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These notes employ Rohr & Morrell's Divine Dance, Tom Oord's Uncontrolling Love and
Greg Boyd's Process & Trinity as foils to help me deepen and better articulate my own
panSEMIOentheism.
It may be that, in some sense, the distinctions of Hartshorne and Palamas may reconcile
to Peirces modal distinctions. Hartshornes essence, existence and actuality, and
Palamas essence, hypostases and energies, may relate to possibilities as 1ns,
actualities as 2ns and probabilities as 3ns, which would entail a formally distinct divine
contingency. Peirces Ens Necessarium would entail necessary divine aspects, which I
refer to as 4ns. Rather than a mere dipolar approach, this entails an irreducibly triadic
modal ontology or vague phenomenology or meta-metaphysic. Contingent aspects
would be identied nonstrictly, while necessities would rely on strict identity.
Aristotelian:
Act (2ns) & Existence (2ns) or Efcient (2ns) & Formal (3ns) causes
Potential (3ns) & Essence (1ns) or Final (3ns) & Material (1ns) causes
Both formal and nal causations refer to the regularities, in/determinables and
in/determined realities of peircean 3ns, or hartshornean actuality or palamitic energies,
where work is being done, activities are in play, an entity is doing something,
teleodynamically, which will bring about a temporal future. The future that will ensue
from an encounter with formal causes will result from end-stated (teleomatic) or
end-directed (teleonomic) work that has already been done (boundaries already
established).
Final causes will bring about causes from end-intended (teleologic) work being done
synchronically (essentially ordered) or in the future. Hence, material precedes formal
(teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic), which precedes efcient, which precedes nal
(teleologic) causes.
These asymmetric temporal relations mean an entitys past but not its future determine
its nonstrict identity. A failure to employ such temporal and teleodynamic distinctions to
Aristotelian potencies or teloi can lead to strict, essentialistic accounts of an entitys
identity, which then lead to axiological absurdities, whether regarding divine or human
persons, divine or human activities, divine and human participations.
specifying a given regularity as not merely epistemic but clearly ontological but without
specifying the degree of in/determined/ness, such as variously probable to inevitably
necessary.
When one applies Scotus formal distinction to creatures, thirdness has only ever
corresponded to probabilities and not necessities. Hartshorne precisely invokes a
nonstrict identity due to asymmetric temporal relations.
On the other hand, when I have invoked both a peircean thirdness and a scotistic formal
distinction in reference to the divine energies, I am only suggesting that they are
dynamical, distinct from divine essence or hypostases but inseparable, and are
efcacious. That does not necessarily implicate a divine contingency of any sort; that
would have to be argued separately. At any rate, God, alone would enjoy a strict identity.
Creaturely partaking of and participation in divine energies remains contingent due to
our nature. God only ever loves, necessarily so, precisely because Shes absolutely free,
metaphysically. Which aspects of Gods interactions with creatures might be contingent,
again, would have to be argued.
I argue for divine contingency here:
https://paxamoretbonum.wordpress.com/divine-overows-engaging-boyds-trinity-proce
ss-as-a-foil/
When applying Scotus formal distinction to realitys regularities (or peircean thirdness),
we take that distinction vis a vis a given entitys identity to be neither real, essentially, nor
merely conceptual, logically, but to be still genuinely objective and inseparable from that
entity, as well as dynamically efcacious. The peircean modal categories entail
asymmetric temporal relations, which could implicate a nonstrict identity for that entity,
whenever that thirdness refers to the dynamical activities of a probabilistic reality.
When applying Scotus formal distinction to the divine energies, we take that distinction
vis a vis the divine energies to be neither real, essentially, nor merely conceptual,
logically, but to be still genuinely objective and inseparable from the divine essence, as
well as dynamically efcacious as divine energies.
However, just because the peircean modal categories entail asymmetric temporal
relations, they neednt necessarily implicate nonstrict identities, if the peircean thirdness
in play happens to refer to the dynamical activities of a necessary, rather than
probabilistic, reality.
When we invoke the formal distinction between the divine essence and energies, we are
only afrming a genuine, objective, inseparable and dynamically efcacious activity of
those energies but have not thereby a priori indicated whether they are contingent vs
necessary. That would have to be argued separately in the case of any given divine
energy.
At some point, because thirdness refers to teloi, an approach that afrms only
probabilistic and contingent teloi will lose all theologic impetus unless it also afrms a
robustly, subjectively intentional Telos of the Ens Necessarium with some aspect of the
economic Trinity identical to the immanent Trinity.
I offer what's immediately below as prologue for my engagement of The Divine Dance,
which wholly resonates with my holonic pentametric, set forth below, because I rather
precisely fashioned it in extensive dialogue with Fr. Rohr's teachings over four decades,
especially as fashioned by others whose writings have profoundly inuenced me. It
represents, in fact, my lifelong attempt to articulate the systematic and philosophical
theologies (orthodoxic) that seem to me to be implicit in the explicit theophanic
teachings of his formative and contemplative spiritualities (orthorelational,
orthocommunal, orthopathic and orthopraxic).
https://www.scribd.com/user/122381033/John-Sobert-Sylvest
https://independent.academia.edu/SylvestJohn
Older inuences include Thomas Merton, Don Gelpi, the American Pragmatists: Peirce,
James and Dewey (as recently appropriated by Terry Deacon and Ursula Goodenough),
Charles Hartshorne, Jack Haught and their ilk.
More recently, I've been inuenced by the approach of those who inhabit communities
nurtured by the likes of Mike Morrell and Tripp Fuller, by the thinking of Brian McLaren,
Thomas Oord, Catherine Keller, John Thatamanil and Philip Clayton.
No one's inuenced me more, though, than Amos Yong, the preeminent authority on the
Spirit, Holy.
This is all to point out that I knew before reading the Divine Dance that Rohrs approach
to the Trinity with Morrell would be neither some ad hoc poetic musing nor some fanciful
ight of a supercial theological imagination. Rather, I am poised, here, to harvest the
fruits that will have emerged organically from a theological crop thats been long
cultivated in the ground of
None of this would a priori be inconsistent either with various Arminian, Molinist or Open
approaches, with various logical defenses or evidential theodicies to problems of evil
(whether Augustine, Plantinga or Oord), with various creation accounts (ex nihilo,
profundis, multitudinae, tehomic) or various wisdom traditions vis a vis their shared
soteriologic trajectory of human authenticity (an implict pneumatological, Christological
inclusivism via Lonergans transcendental imperatives and conversions) and diverse
sophiologic trajectories of sustained authenticity (via being in love).
The late Don Gelpi, SJ had a saying: orthopraxy authenticates orthodoxy.
right behaving,
right belonging and
right relating.
Following Lonergan and immersed in the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, Gelpi
would offer that any authentication of the various dogma, practices, liturgies, rituals and
doctrines not just of Christianity, but of any of the worlds great traditions, as well as
indigenous religions, could be cashed out in terms of how well they foster ongoing
human transformation.
Now, this doesnt invoke that vulgar pragmatism of if its useful, then its true, but it
does suggest that, wherever, whenever and in whomever we witness
right belonging ,
right desiring,
right believing.
Its no accident, then, that systematic theology will typically address ve integral human
value-realizations:
1) truth via creed, as articulated in beliefs about realitys rst and last things, in what we
call an eschatology, which orients us;
2) beauty via cult-ivation, as celebrated in lifes liturgies, rituals and devotions, in what we
call a soteriology, which sancties us;
3) goodness via code, as preserved in codications and norms, in an incarnational or
sacramental economy, which nurtures and heals us;
4) unity via community, as enjoyed in familial and faith fellowships, in what we call an
ecclesiology, which empowers and unites us; and
5) freedom via contemplation, as realized through radical self-transcendence, in a given
sophiology, which will ultimately save and liberate us.
One can authenticate a given systematic theology, whether its implicit or explicit
expression, in orthodoxic, orthopathic, orthopraxic, orthocommunal and orthorelational
terms, discerning how well this or that creed, cult, code, community or contemplation
fosters intellectual, affective, moral, social and religious conversions, respectively
Boyd: A beginning point is the recognition that the mechanistic (and hence
deterministic) models of dispositions which tend to be most useful in science need
not be considered ultimate. Their utility, and thus relative validity, can be afrmed, but
the very recognition that we are talking metaphorically about an unpicturable reality
suggests that no one model need be taken as exhaustively denitive for disclosing
the nature of this reality. The legitimacy of models must be contextually determined.
JB: d'accord, ergo:
dispositions are variously in/determinative = pluralistic account of teloi (teleopotent,
teleomatic, teleonomic and teleologic teleodynamics)
emergentist stance (sans supervenience) avoids both epistemic and ontological
reduction or a priori conclusions that we have necessarily encountered epistemic
in/determinables and/or ontological in/determinedness and to what degree
Boyd: It is the insight of Whitehead and Hartshorne that there is an aesthetic
dimension to all experience which, I believe, can furnish us with another very fruitful
model of dispositions. If beauty is indeed a priori, and if becoming is, therefore,
essentially a becoming towards aesthetic satisfaction, then it is reasonable to
construct a model of dispositions which reects this dimension of reality. I believe
that the Process concept of a subjective aim towards aesthetic satisfaction
furnishes us with just such a model.
JB: again, d'accord
This comports with evolutionary epistemology, Jack Haught's process aesthetic
teleology, Peirce's aesthetic primacy and my own (with Yong) axiological epistemology.
Boyd: The aesthetic model of disposition we are here arguing for seems to accomplish
just this. It renders creative acts futuristically unpredictable but retroactively
intelligible. It thereby fullls Ross requirement for intelligible spontaneity by
circumscribing without determining the act it explains, and it does this without
necessitating either the postulation of an indeterminate world totality (Ross), an
indeterminate Creator (Neville), or an unintelligible self-creation ex nihilo (Hartshorne).
JB: In semiotic terms, this marks the threshold where nonarbitrary signs --- which
function merely as icons and indexes (peircean rstness and secondness, respectively),
such as in the algorithmic, teleonomic, end-directedness of sentient creatures --- are
supplemented by arbitrary signs, which function robustly as symbols (peircean
thirdness), such as in the nonalgorithmic, teleologic, end-intendedness of sapient
creatures.
It also marks the crossing of the telic threshold from what Peirce would call the nious
and Mayr the teleomatic, beyond the teleonomic, even, to the truly teleological, or, in
Deacon's terms, from the merely thermodynamical and morphodynamical to the robustly
teleodynamical, or, in classical Aristotelian terms, from formal to nal causation.
Boyd: It seems, therefore, that one may accept the principle of continuity and yet reject
psychicalism.
JB: Yes. A priori applying a root metaphor proves too much, especially if it commits to a
philosophy of mind stance or is too specic, not vague enough (like eld).
Boyd: It is, we again see, Hartshorne, and not the phenomenologists, who commits the
fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
JB: Put differently, it is one thing to adopt an emergentist stance, quite another to
smuggle in supervenience with distinctions, for example, between weak and strong
emergence. It's an unwarranted move from an exploratory heuristic to an a prioristic
explanatory metaphysic. The move should be characterized as a fallibilist, metaphysical
hypothesis and then tested and argued and not presented as self-evident.
Boyd: Because of the way experienced is dened, the God-world relation lies beyond
the accident of Gods will. While the precise way non-divine reality exists is inuenced
by the divine will and is contingent, the fact that there is a contingent non-divine reality
is in no way the result of Gods will. It is a metaphysical, and thus eternal, necessity.
The Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo is thus impossible. So also, then, is the
Christian doctrine of God as self-sufcient unto Godself completely impossible. The
supposed a priori structure of rationality, and hence being, requires this.
JB: Any reductionistic bent will a priori commit us to various types of modal and
dependent contingenies and/or necessities. Philosophically, various creatio accounts
remain live options? It needn't be decided theologically either.
Boyd: Both being and becoming are capable of being exemplied concretely and
abstractly.
JB: By categorically expanding our temporal modalities beyond the abstract (1ns) and
concrete (2ns) to recognize the dispositional (3ns) as real, we can exemplify being as
concrete and essentially distinct and becoming as dispositional and formally distinct.
Boyd: As we shall see more fully in our exposition below, an adequate metaphysical
account of the structure of experienced reality requires the acceptance of the
ontological parity of being and becoming.
JB: There's a denite parity insofar as each entity remains irreducibly triadic, as abstract,
concrete and dispositional. As we've recognized, previously, the dispositional invites
disambiguation as it vaguely refers to teloi that can variously be weakly nious or
strongly nal causes, variously in/determinative or even metaphysically necessary.
Boyd: And nally, while we have defended Hartshornes view that aesthetic value is a
priori, we have argued that his correlation of aesthetic intensity with synthesized
multiplicity is not necessary. One can, rather, distinguish between the subjective
intensity of an experience, and the expression of that experience: the former admits of
arguments necessitate.
JB: Much of this section presupposes, not uncontroversially, the principle of sufcient
reason, which is ne as a theological leap but philosophically needs to be argued.
Similarly, we cannot a priori know whether the cosmos presents as brute fact or, as a
whole, necessarily, begs explanation. In other words, the fallacy of composition may or
may not apply. Accordingly, alternate trinitarian eld-theoretic accounts, whether
creative, co-creative or pro-creative via ex nihilo, ex profundis or multitudinae, may
remain viable. They would have implications regarding any problem of evil. Any defense
will still require both kenotic-free will as well as metaphysical constraints on divine
knowledge, power and freedom as discussed elsewhere.
Again, as regarding any essential or voluntary kenosis, we best be mindful of the plurality
of teloi which God need or need not sustain in noncoercively interacting with freedom. In
my view, it is only the robustly teleologic dynamics of human freedom that need be
sustained via divine constraint. Other teleodynamics, then, whether quantum
teleopotency, inanimate teleomaticity or biological teleonomicity would remain subject
to divine prerogatives whenever they are not otherwise inextricably intertwined with
some realization of personal freedom or agency. As with the qualications discussed
elsewhere regarding omniscience (of future peircean 3ns, necessities and probabilities),
this makes our hopes regarding eschatological realizations more real, our theosis more
pressing, our petitionary prayer more urgent, our recognition of the miraculous more
ubiquitous.
Boyd: Hence we have arrived at what constitutes the outline for a trinitarian
dispositional metaphysics, grounded on a priori truths, and compatible with the
dynamic, non-substantival process categories of modernity as well as with Scripture
and the Christian tradition. The relationship between the Trinity and the world process is
that the creative process of the self-sufcient God graciously grounds and
encompasses the creative process of the world. And the ultimate result is the worlds
redemptive sharing in the eternal self-delight which characterizes and constitutes the
creative self-becoming of the triune God.
JB: And why wouldn't we all say, Amen!?
Notes:
Would it be fair to say, within Thomism, that, while Gods relation to creation is not real,
but logical, it is still real-ist? It implies no absolute causal disjunction, only that, for
example, creation would be an effect proper to no known cause.
As such, we could only ever aspire to successful references to, even while in principle
precluded from providing successful descriptions of, G-d. Put differently, Gods logical
relation is not without foundation and we can make true statements, both literally and
analogically, about God. The literal statements, though, can only ever be predicated
apophatically.
In other words, the real vs logical distinction does not threaten Gods eminent
intelligibility even though it preserves G-ds utter incomprehensibility.
That reminds me of Fr Norris Clarkes approach, where Gods immutable in the absolute
order, but mutable in the relative order. Gods extrinsic, constitutive relations dont
threaten the innite perfection of divine personal being. This differs from Whitehead and
Hartshornes accounts of Abstract/Primordial immutability and Concrete/Consequent
mutability, where creation is needed to complete God. Clarkes God doesnt need the
world.
I think this gets at some of the confusion between Aquinas and Scotus. Some say that
Scotus (re univocity) was addressing semantical issues, while Aquinas (re analogy) was
concerned with things. If so, then Scotus certainly doesnt threaten the Thomistic
analogy of being. Any Scotistic instantiation of innity ultimately entails a qualitative
difference. Furthermore, arguably, though he conceives innity positively, its really
another apophatic negation not nite like not mutable. Mostly, though, Aquinas
analogy thus does not devolve into equivocity, as if our analogical predications could not
make successful references to God, precisely because they're coupled with literal
apophatic statements. Instead, it protects us from the idolatry in imagining that weve
ever made exhaustively successful descriptions of God. Not sure I said this very well. I
guess that, consistent with Fr Clarke, we might say that any differences in Gods
behaving vis a vis extrinsic, constitutive relations to creatures, would not entail
differences in Gods being vis a vis intrinsic, essential aspects of the Trinity. Those
extrinsic relations effect our becoming in likeness to God, but no divine becoming.
re: that things cause Gods knowledge? how does this not lead to creatures actualizing
states of affairs in Gods mind? <<<<<
The distinctions I've come across grew out of an exchange between Fr Clarke and Lewis
Ford.
God's inner being can indeed be affected, whether 1) both absolutely and relatively, such
as in the divine hypostases, interpersonally 2) absolutely but not relatively, in the divine
nature or 3) relatively but not absolutely, such as in knowledge of and love relations with
creatures.
How this squares with divine simplicity in Thomistic terms, I don't know. But, in my view,
#3 above sounds like what Scotus would call a formal distinction, as it refers to
constitutive but not essential dispositions. Whatever the case, I think this requires a
qualifying of divine simplicty that, for some, would entail a narrower conception than
relied on previously.
RE: But if real relations are dened simply as relations one truly has (i.e., relations that
involve one in acts of mind and will vis--vis what one is related to) but which remain
extrinsic to what one is essentially, then Im ne with positing Gods real relations with
the world. Does this commit me to a notion of divine simplicity unacceptable to classical
theists? <<<<<
I think some Scotists would certainly accept your notion of divine simplicity.
http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2010/02/divine-simplicity-and-formal_20.html?m=1
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/Grace/scotus.htm
Also, some neo-Thomists would, too: The Jesuit philosopher W. Norris Clarke advises
Thomists to simply drop the doctrine of the lack of real relations in God and to adopt
the view that, [God's] consciousness is contingently and qualitatively different because
of what we do.
As some have put it, it's one thing to affect God's absolute nature but quite another to
affect God's nature absolutely, only the latter violating divine simplicity.
While formally distinct, essential attributes would still refer to a divine noncontingent
nature. Scotus would also apply a modally adequate distinction, which refers to degrees
and intensities by which attributes are expressed. A modal ontology would also further
implicate temporal distinctions such as past possibilities, present actualities, future
probabilities and eternal necessities, all quite apart from the divine essence. These
modes would differ between each attribute, among them collectively and from the divine
essence (esse naturale). So, beyond a mere formal distinction plus modal distinction of
intensity, creaturely divine partakings and participations implicate a modally temporal
distinction, hence contingency --- not in the divine nature, but --- into any consideration of
divine acts or relationality (esse intentionale).
################
The analogy of being, alone, would dissolve into mere equivocation. But it's not to be
taken alone, but, only ever in conjunction with literal references to reality, apophatic
though they may be.
The univocity of being, alone, would collapse transcendence. But it's not to be taken
alone, but only ever in conjunction with the distinction between innite and nite
instantiations of attributes.
The univocity of being expresses the implicit semantical presupposition that necessarily
grounds the realist - not equivocal - nature of the analogy of being, while the analogy of
being expresses the implicit essential qualitative aspect that inhere's in the in/nite
distinction of the univocity of being.
Thus the real vs logical distinction of Thomism doesn't express what the Scotists would
consider a conceptual distinction (e.g. Venus as both morning and evening star), but
very much could be interpreted to, implicitly, include the scotistic formal distinction of
nonessential but inseparable attributes.
##########
non/essential
im/participable
intra/extra
non/contingent
in/separable
essence/energy
im/passibility
essence/will
naturale/intentionale
Is the Existence of the Cosmos merely Brute? clearly Fruit? or coyly Mute --- vis a vis its
primal origins?
Boyd's distinction between the intensity and the scope of the unsurpassable aesthetic
experience, coupled with his conception of immutability as everlasting disposition
allows for God's essential, internal love relationality to overow into contingent
illustrations.
6) pan-entheist conception of creatures - both modally and dependently contingent
7) panen-theist mereological conception of God (as the whole greater than the sum of its
parts) - not modally contingent, but some divine aspects are dependently contingent,
while others are not
8) panen-theist mereological conception of Trinity - not modally contingent, but some
divine aspects are dependently contingent, while others are not
For example, Philip Clayton: the prehended world is in some sense constitutive of God as
trinity, hence unity of complex God
9) panen-theist mereological conception of creatures - both modally and dependently
contingent
10) pantheist conception of God - modally contingent but not dependently contingent
For example, any overemphasis upon the economic as opposed to an immanent trinity
or on a dyadic structure between creature and creator
11) pantheist conception of creatures -modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
12) idealist monist conception of reality - modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
13) materialist monist conception of reality - modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
Various divine aspects might include e.g. im/mutability, im/passibility, essence,
hypostases, energies, etc
Various creaturely aspects might include e.g. in/determined/ness, tehomic, ex nihilo, ex
profundis, ex multitudine, coeternality, pro-created, co-created, various monisms, etc
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2016/05/two-senses-of
-contingency.html
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/creatio-ex-nihilo-proposed-alternatives-1/
http://www.academia.edu/7643061/_Divine_Knowledge_and_Future_Contingents_Weigh
ing_the_Presuppositional_Issues_in_the_Contemporary_Debate_Evangelical_Review_of_
Theology_26_3_2002_240-64
http://www.metanexus.net/book-review/quantum-mechanics-eucharistic-meal-john-polk
inghornes-bottom-vision-science-and-theology
This is a preliminary draft for discussion purposes, which is to acknowledge that I'm
unsure regarding the above characterizations. I think the questions are meaningful, even
as I grapple with the answers.
Notes:
Peirce used categories of rstness, secondness and thirdness, roughly mapping to
possibilities, actualities and probabilities, temporally relating to past, present and future.
The probabilities are telic, including both formal and nal causes. I refer to teloi because
the category is so vague as to include personal intentionality and, for example,
thermodynamic end-states.
The category of thirdness refers, vaguely, to probabilistic realities, without specifying
whats epistemic in/determinable vs ontologically in/determined. If we go further to
invoke Scotus formal distinction, we specify the ontologically in/determined, but it
remains a fuzzy concept to what degree determined?
Hence, I nd Mayrs distinctions helpful, like teleomatic for end-states (inanimate nature)
or teleonomic for end-directed (biological organisms), reserving teleologic for
end-intendedness, persons. Much of this comes from engaging the biosemiotics of Terry
Deacon.
Also, I assume an emergentist stance without invoking supervenience. For example, I
note that symbolic language and consciousness emerged here, in Homo sapiens, but
remain agnostic regarding philosophy of mind, e.g. nonreductive physicalism vs
panpsychism.
I dont believe we have to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics, describe the origins
of the cosmos, life or sentience, etc in order to epistemically warrant or normatively
justify the life of faith. So, the peircean categories are but conceptual placeholders, an
exploratory heuristic, not an explanatory metaphysic. Theyre probabilistic. They are thus
fallibilist and eschew a prioristic, rationalistic, naive realisms, precisely by prescinding
from modal necessity to modal probability. Nonstrict identity comes from Hartshorne, or
at least Dombrowski interpreting him, invoking moderation in metaphysics,
differentiating acorns from oak trees, navigating the shoals of essentialism and
nominalism.
Some divine energies might could be successfully referred to using these modal
categories and divine interactivity contingent in some aspects. But, at some point,
references to God must go beyond the univocal and analogical predications or, in
principle, how could we be really talking about G-d?
We look around and see all these regularities and probabilities and infer neccessity, only
ever encountering it in analytic abstractions, never physically instantiated. The argument
for the reality (not being) of God, Peirce says, invokes the Ens Necessarium, wholly
transcendent. Thats telos with a capital Telos.
Perhaps this is where Boyds distinction between the INTENSITY of the aesthetic
experience of internal, loving relationality and, on the other hand, its SCOPE might come
in. Insofar as we take Boyds conception of immutability as an eternal disposition, even
when the essential divine experience overows as contingent illustrations, neither the
disposition nor the intensity change.
Also, perhaps we can disambiguate an equivocal notion of contingency such that theres
not a scintilla of contingency, modally, in either Gods immutable disposition or intensity
of aesthetic experience. Any contingencies, such as in the scope and illustrative overow
of the aesthetic experience, are not modal but the dependent variety as we already
acknowledge in the hypostases and energies?
Years ago, I wondered why Hartshorne went dyadic, theologically, when he had Peirce at
his disposal. He had his reasons but I cannot recite them now. Both Boyd and Joe
Bracken have rehabilitated CH with trinitarian approaches that respect classical theisms
key insights while drawing on process strengths.
The divine attributes must be reconceived such that they refer to that knowledge, power
and freedom greater than which could not be conceived without falling into logical
inconsistency, internal incoherence and metaphysical incongruity vis a vis personal
freedom, divine freedom and inmutable divine dispositions. Divine knowledge of the
future would not refer to peircean secondness or actualities but to thirdness, including
necessities and probabilities as well as divine prerogatives. God's eschatological aims
are bolstered by the divine freedom to inuence such future possibilities. Constraints on
divine omnipotence and freedom have been treated elsewhere under the logical problem
of evil.
Additional notes:
Speaking of apophatic qualications, the traditional apophatic way of approaching any
God-concept can go a long way toward guaranteeing its consistency. A list of properties
can be logically guaranteed to be conceptually compatible with each other precisely
because of their negativity. So, coupled with our analogical God-talk, apophatic
references can be very meaningful.
For any interested, Christopher McHugh recast Hartshornes modal ontological argument
using such negative properties:
http://indels.org/library/modern/doug_krueger/krueger-mchugh/mchugh1.html
Speaking again of apophatic qualications, we think of Cambridge properties, which are
external. Such would include energies, works, activities and relationships, all
distinguished from substance and considered epinoetic. So, too, negative attributes, e.g.
immutability, would be epinoiai.
So, while one would not posit real distinctions in God, it seems like we could properly
posit formal distinctions not just in our human relating to God, but among some of
the attributes in Gods essence, itself, which remain inseparable?
Toward My Logical Defense re: Problem of Evil --- evoked by Oord's Uncontrollong Love
In Peirces modal ontology, he prescinds from categories of possibility, actuality and
necessity to those of possibility, actuality and probability. This move precisely afrmed a
realist stance toward realitys probabilities (not unrelated to Scotus formal distinction),
but allows us to remain metaphysically agnostic as to which such probabilities refer to
ontological regulators (various teloi, e.g. teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic,
teleodynamic) and/or mere epistemic regularities (observer artifacts).
We can also remain agnostic regarding which of those teloi, in any given instance, would
be distinguished essentially (i.e. absolutes, necessities, eternalities) and which
emergently (e.g. thru cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, etc).
Thats to say that we can realize human values, probabilistically, employing only vague
phenomenological categories, even as we remain in search of a metaphysic (e.g. the
most robust root metaphors).
We recognize that chance and necessity, pattern and paradox, order and chaos,
symmetry and asymmetry, the random and systematic, determinacy and indeterminacy,
regulators and regularities, all play real roles in reality when we prescind, ontologically,
from modal necessities to probabilities. The semiotic grammar changes from a reality,
where noncontradiction and excluded middle both hold to one where noncontradiction
certainly still holds, but excluded middle folds.
We dont thus solve Humes problem of induction, speculatively, but we recognize that,
practically, a fallibilist, probabilistic approach fosters human value-realizations because,
if epistemology indeed models ontology, human inference will work just ne if teloi
indeed correspond, ontologically, to an axiological sufciency of actual regulators.
Still, regarding freedom, we dont refer to realitys teloi univocally, in my view. Theres a
radical discontinuity, qualitatively, between the nonalgorithmic, teleodynamic,
anthroposemiotic freedom made possible by human symbolic language, and the more
algorithmic, teleonomic, biosemiotic freedom gifted by sentience, which is merely iconic
and indexical.
When I conceive of divine constraints relative to human freedom, I imagine omniscience,
omnipathy, omnibenevolence, omnipresence and omnipotence as those divine attributes
greater than which could not be conceived without otherwise violating the internal
coherence and consistency or external congruence and consonance between realitys
essential divine and metaphysical logics, kenotic included.
But it is only human freedom that, for me, is at stake and inviolable, a freedom that
emerged rather recently. I say emerged, phenomenologically, grinding no metaphysical
axes vis a vis philosophy of mind, such as to characterize it in panpsychic or
nonreductive physicalist terms, for example.
Suffering, to me, is a tehomic artifact that God only ever alleviates, save for essential
constraints, never using it instrumentally by design even though Hell always
transformatively exploit it for Her ends and our ultimate good.
I believe God has coaxed some regularities forth, while others might logically inhere in
various tehomic multitudinae. Those regularities with which God cannot interfere, in my
view, are those which would be indispensable to each humans freedom. When natural or
personal evils cause human suffering, Gods only constrained by inviolable tehomic
logics or His own essential kenosis vis a vis human, teleodynamic freedom (but not vis a
vis teleonomic, teleomatic or teleopotent teloi of lesser ontological densities or
metaphysical complexities than the imago Dei).
The above has been my defense to the logical problem of evil. I remain agnostic
regarding evidential theodicies. I believe theres a plurality of reasons that Gods wholly
exculpable, that the approaches of Augustine, Plantinga, yourself (Oord) and others
could be sufciently nuanced for a defense, logically.
Evidentially, cumulative case apologetics can provide at least a modicum of
equiplausibility vs alternative cosmogonies, but reality remains way too ambiguous for
us and way too ambivalent toward us to coerce one belief vs another, which leaves us
with normative justications of faith rather than epistemic warrants, in other words, with
forced, vital but live options, which may be quite to the point and in service of human
freedom.
Regarding the divine essence, hypostases and energies, our partaking and participation
in the energies remains an established THAT, theologically, but, as to HOW, again Im
metaphysically agnostic. Exactly what might be predicated of both God and creatures, I
dont know. All such predications, though, cannot be merely equivocal or analogical
rather than univocal or well introduce insurmountable causal disjunctions.
I believe God authors many more miracles than most imagine but, on the other hand,
remains constrained way more, in certain ways (essentially, metaphysically or
kenotically) than classically conceived by most. I am deeply sympathetic to your (Oord)
project and strongly resonant with your approach.
I give human freedom inviolability via essential divine kenosis but dont univocally
predicate freedom or emergent teloi up and down the phylogenetic ladder or great chain
of _____.
Because Gods nature is love, God always gives freedom, agency and self-organization to
persons.
We encounter a plurality of teloi in the regularities of nature, perhaps some
1) tehomic (whether from co-eternal, procreative and/or creative origins), perhaps others
coaxed forth by divine energies, perhaps some
2) eternal, static or universal, others temporal, dynamical or local,
3) some robustly telic, teleodynamically (end-intended), others moderately so,
teleonomically (end-directed), others weakly nious, teleomatically (end-stated) or
variously indeterminate, teleopotently (end-un/bounded).
Glossary of Teloi
I have found it helpful to refer to various emergent TELOI (teleo -potent, -matic, -nomic
and -logic) refer to various end-phenomena (un/bounded, stated, directed and intended).
veldopoietic entwinement marked by the teleopotent end-un/boundedness of eld
(veld-) dynamics
cosmopoietic entwinement marked by the teleomatic end-statedness of a
materio-energetic, proto-sentience
biopoietic entwinement marked by the teleonomic end-directedness of an
electro-chemical, incipient sentience;
sentiopoietic entwinement marked by sentience, broadly conceived to include
hormonal sentience;
neuronal sentience (including, for example, abductive instinct);
striatal sentience;
limbic sentience and
cortical sentience (including, for example, nonreective awareness, nonarbitrary
inconicity and indexicality).
sapiopoietic entwinement, marked by the teleologic end-intendedness of
sapient sentience (including, for example, abductive inference, reective awareness,
arbitrary symbolicity and subconscious problem solving)
On the aseity distinctions, I nd the Palamitic approach helpful, where the divine energies
express the divine will, from which divine creativity or procreativity would ensue,
contingently, apart from divine essences and hypostases. It may be that conating
creatio with love proves too much, says more than we could possibly know regarding
divine necessity. I afrm the notion that takes love as necessity, but agree that creatio
reveals our contingent participation in divine energies. To that point, consistent with the
distinctions on which I reected above, we must further distinguish between natural
participations in the divine energies and those gifted rational persons. Again, its only the
latter Id make a concern of any essential kenosis. Thats to conclude, I suppose, for
example, that any sustaining of natural regularities would be a by-product of Gods
sustaining our personal freedom, the end product. But those natural regularities, which
naturally but not rationally participate in the divine energies, wouldnt a priori and in every
instance necessarily be sustained.
charles sanders peirce, thomas oord, uncontrolling love of god, modal ontology,
possibility, actuality, necessity, probability, scotus formal distinction, ontological
regulators, teloi, teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic, teleodynamic, epistemic
regularities, cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, sentiopoiesis, sapiopoiesis, veldopoiesis, root
metaphor, chance and necessity, pattern and paradox, order and chaos, symmetry and
asymmetry, the random and systematic, regulators and regularities, noncontradiction,
excluded middle both human value-realizations, epistemology models ontology,
nonalgorithmic, teleodynamic, anthroposemiotic, symbolic language, and the more
algorithmic, teleonomic, biosemiotic, sentience, iconic, indexical, divine constraints,
human freedom, omniscience, omnipathy, omnibenevolence, omnipresence,
omnipotence, divine attributes philosophy of mind, panpsychic nonreductive physicalist,
tehomic artifact, tehomic multitudinae, essential kenosis, teleodynamic teleonomic,
teleomatic, teleopotent ontological density, imago Dei, defense to the logical problem of
evil, augustine, plantinga, cumulative case apologetics, equiplausibility, cosmogonies,
normative justications, epistemic warrants, forced options, vital options, live options,
human freedom, divine essence, divine hypostases, divine energies, miracles essential
divine kenosis, univocal predications
...
if we conceive of the Spirit as inviting, coaxing, even wooing each person from image to
likeness into intimacy ...
then, at least, in terms of orthopraxy, we might afrm the presence, in any person who'd
respond, of such theotic realizations as
So, in the domain of orthopraxis, a person might realize the fruits of a somewhat
inchoate theosis. Its soteriological trajectory would be abundantly efcacious.
How would we, then, otherwise conceive (not indifferently) the more robustly theotic as
realized in the explicit faith of believers?
The more robustly theotic will necessarily move beyond our ascetical and orthopraxic
concerns to the more explicitly mystical, which will also entail such theotic realizations
as the
theurgic (e.g. rituals & practices such as the hesychastic way of the heart) and
None of this to suggest that an implicit faith cannot realize truly unitive goals, such
as through synergia, but only to recognize that, optimally, theosis will realize the
gnosiological gifts of special revelation.
In the life of implicit faith, like Pip in Great Expectations, one realizes reality's pervasively
donative nature and responds appropriately in becoming a true gentleperson, even while
otherwise remaining ignorant or even positively confused regarding the identity of one's
benefactor.
In the life of explicit faith, one learns the identity of humankind's Benefactor and one's
ascetical soteriological trajectory is supplemented by the superabundant realizations of
the antinomies, resist rushes to closure and admonish the voices of certitude but move
forward, anyway, in humility, with hospitality, doing what we've discerned we must and
saying what we believe we should, dialogically, boldly and imaginatively!
As Scott Holland suggests: Good theology is a kind of transgression, a kind of excess, a
kind of gift. It is not a smooth systematics, a dogmatics, or a metaphysics; as a
theopoetics it is a kind of writing. It is a kind of writing that invites more writing. Its
narratives lead to other narratives, its metaphors encourages new metaphors, its
confessions more confessions . . .
If all too certain theological understandings get undermined and theopolitical modes of
historical discourse challenged, theo-poetics will have a chance to successfully advance
the spiritual efcacies of otherwise sterile abstract doctrines, bringing them alive in the
concrete lives of the faithful through fruitful ortho-relational, orthocommunal, orthopathic
and orthopraxic realizations.
As Roland Faber puts it: One moves into an undened land in which one experiences
differently, begins to think differently, and is encouraged nor just to adopt to, but to
create new theological language. Today, I think that not only can we not control this eld
or region in fact, but that it is of the essence of process theology to be an uncontrollable
undertaking in the innite adventure of God-talk, and consciously so, in modes that I
came to name theopoetics.
Rohr is merely the latest in a long pedigree of people who want to run with the Trinity (or
dance, as it were) to --- not draw conclusions, but --- to create new theological language,
encourage new metaphors, and to help us experience differently those historical
realities that were developed with our traditions out of what we might call the
formations contexts of the Trinity within the pro-Nicene polemical and exegetical
environment.
I would even call my own writings regarding Rohrs ouvre a systematic theophany and
not systematic theology.
Still, for Rohr, onto-theology would be descriptive but not pejorative. After all, one could
argue that his fellow Franciscan, the medieval Scotus, was among the rst, great
onto-theologians! That said, again, that's not what he's doing in this book.
The Divine Dance does not amend classical ad intra, ontological accounts of the
immanent, essential Trinity (vis a vis questions of who and what). Arguably, neither does
it amend the traditional ad extra, divine communication accounts of the revealed,
economic Trinity (vis a vis when, where and how). Instead, it addends these approaches,
supplementing them with a theopoetic, trinito-phanic, perichoretic critique.
Some have invoked perichoresis --- not as a kataphatic, root metaphor of onto-theology,
but --- as an apophatic, more properly trans-apophatic, theopoetic critique. Such
theologians, while very much afrming the indispensable noetic trajectory of logos in
every theo-logos, employ perichoresis as a vehicle negativa, which serves to remind us
that all symbols, whether sacramentals or metaphors --- not only reveal, but --- conceal
the realities, which they reference.
Accordingly, a perichoretic critique, evoking the poetry of dance, doesn't at all deny
ontological root metaphors, much less substituting its own (e.g. ow) but, instead,
invites us to keep the trinito-phanic metaphors coming!
Assuming such a theopoetic critique, then, one must avoid the category error of
employing such perichoretic references (e.g. dance, ow or relating) as kataphatic and
onto-theological root metaphors, when, indeed, they are precisely otherwise intended to
serve as artistic conceptual placeholders. This is to say that such placeholders,
apophatically and phenomenologically, deliberately bracket such metaphysics. They
much less so deny old models, interpretations and metaphors and much more so
encourage ever new, always deeper, understandings!
Bottomline, I knew Rohr wasn't doing onto-theology or metaphysics precisely because,
as a Roman Catholic and panentheist, he's manifestly not committed to a metaphysic
that refuses to recognize a distinction between God and the world.
Also, when reading Rohr and Morrell's references to divine energies, I relexively put on
the Orthodox lens and thought of Gregory of Palamas and, in turn, interpreted their
perichoretic references as apophatic, theopoetic critiques, for example, consistent with
Vladimir Lossky's approach. Any implicit metaphysic would be Scotistic, trinitarian
distinctions consistent with his Eucharistic, Christological and Incarnational approaches,
some representing minority reports but not otherwise unorthodox.
This is all to point out that I knew before reading the Divine Dance that Rohr's approach
to the Trinity with Morrell would be neither some ad hoc poetic musing nor some fanciful
ight of a supercial theological imagination. Rather, I am poised, here, to harvest the
fruits that will have emerged organically from a theological crop that's been long
cultivated in the ground of
Scotistic intuitions (in continuity with Peirce),
Franciscan sensibilities (often a minority account within larger traditions),
Patristic outlooks (apokatastasis and practical universalism, oh my!),
polydoxic sophiologies (others are on efcacious wisdom trajectories?! e.g. Gregory of
Palamas),
a generous ecclesiology (preferential option for the marginalized, even),
a pluralistic pneumatology (the Spirit 's also over there?! in her?!),
a Goldilocks anthropology --- neither too pessimistic (e.g. total depravity) nor optimistic
(ergo, no facile syncretism, no insidious indifferentism, no false irenicism) and,
paramount,
a contemplative stance that afrms a most robust, participatory relationality, beyond a
mere propositional, problem-solving preoccupation.
None of this wouldn't a priori be inconsistent either with various Arminian, Molinist or
that we could drop it tomorrow and it would be a forgettable, throwaway doctrine then
either it cant be true or we dont understand it!"
As prologue, they introduce the pragmatic critique, inquiring whether orthopraxy has
authenticated Trinitarian orthodoxy!
They make the point: "Remember, mystery isnt something that you cannot understand
it is something that you can endlessly understand!"
They don't confuse a lack of comprehensibilty with a lack of intelligibility. Thomas Oord
similarly resists a retreat into theological skepticism when it comes to our God concepts
vis a vis the problem of evil and thereby has articulated a theology of love (considering
putative God-constraints, such as essential, metaphysical or kenotic). Similarly
eschewing a radical skepticism regarding Trinitarian doctrine, Rohr and Morrell are on
their way to articulating --- spoiler alert --- a theology of love!
Here comes the leit motif of Rohr's lifelong emphasis on the fruit of the contemplative
stance: "Whatever is going on in God is a ow, a radical relatedness, a perfect
communion between Three a circle dance of love."
They ask: "Instead of God watching life happen from afar and judging it How about God
being inherent in life itself? How about God being the Life Force of everything? Instead of
God being an Object like any other object How about God being the Life Energy
between each and every object (which we would usually call Love or Spirit)?"
This reminds me of the Orthodox hesychastic conception of Divine Energies as well as
Joe Bracken's process notion of the Divine Matrix. In some ways, it speaks to Scotus'
univocity of being.
Whether one employs a root metaphor like substance, process, experience, energy or
ow, mystics and philosophers have long intuited some type of unitary being, some type
of interconnectedness that allows objective interactivity across what may otherwise be
ontological gulfs, which would be logically necessary to account also for the
intrasubjective integrity of each unied self, who then participates in those glorious
unitive strivings of all loving intersubjective intimacies.
I'm willing to bet, though, that those above references to life forces and energies will
have many exclaiming a heterodoxic: "Game! Set! Match!" That is, they will lter the rest
of the book through the cloudy lens of their facile, hence errant, metaphysical
presuppositions --- that Rohr articulates a pantheism!
So few trafc in the nuances required to distinguish between pan-en-theism,
pan-entheism, panen-theism or cosmotheandrism, theocosmocentrism, between an
objective unitary identity and a subjective unitive intimacy or between epistemic, ontic
and interpersonal nondualities. I won't tease out all the relevant nuances, here, but I can
only suggest from a rather long acquaintance with both Rohr and Morrell that they aren't
playing theology without a suitable philosophical net! Keep reading!
Here comes another minority opinion grounded in a long established Scotistic
Franciscan sensibility - that the Incarnation was not occasioned by some human felix
culpa but was in the Divine pneumatological cards from the cosmic get-go: "This God is
the very one whom we have named 'Trinity' the ow who ows through everything,
without exception, and who has done so since the beginning."
Yes, indeed, for God so loved the world!
"But divine things can never be objectied in this way; they can only be 'subjectied' by
becoming one with them! When neither yourself nor the other is treated as a mere object,
but both rest in an I-Thou of mutual admiration, you have spiritual knowing. Some of us
call this contemplative knowing."
There it is - -- the distinction between the objective and subjective, the merely
propositional and the robustly relational!
Ultimately, beyond the truth, beauty, goodness and unity, in which all creation
participates, there emerged a freedom gifted by that contemplative faculty found in the
human imago Dei: "But we have to be taught how to 'gaze steadily into this law of perfect
freedom, and make this our habit,' as James so brilliantly intuits it."
Love and freedom remain integrally related to the extent that in addition to any essential
and metaphysical constraints God may even kenotically self-constrain toward the end of
augmenting our freedom, amplifying our love!
The following is so poignantly put:
"Did you ever imagine that what we call 'vulnerability' might just be the key to ongoing
growth? In my experience, healthily vulnerable people use every occasion to expand,
change, and grow. Yet it is a risky position to live undefended, in a kind of constant
openness to the otherbecause it would mean others could sometimes actually wound
you (from vulnus, 'wound'). But only if we choose to take this risk antie also allow the
exact opposite possibility: the other might also gift you, free you, and even love you. But
it is a felt risk every time. Every time."
Did you ever imagine that God might take risks? Felt risks? Precisely to free you? That
beyond any omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omnipresence --- all suitably
(apophatically) nuanced as capacities greater than which could not otherwise be
conceived without falling into either metaphysical incoherence or theo-logical
contradictions --- God passionately experiences, also, a divine omnipathy? precisely
through the Incarnation!
How does one merit this type of love?
"Jesus never has any such checklist test before he heals anybody. He just says, as it
were, 'Are you going to allow yourself to be touched? If so, lets go!' The touchable ones
are the healed ones; its pretty much that simple. Theres no doctrinal test. Theres no
moral test. There is no checking out if they are Jewish, gay, baptized, or in their rst
marriage. Theres only the one question: Do you want to be healed? If the answer is a
vulnerable, trusting, or condent one, the ow always happens, and the person is healed.
Try to disprove me on that!"
Here we encounter the wisdom of an authentic formative spirituality, where right relating
precedes right belonging which fosters right desiring which encourages right behaving
and sees right believing much more so as a participatory orthocommunal, orthopathic
and orthopraxic response, much less so as an orthodoxic proposition, which, truth be
told, more often presents in polydoxic sophiologies, which entail the wisdom of love
pay more attention to real vs conceptual vs formal vs modal distinctions, if we open our
hearts and minds to both Scotus and Palamas.
Note:
Rohr would probably afrm divine passibility while denying mutability (cf. Denis
Edwards). His trinitarian approach might be inuenced by Joe Bracken, who expanded
on Whitehead and Hartshorne (Bracken deliberately mindful, too, of orthodox notions of
transcendence) using a eld theoretic approach (social ontology employing elds). At
least, it seems Rohr often uses such eld metaphors and he has referenced a divine
matrix, too. Not all Catholics think any of this succeeds or that it or panentheism is
necessary (Norris Clarke).
Amos Yong, with whom I most resonate, shares some of Brackens insights regarding
realitys pervasive interrelationality, interactivity and intersubjectivity. But he derived
those insights from a pneumatological reading of creation narratives, not from a process
cosmology.
Footnote regarding Sanders' hyper-Critique:
Being immersed in Rohr's spirituality and theology for decades, I gathered his meaning
easily and implicitly. I would be unable to easily discern where he might have more
artfully been more explicit in his presupposed onto-theo-LOGY to keep the uninitiated
reader, one as intelligent as Sanders, from misinterpreting anything. I just don't know but
my sneaking suspicion is that Sanders will accept any needed clarications and place
part of the blame on Rohr. At the same time, as a scholar, Sanders could've inquired
further into Rohr's body of work to equip himself with better hermeneutical lenses,
especially once he realized how hypercritical his review would be, if only not to
embarrass himself, but also to avoid offending charity.
Confer:
In "Divinization: A Lost Pearl" Fr Rohr writes:
If you want to do your own research here, the fathers of the church to study are St.
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and St. Irenaeus in the West; and
St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, Pseudo
Macarius, Diadochus, and St. Gregory Palamas in the East. The primary texts are in the
Philokalia collection and the teachings of the Hesychastic monks.
https://cac.org/divinization-lost-pearl-2016-04-14/
In "The Univocity of Being" Fr Rohr quotes Bonaventure:
Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he [sic] shares
existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares sensation, and with
the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are transformed in Christ since in the
fullness of his nature he embraces some part of every creature. Bonaventure [1]
https://cac.org/the-univocity-of-being-2016-11-14/
See also:
Divine Simplicity and the Formal Distinction
http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2010/02/divine-simplicity-and-formal.html
The Essence/Energies Distinction and the Myth of Byzantine Illogic
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/the-essenceenergies-distinction-and-the-m
yth-of-byzantine-illogic/
Farewell, Divine Dance? An Open Letter to The Gospel Coalition.
http://mikemorrell.org/2016/12/farewell-divine-dance-open-letter-gospel-coalition/
See:
http://theopoetics.net/what-is-theopoetics/denitions/
theopoetic, trinity, richard rohr, mike morrell, scott holland, roland faber, vehicle negativa,
via negativa, perichoresis, apophasis, kataphasis, transrational, ousia, hypostaseis,
energeiai, theosis, theotic, sanctication, justication, glorication, perichoresis,
perichoretic, episteme, gnosis, trinity, eucharist, apophatic, trans-apophatic
trinitology, trinitophany, catherine lacugna, richard rohr, mike morrell, perichoresis, divine
energies, divine dance, immanent trinity, economic trinity, ontotheology, theopoetic,
mystical experience, contemplative experience, apophatic
As to Fr. Richard Rohr, I've been getting excited with his every new publication, tape, mp3,
video, webcast or daily e-mail for almost 40 years now. I can never resist hyperbole and
superlatives as I commend each new work to family and friends. Why stop now?
I have always unwraped each new gift from Fr Rohr anticipating its practical, pastoral
signicance, looking for changes I can make in my relationships to God, others, the
world, even myself. He's never trafcked in idle, academic speculation (nothing wrong
with that, just not his theo-schtick) but has engaged us with invitations to new ways,
dis-positions, of seeing, imagining, participating, giving, receiving and experiencing Love,
moreso than any new pro-positions.
The Divine Dance, in all of the above ways, in my view, represents Fr Richard's magnum
opus!
In a nutshell, right away, I thought: Fr Richard and Mike Morrell have done regarding the
Trinity precisely what Panikkar did regarding the Christ!
That's to suggest that in the same way that Panikkar elaborated and related his
Christo-phany to classical Christo-logy, they've, in effect, elaborated and related their
beautiful Trinito-phany to classical Trinito-logy.
Enough of my words. But, to my point, I used the glossary entry for Christophany at the
Panikkar website and did word substitutions --- Trinity for Christ, Trinito-logy for
Christo-logy and Trinito-phany for Christo-phany.
Below's what fell out.
It's eerily on the mark???!!!
Trinito-phany is the Christian reection that the third millennium must elaborate.
- It does not claim to offer a universal paradigm, nor even necessarily a model to adopt,
but rather simply to offer to all humanity a believable image of Trinity.
- It is a Christian word yet opened to the universal problematic in a concrete and thereby
limited way.
- The word is used in the sense of phaneros of the Christian scriptures, visible and
public manifestation of a truth. Divine energies are a direct manifestation of God to
human consciousness and represents an experience.
- Trinito-phany does not ignore nor claim to abolish the preceding trinito-logy, but
trinito-phany rather tries to situate itself in a continuity with trinito-logy in order to deepen
it.
- Trinito-phany suggests that the encounter with Trinity can not be reduced to a mere
doctrinal or intellectual approach; it wants to elaborate a reection on the economic
Trinity and the human being with clear reference to the immanent Trinity: The logos is
also the Logos of God, but the Logos is not all of the Trinity."
- The Trinito-phany does not take anything away from the Trinito-logy, but shows itself
opened to the reality of the Spirit.
- This contemplative, mystic attitude situates trinito-phany in a more receptive posture, in
contrast to the more aggressive search on the part of reason.
- This notion of Trinity must include both the gure from the historic past as well as the
present reality.
- Trinito-phany is a reection opened to the Christian scriptures, but is in dialogue with
the other religions; opened to dialogue with the past (even the pre-Christian) and with the
present (even the non-Christian) and in particular the contemporary scientic mentality.
- Trinito-phany, therefore, does not exclude a priori any epiphany of the sacred or the
divine when searching for an integration of the image of the Trinity in a more spacious
cosmovision.
http://raimon-panikkar.org/english/gloss-christophany.html
trinitology, trinitophany, christophany, christology, raimon panikkar, richard rohr, mike
morrell, divine dance, perichoresis, trinity, mystical experience, contemplative mystic
What's going on in my peircean rubric is a move from any robust metaphysic to a vague
phenomenology.
To bust that move, one simply prescinds from necessity to probability in one's modal
ontology.
If, ordinarily, whether in a folk essentialism or naturalist nominalism, the necessary
(normative) mediates between the possible (interpretive) and the actual (descriptive) to
effect various teloi (evaluative) ...
Then, in a vague phenomenology, it is, instead, the probable (normative) that will mediate
between the possible (interpretive) and the actual (descriptive) to effect various teloi
(evaluative).
This vague phenomenology is only ever normative because it successfully references,
maybe in part even describes, what we know from evolutionary epistemology, which is
realist, fallibilist, hedonic/noxious oriented and so on. It accounts for our common sense
and common sensibilities.
Alas, at reality's emergentist thresholds (veldo-, cosmo-, bio-, sentio- and sapio-poietic
entwinements), our vague conceptions break down because our metaphors have
collapsed.
So, we go searching for root metaphors to normalize gravity and quantum mechanics, to
cross the threshold from the inorganic to life, to resolve the hard problem and articulate
a philosophy of mind, to explain symbolic versus syntactic consciousness and so on.
The various emergent teloi- (teleo -potent, -matic, -nomic and -logic) refer to various
end-phenomena (un/bounded, stated, directed and intended). They evoke Aristotelian
notions of formal and nal causation. Rather than remaining wholly vague, however,
when talking in terms of nal causation, such as in classical metaphysics, they aspire to
a tad more specicity.
My inventory of teloi, therefore, does NOT mark an advance in certainty regarding
putative eternal verities, but, instead, marks a RETREAT.
It's easy to plug extremely vague concepts like nal causation into formal syllogisms in
order to reason one's way to apodictic truths and necessary conclusions, but such
tautologies add no new information to any systems.
However, the emergentist heuristic says, hold your epistemic horses, the concept of nal
cause might refer only analogically, maybe even equivocally, to different realities.
Finality, itself, may well be emergent.
We can't be playing so fast and loose with such conceptions, much less employing them
in a modal ontology that presupposes necessities rather than probabilities.
Peirce, himself, crafted a neologism, nious, to refer to telic realities that were not
robustly teleoligical. Ernst Mayr, I think, popularized the teleonomic conception. Deacon's
building on this approach but his understanding is far more rigorous than my
folk-peircean rubric.
My rubric, though, has had great heuristic value for me, personally, helping me better
grasp some of the issues in play in popularized quantum interpretations and
cosmogony.
So much will turn on the quality and degree of reality's mix of chance/necessity,
order/chaos, a/symmetry, un/boundedness, ir/regularity, pattern/paradox and
dis/continuity. That in turn will suggest alternate mereological stances regarding
whether the whole truly begs explanation or can be understood in terms of each part.
One remains a phenomenologist, in my view, to the extent one remains agnostic both
regarding primal mereology and putative root metaphors.
One crosses the threshold and becomes a metaphysician when taking a mereological
stance, a vulgar metaphysician when settling on a root metaphor, and a metaphysical
menace when employing necessity in one's modal ontology.
I employ hyberbole, here, because, properly considered, since metaphysical stances refer
to putative primal realities being merely evidentially plausible, at best, per our
true than not. Any curtailment of constitutional protections should require evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt, which is to say a proof having been met if there is
no plausible reason to believe otherwise. religious worldview, poetic worldview,
metaphysical worldview, reasonable suspicion, probable cause, primal axiomatic
realities, evidentiary standards, moral philosophy, political philosophy, legal
philosophy, preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt,
constitutional law
Using Religious Naturalism as MetaMyth
veldopoietic entwinement - marked by eld (veld-) dynamics cosmopoietic
entwinement - marked by teleomatic end-statedness biopoietic entwinement marked by teleonomic end-directedness sentiopoietic entwinement - marked by
sentience, broadly conceived to include hormonal sentience; neuronal sentience
(including, for example, abductive instinct); striatal sentience; limbic sentience and
cortical sentience (including, for example, nonreective awareness). sapiopoietic
entwinement, marked by the teleologic end-intendedness of sapient sentience
(including, for example, abductive inference, subconscious problem solving and
reective awareness). In my commitment to religious naturalism, "religious" refers
to my evaluative dispositions and "naturalism" refers to my methodological
stipulations. These evaluative and descriptive commitments thus precede and
constrain my metaphysical, metaethical and metamythical approaches. Put
differently, my commitments to the "givens" of religious naturalism (those including
both its values and its epistemic deliverances) thus condition the explicit and
implicit "oughts" cohering in my interpretive, normative and existential stances
toward reality. Said more concretely and specically, my religious naturalism
provisions my objective moral realism and epistemic fallibilism, both which
condition my emergentist phenomenology, holistic personalism and humanist
existentialism. In my view, while existential leaps beyond the metamythic framing
of religious naturalism can be normatively justied, such plausibilist accounts of
putative primal realities do not bear the burdens of proof necessary to be morally
actionable, much less juridically defensible. Primarily, our metanarratives might
otherwise deepen our innate and learned evaluative dispositions through our
manifold and multiform communal celebrations & liturgies and personal devotions
& rituals. By so enhacing our right belongings and reinforcing our right desirings,
our mythic metanarratives, albeit weakly plausibilistic, can still otherwise help
foster that right behaving, which has otherwise already been discerned through
more robustly probabilistic methods. To the extent these metanarratives are not
congruent with the religious naturalist metamythic they can hinder right behaving
and frustrate the values of human authenticity. religious naturalism, falllibilist
epistemology, emergentist phenomenology, humanist existentialism, holistic
personalism, objective moral realism, metamythic frame, meta-myth, veldopoiesis,
cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, sentiopoiesis, sapiopoiesis, hormonal sentience, neuronal
sentience, striatal sentience, limbic sentience, cortical sentience, sapient sentience,
teleomatic end-statedness, teleonomic end-directedness, teleologic end-intendedness,
emergentist entwinement