some preliminary roughings out of my thesis


since the very dawn of philosophy, man has looked to mathematics to describe the world accurately. we rely on math for certainty. 


in chimes the frenchman. 
"we are not merely skeptics, nor only mathematicians. we are Christians. we can not only doubt, we may not only affirm. we must, somewhere, submit." - pascal, in a rough paraphrase of pensée 201.

 in the Christian cosmos, then, what abides? where can we stand? what abides? 


the jew. 
"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - st. paul, 1 cor. 13:13
              
faith                 hope                          love                          -- normative aspect: philosophy of math
   |                       |                                 |
knowledge      truth                         wisdom                      -- situational aspect: physics (math applied)
   |                       |                                 |
grammar         logic                         rhetoric                     -- existential aspect: teaching math
   |                       |                                 |
   |                       |                                 |
   |                       |                                 |
arithmetic     algebra              quantum theory                   -- the kinds of mathematics we learn
                     calculus      non-euclidean geometries


math, at its foundation, is faith
               we have faith in God as the Creator, as the Constant One, the Righteous one. math is trustworthy not because it is self-evident, it is trustworthy because God is; because He loves us and does not lie to us. 2+2=4 because He is forever 1 which is always 3. 

math next is hope
               we hope to one day have dominion over creation. the Creator has hidden glories everywhere for us to search out. this means that when we do a calculus problem involving a decreasing mass, increasing acceleration, highly variable friction, and decreasing gravitational force, we simply hope that our rocket will actually escape the atmosphere. we have faith in the numbers working out, but there is only hope that it will actually describe the world. we hope in the righteousness, the trustworthiness of our God. 


and the greatest of these is love. 
               mathematics is the meter of creation, which was sung by God. and He is love. mathematics, then, is the meter chosen by love. and so, to choose the right meter, we must be loving. i declare to you a mystery. force is nothing more or less than the mass of a thing times its acceleration. always. most of the time. unless you're not on earth. then, at least you can be sure that the energy is equal to the mass of the thing counted as many times as light is fast squared. except, that's not really how it works all the time. because turns out there's something faster than light on the universe. truly, a great mystery, yet i give you a greater. my mother's forehead wrinkled between her eyebrows. it was a wednesday. my father says, "come on, let's grab lunch quick. you're getting a headache from not eating, aren't you?" my mother's forehead wrinkled between her eyebrows. this time it was a thursday. my father says, "hey let's get out of here. you're worried about eating too much. so let's go." 
               here is the riddle's heart, here the knot of the mystery: for the creation is our bride, and we are her husband. we must know her parts well enough to know which language we use to speak to her. we should love creation enough to know that the language of newton's calculus is wonderful, but creation doesn't like that language when we're speaking about black holes and electrons. what will happen on the day that we actually love the handiwork of our Creator? i daresay we'll fly faster than light, fall upwards, and burn things without them being consumed. i dare, even, to say that we shall be creators ourselves. that we shall give life at last, and not death. then, death, thou too shall die. 

right before cain kills his brother, he is angry because his sacrifice was not accepted. and God says to him,

"Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it."

genesis 4:7


yet one chapter earlier, we find God telling eve:

"I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you."


genesis 3:16

sin is cain's wife. i think milton was quite on track to portray sin as a woman. the devil is definitely masculine, but sin seems to be attributed with feminine qualities. it hearkens back, of course, to lady folly in proverbs. this makes Christ's temptations all the more interesting, because you've got satan as the prospective father-in-law pimping out his daughter, sin, to the Son of Man, who instead chooses the other woman before Him: israel. 

gray fields

the land around me is flat

though over the corner of the highway there

slinks a gully into a ravine, which quietly grows

into a valley,

an arena for dirt devils to dance.

i quietly skirt the side of the hill, on

my right the fields naked of crops, barns empty

of years and of hay.

that dirt is gray - not brown with dry anticipation

nor yet black with the life that shoots out of death -

gray - not the loud green of the valley or the brash

browns of the hillsides but gray.

Gray with a quiet tired nod, gray as a

concession to overuse and abuse,

gray that knows no other life as it looks

bemused and puzzled at the valley where it

struggles to hold its grain down to earth as sun

pulls the gold - gray, i say, with quiet

shattered dreams of a single good harvest traded

for a dozen half-reapings and now gray with

baffled loss and denial and false cheer and an awful

resignation.

once i met a farmer with eyes brown with a longing

quiet and suppressed, as if he were Noah waiting on a flood.

"don't farm nothin," he said with a dark, quiet smile that did not

need me to understand, but "it's gonna take a while

for this land to come back.... maybe by the time your son

wants to farm." and i wonder about that when i

look up ahead at the corn harvest over land that

once was gray and wonder if rachel's

eyes will ever be green again.

and, by way of disclaiming, rachel does not exist. or rather, she's not named rachel. the story about the farmer is true, and the quotes are unedited.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

1 john 4:18-19

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

chesterton

Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak arabic, love music, and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.

hunter s. thompson

via rules for my unborn son

“This morning, with her, having coffee.”

johnny cash, when asked for his definition of paradise. what a dude.

via vanity fair, that generally vapid stream of hollywood excrescence.

You are a happy man, then, if you know where your true happiness lies, since when the chief concern of mortal men is to keep their hold on life, you even now possess blessings which no one can doubt are more precious than life itself. So dry your tears. Fortune has not yet turned her hatred against all your blessings. The storm has not yet broken upon you with too much violence. Your anchors are holding firm and they permit you both comfort in the present and hope in the future.

boethius, consolation of philosophy, II.iv, p.30

Monastic theology is a theology of admiration and therefore greater than a theology of speculation: both words describe the act of looking. But the gaze of admiration adds something to the gaze of speculation. It does not necessarily see any farther, but the little it does perceive is enough to fill the whole soul of the contemplative with joy and thanksgiving.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.226

Monastic theology is, in a way, a spiritual theology which completes speculative theology; it is the latter's completion, and fulfillment. It is the added something, the sursum in which speculative theology tends to transcend itself and become what St. Bernard calls an integral knowledge of God: integre cognoscere.

This is what endows monastic theology with both its limitations and its lasting value. The effort it represents is always necessary if theology, while remaining scientific, is to avoid becoming purely abstract (one might venture to say: devitalized); and, as Peter the Cantor expresses it, sacred doctrine is not to be manufactured like machinery.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.223-224

This firm and stable city remains forever. Through the Father, it shines with a dazzling light; through the Son, splendor of the Father, it rejoices, loves; through the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and the Son, subsisting, it changes; contemplating, it is enlightened; uniting, it rejoices. It is, it sees, it loves.

leclercq, the love of learning, p.63

From this contemplation of the City of God there is born the desire to be there, an active desire; it is both expectation and inclination; properly, it is hope.

The duties of asceticism flow from this mythical view; detachment is only the reverse of attachment to Christ; it is, henceforth, the condition and the proof of love. he who wishes to fly to his God bends toward Him: he stretches forth his arms, he prays, and his eyes stream with tears of joy.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.62

The 'type' which serves to evoke it is, not the Jerusalem of the flesh whose Temple was material, but the spiritual Jerusalem of which St. Paul spoke to the Galatians and of which the earthly Jerusalem was merely a figure. Those who are united with God form a single community: Heaven and the Church. I tis simply given one name; to it is applied what the Bible said of the Holy City, in the description of the Prophets or of Revelation.

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.56

The monastery is then a Jerusalem in anticipation, a place of waiting and of desire, of preparation for that holy city toward which we look with joy. His biographer wrote of a disciple of St. Bernard, the Blessed David of Himmerod, who was always smiling: 'He had, like the saints, a face shining with joy; he had the face of one going toward Jerusalem.'

jean leclercq, the love of learning, p.56

If you ignore God in order to love something else - well, he made that too. Anything, I repeat, that you love at the cost of ignoring God, was created by him. If it wasn't beautiful, then you wouldn't love it. But where does its beauty come from if it wasn't created by God, whose beauty is invisible? You love gold. Well, God made it. You love beautiful bodies, you love flesh. God made them. You love your delightful estate. God made it. You love the precious light. God made it. If you ignore God in favour of something he made - well then, please love God himself as well. How much does he deserve to be loved, how much does he deserve to be loved, when he created everything that you love? Love him like this - and your love for him will grow.

I am not saying that you should have no loves; I simply want your loves to be properly ordered.

augustine, sermon 335c: on the feast of a martyr, p.59

i give up criticizing augustine for platonism. not only has the debate gotten ridiculously old, it's a question that shouldn't need answering if you've read enough augustine carefully enough. he loves creation, he just loves God more.

That great contemporary doctor Vindicianus was consulted by someone and he prescribe a remedy for a sickness that seemed suitable at that time. The man used it and was restored to health. A few years later his physical complaint flared up again. He decided to apply the same remedy. His health deteriorated further. He was surprised, and hurried back to the doctor to tell him what had happened. Vincidianus, a very clever man, replied, ‘the reason that you are responding badly to this is that I did not prescribe it.’ As a result, all those listeners who did not know him well thought that he didn’t rely on his medical skill but on some forbidden powers. Later on, when some of those who had been amazed by him questioned him, he explained to them what they hadn’t understood: he would not have prescribed that remedy for a man of that age. A remedy is only effective if it alters in accordance with different ages following a system of expertise that does not change.

The claim that what was once correct action can never be altered is, therefore, untrue. Rather, when the circumstances of time have altered, true reason normally demands that actions that were previously correct now be altered. Consequently while they argue that an action can’t be correct if it is altered, truth, by contrast, proclaims that the action will only be correct if it changes; each action will be correct precisely when it is adapted to each different period of time. The same may hold of different persons during the same period.

augustine, letter to marcellinus (411/412), pp.31-32

dad's only been saying this for like 15 years. but all the same, this is awesome. AWESOME.

Do you think that leaving an outrage like that to go unpunished, or failing to reform the guilty as they deserve, will allow you to leave your homeland 'flourishing'? Flowers like that won't produce fruit, but thorns! Compare the choices: would you prefer your hometown to flower with piety or with licence, with reformed characters, or with atrocities unchecked? Compare the choices, and see whether your love for your home-town surpasses ours, and whether you, or we, are more fully and genuinely eager for it to flourish.

augustine, letter 91 to nectarius (408/9 aD), p.3

chesterton says you have to love the city enough to burn it down. turns out he got it from augustine.

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

augustine, confessions, x.38

this passage is to my soul what bright light is after hours in the pitch black. after 1700 years, augustine's love for God is as fiery in the darkness of the world as it was while rome crumbled into black ruins. this has made me create a new category for the common-blog: "most beautiful things ever written."

The answer must be this: their love for truth takes the form that they love something else and want this object of their love to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be deceived, they do not wish to be persuaded that they are mistaken. And so they hate the truth for the sake of the object which they love instead of the truth. They love truth for the light it sheds, but hate it when it shows them up as being wrong (John 3:20, 5:35).

augustine, confessions, x.34

again, the eastern church comes to mind, or at least the Orthodox i've had contact with. but God help me, that last sentence is true of my heart more than anyone i know.

Therefore, my God, my confession before you is made both in silence and not in silence. It is silent in that it is no audible sound; but in love it cries aloud. If anything I say to men is right, that is what you have first heard from me. Moreover, you hear nothing true from my lips which you have not first told me.

augustine, confessions, x.2