The Inescapable God and the Perennial Philosophy

As part of our liturgy to celebrate the feast of St. Patrick, we listened to the beautiful psalm number 139, titled 'The Inescapable God' in my RSV-SCE bible. This psalm is one of my favourites and one of the most philosophical. Today, I wish to share some extracts with you and Fr. Jaki's commentary in his Praying the Psalms.
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~Jakian Thomist

Psalm 139

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O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways,

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

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For you formed my inward parts,

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for you are awesome and wonderful.

Wonderful are your works!

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Your eyes beheld my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

If I could count them, they are more than the sand.

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Ps 139, 1-4, 13-18. RSV-SCE

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Those who sensed keenly, and almost all saints are an instance of this, the futility of escaping God's pursuit of the soul, must have found in this psalm a mirror for their experience. A memorable expression of this is Francis Thomson's poem, "The Hound of Heaven."

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This psalm contains for modern man more valuable material for reflection than a psychological, introspective plumbing of one's motivations. The material, once properly grasped, exposes one to that mental sanity which is sound philosophy of which there is aplenty in this psalm. This is indeed the most philosophical of all psalms. Its main theme is God's omnipresence and omniscience. Most of the times the point is put across in distinctly poetic terms, such as the fastness of the wings of the dawn and the brightness of even the darkest night. But at other times the diction is worthy of the finest metaphysical poets. Only those would be taken aback by this who let themselves be blinded by the cliché that there is a radical difference between Greek metaphysical rationality and biblical existentialism. Once one admits that good philosophy begins with wonderment and keeps exuding it, it will be easy to see metaphysics blare forth from this psalm, which in fact contains utterances about infinity that no mathematician can improve upon.

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And if one sees that the difference between wonderment and assent is not an opposition but a complement, one's conversion to metaphysics, as recommended by this very "biblical" psalm, may be complete. It is a metaphysics vibrant with vitality, including its spiritual kind. True enough, the Bible stands or assent, but never for a blind one. Faith, as Paul insisted (Rom 12:1), ought to be a logike latreia, a truly reasonable and well-reasoned service, a point that cannot be recalled often enough.

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Those desirous of a truly perennial philosophy may find it articulated in a capsule form in this psalm. By praying this psalm devoutly we may go a long way toward obtaining the grace which is the true love of wisdom. The word "philosophy" means precisely this insofar as it aims at truth and not merely at opinions about it.

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[S.L. Jaki, Praying the Psalms pp. 226-7]

Is there a universe?

I remember first reading Fr. Jaki's list of publications on the inside of one of his books and this title in particular struck my interest. Is there a universe? I had never asked myself that question before! After reading a copy in 2 days, it quickly became one of my favourite books - grounded in Thomism and a classic example of father's scientific creativity.

Today, we will join in at the point where father brings the final of his six lectures to a close (imagine tiptoeing into the back row of the auditorium to listen!) and where he provides an answer to a most novel question.

~ Jakian Thomist

When it comes to the universe, Burtt's remark becomes especially true that "the only way to avoid becoming a metaphysician is to say nothing." Much less can one, even if he is a scientific cosmologist, say "everything" or universe if he refuses to be a metaphysician. It does more harm than good if the metaphysics in question is the one that begins with the mind, instead of with the objectively material. Those who started with the mind, never reached matter, a point still to be learned by scientific cosmologists through a careful study of the history of Western philosophy. But if there is no physical realm, one tries in vain to go beyond physics in that sense which is metaphysical. So much in a way of comment about Burtt's other remark, appropriate both to philosophers and scientific cosmologists, that "an adequate cosmology will only begin to be written when an adequate philosophy of mind has appeared."

What is really needed is a recovery of the sense of the real from the clutches of rank idealism and blissful endorsements of Platonism as if equations and co-ordinate systems were the foundation of reality and therefore the creators of the universe itself. Until that happens, a prominent cosmologist may but momentarily awaken from the slumber of his philosophical idealism and register his astonishment over material reality by exclaiming: "The Universe flies!" That slumber must be totally dissipated if a step is to be taken from wondering about reality to the reality of the Universe itself.

The universe itself is raised to the highest conceivable pedestal - and a very safe one at that where no intellectual vertigo threatens the cosmologist - if one says, with John Henry Newman, that the idea of the Universe is so great that only the idea of its Maker is greater. Had Newman been an idealist, he would have thereby invited a mental vertigo. What he really meant echoes a long-standing conviction, voiced among others by Aquinas, that even the Creator could not have created anything greater than the Universe. Such has to be the case if the Universe, or the converging of all, is a reflection of the coherence which God has to be. The science of cosmology is unfolding magnificent vistas about the coherence of everything under its purview, while it has to take it for granted that there is such a totality of things which deserves to be called the Universe. This ultimate physical entity will loom convincingly at the end of one's mental journey as long as one holds fast to the right starting point.

[Extracts from S.L. Jaki, Is there a universe?, 1993, pp. 124-126 ]

Linguistics and Philosophy ~ Etienne Gilson

Father Jaki's interest in the writings of Etienne Gilson prompted him to ensure that some of his best works were translated into English. I have regularly referred to the rare book Methodical Realism and From Aristotle to Darwin has been recently republished by Ignatius Press. However, the final book of the trio, Linguistics and Philosophy should not escape our notice.

While father did not write an introduction to this book, he is suitably acknowledged by the translator, John Lyon:

"To Father Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B., I owe the suggestion that this work be translated. His influence and inspiration are deeply felt and appreciated." [L&P p. vii]

Indeed I am grateful that father continues to influence our studies to this very day!

So, why is Linguistique et philosophie of particular interest? According to father, "even in its philosophical purism, that book remains a mine of arguments against those who think that language, and with it the human intellect, is a mere binary counter with feedback mechanisms." [P&P p.196]

Here below is a long extract from the preface for us to enjoy!

~ Jakian Thomist

My book has taken shape and been provoked into being by the liberty which numerous linguists grant themselves of philosophizing as linguists and presenting their philosophy as if it were a matter of the science. This same attitude is not unknown to physicists or biologists either. It does not bother them if the philosophy thus bandied about under the name of science often consists in a denial of the validity of philosophical positions accepted by those whose metier is philosophy. A scientist who, with good right, would become indignant upon seeing a philosopher with a casual acquaintance with science uttering supposedly scientific opinions, will not himself thereupon refrain from philosophizing. Holding reasonably that it is necessary to have learned a science in order to be authorized to speak about it, he does not for an instant doubt that it is a matter of indifference who may be authorized to speak of philosophy, provided only that he knows some other discipline.

For the philosopher nature is what the physicist and the biologist tell him it is. Language is for him what the linguist tells him it is. In these two cases he comes across two kinds of scientists. All of them agree to hold all philosophical speculation in the background, and as scientists, they are reasonable to refuse to go beyond the realm of reasoned observation and experience. But all of them do not observe the same attitude toward reality. Some of them, for whom the fear of philosophizing is the beginning of science, methodically ignore or deny on principle the aspects of language use which provide reflection for the philosopher. Whether or not this attitude is of use to linguistics is for linguists to decide among themselves. Others - a short time ago Edward Sapir, today Emile Benveniste and Noam Chomsky for example - are equally solicitous to prevent their science for losing its way in the indistinct landscape of philosophy, and in particular metaphysics. These, however, have great concern in their descriptions to maintain the mysterious aspects of language for him who observes it merely as a scientist. These are precisely the aspects which retain the attention of the philosopher, for whom the philosophical constraints of language are but a particular case of metaphysical constraints.

[E. Gilson, Linguistics and Philosophy, pp. xvii-xviii]

A Joyous Anniversary

Friends,

Today is a very important personal anniversary since it was this night, one year ago, that I encountered the work of Fr. Stanley Jaki for the very first time! His writings have propelled me into disciplines far removed from my day job and for that insight I am eternally grateful. What a delight for me it is to share with you those words I first read from Science and Creation which have inspired me to build a Jaki library and truly engage with my faith in the wider world.

~ Jakian Thomist

With his penchant for startling dicta, Whitehead once defined European philosophical tradition as a series of footnotes to Plato. Whether this was the safest generalization to make on the topic is another matter, but it cannot be denied that the major themes of philosophy are as old as philosophy itself. Much the same holds true of scientific speculation. The word "atomic", which our age uses as its hallmark, has an ancestry leading back to the times of Pericles. Then and there it was clearly perceived that matter had to be either discrete or continuous. Decision on this represented the touchstone of truth for Democritus as well as for Aristotle. In the latter's words the verification of a strictly smallest quantity could be of such portent as to shake the very foundations of philosophy.

Ancient Greek philosophers showed equally keen interest in questions having to do with the very large. There again, a fundamental pair of alternatives was formulated with all possible clarity: the world could only be finite or infinite in extent. The counterpart of this along the parameter of time also received a most explicit attention. the classical Greeks' firm advocacy of an eternal world became a distinctive feature of their world view and science. Their concept of the eternity of a finite world, repeating itself in every Great Year, also anticipated to a surprising degree the idea of an oscillating universe, the favorite choice of many cosmologists of our day.

Reaching full maturity always prompts a look backward. Young people do not care about genealogies. Family records begin to be of consuming interest only to those who have already arrived. The interest is particularly pressing when the beginning of the journey amounts to a miracle. The miracle is the emergence of a self-sustained type of the scientific endeavour. In a world history that had witnessed at least half a dozen great cultures, science had as many stillbirths. Only once, in the period of 1250-1650, did man's scientific quest muster enough zest to grow into an enterprise with built-in vitality.

Great cultures, where the scientific enterprise came to a standstill, invariably failed to formulate the notion of physical law, or the law of nature. Theirs was a theology with no belief in a personal, rational, absolutely transcendent Lawgiver, or Creator. Their cosmology reflected a pantheistic and animistic view of nature caught in the treadmill of perennial, inexorable returns. The scientific quest found fertile soil only when this faith in a personal, rational Creator had truly permeated a whole culture, beginning with the centuries of the High Middle Ages. It as that faith which provided, in sufficient measure, confidence in the rational of the universe, trust in progress, and appreciation of the quantitative method, all indispensable ingredients of the scientific quest.

The future of man rests with that judgment which holds the universe to be the handiwork of a Creator and Lawgiver. To this belief, science owes its very birth and life. Its future and mankind's future rest with the same faith.

[S.L. Jaki, Science and Creation, 1974, p. vii-viii]

Jaki: Defender of the Chair of Peter

When you examine the massive collection of the books of S. L. Jaki, you will find that most of them deal with the history of science and its philosophical underpinnings. They are the work of a holy and literary man examining the many-tongued records of centuries, as Man has struggled to understand the kosmos, the world in which we live. You will also find a collection of little booklets which are more meditative, but still contain much history - his works on various prayers and practices of Roman Catholicism. There are important translations of historically important documents in science: works of Olbers, Kant, Lambert, and Bruno, chock full of notes, addenda, corrections, rebuttals and elucidations.

You will also find two rather small books on the nature of Papacy: And On This Rock and The Keys of the Kingdom.

I have no time nor inclination to summarise them - they are both splendid studies - the first of the geographical character of Caesarea Philippi and the use of the term "sur" and "kepha" (rock) in Hebrew Scripture; the second of the nature of the tool called a "key" and its place in technology and symbol.

It may make some people uncomfortable to speak of the papacy, regardless of their place in or out of the Roman Catholic Church - but I wonder. Do these find the same degree of discomfort from the Olympics? Or from the United Nations? Or from the ISO? Perhaps one of the other large international scientific organizations, such as the IUPAC or IUBMB are a source of worry?

I urge you to find these two books and read them and consider them as the work of a scholar on a difficult topic. And ponder, if you will, what another scholar once wrote about the same topic:

There is a famous saying which to some has seemed lacking in reverence, though in fact it is a support of one important part of religion: "if God had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent Him." It is not at all unlike some of the daring questions with which St. Thomas Aquinas begins his great defence of the faith. Some of the modern critics of his faith, especially the Protestant critics of it, have fallen into an amusing error, chiefly through ignorance of Latin and of the old use of the word divus, and have accused Catholics of describing the Pope as God. Catholics, I need not say, are about as likely to call the Pope God as to call a grasshopper the Pope. But there is a sense in which they do recognize an eternal correspondence between the position of the King of Kings in the universe and of his Viceroy in the world, like the correspondence between a real thing and its shadow; a similarity something like the damaged and defective similarity between God and the image of God. And among the coincidences of this comparison may be classed the case of this epigram. The world will more and more find itself in a position in which even politicians and practical men will find themselves saying, "If the Pope had not existed, it would be necessary to invent him."
[G. K. Chesterton, The Thing CW3:325]

Frankly, I think the scientific community has already done so, hence I am unable to understand the whine sometimes heard about the topic. Perhaps we scientists ought to try being poetical once a year at the very least, and exercise our intellects on ideas such as Rock and Key-Keeper - perhaps then we shall find ourselves refreshed and ready to return to our day-to-day (and far smaller) topics again. For us in the Duhem Society, I recommend this day, February 22, as the most fitting day for such an excursion.

Postscript: I am also aware that SLJ wrote his theology doctorate on questions about Ecclesiology, but I cannot read French, so I am unable to comment on it at present.

Starting Lent with Father Jaki

For your contemplation today. My suggestion for the members of the Duhem Society this Lent is to read (or re-read) SLJ's The Savior of Science, as we must become better acquainted with the Unigenitus, the Monogenes, the One Whom Pierre Duhem and Fr. Stanley Jaki followed, with heart and mind. What use is it for us to solve every equation under the sun, or annotate every reference with precision - yet lose sight of our Leader?
--Dr. Thursday

...there came those eighteen hours, beginning at about nine in the evening. During all those hours Jesus could not sit down as he was dragged from one court to another. For three hours, roughly from nine to twelve, that preceded his crucifixion, he was mocked and tortured. It was a miracle that he did not die while he was flayed from his shoulders down to his legs and felt pieces of flesh torn out of his body. The fixing of a crown of thorns on his head could have easily made him lose consciousness. Then he was sent to Herod Agrippa who added the crown of insult to his injuries. He became exhausted after the beam on which he was to be crucified had been put on his shoulders covered with wounds. A passerby had to be pressed to help him carry it for the last steps to the spot, ominously called the place of skulls.

As for the pains he suffered while he was nailed on the cross and let hang on it, physiological analysis of what went on in his body defied all imagination. Dr. Barbet, author of A Doctor at Calvary, became so identified with what Jesus suffered on the cross as to become unable to look at a crucifix again. So much about some of the trials Jesus suffered for our sake and suffered them so that we may remain strong in our trials. The Church knows why it insists on crosses with a corpus on it. Those who want crosses without corpus also know, as long as they are honest with themselves, that they obey the dictates of their naturalist theology.

Painkillers have become our most welcome associates. A large assortment of means for reducing excess body weight fills long shelves in our supermarkets. Medical insurance covers the unsightly effects of overeating. Ours is a society where two-thirds are overweight, beginning from childhood. Our Lents include no proper fasting. No place any more for hair shirts, nor for discipline, a word which also means a whip. At any rate, the rod has been banished from schools where students can enter only by passing through electronic gates, lest they carry handguns into the classroom. We Catholics think that for the last four decades ours has become a much deepened and very positive spirituality. We delve into classics on mysticism, though heedless of the greatest mystics' invariable nsistence on the need to mortify the flesh. The mental acrobatics accompanying such self-delusions are breeding mechanisms of trials with which one is not equipped to cope. Truly, it may not be sacrilegious to suggest that instead of praying, "Lead us not into temptation," we should rather pray: "Save us from leading ourselves down the rose path toward an imaginary bliss free of trials, though full of temptations to which we have already given our full assent." The petitions of the Lord's Prayer are a sequential mirror in which we can see, if we are courageous enough, the thick layers of pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-spiritual make up on our faces. May God's mercy save us from taking vice for virtue in the manner of hypocrites. Let us be saved from conforming with a world in which hypocrisy rules!
[SLJ Ours a Dearest Father (commentary on the Lord's Prayer)]

Jaki Day: Roma, April 13

I have just received word that there will be a "Jaki Day" in Roma on Tuesday April 13. For more information, see here.