Modern empirical knowledge, the social sciences as well as physics and biology, point towards a world of development and not one of stable entities. Nor do we have any reason to believe in short-cuts that bring a more primitive entity to an advanced state such as that in which a hairless ape is capable of hearing an offer of friendship from God.
The most powerful insights of modern science are:
- There is a universe which is definable in very explicit terms;
- Neither the universe nor the things in it came into being in their current state; rather did the universe itself and the things in it develop by dynamic processes which involve interaction between the inside of things and their environments.
Those insights begin to merge, or perhaps to seem different sides of the same coin, when we consider the radical claim of some quantum theorists that relationships are primary and substances secondary. Relationships are inherently dynamic while substances may, at least in human dreams, be crystallized, diamond-like for all time. Even the relationship between Father and Son and Holy Spirit is dynamic, not truly unchanging. The claims that God Himself is unchanging and that He is simple are better covered by the claim that He is a pure Act-of-being, the supreme Act-of-being, His own Act-of-being.
All creatures that we know about and can even imagine are made of stuff, of substance. I’m not sure what it could mean to speak of a creature so ethereal it has no substance. I’m also not sure what it could mean, in modern terms, when we speak about a Triune God being purely simple. I know that the great theologians of past centuries were denying that God changes in the way of creatures, of beings which are manifested or realized in substance. That was perhaps a necessary error in which they were trapped but we can undo that error now by simply interpreting Thomistic existentialism in light of what we now know about this universe, the universe through which we must see God — however darkly. We can undo that error by simply denying that God has substance.
God is His own Act-of-being and we need to develop ways of thinking and talking that manifest this truth. That is not so easy to do. Our language speaks of God as being analogical to creatures. He has hands. He has eyes. He sits on a throne in Heaven.
No. He does not. He has no hands. He has no eyes. He sits on no throne in Heaven.
True it is that Jesus of Nazareth has hands and eyes. And this entire line of thought which I’m exploring so tentatively might give us new insights into the Incarnation. After all, I’m seeking a deeper understanding of the universe in the light of revealed truths. That will allow us to see God in His divine nature as if through a glass darkly. Not much of a view. And even that imagery is a poor analogy to the difficulties we have in seeing the absolutely infinite God who is His own Act-of-being. After all, we are finite creatures of substance, able to perceive only substance and to think only in terms of substance.
But…
There remains the possibility that we can transcend our substance-based natures to some extent, to at least have some vague idea of our true relationship to a God who is His own Act-of-being. And that vague idea will lead us to ask how it is that we can ever have a personal relationship with such a God. And that will lead us to the fear that we cannot truly approach such a God even if we can know of His existence — and even that knowledge would be highly qualified.
Such a God would have to make the first moves. He would have to approach us in a way that would make clear to a creature who He truly is.
And that line of thought will lead us to the Gospels and our Lord Jesus Christ.
But I have reversed the order of my thoughts, for it was the Gospels, the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ, that brought me to explore those murky and dangerous oceans, those oceans which dragged down the likes of Nietzsche and so deluded the likes of Kant. And I need to more deeply explore a number of issues including:
- It now seems to me that my view of metaphysics is radical in the true sense, a return to the roots of this way of thought, a return to the Greek efforts to extrapolate from what they knew of the physical world rather than to make up abstract systems of thought which were only accidentally connected to our world of dirt and flesh and blood.
- I’ve been side-tracked from my desire to explore the developmental nature of this world, the world into which we are born, the world which we will depart from to enter a never-ending life of companionship with our Lord Jesus Christ — at least some of us pray this will happen.
There is much more work to be done and more thinkers need to propose creative ideas on how we can escape the swamplands of modern thought.