Metaphysics
The great
need for me, for everyone, is first to know our metaphysical assumptions and
then to reflect on them. Nobody is exempt in modern times; because there are so
many forces at work to poison our metaphysics. And a poisoned metaphysic will
run life, and beyond life.
For many
years I didn’t believe in either the importance or even the reality of
metaphysical assumptions; I had the idea that we could and should stick to
matters of evidence that were applicable to the business of life. For example,
science obviously ‘worked’ – so why not just get on with it? It was perhaps
when I realised that science no longer worked, and that people were not getting
on with it – but doing something almost entirely different and just calling it
science – that I began to realise the importance of metaphysics. When it was
too late.
But it is
at the personal level that assumptions matter most personally. Life has no Meaning
when our basic assumption is that Life has no Meaning (but Just Is – and might
not have been) – and Life has no Purpose when it is assumed that everything
which happens is either passively caused or else random.
On the
other hand; Life feels very different when our metaphysical assumption is that
Life is created, and for a reason.
God
I have to
start with God. We live in God’s universe; and that is the source of all
meaning and purpose; and the reason why its meaning and purpose can be known. God
is also our Father and we his children: more, he is our loving Father. That is
why there is a place for us, it is why we can understand, it is why God made us
so that we can understand.
This kind
of basis is much more essential that most people realise. We don’t just need an
idea of how things are, but how it is that we are able to know how things are.
At bottom; we need at least two things: a description of the ultimate realities
– and we need assurance that this description is true.
First we
formulate the description of ultimates… then what? Then we seek validation by
means of what counts at the ultimate validation. What is that? – and is it the
same for everybody? We have to stop questioning somewhere and accept that It Just Is; but how do we know when we
could or should stop?
Well, any
answer to this question of validation falls into an infinite regress of validation;
because it can be (will be) asked why the validation method is itself valid;
and any answer to that is subject to the same question… The point is, do we actually
want an answer, or do we want to ‘prove’ that an answer is impossible? Because
there is an answer, implicit in our behaviour – implicit in our questioning.
All questions proceed from assumptions; what are these assumptions?
This is
the need for ‘faith’, which is trust. If there is no trust, there are no
answers – and there can be no life. The question ‘but who can I trust’ may be
answered by the counter-question: ‘who do you trust already?’ Once that is
known, then its adequacy may be apparent; we may learn that we are trusting
somebody whom we actually – now we think about it – do not trust. (Like when we repeat a story that everybody knows, and
argue against an experienced and knowledgeable friend who asserts something else;
then realise that our information came originally from a newspaper. Knowing the
basis of our assumption, we can then ask: do we trust the friend or the
newspaper. But we can only ask this question when we know the nature and source
of our assumption.)
There is
a cynical pose (most people have adopted it at some time) which effects to
doubt all and everything. In practice, when assumptions are exposed and traced,
cynicism is either the grossest credulity or more often a false argument used
to demolish only that which the cynic wishes to deny (such as a limitation on
his desired behaviour).
But, as
well as the cynic, there is the despairing doubter – who lives on the verge of
paralysis due t uncertainties concerning the validity of… everything. The
despairing doubter is transfixed by the possibility that life may really,
behind everything – and whether or not this could ever be known, have no meaning
or purpose or relevance to us. The despairing doubter is not, fundamentally
concerned with the status of knowledge claims or the validity of ultimate
descriptions; he is simply unsure about everything – lacks any inner sense of
reality.
Whether
the despairing doubter actually exists in a full and coherent form is doubtful,
but a tinge or tendency of this is characteristic. Yet how seldom is this taken
seriously – least of all by its sufferers! The doubts extend to doubting the
doubts – such that nothing is done about them, nothing is done about trying to
settle the doubts…
Clearly a
pathological state; yet common, mainstream, almost universal as at least a
fleeting experience. It was the problem that CG Jungs wealthy and leisured
private patients often consulted him about, and which he tried to solve by
going back to childhood or dream instincts, and building upon them; finding
something – some activity, like playing with mud, or sketching pictures - that
was apparently self-validating, and using this as a foundation to build upon.
But in
the end Jung came back to God; and late in his life he was clearly religious, a
kind of Christian; and said that he ‘knew’ the truth of God (did not ‘believe’,
but knew). His earlier and more therapeutic answers had proven insufficient, or
else his later knowledge rendered them unnecessary.
At any
rate, I think we need to know of the reality of God, and of his nature; and we
need to know this for ourselves – it is not something that can be learned from
others, or taken on trust. We need to know – and what that means, what that
implies, is individual and indefensible because it is the basis of other knowledge.
But that is what we need to do, and we
therefore need to keep working on it – making it our priority – until it is
achieved and we know the reality of God.
2 comments:
Dr. Charlton, anytime you are tempted to doubt the usefulness or importance of the time you invest in this blog, I hope you will believe that some of your posts --this one for certain -- arrive just at the right time for at least one of your readers. For me to be eloquently reminded that I am not alone in my doubts and struggles is more precious than I can express.
@KF - Thank you!
Post a Comment