tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post7324284659627393499..comments2024-03-27T06:25:29.002-05:00Comments on Anecdotal Evidence: `A Plentitude Adjusted to the Eye'Patrick Kurphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08436175583386298032noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-87232437860830798072010-09-07T22:36:08.604-05:002010-09-07T22:36:08.604-05:00(Cont.)
The actual argument is rather technical;...(Cont.) <br /><br />The actual argument is rather technical; and concerns the fact that potentiality does not explain itself; moreover, in any case, unfolding must be of something folded. Suffice it to say that the mere modern evolutionists, who would ignore the argument do not do so because they have discovered any flaw in the argument; for they have never discovered the argument itself. They do so because they are too shallow to see the flaw in their own argument for the weakness of their thesis is covered by fashionable phraseology, as the strength of the old thesis is covered by old-fashioned phraseology. But for those who really think, there is always something really unthinkable about the whole evolutionary cosmos, as they conceive it; because it is something coming out of nothing; an ever-increasing flood of water pouring out of an empty jug. Those who can simply accept that, without even seeing the difficulty, are not likely to go so deep as Aquinas and see the solution of his difficulty. In a word, the world does not explain itself, and cannot do so merely by continuing to expand itself. But anyhow it is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.Cynthia Havenhttp://bookhaven.stanford.edunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-57937111221274881392010-09-07T21:35:26.900-05:002010-09-07T21:35:26.900-05:00More from Chesterton on "being," from hi...More from Chesterton on "being," from his biography on Thos. Aquinas (and yes, Patrick, I'm still trying to get the hang of <i>esse</i>):<br /><br />For what St. Thomas means is not a medieval picture of an old king; but this second step in the great argument about Ens or Being; the second point which is so desperately difficult to put correctly in popular language. That is why I have introduced it here in the particular form of the argument that there must be a Creator even if there is no Day of Creation. Looking at Being as it is now, as the baby looks at the grass, we see a second thing about it; in quite popular language, it looks secondary and dependent. Existence exists; but it is not sufficiently self-existent; and would never become so merely by going on existing. The same primary sense which tells us it is Being, tells us that it is not perfect Being; not merely imperfect in the popular controversial sense of containing sin or sorrow; but imperfect as Being; less actual than the actuality it implies. For instance, its Being is often only Becoming; beginning to Be or ceasing to Be; it implies a more constant or complete thing of which it gives in itself no example. That is the meaning of that basic medieval phrase, "Everything that is moving is moved by another;" which, in the clear subtlety of St. Thomas, means inexpressibly more than the mere Deistic "somebody wound up the clock" with which it is probably often confounded. Anyone who thinks deeply will see that motion has about it an essential incompleteness, which approximates to something more complete. (Cont.)Cynthia Havenhttp://bookhaven.stanford.edunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21999805.post-63661158005123113862010-09-05T14:34:00.476-05:002010-09-05T14:34:00.476-05:00This post comes off like a Sunday service.
Not su...This post comes off like a Sunday service.<br /><br />Not sure if Chesterton or Kenner were aware, but this idea of things only being knowable through separation is a basic premise of Hindu cosmology. In the beginning (big bang?), the indivisible whole was seemingly separated out into a multitude of components, each one at a distance or vibrational frequency away from the other. This way, the whole (aka God) can appreciate itself, and expand in that knowledge.<br /><br />The West tends not to dwell on the purpose of it all, as much as on the pangs of separation. I don’t think, though, that I’ve ever heard precisely what Pinkerton states here: “Being is always here, / Nothingness is not, though your mind and will / Conspire to conjure fictions of the void.” If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, fear of annihilation is the ego’s.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.com