Belinda
The Great Chain of Being initiates with the Source beyond the limits of time and space and through a process not described in the essay involutes according to universal laws into the levels of reality described in the essay. So we can see why it must be rejected by the philosophy of secularism which denies this chain of being and limits humanity to what Plato described as the “walking tomb”
Humanity: For medieval and Renaissance thinkers, humans occupied a unique position on the Chain of Being. They straddled the world of spiritual beings and the world of physical creation. Humans were thought to possess divine powers such as reason, love, and imagination. Like angels, they were spiritual beings, but unlike their souls were "knotted" to a physical body. Plato spoke in the Phaedrus about the body was a "walking tomb." Like animals human beings are subject to passions and sensations--pain, hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. Consequently, humans had a very difficult time in balancing the divine and the animalistic parts of their nature. An angel, for example, was only capable of intellectual sin such as pride (as evidenced by Lucifer's fall from heaven in Christian belief). Humans, however, were capable of both intellectual sin and physical sins such as lust and gluttony if they let their animal appetites overrule their divine reason. Humans also possessed sensory attributes: sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. Unlike angels, however, their sensory attributes were limited by physical organs. (They could only know things they could discern through the five senses.) The human primate was the King.
Secularism cannot comprehend Man’s dual nature as qualities of being initiating from a Source which for it doesn’t exist. Reconciling our dual nature for secularism is just programming into doing this or that. If you just consider the reality of genocides, this programming becomes expressions of our dual nature and the frustrations associated with it leading to mixed results.
If the major and minor premises are true, the conclusion is logically inescapable. This conclusion, however, is highly undesirable. Indeed, Christianity maintains that there is but one perfect God who cannot be the source of evil or sinful imperfection. So where does evil come from? There are a few solutions to this problem. One is to argue that there must be two creators. One is responsible for all that is good and the other for all that is evil. This lets the good creator off the hook, but it raises another problem. If there are two creators, then the good god cannot be considered all-powerful. In other words, this god does not have power over everything that happens.
Why must God be a thing separate from creation? What if God is NOW and creation is the process of existence taking place within NOW? NOW is not bounded by the limitations of time and space yet creation is.
In Christianity there is God beyond creation and LORD God within creation. We can believe in subjective descriptions of evil but what is objective evil and does it exist?
God cannot create himself. There cannot be two gods. God is ONE. There is only one ONE. So whatever is created to serve a purpose must include imperfection which we can experience the natural results of and call it evil. The value and purpose of the universe is in its process while for us, we define value in accordance with results.
In society in previous times people respected the axiom: “it’s not whether you win or lose that but how you play the game that counts.” Now this is considered naïve and the popular belief is “the ends justify the means.” It is no wonder that the idea of a universal process is rejected and ridiculed. Evil for us is defined in terms of results. But for the being of Man, evil is defined by what prevents Man’s gradual conscious evolution into a higher quality of being along the vertical great Chain of Being.
Augustine's claim that God is identical with good appeals to me although the claim implies for modern people that good is subjective too and therefore that some ideologies, that's to say the ones I favour, are better than others.
But what is objective good? If Plato’s forms are expression of the Good, what is the Good independent of Man’s existence? The expression of the Good into creation by means of the cyclical complimentary processes is what makes the necessity of creation possible. Fof Man, whatever serves his conscious evolution into a higher quality of being is objectively “good” What prevents it is objectively evil
Nick, your claim that The Great Chain of Being is like a food chain is wrong because a food chain is bottom-upwards whereas the Great Chain of Being is top-downwards and depends from the authority at the top. I deliberately say " depends" and Dennett described the theists' God as a "sky hook".
As I see it the Great chain of Being is like a ladder in which all the steps are necessary. Without all the steps the ladder is meaningless. It is the same with the Great Chain of being. As a functioning living machine feeding on itself serving the universal processes of evolution and involution, all its levels are connected and necessary
The |Great Chain of Being illustrates why the medievals were living within an age of faith.
I don’t know what you mean by “faith?” Do you mean faith IN Christ or the faith OF Christ? For me the faith OF Christ is the human attribute which enables us to inwardly perceive and sustain the vertical experience of the Great chain of being or levels of reality even though our senses cannot. Our senses are limited to duality and are third force blind.
The |Great Chain of Being illustrates why the medievals were living within an age of faith.
The age of reason fixated on details has largely atrophied the human potential for the faith OF Christ or the inner experience of the verticality of the Great chain of Being consciously connecting levels of reality and leading to ONE. Some call this loss progress. Is it really?