3.1.5 |
ANANIC INSTEAD OF IN(S)ANE |
Some might wonder whether the neutralistic conception of
the supreme being is not relatively empty when compared with
traditional conceptions of a 'Supreme Being' who is claimed to
be all-good, all-powerful and 'Love Himself', for instance.
Naturally, such people are confused. The reason may be, first of
all, that they are not capable of distinguishing
neutrality from
noncatenality.
A noncatenal thing may be empty when
compared with a thing which is catenal, but a neutrally catenal
thing is not emptier than an unneutrally catenal thing. Thus
symmetry is not in any way 'emptier' than asymmetry. And if it
cannot be guaranteed that the supreme being is catenal in every
respect, we may symbolically assume that it is catenal in a
particular respect for those things which, or those who, are
catenal themselves in that respect.
But, perhaps, the people who would prefer something like an all-good
and all-powerful Cosmocrator do not so much mean that the
all-ananic
possesses fewer predicates, but rather that those it
possesses do not have the 'fulness' of such predicates as
goodness and powerfulness. Presumably, fulness is then
nothing else than
unneutrality or even
extremity. So far as
goodness is concerned: this term is used in different senses,
and if good is purely normative, the all-ananic being is also
an all-good being, for it is then ananicity which is good or a
form of goodness. However, if good means beneficent, the
all-ananic is as little beneficent as it is powerful (albeit
not maleficent or weak either).
Why does the supreme being not have 'full' predicates such as
beneficence and powerfulness? The answer is simply that the
supreme being has only
catenated predicates which are
supreme, or that the supreme being as a symbol represents supremeness.
That is, ananicity, and not
nanaicity or other
corrective-instrumental values.
In other words, what the neutralist refuses, is to jumble up the ultimate
and the instrumental, or the perfective and the corrective, and to assign
a mindlessly mixed bag of 9, 99 or whatever other denary or nondenary
number of properties to one supreme-inferior being.
It is the ultimate or perfective which belongs to the supreme, not the
instrumental or corrective, however 'full' it may make it appear to be.
Those familiar with the monotheist
'problem of evil' know
that we have every reason to believe that one and the same being
could never be omnipotent, omniscient and all-good (in the sense
of beneficent) at the same time. But even if we forgot, for
the sake of argument, our
veridicalistic convictions for
a moment, would, then, the real existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing,
all-good being (or 'Being') make any particular form of
monotheist godthink any more plausible? To see whether it would, we
should look at the so-called 'great-making characteristics' such
a being is supposed to have, namely omnipotence, omniscience and
being all-good (or wholly beneficent or wholly just).
The first characteristic, omnipotence, may be 'great-making',
but it is just not a perfective, let alone an ultimate, value.
If it is believed to be one, then a most fiendish,
extremist doxastic value.
The belief in power or omnipotence as
something ultimate in itself is perverse in that it takes means
for ends, or corrective-instrumental values for perfective ones.
Power may be useful to serve the supreme, it is not supreme in
itself.
Omniscience (or knowledge in general) cannot be conceived of as a
perfective value either -- as has already been demonstrated
in the Book of Instruments
(I.7.3.3).
For omniscience and omnipotence to make any sense at all (even on the
extremist account), they must be instrumental values.
But instrumental with regard to which perfective value or values
defined in purely denotative or factual terms?
If the good in all-good is purely evaluative or normative
(like, or almost like, just), then it is entirely devoid of
any (factual) denotation. A notion such as being all-good or
just in no way touches upon the question of what kind of
being or acting would be good, just or superior. In short, even
the belief in a really existing omnipotent, omniscient and
all-good being would have no (respectable) ultimate or
perfective value whatsoever. The 'fulness' of such a being is either
the foolish result of the insane belief that extremist values
like ubiquitous maximum power would be ultimate, or of the inane belief
that values such as goodness or justice per se --not to
mention "love"-- would have normative substance in
themselves.
Even when the supreme is believed to be all-good in the
substantive sense of beneficent, the condition that also
beneficence in itself cannot be a perfective value remains.
And besides that, such an all-beneficent supreme being --Love
perhaps?-- would only be a utile symbol for utilitarianism,
if it did not simultaneously possess an ultimate or perfective value
other than beneficence or utility (or love?).
We conclude that if the ananic supreme being is 'empty' in
any sense, then only so because it does not have the fake and mistaken
'fulness' of supernatural and
theodemonical conceptions.
Once more the core of the normative turns out to lie on a higher plane
than that of the extremist and/or inane belief in one being that
would be omnipotent and omniscient and all-good at the same time
and forever. This certainly does not mean, however, that we
are not at all interested in beneficent beings that are
powerful and knowledgeable as well -- on the contrary.
Nonetheless, their beneficence is not what makes them supreme; their
beneficence is what makes them nanaic.
3.1.5.0
FOR THE SAKE OF THE SUPREMELY NORMATIVE
It is not for love of a man that a man is dear,
nor for love of a woman that a woman is dear,
but for the sake of the normative.
It is not for love of a child that a child is dear,
nor for love of a parent that a parent is dear,
but for the sake of the normative.
It is not for love of wealth that wealth is dear,
nor for love of power that power is dear,
but for the sake of the normative.
It is not for love of happiness that happiness is dear,
nor for love of love that love is dear,
but for the sake of the normative.
Ultimately it is neither for love of itself,
nor for love of a god, that anything is dear.
The ultimate it is which must be borne in mind
for the sake of the normative.
Only thus can mortal beings realize their ideals,
and enjoy what is dear as well.
Not because it is loved,
but for the sake of the supremely normative.
[This canonical prose poem was inspired by a passage in a
philosophic-religious conversation which reportedly took
place more than two-and-a-half thousand years earlier.]
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