Category: Beginners Guide

LXXXII – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 5)

It’s About Time

One way of thinking about Agency is to think of the Agent as standing at the intersection between Potentiality and Actuality. Thus we scratch the tip of considerations of Time, change, and reality itself.

Reality, we recall, has a spiritual and material component. What most typically mean by referring to reality is just the material parts. The sum of all material in reality we can call the universe. One of the defining characteristics of material, and by extension the universe which contains it, is that it changes. Nothing material stays the same, stays still. Indeed, one of the laws of Thermodynamics says that “Entropy is Increasing”, or that the material universe tends to disorder. On a long enough time span, the components of a rock will be disordered from their rock form into something atomic or subatomic. This propensity to change means that we must be able to tell the difference between what was, what is, and what will be. The way we do this is Time.

Time is the measure of material change. But consider that rock. If I chip a piece off of it, is it the same rock? How do we talk about the rock in the past? In the future?

Actual Potential

There is consistency between past, present, and future, when talking about anything. Because time has changed, doesn’t mean the rock has changed, doesn’t mean I have changed. We can approach the concept of actuality. That which is actual is whole, entire, completed. That which isn’t actual is potential. So considering the rock, it’s future is potential. It’s present, considered as a specific slice of time, is actual. What is it’s past?

The present cannot be arrived at without hitting every slice of time from the past, going all the way back. So the present is the sum of all previous ‘presents’. By which i mean, the past is actual, too. This makes logical sense, given how we talk about time: the past changes us, or influences us. How can this be if we are not the summation of our past? If we are not the top of a lifetime of living? Every moment, a piece of us is actualized, and entered into the record.

What of the future? It isn’t actual, so it is potential. But there can be multiple potentialities! That chipped rock from earlier, I can chip it further, I can polish it, sculpt it, throw it. It has many potentialities. At the end of that rock, when it ceases to be, when it has no potentialities (as a rock, anyway), when it is fully realized and actual, it will be fully actual.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3R | Part 4 | Part 5

LXXX – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 4)

I Ask Again, What Is Agency?

In Part 1, we established the following:

  • Agency is the distinguishing feature of a being
  • Agency has command over life force (what I called instinct)
  • Agency is supernatural
  • Agency can exist sans material, in the form of supernatural beings (Angels, the Divine)

None of these things give us a clear idea of what agency is and how it works. So now we can take the time to go deeper on the subject. Agents, like all things, have accidents and essences. Lets consider what these are made of.

Agency has control over instinct, so it has a deciding function, by virtue of being able to decide to do or not do what instinct tells it. This implies, through this concept of decision, that there is a thinking component and a doing component.

Thinking is the active engagement of the mental faculties. Thinking includes perception of data, both sensory and emotional. Thinking includes cognition, or calling upon prior knowledge. Perception and Cognition can be combined in analysis, that is, qualifying or quantifying perceived information; or predicting, that is, creating expectations about the future.

When we contrive any component of the thinking process, ignoring any real component thereof, we call that imagining. Imagining uses all the same faculties as thinking, but for scenarios which will not or cannot yet happen.

The other component of Agency is this doing ability. Doing is the active engagement of our material faculties. Reaching out to grab an apple from a tree, or restraining ourselves from grabbing an apple from a tree which isn’t ours, is doing. This includes both action and restraint. Indeed the engagement of the mental faculties is a kind of material faculty, in other words we can “do” thinking, or restrain our thinking. Doing allows thinking, and thinking determines what we need to be doing. Both powers are mutually interdependent.

Will Power

This doing ability is typically referred to as the Will. Intention is a function of the Will because it precedes what we do. Intention is how the thinking power interfaces with the doing power. Perfection of the Will means there is no barrier between forming an intention and executing an action. If I intend to reach out and grab an apple from a tree, I will follow that intention with the action of reaching out and grabbing the apple. Said another way, intent is an unrealized act of will; while action is a realized act of will.

Imperfection of the will means there is barrier between forming an intention and executing an action. This barrier can come in many forms. Suppose I know the tree is not mine, but I have a strong desire to take the apple. My will restrains me, for a time, but is overcome and I take the apple. My intention and my action are not aligned. This is due to nature.

Our natural impulses are not totally dominated by our supernatural powers, so sometimes they are in conflict. Will power, is our ability to enforce our own will on ourselves. I said above that Agency has command over instinct, but not 100% command. Agency has enough command to say, eat or not eat at certain times of day, whether we are hungry or not. But our unique personalities dictate which natural impulses we are more or less vulnerable to. One man might be able to fast and eat only one meal a day. Another man might have the same intention, but when faced with donuts in the office kitchen, he succumbs. So the Will exercises imperfect control over our nature, but can be strengthened through practice and repetition.

Intellect

The thinking power is typically referred to as intellect. The intellect had many more components.

  • Perception
  • Cognition
  • Analysis
  • Prediction

And all of these can be committed towards Imagination as well. So let’s demarcate some boundaries for each of these things.

Perception is any information received by the intellect. This includes any data informed by conscience, senses, and the like. Cognition is strictly related to knowledge, facts, and events. Analysis is assigning values to perception and cognition; and prediction is forecasting based on all this. Lets look at a scenario:

I see a rock in my path (perception). I know rocks that big are probably heavy (cognition). I can deduce that it won’t move if I kick it (analysis). If I try to kick it I will hurt my foot (prediction).

I can also use imagination to predict that if I try to kick the rock, it will explode. This conclusion is not supported by data, but nevertheless, I can still walk carefully around the rock and act as if it would explode if touched. Making actions based on imagination is pretending.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3R | Part 4

LXXV – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 3) – Revised

Action

Reality is now composed of things, and those things can communicate. What can they do? Lets approach this in a roundabout kind of way.

Perception and Communication can only happen between like objects, i.e. natural things can only perceive and communicate via natural means, supernatural things can only perceive and communicate via supernatural means. You can feel a natural rock by reaching out your physical hand and touching it. You can feel loved only because you have a soul that can perceive it.

But what happens when you reach out and touch a rock? What about other deeds? Well, the first thing we can say for certain is that actions have consequences. This is true in both the natural and the supernatural world. Lets understand the natural world first. Throwing a rock into a pond is a natural deed, governed by the laws of physics. The rock sails only so far, sinks so deep, with such force, as dictated by the force with which you threw it. There are a number of consequences to this, among them being waves in the pond as the water is displaced and subsequently restored to equilibrium. Action and consequence[1].

Another example might be eating candy. As our body metabolizes the sugar, our body has an insulin response and our chemical makeup is altered to give us energy. If we eat too much candy, we store too much energy and gain body fat. The action had a chemical consequence that can last for hours, days, or years after the fact. Likewise with supernatural interactions, they affect our soul. Praying raises our soul to the divine. Good deeds affect our souls positively. Bad deeds (sins) affect our soul negatively.

 

The Essence of Action

Deeds of all kinds have accidents and essences, too. We can logically determine what things are essential to a deed. Consider giving money to the poor. What is the intent of the subject, the person giving money? We have likely all seen the trope of a wealthy man throwing coins disdainfully at a panhandler. We likely all have given money to a street-corner panhandler with the earnest hope that it will be the last dollar they need. Every deed is done with some intent or other–it is impossible for a deed to be done ‘neutrally’ or without intent, because one must intend to do it for it to be done. Intent is essential to action.

The means of effectuating a given deed are also essential to it. consider again our example of giving money to the poor. How do you do it? Do you give cash, check? credit card? Do you give them a table-sized game-show check? Do you employ a destitute soul in your business so that you can give them money in exchange for a days work? Every action takes some form, you can’t give money to the poor without, in fact, giving money to the poor. The means are essential to action.

As stated previously, all actions have consequences. What is the result of your deed? Does a panhandler turn around and walk into a liquor store? Do they finally get enough to get back on their feet? Another way of saying it would be, what are the fruits of your action? Every action has some consequence, so the result is essential to action.

Finally: Do you know all the information required to make a good decision? If a panhandler is sitting amid empty liquor bottles, can you claim ignorance of what he will likely spend his money on? You can’t make a decision you don’t know you need to make; you can’t make a good decision if you don’t know the information required for it. Your knowledge is an essential quality of an action.

Morality of an action, then, is dependent upon these essential qualities: Intent, means, result, and knowledge.

Virtue or Vice?

We turn now to the differentiation of deeds by determining whether they are virtues or vices. The list of traits essential to a deed acts as a sort of checklist for us in this evaluation. The checklist looks something like this:

  1. What did I actually do?
  2. What did I intend to do?
  3. What happened as a result of what I did?
  4. Did I know what would happen before I did it?

Let’s consider this common philosophical dilemma. Is killing morally wrong? A street murderer 1) Kills someone, 2) they intended to kill someone, 3) that person died as a result, 4) which they knew would happen. This is clearly morally wrong.

Manslaughter, however, is when 1) A driver hits someone who runs out in the road 2) but they did not intend to kill them, 3) they died nevertheless, 4) the driver did not know that would happen. The person did not have the intent or the knowledge of those consequences, and so cannot be held fully responsible for the victims death.

What about a soldier? 1) They shoot at enemies, 2) intending to kill them, 3) they do in fact die, 4) and they knew that would happen as a consequence. This is superficially an identical situation to the one we started with. But this might not be considered morally wrong. Why? We have here a person not fully in control, because they are following orders of a commander who ordered them to war.

In the latter two examples, there is this idea of “responsibility” or “control”. This is the concept of culpability. Cuplability is the degree to which you are responsible for the morality of what you have done. A soldier isn’t responsible for being shipped to a war zone; a street murderer is responsible for random killing. A driver who killed a distracted pedestrian isn’t responsible for their death, because they were not trying to kill them.

Consequences

So now that we have a basic framework for determining whether a deed is morally good or morally bad, why must we choose one over the other? Good deeds have the consequence of enriching us spiritually (and sometimes physically). Bad deeds have the consequence of harming us spiritually (and sometimes physically). Our soul, while supernatural, is still an intrinsic part of us. The great struggle of our lives is to unite ourselves with the Divine. A damaged soul is wounded, is made imperfect, because it has chosen a deed contrary to the Divine. A damaged soul is thus separated from the Divine, but there is a means of reparation and reconciliation. Virtue gives vitality to the soul, nourishes it and preserves it. Virtue brings the soul more in union with the Divine. These concepts I will have to expand on later, but the premise is this: Union with the divine is an infinite reward. The Divine has opened for us a means of entering union, and we have a predisposition to break that union. Thus we are tangent to specific theological concepts, which are important to Philosophy but we aren’t there yet.

[1] I know the physicists call this something else, but for our purposes here the wave is a consequence of throwing the rock.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Original) | Part 3 (Revised) | Part 4

LXXV – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 3)

THIS POST HAS BEEN REVISED 8/23/2019 (HERE)

Action

Reality is now composed of things, and those things can communicate. What can they do? Lets approach this in a roundabout kind of way.

Perception and Communication can only happen between like objects, i.e. natural things can only perceive and communicate via natural means, supernatural things can only perceive and communicate via supernatural means. You can feel a natural rock by reaching out your physical hand and touching it. You can feel loved only because you have a soul that can perceive it.

But what happens when you reach out and touch a rock? What about other deeds? Well, the first thing we can say for certain is that actions have consequences. This is true in both the natural and the supernatural world. Lets understand the natural world first. Throwing a rock into a pond is a natural deed, governed by the laws of physics. The rock sails only so far, sinks so deep, with such force, as dictated by the force with which you threw it. There are a number of consequences to this, among them being waves in the pond as the water is displaced and subsequently restored to equilibrium. Action and consequence[1].

Another example might be eating candy. As our body metabolizes the sugar, our body has an insulin response and our chemical makeup is altered to give us energy. If we eat too much candy, we store too much energy and gain body fat. The action had a chemical consequence that can last for hours, days, or years after the fact. Likewise with supernatural interactions, they affect our soul. Praying raises our soul to the divine. Good deeds affect our souls positively. Bad deeds (sins) affect our soul negatively.

The Essence of Action

Deeds of all kinds have accidents and essences, too. Lets consider giving money to a pan handler. Giving money to the poor is an essentially good deed. Accidental to the deed is who is involved. Giving money to the pan handler and giving money to your friend can both be considered charitable giving. The essence (charitable giving) is consistent while the accident (to whom you are giving) changes. Charity is a virtue, so it follows that the virtuousness of a deed–it’s morality–is essential to any deed. The accidents include things like culpability or intent[2].

We have established that our actions have consequences that affect us both naturally and supernaturally. So it follows that moral deeds benefit the soul, and immoral deeds damage the soul. The accidents define how much benefit or damage, but for now we are only focused on the binary: Is the soul helped or hindered by certain deeds. Vice is to consistently choose deeds which damage the soul. Virtue is to consistently choose deeds which benefit the soul.

Selected Questions

Here I answer a few select questions that arise based on what we’re talking about.

How do we distinguish between virtue and vice?

In other words, how can we discern the essence of deeds before we do them, that we might avoid or pursue certain kinds of deeds? The answer is similar to discerning the essence of things. We can tell that a pure gold ingot is indeed a pure gold ingot by perceiving it with our senses, picking it up and turning it over and really considering what it is. We can discern for example that a pure gold ingot is not edible through this process. We can look at a watermelon with the very same senses, the very same perception activities, and discern that not only is it essentially not gold but it is also edible to us. This tells us that perception is a key component of distinguishing essences. Perception is only as good as our knowledge of things. If we had never seen gold before, we may still be able to tell that it is not edible, but we won’t know that the ingot is essentially gold. We may be able to tell that it is essentially ‘metal’ or has certain accidents that coincide with precious metals. Likewise if we had never seen or heard of a watermelon before, we might be cautious before we take the first bite, concerned as we might be that this is an accidental form of Gold. So knowledge is another key component of distinguishing essences. Therefore, we can assert that the moral character of deeds, whether they be virtuous or vicious, can be determined by perceiving them. Because this is a function of the soul, we feel inherently some knowledge about the morality of a deed. If I am faced with a choice between giving money to a panhandler or murdering a panhandler, I know in my soul that these are not identical deeds: one is essentially virtuous, the other essentially vicious. This perception is aided by knowledge. Faith formation should be a priority to aid this discernment.

Is saying that the moral character of a deed is essential to a deed saying that morality is objective? What about…

Here’s a common stumper that I like to bring up when discussing moral absolutism vs. moral relativism. Killing: is killing objectively wrong? A murder on the street is, but a soldier in a war zone might be a good thing. What about self defense? This is where we need to lean on the accidents while understanding the essences. Catholic teaching tells us that human life is sacred and that any unnatural end of a human life is wrong[3]. The essence of the deed is that it is immoral, and so damages the soul. I mentioned previously that culpability and intent are accidents of a deed. Lets first take the example of manslaughter: unintentionally taking a human life. The intent was not to kill. They are responsible for taking a human life, insofar as they did in fact take a human life. They would not bear as much responsibility as someone who took that life in the same way with full intent. This is where culpability comes in: Culpability is the degree to which a person is responsible for their deeds. A person who does something out of duress is not fully culpable, but they still did a deed. Lets consider the soldier in a warzone: They have been hired or volunteered to serve the defense of their country, and to obey their commander to achieve that end. If the Commander sends them to war and they kill enemies in achieving their objective: The accidents of the killing, the intent behind it and the soldiers culpability for it, may be reduced if it is a just war or the soldier is trying to accomplish the objective with minimum loss of life, just for a couple examples. Similarly with self defense, another person is violently assailing you, your intent was not evil but now you are fighting for your life. If you kill your assailant in defense, you still killed them, but your intent was not to assail them, you were yourself assailed. Culpability and intent are diminished.

What is the consequence of damaging our soul? What benefit is virtue to the soul?

Our soul is an intrinsic part of us, and the great struggle of our lives is to shed our mortal coil and be in union with the Divine. A damaged soul is wounded, is imperfected, because it has chosen a deed contrary to the Divine. A damaged soul is thus separated from the Divine, but there is a means of reparation and reconciliation. Virtue gives vitality to the soul, nourishes it and preserves it. Virtue brings the soul more in union with the Divine. These concepts I will have to expand on later, but the premise is this: Union with the divine is an infinite reward. The Divine has opened for us a means of entering union, and we have a predisposition to break that union. Thus we are tangent to specific theological concepts, which are important to Philosophy but we aren’t there yet.

[1] I know the physicists call this something else, but for our purposes here the wave is a consequence of throwing the rock.

[2] I’ve written about culpability HERE, but plan to expand on both of these ideas in future essays.

[3] Consult the Catechism for detailed explanations of morality of specific things. My goal here is not to go into a moral structure, just to explain concepts for beginners.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

LXXII – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 2)

What are things?

Things have two properties: Accidents and Essences. Essence is something without which it would cease to be that thing. Essence is ‘essential’ to that thing. An Accident is something without which the thing may still persist in a different form. The thing exists, and it’s accident is ‘accidental’, not necessarily on purpose.

That’s a somewhat convoluted explanation, so lets look at an example: A Pure Gold Ingot. Gold is an element, and if it is pure it means there is only gold in the Ingot. Gold has 79 protons. That is essential to Gold. 78 protons is Platinum, that’s an entirely different thing. 80 Protons is Mercury. One proton is the difference between a white metal or a yellow metal; or a solid block or a liquid pool. 79 protons are essential to Gold. The Ingot shape is accidental. Gold can be shaped into a ring, and still retain it’s essence of 79 protons. Platinum can also be formed into an Ingot. Gold and Platinum ingots are essentially different but share congruent accidents.

There can be multiple essences or accidents depending on what we are talking about, too. A particular shape is essential to an ingot. But the ingot shape is accidental to the element so shaped. You cannot form a sphere and call it an ingot, but you can form a sphere and call it Gold, if it is in fact Gold. Everything has essences and accidents, and can be described in such terms.

Perception

Our senses perceive some accidents and essences. The Gold Ingot can be picked up and weighed. Felt in our hands. Manipulated. This might tell us, from all the accidents and essences we can perceive or deduce, that what we have in our hands is Gold.

There are some things that our senses cannot perceive. As previously discussed, Agency and Conscience are supernatural traits. How is it that we can feel love? Joy? Hope? Despair? Grief? How can we perceive that a decision must be made at a given moment?These are not tangible things, we cannot sense them with our material bodies. How then do we come to feel them at all?

Perception can only occur between like objects. Our material hands perceive material textures. Our physical eyes perceive photons (physical light). Because Love (for example) is an element of Conscience, which is a supernatural trait, it means we must have a supernatural element in us which is able to perceive it.

Our material body can perceive material, or natural things. Our material body cannot perceive immaterial things, or supernatural things. But we have established we do, in fact, have a supernatural component to our being. Therefore we must have, as a part of ourselves, a supernatural body. We will call this a “Soul”. It is not separate and distinct, it is a part of us, it is us. Our Soul, then, is how we perceive Love, how we know what decisions need to be made and how to make those decisions. A Soul, then, is an essential component of a “being”. A Being without a soul is a Creature, incapable of the supernatural gifts of agency or conscience.

Communication

Beings are capable also of communication. With other beings, we can speak materially, by moving our bodies (vocal chords), vibrating air (atoms) and receiving those vibrations (eardrums) converting them to signals (electricity) and perceiving the sound in our brains. We can communicate a number of other ways, too, through gestures and writing.

At its heart, Communication is the means of transmitting meaning from one being to another. Communication, like perception, can only occur between like objects. Our material being can communicate with other material beings. But because we have Souls, which are essential to us as beings, we can communicate with the supernatural as well. This is called “Prayer”. Prayer is lifting the Soul to communicate with Angels or the Divine, and how we listen to communications from Angels or the Divine. Because we are not perfectly Supernatural, we cannot communicate perfectly, but it is possible.

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

LXIX – Beginners Guide to Philosophy (No. 1)

What is Reality?

Everything we experience is contained within “reality”. Reality is everything. If you can sense it, it’s real. If you can think it, that too is real in that it is an actual thought you are actually having. Metaphysics and Philosophy both deal with explaining reality, and so reality is our first and fundamental question to this series.

Let’s take stock of what we have to work with. Look around you, look out the nearest window. We have bodies. Our bodies come with certain capabilities. Movement. Senses. We can, barring a physiological or material impediment, see and feel and taste and hear and smell the world around us.

We can probably see objects. I’m right now sitting at a computer, I have my phone in front of me. I’m typing and my words are appearing on the screen in front of me. The computer, phone, desk, chair: these are what we commonly refer to as inanimate objects. Outside my window I can see a few more things: trees, squirrels, birds, other animals and people scurry about.

From this, I think we can make a couple conclusions. There are at least three types of thing that populate reality. There are what I will call “objects”[1] – these are things that vary in form or function, and can’t do anything on their own. I’ll even refine it further by saying that objects come in two forms: Natural and Unnatural. Natural objects exist the way they were produced by nature. The dirt, the trees, the rocks, these are natural objects. Unnatural objects are natural objects which have been acted upon. My phone is made of various plastics and metals, its derived from a bunch of natural objects, and remains an object in that it can’t do anything unless acted upon.

The second type of thing I will call “creatures”. Creatures can move around, collect objects, fly or crawl or climb. We, as humans, can do all of these things too. But we can tell that we are of a different kind than these creatures.

The third type of thing is us, and I will refer to us as “Beings”. Beings differ from creatures not in our animal qualities, but in our minds. We can think, discern, and act. We can feel emotions. We can act with force or gentleness, speak intelligibly, plan for the future and contemplate the past.

So what distinguishes all of these types of thing from each other? Objects are material and only material. They are made of stuff, and have no other qualities. Objects just are. Creatures are made of material. But they are full of life. Creatures are endowed with a kind of life-force. This life force enables them to move, to take care of their basic needs. It does not enable them with such a distinction as we have as beings. Their decisions are driven by what I will call “instinct”. Life-force, alone, does not allow life. It needs to be given direction, and instinct is this direction.

Beings are like creatures in that they are made of material and have a kind of life-force. But they have that strange quality that allows them to move and act differently than creatures. In no particular order, emotion is one of the things that defines Beings. Second, the ability to control our instinct and override it, is another thing that defines Beings. This deciding ability, this veto power over our creaturely life-force, is called agency. The emotive ability, the ability to feel things from our experiences, I will call conscience.

What Is Agency?

We have populated Reality with things (objects, creatures, and beings) and we have given them traits (material, instinct, and agency). So lets dig into this a little bit, and better understand the differences of the things within reality.

We’ve made a few claims without questioning the premise, so lets stop and do that now.

Life-force and instinct are the key element to transcending the world of objects and arriving at the world of creatures. Life-force is natural, that is, derived from nature, the same way that objects can be both natural and unnatural. Instinct is implied by the natural occurrence of life-force. Why is this so?

Life-force provides a creature with abilities. A monkey can climb. A horse can gallop. A bird can fly. Life-force is simply the ability. Unguided, a monkey can just climb until it dies. A horse can gallop until it disappears over the horizon. A bird can just keep flapping eternally. How does a creature know when to stop or start? What governs how or why or when it will use any of it’s given abilities? It necessarily must be instinct. A monkey climbs, and then stops when it is too tired. A horse can gallop, and then graze when it becomes hungry. A bird can fly, and then dive when it sees a predator. Life-force and instinct are co-dependent on each other. A creature without instinct cannot act in any meaningful way. An instinct without life force has nothing to steer.

How does agency differ from instinct then? Agency has power over instinct. A being might be hungry, but decide to not eat. A being might fear predators, but continue in spite of that fear. Agency also manifests differently in every being. Some beings decide to write blogs about metaphysics, other beings decide to play outside, while still other beings decide to be crooks and criminals. Agency is different in every being. Instinct is natural, like the life force it governs. Agency, having command over instinct, is supernatural, above and beyond nature. Beings differ also from creatures in the presence of conscience. Conscience is entirely absent from creatures. They do not feel with the depth that beings feel. They can bond, instinctively, into crude creaturely family units. But a creature cannot love it’s family unit the way a being loves it’s parents. Conscience, then, also transcends creaturely impulses. Conscience is also supernatural.

What is Supernatural Reality?

Agency and Conscience are our first hints at a reality above and beyond this one that we looked around at the beginning of this article. These are qualities that are supernatural and therefore must be derived from some kind of supernature. What do we know about it?

In order to answer that, let’s consider what kind of things populate this supernature. Natural things followed an additive order: Objects are made of material, creatures are objects with life-force, beings are creatures with agency. We can imagine that supernature continues this chain. We can imagine a being without a material, object based form. Beings that are pure agency, pure conscience. I will refer to these as “angels”. But what governs agency and conscience when it is removed from natural reality? It no longer has instincts, it no longer has objects. What governs angels use of agency and conscience? Further still, where do angels come from? They cannot be created by beings, because beings are material. So they must come from, and be governed by, something else.

That something else must be over and above angels, because angels must be governed by something, the way life-force is governed by instinct. That something else must be able to create angels out of nothing (out of no thing) because they are beings of pure agency and conscience. So the act of creating angels therefore must not reduce the thing that creates them, because it must be able to create other angels. I will call this something “the Divine”.

The Divine is the perfection of all things, because The Divine is irreducible. The Divine, being capable of creating supernatural beings (angels) out of no thing, what would prevent The Divine from being able to create things out of no thing?

Let us approach this from another direction. All Angels come directly from the Divine. All beings come from other beings. The first beings came from creatures. the first creatures came from objects. the first objects came from The Divine. The Divine is what Thomas Aquinas called the “Prime Mover”, the Uncaused Cause. The Divine is at the root of all things, and at the root of Reality.

[1] – When I give something a label, I am not using the proper metaphysical label. I am using common language, not jargon, for ease of representation. Try to shed any baggage a particular word carries, and consider only my definition for the time being. I hope to get more specific in subsequent articles.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4