I
“The cosmos itself is a myth”[1], as Uzdavinys says. “Cosmos”, with its original meaning as a “beautifully ordered system”, is fully understood in mythic terms. Insofar as it is not put in mythic terms, it is not fully understood. To begin to understand this, we have to realize that “beautifully ordered” is not really a physical category. It is a rational category. Following platonic intuitions, only the rational is beautiful. By “rational”, I mean “intelligible”, that is, “knowable”. So, here, the poetic, for example, is rational. The category is not reserved for solely quantitative mathematics and the modern natural sciences.
All of this flows from the “platonic” idealism that leads in the direction of unity. As per DB Hart:
“…in abstracting experience into various kinds of ideal content—formal, mathematical, moral, aesthetic, and so on—the mind really does extract knowledge from what would otherwise be nothing but meaningless brute events. In fact, reality becomes more intelligible to us the more we are able to translate it into purely mental concepts, and to arrange it under categories, and then to arrange our concepts under ever simpler, more comprehensive, more unconditioned concepts, always ascending towards the simplest and most capacious concept our minds can reach. To say that something has become entirely intelligible to us is to say that we have an idea of it that is both comprehensively simple as an explanatory principle but that leaves no empirical or conceptual remainder behind. It is to say, in accord with so much classical and mediaeval thought, that the ideal and intrinsically intelligible dimension of things was not only a real property of their existence, but in some sense was identical with their existence. What is an idea, however, other than the expression of a rational intentionality? And how, therefore, could being be pure intelligibility if it were not also pure intelligence?... The ascent towards ever greater knowledge is, if only tacitly, an ascent towards an ultimate encounter with limitless consciousness, limitless reason, a transcendent reality where being and knowledge are always already one and the same, and so inalienable from one another.”[2]
If this root of consciousness where being and knowledge are united is also an “act”, as he says elsewhere, then there is also the question of what unites these two into one infinitude of act. This is the role of unity in Neoplatonic thought. It is also something intimated in eastern thought as well. It might seem that the realization that being and knowledge are united is enough, but the question remains as to what the principle is that unites them and makes us see it this way. The question is does the coincidence of being and knowledge have a further principle? The answer is yes, and this principle is Unity:
“Unity is the most generic of concepts; not everything participates of soul, nor even of intellect or being, for these are only enjoyed, Proclus explains, by such things as subsist according to form. Unity, however, is, at least in some respect, prior to form”[3]
Not everyone will participate every form, but we all participate unity, at least with respect to numerical difference, each thing being “one”. What we see here is perhaps called an “inversion at the top”, because although, “locally” at least, all beings qua beings resolve into “One Being” or “Being itself”, “Being itself” on its own cannot account for the numerical difference in which its reality is shared. This is one way of seeing the question of the One-Many relationship. In the procession of the one being into many beings, a duality is realized. The derived beings cannot but be “lesser” than their principle, and this diminution of this one-being in its participants is not explained by the one-being itself unless we want to contradict ourselves. Even if it is not the principle of unity as such, it is a principle of unity qua being for its participants, the principle by which they are in a sense, identical with that one-being. We must then posit a different principle (or pseudo-principle) of multiplicity that is the reason this one-being divests itself in the first place. Traditionally, this is called “prime matter”.
The problem here, as usual, is that the fact that we can even conceive of these two together means there has to be a prior principle of both. That one-being from which the many beings flow is a limited sub-principle of unity. Its seeming opposite is that which seeks to dissolve this unity completely. Since a principle is something that unites elements and explains them, this opposite principle cannot itself be a real principle as it seeks to divide. That’s why it is called a “pseudo-principle”. What it really does is reveal numerical difference, and reflect the principle prior to the one-being, Unity, which, when considered as such, is present equally in both the one being and its many participants. Whether we are talking about the one-being, one of its participants, a human being, a hand, etc, they all count one. This says something about the principle that is Unity. It says that
1. It is beyond being. It is not restricted even by singularity of mind and knowledge.
2. It is first concerned with individuality before “sameness” and “difference”.
We got here even without going through the modality of unity that contains the ontic one-many scenario we just described: Place. But even this is subject to the same principle. Place as such is prior to any particular place, but is also a unity. It is “place” we are concerned with in this series of essays, which will require us to touch ontology, cosmology, physics and philosophy of physics. But to get there we have to start from beyond even the root.
II
So far we have seen that unity is prior to sameness and difference. This means that when dealing with the emergence of all things from Unity we are not dealing with the ontic emergence of many from one being. Rather, it means we are dealing with the emergence of individual beings from the principle of individuality. This principle, which is Unity, must itself not be the reification of the ontic one-many paradigm, since it is beyond it. That paradigm is the emergence qua being of many individuals from one. All have individuality and are not individuality as such. But individuality as such cannot be one individual to the exclusion of the rest or to their absorption. It must be all true individuals in some way, since it is a principle, and it must be this without collapsing them and without dividing them in the manner of beings who have individuality as an addition, since that logic belongs to beings qua beings and not unity as such beyond it. In short, we are negating the attributes of being qua being to get to its principle. These true individuals do not have it as an attribute, and therefore do not get it from a reified principle above them, since, again, that would make them simply beings with individuality. They simply must be individuality as such. The principle of individuality must be identical with its members, but not either be extrinisic to them in such a way that individuality is a quality that is contingently participated – since qualities have to be unified – or any real monad of a manifold, since the same critique applies, to wit: Monads have unity are not unity as such. It is because monads have unity that their participants are less than they are, since the monad qua monad doesn’t share its singularity, only the qualities it exemplifies. An Intellect spawns many smaller intellects. But both Intellect and intellects when compared each to each are numerically one. Intellect does not share that. Instead it “shares”, “divides” its power whereby it is intellect to other intellects, which are less powerful than their monad. On the other hand, Unity as such is not a quality or a monad, and so its direct “participants” cannot “lose” unity. If they don’t lose unity, then there is no “gap” of diminution between the monad and its manifold or principle and its instantiations, and therefore no real “participation” in the monadic intelligible sense. Principle and instantiations are in some way absolutely identical without negative difference of beings, but in what way?
Since beings are distinguished by attributes and relationships, these true individuals as such do not have such attributes or relationships. They are not defined by whole and part, space and time, eternity, form, or power. This means that, somehow, they must be immediately present to each other without mediation and yet, because they are not beings subject to the monadic logic where the many becomes the same in a monad, they must also be immediately present to each other without confusion or sameness. Each true individual must then have all others immediately present to them in a manner that, because it is without any distance – physical, noetic, conceptual – must be a unitive presence, such that all are in each, and this without confusion or the sameness that is of beings qua beings. Lastly, because of this presence of all in each, and the inability to “compare” these “units” as this would imply “distance” and ultimately the “difference” suitable to beings, we can only consider these units one at a time, that is, unitarily. This is the only way we can address them all. So, in moving to a principle of unity qua individuality, we are moving not to an ontic multiplicity, but an ineffable unity of all in each, such that we are to stop at a generic “One”. This “One” is not that singular being from which we argued away from. Remember that we negate that logic here. Instead, it is the placeholder for any of the individuals that have all others within them. Because we cannot conceive of these in the manner of an ontic multiplicity and must conceive one at a time, we must end up in this manner of the “generic”. We have no access to any other knowledge about these individuals while arguing this way other than their supraessential existence, and as such we can only argue to the generic individual that has all in each. Thus, we do not fall into the Naturalist trap that sees unity emerging from ontic multiplicity and thus we can still affirm a first (that is one) first principle, as all in each one.
Recall that Being is act, or better still activity. All activity is Being, and reduces to Being. If the principle of Unity, which is the principle of individuality as all in each is the principle prior to being, then Being is the activity of Unity. Put in more familiar terms, Being is the activity of supraessential individuals[4]. Interestingly, we have a name for these individuals. We call them Gods[5]. We also have a logic for their uniqueness, we call it the proper name[6]. In a proper name, we are not naming a generic feature or negatively distinguishing beings, we are naming individuals, that is, who is it that is the unity of all these attributes, and yet none of them exclusively? It is no surprise that many religious names are activities of Gods, our individualities, which we have, are “gotten” from them. The Christian can take a cue from their tradition that YHWH gave his proper name for a reason, and not a generic attribute. When this or that God is both the Son or Father of this or that other God and yet in another place, the God is the “Being of the universe”, they are describing activities of Gods, since being both someone’s son or father and the “Being” of the universe still reduces to Being. If, as we can see from the arguments, the Gods as such are beyond being, then they are reducible to no activity of or within Being, not even the first act of Being itself as a first proper ontological cause. There are several implications of this.
III
Firstly, it means that the “unity” of all Being is not “total”. If the first principle is each God as they contain all others, then the totality of Being cannot be enclosed by a singular principle of Being. Since the Gods themselves escape determination, and hence Being, Being cannot be self-contained. It must always be open-ended from even within itself. We can see how this is from the uniqueness of each God. If the Gods are not each other, and are yet united to each other without the negative difference of beings, then they are unique in a positive sense. They do not escape the determination of Being by being negatively different, in the way I am not you. They escape by being the very source and unity of Being. Since Being as an activity is something all the Gods have and do, the uniqueness of each God prevents Being from becoming a “neutral” principle that enfolds all things, including the Gods, in sameness. Doing an activity means you lend your own coherence and unity to that activity, such that, as a whole, that activity is an extension of you, and is you in the mode of extension. Similarly for the Gods, insofar as each God at a time is the principle of Being, Being as such is the first extension and manifestation of that God. This makes Being as such unique in individuality even if generic qua activity. Each God has their manifestation as the principle of Being, and yet each manifestation is also a way of all Gods manifesting in and through that God, since activity as such is shared by them all, although in the mode of all in each. The totality of Being is then indefinite and only a totality insofar as it escapes totalization. It is circumscribed by not being circumscribed. It ends with the God, but the God is beyond being and contains all other Gods. The totality is then unitary, it is simply each God qua God, and not a circumscribable countable or uncountable – yes the uncountable is still circumscribable – totality of comparable (that is, ontic) entities.
Secondly, it means that, since all nature qua nature reduces to the unity of Being and Knowledge, and since Being is the activity of the Gods, all of nature is the activity of the Gods, or at least the activity as it appears to us. And this includes us. Our beings are the activity of the Gods. Activities are how the Gods finally relate to each other. Thus an intellectual manifestation of Athena, which is an activity of Athena, has a further activity in relation to an intellectual manifestation of Zeus, which is her being a daughter of Zeus. Zeus, through his manifestation also has the corresponding attribute of being father to Athena, which is also a state of being insofar as it is an activity, a concept, and an ideal, that is, a form. Nature, in its conceptualization and rationalization, resolves into Being and its “pure” categories, noetic forms or ideas, and the very act of thinking and ultimately into individuality. It is this individuality that shows the descent back into nature. From the singularity of Being, like a “point”, the “space” of the Noetic bursts forth in which all activities of Being prior to appearance can be “arranged”. “Narrativity”, “Time”, “Fatherhood”, etc, prior to discursive activity manifests in the Noetic in their appropriate manners due to the activities of the Gods themselves, who enact Being insofar as they lend their individuality to Being. This brings us to the last implication.
If the Gods’ activity constitute us, and their first activities in this direction are prior to us, then we have to take mythology seriously. Mythologies are the way peoples tell their origin and place in the world, and often that world’s end. So, basically, it defines the world of a people, and how they are to live within it. To put it in more Platonic terms, a myth is a demiurgic construction of a definite cosmos of meaning out of an indefinitude of possibilities. This is intimately related to how the Platonist understands “Social Constructs”, which are our activities of transpersonal conceptual construction as they mirror our (often limited) vision of the noetic constructions of the Gods. If one sees it in light of the Platonic understanding of the unity of knowledge and Being, myths become very literal descriptions of the emergence of definite beings out of the unity of Intellectual Being. Everyone has myths, even modern people. The question of the myth(s) of modernity will be addressed in the second part. In any case, we need to end this by seeing the details of what it means to say the world is a myth, so that in the next part, we see how this plays out in the “myths of modernity”.
IV
The first thing to note is that because the unity of Being and Knowledge is “supratemporal”, the mode of causation for this order is also supratemporal. That is, the establishment of a demiurgic cosmos of myths is the constitution of the whole temporality of that world. In Roland’s words (emboldened emphasis is mine):
“Consciousness is being, so long as one remembers that potency and act are ontological modes, as I say, not just logical modalities. I don’t think that there are multiple worlds in actu here in the realm of the finite. I think that mind participates in composing the whole history of a particle, just as it is always doing for the world as a whole… Needless to say, that also fits in nicely with my contention that the world produced by mind is always also in the process, perhaps, of having its past reconstituted, rewritten… or, rather, reperceived… in such a way that things once possible become practically impossible for conventional consciousness. Hence the history superstition—the belief that there’s such a thing as the ‘true’ historical narrative of the past that can be distinguished, in every age reaching all the way back to the beginning of the universe, from a ‘false’ mythical narrative.”[7]
The fear here would be that this makes reality arbitrary. But that is not the case. Insofar as this logic of Being is hierarchical, there is real stability here. Remember, the logic of monadic being tells us that subordinate beings are less powerful. So, although in history, the appearance of a “mythological regime” is from among the many into power “above” them, it is in reality the discovery of a paradigm in its very constitution by reversion, for no being is fully constituted by its monad except when it reverts on its monad, that is, unless it “discovers” its monad, knows its monad, and thinks its monad, for “the same is for thinking and for being”. In DB Hart’s words:
“In temporal terms, all causes and their effects are simultaneous, just as ancient and mediaeval tradition asserts, even in the case of causes that “arrive” from past or future. And in the ordo essendi, obviously, all causes are logically prior to their effects. But in the ordo cognoscendi just the reverse is true: all causes are posterior discoveries, preceded by a sheer event that is a phenomenal experience before it is an intelligible truth; the event comes first for us, while its causes lie only at the end of the wakened intellect’s journey toward a reality that the event has already made manifest but has not yet rendered wholly intelligible. For every truth that, sub specie aeternitatis, might be characterized as a metaphysical truth, is for the time-bound soul at first sheer apocalypse, utter novelty breaking in upon the patient capacity of the rational will. And this, of course, is simply the noetic expression of the basic structure of participated being: for us, whose very existence is always already a gift ceaselessly granted us from a source beyond ourselves, every moment of being’s advent is a pure novum, calling us out of ourselves toward the novissima of the divine nature, which summons us to itself from nothingness and to our last end. Just so, even in the most ordinary experience, the fortuity of the phenomenon precedes its meaning; and in extraordinary experiences the normally entirely tacit surprise of the phenomenal is amplified into shock, alarm, delight, confusion, or what have you.”[8]
Thus the myths, in their narrativity, tell something about the very constitution of temporality in the cosmos they describe. They constitute it eternally, and thus determine how we experience it. Indeed, we — our whole history, the temporalities of the cosmoi — are established as precisely in this reversion
In the second place is a reminder that it is Gods, the supraessential individuals, which ultimately constitute myths through their activities in and as Being and Beings. In every myth is an individual that does something, or a symbol in the place of an individual – a difference that is blurred and even effaced in many cases. This is because insofar any being exists, that is, has unity, it can be described as an agent, and thus a God can be described through it, even if obliquely. The description of impersonal processes is only a potentiality that must be actualized if it is to be known at all, even as a potentiality, which is only known through actualities anyway and is thus actualized in some way prior to the limited actualization of beings insofar as it is known and knowable. The first principle, which is any God qua God, is the first agent of actualization. The impersonal reduced to the personal through Unity and thus existence itself.
In the third and final place is a related point to the first, insofar as time can be represented spatially (although time is not completely reducible to space): Myths constitute cosmoi supraspatially, at least, in several senses. Proclus, for example, describes several stages for the emergence of “space”, and similarly for time, but for our purposes, all I need to say is that prior to any myth is the place of the myth. This is somewhat related to the one-many example earlier. In order for this ontic one-many logic to be instantiated, there needs to be a place for it, at least in terms of “possibility”. There are several ways the one-many logic can play itself out. There are many Gods it can play itself out with, there are many forms or ideas who can be monads of manifolds within the same intellect. All of can be seen as endless possibilities prior to the emergence of one or several among them. These possibilities emerge insofar as the Gods first constitute all possible relations among themselves qua activity prior to any definite activity that would be a “mythological regime”. Basically, insofar as the Gods in a pantheon first have to manifest together before any definite mythological relationships appear, they must also, in this state of togetherness or wholeness, have all possible relationships between each other at once, somehow mirroring prime matter in indefinitude. Or better yet, prime matter is the reflection of this indefinitude in the shadow of the limitation of any mythological regime, a trope we will see in later parts of this series. For now, it suffices to know that every mythological regime is limited and this is supposed to foster a communion of them through that which is beyond them, that is, the Gods. When mythological regimes are compared and contrasted qua their bare wholes, ofcourse one regime can be incompatible with another. The “truth”, that is, the facts, of that regime, contradicts another. Thus the myths of many polytheists are “untruth” compared to the truth of Christ. Or closer to home, the central myths of Islam contradict that of Christianity. But we are not supposed to end there. The contradictions are there for a reason. We are supposed to find communion between traditions through the uniqueness of Gods, not only through the integrity of the mythological regime, although that is is indeed important.
The details are for later, but, in this series, I want to look at this communion through the relativity of “place” and the individuals (like us) that can inhabit many “places” at once, like the Gods. As I did in this first part, I will be pulling heavily from David Bentley Hart and Edward Butler, with occasional insights from other authors. I especially want to see how this would work for us “modern” people, who do inhabit many worlds, especially if we are religious. “Science v religion”, “religion v religion”, “tribe vs country”, etc. As individuals, there is an opportunity in our problems for reconciliation, if we will take it.
[1] Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity (Angelico Press, Sophia Perennis, 2014).
[2] David Bentley Hart, ‘Mind, Being, God: Spiritual Science and the Science of Mind, Part Four’, Leaves in the Wind, 2020 <https://davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/mind-being-god?s=r> [accessed 5 April 2022].
[3] Edward Butler, ‘Polytheism and Individuality in the Henadic Manifold’, Dionysius, 23 (2005), 83–104.
[4] Edward P Butler, ‘The Intelligible Gods in the Platonic Theology of Proclus’, Méthexis, 21, 2008, 131–43.
[5] Edward P Butler, ‘MANY GODS, MANY PATHS’ <www.witchesandpagans.com> [accessed 25 November 2021].
[6] Edward P. Butler, ‘On the Gods and the Good’, 2014, p. 20.
[7] David Bentley Hart, Roland in Moonlight (Angelico Press, 2021).
[8] David Bentley Hart, Theological Territories: A David Bentley Hart Digest (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020).
The fact that I am here at all speaks to my interests and predilections. I spend a lot of time reading philosophy, theology, metaphysics and related subjects. As a consequence of my itinerant wanderings through cyberspace I have, serendipitously, found myself here. The path that led me to you passed through David Hart Bentley who I have just come to know in the past few months. The point of all this being that I am favorably disposed toward what you are reading, thinking and writing.
That said, by the third paragraph my eyes began to glaze over and my mind disengaged from the words as "definition" upon "definition" began to pile up. I assume that you find all of these details pleasant and engaging. Of course you do, or you wouldn't be writing so much. And I don't want to be critical because I feel a genuine affinity toward what you are doing, but the final impression is one of a meaningless and baroque word-salad. To pick one passage at random:
" . . . unity is prior to sameness and difference. This means that when dealing with the emergence of all things from Unity we are not dealing with the ontic emergence of many from one being. Rather, it means we are dealing with the emergence of individual beings from the principle of individuality. This principle, which is Unity, must itself not be the reification of the ontic one-many paradigm, since it is beyond it. That paradigm is the emergence qua being of many individuals from one."
??
Again, I'm sure this is all very pleasurable to you, but how it differs from any other indulgence of pure pleasure - emotional, aesthetic or even sexual - I simply fail to understand. It is a form of art, for sure. And on purely aesthetic grounds, I don't have a complaint. It's all very pretty, just not my "cup of tea" as they say.
But you talk a lot about "God" and I get the sense that being "Godly", or "finding" God, or "being with" God, or uniting with God is very important to you. And this is where I feel the most affinity toward you. I too, am preoccupied with the whole "God" thing. I just don't see how piling up concept after concept after concept with all these definitions and constructs and compound words and all this kaleidoscopic imagery helps at all.
Maybe you feel all of this intellectualism brings you closer to God. I fail to see how, but it's not like I'm possesed of any special insight. Indeed, my failure could be chalked up to a simple failure of imagination. I don't understand quantum physics either, and I'd never suggest that quantum physics is not worthwhile. My limitations make me a poor critic.
In the end, all of this is just art - no more, no less. I guess I'm just more attuned to a minimalist aesthetic. But I have to say, on my behalf, that my intuition that the best path to God is along the "straight and narrow" and that this kind of baroque intellectualism just gets in the way, is one shared by a great many wise and beneficent teachers.
This is an interesting struggle for me. My opinions are contingent, incomplete, "earthly" and therefore tainted with sin. So I blithely and resolutely renounce all of my opinions. That's the easy part. But that leaves me with just my "heart" and intuitions. And my heart is telling me that all this intellectualism is sterile and pointless and won't help you, or anybody, find God. What then, do I do? Follow my heart?If I do, then I'm at odds with you - whom I consider a brother and sincere aspirant of the Divine. My other option is to distrust my heart. But if I do that, how can I approach God?