http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2010/09/modality-and-third-way-iii.html

I should say that to a great extent the posts are exploratory. I’m much more confident of the negative claims than some of the positive claims, and I have no clue as the best way to characterize the argument in modern terms, and so am slowly going through various ideas on that point.

I don’t think I can be more clear than I have been. I can only restate what has already been said in different ways. If you have read Ibn ‘Arabi and Nicholas of Cusa and not taken anything from them then I would say the chance of you finding anything illuminating in what I have written is zero.

Logic does conform to reality. Like everything else, it can only be what it is. I have not suggested that there is any problem with logic or reason in themselves and I have not meant to imply that you don’t know exactly what they are; from your arguments, however, you don’t seem to know what they are not.

To finish, then: I would not say that “in an absolute sense”, all opinions are one and all are distinct, just as I would not say all material objects are one and all are distinct. If you give my comment a little more consideration, you will see that this is the crux of it: the key point yet again. It’s reappearance surely demonstrates that it is, indeed, the key. I can only suggest you reflect further upon it and perhaps you will get it.

Opinions are located squarely within the mental category of ‘existents’; this is as plain as day. If you look back, you will see I was referring specifically and only to spiritual existents. The nature of a spiritual existent is not that of a mental existent which in turn is not that of a material existent. In reverse, however, a material existent is a mental existent is a spiritual existent (though this perspective is only intelligible from the point of view of one who knows the truth, i.e., gnosis; in the absence of knowledge, it is either an empty assertion or incomprehensible). I offer this at the risk of confusing matters further but it is worth stating. Investigate the nature of spiritual existents and you will find opinions have no weight or significance, except in so far as they are derived directly from truth, in which case they are not opinion but knowledge, since they belong to an order that transcends the personal.

Shall we end here? I wish you well in your endeavour.

Kind regards,

Aidan

You state that “[my] insistence that reality conform to logic is … absurd.” I don’t, however, insist that reality conform to logic. I do insist that reality is rational and not non-rational, intelligible and not unintelligible, and that therefore logic conforms to reality. To go back to my x’s, y’s, and z’s, it is because it is the case that, for any existent x, any existent y, and any existent z, if x is identical with y and y is identical with z, then x is identical with z, that the person who thinks accordingly thinks rightly.

Thank you for picking up the cutting-and-pasting error; I did “mean x, y and z” and I have corrected my comment accordingly.

That being said, I have to say that, even after having seen its like in Heraclitus, in Ibn ‘Arabi, in Nicholas of Cusa, and in Nasr, I remained stunned that anyone can so reject the rational as to think that “in an absolute sense, which is the highest sense available to us, it’s false” that, for any existent x, any existent y, and any existent z, if x is identical with y and y is identical with z, then x is identical with z.” Or as to think, as you do, that “All points are one and all are distinct.”

Would you say that, “in an absolute sense,” all opinions are one and all are distinct?

I don’t mean to suggest that you are not welcome to continue to follow your current line of thinking until your heart is content. It is probably not at all a waste of time from your point of view and you may be gaining a great deal from it personally. I am only telling you it is a waste of time from a philosophical point of view because it fails to engage with the substance of certain truths about God, reality and ourselves that have been enunciated (you would say ‘asserted’) by those in the know. You need to get to where they are and see it from their point of view in order to argue with them – unfortunately, if you do, you will be unable to argue about the essentials because their correctness will be self-evident, such is the quality of truth.

You say I assert but do not prove. You are correct on both counts. The real question is: what is the basis of my assertion? Plainly, it is not rational or logical proof but spiritual truth: that which is genuinely and essentially so. There is no violation of rationality or logic in this but there is no reliance upon them either. People are suspicious of all knowledge-claims these days (not always realising that this amounts to a clear admission of their own ignorance) but, for those who want to know, there are reliable spiritual authorities who have produced more or less complete teachings which can be followed and there is truth itself, upon which all such teachings absolutely depend. We must rely upon truth itself and upon that aspect of ourselves which is essential in us; it is this aspect alone which is capable of knowing (as opposed to merely thinking). When our mind operates without reference to truth, it consigns itself to operating blindly and unintelligently in a manner that turns outward toward the non-essential while the interior and the essential are cast without examination into darkness. This is a condition so common it is widely considered normal.

You say you are not capable of the ‘second [...] level of existence’. If you use language and mathematics and concepts – which you do – you are. Maybe you just don’t notice that you do – or the implications of the fact that you do. Your demand for rational proof – rather than the spiritual ‘proof’ of complete self-evidence – is like demanding to hold the number five in your hands. I give you five stones and you say ‘no, not stones – I want the NUMBER five’. Or maybe you want to hold justice in the palm of your hand, or put your fingers into imagination, or hit someone over the head with a concept. Your insistence that reality conform to logic is even more absurd than this because it is a category-mistake of even greater consequence – reality has a logic that is entirely its own and the only way that logic will reveal itself to us is when WE conform to IT in essence (i.e., in spirit).

So of course we can frame everything in the way that you clearly like: 1) That which is transcends reason cannot be grasped by reason alone.
2) Truth transcends reason
3) You are attempting to grasp truth by reason alone.
4) What you are attempting is doomed to fail.

We could go on and on chopping what I have said into blocks. At each step, you would agree that it was valid but how would you ever know that it was sound? Only by knowing the truth with regard to what I was saying would you be able to judge whether or not what I was saying was actually true. Logic has its own proper place at the feast but it is not at the head of the table.

I’m not sure your statement about existents x, y and z and their identities was completely coherent. Was the y missing at the end, in the group of three existents? ‘X and z are three existents’ seems false on numerical grounds. But let’s say you mean x, y and z. The answer is, it depends on the order of existence in which these existents exist. If they are purely physical existents (material objects), its true. If they are purely mental existents (e.g. concepts), it’s true. If they are spiritual existents, it is true and it is also fully. In a relative sense, it’s true because spiritual existents are fully capable of being distinguished from one another by an awakened intellect; in an absolute sense, which is the highest sense available to us, it’s false.

The truth opposed to it is this: Unity reigns in essence. All points are one and all are distinct. All spiritual ‘existents’ emerge from, return to and are united in One Existent while remaining themselves eternally and universally because their existence is entirely derived from and entirely depends upon That Existent (hence it’s Divinity).

Having learned a lesson of my own regarding non-interference, I would now like to withdraw from this conversation and leave you to your pursuit. I did not want to argue with you and do not want to persuade you of the truth anything I have said (or ‘asserted’ or ‘opined’). I thought my intervention might have been welcome and useful to you given your apparent dedication to your subject. I would like to have lightened your load by destroying the burden of your argument but you have a very tight hold and far be it from me to attempt to prise what you prize from your grasp. Go well. May you always live in the light of truth.

Best wishes,

Aidan

“The elementary and universal key is this: you need a minimum of THREE levels or planes of existence to begin to understand what Nasr – or anyone else who knows what they are talking about – is saying. These levels are categorical and can be broken down in countless ways, revealing simple cross-level correspondences:
Lower, Intermediate, Higher
Gross, Subtle, Formless
Corporeal, Psychic, Spiritual
Sense, Reason, Knowledge”

But you do not prove. And I am seeking proof. Now I am prepared to concede that the problem is entirely mine; were my mind and will in a state superior to the one in which they actually are, it might well be the case that I would be capable of a direct intuitional or experience of the second and third levels of existence of which you speak. But Alas! I have not yet found myself capable of that.

Moreover, if it is the case that humans are capable of that direct intuition or experience, then, it seems to me, the answer to the question of how it is possible cannot lie in the theomonism advocated by Nasr.

In response to my:

“[...] it is absolutely evident that there are many real and really distinct things, beings, or existents; you are real and I am real, but I am not you. And, equally obvious, neither are you one with or identical to God nor am I. Being then quite simply false, the theomonist thesis can in no way serve as the foundation for any rationally acceptable gnosticism.”

you ask me to consider what I mean by “you” or “I” in this passage. While I have considered the reference of such terms, and more than once, the matter is not pertinent to the issue if the referent of the one and that of the other are not absolutely identical. For if the referent of the one and that of the other are not absolutely identical, then they (we) are in that measure two and theomonism is false. And if there is a referent of the term “God” and it is identical with neither the referent of “you” nor that of “I,” then we three are, well, three.

You go on to opine that “nothing you [that is, I] have said in the above passage holds true in the domain of truth.” Let me ask you, then: is the following statement true or false?

For any existent x, any existent y, and any existent z, if x is not identical with y, x is not identical with z, and y is not identical with z, then x, y, and z are three existents.

And, if it is false, please tell me what the truth opposed to it might be.

P.S. The last line, “The unity of reality is a transcendent truth,” whose presence had you rightly puzzled was a leftover from a draft of my response that escaped my attention.

Thanks for the email. I did hope the non-appearance of my comment was simply an oversight and not a blind eye being turned strategically towards an unwelcome argument. When a new post appeared on your blog and the comments to the previous one were still being reported as having been zero, I thought I would follow it up.

As I said, I am genuinely impressed by the intensity of your efforts. I do feel like I’m watching someone dragging a net across a patch of dry land and proceeding to conclude that the fact no fish have been caught in it is somehow significant. I’m wondering if you will accept my directions to the sea?

The point to which I referred in both comments is indeed singular but it can be unpacked endlessly:

“The elementary and universal key is this: you need a minimum of THREE levels or planes of existence to begin to understand what Nasr – or anyone else who knows what they are talking about – is saying. These levels are categorical and can be broken down in countless ways, revealing simple cross-level correspondences:
Lower, Intermediate, Higher
Gross, Subtle, Formless
Corporeal, Psychic, Spiritual
Sense, Reason, Knowledge”

Contrary to this, you are only taking two planes into account – the mental and the material, or rational and sensory – and thinking that you are capable of sound judgement regarding matters which necessarily, and by their very definition, transcend these orders/levels/categories. (‘Transcend’, as in being situated above or beyond the limits of; ‘above’, not as in physically or mentally above but as in essentially so, belonging by nature to a higher order).

You wrote: “[...] it is absolutely evident that there are many real and really distinct things, beings, or existents; you are real and I am real, but I am not you. And, equally obvious, neither are you one with or identical to God nor am I. Being then quite simply false, the theomonist thesis can in no way serve as the foundation for any rationally acceptable gnosticism.”

Consider what you mean by ‘you’ or ‘I’ in this passage. Do you mean to identify us as corporeal bodies with specific locations and measurable dimensions discernible via the senses and their technological extensions (empirically real)? Do you mean to make us mental entities replete with emotional attachments, self-image and identity, family and cultural histories, capable of communicating and interpreting meaning (psychically real)? Or do you mean what ‘you’ and ‘I’ essentially are (spiritually real)? I will not lay this latter category on thick because I suspect from your arguments that you have not investigated this matter of the truth of things in any great depth. To discover the real nature of anything, it is best to start with yourself.

I will not walk you down this road but I am happy to point it out. What I will say is that nothing you have said in the above passage holds true in the domain of truth. Your profound restriction is your notion of a “rationally acceptable gnosis” – this will almost certainly serve to prevent you from entering that domain. Reason can indeed ground itself in knowledge; however, this migration to a genuinely higher foundation and perspective can only occur on terms which belong entirely to knowledge. It is not up to reason to dictate what is and is not so; our rational faculties have their own precise functions but genuine knowledge of anything is beyond their remit. Just as the senses acquire coherence via the common sense of the mind, so does reason find its proper ratio within the higher order of the illuminated intellect. We need to START from there, or we will never understand it.

I hope this is clear and covers your questions about ‘materially true’ (empirical, e.g. a table), ‘mentally true’ (logical, e.g. the rules of grammar or mathematics), and ‘transcendentally true’ (spiritual, e.g. what a being really ‘is’, what love ‘is’ or what justice ‘is’). If, as you say, you have never imagined that the God you are inquiring about is either a material body or a mental entity, what have you imagined in this regard? I see no sign of this third, transcendent category in your thinking (strictly speaking, it is not the third category but the first one, being primary). Do you suppose God is a spiritual essence? If so, just as your imagination is not bound by the material conditions in which you find yourself and just your mind is able to roam relatively freely, are the laws that hold upon the essential level not likely to be different again in kind? An essential plurality is simply not what gnosis reveals with regard to the nature of reality.

As I remarked above, it is also possible that God stands still higher and fully above the spiritual plane, being responsible for the spiritual plane alone in its purity and unity and perfection. This, indeed, is what the greatest seers have seen and the view is certainly there to be had.

Was the last line in your 5:32 comment yours or mine? If it’s yours and you see that the unity of reality is a transcendent truth, do you not see everything that follows from this, including the tiny particles to which I have pointed? This Unity stands above your arguments and truth tables and it has its own logic (logos) which it discloses to those capable of it.

You cannot prove that there is no perfect God. If it is your hope that God’s absolute perfection is real – with all that this entails – then there is an obvious journey upon an inward road and it is yours alone to make.

If this comment has been sufficiently clear, I do not wish to take up more of your time. I wish you all the very best in your endeavours. While I would be willing to engage the matter further in a very limited way if you consider this necessary (perhaps due to my own lack of clarity), I would not be willing to go round and round in circles, which is all that ever happens when the mind tries to penetrate the higher orders of existence by reason alone, refusing to accept that a purely intellectual illumination is required from sources which stand above and beyond the realm in which it operates. This is a call not for blind faith, as some might suppose, but a recognition of the requirements and character of real knowledge, as name-checked in the title of your blog.

Kind regards,

Aidan