“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
―
This quote sums up the difference between geometry and calculus. Calculus is the poetry of math and, in the words of Richard Feyman, “It is the language God speaks”.
Faith
We stand with eyes lifted scanning the crowd for permission. Our ego whimpering for a moment of joy. But now, the ground, it moves. It lurches and our eyes, thrown wide, cast about for a harbour in this maelström. We run, stumbling and hopeful, towards the horizon searching for secure ground. The politics of compromise, the existential moment, the social good, all vanish as a resting place.
But here. What is this? A rope? Do we grab hold and be lifted? Cling to it. Fly. Fly above the turmoil and reach down. But where is its top? It disappears above. Have confidence – it is tied to unmovable infinity.
Being and love
There is a method of thought which divides what we observe into effects. When the world, as we observe it, is viewed this way we see a greater effect as the result of smaller effects and those of yet smaller effects and on and on to a limit: our perspectival boundary. This division, this reduction, leaves us with nothing except the horizon of our current knowledge and ‘explains’ all as effects: removing any and all being.
However, our experience of life is more than this. As Roger Scruton describes (and I paraphrase): “We can look into the eyes of the other and apprehend that there is something looking back at us which we cannot wholly understand but which we know is there, and which, through a leap of the imagination, can put ourselves in the position of”. We can leap through the empirical world and see one another. It is through relations that we ‘transcend’ the atomization of the empirical world.
‘God is love’. This statement, from 1 John in the Christian Bible, gives us a clue as to reality we live in. Love, which establishes a relation between beings, is the only solid footing for a philosophy which does not end in nothingness and nihilism.
A Rational Journey
Turn, Turn, Turn round and round
Lose yourself in logic as you search for a ground
When your dizziness fades and your mind screams for a way
Allow your lost but hopeful heart to say
I am lost. Let me be found.
An Objection
The new, evangelical, atheists are so dedicated to a material view that they will happily turn humankind into animals. Paradoxically, they will in one breath deride consciousness while espousing conscientiousness. They want the human animal to flourish while saying that the inspiration for the heights of culture throughout human history; in music, theatre, and art is invalid. The transcendent longing that brings joy with even the hint of its fulfillment is at the centre of any culture worth living in and is central to any meaningful understanding of flourishing.
Flourishing without it is indistinguishable from existence as swine on a luxurious animal farm. The new atheists, perhaps unintentionally, are telling George Orwell’s story in reverse.
That is objectionable objectivity.
Materialism
And so, the materialists have had their way. Using microscopes and every engine of human rationality they have drilled down to the very heart of the atom and found that material is a mystery. They have drilled back through time to the very beginning and found no material. Their confident search for the material, rational ground of being has evaporated under this elaborate scrutiny. And so, having knocked the foundations for the enlightenment from under themselves they turn on those who, from the beginning, allowed and embraced the mystery of the universe, and blame them for our current state. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal except perhaps a human who believes he is one.