St.Ignatius ends his Spiritual Exercises with a prayer concerned with “finding God in all things”. For him this was not a difficult exercise. We may say, of course, that it was not difficult because he was a mystic. Yet even as a mystic his finding God built upon his human consciousness and, thus, on his basic human knowledge. After his incorporated the medieval European view, which saw God as a Creator and Redeemer. This, in turn, was compatible with the understanding of the physical world of the time- an earth-centered Universe with humankind at the center of a static earth, about which revolved the rest of creation. Today, then, can we “find God in all things” in a universe where things are far from static and even the oneness of the “Uni-” verse is called into question?
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The God Question in Contemporary Physics
St. Ignatius ends his Spiritual exercises with a prayer concerned with “finding God in all things.” For him this was not a difficult exercise. We may say, of course, that it was not difficult because he was a mystic. Yet even as a mystic his finding of God built upon his human consciousness and, thus, on his basic human knowledge. After his theological studies at the University of Paris, his human knowledge of God incorporated the medieval European view, which saw God as Creator and Redeemer. This, in turn, was compatible with the understanding of the physical world of the time—an earth-centered Universe with humankind at the center of a static earth, about which revolved the rest of creation.
As we remember Matteo Ricci and his contribution to Chinese culture we also recall how he built his Christian message on the Chinese interest in astronomy and science, especially as this astronomy showed a stable, static cosmos where the world is receptive to the rule of the Emperor. As has been said: “Ricci and his fellow Jesuits considered their religious message and European science an integrated whole, precisely called ‘heavenly studies’ where science and theology supported each other…” (Criveller 2010).
Today, then, in the same spirit as Ricci can we “find God in all things” in a universe which science shows us is far from static and even the oneness of the “Uni-“verse is called into question?
The aim of this essay is to answer this question. Or maybe better still, the point addressed here is to pose the question in such a manner that the reader will be assisted to seek an answer. In the traditional language of academe, what we are doing is ‘natural’ theology. We are probing the natural world to see if it can point out to us the Supreme Reality. In this, we follow a long tradition where the philosopher sought to find God through the natural world. In the Scholastic tradition, this is summarized in the philosophical tract called “Cosmology” and is very much what Ricci did as he spoke of the Lord of Heaven. This, in turn, would presuppose that the philosopher was willing to accept that the world has a Creator, though the way this term was construed could vary a good deal. This was the approach made famous by St. Thomas Aquinas in his “Five Ways” as set out in the Summa theologica. In time, this approach to prove the existence of God and possibly gain some knowledge of His attributes became known as “natural theology.” is `natural’ because it starts from nature, the natural world; it is natural `theology’ because it attempts to have knowledge of God.
Science enters this scene and philosophical cosmology, and its questions begin to be taken over by science. This is usually considered to start with Isaac Newton and his Principia mathematica. By the time of the French Revolution and its “Enlightenment,” the world of the natural was to be understood by reason alone, and what was not ‘rational’ was suspect. Nature was basically a mechanistic complexity based on laws of science, which the human mind could fathom as witnessed, for example, by the great unification of the laws of electricity and magnetism by James Clarke Maxwell in the 1860s. That this unity was expressed in the language of vector calculus all the more strengthened the ‘reason first’ mentality.
One of the consequences of this approach to nature and its laws was the suspicion that teleological arguments have no place in this scheme. Whereas before, the teleological and the theology of nature were seen to be bedfellows, the union was severed or at least greatly weakened with the rise of mathematical physics famous remark to Napoleon that he saw need to introduce the `hypothesis’ of God in his monumental work on mathematical physics some one hundred years after the work of Newton summarizes the spirit of the age. For him, as for the age, once the initial conditions were specified, the natural world could take care of itself. It had no need of an end or purpose.
The work of Charles Darwin, of course, removed the last place that teleology might lurk—the world of the living. Living things had been reduced to machines ever since the thought of Descartes had made them so. Darwin sealed their fate by declaring that survival of vi the fittest has its own natural law analogous to those of Newton and o Maxwell (Fabian 1998).
This would all change with the physics Theory and they upheaval of first Relativity Quantum Theory in the twentieth century (Ryder 1996; Bell 1987; Brown and West 2000).But time will not allow us to pursue that upheaval here. Rather, let us return to a cosmological viewpoint and consider the modern vision of the world (Close 2000).
The contemporary vision of the Universe that modern astrophysics provides has removed the static from our thinking. We see every day on Internet, for instance, dramatic pictures taken by the Hubble orbiting telescope of worlds in collision. Galaxies eat other galaxies or better said, “ate” other galaxies as the scenes we view by means of the instrument in space actually took place millions of years ago. We see seething, billowing roils of interstellar gas writhing in the pangs of starbirth. We worry about seeing the small planets about us whose relatives have, in the past and may in the future, pay us a visit in no uncertain terms. Our very life on earth could come to a violent end with just such a visit.
No, the world is not static anymore. And where is the Creator God If in the midst of such chaos, not to say the Redeemer God?
If the vision of Ignatius were true, then it is still true. The model of our worlds may have changed, but the Truth is eternal and could not have changed. Let us then consider the model that contemporary physics gives us of this world, a world violent and nonstatic (Dembski 1998).
We have a model of the Universe built upon the basic physical Insights handed down to us by the scientists of the past. Starting with Isaac Newton, we see the law of gravity working everywhere there is mass.mass. Using ed Kepler’s laws we situate ourselves on the third planet for the G2 star we call Sun. The solar system so orderly conceive we know today has plenty of chaos within it. Let us look more closely at this.
Today, the science of physics enshrines the laws of the universe in the language of Einstein. For modern science, space and time are no longer separate entities but put together in a picture or model .of the universe. We are accustomed to think of ‘our’ time as the universal time and this, indeed, is how even the great Newton conceived o time—there is but one time and it applies to all places in the universe. With Einstein, however, the twentieth century was given another version of the relation between space and time. Now, we see them as Inextricably linked so that to speak of the ‘time’ over there at some Other place, we need to distinguish as to whether or not that other y Place is moving or not. If it is moving, then we cannot simply sa t a our’ time is their time (Ryder 1996).
** SEE THE PDF FILE FOR THE DIAGRAM**
Here the light cone refers to all those light signals coming to us are from the past or sent out by us to the future. In the diagram we at the center (N). Time is plotted in the upward direction; and so, the future lies in F above us and the past in P below us. Since time is on the,. vertical axis the other two axes represent all of the three dimensions of space—x, y, and z. But since we only have two directions remaining on, the piece of paper, we let two typical spatial dimensions, such as S and Z, stand for all three. In the diagram you are at N and in time, this is time zero or your now. If you turn on a light at this point (the central dot), then the light travels away from you into your future. Since this is the fastest speed at which anything can travel, it defines a certain region, in the diagram, which is called the light cone. In the diagram, a typical light ray is that at the point G. Note that symmetrically to G there Is. a light ray corning to you from the point R in Your past—downward In the diagram. All such rays form the past light cone. If you are looking at someone, this would mean that you see them in your past. The light by each your eye so you see which you see them takes an instant of time to r them, you ‘know’ them, as they were, n
When we reflect on this necessary corollary of modern physics we see that our knowledge of the world—everything of everything we know and everyone we know—comes to us from the other side, as it were, of the invisible knowledge line, the demarcation line of possible interaction drawn by the physical speed limit law: the speed of light. Each knower then knows only her past. Of course, the same can be said of her future, considering the symmetry in the space-time diagram. Thus, modern physics. reaffirms the Thomistic and Scholastic concept of individuation: each knower is an individual divided off fro known, m the known, even as she conceives the known in herself by the act of knowledge. Such individuation in the act of knowing emphasizes the k dualistic nature of the knowing process. It throws yet another span d onto the bridge separating the knower from the known. “How do I know that I know?” and “Do I know the thing-in-itself?” is now joined by “How can I know the Now?” The knower is an isolated Monad in a sea of monads constantly emerging into their own private Thus, the name “Theory of Relativity” can be taken from the realm f o physics and brought into that of epistemology and philosophy with a totality of meaning.
Yet the theory is really not about what is relative so much as to what is thereby nonrelative or absolute, viz. the laws of physics. The theory places them as the common ground that enables the physical world to be known by the mind and upon which a common vision of the world is possible. The physical world has physical rules, which in their own way not so much determine as ‘pre-scribe’ what is possible, what can be, what can come to birth in its womb. The world has infinite possibilities within it, but they are circumscribed by the laws of the same physical realm. The speed of light is the speed limit of knowing; but light is composed of electric and magnetic fields. They in turn sprang from the first primeval energy source. All is contained in their matrix and its derivatives in time, million and billions of years of time. We are individuals, but individuals in a fertile womb o infinite potential.
Thus starting with Relativity Theory we concept of ‘potential.’ In fact, Werner Karl Heisenberg, one of the return to the ancient founding fathers of that other cornerstone of the modern physical a central position in his interpretation of the theory. quantum theory—placed the concept of However, for our the potential of the cosmos leads us in another direction. This is the purposes in cosmology and whether God can be found there, Anthropic Principle (Barrow and Tipler 1986).
The Anthropic Principle was coined in the second half of the twentieth century to encode data found by the astronomers in their search to answer the questions of human life in the cosmos. As more and more data became available with breakthroughs in optical and radio astronomy, the scientists noted certain ‘coincidences in the data. It was realized that one way to capture the relevance of these coincidences was to note that they all seemed necessary for human life to be possible. If the numbers were not such and such, as was in fact the case, then human life would not be possible in the universe. The Anthropic Principle places this fact at the fore by saying that we see the world as it is because we are here to see it. If the numbers were not as they are, we could not be here.
The Anthropic Principle can obviously be seen as the granddaughter of the Design Argument as put forth by St. Thomas. There, St. Thomas argues that the natural world shows a great deal of teleology and thus, implies a Designer. From the fact that causes exist, St. Thomas says we may infer the First Cause (Summa theologica 103). The argument has flourished over the centuries, finding one of its recent forms in the classic book of William Paley entitled Natural theology (1802). Here, Paley uses the simile of creation as a fine watch that one finds lying on the ground one day and examines closely, opening it to see the intricate play of the wheels and cogs. Such fine workmanship would imply a Design is at work. Thus, there must be a Designer.
The argument is brought to the fore today by the work of Barrow and. Tipler (1986). They distinguish between the weak and the strong forms of the Anthropic Principle. In the weak for the Anthropic Principle accepts the present situation. It declares that the physical constants of nature—quantities that rule the laws of the physical world—are not arbitrary but must have such values so as to give rise to carbon-based life. In its strong form, the Principle says this is because they are designed to have these values. It leaves open the question as to why this should be so. The parameters in question are given by the equations listed here, as given in standard school text form. W our discussion of the Anthropic Principle is to be noted for What constants of nature in he appearance of the these equations: h, Planck’s constant; G, the gravitational constant; k, Boltzmann’s constant; c, the speed of light and e, the fundamental electric char t; hidden in Maxwell’s Equations.
** SEE PDF FILE FOR Table 1. Fundamental laws of nature **
These equations express the four fundamental forces we need to understand the physical world. They form the so called Model of physics. This theory is the latest formulation of done model of the physical world, on work done in the twentieth century but, of course, building upon all earlier work. It is often called the most precise physical theory of the world measured fashioned. This precision refers to the experiments, which have for the values concerned to extraordinary precision. Take, example, the agreement between theory and experiment in the measurement of the electron’s magnetic moment. The theory or prediction = 0.001159652? while the experiment =0.01159652? (Ryder 1996). Here, the question mark indicates an uncertainty in both the predicted value and the experiment for that particular place in the i decimal number. In other words, the Standard Theory has agreement been theory and experiment to nine decimal places! Thus, this has been called the most precise theory in the history of the world.
Further appreciation of the Anthropic Principle brings us to what are often called ‘coincidences’ in the laws of nature that make it possible for us to exist (Barrow and Tipler 1986). These coincidences refer to the numerical values of certain universal constants and elementary particle masses that appear in the basic mathematical laws governing the cosmos. Basic as they are, the argument states they cannot be changed significantly without the appearance of human beings being affected. This is seen in the so-called Fine Structure Constants (Bradley 1999).
**SEE PDF FILE FOR Table 2. Universal constants, mass of elementary particles, and fine structure constants **
Following Bradley, consider each of the Fine Structure Constants. Using Table 2 on the opposite page, we can compare the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force. Electromagnetism wins by a factor of 10 with 38 zeros! It is that much larger than gravity. Why such a huge difference? As Bradley (1999) states:
It is the force of gravity that draws protons together in stars, causing to fuse together with a concurrent release of energy. The electromagnetic force causes them to repel. Because the gravity force is so weak compared to the electromagnetic force, the rate at which stars “burn” by fusion is very slow, allowing the stars to provide a stable source of energy over a very long period of time. If this ratio of strengths had been 1032 instead of 10″, i.e., gravity much a stronger, a billion ti would time less massive and would burn million times faster.
Next consider the strength of the nuclear strong force. The most critical element in nature for the development of life is carbon. Yet, it has recently become apparent that the abundance of carbon in nature is the result of a very precise balancing of the strong force and the electromagnetic force, which determine the quantum energy levels for nuclear. Only certain energy levels are permitted for nuclei, and these may be thought of as steps on a ladder. If the mass-energy far two colliding particles results in a combined mass-energy that is equal to or slightly less than a permissible energy level on the quantum “energy ladder,” then the two nuclei will readily stick together or fuse on collision, with the energy difference needed to reach the step being supplied by the kinetic energy of the colliding particles. If this mass-energy level for the com particles is exactly right, or “just so,” then the collisions are said to have resonance, which is to say that there is a high efficiency of collisions for fusing the colliding particles.
On the other hand, if the combined mass-energy results in a value that is slightly higher than one of the permissible energy levels on the energy ladder, then the particles will simply bounce off each other rather than stick together or fuse. In 1970, Fred Hoyle predicted the existence of the unknown resonance energy carbon, and he was subsequently proven right. The fusion of helium level for and beryllium gives a mass-energy value that is 4 percent less than the resonance energy in carbon, which is easily made up by kinetic energy. Equally important was the discovery that for the fusion of carbon with helium was 1 percent greater than quantum energy level on the energy ladder for oxygen’ the mass-energy en making this reaction quite unfavorable. Thus, almost all beryllium is converted to carbon, but only a small fraction of the carbon is immediately converted to oxygen. These two results require the specification of the relative strength of the strong force and the electromagnetic force to within approximately 1 percent, which is truly remarkable given their large absolute values and difference of a factor of 100, as seen in Table 2.
More generally, a 2 percent increase in the strong force relative to the electromagnetic force leaves the universe with no hydrogen, no long-lived stars that burn hydrogen, and no water (which is a molecule composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom), the ultimate solvent for life. A decrease of only 5 percent in the strong force relative to the electromagnetic force would prevent the formation of deuterons from combinations of protons and neutrons. This would, in turn, prevent the formation of all the heavier nuclei through fusion of deuterons to form helium, helium fusion with helium to form beryllium, and so forth. In 1980, Rozental estimated that the strong force had to be within 0.8 and 1.2 times its actual strength for there to be deuterons and all elements of atomic weight 4 or more.
If the weak force coupling constant (see Table 2) were slightly larger, neutrons would decay more rapidly, reducing the production of deuterons, and thus of helium and elements with heavier nuclei. On the other hand, if the weak force coupling constant were slightly weaker, the big bang would have burned almost all of the hydrogen into helium, with the ultimate outcome being universe little or no hydrogen and many heavier elements instead. This would leave no long-term stars and no hydrogen-containing compounds, especially water. In 1991, Breuer noted that the appropriate mix of hydrogen and helium to provide hydrogen-containing compounds’ long-term stars, and heavier elements is a hydrogen and 25 percent helium approximately 75 percent , which is just what we find in our universe.
The frequency distribution of electromagnetic radiation produced by the sun is also critical, as it needs to be tuned chemical bonds on earth. If the to the energies of (too much ultraviolet radiation photons of radiation are too energetic and molecules are unstable; , the chemical bonds are destroyed infrared radiation), then the if the photons are too weak (too much chemical reactions will be too sluggish’ pendent on a careful balancing of the
electromagnetic force (alpha-E) and the gravity force (alpha-G), with the mathematical relationship including (alpha-E)”, making the specification far the electromagnetic force particularly critical. On the other hand, the chemical bonding energy comes from quantum mechanical calculations that include the electromagnetic force, the mass of electron, and Planck’s constant. Thus, all of these constants have to be sized relative to each other to give a universe in which radiation is tuned to the necessary chemical area essential for life.
Another fine-tuning coincidence is that the emission spectrum for living tissue, the sun not only peaks at an energy level that is ideal to facilitate chemical reactions, but it also peaks in the optical window for water. Water is 10′ times more opaque to ultraviolet and infrared radiation in the visible spectrum (or what we call light). Since in general, and eyes, in particular, are composed mainly of water, communication by sight would be impossible were it not for this unique window of light transmission by water being ideally matched to the radiation from the sun. Yet this matching requires carefully prescribing the values of the gravity and the of the gravity and electromagnetic force constants, as well as Planck’s constants and the mass of the election.
This is only an illustrative and not an exhaustive list of cosmic coincidences. They clearly demonstrate how the four forces in nature longterm sources of energy and a variety of atomic building blocks the necessary for life. Many other examples involving the fine-tuning of _ these forces are described in the books previously cited. Even so, the fine-tuning of the universe is not confined to these four forces (Behe, Dembski, and Meyer 2000). As it turns out, the elementary particles, as Well as other universal constants like the speed of light Hawking, cavil. constant, also have to be very precisely specified.
Given these coincidences one might consider the Design Argument and well. But interestingly enough, the above arguments are not n Argument Many a theoretical cosmologist today, such as Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees and many more, would simply say that there is Principle is explanation for these numbers. For them, the Anthropic hold for there is no Designer. Just chance. Principle is true enough in its weak form. But the strong form does not
By chance, you say, that all these numbers are fine-tuned to this exact value? Is not this but a secularist ‘act of faith’? Their answer would be “By no means!” for they would direct our attention to the Many Worlds interpretation of Everett and its implications. This theory holds that the answer to the Anthropic Principle is that there are many other universes. We live in the one that supports our carbon; based life. There could well be life forms in the other universes, but w will never know. For the Everett interpretation of Quantum Theory holds that these other universes are totally distinct from ours, and we never and can never interact.
At this point let us get ready to stop. At the outset, I said our aim would be to inform the reader so that she could make an intelligent answer to the “God question” in the Standard Theory of Cosmology today. Thus it behooves me to make one final observation before I end: a comment about probably the most well-known physicist of our age’ Professor Stephen Hawking.
Stephen Hawking. has gained popularity mostly due to his serious medical disability and the remarkable ability he halt to do theoretical physics despite his broken body. That is not to say f his theoretical science is not world class. It is within the genre his specialization. But when he comes to generalizing his thoughts beyond the realm of physics, questions must be asked.
Professor Hawking builds on his popularity by venturing into philosophical questions. His latest book, The grand design (Hawking and Mlodinow 2010), begins by dismissing the philosophers as unable to answer the “big” questions. This is too pen the door to Hawking’s answers, which come from his discipline of quantum gravity. So in this work he espouses one of his favorite theories, the Multiverse. We see through the lens of quantum gravity a universe populated with an infinite number or worlds, or universes, if you will, that are by definition unable to be placed in a single Universe as they are totally incommunicado with each other. One has to wonder if the won _r well verified methodology that Multiverse proponents use,called, Statistical Mechanics, has not led them into its own Black Hole. This methodology was developed over a hundred years ago to deal with the unseeable world of atoms and molecules with its huge number of entities and has had remarkable success at that level of explanation of the physical world. But to extrapolate it so as to give us an infinite number of ‘universes’ seems stretching a point, to say the least. final step in this extrapolation from Hawking is to declare that there is nothing exceptional in the “fine-tuning” we see in our world, which I have been pointing out in this essay. For him this is simply the fact that we live in that particular universe out of all the infinite others, that has these properties and so human life, us.
I trust that if we end the story here with the Multiverse, the reader will note that while the Age of Faith of a thousand years ago pondered how many Angels can dance on the head of a pin,’ Age of Reason now asks how many Universes can we never know!
The Deduction of the Possibility and Actuality of Evil in Schelling’s of Human Freedom
This essay concerns one of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s enigmatic masterpiece Philosophical investigation into the essence of human freedom and matters conencted therewith (Of human freedom) that is now recognized as an indispensable work in German Idealism, particularly after the publication of Martin Heidegger’s elaboration of Schelling’s work. Along with the serious works in the form of notable evaluation of the works of Schelling as a whole, which are written by prominent thinkers such as Walter Schulz, Manfred Frank, and Slavoj Zizek, Heidegger’s exposition of Schelling’s Of human freedom has gradually restored its authority and claimed a special place in the corpus of Schelling’s entire works (Love and Schmidt 2006, ix). The purpose of this present essay is to provide an introduction to Schelling’s notoriously difficult text. Far from being pretentious, this essay is not intended to be an exhaustive introduction to the work. Its main focus is to carefully uncover the deduction of the possibility and actuality of evil in Schelling’s Of human freedom.
I will begin by outlining the general underlying arguments of Schelling’s Of human freedom. Then, I will present how the possibility and the actuality of evil can be deduced by presenting God in terms of ground and existence and his self-manifestation as such. I will eventually end this paper with some concluding remarks.
The General Arguments
Schelling’s consideration of the concept of freedom is based on his conviction that its investigation must always coincide with the investigation of its relation to a system as a whole. The true meaning of a concept, for Schelling (1936, 7), can only be revealed in terms of its “systematic completion,” which appears through a “demonstration of its connections with the whole.” This simply means that an adequate definition of a concept must take into account its connections with all concepts preserved in the system. Schelling himself counters the common belief that the unity and completeness in every philosophy presupposes a thorough system rendering no place for anything indeterminate, for example, freedom. This view is based on a false thesis that a system is characterized by restrictedness and determinateness,’ leaving no room for a harmonious connection between system and freedom.
Rejecting this account will bring us to the true understanding of Schelling’s task purported to be developed in Of human freedom. For Schelling, knowledge on the reconciliation of system and freedom is not an insurmountable problem. One can attain such knowledge, and as such, one can clarify decisively the principle through which one attains it (Schelling 1936, 8). The assumption that such knowledge can be reached is based on the ancient doctrine of “like is recognized by like.” The idea is that because human beings are free, then they can have knowledge of how their freedom can be reconciled with a system. Such doctrine similarly allows one to maintain knowledge of the divine because “he alone comprehends the god outside himself through the god within himself by keeping his mind pure and unclouded by evil” (Schelling 1936, 8). According to Schelling (1936, 9), the reconciliation of system and freedom should alone occupy all philosophy as “a subject of an inevitable problem;” otherwise, all philosophy will have no value at all. Such reconciliation, then, is the utmost knowledge worth striving for. So what appears in Of human freedom is nothing more than the expression of Schelling’s strife, reconciling system and freedom, a self-set task framing together his efforts in the treatise.
This task has to be understood in line with Schelling’s philosophical craving for setting forth an entire system, the unity of the “real” and the “ideal.” Such relation can be gleaned in his reinterpretation of Baruch Spinoza’s pantheism that at the same time demonstrates his own understanding of the law of identity. Schelling points to three generally considered interpretations of pantheism against which his objection and reinterpretation are raised: 1) A total identification of God; 2) an annihilation of all individuality: Everything else is as naught; and 3) a denial of freedom (Brown 1977, 121).
With regard to the first interpretation, Schelling maintains that the teachings of Spinoza render a more complete differentiation of things from God than any other tenet. He reiterates Spinoza’s tenet: “God is that which is in itself and is conceived solely through itself; whereas the finite necessarily exists in another being and can only be conceived with reference to it” (Schelling 1936, 12). By this, we consequently find that things and God are not only different in degree but also completely different in kind. Rejecting completely this total identification of God, Schelling further emphasizes that things, in whatever their relation to God may be, are absolutely different from God. They merely exist in or by virtue of being dependent upon another being, that is, God himself. Conversely, God exists in, by, and through himself. He is alone “independent and primary and self-affirming, all else being related to it only as what is affirmed, or as the consequence to the antecedent” (Schelling 1936, 12).
With respect to the second interpretation, Schelling (1936, 16) argues that it seems to be in contradiction with the first. If a pantheistic view of God annihilates all individuality, then it is meaningless to think of God as a total identification of all—as a whole. There would be no parts at all toward which God would be the whole.
As to the third interpretation, Schelling observes that freedom and pantheism are quite different from each other. The true understanding of the law of identity, he says, grants freedom its utmost revelation. The reason is that, in the law of identity, the unity of subject and predicate is of an “intrinsically creative kind,” instead of being a merely mechanical and abstract relation as maintained in Spinoza’s pantheism. Furthermore, Schelling argues that while the consequence is dependent upon the ground it does not necessarily mean that the latter determines the nature of the former. The unity of the ground and the consequence manifests the dependency of the consequence upon the ground, and not what the consequence is or is not (Schelling 1936, 18). That is to say, in the law of identity, the identity of things as different from and dependent upon God without being determined by God is preserved. Obviously, the use of the law of identity for exploring the unity of God and things maintains the nature of freedom in both. God does not determine things. As a result, the latter remain free and distinct.
From his discussion of the denial of freedom as not necessarily connected to pantheism, Schelling proceeds to reinterpret Spinoza’s pantheism. For him, Spinoza’s pantheism holds some grain of truth insofar as it unfolds the main characteristic of pantheism, namely the immanence of things in God. However, it is guilty of fatalism due to the fact that things are merely regarded as a “thing” in God, that they are conceived in terms of “deterministic causality” (Schelling 1936, 22). Deterministic causality means that the relation between God and things is based on a causal relation in which God causes things to exist as a consequence, and as such, God determines all things. This fatalism arises because of an abstract conception of all creatures. In contrast, Schelling (1936, 22) affirms a vital and dynamic conception of nature. He proposes that the abstractness and lifelessness of Spinoza’s pantheism has to be spiritualised by idealism as a vital basis (Schelling 1936, 22). A vital basis is a new state achieved: 1) Through a more elevated way of comprehending nature as opposed to regarding nature simply as “thing” in God; and 2) through the lively and dynamic unity of God and things, instead of the mechanistic and lifeless form of unity presented in Spinoza’s.
Schelling believes that from this newly transfigured pantheism a real philosophy of nature can be developed, that is, a whole system in which the “real” and the “ideal” are united. He tries to establish a lively and creative account of the unity of God and things (the real part) through giving an account of freedom (the ideal part). In developing an account of freedom, Schelling is actually conceptualizing or systematizing freedom. This is not an effort to reduce freedom into an abstract concept or system but to identify it with the constitution of God as well as man’s being—the constitution of life. Through this system of freedom, Schelling seeks to unify freedom and necessity, the “ideal” and the “real.”
After presenting an outline of the general arguments of Of human freedom, let me proceed to a discussion of its specific contents. Heidegger (1985, 104) captures very well the true meaning of Schelling’s investigation in Of human freedom: “The key question of the main investigation is the question of the inner possibility and of the kind of reality of evil. The intention of this investigation is to provide a full and live concept of human freedom. Thus the right center for the plan of the system of freedom is to be gained.” For Heidegger (1985, 97), the question of the possibility and the actuality of evil, or in his terms “a metaphysics of evil,” is the question of the ground of the system of freedom, the question of being. It is with this background in mind that I proceed in the next sections.
On God as Ground and Existence: A Philosophy of the Will
Schelling (1936, 31-32) clearly asserts that his investigation is based on the distinction between “[b]eing insofar as it exists, and being insofar as it is the mere basis of existence.” Schelling (1936, 32) proceeds to apply this distinction to God: “As there is nothing before and outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his existence.” According to Schelling, the truth of this duality of being—ground and existence—is vulnerable to being reduced into a mere concept. But this must not be the case. He insists that it should be regarded instead as “real and actual,” meaning, it is the movement of life rather than a system (Schelling 1936, 88). Although the ground is within God himself, it is not God from the perspective of God as existence, or God as the absolute. The ground is merely, Schelling (1936, 32) explains, “the basis of his existence, it is nature-in God, inseparable from him, to be sure, but nevertheless distinguishable from him.” As he proceeds to apply this distinction to things, Schelling arrives at the stance that things, as totally different from God, share with God the same basis out of which they can carry on their own process of becoming. This basis, which is within God but which is not God himself, is nothing other than the ground of God’s existence. God’s existence is what emerges from that which is within him, which is not God himself, and in emerging, ultimately reveals itself (Heidegger 1985, 104). This means that God’s existence is his self-revelation, his self-manifestation.
Schelling uses the analogy of gravity and light in nature to explain the principles of ground and existence. In this analogy, he says that the precedence of gravity, which is analogous to ground, over light, which is analogous to existence, is neither the “precedence in time” nor the “priority of essence” (Schelling 1936, 33). There is no first and later or even last as to the distinction between ground and existence. Neither of the two is more important than the other. Both imply each other. Neither of them is without the other.
Schelling further seeks to explain the ground in anthropomorphic terms. He calls the ground as “the longing in which God feels to give birth to himself,” a yearning to bear himself in a unity of life with his existence which, to this extent, “is not yet the unity in its own self.” Rather, it is “co-eternal” within God, that the ground of God is an inseparable part of his existence. One part cannot exist without another part and that both are two eternal beginnings of God in his absolute existence and creation (Schelling 1936, 34 and 89). As a mere longing, the ground is “not yet” a conscious will but a prescient will, a will without understanding. It therefore refers to darkness, obscurity, and unruliness. Given the fact that this ground is dark, obscure and unruly, Schelling (1936, 34) calls it as “the incomprehensible basis of reality.” Since it is before understanding, this initial will is comparable to “desire or passion;” it is “the lovely urge of a developing being striving to unfold itself, whose inner actions are undeliberate” (Schelling 1936, 75). The will refers to a kind of anticipation toward some thing or object which is not fully determined. Schelling (1936, 88) uses the anthropomorphic term “will” as a key to understand ground and existence, the “twofoldness of the principles.”
According to Schelling, there are two different wills, the will of ground, one that is always striving toward the ground, and the will of love, which is God’s own will to manifest himself. These two wills exist by themselves and become one because they, in their very beginning, function in themselves (Schelling 1936, 52 and 74-75). By this, God becomes himself insofar as he exists. Only through God’s will of love, which is active, as opposed to the reaction of the will of ground, that God is in his absolute existence. The will of ground always returns to itself such that “a basis of being might ever remain” (Schelling 1936, 36). In this lively contradiction of the two wills, we can properly understand the true meaning of ground and existence as the two principles of being according to which the being of God and creation is revealed. This is therefore essentially a philosophy of will, since the essential meaning of God’s being can only be grasped appropriately by presenting the two principles of the will of ground and the will of love. This account of the two principles is the main basis for comprehending God’s self-manifestation, making the creation of all creatures intelligible.
On God’s Self-Manifestation: A Theory of Creation
In the foregoing section, we conceive of God’s being in terms of ground and existence. the existence of God is the fulfillment of his own longing to give birth to himself, which is the ground, one that is within God yet is not God. God cannot simply relinquish the ground since it is the condition of his own dynamic impetus to be himself. This dynamic impetus inevitably terminates in God’s self-manifestation. As the united principles that reveal God’s being, ground and existence are thus the constitution of the inner structure of God.
Schelling (1936, 78 and 84) asserts that the unity of the two principles, insofar as it determines the being of God, should be conceived on the basis of the concept of life: “[Uri the divine understanding there is a system; God himself, however, is not a system but a life.” Werner Marx accentuates the interpretation of God’s being in terms of the notion of life. He explains: “Life is that which is capable of developing itself on its own and which thus manifest itself by producing luminosity, spirituality, and regularity out of darkness, obscurity, and unruliness” (Marx 1984, 66). Since it reveals itself on its own, life is causa sui. In revealing itself, life presupposes a contradiction out of which it gains its true manifestation. Luminosity, spirituality, and regularity need their counter-condition—darkness, obscurity, and unruliness—to reveal themselves. In this sense, the constitution of life is comprised of two contradictory powers. Both must always be in tension so as to sustain life, yet compose a sheer unity in which life attains its true revelation. The indispensable significance of the contradiction for understanding life is clearly stated in Of human freedom: “[W]here there is no battle there is no life” (Schelling 1936, 80). Schelling (1936, 84) further emphasizes: “All life…is subject to suffering and development….For being is only aware of itself in becoming… there is in being no becoming; in the latter, being is itself rather posited as in eternity; but in actuali[z]ation, there is necessarily a becoming.” Life itself should be understood as becoming since it entails the process of becoming toward its actuality, in its full meaning insofar as it is that which emerges from its counter-condition—the condition of darkness.
With respect to God’s being, its process of becoming is conceivable under the notion of “a leap” or “spontaneity.” It reveals the immediacy of God’s self-manifestation, a perfect unity of ground and existence unwrapping divine life such as freedom (Marx 1984, 68).5 This divine life acquires its full meaning in God’s will to manifest himself and, at the same time, to create. Therefore, to speak of God’s self-manifestation is to speak of the creation.
Before presenting his theory of creation, Schelling (1963, 35) first indicates what he calls “an inward, imaginative response, corresponding to this longing,” which is the first response of God toward the operation of the ground. In this first response, in line with his self-manifestation, God “sees himself in his own image” (Schelling 1936, 35). This image is already in God and occurs in God himself. God has his own first imagination of himself as his own image. Schelling (1936, 35) identifies this self-image of God as “God–begotten God himself.” In this identification, Schelling makes references to the process of giving birth. God gives birth to himself, that is, the begotten–God. However, to the extent that the begotten–God is a result of a process of giving birth, he is different from God, although he is actually God himself. Because the begotten–God is different from God, the process of giving birth is then a process of differentiation—God’s self-differentiation. This first response of God is distinct from the process of creation although both arise from God’s desire for self-manifestation.
The process of creation has to be understood in terms of the eternal contradiction of God’s inner structure, namely ground and existence. The role of this eternal contradiction is the imperative link in apprehending the relation between the identity of God and creation (Pfau in Schelling 1994, 43). The ground never remains settled in a perfect unity with existence, but keeps struggling in accordance with its will, the will of ground (Schelling 1994, 34 and 36). Schelling (1994, 38 and 39) explicitly declares that every being that “has risen in nature” contains the two principles of being—ground and existence—as a unity.6 He also figures that the principle of darkness (the ground, since it resides in depth) excites “the self-will of creatures” that always stands opposed to the universal will (Schelling 1994, 38 and 58). He refers to this as the process of creation of all creatures, save the human being. The process of creation is characterized by the fact that as God wills his self-revelation, he lets the ground operate against existence. On the one hand, this operation of the ground excites the self-will, which then struggles against the universal will. On the other hand, the universal will keeps determining the self-will in that it makes use of the self-will and subordinates it into itself by treating it as a mere tool. The self-will performs a service for the universal will insofar as the latter wills this creation through the self-will. Thus, in and among creatures except the human being, the unity of the two principles manifests a kind of “despotic relationship.”
The case of the human being is different. The struggle of the self-will to go back to the ground corresponds to its elevation to a unity with the universal will. In the human being, the very deep ground and the purest understanding reside together as one whole: “In [man], there are both centers–the deepest pit and the highest heaven” (Schelling 1994, 38). In the human being, the power of the two principles collides with each other as a dynamic unity and where the two principles mutually excite each other toward their own fulfillment. The self-will is elevated toward unity with the universal will, which is spirit; at the same time, it reaches the inmost domain of the ground, which is also spirit. This spiritualized self-will is the self hood in the human being (Schelling 1994, 39), suggesting that the self-will is not merely a tool and subordinated to the universal will.
Moreover, Schelling (1994, 38) uses the term “Word” to clarify the difference between the human being and other creatures: “[T]he (real) Word, pronounced, exists only in the unity of light and darkness (vowel and consonant)…Only in man, then, is the Word completely articulate, which in all other creatures was held back and left unfinished.”‘ Because the two principles are united in the human being, he is raised to a higher level than other creatures. However, Schelling (1994, 38) cautions: “[T] hat unity which is indissoluble in God must be dissoluble in man.” If the unity of the principles of being in the individual were inseparable, then by necessity man would be the same as God. If this were the case, there would have been no self-manifestation of God by which the process of creation is explicable. This dissolubility of the unity of the two principles in the human being constitutes the condition of his essence.
The Deduction of the Possibility of Evil
From the foregoing section, we know that the process of creation has to be understood in terms of God’s self-manifestation consisting of a threefold process.’ First is God’s first response to the operation of the ground in which God gives birth to his own image, that is, the begotten—God. This is God’s self-differentiation. He is differentiated from himself yet in himself through the begetting of his own image. Second is the uttering of the “Word” to create all creatures—the process of creation. There are two modes of the creature—the human being and all other creatures. The human being is lifted up beyond other creatures because in his selfhood (the spiritualized self-will) the two principles of being—ground and existence—are united. Each of them collides with its opposite, according to Zaek (1996, 64), as “its opposite’s inherent constituent.” Neither of them can have its power in disposing of its opposite. And the third is the underlying ground, which is always in rebellion against the light. This is the condition of God’s self-manifestation: That God must keep the ground striving against the light so as to manifest himself.
Now, how can we apprehend the possibility of evil in terms of this threefold process of God’s self-manifestation? Since the self-will is spiritualized by its grasping of the innermost ground and its elevation to the universal will, then the two principles of ground and existence in the human being reach their full power and are united in a separable unity. From this dissoluble unity, the possibility and the capability of the human being to dwell in darkness and in light can be derived. Schelling, however, does not explain the meaning of his claim that the two principles reach their full power. Rather, he simply posits this as constituting the dissolubility of their unity in the human being, constituting the possibility of good (dwelling in light) and evil (dwelling in darkness) (Schelling 1936, 39).
Schelling (1936, 39) says that the account of the possibility of evil is pursued insofar as it makes comprehensible the divisibility of the unity of the two principles. He begins by simply reiterating his initial concept pertaining to the self-will which wants to be a particular will in the human being as long as it is in unity with the universal will. He tries to express it in the terms of periphery and center: “[Self-will] may seek to be at the periphery that which it is only insofar as it remains as the center” (Schelling 1936, 40). The center here is analogous to the unity with the universal will while the periphery is analogous to the dwelling in the ground. Schelling stresses the indispensability of the self-will to remain at the periphery. Otherwise, there would be no dissolubility of the unity of the two principles, meaning that there would be no human being or creation in general: “[H]ardly does self-will move from the center which is its station, then the nexus of forces is also dissolved” (Schelling 1936, 41).
Schelling proceeds to deal with the concept of evil by explaining the divisibility of the unity of the two principles. Here, he makes use of the metaphor of disease (Schelling 1936, 41-42). The human being experiences disease as something very real, a “feeling” that makes us gloomy. However, there is nothing essential in it. Disease is nothing else than a kind of illusion or an arbitrary appearance in his life. As such, it has no meaning in the least because life remains, if only transfigured in a disordered appearance. Schelling (1936, 41-42) describes the condition of disease with regard to the activation of the ground: “Disease of the whole organism can never exist without the hidden forces of the depths being unloosed; it occurs when the irritable principle which ought to rule the innermost tie of forces in the quite deep, activates himself” While being healthy means “the restoration of separate and individual life to the inner light of the being, whence there recurs the division (crisis)” (Schelling 1936, 42). This shows that the state of being healthy in the human being is achieved as a result of the process of going back to the state of life wherein he becomes ill due to a disease. In the context of the unity of the two principles, this state refers to the divisibility of their unity, constituting the possibility of goodness and evil. If the possibility of goodness and evil is derived from this divisible unity attaining their full power in the human being, then the ground that excites the self-will in him cannot be made of “insufficiency” or “deprivation.
Schelling proposes a way of explaining the dissolubility of the two principles’ unity in terms of matter and form. He says that in the context of evil (as the possibility of evil becomes real) the matter of the two principles is the same, namely ground and existence that collide with each other in the spiritualized self-will. But their form is different here because the power of the ground overwhelms existence in the spiritualized self-will. This explanation will be used to clarify goodness and evil as they are actualized in the human being’s essence.
The Deduction of the Actuality of Evil
As we have seen, the possibility of evil is derived from the dissolubility of the unity of the two principles—ground and existence—in the human being. This separable unity is the essential condition of his essence who cannot remain in indecision (Schelling 1936, 50). It is an essential condition since the power of darkness collides with the power of light, allowing the human being the possibility of making a primordial decision. This decision constitutes his essence.
What we are to explore now is the actuality of evil which is, according to Schelling (1936, 49), the “chief subject in question.” In this respect, Schelling demands that there are three things to be explored, namely 1) the universal effectiveness of evil, 2) the process of how it comes to be real in the human being, and 3) the process of how it could have burst forth from creation as “an unmistakable principle” (1936, 49-50). These will be discussed below along with Schelling’s description of the nature of God in view of evil, thereby reaching “the highest point of the whole inquiry,” the love beyond God.
According to Schelling (1936, 58):
There is…a universal evil, even if it is not active from the beginning but is only aroused in God’s revelation…. Only after recognising evil in its universal character is it possible to comprehend good and evil in man too. For if evil was already aroused in the first creation and was finally developed into a general principle through the self-cent[ere]d operation of the basis, then man’s natural inclination to evil seems at once explicable.
Evil becomes possible in the human being because the unity of the principles is separable. This possibility of evil is a faculty insofar as it is a capability in him by which he can make his primordial decision. However, the capability of making a decision becomes a real decision as it follows the inclination or solicitation to that which makes a decision possible. Thus, there has to be an inclination to evil, an inclination through which the human being can decide upon evil. Since evil has been aroused in the first creation, and will always solicit him throughout his history in accordance with the relentless operation of the ground, there is a universal solicitation to evil. This universal evil is not yet a real evil as such, but a possible evil pervasive in all human history.
Schelling (1936, 54-55) seeks to pursue universal evil as he uncovers the stages of creation in the history if the human being. According to him, the human being’s stages of creation have to be understood in accordance with this following pattern: “It is God’s will to universalize everything to live it to unity with light or to preserve it therein; but the will of the deep is to particularize everything or to make it creature-like” Schelling 1936, 58). This tells us that the only condition of the creation of the human being is nothing other than the never-ending craving of the ground toward itself, the domain of darkness. Since the operation of the ground is essentially necessary to the process creation and to God’s self-revelation, the universal evil that is aroused through this being to decide upon evil as part of the constitution of his essence.
Meanwhile, with regard to the process of how evil comes to be real in teh human being, Schelling (1936, 63)has this to say: “But just inner necessity itself freedom; man’s being is essentially his own deed. Necessity and freedom interpenetrates as one being, which appears as the one or the other only as regarded from various aspects; in itself it is freedom, but formally regarded, necessity.” The human being’s essence is his own deed. This means that every human being is essentially has to determine himself so as to become an actual individual. This then is a primal as well as primordial determination of the human being, since it is pertaining to his existence or non-existence as an individual. He must, out of necessity, decide upon these primordial choices, namely “to be” or “not to be”. Only by making this decision can become an actual individual living in this world. To become an actual individual is to have for himself an essence which determined him as a living being in this world. Hence, what he has to decide on is his own essence in order to be an actual — not potential — individual. This decision has to be regarded as his own deed. Because the primordial decision constituting the essence of the human being is necessarily to be determined, then his essence is necessity. Necessity here, however, is not a compulsion since his essence is his own decision ans as such freedom. Therefore, from the perspective of the essence is his own decision and as such freedom. Therefore, from the perspective ofthe essence of the human being, freedom is necessity and vice versa.
Furthermore, Schelling (1936, 66) argues: “[A]s man at here of he has acted since eternity and already in the beginning of creation.” Man’s primordial act of decision constituting his own essence cannot be understood in terms of a particular juncture in the order of time; rather as something “already” made from all eternity. Every individual thus experiences himself at his birth as he who has determined himself to be who he is (Heidegger 1985, 155). As an eternal act, the primordial decision exceeds his consciousness (Schelling 1936, 64). This eternal act is a precondition for his something that is “already” made in eternity. Only by this act can he become conscious of his essence. Because the eternal act does not occur in the human being’s consciousness, Schelling (1936, 65) says that this act of decision remains the responsibility of every individual.
By now, it is clear that goodness and evil are actualized in the human being’s essence, which is necessarily constituted by his own primordial decision — the freedom we fondness can be understood in terms of the united but separable two principles of ground and existence. In our discussion of the dissolubility of the unity of the two principles, we have seen that each principle can become dominant over the other. From this, the possibility of goodness and evil is derived. But, how it the actuality of goodness and evil with respect to the separable unity of the principles explained? This can be shown in two ways —- qualitatively and formally.
Qualitatively speaking, as the self-will which is excited in the human being through the operation of ground dominates he universal will, evil surpasses goodness in the realm of his essence. Conversely, as the universal will subdues the self-will, goodness encompasses evil. Thus the unity of the two principles of ground and existence in accordance with actual goodness and evil, is regarded in terms of a difference in degree between the two principles. One is therefore dominant over the other. Formally speaking, the essence of the human being is actually a perverted configuration of the two principles in that one is overwhelming another. If an individual decides to be essentially evil, meaning that evil dominated over goodness, the configuration of the two principles i then perverted since found subsumes existence into its realm. Conversely, when an individual decides to be essentially good, then existence subsumes ground. In the human being, evil and goodness always appear concomitantly. The appearance of evil in him means that evil dominates goodness, while the appearance of goodness in him means goodness dominates evil. His essence is never the freedom to goodness OR evil, but it is always the freedom to goodness AND evil. This is so because evil needs goodness as its essential opponent for it to be actualized. So, too, goodness needs evil. In this sense, evil becomes an “unmistakable principle;” it is an indispensable constituent of the human being’s essence.
After showing that the possibility and the actuality of evil are actually dependent on God’s self-manifestation, Schelling goes back to the investigation of the nature of God. This he explains in two parts: 1) The justification of God’s nature in view of evil ; and 2) the consideration of the ultimate unity of everything. Without going into the details, let me present the arguments.
As to the first part, Schelling formulates the problem as follows: The process of creation arises from God’s free and conscious act to manifest himself by letting the ground strive toward itself. If God is free and conscious, he has to foresee the consequence of his act, particularly the arousal of evil from the operation of the ground. Because evil arises in the human being, God is this the originator of evil. Schelling rejects this argument. He contents that God’s decision to let the ground incessantly strive against the light is essential to the absolute existence of God. God would not be who he is unless the ground keeps striving. Thus this decision for letting the ground strive is a necessity to God’s self-manifestation, and therefore to the process of creation. Schelling (1936, 79) says: “[I]t cannot be said either, that evil comes from the depths or that the will of the depths is its primal cause. For evil can only arise in the innermost will of one’s own heart, and is never achieved without one’s own deed.” With respect to the second part, Schelling considers the origin of the two principles of ground and existence. This is, Schelling declares, the highest point of the whole inquiry. According to him, this origin has to be designated as a “primal ground” or as groundless,” which is “before all basis and before all existence, that is, before any duality at all” (Schelling 1936, 87). Since this groundless precedes all, it does not contain any antitheses. Thus, any antithesis can by no means be present, explicable, or differentiable from it. The groundless is indifferent to all antitheses rather than designating their identity. Hence, it is an “absolute indifference.”
With regard to the two principles, Schelling (1936, 88) states: “[N]othing prevents their being predicated as non-antitheses, that is, in disjunction and each for itself; wherein, however, this duality . . . is established.” Schelling contends that even in the groundless , as an absolute indifference, there is nothing that prevents this. As indifferent to everything, its relation to the two principles is a “relation of total indifference.” As an absolute indifference, it reacts to them neutrally. That is to say, there is no reaction whatsoever to the two principles from the groundless, which as indifferent, is not yet a principle. If it responds to their being posited at all, the response is indifferent. Even if the relation of the groundless tot he two principles is totally indifferent, Schelling (1936, 88) maintains that “instead of undoing the distinction [of the two principles] . . . the groundless rather posits and confirms it.” Only by this positing and confirmation does the real meaning of the opposition and not just its logical meaning, come to the fore.
This foregoing argument, however, seems to be incompatible with the concept of the groundless as an absolute indifference. If the response of the groundless to the positing of the two principles is indifference, and if they are posited as indifferent, there cannot be any form of confirmation of their distinction. Schelling’s argument remains unclean in this respect. However, this groundless has to divide itself into two really opposing principles in order that they can find their unity in the absolute identity, which is God.
Schelling (1936,90) completes his investigation by showing the absolute and general unity of all, that is, love beyond God:
[B]eyond the spirit is the inital ‘groundless’ which is no longer indifference (neutrality) but nonetheless not the identity of the two principles but rather the general unity, the same towards all but still not partisan to anything, It is now a beneficence which is free from all and which nonetheless works through all, in a word, it is love which is all in all.
As to the love beyond God, Schelling’s explanation is not clear. He initially seems to identify this love also with God whose absolute existence necessitates the operation of the ground. He writes: “[T]his is the secret of love, that it unites such beings as could each exist in itself, and nonetheless neither is nor can be without the other” (Schelling 1936, 89).
In his final exposition of the groundless, the love beyond God, Schelling reaches the utmost unitary configuration of the principle of the real and the ideal, the so-called system of freedom, the problem that has plagued him throughout his philosophical odyssey. This is why he regards this as the highest point of his inquiry in Of human freedom. Herein, as we have seen, Schelling shows the origin of the two principles, namely: The groundless, the absolute indifference. The two principles reach their own full identity as opposites, yet as a perfect unity in God alone because God is the absolute identity. In God, the necessity of always letting the ground (the principle of the real) struggle against existence (the principle of the ideal) emerges out of his absolute freedom. Therefore, in God, there is a full identification between necessity and freedom, the reconciliation of necessity and freedom. This is the ground of the system of freedom. Schelling completes this reflection with a consideration of the original groundless, which is no longer indifference, but the love that is all in all.
Conclusion
To conclude, let me recall briefly the main themes of this paper: Firstly, Schelling considers God in terms of the two principles of being—ground and existence. In order to reveal himself, which is the will of love, God always lets the ground return to itself ensuing its own will, the will of the ground. Through this organic contradiction of the two wills, Schelling shows the essential meaning of God’s being. Secondly, in his self-manifestation which necessitates the operation of the ground, God utters the “Word” in creation which is the process of creation itself. Thirdly, only from the dissolubility of the unity of the two principles can we deduce the possibility of goodness and evil. This is the condition of the constitution of the essence of the human being. And fourthly, he essentially has to decide for constituting his essence, that is, the freedom to goodness and evil, from which we can derive the actuality of goodness and evil.
God, Nature and the Maranao: A Theological Reflection on Sr. Coronel’s Paper
This theological reaction to Sr. Coronel’s very informative paper is purposely narrowed down to selected reference points discussed in the paper itself, and mainly revolved around God and nature. With some efforts we have tried intellectual bracketing as we have tried to listen to the Maranao as expressed in the Darangen.
The Maranao is a highly religious group of people in Mindanao, living around Lake Lanao. In this important religious epic (Darangen), the writer gives us some manifestations of the sacred, and in the process differentiates what she considers traditional from modern Maranao. The epic sets the locus of the Maranao world, and traces the ancestry to three brothers — the ancestors of Mala a Bayabao, Cotabato and the unknown third (probably Lanao?). Towards the end of page 4, the writer mentions some “white stone figures of people, animals, houses — even the big lamin…” found in the mountains near Karomatan, and she reports the claim that a big stone, representing the magic boat of Bembaran, can be found near the Maria Cristina Falls. Along with other places and figures — like caves, mountains, and animals — the Darangen beautifully tells us of the religious meanings attached to these, and underscores the necessary attachments of the Maranao to his word and to nature itself.
This certainly relates the Maranao to other people — both in the Philippines and elsewhere — who worship nature, and connects his experience and aspiration to something tangible and visible — mountains, caves, etc. Like other religious people, the Maranao points to an axis mundi where he would periodically return in time and space. Is the recital or singing of the Darangen a returning to the axis mundi, a going back to illud tempus for the Maranao — a rediscovering, a constant relieving of the past in order to make himself authentically Maranao? Sr. Coronel strongly suggests this, for example on page 11, where she bats for the importance of Darangen.
Of more importance to us theologically is the discussion on the cosmology of the Maranao (from page 4 to page 11, the end of the paper). This important section does not only deal with the world-view but the religion of the Maranao, as a whole, although in an outline form. Sister discusses in this section not only heaven and skyworld, not only the earth and the abode of death (allusions to hell?), but also nature spirits, religious heroes, animals, plants, etc. that are important for the Maranao religion, in his experience of the manifestation of the sacred spirit world and/or nature. It is in the latter emphasis that we can see an important contribution of the Maranao to the present-day efforts of saving the planet earth. How this could be done is certainly something to look forward to, especially in the Maranao’s efforts to save Lake Lanao.
The theological dimension of the Darangen has been defined by the writer thus,” …it is a beautiful way of looking back in order to reach our destination, gathering the jewels, the moral values, the fundamental characteristics that make up what is beautiful in a people, because what is literature but the rendering into language of what is held as true and precious to a people?” The writer stops short what the religious scholar, Mircea Eliade, calls “the constant return to illo tempore,” but emphasizes the same necessity of returning to the time of origins to discover and rediscover the essentials of a people. The Darangen, then, is close to, if not similar to, the great religious epics of the world — including those here in Asia. In itself, then, it is important religiously, for it is a record of the experience of the manifestation of the sacred before the coming of what other call “historical religions” — Islam and Christianity.
I’d like now to propose some theological questions. Considering the value of the Darangen, as forwarded by the author, how shall the individual Maranao, or the community as a whole, look upon it as a religious authority, as an authority to govern his everyday life? For example, with respect to nature and the call to return to illo tempore, as it were, how is the authority of the Darangen to be considered by the modern Maranao over the issues of deforestation, harnessing of the lake waters of Lake Lanao for the benefit of many, over against the desire and responsibility of the individual and the tribal group to progress and usher themselves into modern civilization (which would lead, for example, a few Maranaos to big commercial ventures like logging and mining?) Places side by side with other Filipino groups (whom they perceive to be more progressive), how should the Maranaos view nature — i.e. show reverence and respect for it — in the eventuality of development for the greater good (like building an ecologically acceptable hydroelectric plant on the shores of Lake Lanao?) Pursuing the ethical dimension further, how should we use the Darangen in the ideally laudable pursuit of reforestation on the Lake Lanao watershed, in the fight against pollution in Marawi and elsewhere, and other such ecologically friendly efforts in our island and country today?
These questions have to be raised because in all religions — Christianity included — there is always a discrepancy between the religious ideals and everyday realities, between theory and practice, between beliefs and actions.
The Maranao religion and culture in the Darangen can be classified as ontocratic, where life is closely tied up with nature, and where religion emphasizes worship of nature spirits of religious deities associated with nature, like tonongs, jinns, etc. With its hierarchy of religious spirits or nature deities, the early Maranao is perhaps comparatively in the same world with other animistic peoples in other parts of the world. One wonders how much adaptation, influence, and even radical changes of the original story in the Darangen occured as the Maranao came in contact with other religiously literate people (like Hindu traders, for example). Sr. Coronel herself questions the authenticity of some parts of the Darangen.
Because it is ontocraticm, in the sense of being governed by or close to nature, the Darangen was destined to be in conflict with the historical religions — primarily Islam. The lament, therefore, of Sr. Coronel that modern Maranaos have effectively set aside the Darangen is theologically inevitable. The Islamic demand of radical monotheism is a fundamental given in the religion of Islam. Thus, the Darangen, with its beautiful stories of ancestors and “national heroes”, of nature spirits, of tonongs and jinns, etc., should be left aside if one were to be a true Muslim. This is true with Christianity, another historical religion, as alluded to by Sr. Coronel. In fact, the struggle between nature religion (animism) or ontocratic culture, on the one hand, and faith or ethical religion, on the other, occupies prominence in the Old Testament and is most vividly expressed in the contest between the prophets of Baal and Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh. (1 Kings 18:1-40).
One important theological thrust of the Darangen is its concern for nature, the respect or reverence of the Maranao for a nature, in the words of the writer,” …that once upon a time, they were men who cared very close to nature, exercising love and care for the beautiful world given to them…” And this leads us to the familiar theological question: How much is man given dominion over creatures? How should man express love and care for the beautiful world? What is his ethical responsibility to nature itself? And to the community? And how should the Maranao resolve the conflict between the two over the use, for example, of the Lake Lanao waters? The dilemma, it seems to me, it alluded to by Sr. Coronel herself when she says at the end of the first paragraph of page 11, “But his community spirit prevailed for the greater good for all, “implying that the ethically correct reverence for nature has to be compromised somewhat because of “community spirit.” Theologically, how should the Maranao be or act as a good viceroy of Allah with a good relation to his maratabat?
I’d like to end here expressing my gratitude to the organizers of this seminar and to the writer, Sr. Delia Coronel, for this stimulating paper on the Darangen of the Maranao.