Monday, November 5, 2012

Jesus is better than humanistic transcendental ontology.

But first! My dream:

I dreamed that Will and I were in one of the large, rather steep lecture halls at UCI. He was hosting the show "Bachelor," of which I was. Three girls walked out and sat on stools very similarly to the sketch performed by the cast comedians of "Whose Line Is It Anyways?" I don't remember them at all.

Suddenly my dream shifted and Will was the teacher or TA proctoring an SAT exam in the same lecture hall. I was taking it, when suddenly a laptop was on my desk. Totally legit. Then I was looking up the dates for Team Praha, a ministry of the OPC to the Czech Republic, when I noticed a new thing on the website: an opportunity in Ireland. Team Dublin, it was called. Then I woke up. 
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#42. "The Base of all Metaphysics"
Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

And now, gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics.

(So, to the students, the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated--Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato--and Socrates, greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated--Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all--Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates see--and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade--the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife--of children and parents,
Of city for city, and land for land. 

Walt Whitman was kind of silly sometimes.

The base of all metaphysics must originate with God, since He was in the beginning. Whitman unfortunately misunderstands the message of the Christ, and, being influenced by the reigning philosophies of the time, errs grievously. It is not for a brotherly, affectionate sort of love that Christ would die on a cross while we were yet sinners. There is an aspect of this sort of love. Christ calls us brothers. We can cry "Abba, Father," for we have been given the spirit of adoption. This is necessary but insufficient for the label of "base and finale."

Rather, it is the love which exceeds expectation, which exceeds comprehension which was in the beginning. God is agape, not phileos. 

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