What Are We Distracted From? (Question 3: Perspective, and Summary So Far)

What Are We Distracted From? This is the great question of our age, because we know we are being distracted. We can break down that question into six parts, six First Questions.

The last two posts explained the First two Questions, and their Answers, on Reality and Purpose. Today: Perspective.

This initial set of three First Questions comes from the philosopher Walter Watson's book The Architectonics of Meaning (1985)¹. Watson uses “archic analysis” to pinpoint these almost mutually exclusive definitions of today’s religions and ways-of-life, in philosophy and literature, and even art and science. Using Four Questions and Four Answers within each, his analysis results in 256 distinct combinations. Here we start to isolate today’s religions and draw their dividing lines.

Question 3: Perspective: What one point-of-view provides the most accurate and true knowledge about the true Reality and the most good Purpose?

According to Watson, Perspective describes how we judge things, or what we judge things in relation to; in short, how we know Truth. When bits of knowledge are in conflict, what is the deciding source we look to?

• Personal – The individual’s point of view receiving the senses and feelings predominate. Watson: “We judge things in relation to us, and not as they are in themselves.”
  • We can eliminate this Variable for most organized religions, because religions typically follow the Revelatory perspective below.
  • Modernism, however, separates itself as a dogma with its Personal Perspective, although it is not a formal religion, but the most prevalent and formidable way-of-life.
  • Watson names the existentialists and American philosopher William James to this group.
• Objective – Modernism and Marxism both subscribe to this Perspective, using science as the tool to validate its tenets when needed.
  • Marxism, for example, takes its attempt at truth from a scientific and apparently unbiased historical perspective.
• Revelatory – All the major organized religions belong to this group; here, truths transcend the individual and the unbiased, inhuman observer.
  • This perspective is absolute, incorporating the personal and objective. “Individual subjectivity can disappear not only if we become pure mirrors of the objective world, but also if we become purely transparent to an absolute perspective.”
  • Watson cites St. Augustine to provide an example: “The light of our understandings, by which all things are learned by us, they have affirmed to be that selfsame God by whom all things were made.” (City of God, vii, 7).
  • Even Gnostics fall into this Answer, although dating back to the second century, variations of Gnostics have believed a version Christ’s message is available only to a chosen few.
  • Note that this Answer does not establish the content of what’s revealed; that is covered in the Reality Question.
  • For Christians, the Revelatory Answer within the Perspective Question provides the means by which a just and loving Noumenal and Creative Holy Trinity allows the creatures He loves to know Him.

Watson’s fourth Answer within Perspective is called Disciplinary. This view is inextricably linked to the Question one is trying to Answer. For example, Aristotle gave us these situational truths related to the fields of ethics, physics, metaphysics, aesthetics, etc. But we can now eliminate this perspective, because our Question here already hones in on religion and a way of life. Also, we will examine the content of what the Perspective provides in Part 6.

In this post, we summarize the answers to all three First Questions provided by the major religions and ways-of-life. Again, the Questions provide three Answers each, to result in a few dozen combinations, in theory. We reduce them to seven, below, and show where Watson places each major way of life and religions today.

• Creative/Noumenal/Revelatory – Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, Gnosticism
  • For Christians, the Holy Trinity revealed to us is the most valid, if not the only valid, source of truth (Revelatory)
  • An eternal, perfect, and infinite supernatural entity exists – indispensable, yet separate from, the visible world (Noumenal).
  • For Christians, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is that which reveals Its Reality and Purpose to us.
  • Humans, created in God’s image, are tasked with the free will to create our own destinies in life, to be holy or sinful (Creative).
• Creative/Existential/Personal and Objective – Modernism (including Hedonism, Existentialism, Sociology (e.g., Max Weber))
  • Modernism focuses on the key reality of what we perceive and feel (Existential), from our own point-of-view (Personal), as well as our drive and requirement to create our own impression of the world (Creative). For example, the influential Weber, emphasizes the creation of authority through charisma.
  • As stated in Part 1, in The Great Heresies² (1938), Hilaire Belloc identifies Modernism as the greatest struggle the Church will ever face. As a heresy, it differs from the other heresies, because it retains little similarity with the Church. But the similar Creative Purpose can confuse and deceive us, and lure us in, daily. Modernism seeks to destroy the Church fully, “all – not a portion – of its philosophy.” Belloc warns, “It is concerned with the destruction of the Catholic Church."
• Creative/Substrative/Objective – Marxism, Deism
  • Marxism emerges as a religion late in human history, and certainly is closely tied to Modernism. The difference is the primary reality is not the individual, but the underlying (Substrative) historical class conditions man created.
  • Today, Marxism is often morphed into an underlying racial or gender-based victimhood at the hands of historical oppressors.
  • Deism supplies an impersonal God as the creator of the primary reality (Substrative). The Catechism describes the Deity as a watchmaker who leaves humans be.
• Elemental/Existential/Revelatory – Buddhism
  • In Buddhism, the key reality is expressed as a series of “dharmas,” or moments (Existential).
  • Also, the motivator of this string of moments in the universe is a continual change originating from no particular entity (Elemental)
• Elemental/Substrative/Revelatory – Taoism
  • Lao Tzu taught about an inherent layer of reality underneath (Substrative) the illusion of perception; that hidden reality appears, changes, returns to its origin, and cycles back again (Elemental).
• Elemental/Noumenal/Revelatory – Hinduism
  • Although Hinduism’s many gods “show through” (Noumenal) to human experience, the driving energy of the universe is a principle that all things change, cycle, and return to where they came from, as in the doctrine of reincarnation (Elemental).
• Comprehensive/Essential/Revelatory - Confucianism
  • Confucians want to expose natural goods tied closely to the individual, not merely permanent ideals – this is an Essential reality, expanding and tied to multiple realities as most significant.
  • However, for Confucians, individual people are driven to function within the whole of their Pantheistic heaven (Comprehensive).

Thus, the Noumenal/Creative/Revelatory unequivocal Answers define the Catholic Judeo-Christianity religion, and distinguish it from other religions. The differences between Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, and Gnosticism require more Questions, to be covered in Parts 4-6. Often St. Thomas paves the way, in the 4th-through-6th answers. In the next post, we present the Fourth Question and the distinguishing Catholic Answer.    

To synopsize the Christian Answers to the three Questions, the Holy Spirit revealed these three Answers to St. John the Evangelist³, which he wrote in his first paragraphs of his Gospel. Its distinguishing Truth inspired nearly all priests to recite this at the end of billions of Masses from the 1100s until the 1960s. Here are the passages that crystalize the Noumenal/Creative/Revelatory Answers. The key words that trace back to each Question are in bold.

Noumenal Reality

[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] The same was in the beginning with God. 

Creative Purpose

[3] All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. [4] In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Revelatory Perspective

[5] And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it… [9] That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. [10] He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. [11] He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

Creative Purpose

[12] But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. [13] Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.  

Noumenal Reality

[14] And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us 

Revelatory Perspective

(and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

To further reveal our Revelatory Perspective, Scripture and Tradition guide us, as follows:

The Holy Bible ³

John 14

[6] Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me. [7] If you had known me, you would without doubt have known my Father also: and from henceforth you shall know him, and you have seen him. [8] Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us. [9] Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, shew us the Father? [10] Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works… [26] But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. 

Matthew 11

[25] At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones. [26] Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in thy sight. [27] All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him. 

Matthew 24

[14] And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come.

Luke 24

[27] And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him.

John 21

[24] This is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things, and hath written these things; and we know that his testimony is true. [25] But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.

Hebrews 1

[1] God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, [2] In these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.

2 Timothy 3

[16] All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, [17] That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.

Romans 1

[16] For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and to the Greek. [17] For the justice of God is revealed therein, from faith unto faith, as it is written: The just man liveth by faith. [18] For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: [19] Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. [20] For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

2 Thessalonians 2

[14] Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.  

1 John 5

[20] And we know that the Son of God is come: and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) ⁴

Introductory: Study of The Word of God

Now all the doctrines in which the faithful are to be instructed are contained in the Word of God, which is found in Scripture and tradition. To the study of these, therefore, the pastor should devote his days and his nights, keeping in mind the admonition of St. Paul to Timothy, which all who have the care of souls should consider as addressed to themselves: Attend to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine, for all Scripture divinely inspired is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct injustice, that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.

Introductory: The Necessity of Religious Instruction

It is true that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are, as the Apostle teaches, clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also, and divinity. But the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations so far transcends the reach of man's understanding, that were it not made manifest by God to His Saints, to whom He willed to make known by the gift of faith, the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ, man could by no effort attain to such wisdom.

Introductory: Need of an Authoritative Catholic Catechism

For - to say nothing of those illustrious States which heretofore professed, in piety and holiness, the true Catholic faith transmitted to them by their ancestors, but are now gone astray wandering from the paths of truth and openly declaring that their best claims to piety are founded on a total abandonment of the faith of their fathers - there is no region, however remote, no place, however securely guarded, no corner of Christendom, into which this pestilence has not sought secretly to insinuate itself.

For those who intended to corrupt the minds of the faithful, knowing that they could not hold immediate personal intercourse with all, and thus pour into their ears their poisoned doctrines, adopted another plan which enabled them to disseminate error and impiety more easily and extensively. Besides those voluminous works by which they sought the subversion of the Catholic faith - to guard against which (volumes) required perhaps little labour or circumspection, since their contents were clearly heretical - they also composed innumerable smaller books, which, veiling their errors under the semblance of piety, deceived with incredible facility the unsuspecting minds of simple folk.

The Creed, Article I: Knowledge of God More Easily Obtained Through Faith Than Through Reason

 There is a great difference between Christian philosophy and human wisdom. The latter, guided solely by the light of nature, advances slowly by reasoning on sensible objects and effects, and only after long and laborious investigation is it able at length to contemplate with difficulty the invisible things of God, to discover and understand a First Cause and Author of all things. Christian philosophy, on the contrary, so quickens the human mind that without difficulty it pierces the heavens, and, illumined with divine light, contemplates first, the eternal source of light, and in its radiance all created things: so that we experience with the utmost pleasure of mind that we have been called, as the Prince of the Apostles says, out of darkness into his admirable light, and believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1995) ⁵

68 By love, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. He has thus provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life.

69 God has revealed himself to man by gradually communicating his own mystery in deeds and in words.

293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God." St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it", for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness.

319 God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory. That his creatures should share in his truth, goodness and beauty - this is the glory for which God created them.

516 Christ's whole earthly life - his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking - is Revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father", and the Father can say: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" Because our Lord became man in order to do his Father's will, even the least characteristics of his mysteries manifest "God's love. . . among us".

St. Thomas Aquinas ⁶

I answer that, By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist… The reason of this is that the newness of the world cannot be demonstrated on the part of the world itself. For the principle of demonstration is the essence of a thing. Now everything according to its species is abstracted from "here" and "now"; whence it is said that universals are everywhere and always. Hence it cannot be demonstrated that man, or heaven, or a stone were not always. Likewise neither can it be demonstrated on the part of the efficient cause, which acts by will. For the will of God cannot be investigated by reason, except as regards those things which God must will of necessity; and what He wills about creatures is not among these... But the divine will can be manifested by revelation, on which faith rests. Hence that the world began to exist is an object of faith, but not of demonstration or science. (Summa Theologica I, q.46, a.2)

Sources

1. Walter Watson, The Architectonics of Meaning, 1985, University of Chicago Press

2. Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies, 1938, Cavalier Books.

3. The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, 2009, Saint Benedict Press [Original published 1582-1609]

4. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, (J.A McHugh, O.P., and C.J. Callan, Trans.), 1923, Middletown, DE [Original 1566]

5. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995, Doubleday

6. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.), [Online] Available from: http://www.documenta-catholica.eu/d_1225-1274-%20Thomas%20Aquinas%20-%20Summa%20Theologiae%20-%20Prima%20Pars%20-%20EN.pdf [Original 1265-1274]