeoDarwinism complements or aligns with the theological normal context3 for primary and secondary causes.
Also, the potentials1 are inclusive, with a very curious twist. God’s Divine Presence sustains the actuality of ‘something’ independent of the adapting species2a, the environment of evolutionary adaptation, as well as the DNA2a. God has plenty of room to tinker with biological evolution.
0061 Here is a picture of the comparison.
Figure 13
0062 According to Thomas Aquinas, matter has a potential, or an appetite, for forms of ascending perfection. “Perfection” does not mean “without flaws”. Rather, “perfection” suggests “completion”. Matter and form associate to actuality2. Perfection adds the normal context3 and the potential1.
Is this key to a philosophical understanding of biological evolution?
Maritain spells out the ascending levels, composite bodies, mixed bodies, vegetative bodies and souls, sensitive or animal bodies and souls, and intellectual or human bodies and souls. Matter ascends from content to situation to perspective, on the wings of its own secondary causes, in the normal context of the Divine Will3 and in the possibilities inherent in the Divine Presence1.
0063 Certainly, this is not the only way to construct a hierarchy of nested forms. But, it is surely a good one.
Maritain keeps his eyes on the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
0064 Yet, even before his death at a ripe old age, a young, Peirce-enamored Thomist, John Deely (7747-7817 U0’), presents him with a thesis. Later, Deely writes about an interplay between Peirce and Aquinas. Deely discovers that Peirce arrives at the same definition of sign as the Baroque Scholastic, John Poinsot (7389-7444 U0’).
What does this imply?
C. S. Peirce may be regarded as the first in a postmodern neoscholastic tradition.
Peircean formulations, such as the category-based nested form, belong in the scholastic tradition.
0065 Armand Maurer offers an essay that traces the notion of secondary causes from Darwin, back through Suarez and Aquinas, all the way to the Neoplatonic Book of Causes. He aims to show that God’s greatness is not diminished by NeoDarwinian theory.
Indeed, the working comparison shows that the normal contexts of Divine Will3, natural selection3b and body development3b cannot exclude one another.
0066 This is not the view of the modern Zeitgeist, which declares that, in order for inquiry to be scientific, inquiry must exclude metaphysics.
0067 Darwin does not rise above the modern Zeitgeist. Nor can a reader expect him to. After all, the Zeitgeist fills the air that we breathe. The Zeitgeist stands between heaven and earth. There is no avoiding it.
At first, Darwin thinks that the concept of secondary causes provides a path to the acceptance of his theory. Unfortunately, this path is already blocked by the modern Zeitgeist. Later in life, Darwin declares himself agnostic.
0068 Now, I may ask, “What happens next?”
What happens in Western Civilization between 7660 and 7820 U0’?
If Darwin is on target about secondary causation, and if the modern Zeitgeist denies the possibility, then what happens when the esse of the thing [has power to cause] results2 is no longer contextualized by the primary cause?
What if the Divine Will3 and the Divine Presence1 are systematically ignored, even ridiculed?
0069 Nature abhors a vacuum.
The positivist intellect rules out metaphysics in scientific inquiry, setting up a scenario where natural selection3b and body development3b exclude the Divine Will3. Christians do not understand how to counter, because any attempt to respond meets the charge that the Christian is not scientific.
This leaves an opening for a new metaphysic, one that declares itself to be “not religious”.
0070 Does “not religious” mean the same as scientific?
Many moderns think so.
Indeed, how can a modernist distinguish between science and… er… a religious movement that says that it is “not religious”?
(See comments on Pennock’s eEssay on the distinction of science and religion, appearing at the end of June 2020)
Social Darwinism of the late 76th and early 77th century serve as an example. According to their dogma, humans inherit a social phenotype and are bound to certain civilizational adaptations.
Karl Marx, for example, envisions six stages, primitive barbaric communist, the slave, the feudal, the capitalist, the socialist and the communist. Social phenotypes differ for each one. For example, for feudalism, the two social phenotypes are the landowner and the serf.
According to Marxist myth, civilization progresses from one stage to another.
Each stage requires a different type of leader.
The esse of a leader includes the power to achieve adaptive organizational objectives.
0071 This calls to mind the master-work, How To Define the Word, “Religion”.
What is the potential1aCunderlying the actuality of an organizational objective2aC?
Righteousness1aC.
For Social Darwinism, that righteousness1aC is “not religious”.
0072 Marxism becomes a brand of Social Darwinism.
Here is a general picture for the modern Zeitgeist.
Figure 14
0073 A vacuum is apparent.
Both modern intellectuals and the leader offer to fill in the blanks.
0074 Notably, the genetic basis of inheritance is not well understood during the century after Darwin. Mendel starts his experiments in 7653 U0’. James Watson and Francis Crick determine that the structure of DNA is a double helical polymer in 7753.
Consequently, what I call “body development3b”, “the phenotype2b” and “genotype1b” are more mystically configured by Social Darwinists. They are conceived as social development3b, cultural phenotype2b and identity1b. These terms appeal to folk psychology.
On top of this, even in very late Modernism, both intellectuals and leaders insist that human evolution is solely due to material and instrumental causes.
No one thinks that immaterial causes are relevant. This error is refuted in the master-work, The Human Niche.
Also, no one imagines a discontinuity between our current Lebenswelt and the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. This topic is addressed in the master-work, An Archaeology of the Fall.
0072 What is primary causation in modern movements that proclaim themselves to be “not religious”?
Different modern schools fill in the blanks in their own ways. Mercantilism, Fascism, Communism and Big Government (il)Liberalism each has its day. They each proclaim a different primary cause.
Maritain sees this. He lives to a ripe old age. He writes his essay on evolution, close to the end. He may not know how to put his vision into a precise, scientifically plausible, argument. He does know that the issue must be addressed, not by positivist intellects, but by rational intellects. Secondary causation must no longer be usurped by human agency. The slots for primary causation cannot remain empty.
0073 NeoDarwinism must be seen as an expression of secondary causation.
It is not the purpose of Maurer’s essay to show how.
The purpose is to show what must be done.
0074 The Book of Causes is translated into Arabic, by a Neoplatonic philosopher, living near Baghdad, shortly after al Ma’mun fails once and fails again, to reconcile Muslims, first, with one another, and second, with the rational intellect. Who would imagine that, a thousand years later, Charles Darwin would pick one of its key ideas, secondary causation, in order to justify his own scientific proposal?
The popularization of the idea comes through Aquinas, then Suarez.
The realization of the necessity of the idea comes through Maritain, and here, Maurer.
