Thursday, July 02, 2009

Writing activity from the past several weeks, Pt 5

I also have a certain Pythagorean mysticism about the fundamental unity and intelligibility of being, and yet I reject the premise of Pythagoras and Descartes that mathematics is a first principle. Consider that Daniel Tammet "sees" numbers as shapes, colors, and movement; I'm persuaded that he and other savants have a privileged access to truth not as numerical but as phenomenological. Logic and math are secondary, they are declensions of what is ultimate.

I am also convinced that, while there is not exactly a way to "de-fine" the marks of truth (which implies that truth is fin-ite), the marks of error are easier to perceive. Systems that are closed and complete, yet which arrogate to explain the whole and lay it completely bare, almost certainly need adjustment if not scrapping. Theories which leave human agency and aspirations frustrated, or which terminate in absurdity, may have value in reminding us of real chaos, but it can only be a penultimate chaos. I have both intellectual and faith reasons for that conviction.

My avatar is something like a "theological seal"; it represents to me something like an archimedean point of reason and faith. Kenosis is the Greek word used in Philippians to describe the Incarnation: he "emptied himself". In this case, it doubles as a condition of truth--that truth must be open to infinity, and completely accessible.

Comment
let's just never get into a debate about feminism vs. Christianity.

Reply
Oh, I dunno. I don't think it would be as ugly as you think. I have a whole theology (actually borrowed from Hans Urs von Balthasar) of Christ as supra-feminine; if the Son is Logos, the Word, there may be here an identity with Holy Wisdom, spoken of in the feminine, or even the bride of the Song of Solomon. Even so, I know that this theory won't satisfy feminists, who still correctly point to the primacy of the Father, to whom Scripture and tradition refer to in the masculine.

I've read Mary Daily's "The Church and the Second Sex," and I know that any attempt to justify the status quo of the male priesthood will only viewed by some as a smokescreen concealing male will-to-power. But without losing my rabid orthodoxy, I can still say that if the feminine is "second" within a Trinity, that makes her the central sex; the pivot, the linchpin, the axis. IMO, a correct understanding of sex in Christianity does two things: (1) recognizes the inter-sexual dynamic of the Trinity, and (2) relativizes the importance of the clergy in the bigger picture of salvation.

1 comment:

Matt of CG said...

Any machine that serves a specific purpose so well as to be considered insubrogate, is consequentely cherished by the one who utilizes it. This holds true for: Firearms, cars, planes, trains, ships, and the like. And because these machines are so cherished, they are often referred to as, "she" as is evidenced in popular culture.

The word "she" is used as a term of endearment, the ultimate term of endearment. And, with regard to the machine called Wisdom, the word, "she" is meant only as a term of endearment, nothing more.

Why? cuz if you're lookin' for a female character to endear yourself to in faith, who happens to be a subordinate to the Trinity, then the Virgin Mary should suffice.