Noelle Mering sounds right according to the canons of orthodox teaching and moral virtue. I was verbally introduced to her new book, “Awake, Not Woke” at a cookout yesterday. Her book correctly holds forth the orthodox teaching of the Church and the classic presentation of morals. In dialogue with Scott Hahn she offers Woke as the conjuring of the natural conflicts of created natural reality into the problematic view of the Hegelian and Marxist narrative with resolution by rebellion and revolution, thus destabilizing and weakening society from within. This is the classic insightful perception of what is taking place today with “Wokeism” as a façade. Scott Hahn agrees with it. I respectfully disagree since talking orthodoxy instead of walking in orthopraxis only exacerbates the verbiage and delays the solution.
As I listened to her the thesis of David Walsh comes to mind in which he holds that in the chaotic, gnostic and ideological times of the past. The solution did not consist in mounting a conservative war of opposition and containment, but of living out an ordinary Christian life of work, self mastery and service in the very midst of secular society. He offers historical protagonists: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus Solzhenitsyn and Eric Voegelin. Walsh writes in the Introduction to “After Ideology:”
“A shift of far-reaching significance is presently taking place within Western civilization. The dominant self-understanding of social and political order is in the process of breaking down and is on the verge being replaced by a very different conviction. No longer can we naively subscribe to the fundament al conceit from which modernity began: that human beings are capable or providing their own moral and political order. The conception of a secular society, existing without reference to any transcendent source and drawing its legitimacy entirely from humanity’s autonomous self-determination, has begum to lose is appeal. That experiment has run its course. Having been brought to its limits in the twentieth century, its bankruptcy has become fully exposed. Virtually everywhere we look, the old confidence in secular rationality has been broken and the first tentative outlines of a very different understanding of order can already be discerned”
That alternative is in the direction of a rediscovery of the transcendent foundation of order. Faced with the evident inability of reason to provide the ultime justification and motivatin for order, modern human beings have again begun to lk toward the source of order that lies beyond the self. A remarkable opening of the soul is taking place, as we increasingly come to realize that we are not the self-sufficitn ground of our own existence. Right at theheart of teontemporary secular ciivilzation, the recognition is emerging of our part icipation ina norder of being utt ely beyond our control. The old arrogance has disappeared and theer are the first glimmerings that, perhaps, it is onlythrough participation in the order ot this transcendent source that the existence of individuals in society and history partkes of goodness and truth and reality. A widespread sense that aparticlar phase has reached its conclusion now prepares us to contemplate again the God who for so long has been displaced at the center or our existence.
James Billington: “The end may be approaching of the political religion which saw in revolution the sunrise of a perfect society. I am further disposed to wonder if this secular creed, which a rose in Judeo-Chr istian culture, might not ultimately prove to be only a stage in the belief in secular revolution, which has legitimized so much authoritarianism in this century….” (Walsh, “After Ideology”)
When all is said and done, the human person has been created in the image and likeness of God – he Acting Person, in the experience of self, cannot fail to experience the ontological reality of that imaging and likeness. I feel that the solution to the present disintegration of reason in gender, racism, etc. will not consists in conservative retaliations and doctrinal extravaganzas against the imposition of ideological insanity but the encouragement to live the ordinary secular life in the spirit of the Humanity of Christ at Nazareth. The massive loss of reason by ideology will die of asphyxiation.
The position I want to take on Noelle Mering’s “Awake, not Woke” looks dangerous as “progressive” in that I would not counteract “wokeism” with anti- “wokeism.”And this because you (she) plays into the hands of the conceptual ideology with a contradictory ideology – which means that one never escapes the epistemological trap of ideology. That is, if you counter a false conceptual doctrine with concepts that are truthful (in accord with reality), but you continue to work on the level of concepts. You haven’t escepted the error nor its danger. You say truthful things, but you never reach the level on which truth is taking place, i.e. the moral action of going out of self.
I hasten to say: If the Truth is the Person of Jesus Christ as Son Who is nothing but a relation of obedience to the Father such that He and the Father are One (Jn. 10, 30), which takes place by His obedience to death on the Cross for love of us, then one can only know the Truth by living obedience to the Son. One “knows:” the Truth only by a living action of relation that is obedience.
What is hidden in what I’m saying is that consciousness is distinct from the conceptualization. The classic Greek and neo-scholastic account of concepts speak of the “form” of the sensible thing (whatever) that makes the thing be what it is being “abstracted” by human intelligence to inform human intelligence. Robert Sokolowski following Husserl rejects this as an explanation and offers “syntax” of speech in its place [pp. 101-104 with enlightening footnotes]”Phenomenology of the Human Person,” Robert Sokolowski Cambridge (2008).” Karol Wojtyla in his “Acting Person,” makes the sharp and important distinction between concept and consciousness that fits the repeated scriptural and magisterial references [“If you abide in my word, you will be my disciple indeed. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” [Jn. 8, 32]; “man, the only earthly being God has willed for itself, finds himself [knows self] by the sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes 2, 24). That is, it is only in the action of self-transcendence that the human person comes to know self.
And so, I offer that the way to go to counter the ideology of “woke” is to put emphasis on the lived Christian experience of ordinary life such as you may find in Opus Dei.
In responding to the op ed (today[May 30, 2023) on AI, I went back into my drop box and resurrected the useful and not useful nitpickiing within the fold of Thomistic research. I offer it, un intelligible as it may be to show my own struggle to hopefully emerge with the metaphysics of person as experienced by the living faith as self-gift. My rector thought was always that “esse” is the act of all acts and the ultimate meaning of the intelligible and that it transcends “substance” as thing-in-itself to emerge as a new category of “relation.” I brought this to Fr. Norris Clarke in 1989, and he thought I was mad and on my way to process theology.
However, he rethought it in the terms I was thinking it. He was thinking Aristotle’s ousia as substance/dynamic. He rejected what I was thinking, but eventually took it to Schindler and made hay with it in much dialogue with David Schindler and published the Aquinas lecture with it at Marquette. God speed. Afterwards I spent several sessions with him trying to convince him that he had to give up the notion of substance in dealing with the divine Person(s), which I also saw in Ratzinger “Intro…” p. 131. There is nothing “in-Self” in God. It is all about “Other”/other.
The large point I would advocate is that the metaphysical account of the meaning of person is the Thomistic Ésse.
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This is a paper published in a Festschrift in honor of Frederick D. Wilhelmsen, “Saints, Sovereigns and Scholars” edited by R. A. Herrera, James Lehrberger. O. Cist. And M.E. Bradford by Peter Lang (1993) 73-82.
The upshot of the paper paves the way to access Being in the epistemological horizon of the “I” according to the philosophical development of Karol Wojtyla. Wojtyla does a phenomenology of the “I” in the moral moment of self-determination where an experience distinct from the external senses is discerned. That experience is the experience of the self as Being (not consciousness) in the moment of the moral act (supremely, the act of faith), which yields an unmediated access to the act of existence, the Thomistic esse. He makes explicit reference to this in the encyclical Fides et Ratio , #83: “metaphysics should not be seen as an alternative to anthropology, since it is metaphysics which makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their spiritual nature. In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with actu essendi, and hence with metaphysical enquiry.”(underline mine) This is the proposed relation of faith and reason: The act of faith, as anthropological act of self-gift, gives the unique, non-mediated (by symbolization) exposure of reason to the light emanating from the actus essendi of the “I,” thus saving reason from relativism, skepticis and nihilism..
From Existence to Esse
It is not because a house is made up of feet and yards that it is measurable, but because it is built of materials that can be measured in feet and yards (my underline)– Louis-Marie Regis.
The essence of this paper is to suggest the need to cross the frontier from Etienne Gilson’s “methodic realism” to philosophic realism. By that I mean to suggest that we move beyond judgment alone as the method of access to the act of existence and have recourse to the full range of common-sense knowing which involves both simple apprehension and judgment (perhaps we could say from facultative knowing to experience by the whole person). By so doing we have, in addition to the all-or-nothing identity and facticity “decided” by judgment, an apprehension of the multitiered intelligible content of reality; we are therefore confronted by degrees of being in their diverse colors and densities. From there the mind is driven to seek the ultimate cause and root of these degrees, which will be suggested to be the Thomistic esse as “intensive” act [and as I write this some 30 years later, I am thinking: the very self of the person.
The consequences of such a migration from “existence” to esse are incalculable. The first consequence is realism [and as I write this I am thinking that the only reality I experience is myself as Being. That is, as the only free created being, I am the only material being that can determine itselfcan. We would be given access to the act of existence as the core of reality. This is something denied to us by a methodology relying exclusively on judgment: such exclusivity leaves us with existence as mediately perceived, but not experienced in itself. St. Thomas was always aware that “the composition of the intellect differs from the composition of the thing”[1] and that that difference is modal. I will argue here that Wilhelmsen may have confused the mode of being with the mode of knowing, precisely for failing to make the passage from perceived existence to real esse. I will also suggest the conditions for this passage and its impact on a realist noetic.
[1]The context of this crossing of the frontier is a respectful and appreciative critique of Frederick D. Wilhelmsen’s understanding of the act of existence.[2] W.’s “cognizing” of the act of existence takes the form of the paradoxical precisely because this act cannot be conceptualized and offered in ordinary propositional language. Hence his offering is: “Esse neither is, nor is not.”[3] The reason for this difficulty is that esse or “existence,”[4] not being an essence, is therefore not conceptualizable. Logically, then, it cannot be the subject of a verb (itself) in propositional logic. The restraining caveat to conceptualizing existence as such an essence and hence such a subject is that it would, as an essence, obliterate all finitude and multiplicity of being, as it does in Parmenides and Hegel. As subjects we would be reduced to stammering a meaningless “Is-Is-Is.”[5]
Firmly following the methodology of resisting such conceptualization as the work of the first operation of the intellect, simple apprehension, W. follows the doctrine of all modern existentialist Thomists, particularly Gilson and Owens: “Two acts grasp two aspects of being … ; the act of simple understanding cognizes synthesized essences, whereas the act of judging cognizes their here and now being synthesized in existence.”[6] W., like the later Gilson,[7] is circumspect in this affirmation inasmuch as the existence which judgment reaches is always that of an existent, never that of an object in itself. He is faithful to his task of keeping existence existentialized. He does indeed preserve the act of existence from being conceptualized; but does he save it from being verbalized? On one occasion, W. will affirm that “Thomists must … purify their contention that judgment reaches existence; it does not, of course! Judgment affirms the existent.. . .”[8] However, when confronting the assertion of Fabro[9] that existence is a result of esse, W. confesses ignorance of any such distinction between the two, or of their causal connection, and firmly asserts that “judgment is genuinely an understanding of existence,” meaning that to “understand” existence is to “understand” esse. Thus “the existence … is the very Thomistic esse … as known directly in judgment … precisely as the being of what is affirmed, the existent.”[10] If we understand this correctly, the existence that is affirmed is the existent; or, to put it more precisely, existence is the existence of the essence which is the existent, and it is judgment that “grasps” it.[11]1 What is also clear is that “this existence … is the very Thomistic esse.”[12] Therefore, if I am faithful not only to W.’s words but also to his thought, existence is esse.[13] In fact, W. is adamant on the point: “When `existence’ is suppressed in favor of esse … on the grounds that ‘existence’affirmed or denied of things in judgment-is somehow posterior to and not identically the Thomistic act of being, then the foundation of Thomistic realism is at stake.”[14] This is precisely the point that I would like to enjoin.
I. Judgment
Let me borrow from the epistemological expertise of L.-M. Regis in his interpretation of St. Thomas. Regis raises the question whether the existence apprehended in judgment is the Thomistic act of existence or not. He answers in the negative: “Since we cannot give to the ipsum esse rei of judgment the meanng of act of existing as pure actuality, the only remaining possibility is to give it the meaning of mode of existing.”[15]
Regis says “mode of existing,”on the grounds that the act whichjudgment reaches is not the act of existence itself but the existent, which is composed of matter and form, substance and accidents.[16] St. Thomas says that ipsum esse rei is the very composite, the existent. That is what judgment affirms. He goes on to clarify that there are ten modes of existing, one of them substantial and the other nine acidental; thus “judgment knows the real as substances and accidents” (239). This means that what judgment reaches, not alone but in tandem with and assimilated by simple apprehension, is not existenceas act in itself, but existence as the actualizedstate of an essence. This is the existent. Regis’ point is that the direct object of the hudgment is not the act of existence as such, but the existenct in the ligyht of which it produces a synthesis of concpets. It is “an illusion” to think “that judgment has to do directly with the existence of things.”[17]
The reason the act of existing is jedged to be a “state: if essebce (“mode of existeing”) rests on the onassimilative character of judgment. If the point is precisely that the act of existence is coneptually invisible because it is not an essence, then it falls to judgment to carry the burden of its being apprehended or internalized by the knower. But that is unthinkable and absured.[18]
precisely that the act of existence is conceptually invisible because it is not an essence, then it falls to judgment to carry the burden of its being apprehended or internalized by the knower. But that is unthinkable and absurd.18 The known rock exists in the knower not as it is in reality but according to the mode of the knower. And the mode of knowing of the knower is abstractive and immaterial. Consequently, when we judge, we “decide” about the composition of abstractions of the rock according to their factual “identity” in the rock which we point to and judge. “Judgment perfects our knowledge, not by nourishing it with more of the real, but by making more realistic its way of making the real superexist. Thus its activity is directly concerned with our knowledge of the real,”19 not with the real as it is in itself. Thus the factual identity of concepts referring to the existent is the so-called “existerce” that judgment allegedly “grasps.” And so judgment is an act of the intellect according to its mode, and not an act of nature according to nature’s mode. Judgment has access to the act of existence in the state of actualization in which essence is perceived. But this is not the state in which it really is, since judgment is not assimilative. Yet W. has been resolute in affirming that the existent (the actualized state of the essence) is the existence (ipsum esse rei) that judgment cognizes, and that this existence is the very esse of St. Thomas. He even goes a step further and speaks of it in terms of “is.” What could that mean?
II. Logicizing Existence
Having flattened the modalities of being and knowing into an identity by
making judgment the medium of reaching the act of existence (identifying
“existence” with esse), one might then take it as a quite logical step to read a similarity of function into logical being and real being – similarity of mode producing similiarity of being. This is particlarly true if the principle intention of W. is to avoid te essentializing of existence and the consequent conceptualizing of it.of W. This, indeed, turns out to be the case. What the judgement does in identifying concepts by the verb “is,” viewing their identity in the intelligibility of the existenct, is a “mimicking” of the synthesis effected by the act of existence, esse, of the elements of the essence: matter/form, substance/accidents. What has happened here is that in his determination to avoid the essentialization of existence, W. has consigned its grasp to judgment. But judgment alone is deceptive, insofar as it cannot sitinguish the mode of nowing from the mode of being. Consequantly, having saved existence from the concept, W. cannt save it from the verb. The Thomistic esse, the act of existence which, seen through the prism of judgment, is perceived as a mode or state of the existenct ( and therefore as vulnerable to idealization and subjectivism) now becomes aa verb:
The relation between the functioning of existing in the real and the functioning of existence in the mind is not to be understood as though it were a mrere parallelism. Judgment reiterates intentionally, if I an pardoned a neologism, the “ongoing” synthessizing of the real in being… To know is to be other as other; knowing is not a matching or copying of the real by the mind but a re-being of the real in the mind… The “is” of speech is mimesis of the “is” of things…[19]
I submit that the major enterprise of W. throughout his metaphysical essays is to reason out all the consequences of having “reduced” the act oexistence to the synthesizing act of the elements of essence. He says, “By `existence
… we mean the following: radical extramentality; the act of synthesizing; the principle or the act of non-contradiction; radical activity; the act transcending sameness and otherness’ the act which can neither be affirmed nor denied, but without which nothing is.”[20] As identical in mode to a verb,, “existence” as “is” connot be a concept. As such, he calls it “radical extramentality” precisely because of this nonconceptuability. He also calls it a “negative transcendence” because it simply cannot be reached as an essence and because even when found, it cannot be known as such. Consequently, metaphysics cannot be reached on some third degree of abstraction, nor will it consist in a contemplation of being. It will be a robust and endless synthesizing of concepts, a logical Sisyphys mimicking the “re-being” and “re-playing” of the “is” of reality in the “is” of the copula. Obviously, although “is” is extramental (raducally), it is not real, because to say it is real would be to objectify it into an essence. Hence existence as “is” is not reality but its “condition” insofar as it “anneals” the real (the elements of essence) into the synthesized unity of the existenct. As such, it is not known, given, expereinced, self-identical, dynamic or static. It simply is not. But as synthesizer of the real, it is its supreme principle.
“Facts” Are Judgments of Thoughts, Not Realities
The internal logic of this enterprise of W.’s seems to be groping between reality and shadows. It is such an easy step, having mistaken real mode for logical mode, act of existence for mode of existence, to then supplant the real mode with the logical, “is” for esse. As Regis says, “it is nto because a house is made up of feet and yards that it is measurable, but because it is built of materials that can be measured in feet and yards.”[21]
The error of replacing real materials with measurements had already been perpetrated the moment “mode of existening” became confused with “act of existeing.” The logicism consists in the first place in even considering “existence-as-fact” real. W. is clear and adamant on the oint: “Existence as the fact of being is not a follow up on esse, not a consequence, but the being of things. Themselves. Thus is esse known in judgment.”[22] W. is identifying “existence as” with “esse” with “fact.” We may ask with the mathematician/philosopher G. Frege, :What is a fact?” Frege’s response is, “A fact is a thought which is true.”[23] The rist indication is that facts are not realititeis but juegments and thoughts about reality. In support of this, Inciarte comments: “While I can take a hard thing in my hands and throw it against a less hard thing, I cannot take a fact in my hands… and throw it against another fact… to destroy the second fact with the first.”[24]
The consclusion to this part is that certain basic thoughts of St. Thomas, that “the llikeness of the thing is received in the intellect according to the mode of the intellect and not according to the mode of the thing” and that “the composition of the intellect differs from the composition of the thing,”[25] are violated in W.’s access to existence by exclusive reliance on judgment. In the next section I will suggest a transition from the mode in which the intellect preceives to the mode in which being is: a passage from existence to esse.
pretation of St. Thomas. Regis raises the question whether the existence similarity of function into logical being and real being- similarity of mode apprehended in judgment is the I nomistic act of existence or not. He answers producing similarity of being. This is particularly true if the principal intentic in the negative: “Since we cannot give to the ipsum esse rei of judgment the of W. is to avoid the essentializing of existence and the consequent conceptumeaning of act of existing as pure actuality, the only remaining possibility is to alizing of it. This, indeed, turns out to be the case. What the judgment does lip give it the meaning of mode of existing.” 15 identifying concepts by the verb “is,” viewing their identity in the intelligibility
Regis says “mode of existing,” on the grounds that the act which judgment of the existent, is a “mimicking” of the synthesis effected by the act of wdsreaches is not the act of existence itself but the existent, which is composed of tence, esse, of the elements of the essence: matter/form, substance/accidents. matter and form, substance and accidents.16 St. Thomas says that ipsum esse What has happened here is that in his determination to avoid the essentializarei is the very composite, the existent. That is what judgment affirms. He goes tion of existence, W. has consigned its grasp to judgment. But judgment alone on to clarify that there are ten modes of existing, one of them substantial and is deceptive, insofar as it cannot distinguish the mode of knowing’ from the the other nine accidental; thus “judgment knows the real as substances and mode of being. Consequently, having saved existence from the concept, W. accidents” (329). This means that what judgment reaches, not alone but with cannot save it from the verb. The Thomistic esse, the act of existence which, assimilation by simple apprehension, is not existence as act but existence as the seen through the prism of judgment, is perceived as a mode or state of the actualized state of an essence. This is the existent. Regis’ point is that the existent (and therefore as vulnerable to idealization and subjectivism) now direct object of the judgment is not the act of existence as such, but the exis- becomes a verb:
tent in the light of which it produces a synthesis of concepts. It is “an illusion”
to think “that judgment has to do directly with the existence of things.” 17 The relation between the functioning of existing in the real and the functioning of existence
The reason the act of existing is judged to be a “state” of essence (“mode of in the mind is not to be understood as though it were a mere parallelism. Judgment refer
aces intentionally if I ” “
am a neolo the on synthesving
of the reat’
ln
pardoned ism g oing
existing”) rests on the nonassimilative character of judgment. If the point is , 5 , being…. To know is to be other as other; knowing is not a matching or copying of the real
76 From Existence to Esse From Existence to Esse 77
by the mind but a rep ing of the real in the mind…. The “is” of speech is a mimesis of sition of the intellect differs from the composition of the thing,-27 are violated’
the “is” of things…. in W.’s access to existence by exclusive reliance on judgment. In the next
I submit that the major enterprise of W. throughout his metaphysical essays section I will suggest a transition from the mode in which the intellect is to reason out all the consequences of having “reduced” the act of existence perceives to the mode in which being is: a passage from existence to esse. to the synthesizing act of the elements of essence. He says, “By `existence’ .. . we mean the following: radical extramentality; the act of synthesizing; the III. From Existence to Esse principle or the act of non-contradiction; radical activity; the act transcending sameness and otherness; the act which can neither be affirmed nor denied, but The intellectual operation which W. assumes to grasp the act of existence is without which nothing is.”21 As identical in mode to a verb, “existence” as “is” judgment. This has made explanation of the hierarchy of truths theoretically cannot be a concept. As such, he calls it “radical extramentality” precisely impossible. As St. Thomas points out, “Since truth is defined as adequation of because of this nonconceptuability. He also calls it a “negative transcendence” intellect and thing, it cannot admit of more or less from the point of view of because it simply cannot be reached as an essence and because even when adequation 28 This is readily understood from what we have considered found, it cannot be known as such. Consequently, metaphysics cannot be above, inasmuch as the intellect is not assimilative in judgment. It does not reached on some third degree of abstraction, nor will it consist in a contem- apprehend the mode of reality. Rather, it “decides” (as judgment, it is purely plation of being. It will be a robust and endless synthesizing of concepts, a the act of the intellect and is not assimilative of nature) as to adequation or logical Sisyphus mimicking the “re-being” and “re-playing” of the “is” of real- equality of thought with things. Therefore, the “existence” (“is”) which is the ity in the “is” of the copula. Obviously, although “is” is extramental (radi- fruit of judgment is all or nothing. Either the proposition is true or it is not. 29 cally), it is not real, because to say it is real would be to objectify it into an However, St. Thomas continues, “if we consider the being of the thing essence. Hence existence as “is” is not reality but its “condition” insofar as it which is the measure of truth, then, as is said in the second book of the Meta”anneals” the real (the elements of essence) into the synthesized unity of the physics, there is the same disposition of things in being and in truth; and existent. As such, it is not known, given, experienced, self-identical, dynamic therefore things which are more, are also more true.”30 The point to be made or static. It simply is not. But as synthesizer of the real, it is its supreme prin- here is that reality, as we see it, is given hierarchically. The spread is from ciple. ultimate material particles to God. It is equally true to say “Peter is walking’
The internal logic of this enterprise of W.’s seems to be groping between and “Peter is a man.” But you are not saying the same kind of truth. If truth reality and shadows. It is such an easy step, having mistaken real mode for comes from judgment, kind of truth comes with an assimilation of reality from logical mode, act of existence for mode of existence, to then supplant the real simple apprehension.31 Therefore, to perceive “modes of being” we will need, mode with the logical, “is” for esse. As Regis says, “It is not because a house is besides judgment, the simple apprehension of the essences. This will give ue made up of feet and yards that it is measurable, but because it is built of mate- the dimensions of reality (substance, accident, intrinsic, extrinsic, etc.),:as it fu rials that can be measured in feet and yards.”22 The error of replacing real in itself, according to its mode. A grasp of the essences will vary the t” Y materials with measurements had already been perpetrated the moment meaning of the copula “is.” We will be given a hierarchical grasp of a hiefai` “mode of existing” became confused with “act of existing.” The logicism chically arranged reality. As Buersmeyer observes, “The verb `est’ in the consists in the first place in even considering “existence-as-fact” real. W. is predicate varies its meaning depending on the `modus essendi’ that is-predl. clear and adamant on the point: “Existence as the fact of being is not a follow- cated. In the predication `Socrates est animal,’ ‘est’ signifies a substantial w$y up on esse, not a consequence, but the being of things themselves. Thus is esse of being…. How an individual is `being said to be’ can only be interpreted known in judgment.”23 W. is identifying “existence” with “esse” with “fact.” correctly by looking at how it exists `in rebus.’ In each category, ‘est’ takes on We may ask with the German mathematician/philosopher G. Frege, “What is a different meaning depending on what type of being-substantial or accidena fact?”24 Frege’s response is, “A fact is a thought which is true.”25 The first tal, intrinsic or extrinsic-is predicated of the subject”32 (emphasis added). indication is that facts are not realities but judgments and thoughts about real- Therefore, there is no one essential “modus significandi” in speculative gramity. In support of this, Inciarte comments: “While I can take a hard thing in mar based on a single “modus essendi,” but rather a whole multiplicity of ways my hands and throw it against a less hard thing, I cannot take a fact in my of being.
hands … and throw it against another fact … to destroy the second fact with Regis makes this analysis the basis for his critique of Descartes and Kant the first.”26 inasmuch as they limit knowledge to a certain kind. Descartes says, “Do not
The conclusion to this part is that certain basic thoughts of St. Thomas, that trust the senses!” Kant says, “Do not trust the intellect!” But “neither man “the likeness of the thing is received in the intellect according to the mode of explains the multiplicity of truths of which the human mind is conscious. On the intellect and not according to the mode of the thing” and that “the compo- the contrary, each explains such multiplicity as an illusion…. Their episte
mology is monistic.”33
And insofar as W. makes the judgment the method of reaching the act of existence, it will always be “the existence-of-such-an-existent.” We will, in other words, always be understanding reality as we perceive it-i.e., as an existent, an actualized essence. We will always be seeing things in the same way we form propositions. We will always see being as substance and accident which exercise existence, in a manner analogous to the way we make concepts subjects of verbs. But if I understand St. Thomas correctly, instead of reality being substances which exercise existence as their actuality, reality is acts of existence which are limited in a multiplicity and hierarchy so that they are now substance, now accident, now intrinsic, now extrinsic, now higher, now lower. Instead of substance as subject of being, we are presented with substance as a “mode” of existing, accident being another mode of existing. We can see this only by taking reality as it is, multiple and hierarchical, while understanding that being is not simply essence or act of existence. It is both, as known through the operations of simple apprehension and judgment. In a word, we have to make a 1800 change in perspective. 34
The text that is crucial to appreciation of this topsy-turvydom is St. Thomas’
De Veritate, 1, 1. This text speaks first of “reduction” to first principles. The principle to which all things reduce, is being: “Nothing can really be added to
being as though it were something not included in being …. for every reality from “existence” to esse, and to esse as a hierarchical and multiple fullness is essentially a being.” However, “some predicates may be said to add to Let it be noted here that W. repudiates any sense of intensivity with regard to being, inasmuch as they express a mode of being not expressed by the term esse: “An `intensive emerging act’ in direct conceptualization simply cannot `being”‘ (emphasis added). He then explains that mode is “a certain special signify the absolute prior principle of esse which … in no literal sense is ‘ manner of being; for there are different grades (a hierarchy) of being, insofar `intense’ or `intensive’ of itself because `intensive’ denotes degrees of determi= as there are different modes of existing.” The Latin here is important: “Sunt nation … and hence any intensity found in ‘to be’ is precisely essence itsel , enim diversi gradus entitatis, secundum quos accipiuntur diversi modi not esse qua esse.”41
essendi.” Notice that he is saying there is a hierarchy of beings according to The hermeneutics of Thomistic thought in Regis and in Fabro spem.!to the “modi essendi.” He does not say “modi entis.” “Modus entis” would coincide. They both speak of a “reduction” to “cause.” There is clearly A. justify the entire presentation of W. inasmuch as, governed by the judgment, intuition in the sense of any restriction to judgment. In fact, as we have , existence would be the “mode” or “state” of the existent or essence. Instead this kind of intuition is the cause of the problem, inasmuch as it inhibits w’ of substance as a mode of the act of existing, one way of existing as opposed to archical fullness. Fabro calls this decisive step of reduction “the enlgigcAdo of . other ways of existing (accidents), what we would have would not be an act of esse.”42 The discovery of esse is achieved by “the strictly metaphysical, method existing but an effect or “result” of the act of existing; i.e., existence as a mode
of the substance (entis): its actuality. This is, of course, the way it is perceived; but St. Thomas is suggesting in this capital text that that is not the way it is.
Returning to the text, St. Thomas affirms: “Substance does not add a
difference to being by signifying some reality added to it, but substance simply expresses a special manner of existing [essendi], as a being in itself.”35 The same is true of the other classes of existents. Phelan was W.’s mentor. In this connection, I would like to quote him on this crucial point: “What was my joy, then, to read in the very first article of St. Thomas’ Quaestio Disputala De Veritate that reality, unity, truth, and all the transcendentals were general modes of being (modi essendi), not properties or attributes of beings (entia), and that all those things we are accustomed to designate by nouns-substance, quantity, quality, relation, and the rest – are likewise modes of being (.modi
essendi, mark you, not modi entis or modi entium). They are, therefore, more if achieving itself in constitutive expansiveness. As there is a hierarchy 0
accurately expressed by adverbial adjuncts to the verb ‘to be’ than by customary substantives.” 36
The next step is to try to say what St. Thomas has done–He has reduced the hierarchical constellation of truths, each involving simple apprehension and judgment, to their ultimate principle: esse. But he does not see esse as factic. ity. Rather, he explicitly reduces the hierarchy of truths, wherein we judge existence as states of essences (which is precisely the way we perceive it), to a core of existential perfection, esse, which is the perfection of all perfections; “esse est perfectissimum omnium.”37 In fact, St. Thomas proclaims: “What I mean by esse is the actuality of all acts, and because of this, it is the perfection of all perfections.”38 According to Phelan, St. Thomas’ vision was the follow ing: “Esse est proprius effectus primae causae. But why does God give esse and nothing more, except because there is nothing more to give? Just as in God, there is nothing but Esse writ large, so in things there is nothing but esse, wn . small.”39 “An essence, a nature, a form, an accident, a property-none:=of these is truly entitled to the name being, or ens. Each is a mode of being,, of some ens, an ens entis. Only what subsists is properly an ens since it alone is an esse, that is a mode of being, not a mode of an ens, but a mode of the act us essendi common to all entia 40 A distinct passage has been made here
of `resolution’ or `reduction’ … of accidental predicamental acts to substar tlal form and of both accidental and substantial acts to the more profound substantial act which is esse.”43 With regard to this resolution, Fabro refers to the following Thomistic text: “All things must be traced to one first principle
.. by which they are coordinated.”44 This transition from “existence” to esse touches on the discussion of the “thin-essence/thick-essence” literature derived from Phelan45 and developed by Carlo46 and Clarke.47 Perhaps the understanding that “nonintensive” esse or “fact” is not the act of existence at all but the logicized “state-of-the-essence” could shed light on further development.
The dynamic nature of this “one first principle” is in stark contrast to the unreal “existence-as-fact.” The Thomistic esse is described by Gilson thus; ‘Not: to be, then to act, but: to be is to act.”48 All doing (agere) is the very esse
80
From Existence to Esse
being, so there is a corresponding relationality of that being on each level. This is due to the double dimensionality of the act of existence whereby there is a direct proportionality between the intrinsicness of the existence and the degree of the relationality. The rock relates only in the sense of placement, with little or no intrinsicness as being. The plant reaches into the soil and towards the sun with a corresponding inwardness of life. The animal has a relationality to all sensible things, with a corresponding interior soul as seat of sensation and source of self-motion. The human being relates to all being with the corresponding ontological weight of person. St. Thomas affirms these two dimensions of intrinsicness and relationality of esse in Summa Contra Gentiles 4, 11, which is glossed thus by Pieper: “Only in reference to an inside can there be an outside. Without a self-contained `subject,’ there can be no ‘object.’ Relating-to, conforming-with, being-oriented-toward – all these notions presuppose an inside starting point.” And again: “To have (or to be) an `intrinsic existence’ means `to be able to relate’ and `to be the sustaining subject at the center of a field of reference.”’49 This is a new notion of act taken from the Neoplatonic notion of energeia, which expands the Aristotelian notion by connecting it with the hierarchical order. 50
An example of this new notion of act is St. Thomas’ understanding of the esse of man as intellige Un cordial saludo de re.51 Succinctly, St. Thomas comments: “In immaterial substances, their esse itself is their vivere, and their vivere is not other than their intellectivum esse. Therefore, they are living and understanding from the same principle by which they are beings.”52 This “same principle” is the one esse which makes the intellective soul to be and to be relational according to the above double dimensionality concurrently with being the act of the body.53 This esse is of such an immaterial kind that the soul subsists after the death of the body. Yet while living, the body also subsists in substantial unity with the soul precisely by means of this special immaterial kind of esse called intelligere which gives the human body a special kind of teleology- namely, that of a
person.54
The reasoning of St. Thomas is that there is only one substantial form in man, which operates on diverse levels from the vegetative through the intellective by means of powers. This one substantial form is united to matter and carries on the operations of growth, reproduction, sensation, and intellection. However, the ultimate source of unity is the one esse: “Forma et materia conveniant in uno esse…. And this single act of being (hoc esse) is that in which the composite substance subsists: a thing one in being and made up of matter and form.”55 St. Thomas presents the objection “that an intellectual substance cannot communicate its being (esse suum) to corporeal matter in such fashion that the two will be united in the same act of being (unum esse) because diverse genera have diverse modes of being, and to the nobler substance belongs a loftier being.” He answers that the same esse pertains in different ways: to the intellectual subject as its principle, to the matter as something higher (altius).56 It is this “altius” of esse as intelligere that is here offered as an example of “intensive esse.”
From Existence to Esse
G. B. Phelan, in a paean to esse as a fulsome intensivity of act, remarks: “The act of existence (esse) is not a state; it is an act and not as any static definable object of conception. Esse is dynamic impulse, energy, act – the first,, the most persistent and enduring of all dynamism, all energies, all acts. In all things on earth the act of being (esse) is the consubstantial urge of nature, a restless, striving force, carrying each being (ens) onward, from within the depths of its own reality to its full self-achievement….” 57
Like W., Ralph Mclnerny understands esse in a way that is contradictory toFabro’s “intensive esse.” For him, being means essence, the habens esse, or “subject of existence”: “Being is the apprehension of supposita from the point’ of view of that which is absolutely minimal, namely that they have existence. The thing grasped as subject of existence, as that to which ‘esse actu in rerum natura’ is attributed: this is what is grasped when ‘ens’ is grasped. In this sense, the thing is what is principally signified by ‘ens.’ Yet in the ratio entis, that which is formal, that form which the name is imposed to signify, is existence
” (emphasis added).58 From the perspective of the above analysis, Mclnerny is quite correct in denying that judgment reaches existence as anything other than the actuality or state of the essence. The essence is what is meant by being.59 Therefore, it is completely coherent that he affirm esse to have no intensive character in itself: “Esse is preferred to all other divine names because it does not include in its signification any determinate mode of being: to be wise, to be good, etc. If we set aside these limited modes and retain esse, what do we have? … the least … the most confused, least informative…. What esse names is all these things, but not that esse means all these things.”60
However, as we saw above in St. Thomas’ De Veritate 1, 1, we cannot “set aside these limited modes” and retain esse, since these very modes are modes of esse. And for this reason the first and last grasps of esse in life are mysteriously full, with the difference that the fullness of the existential order is made more and more explicit as the knowledge of the modes (essences) develops. This is why judgment is insufficient to reach esse as it is, why it is in need of simple apprehension. Glossing St. Thomas,61 Schmitz says: “The term is and its cognate being express what is maximal in the thing, since if it were not, nothing else belonging to the thing would be either, neither what is particular about it, nor specific, nor universal. There is, then, a certain paradox in this convergence of what is most common with what is fullest and most radical and most completive in the thing.” 62
IV. Conclusion
In an attempt to preserve the act of existence from conceptualization, W., following Owens, has removed it from the realm of essence only to deposit it, obscured, as a verb. This was effected by reliance on judgment as a nonconceptualizing method of access to it. In this, W. is similar to Heidegger inasmuch as he tries to recover and preserve real existence only to treat it as the
nthesizing act of an essence. Rather than objectify it, he has logicized it. Notes
ealism is jeopardized. Regis and Fabro, by including simple apprehension ith judgment in the method of access to esse, take a different and more homistic turn in rediscovering the Thomistic esse. Instead of being the suiting state of the perceived essence, there it emerges via reduction or solution to cause as the “act of all acts … perfection of all perfections,” the timate meaning of reality.
We are now passing through a historic moment, when the dichotomy
1 Summa Theologise, 1, 85, 5 ad 3: “differt compositio intellectus a compositions rei.”
,tween the subjective and objective is being overcome. The human person is
2 Henceforward, Wilhelmsen will be referred to as “w.”
ltering into the forefront of thought, both theoretical and practical. Man has
:en analyzed and objectified in the analysis. The moment has arrived when
3 W., Being and Knowing [henceforth referred to as BKJ (Albany, NY: Preserving Christian
J Publications, 1991), p. 56.
to human person must be understood as a subject-metaphysically. This is
4 W. uses the terms interchangeably throughout, which is symptomatic of the difficulty, since
npossible as long as we are not able to make the transition from being as it is my point is precisely to distinguish them as distinct objects of the intellect.
-rceived (“objectified” and hence “logicized,” as I have argued above) to
ping as it is in it-If -“subjectified.” As Wojtyla remarks, “The subjectivity of
5 BK, p. 51.
tan as a person is also objective.”63 The transition from perceptive mode to
6 Ibid., p. 48.
;al mode of existing by Fabro’s, Regis’s, and Phelan’s understanding of De
7 see the study of the evolution of Gilson re judgment grasping the act of existence in itself:
eritate, 1, 1, could be of invaluable assistance in the crossing of this threshold. “Etienne Gilson and the Concept of Existence,” The Thomist vol. XXVIII (July 1964): 302337. See also the last statement of Gilson on the knowledge of existence through judgment
as always the act of the existent: “We apprehend existence only as the existence-of-such-an existent, which is for us an object of sensible intuition; we never apprehend existence in itself and apart in its proper quality of existence.” John F. X I{nasas, The Preface to 7homistic
Metaphysics (Peter Lang, 1990), p. 181.
8 W., The Paradoxical Structure of Existence [henceforth referred to as PSE] (Albany:
Preserving Christian Publications, 1989), pp. 55-56.
9 BK, p. 110 et seq.
10 Ibid., pp. 124-125.
“The existent is affirmed in judgment, not precisely the existence of the existent” (Ibid., p. 114).
Ibid., p. 124.
13 “The esse affirmed in judgment … is the act of existing itself.”
14 Ibid., p. 127.
15 Louis-Marie Regis, Epistemology (The Macmillan Co., 1959), p. 329.
16 “Because the existere of a thing composed of matter and form … also consists in a certain composition of form with matter or of accident with subject (quia … esse rei … consistit in quadam composition fonnae ad matenam, vel accidentis ad subjectum).” In Sent., 1, XXXVIII,1, 3, sol.
Regis, pp. 322-324.
“The esse of the thing known cannot be intentionally absorbed. It is affirmed. This is the very fundamental datum of knowledge as an intending act…. It follows that knowledge does not precisely absorb existence: it absorbs the existent. The esse of the existent, never an object capable of being absorbed cognitively, is not affirmed to exist itself. Were esse an
object in a world of objects, esse could be affirmed or denied” (PSE, p. 97).
19 Regis, p. 323.
20 BK, pp. 64-66. 21 PSE, p. 124.
22 Regis, p. 333.
23 BIB p. 125.
24 The logical status of existence as a concept is developed in G. Frege’s Foundations of Arithmetic (Northwestern UP, 1968), p. 65e.
25 G. Frege, Der Gedanke, in “Kleine Schriften,” ed. cit., p. 359, in A. Llano’s Metaftsica y Lenguaje (Pamplona: EUNSA, 1984), p. 219.
26 A. LLano, Metaftsica y Lenguaje, pp. 218-219. 27 S. T. 1,85,5ad3.
28 De Caritate, 9 ad 1.
39 Ibid., p. 126. 40 Ibid., p. 127. 41 BK, p. 131.
42 “Il cammino della verita e adunque lo sviluppo dell’esse negli entia, a I’ ‘espansione’ dells sua unita formale nella molteplicita reale delle vane forme di essere; e questa, possiame chiamarla, l’uscita dell’esse fuori di se, negli enti per I’appunto, e la divisione dell’esse owerc quella the Hegel chiama con frase incisiva e ambigua la `Diremtion’ dell’Assoluto in U stesso. Ed it cammino della verita a ancora lo sviluppo dell’esse come ‘intensificazione’ de tk stesso negli enti, come ascesa, progresso e compimento verso quella pienezza the 1’esse e ir se e per se fin dall’inizio ma the non si manifesta the alla fine, nel ‘ritorno’ degli er1U all’essere”-C. Fabro, Partecipazione e Causalita, Societa Editrice Intemazionale de Torirtc 1960, p. 214. –
43 C. Fabro, “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy … ,” The Review of M£Ia1 physics, vol. XXVII, No. 3 (March 1974):486.
29 “The situation today is that in the actual practice of the English language the verb ‘to exist’ is 44 pot. Dei, Q. III, a. 6.
basically the equivalent of, or convertible with, to be there.’ … This linguistic practice is
consonant with what modern philosophy holds about the meaning of ‘to exist,’ which is said 45 “The Being of Creatures,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical AssociadM
to be a `locative’ one: The primary sense of ‘to exist’ may perhaps be ‘to be somewhere,’ (1957) XXXI:I l8ff.
ultimately in the world. That is why I call existence an ‘all-or-nothing’ notion; something is
46 “”
either in a place or not there. Once we accept this we begin to see that speaking of degreesThe Rolc of Essence in Existential Metaphysics, Intemational Philosophical Qtta,
of ‘existence,’ as many Thomists do, might’not be such a felicitous expression after all” John (1962) II: 571-90.
. Nijenhuis, 0.. Carm., The Thomist 50 (July 1986): 356-357. Notice that number, fact, and existence are handled as having a “locative” logical character because these are concepts that seem to point to the mode of existing. The point is that from the side of judgment, these
concepts are “all or nothing” because they are talking not about the real act of existence but 48 Being and Some Philosophers, PIMS, 1949, p. 184.
about the actualized state of the perceived essence
. 49 J Ps eper Living the Truth (Ignatius Press: 1989 81
.,), p..
50 M. Jordan, “The Grammar of Esse: Re-reading Thomas on the Transcendentals,” 7120 Thomist (January 1980): 22-24.
51 S. T., 1, 18, 2 ad 1: “Sensation and intelligence, and the like, are sometimes taken for the operations, sometimes for the existence itself of the operator….” (“Vel dicendum Cat melius, quod sentire et intelligere … quandoque sumuntur pro quibusdam operationibUS; quandoque autem pro ipso esse sic operantium. Dicitur enim IX Ethic., quod `ease cal sentire vel intelligere….”‘)
47 “The Role of Essence Within St. Thomas’ Essence-Existence Doctrine: Positive or Negative Principle? A Dispute Within Thomism,”Atti del Congresso Intemazionale, N. 6: “L’Essere.”
30 De Caritate, 9 ad 1. In IX Metaph., lect. 11, n. 1903; In 1 Post. Analyt, lect. 4, n. 5; In VIII Phys., lect. 3, 6; In 1 Sent., 19, 5, 1; S.T. 1, 16, 3, “Sed contra”; I-II, 3, 7; S.C.G., I, 62, “Sicut enim.”
31 There must be an identity of “form” in thing and intellect, but in diverse modes.
32 K Buersmeyer, “The Verb and Existence,” The New Scholasticism, vol. LX, no. 2 (Spring 1986):159-160.
33 Regis, “St. Thomas and Epistemology,” Aquinas Lecture (Marquette UP, 1946), p. 45.
34 And it is on this point that W. is most certainly correct when he warns against the conceptualizing tendency of the human intellect: “In order that we might abandon the conceptual, we hiust find a method permitting us to drop the inbuilt essentialism of the human intelligence, a method which will ‘go against the grain’ of our normal intellectual habits” (PSE, p. 53). However, in this case, having escaped from the tendency to conceptualize and thus to logicize in that way, he may have fallen into an equally pernicious tendency, which is to logicize in another way-i.e., by reifying the verb.
35 “Sed nomine substantiae exprimitur quidam specialis modus essendi, scilicet per ens.”
36 G. B. Phelan, Selected Papers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1967), p. 126.
37 “Fsce eat perfectissimum omnium (ad tenium)…. Secundum hoc enim dicitur aliquid esse perfectum, secundum quod est actu: nam perfectum dicitur cui nihil deest secundum modum suae perfectionis” (corpus). S. T, 1, 4, 1, c. and ad 3.
38 De Pot. Dei, q. 7. 7, a. 2, ad 9m: “Hoc quod dico esse est actualitas omnium actuum, et propter hoc est perfection omnium perfectionum.”
63 Subjectivity and the Irreducible in Man, Analecta Husserliana, vol. VII (D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1978), p. 109.
52 De Substantiis Separatis, VI, 61, ed. Lescoe, pp. 100-101.
53 “But the human soul exists through its own esse ; and matter shares in this esse up to a point without completely enveloping it….” De Unitate Intellectus III; ed. cit., no. 83, p. 52.
54 This is why sexual ethics takes on the rhythm of the person (love-making cannot be separated from life-giving).
55 S.C.G., II, 68, par. 3.
56 Ibid., par. 4 and 5.
57 Phelan, “The Existentialism of St. Thomas,” Selected Papers (1967), p. 77. 58 Ralph Mclncrny, Being and Predication (CUA, 1986), p. 222.
59 “Insofar as [Socrates] is what has existence … the term signifies his essence” (Ibid., p. 226). 60 Ibid., p. 234.
61 S. T. I-II, 1. 2., 1. 5 ad 2m.
86 From Existence to Esse
62 K. Schmitz, “The Gift: Creation,” Aquinas Lecture (Marquette UP, 1982), p. 101.
[1] Summa Theologiae, 1, 85, 5 ad 3: “differt composition intellectus a compositione rei.”
[2] Henceforth, Wilhelmsen will be referred to as “W.”
[3] F.D. Wilhelmsen, Being and Knowing (henceforth referred to as BK) Allbany, N.Y.: Preserving Christian Publications (1991), 56.
[4] Wilhelmsen uses the terms interchageably throughout, which is symptomatic of the difficulty, since my oion ti sprecisely to distinguish them as distinct objects of the intellect.
[7] See the study of the evolution of Gilson re juegment grasping the act of existence in itself: “Etienne Gilson and the Concept of Existence,” The Thomist, vol. XXVIII (July 1964): 302-337. See also the last statement of Gilson on the knowledge of existence through judgment as always the act of the existenct: “We apprehend existence only as the existence-of-such-an-existent, which is for us an object of sensible intuition; we never apprehend existence in itself and apart in its proper quality of existence.” John F.X. Knasas, The Preface to Thomistic Metaphysics Peter Lang (1990) 181.
[8] F.D. Wilhelmsen, The Paradoxical Structure of Existence (henceforth referred to as PSE) Albany: Preserving Christian Publications (1989) 55-56.
[15] Louis-Marie Regis, Epistemology , The Macmillan Co. (1959) 329.
[16] “Because the existere of a thing composed of matter and form… also consists in a certain compositiuon of form with matter or of accident with subject (quia… esse rei… consistit in quadam compositione formae ad materiam, vel accidentis ad subjectum).” In Sent., 1, XXXVIII, 1, 3, sol.
[18] “The esse of the thng known cannot be intentionally absorbed. It is affirmed. This is the very fundamental datum of knowledge as an intending act… It follows that knowledge does not precisely absorb existence: it absorbs the existenct. The esse of the existenct, never an object capalbe of being absorbed cognitively, is not affirmed to exist itself. Were esse an ojbect in a world of objects, esse could be affirmed or denied.” (PSE. 97).
This op. ed. Is good, but still in the wrong ball park. Ezra Klein writes (NYT op. ed. 5/30/23) that “we learn when we deeply process information. If we’re removed from that and we’re delegating everything to GPT (GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer. A transformer is a type of AI deep learning model that was first introduced by Google in a research paper in 2017. Five years later, transformer architecture has evolved to create powerful models such as Chat GPT.) and we’re not connecting to that information.”
“We understand this intuitively when it’s applied to students” [persons of intelligence, love and memory] capable of becoming identified with other persons. And knowledge always means becoming one with another. The Greeks had it: “Like is known by like.”
Get it straight: knowing is not processing information. It is “becoming the other.” It’s a spiritual, immaterial transaction. The Latin for “understand” is intellegere = legere ab intus. You only “understand” what you recognize. That is, you have to see yourself in what you take in.
Perhaps, even deeper. You are the only person you experience since only you exercise your freedom. Therefore, you have to go out of yourself to love the other and therefore, understand the other. AI is, and will be more and more useful, but it will never “read from within” because it doesn’t have a heart.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Eric Voegelin discovered the absolute value and transcendenc of the human person in the experience of the ant-humanist ruins of the19th and 20th centuries, to wit, the modern West. Their problems are our problem. The resurrection of our times are at our feet and in our hands. Peruse David Walsh’s “After Ideology” for a mind-opening this worldly secular experience in the ordinary life of everyday. Ascetically, ir is living the grace of the present moment. Liturgically, it is living the hidden life of the low Mass. It deprives the “woke” and grandiose ideologies of the present moment of air. Pray, work and breathe deeply.
Alphabet’s Google Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Google Shopping, YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Amazon’s Marketplace, Apple’s App Store, and Twitter. The others are Microsoft’s two units LinkedIn and Bing, booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Inc’s Snapchat, TikTok, Wikipedia, Zalando, and Alibaba’s AliExpress.
“We consider these 19 online platforms and search engines have become systematically relevant and have special responsibilities to make the internet safer,” Breton told reporters earlier this year, adding that those companies would have to target so-called disinformation’ (Again: Whose disinformation?)
Breton said he was checking to see whether another four to five companies fall under the DSA, with a decision expected in the next few weeks. Breton singled out Facebook’s content moderation system for criticism because of its role in building opinions on key issues.
Blogger: This post makes no pretence to critique the above. Rather it is a call to observe the massive control over the release or silencing of information to a world population by a privilegiad very few (elite), be it democratic or totalitarian.Cf. Epoch Times news today on Elon Musk (5/29/23).
On the day Solzhenitsyn was arrested, February, 12, 1974, he released the text of “Live Not by Lies.” The next day, he was exiled to the West, where he received a hero’s welcome. This moment marks the peak of his fame. Solzhenitsyn equates “lies” with ideology, the illusion that human nature and society can be reshaped to predetermined specifications. And his last word before leaving his homeland urges Soviet citizens as individuals to refrain from cooperating with the regime’s lies. Even the most timid can take this least demanding step toward spiritual independence. If many march together on this path of passive resistance, the whole inhuman system will totter and collapse.
There was a time when we dared not rustle a whisper. But now we write and read samizdat and, congregating in the smoking rooms of research institutes, heartily complain to each other of all they are muddling up, of all they are dragging us into! There’s that unnecessary bravado around our ventures into space, against the backdrop of ruin and poverty at home; and the buttressing of distant savage regimes; and the kindling of civil wars; and the ill-thought-out cultivation of Mao Zedong (at our expense to boot)—in the end we’ll be the ones sent out against him, and we’ll have to go, what other option will there be? And they put whomever they want on trial, and brand the healthy as mentally ill—and it is always “they,” while we are—helpless.
We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:
“But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”
We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common nuclear death, do not fear a third world war (perhaps we’ll hide away in some crevice), but fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without the white bread, the hot water heater, a Moscow residency permit.
We have internalized well the lessons drummed into us by the state; we are forever content and comfortable with its premise: we cannot escape the environment, the social conditions; they shape us, “being determines consciousness.” What have we to do with this? We can do nothing.
But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not “they” who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!
Some will counter: But really, there is nothing to be done! Our mouths are gagged, no one listens to us, no one asks us. How can we make them listen to us?
To make them reconsider—is impossible.
The natural thing would be simply not to reelect them, but there are no re-elections in our country.
In the West they have strikes, protest marches, but we are too cowed, too scared: How does one just give up one’s job, just go out onto the street?
All the other fateful means resorted to over the last century of Russia’s bitter history are even less fitting for us today—true, let’s not fall back on them! Today, when all the axes have hewn what they hacked, when all that was sown has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited youths who sought, through terror, bloody uprising, and civil war, to make the country just and content. No thank you, fathers of enlightenment! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our hands be clean!
So has the circle closed? So is there indeed no way out? So the only thing left to do is wait inertly: What if something just happens by itself?
But it will never come unstuck by itself, if we all, every day, continue to acknowledge, glorify, and strengthen it, if we do not, at the least, recoil from its most vulnerable point.
From lies.
When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!
And this is the way to break out of the imaginary encirclement of our inertness, the easiest way for us and the most devastating for the lies. For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.
We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!
This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it’s scary even to utter the words) civil disobedience à la Gandhi.
Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.
And thus, overcoming our temerity, let each man choose: Will he remain a witting servant of the lies (needless to say, not due to natural predisposition, but in order to provide a living for the family, to rear the children in the spirit of lies!), or has the time come for him to stand straight as an honest man, worthy of the respect of his children and contemporaries? And from that day onward he:
· Will not write, sign, nor publish in any way, a single line distorting, so far as he can see, the truth;
· Will not utter such a line in private or in public conversation, nor read it from a crib sheet, nor speak it in the role of educator, canvasser, teacher, actor;
· Will not in painting, sculpture, photograph, technology, or music depict, support, or broadcast a single false thought, a single distortion of the truth as he discerns it;
· Will not cite in writing or in speech a single “guiding” quote for gratification, insurance, for his success at work, unless he fully shares the cited thought and believes that it fits the context precisely;
· Will not be forced to a demonstration or a rally if it runs counter to his desire and his will; will not take up and raise a banner or slogan in which he does not fully believe;
· Will not raise a hand in vote for a proposal which he does not sincerely support; will not vote openly or in secret ballot for a candidate whom he deems dubious or unworthy;
· Will not be impelled to a meeting where a forced and distorted discussion is expected to take place;
· Will at once walk out from a session, meeting, lecture, play, or film as soon as he hears the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel, or shameless propaganda;
· Will not subscribe to, nor buy in retail, a newspaper or journal that distorts or hides the underlying facts.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the possible and necessary ways of evading lies. But he who begins to cleanse himself will, with a cleansed eye, easily discern yet other opportunities.
Yes, at first it will not be fair. Someone will have to temporarily lose his job. For the young who seek to live by truth, this will at first severely complicate life, for their tests and quizzes, too, are stuffed with lies, and so choices will have to be made. But there is no loophole left for anyone who seeks to be honest: Not even for a day, not even in the safest technical occupations can he avoid even a single one of the listed choices—to be made in favor of either truth or lies, in favor of spiritual independence or spiritual servility. And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.
For us, who have grown staid over time, even this most moderate path of resistance will be not be easy to set out upon. But how much easier it is than self-immolation or even a hunger strike: Flames will not engulf your body, your eyes will not pop out from the heat, and your family will always have at least a piece of black bread to wash down with a glass of clear water.
Betrayed and deceived by us, did not a great European people—the Czechoslovaks—show us how one can stand down the tanks with bared chest alone, as long as inside it beats a worthy heart?
It will not be an easy path, perhaps, but it is the easiest among those that lie before us. Not an easy choice for the body, but the only one for the soul. No, not an easy path, but then we already have among us people, dozens even, who have for years abided by all these rules, who live by the truth.
And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our country!
But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath—we do it to ourselves! Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered.
And if from this also we shrink away, then we are worthless, hopeless, and it is of us that Pushkin asks with scorn:
Why offer herds their liberation? ………………… Their heritage each generation The yoke with jingles, and the whip.
On the day Solzhenitsyn was arrested, February, 12, 1974, he released the text of “Live Not by Lies.” The next day, he was exiled to the West, where he received a hero’s welcome. This moment marks the peak of his fame. Solzhenitsyn equates “lies” with ideology, the illusion that human nature and society can be reshaped to predetermined specifications. And his last word before leaving his homeland urges Soviet citizens as individuals to refrain from cooperating with the regime’s lies. Even the most timid can take this least demanding step toward spiritual independence. If many march together on this path of passive resistance, the whole inhuman system will totter and collapse.
There was a time when we dared not rustle a whisper. But now we write and read samizdat and, congregating in the smoking rooms of research institutes, heartily complain to each other of all they are muddling up, of all they are dragging us into! There’s that unnecessary bravado around our ventures into space, against the backdrop of ruin and poverty at home; and the buttressing of distant savage regimes; and the kindling of civil wars; and the ill-thought-out cultivation of Mao Zedong (at our expense to boot)—in the end we’ll be the ones sent out against him, and we’ll have to go, what other option will there be? And they put whomever they want on trial, and brand the healthy as mentally ill—and it is always “they,” while we are—helpless.
We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:
“But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”
We have so hopelessly ceded our humanity that for the modest handouts of today we are ready to surrender up all principles, our soul, all the labors of our ancestors, all the prospects of our descendants—anything to avoid disrupting our meager existence. We have lost our strength, our pride, our passion. We do not even fear a common nuclear death, do not fear a third world war (perhaps we’ll hide away in some crevice), but fear only to take a civic stance! We hope only not to stray from the herd, not to set out on our own, and risk suddenly having to make do without the white bread, the hot water heater, a Moscow residency permit.
We have internalized well the lessons drummed into us by the state; we are forever content and comfortable with its premise: we cannot escape the environment, the social conditions; they shape us, “being determines consciousness.” What have we to do with this? We can do nothing.
But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not “they” who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!
Some will counter: But really, there is nothing to be done! Our mouths are gagged, no one listens to us, no one asks us. How can we make them listen to us?
To make them reconsider—is impossible.
The natural thing would be simply not to reelect them, but there are no re-elections in our country.
In the West they have strikes, protest marches, but we are too cowed, too scared: How does one just give up one’s job, just go out onto the street?
All the other fateful means resorted to over the last century of Russia’s bitter history are even less fitting for us today—true, let’s not fall back on them! Today, when all the axes have hewn what they hacked, when all that was sown has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited youths who sought, through terror, bloody uprising, and civil war, to make the country just and content. No thank you, fathers of enlightenment! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our hands be clean!
So has the circle closed? So is there indeed no way out? So the only thing left to do is wait inertly: What if something just happens by itself?
But it will never come unstuck by itself, if we all, every day, continue to acknowledge, glorify, and strengthen it, if we do not, at the least, recoil from its most vulnerable point.
From lies.
When violence bursts onto the peaceful human condition, its face is flush with self-assurance, it displays on its banner and proclaims: “I am Violence! Make way, step aside, I will crush you!” But violence ages swiftly, a few years pass—and it is no longer sure of itself. To prop itself up, to appear decent, it will without fail call forth its ally—Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence. And it is not every day and not on every shoulder that violence brings down its heavy hand: It demands of us only a submission to lies, a daily participation in deceit—and this suffices as our fealty.
And therein we find, neglected by us, the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation: a personal nonparticipation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me!
And this is the way to break out of the imaginary encirclement of our inertness, the easiest way for us and the most devastating for the lies. For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person.
We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think—this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think!
This is the way, then, the easiest and most accessible for us given our deep-seated organic cowardice, much easier than (it’s scary even to utter the words) civil disobedience à la Gandhi.
Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently)—step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.
And thus, overcoming our temerity, let each man choose: Will he remain a witting servant of the lies (needless to say, not due to natural predisposition, but in order to provide a living for the family, to rear the children in the spirit of lies!), or has the time come for him to stand straight as an honest man, worthy of the respect of his children and contemporaries? And from that day onward he:
· Will not write, sign, nor publish in any way, a single line distorting, so far as he can see, the truth;
· Will not utter such a line in private or in public conversation, nor read it from a crib sheet, nor speak it in the role of educator, canvasser, teacher, actor;
· Will not in painting, sculpture, photograph, technology, or music depict, support, or broadcast a single false thought, a single distortion of the truth as he discerns it;
· Will not cite in writing or in speech a single “guiding” quote for gratification, insurance, for his success at work, unless he fully shares the cited thought and believes that it fits the context precisely;
· Will not be forced to a demonstration or a rally if it runs counter to his desire and his will; will not take up and raise a banner or slogan in which he does not fully believe;
· Will not raise a hand in vote for a proposal which he does not sincerely support; will not vote openly or in secret ballot for a candidate whom he deems dubious or unworthy;
· Will not be impelled to a meeting where a forced and distorted discussion is expected to take place;
· Will at once walk out from a session, meeting, lecture, play, or film as soon as he hears the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel, or shameless propaganda;
· Will not subscribe to, nor buy in retail, a newspaper or journal that distorts or hides the underlying facts.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the possible and necessary ways of evading lies. But he who begins to cleanse himself will, with a cleansed eye, easily discern yet other opportunities.
Yes, at first it will not be fair. Someone will have to temporarily lose his job. For the young who seek to live by truth, this will at first severely complicate life, for their tests and quizzes, too, are stuffed with lies, and so choices will have to be made. But there is no loophole left for anyone who seeks to be honest: Not even for a day, not even in the safest technical occupations can he avoid even a single one of the listed choices—to be made in favor of either truth or lies, in favor of spiritual independence or spiritual servility. And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill.
For us, who have grown staid over time, even this most moderate path of resistance will be not be easy to set out upon. But how much easier it is than self-immolation or even a hunger strike: Flames will not engulf your body, your eyes will not pop out from the heat, and your family will always have at least a piece of black bread to wash down with a glass of clear water.
Betrayed and deceived by us, did not a great European people—the Czechoslovaks—show us how one can stand down the tanks with bared chest alone, as long as inside it beats a worthy heart?
It will not be an easy path, perhaps, but it is the easiest among those that lie before us. Not an easy choice for the body, but the only one for the soul. No, not an easy path, but then we already have among us people, dozens even, who have for years abided by all these rules, who live by the truth.
And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, Ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands—they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we will grow to tens of thousands—we will not recognize our country!
But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath—we do it to ourselves! Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered.
And if from this also we shrink away, then we are worthless, hopeless, and it is of us that Pushkin asks with scorn:
Why offer herds their liberation? ………………… Their heritage each generation The yoke with jingles, and the whip.
From a commentary on the gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
If I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you
After Christ had completed his mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to become sharers in the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up our own life and be so transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to God. This was something we could do only by sharing in the Holy Spirit.
It was most fitting that the sending of the Spirit and his descent upon us should take place after the departure of Christ our Saviour. As long as Christ was with them in the flesh, it must have seemed to believers that they possessed every blessing in him; but when the time came for him to ascend to his heavenly Father, it was necessary for him to be united through his Spirit to those who worshipped him, and to dwell in our hearts through faith. Only by his own presence within us in this way could he give us confidence to cry out, Abba, Father, make it easy for us to grow in holiness and, through our possession of the all-powerful Spirit, fortify us invincibly against the wiles of the devil and the assaults of men.
It can easily be shown from examples both in the Old Testament and the New that the Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell; he so transforms them that they begin to live a completely new kind of life. Saul was told by the prophet Samuel: The Spirit of the Lord will take possession of you, and you shall be changed into another man. Saint Paul writes: As we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, that glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, transforms us all into his own likeness, from one degree of glory to another.
Does this not show that the Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell and alters the whole pattern of their lives? With the Spirit within them it is quite natural for people who had been absorbed by the things of this world to become entirely other-worldly in outlook, and for cowards to become men of great courage. There can be no doubt that this is what happened to the disciples. The strength they received from the Spirit enabled them to hold firmly to the love of Christ, facing the violence of their persecutors unafraid. Very true, then, was our Saviour’s saying that it was to their advantage for him to return to heaven: his return was the time appointed for the descent of the Holy Spirit.
My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!
During this month when, in the Work, we want to fill the whole world with pilgrimages, a deep thanksgiving arises to my heart, confident of the fruit that will come through our Mother’s intercession on placing so many intentions in her hands.
Certainly, God gives this fruit when he wants and how he wants. And first of all, he grants it to ourselves, since our prayer – even if it is fragile – enables us to receive so many gifts that our Lord wants to give us: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened (Mt 7:7-8). Let us boldly beseech heaven on our pilgrimages for so many graces for peace in the world, for personal conversion, for vocations. This attitude helps us to grow in the certainty that we need God, which is already a first fruit: it strengthens our awareness that he is the one who brings everything forward. And to help us feel welcomed, he offers us an easy and gentle path: our Lady. “We go to Jesus – and we ‘return’ to him – through Mary” (The Way, 495).
In this mission in the world that Christ wanted to share with us (I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt 28:20)), by his closeness he gives his joy to us. Each time we go to visit our Blessed Mother to show her our affection, we can foster the desire to live at every moment, in every circumstance of our day, facing both difficulties and joys, with the conviction that we are not alone: the Queen of the apostles, who accompanied closely the first steps of the Church (cf. Acts 1:12-14), never abandons us. “The Master, before ascending to the right hand of the Father, told the disciples: ‘Go and preach to all nations,’ and they had been filled with peace. But they still had doubts. They didn’t know what to do, and they gathered around Mary, Queen of Apostles, so as to become zealous proclaimers of the Truth that will save the world” (Furrow, 232).
Do not fail to unite yourselves to my prayer for the twenty-five new priests of the Prelature who were ordained on the 20th in Rome.
With the joy of Easter, your Father blesses you with all his affection.
The Truth Will Make You Free 