Lent XVI

It was becoming that Christ should wish to fast before His temptation....For since we are all in urgent need of strengthening ourselves against temptation...., by fasting before being tempted, He teaches us the need of fasting in order to equip ourselves against temptation. Hence the Apostle (2 Corinthians 6:5-7) reckons "fastings" together with the "armor of justice."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 3.41.3

Ethics and Reasoning VI (Aristotle)

III. Virtue Ethics

As consequentialism treats consequence-based reasoning as the fundamental form of moral reasoning and deontology treats obligation-based reasoning as the fundamental form of moral reasoning, so virtue ethics treats character-based reasoning as the fundamental form of reasoning. If you think of actions as proceeding from a person according to a standard so as to have a result, the virtue ethicist takes us back to the source of the action, not immediately diving into the question of whether the action is right or wrong but first asking, "What kind of person should one be, living what kind of life?"

We run into an immediate problem in attempting to understand virtue ethics: it is a truly vast field. There are many kinds of virtue ethics, some of which are millenia old and have a vast number of branches. The vocabulary is sometimes not standardized because the general approach has been accepted across so many different cultures. In addition, virtue ethics by its nature is going to be concerned with details. One might even say that a fully developed virtue ethics is a pack or deck of different ethical systems. For instance, in Confucian ethics a central idea is that of the five constant virtues: benevolence/humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and sincerity (xin). But each of these has an independent foundation and each works in its own way. They are integrated, but in a sense each is its own ethical system. To work in a virtue ethics is in a way to work in multiple ethical systems simultaneously, coordinating their results.

However, virtue ethics must in some way, somehow, give us an answer to the question of how we know what is good for a person to be. Thus while I do not know if it is the best way to classify different kind of virtue ethics, one way that seems to be common, or is at least implied by how many people talk about virtue ethics, is based on the question: How do we sort good character traits from bad character traits?

Perhaps there are other answers, but two major answers are easy to find. According to one answer, we sort good from bad character traits because we have something like a sensation, sentiment, or feeling that has this very function -- a moral sense, perhaps, or perhaps it is a normal feeling or sentiment that also under the right conditions gives us a distinction between good and bad with regard to persons. This form of virtue ethics is generally called sentimentalism. The most influential sentimentalist virtue ethicist in the Western world is David Hume (1711-1776). Hume held that our ability to recognize good and bad character traits is based on a specifically and distinctively moral feeling of approval and disapproval. When we see someone acting a certain way, we have this feeling of approval or disapproval of them for having the trait that leads them to act this way. The reason for this is what Hume calls sympathy (we feel with the people around us), so seeing someone do something brings us to have a sort of feeling-with what we think led to that action, which we either like or don't. If there are any victims, we might feel with them, as well. So, for instance, if we see someone kick a puppy, we would feel bad for the puppy and be repulsed by what we imagine someone must be in order to do that. By sympathy we also coordinate our feelings with each other and eventually develop general moral rules for judging actions. Other people argue that perhaps we develop morality from other kinds of feeling; one of the most popular today is the feeling of caring.

The dominant form of virtue ethics in the West, however, has given a different kind of answer to the question of how we sort good character traits from bad character traits: we do this by reasoning. There is no standard name for this group, but we could call it 'rationalism'. There are several major kinds of rationalist virtue ethics -- Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic are the most obvious and long-lasting -- but when people think of a virtue ethics of this kind, the version they almost always discuss is that of Aristotle, which we will discuss here.

While sometimes it gives us clear, definite families of approaches, this classification in terms of sentimentalism versus rationalism probably has a number of limitations. For instance, by our definition, Confucianism is certainly a form of virtue ethics. Is it sentimentalist or rationalist, or perhaps some other third kind? It's hard to say, and depends on how you see the virtues as related to the 'shoots', i.e., the first beginnings of them in human nature, how you understand those shoots, and how you understand moral cultivation. Now, Confucianism is one of the major forms of virtue ethics and a classification that leaves us unclear about how it is to be classified is not really acceptable for understanding virtue ethics as a whole. Certainly more work needs to be done on this. But the sentimentalist/rationalist distinction is still useful for our particular purposes here, namely, ethics and reasoning, because rationalist virtue ethics, by its nature, has a lot to say about reasoning.

With this we turn to Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) and Aristotelian virtue ethics.


Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze bust of Aristotle by Lysippos, c. 330 BC, with modern alabaster mantle

Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics begins with the widely recognized truth that in skill, inquiry, and action generally, we aim at some good; the goods we aim at are various, but Aristotle argues that there is a something that, by nature, organizes them all. He calls it politics, the knowledge concerned with the good of the city or (alternatively) of civilized life. We are rational and social, and thus the kind of knowledge that deals with human good is the kind that concerns rational society. If we ask what is the human good that politics considers, Aristotle answers that it is eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is often translated as 'happiness', sometimes as 'flourishing', but the important thing to grasp is that it is not subjective like 'happiness' in the sense utilitarians mean -- it is not a mere feeling, or a satisfaction of preferences. It is the complete good of a human life, chosen by human beings for its own sake and not for something further; it is to live and do well, not in a specific and derivative way, like living and doing well as a flute-player, but living and doing well as a human being. Virtues are human excellences contributing to our having eudaimonia; they aim at this in some way. There are virtue ethicists who hold that virtue is all that is required for eudaimonia or something like it (this is a position usually associated with Stoic virtue ethics), but Aristotle doesn't think this is the case. In addition to virtue we need other things, like friends, resources, leisure. But our control over these things is sometimes limited; virtue, however, we may develop.

The kinds of virtues we develop Aristotle divides into two groups, intellectual virtues and moral virtues. Intellectual virtues are things like wisdom, knowledge, skill. Moral virtues are what we primarily mean by 'virtue'. Nobody has moral virtue by nature; nature gives us the ability to have moral virtue, but virtue has to be cultivated. It requires training; in a paradoxical way, you gain virtue by exercising the virtue. A virtue arises from doing the actions appropriate to the virtue until you have the virtue. Aristotle gives a famous definition of virtue that captures its essential features, as he sees them. Virtue is

(1) a habit (in the sense of an acquired disposition or kind of second nature)
(2) concerned with choice (the word could also mean either decision or preference),
(3) consisting in a mean (or middle) relative to us
(4) as determined by reason
(5) in the way someone with prudence (or practical thoughtfulness) would determine it.

A habit (hexis, habitus) is not quite a 'habit' in the usual sense of the term; the best way to think of it is as a kind of second nature. First nature, of course, is what you have from birth: by first nature, you breathe, sense, think, etc. But everyone over time has some things that they do so often that they become as if they were natural. People don't come out of the womb walking, speaking, reading, writing, driving, etc., but these are things they do so often that (eventually) it's almost as if they did. The ability to do these things is learned but, once fully learned, is stable and consistent; this acquired ability doesn't absolutely guarantee that you'll do the right things, but it does mean that doing the right things will come easily to you, and keep coming easily to you.

The most obvious kind of second nature (hexis) is skill, but since moral virtues aren't skills (at least in the ordinary sense), we need to identify the difference. Aristotle says that the distinguishing feature is that virtue is a hexis prohairetike. Prohairesis, the root word here, is difficult to translate. It is often translated as 'choice', which usually works very well as long as you don't make too many assumptions about what choice requires; Aristotle describes it as desire involving deliberation and as the cause of actions. Skills don't structure what you desire; they will structure your action if you desire something. Virtues, however, structure your very desiring. Virtuous people don't generally want to do bad things, intend to do bad things, or commit to do bad things; as if it were natural, they want, intend, and commit to do good things.

But we need a little more, because vices also structure desire in this way, just for bad actions. So what is it about virtue that makes it good-directed? The rest of the definition concerns this, and also gives us one of the most famous ideas in ethics: the doctrine of the mean, also known as the golden mean. The doctrine of the mean can be stated easily enough: Every virtue consists in a mean between at least one vice of excess and at least one vice of defect. (The 'at least' in each case is important because there are sometimes several ways to go to an extreme -- for instance, you could let anger guide you in the wrong situations, or let anger shape your actions in the wrong ways, etc., and there may be good reason to distinguish these sometimes.) 'Mean' technically means a kind of middle. We have to be careful here in a number of ways, though. First, while there is a sense in which virtue is a 'just right' point between 'too much' and 'too little', we have to understand this in a way that doesn't lose sight of the fact that virtue is concerned with choosing; thus courage is 'just right' not in the sense that the courageous person has just the right amount of fear (which might not be possible to control) but that for the courageous person, fear plays a role in their deliberate desire and action that is just right. Likewise, a coward is not a coward because he experiences too much fear, but because he chooses in a way that makes (in some way) fear play too big a role in his choices. It's tempting to think of the relation between mean and extreme as purely quantitative, but Aristotle thinks it's actually not about weighing things out exactly but about finding a sort of balance appropriate to a function.

Second, the mean is rarely if ever going to be the exact midpoint between two extremes. In most cases, the virtue is going to be 'farther' from one side than the other. This is often obvious. If people think of the opposite of courage, they almost always think immediately of cowardice, because cowardice (the vice of excess with regard to fear) is more obviously opposed to courage than recklessness (the vice of defect with regard to fear). Courage and recklessness, in fact, will often look alike; courage and cowardice rarely do, although courage will occasionally look like cowardice to reckless people, who because of their recklessness have an extreme perspective.

And third, Aristotle is clear that the mean is relative to us. You and I might both be courageous, but our forms of courage could be very different, just because we are very different people with very different backgrounds. Aristotle uses the analogy of the food eaten by Milo the Wrestler. Milo was one of the greatest athletes of Classical Greece, a man who obsessively devoted his life to greater and greater athletic achievements. Given that Milo is exercising everyday on an extraordinary scale, he needs to eat the right amount -- too little and he will not have the energy and nutrition he needs to be an athlete, too much and it will slow him down and impede his search for athletic excellence. But ordinary people who are not exercising on the scale that Milo is exercising should certainly not eat the amount of food that Milo eats when he is eating the right amount: it would be far too much for them. Likewise, the ordinary amount of food most people eat when they eat the right amount will not be enough to support Milo's athletic excellence. There's a right amount of food for everyone, but what it is depends on the person. So it is with virtue. Even if two people are both courageous, a courageous soldier on the battlefield and a courageous accountant in the office won't be doing exactly the same things, and they will have to find the mean with respect to fear that is appropriate for their situation. Excellence is destroyed by extremes, but exactly where it falls with respect to the extremes will be different in different cases.

Sometimes you find the argument that the doctrine of the mean is trivial. This is gravely mistaken; the doctrine of the mean is one of the most revolutionary ideas in ethics. While apparently simple in itself, it has extensive ramifications. Just a few of them:

(1) With the doctrine of the mean you can prove that there are virtues and vices for which we have no adequate vocabulary. This makes us less likely to overlook them just because we don't have common words for them. Even if you didn't have a term for the vice of recklessness, you could still figure out in general terms what the vice of recklessness would have to be, because there has to be a vice of defect to oppose both courage and cowardice: a vice in which you do not let fear play enough of a role in your decisions. Since one of the consistent problems we face in ethical reasoning is the limitation of our vocabulary in making ethical distinctions, this is a significant advantage.

(2) We often assume that virtue has one opposing vice. So, for instance, we will assume that the opposite of courage is cowardice. That is true, but the doctrine of the mean tells us that virtue has at least two opposites. If you assume that cowardice is the only opposite of courage, you will inevitably confuse courage and recklessness.

(3) It follows from the doctrine of the mean that the fact that you are not tempted by a vice does not mean that you are virtuous. It may, but it could also mean that you have the other vice. You might not be a coward, but this could be because you are at the opposite extreme, the opposite kind of bad. Sometimes we are saved from having a vice because we have the opposite vice. People are tempted to show that they are virtuous (or at least tending toward it) by listing off vices they don't have; but the doctrine of the mean proves that this will not necessarily work, because you might be vicious in the opposite direction. You need to avoid both opposing extremes. It takes no great experience of human beings to recognize that this will often change how people even go about their attempts to be good.

(4) In a similar way, it follows directly from the doctrine of the mean that it is impossible to have all vices, because vices are not only opposed by virtues but also by other vices.

Aristotle's virtue ethics involves much more than the doctrine of the mean; but the doctrine of the mean radically affects how we reason about virtue and vice, and affects every part of moral life.

There are probably many ways in which you could identify some kind of mean, but Aristotle is clear that the mean relevant to virtue must be determined by reason. If we think of something like a skill, every skill aims at some kind of good, a well-doing, which depends on the kind of task appropriate to that skill. We could think of being human as also involving a kind of task like this, one that is distinctive to human beings. Living is certainly in some sense a task of a human being, but this is something we share even with plants; sensation is also a sort of task, but we share that with other animals. The task that defines being human will have to be a rational task, one expressing reason; so the good of being human, human excellence, will have to be defined with respect to this task expressive of reason, as the excellence of a harpist is defined with respect to harping. The activity of humaning, we might say, is an activity of reason; excellence in humaning is a matter of doing this well. But reasoning well, in practical matters, is to act as does the person who thinks through what is, in the circumstances, appropriate to eudaimonia, since appropriateness to eudaimonia is where we find the mean; the person who does this stably and consistently has the virtue of prudence.

One of the implications of how Aristotle understands the role of reason in virtue is that ethics cannot be done wholly by rules or obligations. This is not to say that obligations are irrelevant; Aristotle, for instance, thinks laws play an important role in moral life. And Aristotle is perfectly happy to hold, for instance, that we can use rules as guidelines for action. What we cannot do is live a moral life wholly on the basis of them; they can at most give a structure or framework for moral living. It would be like trying learn archery from a book; it's not that books about archery cannot be useful but that they only become useful in a context of active exercise, practice, and, most of all, use of a bow. There is no algorithm or procedure for the good life; it is a target that can only be hit with practice. However, if we are practicing and training ourselves in virtue, we can find rules useful, either as telling us definitely what to avoid or as giving us hints about what to do. Aristotle, for instance, suggests three guidelines for our attempts to hit the mean in action: (a) Keep away from the extreme that is most opposed to the mean; (b) Learn what your own biases are and work against them; (c) Be especially wary with regard to pleasure, because it is the thing that is most likely to lead you to miss the mean. Plenty of other good advice could no doubt be given, especially for particular cases. But it is advice, one thing for reason to consider, and not the whole of moral action.

It follows from this that Aristotle's approach to living well is quite forgiving; the standards for good living are often not precise, and they can vary somewhat from person to person and time to time, so living well is largely a matter of consistently getting close enough, just as shooting well is not a matter of doing the same thing every time but of finding what makes consistent hitting of the mark possible. There is likewise room for people making somewhat different choices in the same situation and yet both being right enough.

Much of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is discussion of a set of virtues that he treats as particularly significant.

Defect	Mean	Excess	with respect to
Cowardice	Courage/Fortitude	Recklessness	fear and confidence
Insensibility	Moderation/Temperance	Intemperance	pleasure and pain
Illiberality	Liberality/Generosity	Profligacy/Wastefulness	minor giving and taking
Miserliness	Magnificence	Vulgarity	major giving and taking
Disinterest in honor	A virtue with no standard name	Honor-loving	minor seeking of honor
Pusillanimity	Magnanimity	Arrogance	major seeking of honor
A vice of defect with no standard name	A virtue such that people who have it are 'even-tempered'	Irascibility	anger
Belligerence	A nameless virtue that seems like friendship	Obsequiousness/Flattery	pleasing and paining others
Self-deprecation	A virtue that could be called truthfulness	Boastfulness	truth and falsity in word and deed
Boorishness	Quickness of wit	Buffoonery/Frivolousness	amusement and relaxation
Injustice	Justice	A vice of excess with no standard name	equality

An obvious question is why these virtues in particular get singled out. I think the answer is obvious when one considers the point made above that Aristotle takes politics, i.e., civilized life, to be the organizing framework for goods at which we aim. All of these are matters that are especially important for the functioning of a Greek city-state. For instance, magnificence is an important virtue because it was standard practice in the ancient Greek city to expect the wealthy to contribute to the needs of the city; most of Aristotle's examples for magnificence -- outfitting a warship, leading a diplomatic delegation, supplying votive offerings and sacrifices, building a temple, funding a play -- are cases in which wealthy people would be expected or sometimes legally required to pay for something on behalf of the city, although he does also recognize examples of private magnificence -- weddings, special gift-giving occasions, furnishing one's house, feasting one's dining club. But notably even the examples of private magnificence are cases in which the giving has some benefit to the city at large. Obviously the best contributor to the city will be someone who will not skimp but will also not waste money on gaudy self-aggrandizing monstrosities, in short, the magnificent person. A similar reason is why eutrapelia, or quickness of wit, is a virtue of note; playfulness and humor are essential to the smooth functioning of the city. All of these virtues make one fit for participating in the civilized life that serves as a framework for pursuing what is good.

This also explains why one of the most extensive discussions in the Nicomachean Ethics is not about a virtue at all but about friendship (philia), which here means the relationship of mutual good regard we have with others on the basis of some mutual benefit. Aristotle thinks that there are three kinds of friendship: friendship of pleasure, friendship of use, and friendship of excellence, based on different kinds of mutual benefit. Sometimes we regard others well, and are regarded well by them, because of some pleasure we both receive from the acquaintance; sometimes we do so because of some usefulness each provides the other. Virtue is obviously relevant to maintaining these, although indirectly. Sometimes we have mutual regard with others precisely because of each other's virtue, which becomes, as it were, shared in the friendship. The latter are the best friendships, of course, although they are hard to find. But all three of these friendships make up the ties that bind the city together; without them the city stops being a city and becomes a collection of strangers and enemies. Part of what virtues do is make us fit to be friends, thus making sustainable a form of civilized life within which we can help each other pursue the complete good of a fully human life. In friendship we find, in a sense, the summary of the whole of Aristotle's virtue ethics.

Aristotle, however, is not the only Aristotelian virtue ethicist; that is, there are many other virtue ethicist who operate in the general tradition established by Aristotle, yet who often have their own positions within that tradition. Whenever Aristotelian virtue ethics is discussed, other names come up, and one comes up particularly often: Thomas Aquinas. To Aquinas we will turn when we get to the next post.

Lent XV

...when you have been deemed worthy of the grace, He then gives you strength to wrestle against the adverse powers. For as after His Baptism He was tempted forty days (not that He was unable to gain the victory before, but because He wished to do all things in due order and succession), so thou likewise, though not daring before your baptism to wrestle with the adversaries, yet after you have received the grace and art henceforth confident in the armour of righteousness, must then do battle, and preach the Gospel, if you will.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 3.13.

New Poem Draft and Three Poem Re-Drafts

The Prophet Hud

In sandy 'Ad the buildings grew,
the palaces of gold and red,
and tombs to house the wealthy dead
above the dunes were white and blue;

above the dunes the temple flame
was burning hot, devouring beast,
devotional that never ceased,
to Samd, Samud, and Hara named.

To Samd, Samud, and Hara prayed
in sandy 'Ad a people great
whose wickedness did not abate
but stone on stone was greater laid.

But stony heart did Hud have none;
he saw the world, how it was made;
to God alone and one He prayed
from early light to setting sun.

From early light he saw the way
and of the only God would teach,
before the mocking people preach
of true repentance every day;

of true repentance was his word,
of casting from the soul all lie
before the judgment when we die.
His word was spoken but not heard.

His word gave promise of the rain,
for God would surely bless the lives
of faithful men, when each one strives
to turn from drought to God again.

To turn they would not do, but jeered.
So God sent rain in flashing gale
with waters none could weigh or tell,
and judgment came as Hud had feared;

so judgment came. And on the sand
the buildings red and blue remain
and ruin downward, grain by grain.
In sandy 'Ad they, empty, stand.

Eudaimonia

the wholeness of good possessed as a whole
the completion of powers inherent in you
at splendid things true joy of the soul
triumph at being your self pure and true
well-reasoned choosing of the natural thing
viewing the order of all things in all
to be like a circle or unending ring
in all choice and thought to hear virtue's call
achievement of life that is smooth in its flow
that which makes nature finished in kind
the good to will and the true to know
being the divine that in us we find

The Last Dragon

My kind was born in ancient day;
the world yet young, with stars we'd play
and joy we knew beyond desire,
of flight, of thought, of burning fire,
and graceful mothers taught to sing
the little ones who took to wing
beneath the careful, watchful eyes
of fathers older than the skies.
Our dreams were scarcely less than real,
with force to rule and truth reveal,
we learned dark secrets from the night
that never since have seen the light.
Our words were echoes of that Word
which first the turning chaos heard,
and like their sire they brought to form
the shapeless mass of primal storm:
to make a thing we would but speak,
and lo! whatever we might seek
was made to be. Those days are gone,
as vanished as our native dawn.
And we who were the world's first pride
in caverns deep must crawl to hide
from vermin clad with hide and steel,
ashamed of fears our hearts now feel.
O First of all, O highest Light,
cast down his hubris, slay this knight,
for through his bright but wicked blade
I fear I soon will be but shade
and I who breathe the flaming breath
will fall to bitter chill of death.

Moly

I carry moly in my pocket;
I use it to mollify
the spirits that meander
where my memories go to die.
The elephants in their graveyards
stack the ivory to the heights
where phantoms march and murmur
of long-lost loves and lights.
Deceptive and dishonest
are the markers of the dead;
wanderers sad and foolish
are those by them misled;
But I too shadow-wander
underneath a darkening sky
where skeletons of madness
on the sands of heartache lie.

Lent XIV

Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted of the devil, so that by humbly tolerating the enemy's attack, He might make us humble, and by overcoming him, He might make us strong. He firmly embraced a hard and solitary life in order to prompt the faithful to embrace perfection courageously, and to strengthen them in preparation for the bearing of heavy burdens to the end.

So now, disciple of Christ, penetrate with your good master the secrets of solitude. Once you have become, as it were, a companion of the wild beasts, imitate and share the mysterious struggle with a cunning enemy, and learn to have recourse to Christ in the critical moments of temptation: for we have not a high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but One tried as we are in all things, except sin.

Bonaventure, The Tree of Life, I.10

[Bonaventure, The Works of Bonaventure I: Mystical Opuscula, José de Vinck, tr., Martino Publishing (Mansfield Centre, CT: 2016), p. 110.]

Music on My Mind

Ella Roberts, "Siúil a Rúin". It's an old ballad, although very little is known about its history. It is mentioned several times in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae. Probably the best known modern version is that of Clannad:



Clannad, "Siúil a Rúin".

What really strikes me about the song is how effectively the English and Irish are blended; macaronic songs usually play on the sharpness of the difference between the two languages in question, but the English chosen has at least very broad sound-similarities to the Gaelic chorus (lots of sh and l and ending n, particularly).

As is sometimes the case with sufficiently old Irish or Scottish ballads, there is a closely related American Appalachian version, "Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier". I like Suzy Bogguss's version.

Julian of Norwich on the Fall of Adam (Re-Post)

This is reposted from 2013, with minor revisions.

*****

Julian of Norwich was born at some point in the fourteenth century, probably in the 1340s. She became an anchoress, that is, someone withdrawing into individual consecrated retirement; as an anchoress, she spent almost her entire adult life in a cell in a church, from which she could see Mass, and she would interact with the rest of the world only through a little window, through which, perhaps, pilgrims would give food donations to supplement her little garden and ask her spiritual advice. Indeed, although we know very little about Julian's life, one of the things we do have on record is a pilgrim visiting her for spiritual advice: Margery Kempe visited her and later had it written in her own book about her spiritual life. Julian was a common name in the area, but the advice Kempe records is so thoroughly Julianesque that there is no doubt of its being authentic. Julian is remarkable in a number of ways. The Short Text of her work, Shewings [or Revelations] of Divine Love, may well be the earliest extant text by a woman writing in English. More importantly, however, she is perhaps the greatest theologian writing in English in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (a period which has quite a few theologians writing in English), and has good claim to being one of the most important theologians of any kind the same period, as well as one of the most important who has ever written in English.

Julian's theological career began with a prayer for mortification: she asked God to give her a year of suffering so that she might understand Christ's passion and suffering on the Cross. She became seriously ill, so seriously, in fact, that it was thought she was on her deathbed. Toward the end, beginning 8 May 1373, she had fifteen visions. She had a sudden recovery from her illness 13 May 1373, and she began putting her visions down in the text we know was the Short Text of the Revelations. It is mostly concerned with describing her experience and working out the immediate implications of it for the two questions, What is pain? and What is sin?

Were Julian only known through the Short Text, she would certainly be considered an important and perceptive mystic of the period. But her true claim to importance is the Long Text. After she had written the Short Text, she did not stop thinking about her experiences, but continued to think them through all her life, improving her interpretations of them and working out their implications more thoroughly. As she did so, she began to revise her Short Text, eventually giving us a work almost six times as long. Neither text seemed to have been widely read at the time, but their importance has increasingly been recognized since. The theology Julian develops in these two texts is thoroughly orthodox, but the orthodox themes Julian chooses to expand upon are very different from those that are usually discussed. Perhaps the most famous example is her discussion of the motherhood of Christ. This theme is not original to Julian; parts of it can be found in many theologian-saints prior to her. But it usually shows up as a secondary issue, as a side comment. Nobody ever worked it out as thoroughly and precisely as Julian does in the Revelations. Indeed, her text is still the primary locus for this theological theme; nobody has worked it out more fully and with more precision since. This, as I said, is the most famous example; but Julian's texts are full of instances in which she takes some genuine but minor orthodox theme or image that interacts with her visions in some way and draws out, with extraordinary balance and sobriety, its deepest implications.

What I would like to talk about here is another of Julian's intriguing developments and extensions of prior ideas, her interpretation of the Fall of Man and the doctrine of Original Sin. One of the major puzzles in Julian's original visions was that she kept not seeing sin. To some extent this was intelligible, since sin as such is not a thing at all, but a privation, a lack or a failing to have something, which, says Julian, is known only indirectly by the pain it causes. But Julian's visions went considerably beyond this. One of the major reasons Julian had asked for her year of suffering and her visions in the first place was so that she could better understand good and evil, so as to live a better life. But what Julian kept seeing in her visions suggested that God blamed no one for sin, that no one was guilty. This, she knew on the basis of Church doctrine, couldn't be true in the straightforward way, and thus she pressed this dilemma in prayer (c. 50):

If I take it thus that we be no sinners and not blameworthy, it seemeth as I should err and fail of knowing of this truth; and if it be so that we be sinners and blameworthy,—Good Lord, how may it then be that I cannot see this true thing in Thee, which art my God, my Maker, in whom I desire to see all truths?

In answer to this, she had another vision, the Parable of the Lord and the Servant (c. 51):

I saw two persons in bodily likeness: that is to say, a Lord and a Servant; and therewith God gave me spiritual understanding. The Lord sitteth stately in rest and in peace; the Servant standeth by afore his Lord reverently, ready to do his Lord’s will. The Lord looketh upon his Servant full lovingly and sweetly, and meekly he sendeth him to a certain place to do his will. The Servant not only he goeth, but suddenly he starteth, and runneth in great haste, for love to do his Lord’s will. And anon he falleth into a slade, and taketh full great hurt. And then he groaneth and moaneth and waileth and struggleth, but he neither may rise nor help himself by no manner of way.

It is quite clear from Julian's vision, however, that the Servant did no wrong: the problem was not that the Servant had failed the Lord in any way, but simply that down in the pit he could not see his Lord. He had fallen into the pit solely because he loved the Lord, and even in the pit he was completely blameless, and the Lord did not regard him as having failed at all. And because the Servant fell into the pit in an attempt to faithfully serve the Lord, the Lord considers how to reward him, far more than he would be rewarded if he had not fallen.

For obvious reasons, Julian's initial response to the vision was bafflement, since it seemed to be put forward as an answer, but how it could be such was utterly unclear -- it seemed simply to restate the problem. She did realize at the time, however, that while the fall of the Servant was in some way the Fall of Adam into sin, in the Servant she "saw many diverse properties that might in no manner of way be assigned to single Adam." Just short of twenty years after the vision, she had an internal prompting to pay much more attention to this fact, and to consider more carefully the finer details of her vision. This led her to a newer and more powerful interpretation of it. The Lord, of course, is God. The Servant is Adam. However, he is not some singular Adam, but the whole of the Adam: "that is to say, one man was shewed, that time, and his falling, to make it thereby understood how God beholdeth All-Man and his falling." He is Adam as Everyman. Nor is this some mere allegory, because, as Julian goes on to say, "For in the sight of God all man is one man, and one man is all man." Falling into the pit, All-Man is made feeble and can no longer behold his Lord, and thus suffers pain and lacks comfort. But although the Servant cannot see the Lord, the mercy and love of the Lord for the Servant has a regard for the Servant even in the pit; the merciful regard of God descends into hell with us, and sustains us in our trial. The task the Lord had given to the Servant was to retrieve excellent food for him, and to this end, the Servant had extraordinary labor to perform:

I beheld, thinking what manner of labour it might be that the Servant should do. And then I understood that he should do the greatest labour and hardest travail: that is, he should be a gardener, delve and dyke, toil and sweat, and turn the earth upside-down, and seek the deepness, and water the plants in time. And in this he should continue his travail and make sweet floods to run, and noble and plenteous fruits to spring, which he should bring afore the Lord to serve him therewith to his desire. And he should never turn again till he had prepared this food all ready as he knew that it pleased the Lord. And then he should take this food, with the drink in the food, and bear it full worshipfully afore the Lord. And all this time the Lord should sit in the same place, abiding his Servant whom he sent out.

In context, there is only one way to read the vision, then: the Servant is not just Adam but also the Second Person of the Trinity, who became Adam, "rightful Adam", that is, righteous or just Adam. The fall of Everyman into sin is a fall for the Son of God as well:

When Adam fell, God’s Son fell: because of the rightful oneing which had been made in heaven, God’s Son might not [be disparted] from Adam. (For by Adam I understand All-Man.) Adam fell from life to death, into the deep of this wretched world, and after that into hell: God’s Son fell with Adam, into the deep of the Maiden’s womb, who was the fairest daughter of Adam; and for this end: to excuse Adam from blame in heaven and in earth; and mightily He fetched him out of hell.

If the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, if the Son of God came into this world, He became Adam, for all of us human beings are Adam. We see here why the Fall of Adam is perceived as if it were blameless; for while we individually may sin and be blameworthy, All-Man or Adam, the whole Adam, did not sin and was not blameworthy, because the Son of God Himself was never blameworthy. He too is Adam, and because of it there is not just Adam fallen into sin, there is "rightful Adam", the true Servant who fell with us into the pit of mortality and pain so that All-Man, the corporate man, solidary humanity, might still be just and without blame. He becomes Adam, Head and Body, and we are rescued from the pit by being members of that Body, parts of Christ-as-Adam.

Thus the fall into sin is not the full Fall; the Fall is only complete when the Son of God falls into us, taking on our nature. But given that, the Fall of Adam is not so much a fall into death but a fall into mortality and suffering, and when we are rescued from the pit, we will not stand before God blameworthy, because we will stand before God as All-Man, as Adam, and not just Adam as we might have been, but Adam as we are in Christ.

In the meantime, we Christians are each of us a two-fold Adam, representing as we do both Adam in his fall into death and Adam the Servant who is risen. In a sense, we might say that there are two interpretations of All-Man, and each of us is Everyman in a mystery play, with the two interpretations at war within us (c. 52):

And thus in the Servant was shewed the scathe and blindness of Adam’s falling; and in the Servant was shewed the wisdom and goodness of God’s Son. And in the Lord was shewed the ruth and pity of Adam’s woe, and in the Lord was shewed the high nobility and the endless worship that Mankind is come to by the virtue of the Passion and death of His dearworthy Son. And therefore mightily He joyeth in his falling for the high raising and fulness of bliss that Mankind is come to, overpassing that we should have had if he had not fallen.—And thus to see this overpassing nobleness was mine understanding led into God in the same time that I saw the Servant fall.

Sin does not vanish, in any absolute sense, on this view; but it is by its very nature something that can only be found insofar as it is a particular kind of incompleteness. Considering only now, the story lopped off before the end, we can see the sin in each of us by which All-Man falls into the pit of mortality and suffering; but considering the whole, the never-ending story, even the fall into the pit is just the story, indeed, just part of the story, of rightful Adam doing his Lord's work blamelessly out of love. We see our sin, because we see our failure to be the rightful Adam; but the Son of God fell into the pit with us in order that there might be a rightful Adam, an All-Man alive with justice and love, that we could become. The practical implications of this are clear:

And if we by our blindness and our wretchedness any time fall, we should readily rise, knowing the sweet touching of grace, and with all our will amend us upon the teaching of Holy Church, according as the sin is grievous, and go forthwith to God in love; and neither, on the one side, fall over low, inclining to despair, nor, on the other side, be over-reckless, as if we made no matter of it; but nakedly acknowledge our feebleness, finding that we may not stand a twinkling of an eye but by Keeping of grace, and reverently cleave to God, on Him only trusting.

God has always loved All-Man, and our individual sins are but our individual failures to be All-Man in his love of God, the fracturing of Adam; but All-Man does not at any point stop being the loving Servant of God, because Christ became All-Man with us and keeps the unity of Adam. We have to be careful about precisely how we interpret the claim, but in a sense God forgives because He has made it so that there need be nothing to forgive. Adam has always been faithful, even in falling into the pit, because while we have not been faithful (and this is what makes for the falling into the pit), failing to complete the work of faithfulness, Christ has always been faithful, and Christ is also Adam, and as such it is He who completes the work of All-Man (c. 61):

For one single person may oftentimes be broken, as it seemeth to himself, but the whole Body of Holy Church was never broken, nor never shall be, without end. And therefore a sure thing it is, a good and a gracious, to will meekly and mightily to be fastened and oned to our Mother, Holy Church, that is, Christ Jesus.

There are so many facets to this discussion that it can hardly be covered in a blog post. But it's certainly an interesting discussion. What the story of Adam in the garden really tells us is something that is true of each of us, because Adam is Everyman. We are each of us Adam, and we all find ourselves falling outside of paradise. Our sins are our failures to follow through on our own humanity, failures to complete our task as the Servant of the Lord. Ironically, Adam in us falls through failing completely to be Adam, failing to complete the work of Adam; but Christ succeeds in being Adam, the Servant of God making a garden for His Lord, and thus Adam stands before the Lord complete in justice and faithful in love, and when through Christ all of us stand before God, we do so as the All-Man who fell only into the hardship of death and never into sin, and thus is rewarded for blameless travail. God became Man that Man might be sinless even in the weakness and isolation from God that come from the sins of men. All of this has roots elsewhere in the history of Christian doctrine, but the particular blend is a very Julianesque blend, one developing ideas that are often treated as secondary, so that their full possibilities might be seen.

Lent XIII

But John baptizes, Jesus comes to Him...perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water; and before this and for the sake of this, to sanctify Jordan; for as He is Spirit and Flesh, so He consecrates us by Spirit and water. John will not receive Him; Jesus contends. "I have need to be baptized by You" says the Voice to the Word, the Friend to the Bridegroom; he that is above all among them that are born of women, to Him Who is the Firstborn of every creature; he that leaped in the womb, to Him Who was adored in the womb; he who was and is to be the Forerunner to Him Who was and is to be manifested. "I have need to be baptized by You;" add to this "and for You;" for he knew that he would be baptized by Martyrdom, or, like Peter, that he would be cleansed not only as to his feet. "And You come to me?" This also was prophetic; for he knew that after Herod would come the madness of Pilate, and so that when he had gone before Christ would follow him. But what says Jesus? "Allow it to be so now," for this is the time of His Incarnation; for He knew that yet a little while and He should baptize the Baptist.

Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 39, section XV.

The comment about baptizing the Baptist is a reference to John's martyrdom, the baptism of blood.

Shall Only Hear, and Feel, but Shall Not See

Music
by Archibald Lampman

Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly,
Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong,
Now swift and loud, tumultuously strong,
And I in darkness, sitting near to thee,
Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see,
One hour made passionately bright with dreams,
Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleams
Of what we would, and what we cannot be.
Surely not painful ever, yet not glad,
Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet,
Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife,
Dreams that shine by with unremembered feet,
And tones that like far distance make this life
Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad.

Lent XII

Our Lord opened up Baptism — in the midst of Jordan the blessed river.— The height and the depth rejoiced in Him — He brings forth the first fruits of His peace from the water — for they are first fruits, the fruits of Baptism. — The good God in His compassion will bring to pass — that His peace shall be first fruits on earth.

Ephrem the Syrian, Hymn 11 on Epiphany.

Lent XI

...we behold and see as it were in a divine spectacle exhibited to us, the notice of our God in Trinity, conveyed to us at the river Jordan. For when Jesus came and was baptized by John, the Lord by His servant (and this He did for an example of humility; for He shows that in this same humility is righteousness fulfilled, when as John said to Him, "I have need to be baptized by You, and You come to me?" He answered, "Suffer it to be so now, that all righteousness may be fulfilled" ), when He was baptized then, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in the form of a Dove: and then a Voice from on high followed, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Here then we have the Trinity in a certain sort distinguished. The Father in the Voice — the Son in the Man — the Holy Spirit in the Dove.

Augustine, Sermon 2 on the New Testament.

Evening Note for Sunday, March 8

Thought for the Evening: Kantian Marcionism

The postmedieval period sees a number of people attempting to put forward purely moralized interpretations of Christianity. There are several things in Christianity that resist such an interpretation, however. Kant, who is a major figure in this kind of moralized interpretation, puts a great deal of effort into addressing some of these in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. One that requires particularly drastic action is Christianity's Jewish inheritance. While it's impossible to ignore that historically Christianity originated in a Jewish context, that the Founder of Christianity was Jewish, and that the Apostles and Church Fathers clearly saw Christianity as continuous with, and a fulfillment of, all of Jewish history up to that point, the connection with Judaism has to be minimized for his moralization of Christianity to work. As Kant puts it:

...the Jewish faith stands in absolutely no essential connection, i.e., in no unity of concepts, with the ecclesiastical faith whose history we want to consider, even though it immediately preceded it and provided the physical occasion for the founding of this church (the Christian). (6:125; p. 120)

The easiest way to break the unity of concepts when you want to interpret Christianity as a purely moral religion is to deny that Judaism was originally any kind of religion at all. This is precisely what Kant sets out to do, and he is helped by two things: the beginnings of the rise of Higher Criticism in a Lutheran context and the work of Enlightenment Judaism. Jews in the Enlightenment had finally begun to make some headway in convincing Christians that Judaism was primarily a religion of practice and not of doctrine; as Mendelssohn would put it in Jerusalem, the Jewish religion was not a religion of divine revelation, in the Christian sense, but of divine legislation. Mendelssohn obviously still regarded Judaism as a religion; but, from the Kantian perspective, a position like his makes Judaism, as such, purely a matter of positive law, which Kant, influenced of course by Lutheran suspicion of legalism and ceremony, can treat as not relevant (at least as positive law) to morality and doctrine. The work of various scholars like Johann Salomo Semler had begun argue that the fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity was that Judaism was nationalistic in character whereas Christianity was universal; thus Christianity, to rise, had to nullify Judaism, and start over with the New Testament, casting aside Jewish law and ceremony. Judaism for Semler and others like himwas purely a ceremonial and political entity, concerned wholly with external observance; while some of the Old Testament had moral value, it was thoroughly interlaced with the family stories of a provincial people, which always and everywhere were the primary focus.

Kant will proceed along similar lines, but in his own way. The Jewish faith in its original form is, he argues nothing but a collection of statutory laws for a political state. It is structured like a political state, even though a theocratic one, with laws of a kind appropriate to a state, focused purely on external observance, and involving rewards and punishments that are purely this-worldly, and, far from being universal, excludes almost everyone from its communion. True, the Jews saw themselves as a theocracy, ruled by God, but it was a purely political relationship with God. On the basis of this,

We cannot, therefore, begin the universal history of the Church (inasmuch as this history is to constitute a system) anywhere but from the origin of Christianity, which, as a total abandonment of Judaism in which it originated, grounded on an entirely new principle, effected a total revolution in doctrines of faith. (6:127, p. 132)

Thus Kant's moralized Christianity has to be purely and totally a Christianity of the New Testament.

Now, obviously the big objection here is that Christian teachers regularly, and perhaps have always, taken care to connect Christianity to its Jewish roots, and especially have affirmed the divine character of the Old Testament, so that they are in some way continuous. Kant's reply is that this was purely in order to make the pure moral religion palatable to those habituated to the old way of doing things. He gives as an example Christianity's rejection of circumcision as one of its signs: circumcision marked off the Jews as different from other nations, but Christianity, for the world, rejected that limitation. The appeals to continuity were in fact just concessions to the bigotries of the early audience. (He will argue in an analogous way when considering another objection, the apparently divine character of Jewish survival, arguing that it speaks more for Jewish insularity than divine favor.)

Why is all of this embrace of a version of the Marcionite heresy important? The answer is found in the very explanation: early on, Christians found it useful to appeal to Jewish history to convince their audiences of the pure moral faith, but over time and due to custom, later Christians began to treat these rhetorical stratagems as essential to Christianity. Thus a church, in our usual sense of the word, was born, distorted by the Councils and by treating traditions and interpretations of Jewish history as relevant to the interpretation of Christian doctrine. The result was a religious delusion resulting in a counterfeit service to God -- fake worship -- rather than the real service of pure moral action. What should have been a moral service became a temple service, and from this came priestcraft and the view that the Church is superior to the state, as well as the view that by performing certain actions like baptism and church-going you can be more pleasing to God. All of this, Kant thinks, comes from the view that Christianity has roots in Judaism, which therefore ends in treating ceremonies as giving grace and being themselves of value.

Of course, the problem with all of this is that there has always been good reason to take various forms of Marcionism as heresies, namely, that they are bosh and nonsense. The Old Testament cannot be torn out of the Christian Bible, being essential to understanding the actual Christian message. (One can also, of course, question it from the other end, namely, the view that, for all their differences, the Jewish religion and the Christian religion are quite so different; later the Neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen would write the Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, which would attempt a moralized interpretation of Judaism along the lines that Kant had attempted for Christianity.)

Nonetheless, the attempt to replace actual Christianity with a moralized imitation stripped of its inheritance and tradition has arguably been one of the consistent impulses of the age.

[Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Wood & di Giovanni, eds. Cambridge University Press (New York: 1998).]


Various Links of Interest

* literalbanana, Ignorance, a learned practice at "Carcinisation"

* I've recently talked about Oulipo. Probably the major work of Oulipo is Raymond Queneau's One Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, which consists of lines, fourteen groups with ten lines each, in which any one of the ten lines can be used for a line of a sonnet. It is probably the most famous example of Oulipo concept of 'potential literature'; the work is potentially 10^14 different sonnets. Of course, it's rather awkward to put to paper; but the digital age lets you do an electronic version.

* How make your own hand sanitizer at home.

* Rob Alspaugh, Debt, Worship, Sacrifice

* Jamie Lombard on how Marcus Aurelius helped her to get through a particularly difficult time of her life.

* Waugh's religious conversion

* Martha Nussbaum, The Weakness of the Furies, discusses the limitations of anger.

* Sarah Hutton, Lady Anne Conway, at the SEP

* Ashok Karra on Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail

* Hans Boersma discusses the new Monothelites at "First Things".

* Ian Birrell, Where the American dream goes to die, discusses the predatory practices aimed at people who live in trailer parks.

* World Cheese Map. Obviously the big cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar, etc.) are on there, but you can also zoom in to discover cheeses like the highly illegal Sardinia casu marzu or the barely-a-cheese Icelandic skyr or the relatively recent Mauritanian caravane.

* Allauren Samantha Forbes on Mary Astell.

* Kenneth Libbrecht, probably the world's foremost expert on snow crystallization, has provided online a monograph on practically everything we currently know about snow crystals.

Currently Reading

Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian Norwich
Simon Winchester, The Map that Changed the World
Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Vignettesque

There is an aesthetic concept that we certainly use but have no definite name for; we find it (sometimes) when people talk about some brief bit of life being the sort of thing that would make a good story. The idea is not that it would make a good epic, or that it would make a good novel, or even necessarily a short story, but that it works as a little story-episode, a vignette. It makes sense to have a word for it, so we could call it vignettesque, on the model of 'picturesque'.

And the analogies between the vignettesque and the picturesque are quite strong, I think. Both require a (mental) frame; that is, they don't deal with kinds of beauty that are indefinite and unrestricted but, even if they deal with something vast, do so in a way that can be expressed compactly and with borders. As the picturesque is that which expresses the particular kind of beauty agreeable to a picture, or else that which pleases from some quality capable of being expressed in a picture, so too the vignettesque is that which expresses the particular kind of beauty agreeable to a literary vignette, or else that which pleases from some quality capable of being expressed in such a vignette. As Gilpin says that the picturesque concerns 'rough' beauty, so we can say that the vignettesque concerns 'striking' beauty -- in both cases, we are dealing with a kind of beauty that involves an apparent breaking up of symmetries and continuities.

We can perhaps even make the analogy stronger. As the picturesque is based on the composition of the scene, so the vignettesque is based on its memorability. As the picturesque is a form of beauty especially capable of being captured in a pictorial sketch, so too the vignettesque is a form of beauty especially capable of being captured in a literary sketch. In fact, this analogy between literary sketch and picturesque sketch has been recognized before; Washington Irving notes in The Sketch Book:

I have wandered through different countries and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied them with the eye of a philosopher, but rather with the sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to another; caught sometimes by the delineations of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the entertainment of my friends.

Sketch of the vignettesque and sketch of the picturesque both rely heavily on suggestion; the picturesque sketch suggests by way of a line, the vignettesque sketch by way of a few narratively connected details. And we might even say that, as travelogues are to the picturesque, so memoirs are to the vignettesque. When people travel, they want to experience the picturesque (hence the popularity of photographs), but they also want to experience the vignettesque, the little things that can be put into a story for others.

Lent X

When the Saviour reached the age of thirty, designing now to bring about the actual work of salvation, He first acted, then taught. Starting with the first sacrament, the foundation of all virtues, He wished to be baptized by John so as to give an example of perfect justification, and as if to impart to water, through the touch of His most pure flesh, the power of regeneration.

It is for you also to remain faithfully by His side. Once regenerated in Him, delve into His secrets, so that "on the banks of the River Jordan you may know the Father in the Voice, the Son in the Flesh, and the Holy Spirit in the Dove, and the heaven of the Trinity being open to you," you may be carried up to God.

[Bonaventure, The Works of Bonaventure I: Mystical Opuscula, José de Vinck, tr., Martino Publishing (Mansfield Centre, CT: 2016), pp. 109-110.]

The quotation is from Anselm's Meditations; the Meditations are certainly based on work by Anselm, but people seem also to have added to the work in the course of using them devotionally, so we don't know for sure what in the Meditations is definitely from Anselm and what is not.

Dashed Off IV

film as based on motion-grounded vagueness between frames

Intellect, that sacred faculty, is desecrated when it finally terminates in anything other than God.

Inquiry must be consistent with reason, but while evidence is important, reason does more than work with evidence.

"in physical things the form is the end" (Albert the Great)

Co-opting presupposes a prior teleology to be integrated into.

The post-medieval world has shown itself to be have the knack of transforming technical problems into moral problems.

the relation between in-play conditions and execution conditions for imperatives
- Often they will go together. Do they ever come apart?
- Is there anything to 'in play' beyond or different from executability?
- It seems you could say a command is not in-play because it is not executable, and it seems something could be executable for a reason other than being in-play.
- note that many things other than imperatives have execution conditions (proposed actions, recommendations, etc.)
- Recommendations can be 'in play' together despite not being co-executable; this is not true for imperatives (in play option vs in play requirement).

Every truthmaker is truthmaker for infinite truths.

"The vocabulary of flattery and insult is continually enlarged at the expense of the vocabulary of definition." (C. S. Lewis)

place value as a notation for cycles

Liberty of conscience and worship is not purely an individual right; it is communal. Nor is it a liberty without a teleology.

"it pertains to the dignity of judicial power to have certain signs that induce people to reverence and subjection" (Aquinas)

the laity as the Holy Virgin's Heel

All compositional unity presupposes relational unity.

Gratitude presupposes humility.

support for induction
(1) inductive self-consistency
(2) transcendental argument from deduction
(3) practical requirement
(4) self-evidence of general guiding principles

As probabilities are measures, they presuppose inductively discovered truths about the measurements in questions; thus Bayesianism alone cannot justify induction.

the indelible character as a being-for

the death penalty in Torah as a symbol of excommunication

To make consent the standard of morality in a domain of interpersonal relations is to make persuasion the standard; persuasion is how one obtains consent between persons. Thus the question of importance is the Socratic one.

We have no fundamental physics, only things that are somewhat like a fundamental physics, which do not quite agree.

evidence adequate for suspicion, adequate for structuring inquiry, adequate for conclusion

calculus as a mathematical description of potentiality

We usually think of words as being physically embodied in the form of sounds or marks, but we also find them in somatic manipulations -- sign language the obvious case, but also silent mouthings, letters written in air, body shapes.

role model -> abstract role model (profile, cp the Analects) -> guidelines for moral behavior

the pseudo-literati conception of literature: opinion journalism in flashy rhetorical dress, as gaudy as an Elvis impersonator in a fake-classical building in Las Vegas

metascientific vs contextualizing philosophy of science

three domains of any inquiry: the existent, the intelligible, the causal

Liberty and authority mutually support each other; separate them and they are undermined.

modern politics as the active manufacturing of discontent

different kinds of equivalence in different kinds of modal value schemes
- note that equivalence <T F> is weaker than equivalence <T F Box Diamond>

Kant's snide comment about history of philosophy in Prolegomena makes two errors: assuming that one does history of philosophy without drawing from the wellspring of reason and assuming that involves saying only what has already been said, both of which are directly contradicted by the actual evidence, and were so even in Kant's day. It should be seen as what it is: a rhetorical attempt to persuade readers that certain kinds of objections to Kant's claims are irrelevant and dismissable out of hand.

perversion of: | considered in itself | considered as communicative
rational | sophistry | lying
reproductive | contraceptive sex | unnatural parenting
nutritive | perverse eating | ?

the BEAUI conception of fallacy (Woods): bad, error, attractive, universal, incorrigible
- as Woods notes re begging the question, this is more restrictive than usually recognized
- part of the issue is that it tries to straddle too many things if you are also considering traditional lists of fallacies
- the universal (or widespread) component seems irrelevant

rhetorical tactics of defense
(from reasoning playing a less extensive role to playing a more extensive role)
(1) repetition
(2) assumption as if true
(3) favorable redescription
(4) immersion in a narrative where true
(5) argument
- note that all of these are sometimes reasonable, and none, not even (5), is always reasonable in every particular context
- (3) and (4) are plausibility-based
- A situation in which (1) is the right move is when people are overlooking or getting distracted from the essential point or just ignoring it. So arguably (1) and (2) are governed by standards of salience or clarification.

diffuse vs condensed states of argument
- much argument analysis consists of condensing a diffuse argument and much commentary consists of diffusing a condensed argument

the 'preestablished harmony' of rational arguments

Hume's comment on Descartes's 'unexpected circuit' fails to grasp the rational necessity of each step in it.

To practice is to play a character in a partly fictional scenario.

To say that moral deference is problematic is to say that there are no moral authorities.

That we recognize the existence of moral heroes, saints, and sages, establishes that some kind of moral deference is reasonable.

Everyone engages in a kind of moral deference in their use of moral vocabulary.

The unknown can have a recognizable structure. By contrasting it with the known we can know something of the way in which the unknown is unknown.

sophistry as consequentialism of argument evaluation
sophistry as conflation of dialectic and rhetoric

Implicit arguments can be seen in the practice of rejecting them by explicit arguments.

the fourth wall in philosophical argument
- Berkeley in PHK masterfully (and selectively) makes use of fourth-wall-breaking (PHK 8, 22, 23, 24 indirectly, 38, 45 indirectly, 50, 70, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 150, 156 indirectly)

first-wall-breaking in philosophical argument

two kinds of explanation: causal and blank-filling
-historical explanation requires both to be interwoven

We know moral virtues better than intellectual virtues (incl. knowledge), and the former prepare us for the latter.

In magnanimity, desire for honor becomes architectonic, just as in magnificence, openness to giving becomes architectonic.

respects of relevance
- a is relevant to b in such-and-such respect

operation, collection, and definition as the fundamental concepts of mathematics

the nearly universal link and analogy between office/role and clothing

the relation of alienans expressions to metaphors and similes and also to irony (could one perhaps say that alienans : irony :: simile : metaphor?)

As we are distracted from real good by pleasure, and from real understanding by the feeling of being clever, so we are distracted from real power by the feeling of empowerment.

One of the things Milton certainly gets right about sin is that Eve trades real truth and power for the feeling of being wise and powerful.

PSR as a principle of classification: if x is A, there must be something assigning it to A; if x is ~A, there must be something assigning it outside of A.

One wants a way of saying, "For all temporal Box...." or "For all deontic Diamond...."

Excessive attachment to a particular logical system is a major cause of misuse of logical systems.

the privation theory of weakness

Survival is a kind of proto-procreative good (cp Plato Symposium 207d-e); study or rational care is a kind of a super-procreative good, being for the mind both its survival through time and its procreative character.

Dionysus of Halicarnassus, On Lit Comp 25, says that Plato revised his dialogues throughout his life.

the Piraeus in the Republic as Hades

The Greeks did not think of a symposium as pellmell but as governed by a symposiarch, whose responsibility was to proportion water and wine, and who was subject to no law, but could impose even crazy laws.

Phalerum : Symposium :: Piraeus : Republic

The layers of narrative are so thick in the Symposium that they must be essential to the point: note the beginning, and the constant 'he said that he said' (cp. Brann).

Proculs (Comm. Parm.): the proemia of Platonic dialogues allegorically figure their metaphysical substance.

The value of persuasion lies wholly in its social character.

The modern free world has claimed to be peaceful on grounds that rather show it to be passive aggressive.

Standardization of measurement arises out of scientific correspondence.

category theory as a theory of deductive systems (Bell)

success in ritual // success in proof

Discrete elements arise by using continuities to measure continuities.

The primary purpose of most philosophical argument is exploration, not persuasion.

NB De Morgan's argument for external world on the basis of other minds

other-minds arguments for external world
(1) intersubjective medium
(2) coordinating cause
(3) revelation

nonzero as a number

Aristotle on existential import: Categories ch. 10

What is possible relative to a power is determined by a limiting maximum.

Hanukkah // Sukkot (2 Maccabees)

The Trinity is known in charity. (cp. Augustine DT 8.8.12)

Augustine on the style of Scripture: Letter 137.18 to Volusian

the importance of a 'cognitive state' as related to its aptness for being a symbol or type of the Beatific Vision as antitype

Meinong: As measurement is part-comparison, only divisible magnitudes are directly measurable; indivisible magnitudes are only indirectly measured, by their relation to divisible magnitudes.

'R explains p & q' is very different from 'R explains p and R explains q', even though they are relevant to each other.

Our minds grow up as objects of perspectives not our own -- not merely as it happens but as part of our experience itself.

Flashy reform is often overcompensating reform.

Developmental hypotheses in literary interpretations almost always tend toward elaborate systems of epicycles.

Assertion is often not assertion to anyone other than the asserter.

Empathy is the root of a great deal of cruelty.

It is an indictment of modern liberalism that what it calls freedom always involves someone being bossed around.

the laity as foremost in the royal mission of the Church, the clergy as foremost in the priestly mission of the Church

Historical reconstructions tend by nature to epicycles.

Open borders arguments sometimes make the mistake of assuming that there is no need for a process of becoming accustomed to a society.

humility as the purifier of virtues

Often in argument people are arguing as much against themselves as against anyone else.

politics as the art of bridging the gap between the convenient and the conscientious

decency, virtue, heroic virtue, virtue in friendship, virtue formed by charity

Of all human beings, the virtuous are most justified in building political factions and least inclined to do so.

communion: reciprocal knowledge with mutual love

assessment of arguments
moral:(practical:(structural + evidential))

Exodus 3:14 as spoken by the Son:
Justin Apol 1.63
Basil Adv. Eun 2.18

"philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought" Hegel

Periodization is a form of symbolic interpretation of history.

Lent IX

Jesus sanctified Baptism by being Himself baptized. If the Son of God was baptized, what godly man is he that despises Baptism? But He was baptized not that He might receive remission of sins, for He was sinless; but being sinless, He was baptized, that He might give to them that are baptized a divine and excellent grace. For since the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same, that having been made partakers of His presence in the flesh we might be made partakers also of His Divine grace: thus Jesus was baptized, that thereby we again by our participation might receive both salvation and honour. According to Job, there was in the waters the dragon that draws up Jordan into his mouth. Since, therefore, it was necessary to break the heads of the dragon in pieces , He went down and bound the strong one in the waters, that we might receive power to tread upon serpents and scorpions. The beast was great and terrible. No fishing-vessel was able to carry one scale of his tail : destruction ran before him , ravaging all that met him. The Life encountered him, that the mouth of Death might henceforth be stopped, and all we that are saved might say, O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is drawn by Baptism.

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 3.

Jottings on Slurs and Pejoratives

Pejorative terms are a big, fashionable topic in philosophy of language. There's a lot of work done on them. (The IEP article on pejorative language summarizes some of the main ideas in a small part of the field.) Most of the work is not particularly good (a common problem with fashionable topics in philosophy), and I think is sometimes seriously misleading. Obvious points are missed, obvious problems overlooked, a lot of dead-end clutter based on controvertible assumptions. But my own thought on the topic has mostly been recognizing obvious problems with other people's arguments; I've never really thought through the topic in any systematic way. I'm certainly not going to be able to do that in a post, but blogging is a fairly handy way of beginning to gather your thoughts together on a topic. So some rough and not-fully-formed thoughts about issues with regard to pejorative terms.

(1) The big, fashionable subtopic in this topic is the slur. I suspect a lot of people do work on the subject because they hope that looking at the linguistic issues of slurs will help in thinking through political, social, and ethical problems. It is a subtopic, and I think not everyone publishing on the subject really grasps this. Not all pejorative terms are slurs. If I call you a doofus, 'doofus' is a pejorative term; the use, however, is probably affectionate, and affectionate pejoratives are not slurs. Likewise, pejorative terms can be insulting without being slurs. You cannot tell that something is a slur simply by looking at the word, or even always by looking at its use in its immediate context. 'Stupid' is pejorative; it can be insulting, and often is; it is not generally a slur, since in English it functions as a generic and general purpose insult. In addition, while there are terms that are only ever pejoratives, any term that can apply to someone can be used pejoratively.

A pejorative term becomes a slur in a context in which it is known that it could harm a person's reputation by specifically classifying them. 'Yankee' (or 'Yank') is a pejorative term. In Britain it might be a pejorative term for Americans; it may sometimes be a genuine insult, but it will not generally be a slur when actually applied to Americans. (Perhaps it would be a slur to apply it to an Englishman; I don't know.) In parts of New England it is a pejorative term some New Englanders use for themselves -- an affectionate pejorative. In Texas, 'Yankee' is a slur for New Englanders, and a fairly significant one; do not walk into a Texas bar and call someone a Yankee, because you might get a fist to your face. This is because of different background cultures. A New Englander calling himself or his forefathers Yankees is not assaulting his or their reputations, but probably only using the pejorative form to emphasize something that the pejorative term does, in fact, make it easier to emphasize -- trader shrewdness or boldness, for instance. It's a bit like calling a good friend a con man; you probably aren't actually trying to ruin his reputation, but instead emphasizing his cleverness, which the pejorative phrase 'con man' helps you emphasize. (Use of pejoratives as means of emphasis is quite common, in fact.) In Texas, however, there is a long, not-entirely-friendly history with New Englanders that has led the term to being rude at best and, in the right context, viciously insulting; it is an attack on a person's character and integrity, not the worst possible way to do it, but not a very mild way to do it, either.

This is true of pejoratives and slurs generally; all slurs are pejorative terms, but it's neither their extension nor their immediate use that makes them slurs, but a context in which the pejorative term becomes an attempt to harm people by way of their reputation. The most common (although still controversial) way of explaining slurs is the double-meaning or mixed expressive account: 'Norgie', for instance, is a pejorative that refers to Norwegians (its extensional or truth-conditional meaning); it expresses contempt or disapproval (its expressive or use-conditional meaning). This kind of account inevitably is much more complicated than it looks, due to the fact that pejorative terms are not always applied to their extension (like someone in Texas calling a Texan a Yankee, given that in Texas it only refers to New Englanders, especially New Yorkers), which is sometimes the whole point, and to the fact that any pejorative term (and this is true even of terms that are usually slurs) can in some contexts be used in ways that don't actually express any contempt or disapproval at all. But more fundamentally, it's clear that any such account can at best identify pejorative terms, not pejorative terms that are specifically being used as slurs.

(2) A pejorative term is a term; a slur is something classifiable for social reasons as an attack.

(3) If this is the case, then a common view of slurs -- that they have 'expressive autonomy' -- is simply wrong. Expressive autonomy, applied to slurs, is used to suggest that the slur has its full derogatory force regardless of the attitude of the person who actually uses them. A slur is a slur always. This is not plausible. First, because it does in fact matter who the speaker is; only a child thinks there's never a difference in derogatory force between when a racist uses a pejorative term about a race and when someone from that race uses the same term. Second, because slurs are actions expressive of attack, and therefore a term that is a slur in one context might not be in another.

(4) While it's common to use the word 'expressive', we have to be careful. Just as musical expressiveness cannot be reduced to actual expression, so the 'expressiveness' of a pejorative is not necessarily what someone is actually intending to express. The history matters. This is the hardest part of an account of slurs; they have to be defined not in terms of immediate context (which just gives us insults that may or may not be slurs) nor in terms of universal language contexts (which just gives us pejoratives) but in a middle context, a stable social context with a history.

(5) It is history that explains why some slurs are worse than others. On the other hand, some people have argued that a slur indicates an allegiance to a particular unified perspective; this is obviously going too far in the other direction, since it makes the history over-specify how the slur is to be understood.

(6) If you step away from slurs and look at all the accounts of pejorative terms in general, it's pretty obvious that people are just picking out some feature of general language use (tone, implicature, presupposition, or what have you) and trying to stuff pejoratives into an explanation based on that. But we should, I think, take seriously that pejoration is (1) an integral part of language in general and (2) a distinct part of language use in its own right. One reason for thinking this is that some terms seem to be able to be used pejoratively or not regardless of their tone, implicature, presupposition, etc.

There's another aspect of language that seems similar: polite compliment. Together with pejoration, compliments make up part of the etiquette of language, in a broad sense of the word 'etiquette'. Etiquette is a part of language. This is very obvious in languages like Vietnamese or Urdu or Japanese, where you can't speak correctly at all without recognizing the appropriate etiquette-situation, but it is true even in very etiquette-informal languages like English. Speaking derogatorily about people is just one of the things language is for; it's one of the things contributing directly to the meaning of words. (Fortunately for us, not doing so is also one of the things language is for.)

Lent VIII

For several reasons Christ ought to have been circumcised. First, in order to prove the reality of His human nature, in contradiction to the Manicheans, who said that He had an imaginary body: and in contradiction to Apollinarius, who said that Christ's body was consubstantial with His Godhead; and in contradiction to Valentine, who said that Christ brought His body from heaven. Secondly, in order to show His approval of circumcision, which God had instituted of old. Thirdly, in order to prove that He was descended from Abraham, who had received the commandment of circumcision as a sign of his faith in Him. Fourthly, in order to take away from the Jews an excuse for not receiving Him, if He were uncircumcised. Fifthly, "in order by His example to exhort us to be obedient" [Bede, Hom. x in Evang.]. Wherefore He was circumcised on the eighth day according to the prescription of the Law (Leviticus 12:3). Sixthly, "that He who had come in the likeness of sinful flesh might not reject the remedy whereby sinful flesh was wont to be healed." Seventhly, that by taking on Himself the burden of the Law, He might set others free therefrom, according to Galatians 4:4-5: "God sent His Son . . . made under the Law, that He might redeem them who were under the Law."

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 3.37.1.

Two Poem Drafts

Oulipo was a sort of reaction against surrealist poetry; the surrealists broke all rules and made the most of chance, so Oulipo built its poems out of rules and determinism. The name 'Oulipo' stands for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; 'potential literature' was the exploration of pure technical capacity to use structures and patterns, thus making it a form of avant-garde in my scheme of quasi-arts. In any case, one Oulipo technique was S+7, in which you pick a text and replace every noun (substantif, hence the 'S') with the seventh noun after it in the dictionary. The second poem below -- I suppose for consistency I should call it a quasi-poem -- is a modified version, S+7/A+7, in which I took a sentence (from Kant, as it happens) and changed every noun to the seventh noun after it in a dictionary and every adjective to the seventh adjective after it in the same dictionary, and I did this three different times with three different dictionaries. One of the difficulties with this technique in English is that English has a small core of very common Anglo-Saxon vocabulary with an immense secondary vocabulary of latinate words, with the result that everything increases in pomposity, because every simple noun or adjective is likely to be replaced by a latinate one. Hence lectures; but the determinism of Oulipian writing against the chance of a dictionary ironically gives it a surreal feel, hence dreams.

Stormy Day

Darkening clouds growl and crash,
tongues of storm, lightning splash,
cavalry across the sky;
bolting stallions madly dash,
unafraid to blaze and die.

The world is hurled by roaring wind,
the wild bacchanals descend;
these showers flood; no roof, no shield
can from the dripping drops defend,
each drop a wish on pavement-field.

Those wishes wash my words away,
no language left, just heart to pray.


Lectures in Dreams

An everyday compatibility
under dominant motherly lethargy
is a circumference, which inasmuch as it is not
the obsession of a precarious explosive
is called the circumference irrational
(the meticulous idiocy
of the urchin of ambivalent hygienic bellies
under disconcerted yet motherly dominant wrong graft
as serves for the argot of applicable sumptuous graft
to be founded by hygienic bellies).

An ethnocentric compages
under documentary morganatic legroom
is a churl, which inasmuch as it is not
the obligee of a postgraduate explant
is called the churl inwrought
(the mesne identification
of the Unitarian of allusive humic Belgians
under disadvantageous yet morganatic documentary worshipful grab
as serves for the architrave of apian sudoriferous grab
to be founded by humic Belgians).

A eurythermal communique
under doddered Moresque lehua
is a churn, which inasmuch as it is not
the obligation of a postern expiration
is called the churn involuntary
(the Merovingian ideogram
of the unity of allied upstate humeral beliefs
under dirt yet Moresque doddered wormy gownsman,
as serves for the archine of aphotic sufficient gownsman
to be founded by humeral beliefs).

Triads and Julian of Norwich (Re-Post)

Since I'm reading Julian, I thought I would put this up; it's very weird reading something you originally wrote twenty-two years ago, and even on the blog it was posted thirteen years ago. The syntactic devices used in the building of Julian's theological interpretations of her visions are still, I think, important for understanding what she is doing, and the awkwardness of expression doesn't make my nineteen-year-old self any less right about it. I have corrected a few typos and unbearably awkward expressions, though.

**********

I came across the following some time ago when going through some papers; it is a short essay written in the summer of '98 (the date on the paper is 15.7.98), my sophomore year of college, for a course on women and literature in the later Medieval and Renaissance periods. Needless to say, there are a number of things I would do differently now, and it's all very clumsily expressed, but in the main it is right, and I thought it would be interesting to put it up.

Use of Triadic Form in Julian's Revelations of Divine Love

With careful examination one can find many literary, as opposed to theological or philosophical, qualities in Julian's Revelation of Divine Love. One such literary characteristic is Julian's use of syntactic features, such as parallelism or repetition, to further the themes of her work. This is perhaps most easily seen in her continual use of the triad to emphasize the Trinitarian aspects of the message of the Revelation.

By far the most common triad in Julian's work is that of might, wisdom, and goodness. The first instance of this occurs in the first chapter, in her summary of what will follow in Revelation XIII. The sense of the usage is that, just as God has made everything with might, wisdom, and goodness, everything will be made right again by means of the same might, wisdom, and goodness (1:38-40). This is shown to be a good preparatory summary in the fact that this same triad is mentioned in Revelation XIII in a context that elaborates on this very thought (35:26-35). In these passages, however, Julian is not speaking of might, wisdom, and goodness as general characteristics of the Godhead, but of the three together, functioning as a unity, being the very Godhead. Each of the three characteristics, might, wisdom, and goodness, is proper to one of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. THus, when Julian says in Revelation XIV that it is neither in the might of God, nor in the wisdom of God, nor in the goodness of God to be wrathful (46:33-35), she is saying that the very substance of God, threefold yet one, is not in any way wrathful. That this is the case is given in a passage later during the same Revelation. In this passage she gives the identification very clearly: "And thus in oure makyng god almyghty is oure kyndly fader, and god all wisdom is oure kindly mother, with the loue and the goodnes of the holy gost, whych is all one god, one lord" (58:12-14). Here are found the elements of might, wisdom,a nd goodness, each identified with one Person of the Trinity. Thus, might is the characteristic of God the Father; wisdom is the characteristic of God the Son, who is also referred to in Julian's works, as here, as the Mother; and goodness is a characteristic of God the Holy Spirit. For Julian, therefore, human interaction with the Godhead is highly Trinitarian. When a human being experiences God, it is an experience of "souereyne myghte, souereyne wysdom and souereyn goodnesse" (68:12-14).

Another triad is found on multiple occasions in the Revelations, which is sufficiently similar to the previous to be considered a variation, to wit, might, wisdom, and love. In matter of fact, the two triads are identical in their referents and interchangeable; what this new triad, the second most common in the work, does is to give an idea of what Julian means the reader to understand the work of the Holy Spirit to be. This is shown by Julian's assignation of the characteristic or property of love, along with the characteristic of goodness, to the Holy Spirit in the quotation from Revelation XIV above. The relationship between love and goodness as seen by Julian is even more clearly brought out in a passage that occurs earlier in the same Revelation. In this passage, Julian, speaking of how God created humanity, speaks of "loue made of the kyndly substanncyall goodnesse of the holy gost" along with the might of the Father and the wisdom of the Son (53:36-39). Love and goodness are, as was said, interchangeable in the triad, since they have the same referent, but in Julian give a somewhat more active implication than does goodness. Thus, one finds that when Christ in Revelation III speaks of himself as the one who leads all things to the end he has ordained, he uses this triad (11:53-56). In the same place the soul is said to be "examynyd" in the vision "myghtly, wysely, and louyngly" (11:56-57). This is an elaboration of the theme summarized for this Revelation in the first chapter, where Julian uses this triad for the first time (1:10-13). Might, wisdom, and love are also brough together in Revelation XIV, in a passage in which Julian speaks of the way in which God keeps the souls of the believers (62:5-10). Perhaps the most important use of the triad occurs earlier in this same Revelation during the discussion of how God has no wrath. In one sense, what is used here is not a triad but a tetrad, since it has four members: might, wisdom, charity, and unity (46:31-32). It can be easily seen, however, that unity does not function at the same level as the other three, because it is that which joins the other three together. The conclusion is obvious: here Julian is emphasizing the Trinity, not merely as the Godhead of Three Persons, but also, simultaneously, as one God. At times the property of goodness also serves as this function; one example of which can be seen at the end of Revelation I.

There are several lesser variants of these two primary triads that fulfill the same function of further Julian's Trinitarian theme. Some of these triads are similar in that they refer to God the Father with the property kind. These are often less obviously Trinitarian than the triads given above, but the Trinitarian trace can still be found in them. In a pssage found in the long Reverlation XIV, Julian uses the triad kind, mercy, and grace, in a way that, upon investigation, can be seen to refer to the Trinity: "For in kynde we haue oure lyfe and oure beyng, and in mercy and grace we haue oure encre and oure fulfyllyng" (56:43-44). Kind, or nature, is reserved to God the Father, whos it he beginning point of the Trinitarian procession of Persons, and so is, in a sense, the very substance of the Godhead. In mercy one can immediately see the saving action of God the Son, who died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, while grace is a characteristic of God the Spirit, who is the gift given by God the Father and God the Son to the Church, as, for example, at Pentecost. A similar triad is found later on, when Julian is discussing the nature of Motherhood in the Godhead, which is, she says, nearest, readiest, and surest: "nerest for it is most of kynd, redyest for it is most of loue, and sekerest for it is most of trewth" (60:14-16). Kind, as has been seen, is a characteristic of the Father, and love, of course, of the Spirit. The relationship between wisdom and truth, should be obvious, particularly in how, if one applies to the Second Person of the Trinity, the other can also reasonably be said to apply.

Other variant triads refer less to the substance of the Persons of the Trinity and focus more on their operations. An example of this is found in Revelation I, where Julian says that God made human beings to himself, restored them by his Passion, and keeps them in his love (5:44-46). God the maker, God the restorer, and God the keeper are, in fact, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as any sharp eye might perceive. In the same Revelation Julian speaks of how no one can know the homeliness of the Father in this life unless they receive it by a special showing from Christ or by an inwardly given grace of the Holy Spirit (7:55-58). These are just a few instances that show how dominated by the Trinity Julian's theological thought is.

Perhaps one of the most interesting uses to which Julian puts the triad to further her Trinitarian emphasis is in speaking of the human being. In Revelation XIV Julian says that "oure soule is a made trynyte lyke to the unmade trynyte" (55:40-41), an integral part of Julian's anthropology that could have been discovered from a study of her use of the triadic function. In several places Julian uses triads in describing the human being in such a way as to leave no doubt about how important the Trinity is in her view for understanding humanity. In one place, speaking of human nature when apart from God, she says that it is "vnmyghty and vnwyse of hym selfe, and also his wyll is ovyr leyde in thys tyme he is in tempest and in sorow and woe" (47:17-19). In this can be seen the transformation of the human soul, made in the image of the Trinity, into the reverse of the triad of might, wisdom, and love or goodness. Similarly, she says that the Christian's willing assent to the presence of God involves loving Him with all one's heart, soul, and might (52:23-26), in which one can also see the human type of the Trinitarian antitype. Further on she says, "Oure feyth comyth of the kynde loue of oure soule, and of the clere lyghte or oure reson, and of the stedfaste mynde whych we haue of god in oure furst makyng" (55:14-16). Here is shown the exact manner in which Julian conceives the human being to be made in God's image, once again Trinitarian in form: humanity has "stedfaste mynde" like the Father, reason like the Son, and love like the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps more important than these, however, is her assertion in Revelation XVI of the three ways in which God is worshipped and human beings are "sped, kepte and savyd," namely, one's own reason, the teaching authority of the Church, and the experience of the interior working of the Spirit (80:1-8). Each of these three are given to use by God and are, as a result to be respected and used. The human reason, in a sense, proceeds from God the Father, who created it. The teaching authority of the Church proceeds form God the Son because He is both the Head of the Church and the subject matter taught by the Church's gospel. These two, when added to the graces bestowed through the Holy Spirit, constitute what might be called Julian's theological epistemology. By means of these three gifts, which the Christian must continually use, one comes to know oneself and God; because from these three sources come the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, in which the entire Christian life is grounded (7:58-65).

So rich is Julian's work with triads, it is soon seen to be far beyond the capability of a short essay to investigate the entire depth of meaning Julian is able to place in her words by means of this simple syntactic device. It is certain, however, that she uses the mechanism with ease and mastery, giving every triad a use that is more than merely rhetorical. Nor can one say that only the Trinitarian aspects of Julian's revelations are shown by her use of the triad; as was seen above, some of her most obviously Trinitarian triads further anthropological, ethical, and epistemological themes as well. Given this, and the wealth of other well-used syntactic devices found in the Revelations of Divine Love, one can truly say that Julian of Norwich is a masterful writer.