1) To the extent that ID theorists suggest that certain intermediates are irreducibly complex and beyond the reach of chance and law, they are ignoring the possibility of co-evolutionary processes.
2) Many see ID theory as a thinly guised creationism but this is a mischaracterization inasmuch as not all ID theorists believe in special creation. What they do all believe in is that biological design is objectively detectable, that certain packets of information are empirically detectable.
3) If I may oversimplify, the science-religion folks with whom I resonate might consider all evidence for intelligent design to be indirect. They would consider such a theory to be unverifiable and unfalsifiable and empirically indemonstrable, not just due to methodological constraints that create gaps for the goddes but due to systematic constraints inherent in demonstrating creation�s primal tacit dimensionality.
4) Therefore, in the same way that we may draw very compelling inferences from the indirect evidence that comports with the classical cosmological and ontological arguments, our sneaking suspicions regarding teleological arguments might be raised and very compelling inferences might be drawn from such as ID theory and from such as both weak and strong anthropic principles. It would be wrong, however, to think that such suspicions and inferences could be extrapolated into logically coercive proofs or empirically demonstrable arguments.
5) I think this would be true for any tacit dimensionality and formal causality that is at work in physics, in biochemistry, in biology, in psychology or in sociology, that is to say with regard to such formative influences as arise outside of natural emergentistic processes from what I�ll call primal telos (recognizing that coevolutionary processes can account for some apparently nonenergetic influences that are clearly artifacts of energetic causation pursuant to noneqilibrium thermodynamics and complexity dynamics).
6) Let�s take two Catholics, for example. Jack Haught takes the ID theorists to task but Michael Behe likely writes off Jack�s criticism as merely semantical. I don�t think Behe truly sees that he has crossed the line from science to philosophy.
7) The "religion-science people" category is large and many of them are not making distinctions between philosophy and science. This includes the materialists and the fideistic creationists. Few properly negotiate these domains, Thomistically.
8) Some don�t see ID Theory as serious science, claiming that very little of it gets aired out in peer-reviewed journals.

Rejecting an insufficiently nuanced nonoverlapping magisteria model for the interaction between science and religion and employing a realist�s perspective �

What can we gain in the domains of mysticism, philosophy, metaphysics and theology in the way of evidence?

And what can we gain in the domain of science?

In the first instance, we gain indirect evidence yielding inferences that can be more or less compelling, some quite compelling in fact and with great existential import, but gain no direct evidence yielding empirically demonstrable or logically coercive proofs.

In the other instance, we can gain both indirect and direct evidence, the indirect evidence yielding compelling inferences but no empirically conclusive proof, the direct evidence yielding empirically demonstrable proofs.

In the first instance, we are systematically constrained. In the next instance we are sometimes systematically constrained and sometimes methodologically constrained, the methodological sort creating the gaps of the gods.

In both science and religion we can employ indirect evidence and draw very compelling inferences, but only in science can some of the indirect evidence and the inferences drawn therefrom eventually yield to more direct evidence and empirical proof. While the systematic constraints in both science and religion are insurmountable in principle, the methodological constraints of science are not.

Intelligent Design Theory uses empirical methods to gather indirect evidence and draws some rather compelling inferences therefrom in the realm of evolutionary biology, a) perhaps in much the same way that we study indeterminacy, nonlocality and superluminality in physics and draw inferences about a putative implicate order, b) perhaps much in the same way that some postulate morphic resonance as transmitted by morphogenetic fields in biophysics and biochemistry, c) perhaps much in the same way some draw inferences regarding synchronicity and telepathy in psychology, d)perhaps much in the same way reflexivity, indeterminacy and fallibility are sometimes linked in sociology and offer some explanatory adequacy but no predictability.

I don�t think it is at all improper to claim the indispensability of the explanatory ideas afforded us by such a hermeneutic as includes nonenergetic causation, formative influences, tacit dimensionality and other types of unobtrusive efficacies. I even think we can approach these otherwise anomalous and/or nonnatural phenomena with increasingly more rigorous statistical analyses, enabling us to draw ever more compelling inferences.

We overstate our claims (and do away with faith), however, when we invoke epistemological parity between the inferences we can draw from indirect evidence and the proofs we can empirically demonstrate from direct evidence. This is true for such indirect evidence as results due to systematic constraints or methodological constraints. We must recognize, though, that systematic constraints are insurmountable, especially when we�re dealing with issues involving ontological discontinuity and that they remain problematical, even in the physical realm, when we�re dealing with the deepest structures of matter or the earliest moments after the Big Bang.

Those who believe that they are somehow bolstering the respectability of their philosophy of nature by attempting to subsume it in the empirical sciences betray their own lack of appreciation for philosophy and unwittingly join the materialists in their depreciation of metaphysics.

Those who don�t recognize the pervasiveness of the use of indirect evidence in science, albeit most often deriving from methodological and not systematic constraints, and who don�t acknowledge that they are proceeding, very often, not with empirical proofs but rather with compelling inferences, join the fideistic supernaturalists in their depreciation of a good portion of scientific inquiry.

It is thus a perilous task to trek across these clearly overlapping magisteria oblivious to one�s implicit metaphysical presuppositions and many unwittingly cross the line from science into philosophy even while explicitly disclaiming that they are doing so.

It is not enough to proclaim nonoverlapping magisteria and to leave it at that. It is also not useful to claim overlapping magisteria and to wily-nily crossover between science and philosophy and back again at will. Instead, we must discriminate, in each domain, 1) whether and when we are proceeding analogically, anagogically or mystagogically; 2) whether we are proceeding metaphorically, analogically and katphatically to pursue an increase in descriptive accuracy; 3) whether we are proceeding apophatically or through a process of negation in our pursuit of descriptive accuracy; 4) whether we are using holistic or causal operators in our brains as we evaluate logical and formal versus efficient causes; 5) whether our enterprise is philosophical, metaphysical, mystical, theological or scientific; 6) etc These are all respectable enterprises but we should be mindful regarding which we are about in any given moment of awareness, utilizing many of the distinctions I have set forth above.

When people use cosmological, ontological, teleological, epistemological and moral arguments as if they were logically coercive and empirically demonstrable proofs, they actually depreciate philosophy. On the other hand, when people depreciate the overwhelming indirect evidence in favor of the classical proofs and the increasingly compelling metaphysical inferences that can be drawn from ever more rigorous statistical / probability analyses of many nonnatural phenomena, they actually undercut much of modern science. This would be evident, for instance, regarding the efficacies of many pharmaceuticals and psychoactive agents (so it is not only the studies of subtle energy fields in modern medicine that will get tossed should we ever jettison indirect evidence in favor of a more radical empiricism).

I think that the miraculous and signs and wonders should continue to bolster faith. I think the first miracle is �that� we are but that there is certainly no shortage of signs and wonders deriving from �how� we are, as gathered from evidence, both direct and indirect, whether at the level of inference or of proof, sometimes the former actually more compelling than the latter, sometimes intuition trumping cognition.

So, I'll be posting some more stuff on miracles, through time

pax,
jb

It would be wrong, however, to think that such suspicions and inferences could be extrapolated into logically coercive proofs or empirically demonstrable arguments.

Unless one looks at natures and says "Wow�being (thatness) IS intelligent design whether conscious, unconscious, or whatever."

Let's just say that human beings are creations of total randomness. I can still sit right down right this moment and create a unique poem. But since I'm a part of nature is not nature by definition infused with creation-ness of some type? Particularly since we are alive and know about it, why start with the assumption that "IT" is some lifeless, random, undirected nothingness when the results (us) are hardly that? Now, it certainly gets much stickier to talk much about the character of the designer or designers, and personally I think people extrapolate WAY too much, but that does not then mean we should start from the assumption of no-designer. To me that position is just as fraught with difficulties. I don't think I have much to add but the untestable philosophical aspects of this. Even if one finds empirical ways of testing ID it then is in the realm of science and it then takes on the character of repeatable things and is then just another ho-hum result of an experiment. Frankly, and I don't know how one would go about this, but I'm all for taking another look at science, at least philosophically. Funny that atheists are happy to explain everything with science when science itself is a "thing" so very mysterious, but it is then just taken for granted that the science IS the explanation rather than the evidence.

"Wow�being (thatness) IS intelligent design whether conscious, unconscious, or whatever."

I heard Jack Haught quote someone, I forget whom: "If intelligence is by design then why did it take so long to create so little of it?"

But since I'm a part of nature is not nature by definition infused with creation-ness of some type? Particularly since we are alive and know about it, why start with the assumption that "IT" is some lifeless, random, undirected nothingness when the results (us) are hardly that?

Dear Mystic,

Good koan.

Yours truly,
jb BooDuh

But since I'm a part of nature is not nature by definition infused with creation-ness of some type? Particularly since we are alive and know about it, why start with the assumption that "IT" is some lifeless, random, undirected nothingness when the results (us) are hardly that?

Truthfully, your intuition as articulated above, Brad, captures the essence of Aquinas' proofs. That there must be a First Cause, an Unmoved Mover, you pretty much explicitly address. You also implicitly address that such a cause (following Maritain) must be proportional to that which it caused, which to me suggests that it must not only be Big (such as in Big Bang) but must be wholly other, must not only be existence received but Existence Unrecieved, must be ontologically distinct, ontologically discontinuous, known to us analogically from a correspondence between Creator and the created order.

quote:

We can answer the question of existence; we can affirm, make the true judgment, that God is. But we cannot answer the question of essence cannot understand, grasp in a proper concept, what God is In the order of understanding, however, a negative knowledge IS available. Precisely because we affirm that God is God, we can know that he is not his creation.

see this url

Furthermore, Brad, your caution that we not extrapolate, reveals your implicit and explicit appreciation for the via negativa or apophatic way or knowledge through negation or an increase in descriptive accuracy by stating what God is not or, in the words of the Fourth Lateran Council, "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude." So it seems that your rhetorical questions reveal an affirmation of kataphatic knowledge of God through analogy, looking at our creatureliness and nature and an affirmation of apophatic knowledge, recognizing that our knowledge of "what God is not" is the more sure knowledge. Recognizing this paradox of gnosis and agnosis is no small theological achievement. It took ten centuries of collective Patristic and Scholastic thought for the Church to work it out into systematic form:

quote:

Aquinas does not pretend that his doctrine of the analogy of being does any more than rescue our discourse about God from sheer equivocation. It lets us know that, when we are thinking and talking about God, it is really about God that we are talking and thinking. It does not assure us that what we think and say about God is what God is. With his gnosticism of affirmation, Aquinas joins what Sertillanges has called an agnosticism of definition. To be a bit monotonous on the point, as Aquinas himself was monotonous, we can know that God is but we cannot know what he is. In the end, our presence to him, which is real, is a presence to the unknown: "to him we are united as to one unknown" says Aquinas. John Courtney Murray: Thomas Aquinas on The Three Ways of Knowing God.

Also, seeCan the Existence of God be known by reason? by Jim Arraj

Jim distinguishes between a metaphysical knowledge of God and a knowledge of God that comes through faith at a practical level, also between conceptual (essentialistic understanding) and hyperconceptual.

God, Zen and the Intuition of Being

quote:

It is within the context of the intuition of being that the question of the existence of God must be placed. Without this intuition, the conceptual statements that are framed to prove the existence of God will remain flat and unconvincing. Logic alone does not have the ability to make us see. St. Thomas could never have imagined a metaphysics without God at the center of it, and God was not superimposed on his metaphysics because of religious reasons, but was the very heart of the intelligibility of his metaphysics. We start with the most basic facts of everyday existence and by means of the intuition of being we follow them inwardly and see that they point towards existence itself. Existence as received and contracted, this or that existing being, is not possible without there being existence unreceived. The intuition of being is the opening of our eyes to how every existing thing points to existence itself. St. Thomas gives his five ways leading to the existence of God, and Maritain adds a sixth, and there are others, but they must share the common essential ingredient of an intuition of being which vivifies them. Once the basic insight is in place, it is possible to grasp why St. Thomas gave God the attributes that he did.

and

quote:

In the intuition of being we glimpse the transessential nature of existence, but this is simply a weak reflection of what existence itself must be, of what God, esse subsistens, is like. Maritain again:

"The analogical infinitude of the act of existing is a created participation in the unflawed oneness of the infinity of the Ipsum esse subsistens; an analogical infinitude which is diversified according to the possibilities of existing. In relation to it, those very possibilities of existing, the essences, are knowable or intelligible."

pax,
jb

And so, we have the two ways of knowing God that we have often talked about, the via positiva or kataphatic and the via negativa or apophatic. But there is the third way, the way of transcendence or eminence, for in saying what God is, analogically or metaphorically, and saying what God is not, anagogically and apophatically, does not yet address that intuition that God's very "isness" necessarily must differ from our "isness", that the very thatness of God's existence differs even from our own thatness inasmuch as there is an ontological chasm between such a thatness as is contingent and such a thatness as is uncontingent. We are talking about two very different "thatnesses"!

quote:

The biblical doctrine that God's creation is somehow like its Creator and Lord is transposed into the gnoseological technique of the first of the three ways of knowing God - the way of affirmation. The biblical doctrine that God is wholly unlike his creation is transposed into the second way, the way of negation. The biblical doctrine that God is God, not man, is transposed into the third way, the way of transcendence or eminence. As this third doctrine is decisive, so the third way is determinant. It determined Aquinas to a remorseless pursuit of the exigencies of the second way.

We must, he says, deny to God, remove from God, all similarity to the corporal and spiritual worlds as we know them. God is not what anything in these worlds is. In point of essence, God's unlikeness to the finite world is total. When we have done this work of denial, he goes on, "There remains in our minds only {the affirmation} 'that he is,' and nothing more. Hence the mind is in a certain confusion." Obviously. How can intelligence affirm that God is at the same time that it denies that he is what anything else that it knows is? But even this is not the end: "As the final step, however, we even remove from him this very 'is-ness,' as 'is-ness' is found in creatures. And then the mind dwells in the darkness, as it were, of an ignorance. It is by this ignorance, as long as this life lasts, that we are best united to God, as Dionysius says. This is the darkness in which God dwells." Thus the theologian echoes the prophet: "Truly thou art a God who hidese thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior" (Isaiah 45:15).

Perhaps a word of caution is needed here. For all his final agnosticism in what concerns the definition of God - the understanding of what he is - Aquinas demonstrated what the Fathers had implied, that the confession of our ignorance of God is not to be made effortlessly, at the outset of inquiry. In that case our ignorance would be a sheer absence of knowledge and not itself a mode of knowing. There is nothing more disastrous, as someone has said, than a negative theology that begins too soon. Ignorance of God becomes a true knowledge of him only if it is reached, as Aquinas reached it, at the end of a laborious inquiry that is firmly and flexibly disciplined at every step by the dialectical method of the three ways.

This method not only governs the search for the supreme truth but also guarantees that the search will end in a discovery. There is a knowledge of God, as there is a way to it. There is a valid language about God, as there is a true knowledge of him. "As who I am shall I be there." The way of man to the knowledge of God is to follow all the scattered scintillae that the Logos has strewn throughout history and across the face of the heavens and the earth until they all fuse in the darkness that is the unapproachable Light. Along this way of affirmation and negation all the resources of language, as of thought, must be exploited until they are exhausted. Only then may man confess his ignorance and have recourse to silence. But this ignorance is knowledge, as this silence is itself a language - the language of adoration.

John Courtney Murray: Thomas Aquinas on The Three Ways of Knowing God.

If one begins to grasp at what we are driving at here, then one may wish to revisit this thread in the kundalni forum, which set forth the three ways of Dionysian Mysticism: analogical, anagogical and unitive , partially for the purpose distinguishing between the Holy Spirit (uncreated energy) and kundalini (a created energy).

pax,
jb

Further regarding the religion-science people, I would say that many of them do not make the proper distinctions between a metaphysical knowledge of God and a knowledge of God that comes through faith at a practical level, also between the conceptual (essentialistic understanding) and hyperconceptual.

Specifically, they don't pay attention to the distinctions between the apophatic kataphatic and transcendent, or the metaphorical/analogical, anagogical and unitive/mystagogical. If they do grasp the intuitions that we can know THAT God exists but not WHAT God is, still they seem to fail to distinguish between the THATNESS of God which is WHOLLY DIFFERENT from the thatness of creation. This would characterize some of the Eastern scientists.

But there is another dynamic which characterizes some of the Western Protestant scientists with their dialectical imaginations. They seem to be well aware of the difference between God's THATNESS and our thatness, unlike their Eastern counterparts BUT they fail to recognize that WHAT creation is does at least speak metaphorically and analogically to WHAT God is and they fail to affirm that, even though the dissimiliarites between what God is and what we are superabound, there are any useful similarities between creatures and Creator, denying the clear correspondences or the possibility of Natural Thelogy altogether.

I must say then, that much of the science-religion interface is an unholy QUAGMIRE.

I think, in a nutshell, the only way to drain this swamp is to set up a Thomistic metaphysic in sharp relief to the Easter monisims and the Western Protestantisms. This might be done with reference to the Three Ways. If the 1st way is through analogy, the 2nd through negation and the third through transcendence, then the metaphysics underlying the science religion dialogue might be described using these categories.

One can affirm analogy and negation and transcendence, the third way distiguished from the second by virtue of the distinction between God's "isness" or "is-not-ness" and our "isness" and "is-not-ness", since it does not suffice to simply affirm "what God is not" without clearly acknowledging that His "isness" and "is-not-ness" is of a wholly different order. I suppose this is part of Thomism?

One can deny analogy (except for Revelation) and affirm both negation and transcendence, like Protestantism, but then flirt with a very real fideism.

One can affirm both analogy and negation but deny transcendence, like some Eastern religions, but then flirt with a radical deconstructionism tending toward nihilism, thus sacrificing coherence.

One can deny that these processes of analogy, negation and transcendence are meaningful exercises, that any intuition of being is possible, but this usually results from such a major category error as confuses metaphysical nothingness with quantum vacuum fluctuations, as denies the possibility of metaphysics and proceeds with an unjustified trust in human reason and a paradoxical trust in uncertain reality, claiming we can model the rules of reality but denying any explanations for reality or its rules. This is a metaphysical monism that paradoxically asserts that we must detach and separate ourselves from reality during any valid act of knowing. As Jack Haught points out, such an epistemological dualism seems logically inconsistent with a metaphysical monism.

Thus, in the science-religion cohort, we have 1) true Thomists; 2) fideists; 3) pantheists flirting with nihilism; 4) materialists who, unwittingly, like fideists, have made unwarranted ontological presuppositions. Both the fideists and the materialists do grave damage to philosophy with their a priori ontologies. The pantheists assault philosophy, too, but less head on, it seems to me.

The Thomist approach, to me, seems to proceed systematically, hence its ontology, to me, seems hypothetical. Although Thomism is hyperconceptual, super-reasonable and metarational, and although its metaphysical insights are of a different order from the practical knowledge of faith and from the empirical knowledge of science --- it abounds in logical consistency, internal coherence, external congruence, hypothetical and cognitive/affective consonance and interdisciplinary consilience. No wonder it was called THE SUMMA.

And that is my latest installment on the metaphysical typology of the science-religion dialogue. Bottomline is that the ID Theorists, to me, fall into the category of fideists. The upside is that, more sufficiently nuanced, they could nestle themselves comfortably in a Thomistic metaphysic (along with Arraj's treatment of Bohm, Sheldrake and Jung). However, it appears to me that even some Catholics (Behe) are not availing themselves of this privilege.

I have found the following most interesting, from url =
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/murray.html

Unlike the biblical problematic, which came down from heaven in a theophany, the Thomist statement rises up out of the earthly soil of experience. Moreover, the mode of argument wherewith each of the four questions is met and answered is formally philosophical. Behind both the position and the resolution of the problem of God stands Aquinas' resolute and altogether serene assurance that it is within the native powers of the human intelligence, if it be trained in the discipline of philosophy, to make and to demonstrate the highest of metaphysical affirmations - to posit and to prove the judgment that God is; that it is further possible for reason to go on to articulate a complex conception of what God is not - a conception that, despite its negative form, is of positive cognitive value.

From all this, the contemporarv mind, particularly within the company of professional philosophers, somehow instinctively draws back. Its inclination, on reading the lengthy argument of this section of the Summa, would be neither to agree nor to disagree with it. More likely, the contemporary mind would feel that in the intellectual climate that sustains such an argument it can only gasp for breath. The fixed philosophical attitude today is to say that a natural theology is impossible, that it is impossible for human reason, beginning only with the data of experience, to construct a valid doctrine of God, to effect a purely rational resolution of the quadriform problematic. This philosophical disposition is furthermore the common Protestant theological disposition [and the Jewish?]. A philosophy of religion is indeed possible but not a philosophy of God. Between the order of rational affirmation and conception, which is the order of philosophy, and the order in which the notion of God is conceived and his existence affirmed, which is the order of religious faith, an impassable gulf is fixed.

This contemporary conviction has most serious consequences. If this great gulf exists between faith and reason, it follows that the philosopher, who must stand by reason, should also stand for atheism. If the universe of reason and the universe of faith do not at any point intersect, it is unreasonable to accept any of the affirmations of faith, even the first, that God is. The atheist denial is the reasonable position.

This is the position against which Aquinas firmly stands in the opening questions of the Summa, both in the name of his faith and also in the name of his reason. There may be argument about the precise intention of the famous Article 3 in Question 2, where Aquinas outlines the five ways of answering affirmatively the question whether God is. There may also be argument about the import of the cryptic phrase in which Aquinas states the conclusion reached by the different ways: "and this is what all men understand by 'God'"; "to this all men give the name 'God.'" In any event, it is obviously within the intention of the five ways - and of the whole Summa, for that matter - to demonstrate that reason is not atheist, that atheism is not the reasonable conclusion from the data of common human experience, that the twin universes of faith and philosophy, distinct as universes of knowledge, are not utterly divorced, that their cardinal point of delicate intersection is in the crucial instant when reason affirms, what faith likewise affirms, that God is. The issue here, which is formally philosophical, is of vital religious import. It concerns the statute of reason in religion. If reason has no valid statute in religion, it follows that religion has no reasonable status in human life. Therefore it is unreasonable for a man to be religious. The reasonable man is the atheist. [end of selection]

Surely Aquinas' formulation establishes a bridge between Western and Eastern concepts of divinity, the former "personal", the latter "impersonal" i.e. brahman, karma or tao, because even in the "personal" case, we cannot understand God's nature.

pax,
jb

Let me tempt you to read a Love Story: Mysticism, Metaphysics and Maritain

quote:

Jacques Maritain and Raissa Oumansoff had met as students at the Sorbonne and had soon become inseparable. Raissa, sensitive and introspective, had looked forward with anticipation to her days at the university. There among the finest minds of France she hoped to find the answers to the meaning of life she was searching for. Filled with these unspoken questions, she attended the classes in natural science waiting for the day when these kinds of truths would be presented. But the sciences of the Sorbonne either stayed within the boundaries of their particular disciplines, or when they went further afield they embraced a variety of materialistic philosophical theories that left no room for questions about the ultimate meaning of life. Raissa wrote of these days, "we swam aimlessly in the waters of observation and experience like fish in the depths of the sea without seeing the sun whose dim rays filtered down to us." (7)

Raissa and Jacques did not fare any better in the faculty of philosophy. It was a philosophy that was taught but not lived. It hid itself in its own history while its practitioners "despaired of truth whose very name was unlovely to them and could be used only between the quotation marks of a disillusioned smile." (8)

This was a world dominated by the natural sciences which still retained much of the arrogance of the power they had achieved in the 19th century and produced an atmosphere which was corrosive to any way of knowing which was not their own. Philosophy had let itself be made over in the image and likeness of this science and parroted its methods and limitations. Yet Raissa and Jacques had unwittingly discovered the starting point of all genuine philosophical activity, which is an inner personal search for the meaning of life. Any philosophy divorced from pain and wonder and this burning thirst for understanding soon degenerates into the academic transmission of answers to listeners who have never experienced the questions.

God, Zen and the Intuition of Being

I lost my notes but I think it was Samuel Brainard who wrote: The important convergence for Hindu, Buddhist and Christian paradigms is that ultimacy lies beyond. Where dual and nondual paradigms diverge is in where they locate foundational mystery . Let me state that these are all honorable paths, compelling different folks differently. I only state what I happen to find most compelling, respecting that others find other positions more compelling for many reasons, essential and existential.

Well, my previous musings oughta make for an excellent Lenten Sacrifice

Let me summarize. We have considered:

Esse - that things are, their isness and transessential character, their being, their existence received, existentia --- revealing what can be known about God anagogically through negation, what He is not (for God is not a "received existence"), God residing in mone (remaining, rest), our relating in apophasis through deconstruction. Mystery is located here for the Buddhist, affirming analogy (in part) and negation (in total) but denying transcendence. This is the home of those who claim all is delusion and that the cessation of suffering comes from dropping same. Here we think of Merton's characterization of a natural mysticism, which is immanentist, impersonal, existential and apophatic. Could this correspond to Maritain's mysticism of the self?

Essence - what things are, the place where esse stops, bordered by nothingness --- the intrinsic limitation of esse, the crystallization of existence, bordered by nothingness --- revealing what can be known of God analogically through metaphor, what He is like, overflowing into differentiation in his effects through proodos (proceeding, emanation), our relating in kataphasis through construction . Mystery is located here for the [fundamentalist, not liberal?] Protestant vis a vis any natural theology, denying analogy (except for Revelation) and affirming both negation and transcendence.. This is the location of the gap for the goddes for those who would draw empirical metaphysical conclusions from indirect evidence. Here we see a basic denial of the possibility of mysticism. Could this correspond to an impoverished philosophical contemplation per Maritain that is informed by speculative and moral philosophies that are mostly essentialistic and much less so existentialistic? That is to say that faith isn't a matter of mere philosophical speculation or academic moral theologizing, but involves people in their concrete circumstances, in the events and people in their lives. This is perhaps more clear when wrestling with practical philosophical issues rather than speculative but it is also very true in matters of dogmatic theology, not just moral theology. It's a matter not just of logos but of mythos, not just what is true but what meaning does it have for my life in this world as we know it.

Esse Subsistens - existence unreceived, absolute being, unlimited esse --- revealing what can be known about God mystagogically through knowledge of transcendence, recogizing that His esse is radically different from our "esse and essence", God regaining identity by epistrophe (reverting, return) , our relating on the liminal threshold through reconstruction . Mystery is located here for the Thomist, affirming analogy and negation and transcendence.. This is the philosophical home of those who draw compelling inferences of profound existential import from superabundant indirect evidence. Here we think of Merton's characterization of a supernatural mysticism, which is transcendent, personal, theological and kataphatic. Could this correspond to the foundation for Maritain's mystical contemplation?

Then, of course, we have the philosophical homeless ... need I reiterate ... who
Dip their cup of soup back from the gurglin'
Cracklin' cauldron in some train yard
Their beard a roughening coal pile and
A dirty hat pulled low across their face
Through cupped hands 'round a tin can
They pretend to hold you to their breast but find
That you're waving from the backroads
By the rivers of their mem'ry
Ever smilin' ever gentle on their mind

Where might we locate then, per Arraj on Maritain:
philosophical contemplation - metaphysical thought and intuition of being; mystical contemplation - supernatural or infused contemplation; and mysticism of the self or natural mysticsm?

quote:

The foundation for examining this interplay among the three contemplations can be found in Maritain's fundamental distinction between the essential and the existential , a distinction that is already implicit in his "to distinguish in order to unite." In the Degrees he is constantly delineating the essential characteristics of the various sciences in terms of their various epistemological types in order to map the terrain of the one mind and to trace the dynamic interrelationships that grow up between the various sciences.

quote:

The light of faith aids the light of reason to see its own objects more clearly. And if metaphysics can in this sense be called Christian, the situation of moral philosophy is even more acute. Moral philosophy has the task Of elucidating the goal towards which we should strive. But this end is not a purely natural one; the good that we seek is the supernatural goal of union with God. This leads Maritain to what he calls moral philosophy adequately considered. "Man is not in a state of pure nature, he is fallen and redeemed. Consequently, ethics... in so far as it takes man in his concrete state, in his existential being, is not a purely philosophic discipline." (4) If in speculative philosophy the object was natural and the light of faith aided us to attain it more fully, here in the realm of practical philosophy, the object itself is beyond the range of unaided human reason, and so reason must depend on faith for its knowledge of it.

quote:

If metaphysics of itself does not have to took to mystical experience for its completion, the individual metaphysician does, and inversely, the life of faith of this philosopher can nourish the metaphysical enterprise. How could someone who tried to draw close to God in faith and by beginning to enter the ways that lead to supernatural contemplation fail to be influenced by this supernatural union when they turned to metaphysical contemplation? In such a situation the metaphysician would be led - if he or she were not paralyzed by a false fear of faith conflicting with reason - to see the object of this metaphysical contemplation more clearly and be strengthened in the pursuit of it.

quote:

In a similar fashion, the reason why philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God like those of St. Thomas leave so many people cold and unconvinced is not to be found principally in any weakness of his metaphysical reasoning, but rather in more existential considerations. These ways pointing to the existence of God, no matter how correctly stated, derive their intellectual force from the intuition of being, which in turn is effected by our fallen-redeemed state. And this state which is a supernatural one makes us long for a union with God that comes through grace so that our metaphysics, while being essentially complete, can be existentially unsatisfying. Human nature as human nature has no efficacious desire for divine union. Human nature in the concrete, transformed by grace, does.

The above quotes are from Arraj in:Mysticism, Metaphysics and Maritain: THE ESSENTIAL AND THE EXISTENTIAL

I suppose one aspect of the essential and the existential is the nature of pre-experience vs post-experience reflection. In a world that is fallen from grace, in our fallen redeemed state, we positively need to supplement our essentialistic, deductive perspective with the existentialistic, inductive perspective. Maybe before the fall and after the eschaton they'll converge effortlessly? 'Til then we must be respectful of our journey, of developmental dynamics in faith, morals, etc

pax,
jb

Dear Shalomplace - I'm just monologically using this as an electronic blackboard for my studies and formulations and reformulations. Don't feel obligated to engage this stuff which I find positively exhilirating

merci
pax
jb

I just want to say first off that I'm way over my head with this stuff so anything I say that is extremely stupid can't and won't be held against me. (That reminds me of my favorite Frank and Ernest cartoon. There's a lady wearing a very tall, fruity hat reading to someone "You have the right to dance with your hands on your sides while wiggling your hips. You have the right to sing exotic South American music." The caption of the cartoon said: Being read your Carmen Miranda Rights.) Now, where was I?

Therefore, in the same way that we may draw very compelling inferences from the indirect evidence that comports with the classical cosmological and ontological arguments, our sneaking suspicions regarding teleological arguments might be raised and very compelling inferences might be drawn from such as ID theory and from such as both weak and strong anthropic principles.

I suppose that's why you said you were gong to bring up miracles. That would be "evidence." Another thing I find interesting are things like the Cambrian Explosion and other times of vast diversification and proliferation of life. I don't remember if this happened at the end of a major extinction episode, but how amazing and suggestive it is that life is so damn tough to kill on this planet and how marvelously it rebounds. Now�I've got a little more reading to do.

Admittedly, this stuff is rather plodding. Some time ago I published some links to real audio and real video presentations on the interface between science and religion. Here is a grand set of such presentations on Intelligent Design, each of much longer duration.

Evolution and Providence (Berkeley 2000)

Of course, I most highly recommend:
Jack Haught - Presentation (large)

Be sure to check out the entire Counterbalance Meta Library

pax,
jb

..formal causality that is at work in physics, in biochemistry, in biology, in psychology or in sociology

I don't know for sure why pendulums swing, mouths foam, knees jerk or fundams are often mentalists but I suspect it could be explained through formal causality. We are drawn to balances even if we do not understand why, even if those balances are over-reactions and threaten to upset the very balance they aim to achieve. And particularly because so many people are inexorably drawn to seemingly irrational positions it seems likely that this stuff happens on an unconscious level. When one is a bit more aware one can see value in both sides of an issue and know that the opposites, if in balance, do provide a sort of balance. But higher awareness also reveals the atrocious harm in these positions as well.

Those who believe that they are somehow bolstering the respectability of their philosophy of nature by attempting to subsume it in the empirical sciences betray their own lack of appreciation for philosophy and unwittingly join the materialists in their depreciation of metaphysics.

That sounds like a Hippocratic Oath or something for this whole endeavor.

From the Zen link: Existence as received and contracted, this or that existing being, is not possible without there being existence unreceived.

There's a lot of this stuff that, at least for me, that appears (and I stress appears) to fall in the domain of "trying to prove religion no matter what," and other stuff, like the above quote, which seems to make logical sense. I realize a lot more of this stuff might make logical sense to me if it simply made any kind of sense to me.

There's a lot of talk of what God is and what God is not, but I think, understandably, there is not a lot of talk about "that God is, that God is not".

Raissa wrote of these days, "we swam aimlessly in the waters of observation and experience like fish in the depths of the sea without seeing the sun whose dim rays filtered down to us."

I like that. And this:

This was a world dominated by the natural sciences which still retained much of the arrogance of the power they had achieved in the 19th century and produced an atmosphere which was corrosive to any way of knowing which was not their own.

I SEE this but I do not then quite know what to put outside of this, if you know what I mean.

Any philosophy divorced from pain and wonder and this burning thirst for understanding soon degenerates into the academic transmission of answers to listeners who have never experienced the questions.

Yeah, that deserved to be put in bold. Truly, science is driven by the wonder of discovery, by the wonder of existence and by other practical concerns (making a living). The result of science is that we get all this technology that supposedly (and often does) make our lives easier. But the object of all this science is our lives and the temptation is almost overwhelming to see these lives in the context of science rather than science in the context of our lives.

This is the home of those who claim all is delusion and that the cessation of suffering comes from dropping same.

Esse: Another analogy for Buddhism is that they are content to live in God's (or whomever's) creation without trying to ask the bigger questions, which are somewhat unknowable, and because they are somewhat unknowable and because to ask the questions loses the focus of living in God's (or whomever's) creation it's best not to do so. Got to give them points for being practical. And I suppose, philosophically, if God wanted us to know more about Him then he could have made it easier to do so and thus why not take life to mean that living is a sort of worship rather than one must worship in order to live? Maybe God is a Marxist: from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need. Thus some, like you, ponder the Big Questions while others just live the Big Questions.

In conclusion: my brain hurts.

re: When one is a bit more aware one can see value in both sides of an issue and know that the opposites, if in balance, do provide a sort of balance. But higher awareness also reveals the atrocious harm in these positions as well.

There is much value, I'd suppose, in the coincidence of opposities. Perhaps one way of looking at it is that many false dichotomies can be resolved by recognizing the value in looking at things triadically and not merely dyadically?

quote:

From the Zen link: Existence as received and contracted, this or that existing being, is not possible without there being existence unreceived.

There's a lot of this stuff that, at least for me, that appears (and I stress appears) to fall in the domain of "trying to prove religion no matter what," and other stuff, like the above quote, which seems to make logical sense . I realize a lot more of this stuff might make logical sense to me if it simply made any kind of sense to me.

There's a lot of talk of what God is and what God is not, but I think, understandably, there is not a lot of talk about "that God is, that God is not".

AND

Got to give them points for being practical. And I suppose, philosophically

Let me seize upon a) trying to prove religion and b) seems logical; also, c) the practical and d) the philosophical. These are BIG insights.

As we read different viewpoints in the science and religion dialogue, we will encounter both a natural theology and a theology of nature . Few folks explicitly point out which project they may be about, at any given point in their dialogue. I know I don't. I come into this forum doing both. Natural theology projects are philosophical and metaphysical endeavors leading up to the threshold of faith, setting forth the preambles, if you will. A theology of nature is a philosophical, metaphysical and theological project that reflects on nature from a particular credal perspective and is thus pretty much a confessional exercise. Natural theology, to me, seems to proceed deductively and hypothetically, not setting forth apodictic truth but clearly relating faith and reason, mostly philosophically. A theology of nature is going to sound a lot more ideological (because it is). Maybe, Brad, this is what you were picking up on re: a) trying to prove religion and b) seems logical?

Now, re: c) the practical and d) the philosophical. Again, great insight. It might relate to what Maritain addresses at length (per Arraj's writings) in his consideration of the essential and the existential, the essentialist perspective pretty much being dry philosophy and deductive reasoning which, in matters of metaphysics, don't coerce belief and don't move from the realm of inference to the realm of proof, in principle. Questions of primal being are occulted. You, of course, know this in spades, as did Aquinas, but based on your life's experience your outlook might more resemble the Catholic, Tony deMello, much less so, Thomas Keating, Tony very comfortable dwelling in the apophatic or via negativa, Thomas nurturing a rhythm between apophasis and kataphasis.

The philosophical aspect of the life of faith takes us only so far. The practical life of faith, the concrete human experience, plays an immensely important role. I think one role it plays is that, in matters of intuition, especially matters of great existential import, this practical and existentialistic perspective is going to influence which metaphysical inferences we find most compelling (extremely compelling). If the essentialistic and philosophical perspective sets forth reasonable choices and frames up reasonable perspectives, then the existentialistic perspective is going to guide us in making such choices and in leading us to want to dwell in this or that perspective.

True dialogue involves not just an exchange of philosophical ideas that can make one's brain hurt, but also a depthful exchange of profound life experiences and a sincere respect for the reasonableness of another's choices, philosophically, and a deep reverence for the sacred and holy life events, practically, that compel those choices. The heart has it reasons.

Thanks, my friend, for the depthful engagement, notwithstanding the thickness of the philosophy. Your own practicalness, on an ongoing basis, is what my tradition would call a true sacrament, stirring within us the reality of what your words bring to mind. Quite compelling, actually.

namaste, pax, amor et bonum,
jb

point of info

the essentialistic and deductive and pre-experiential reflection as well as the existentialistic and inductive and post-experiential reflection might all be brought to bear on both speculative/theoretical and practical reasoning

the concrete human experience must be kept in contact with the abstract and vice versa whether one is engaging in pure reason or practical reason, answering the questions "what can i know?" as well as "what must i do?"

in approaching and answering these questions re: the noetical and the ethical, what ends up hanging in the balance, it seems, is how these approaches and answers will impact our posture toward "what can i hope for?", the aesthetical question

this is to say that our theoretical/speculative and experiential/practical exercises, both essentially and existentially, are going to ultimately influence our posture toward existence as one of cosmic optimism or cosmic pessimism, which further reveals our position vis a vis the question: "is the universe friendly?"

curiously, it is not always one's life circumstances or external milieu, iow their concrete life experiences, which seem to shape this fundamental orientation of optimism or pessimism, for haven't we all met both eternal optimists in the worst of circumstances and infernal pessimists in the best? whether concentration camps or broken marriages or what have you?

i say "seem" (like Brad emphasizes "appears") because i place much stock in the theory that very early, even pre- and peri-natally, developmental influences, both formative and deformative, can shape a person's emotional battlefield for life (to use a current metaphor)-but, even then, i see some folks who seem to transcend even these deformative experiences, which suggests, to me, some powerful and graced transformative influences on life human, yes, miraculously so

pax,
jb

Friends, I'm going to take some time away. I need a little break. Stay sweet!

PAX!
jb

i'm under the weather

many false dichotomies can be resolved by recognizing the value in looking at things triadically and not merely dyadically?

That's probably what the Libertarian party is hoping for. But, seriously, that's a good point that there is something that is opposite to opposites.

natural theology and a theology of nature

Thanks for the distinction. I just don't quite know the lingo yet. Your help is much appreciated, JB.

this practical and existentialistic perspective is going to influence which metaphysical inferences we find most compelling

Yes. I see what you mean. Good explanation.

namaste, pax, amor et bonum

The same to you (unless that was an insult). And I particularly admire your patience, knowledge and kind words.

Homework Assignment
The Thomistic Cosmological Argument

Dear Shalomplace - I'm just monologically using this as an electronic blackboard for my studies and formulations and reformulations. Don't feel obligated to engage this stuff which I find positively exhilirating

Nice going! I'm happy to have those reflections posted here, and for Brad's "man on the street" responses to them.

Actually, I've always thought that Brad's point about the fact that we're here implying some extraordianry creative potential in the universe to be a very strong argument for a purposeful universe. It's one of those intuitive insights which leaves me saying "duh." I also appreciate the philosophical nuancing that must needs accompany such an insight.

Homework Assignment

Get well soon and I'll just post a few things here as if I'm talking to myself.

But there is no change in an unchanging being. Hence, a necessary being is uncaused.

This (and other reasoning) would seem to suggest that God is a necessary being. An uncaused being is infinite, but it is also unchanging. I'm not sure how one could then account for God's interaction form time to time with His creation.

whatever is in potential with regard to its own existence cannot actualize the existence of another

That seems to be the crux of it all. Unless we take a closer look at what actual and potential really mean then this seems to make sense. I'm just not sure how a Necessary Being can bring forth possible existence if that being is a necessary one.

Brain pain factor: 7 out of 10.

Brad's "man on the street" responses

Yes, I am the embedded reporter who will reveal truth by sometimes making inane comments such as "It's been five days now and still Creation is not complete. It's been reported that despite this God will be taking the seventh day to rest. Creation seems to be behind schedule and it's unclear at this point if it will ever be completed. Back to you, Dan."

Of course, it's interesting to note that existence doesn't need to be proved in order for it to be. It's not like we can go, particularly when considering the Aquinautic line of reasoning, "Aha!!! Gotcha!" and then things just suddenly disappear. And I've always been partial to the eastern notion of seeing the divinity in other people. Here we are, God's creations, thinking about our own creation, and almost, in a sense, trying to find our way home again, trying to regain our identities since as surely as we're made from stardust we are made from God dust and are both part and apart at the same time (let's just hope he used his best dust and not the stuff in the dryer vent or, shudder, navel lint).

quote:

But there is no change in an unchanging being. Hence, a necessary being is uncaused.

This (and other reasoning) would seem to suggest that God is a necessary being. An uncaused being is infinite, but it is also unchanging. I'm not sure how one could then account for God's interaction form time to time with His creation.

whatever is in potential with regard to its own existence cannot actualize the existence of another

That seems to be the crux of it all. Unless we take a closer look at what actual and potential really mean then this seems to make sense. I'm just not sure how a Necessary Being can bring forth possible existence if that being is a necessary one.

re: possible being, one does think of the Hindu ontology with its cycle of becoming and perishing, of the Buddhist view that all things are seen as being transient, constantly becoming, existing for a while and then fading

but even if we accept the thesis of possible being and also accept the thesis of necessary being, we haven't explicitly set forth how they are connected or, as Brad insightfully queried, we're not sure how a Necessary Being can bring forth possible existence if that being is a necessary one.

Of course, implicitly, once accepting the logic that these two types of being exist and knowing that one of them could not cause itself, we might properly conclude that the pure actuality which inheres in necessary being is the only thing in existence that could actualize the potentiality of possible being. Like the philosophers of old, to us, at least at first glance, this is not entirely satisfying. How or why could Being that is already absolute, timeless, unlimited, etc give rise to a limited, finite and temporal form of contingent being BECAUSE, for one thing, there AIN'T NOTHING MISSING and there ISN'T ANY ROOM. It is sort of like Hotel Necessary Being should have a big neon sign hanging out front, flashing NO VACANCY!

Are we following each other, so far?

Furthermore, if being is one kind, existing in absolute unity, whenceforth comes all the diversity, the proliferation of forms?

This no vacancy motif takes us to the very threshold of the Abrahamic traditions and is expressed in both the Old and New Testaments.

The Jewish Theory was, when grappling with the exact same issues Brad called forth for our consideration, that God had to shrink, had to make room in order for creation to issue forth in all of its resplendent glory. The Christian storyline is the same. We pretty much accept and nuance this Jewish Kabbalistic notion that God had to shrink Himself to make room for creation and that this very act of diminishing is how He expresses love .

Fast forward, now, to the New Testament infancy narrative and the no vacancy sign on the Inn in Bethelem. We thought we might turn the tables on the Infinite But, as we look at the beautiful hymn in Phillipians:

quote:

Philippians 2

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature [1] God ,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing ,
taking the very nature[2] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

we see the same motif playing out. God's modus operandis is self-diminution and this self-diminishing is the expression of Divine love.

How we are to imitate that, growing in image and likeness, is an altogether different project and involves an answer, or, more properly, deserves a musing regarding the very nature of Providence involving how one could then account for God's interaction from time to time with His creation.. This answer is embedded in the Old and New Testament stories themselves but requires a LOT of metaphysical speculation. There is a positive way of stating the question, which is how Brad framed it, which is how does Divine Providence act on creation. More commonly though, the question is framed negatively as the theodicy problem, asking how an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, which is to say all knowing, all powerful and all loving could allow such an immense amount of suffering in creation. This certainly runs headlong into what we have been discussing regarding Intelligent Design Theory or the design inference (who'd design THIS mess?) .

The most intellectually, if not existentially, satisfying answers to these questions, for me, have come from Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin and people who explicate their thought such as Jack Haught. In a nutshell, the thesis is that free will necessitated chaos, indeterminacy, chance, etc After all, what is free will if it isn't a lack of predeterminedness? From this freedom we fulfill our highest destiny as we, too, through self-diminishment, love and give of ourselves. We also, along with creation, run the risks of disintegration, of evil, both moral and natural, as the price we pay for free will in the currency of the chaos that inheres in the way things must be in this most perfect of all possible creations.

So, one dominant motif in God's interaction with creation is self-emptying or kenosis. This addresses the first issue: How God interacts and why and also the theodicy issue.

But what about His interactions from time to time? . For one thing, looking at the chart where T1 potentiality to actuality, T2 potentiality to actuality, T3 potentiality to actuality: It can not be that creatio ex nihilo took place once and for all near T = 0 at the Big Bang, a physical singularity where creation was made with time but not in time . At T = 1, T = 2, T = 3 and so forth, possible being cannot actualize itself but must be continually supported in existence, creatio continua. So Necessary Being is not just our primal ground and primal origin, it is also our primal support . Furthermore, if we pay careful attention to Whitehead and Teilhard, Necessary being provides for our final destiny , that being the whole goal and aim of our process theology (and cosmic evolution). So, an additional theme we might gather from both our metaphysics and our biblical exegesis is futurity or promise . Our Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, are a running commentary on promise or covenant .

If there is anything one can gather from the Christian metanarrative and metaphysics, it must include Providence, Kenosis and Promise,
Providence, minimally in necessary being actualizing the potentiality of possible being both in creation ex nihilo (from nothing) and creatio continua; Kenosis in the self-emptying or diminishment of Necessary Being and also in the Incarnation; Promise is the inherent telos revealed by our metaphysics and expressed in the Old Testament longings for a messiah, the New Testament arrival of the Messiah and the gift of the Holy Spirit, enabling this actualized possible being to enter into a relationship of love with Necessary Being on a return trip back to the Creator, diminishing in any way, shape or form those aspects of oursleves that are false, increasingly corresponding to Necessary Being's image and likeness but not ever becoming necessary ourselves.

And so we have, confessionally, creedally, metaphysically, mixing up our natural theology and our theology of nature freely , the Father (Providence), Son (Kenosis) and Holy Spirit (Promise - first fruits, earnest, down payment). And every other trinitarian analogy and Dionysian triad I've ever uttered is embedded in all of this in quite the fugal movement, all yin-yangish, dyadic realities resolved, 3 in 1 Hegel stole this stuff, you know. Then Marx came along and perverted it. I, alone, escaped to tell ... ...

BTW, thanks, I'm feeling better.

Respectfully,
johnboy

Man, there's at least twelve good sermons in that explanation, JB. Well said. Very well said. And all of that makes credible enough sense, particularly free will, except for the concept of pain. I suppose we must assume that the act of diminishing something so perfect was traumatic in some way and thus woven into the very fabric of the universe is both pleasure and pain. It can't be helped. And yet I can imagine a universe where there was some type of cap, at least on pain, that still allowed free will. There is, after all, a cap on the speed of light.

Really � thanks for the extraordinary explanation. You covered a lot of ground in a few paragraphs. I hope you are still feeling less diminished.

I really recommend this hour lecture by Jack Haught: Jack Haught

It offers the best explanation for pain available in Catholic metaphysics. Of course, I must say that Catholics believe that, while we can find manifold and multiform efficacies in suffering, any truly good theodicy (theology of suffering) must retain the element of mystery. Richard Rohr offers the best in Catholic theolgy, re: suffering to me . Most process theologians see God's omnipotence as impaired by His willful shrinkage (to put it rather crudely). They view God, therefore, as suffering in and with creation. OUCH! It is kinda neat, to me, how this independent metaphysic matches the Jesus metanarrative. No one shoehorned the two together. He may truly have been a glimpse of the Father! including the suffering and passion.

Thanks,again, Brad, for your kind words. I am practicing writing coherently and trying to make a better use of analogies when in dialogue in forums where others are unfamiliar with my esoterica.

I am hogging the conversation however. I will leave it to Phil to explain why so many forms in creation? why the proliferation of diversity? How does that follow from anything we fleshed out above?


pax,
jb

I really recommend this hour lecture by Jack Haught

I would summarize that most interesting lecture by saying that God is a landlord of some quite unfinished tenements. They can be cold, uncomfortable, and the city planner's bulldozers are apt to come flatten them at any moment to make room for something better and we may or may not be in them at the time. There's a promise of luxury penthouse apartments with 360 degree views of a vast and beautiful horizon, but what we often have at any given moment is leaky pipes, malfunctioning radiators and toilets that don't flush. We plead with the landlord to make needed improvements but are told that we wouldn't appreciate good living unless we first lived in slums so we better get used to them. Besides, nothing is as bracing and invigorating as a cold shower. It builds character. Who needs hot water? Besides, just look at these beautiful architectural drawings of these penthouse apartments. Ain't they grand? Here, take a few of them and tack them up on your walls. They'll help cover the peeling wallpaper. But promises don't help the child in Apt. 102 who is sick with pneumonia. But promise and hope do somehow make sense because we've glimpsed the Trump Towers across the river. If better is possible then better is inevitable, we think to ourselves as we right that month's check to the landlord.