Theology and Particle Physics

Theology and Particle Physics

(Written in 1999)

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By Jim J. McCrea

What can science tell us about the nature of God, and of ultimate reality? What is the relationship between God and science. In this article, a perspective will be given on scientific investigations into the deepest structures of matter, as understood by theoretical physicists. This will focus on scientific theories and discoveries on the subject of particle physics. The relationship between particle physics and metaphysics shall be explored. Let us start with an exposition on particle physics and the nature of matter and energy in general. We have all learned in school that atoms consist of a nucleus of protons and neutrons, surrounded by a cloud of electrons. There are umpteen levels of knowledge deeper than this, that science now has, of the structure of matter. At these levels a phenomenal level of order and beauty reveals itself that points to a divine creator of all things.

Physicists know that the neutrons and protons which form the nucleus of the atom, consists of quarks. The proton consists of two "up" quarks and one "down" quark, and the neutron consists of two down quarks and one up quark. ('Up' and 'down' do not refer to the orientation of these. They are simply names. They could have been called 'Fred' and 'Mary') In the field of subatomic particles four more types of quarks are known. The down and up quarks belong to the first generation of particles. Quarks given the quixotic names "strange" and "charm," belong to the second generation. The "bottom" and "top" quarks belong to the third generation. (Again 'bottom' and 'top' are merely names. They are not indicative of position).

If quarks form one class of particles, what is known as "leptons," form the other class. Leptons also come in three generations, which correspond to the three generations of quarks. The electron is a lepton in the first generation. The muon (a sort of a fat electron) is in the second generation, and the tau (an even heavier sort of electron) is in the third generation. Each of the three leptons mentioned so far - the electron, the muon, and the tau - have a corresponding neutrino: the electron neutrino in the first generation, a muon neutrino in the second generation, and a tau neutrino in the third generation.

All of the particles discussed above, belong to a general class known as "fermions." These are particles which consist of what we would call matter. There exists an entirely different class of particles called "bosons." Bosons carry the fundamental forces of nature so that the fermions (or matter particles) can interact with each other. The first type of boson is the "photon." This is the boson that we are most familiar with in the real world. It carries the electromagnetic force. This is responsible for all electromagnetic radiation (i.e. radio waves, micro waves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultra violet light, x rays, and gamma rays). The photon also carries ordinary magnetic and electric fields. Eight types of gluons carry the "strong nuclear force." The strong nuclear force holds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus, and hold quarks together within protons and neutrons. W-plus, W-minus,and Z-zero particles carry the "weak nuclear force." This is responsible for some forms of radioactive processes. The hypothetical graviton carries the gravitational force.

Many of these particles are quite massive compared to the proton and neutron, and require particle accelerators miles in circumference to produce them for detection. The final fermion, which is the top quark was, because of its mass, only discovered in 1995 in Fermilab's super-conducting Tevatron, in Batavia Ill. The Tevatron is a ring which is four miles in circumference. Protons travel around the ring in one direction, and anti-protons travel around the ring in the opposite direction (protons are the antimatter counterpart of protons. Antimatter does not just exist in Star Trek. It is real). The two particle beams collide, and from the energy of the collisions, exotic massive particles are created. New particles are materialized out of the energy liberated by the collisions between protons and anti-protons. This is because Einstein's famous principle E = mc~2 applies in which mass and energy are interchangeable.

At the European center for particle and nuclear research (Straddling the Swiss-French border, near lake Geneva) a dual beam pipe, which will enable the collision of protons on protons, is being installed (for three billion dollars, and will be online in 2004) in the 17 mile circumference tunnel, which now houses the Large Electron-Positron Collider. The proton beams will be steered in their circular path by superconducting magnets (superconductors have absolutely no resistance to electricity), cooled to below 450 degrees below zero by liquid helium. The super cold conductors allow the electromagnets to be much more powerful than that of conventional electromagnets. This allows for a much more powerful particle beam to exist within a given accelerator circumference.

One of the purposes of this European accelerator (called the Large Hadron Collider) is to verify the existence of what is known as the "Higgs" field. It is thought that the Higgs field pervades all of space. Matter gets its mass because of the energy with which the Higgs field binds to material objects. This binding energy is translated into mass because, again, the principle E = mc~2 applies. It is expected that the Large Hadron Collider will produce the Higgs particle, verifying the existence of the Higgs field. It is a principle of quantum mechanics that each type of force field requires a corresponding type of particle. The Large Hadron Collider is required, where the Tevatron will not do, because the creation of more massive particles requires a more powerful accelerator. The Higgs would be the most massive particle yet. It is called the "holy grail" of particle physics.

The theory of matter goes even deeper than what has been discussed so far. It is thought that the ultimate constituents of matter are "super strings." These are one dimensional objects which vibrate within an eleven dimensional space, which includes time. (dimensions five to eleven are folded in sub-atomic distances so that they do not appear in the universe that we can see) Depending on how a given superstring vibrates, would determine what type of particle it is. If a string vibrates one way it is a quark. If it vibrates another way, it is an electron, etc. When superstrings act and interact, they form loops, they join, and they separate. One dimensional superstrings follow two dimensional trajectories know as "world sheets." When viewed in space and time together, world sheets conform to a hyper-geometrical construct, that mathematicians call "complex manifolds."

II.

Now this is where theology comes in. If complex manifolds are the ultimate geometrical descriptions of matter, they are just that - descriptions. They are not causes. There must be a sufficient reason why complex manifolds are the way they are, and not otherwise. Since something cannot be the cause of itself, it must have a cause outside of nature, which can be called God. God, therefore, would account for the properties of all the particles we have just discussed.

Stephen Hawking, in his book, "A brief History of Time," said that the laws of nature may be so compelling that they cause matter to exist. This is of course erroneous. A thing and the laws by which that thing must conform to are two different matters. C.S. Lewis gives an example: He said that if accounting were done to the end of time, not a single penny would be generated by that alone. Real money must be supplied from the outside, so that the laws of accounting have something to work on. I remember an atheist telling me in my first year of university, that God is not necessary because logic explains everything. I did not have the knowledge to answer that argument back then, but I now know that a universe might be perfectly logical, but could have nothing in it. Besides logic, a transcendental or "supernatural" component, in addition, is required. This component is "Being," or "Existence," or simply "What is" - an actuality which is at once ordinary and mysterious, in which its essence is to be the opposite of nothingness. The real being that the universe has, can only be caused by He Who Is Being Itself, who is God (St. Thomas Aquinas says that God's name is given in Exodus 3:14 as 'I AM' because God is Pure Being).

Many false theories abound today about the nature of the ultimate reality called "God." One version is by the 17th century philosopher Spinoza. Spinoza maintained that God is an infinite, self existing geometry. All things are a part of this god. It is not distinct from creation, and is rooted in a form of mathematical logic. It is beyond good and evil, and its power is demonstrated not in doing good, but by producing spectacular effects. Since this god is merely geometry, it has about as much love as geometry. It is beautiful but completely cold. (This, incidentally, is what Einstein believed in).

The problem with Spinoza's god, is that it is contrary to reason. If God is Being Itself (as is required if he is self existent, and himself does not have a cause), then he contains all positive attributes to an infinite degree. This is because he must contain everything that being can possibly imply (God would not contain evil, because evil is the absence of due being). Spinoza's god clearly does not fit this criteria. It lacks goodness, love, personality, and does not even have real intelligence. Spinoza's god stands to the Christian God, as a skeleton stands to a living person.

Another false doctrine that is popular among philosophers of science, is the idea that all phenomena in the physical universe
(including love, goodness, and intelligence), arises from the interaction of quantum waves in the fabric of space-time. This commits the fallacy of saying that the greater is caused by the less. Christianity maintains that goodness, love, and intelligence, comes from a God who has all of these, to an infinite degree, from all eternity. Christians take the more logical route in saying that a stream is fed by a source higher than itself.

Many top physicists are looking for an ultimate explanation of things in an entity they would call "God," in mathematics and physics. The problem is, is that they are looking DOWN to search for God - that is, they are taking the arrogant approach of looking for the ultimate cause of all things through their intellectual microscope, so that they can completely dominate it with their mind. The problem with this approach is that God can not be found by looking down, only by looking UP - through faith and humility - by embracing mystery with love.


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The Reason for the Decline of the Catholic Church in the Western World Today

The Reason for the Decline of the Catholic Church in the Western World Today

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By Jim J. McCrea

Many reasons have been given for the decline of the Catholic Church in the Western world today - that is, a decline in Her influence, Her numbers, faithfulness to Her teachings by Her members, and vocations to the priesthood.

But I believe that there is one over-arching reason for that. And that reason has been a marginalization of the Eucharist in the Church after Vatican II - as I define the Eucharist as the True Presence of Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the appearances of bread and wine in the Consecrated Species.

Although the Trinity is central to our Faith in an objective sense, the Eucharist must be central to our Faith in an experiential sense - that is, it must be central to the consciousness of the faithful believer. It is the center - that is the glue - that holds everything else in the Faith together. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. Without that center - without that glue - everything in the Faith is simply a disparate collection of notions and actions and everything falls apart.

That is what we have seen happen in the Church in the Western world in recent years.

The Eucharist has been marginalized in subtle ways, by putting Jesus in the Tabernacle off to the side, by removing Altar rails, receiving Jesus in Communion standing and in the hand as the norm, and as the norm the priest facing the people rather than God when confecting the Sacred Mysteries.

This has a subtle but definite effect of downgrading the importance of the Eucharistic Jesus in people's minds, so that the difference is narrowed between a Catholic Mass and a Protestant worship service. This being the case, many people easily leave the Catholic Church for a Protestant sect if they receive greater emotional satisfaction there.

This is combined with weak or non-existent preaching on the Eucharist from many pulpits.

As the sun illuminates everything in the physical world, the Eucharistic Jesus illuminates everything in the Catholic Church. For the Church to be revived, that must shine again. Not only must many of the old liturgical practices and symbolisms be restored, but Eucharistic preaching must be made front and center, and it must be preached how everything in the Faith radiates from it.

Transubstantiation must once again be made front and center of Eucharistic preaching. It must be preached that the Eucharist that one receives in Holy Communion has the look, the taste, and the feel of bread - that is, all the sense qualities of bread - but that no reality of bread is present - that the reality of Jesus Christ is present instead, so that in Communion one literally and physically receives Jesus. It must be instilled in the minds of the faithful that Transubstantiation is a supernatural mystery of the highest order.

The nature of the priesthood must be preached, as the priest is the instrument of the Holy Spirit who changes bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus at Mass to make the Eucharist present. If the Eucharistic reality were strongly instilled in people's minds, with that connection to the priesthood, we would see a dramatic increase in vocations to the priesthood.

Apostolic succession must be preached, so that the cause of the priesthood is grounded in the historical action of Jesus. Bishops make priests, and bishops are made by previous bishops - a line that goes back to the Apostles, who were the first bishops, who were given the power of Holy Orders by Jesus Himself at the Last Supper.

It then must be preached how the Eucharist is related to all the other aspects of the Faith.

The Eucharist, first of all, connects us to the Trinity. The Eucharist, in substance, is one and the same as Jesus Christ Himself, the second person of the Trinity, who has taken on human flesh and walked among us. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Eucharist is connected to the Passion of our Lord. For at Mass there is a double consecration. Bread is changed into the Body of Christ, and then wine is changed into His Blood, to bring the Eucharist into existence. The separate consecrations of bread into Body and wine into Blood, symbolize the separation of Jesus' Body and Blood on the Cross, and is mystically united to it, making the Mass the same Sacrifice of Calvary (I have never heard that preached from the pulpit in my life).

The Eucharist is directly related to the Resurrection, for it is the Resurrected Christ who is present in the Eucharist, and since the Body and Blood of Jesus are now forever united, where His Blood is so is His Body, and where His Body is so is His Blood. As a result, in the species of bread there is His Blood, and in the species of wine there is His Body. In either of the species of bread or wine is the full Christ - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

The Eucharist is related to Baptism, for in Baptism we are initiated into the Life of God, and become a supernaturally alive organism in Him which allows us to receive the supernatural food of the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is related to the sacrament of Confession. For it is confession that makes us fit to receive the Eucharistic Jesus if we have fallen into mortal sin, or makes us perfectly clean so that we are most open to Him if we were guilty of only venial sin.

In the practical dimension of life, both fervent Communion and Eucharistic Adoration give us the graces to practice chastity in our state of life and love God and our neighbor as Christ commands.

All other teachings of the Catholic Church can be related to the Eucharist in some manner, and the reader can come up with many other suggestions.

The Catholic Church will be revived if the Eucharist is once again made central in preaching, symbolism, and liturgical practice, for it has been the strategy of Satan to marginalize the Eucharist in an attempt to bring down the Catholic Church.

This trend must be reversed. When the Eucharistic Jesus is once again made the Sun of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church will come brilliantly alive again.

 

Also see The Eucharist and Metaphysical Being

 

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Atheists Misunderstand

Atheists Misunderstand
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By Jim J. McCrea


Atheists do not understand the true arguments for the existence of God.

First of all, they generally claim that if the universe has a cause, that cause must be much more complex than the universe (they are seeing it as one physical thing causing another). The problem with that (they see) is that it has not solved anything, for if the universe requires a cause that much more complex cause would itself need a cause, so you would be right back where you started. So applying Occam's razor, where the simplest explanation should suffice, why not just go with the simplest explanation and leave out the higher cause (thus validating atheism for them)?

However, with such a physical view, they do not consider the broadest and most universal concepts that can be applied to the situation (metaphysics).

The reason why the universe requires a cause outside of itself is because of its *contingency.* Its contingency means that the universe, or any given thing within it, does not have to exist or it can be different from what it is. We observe this as physical things come in and out of existence and change, or at least have the capability of doing do. As a result, a contingent being must have an ultimate explanation for why it exists and why it is the way it is. It cannot be its own explanation in the same way that a contingent truth cannot be used as a premise to prove itself (to try to do so is universally condemned as circular reasoning).

When we postulate God as a first cause of this, being a first cause He must have an attribute that is fundamentally different from the universe and what is in it. God is not contingent, but is *necessary* so does not have a cause Himself. He cannot not exist and cannot be different from what He is. He is Pure Actuality, without the potential for being anything different. He exists because He is Existence Itself, rather than merely having existence in the possessive sense that finite things do. He is infinite because a strictly infinite being cannot be other than what it is, thus He fulfills all that is possible for a being to fulfill. Infinity and necessity are correlatives just as finitude and contingency are correlatives, for if something is finite, it can be other than what it is because it can exist in another configuration or it can possibly not exist because the potential space it occupies can be considered empty.

God, also, is not infinitely complex (as the atheists, having a materialist view of the cause of the universe, would say if God existed), but is infinitely simple, in that He has no composition of parts. For if God is pure actuality without the potential to be anything different, He is in no way decomposable and so He does not have parts that can be separated from another. He is an absolute unity.

God must be personal, because an infinite being must be greater than persons within the universe (us). If He were impersonal, in an important respect He would be less than us. In fact, God has revealed Himself to be three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Therefore, if we show that God is required to explain the existence of the physical universe, that at the same time brings us to a logical understanding of what God must be.


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Reflection on Today's Reading ("Don't Worry")

Reflection on Today's Reading ("Don't Worry")

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time, March 2, 2014

By Jim J. McCrea

Reading is Matthew 6:24-34

God is all powerful and all loving. If we are worried or afraid of the future, we do not quite believe that. That fear shows a lack of faith that we must still acquire.

God is all loving, so He wishes what is best for us - God is all wise, so He knows what is best for us - God is all powerful, so He can do what is best for us.

If we love and trust God He will always do what is best for us. Nothing happens to us without the permission of God, so that even if evils come into our life we can know that it is to bring us an ultimate good.

But the final good is heaven, which God is primarily interested in securing for us - and He wishes to secure for us as wonderful a heaven as possible.

All things come to us by the will of God, and are ultimately oriented to that.

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The Vision of the Devil

The Vision of the Devil
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God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena

"As the saints exult in the sight of Me, refreshing themselves with joyousness in the fruit of their toils borne for Me with such abundance of love, and displeasure of themselves, so does the sight of the Devil revive these wretched ones [in hell] to torments, because in seeing him they know themselves more, that is to say, they know that, by their own sin, they have made themselves worthy of him. And so the worm of Conscience gnaws more and more, and the fire of this Conscience never ceases to burn. And the sight is more painful to them, because they see him in his own form, which is so horrible that the heart of man could not imagine it. And if you remember well, you know that I showed him to you in his own form for a little space of time, hardly a moment, and you chose (after you had returned to yourself) rather to walk on a road of fire, even until the Day of Judgment, than to see him again. With all this that you have seen, even you do not know well how horrible he is, because, by Divine justice, he appears more horrible to the soul that is deprived of Me, and more or less according to the gravity of her sin."

From the Dialog of St. Catherine of Siena - a Treatise of Discretion

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog.toc.html

The Vision of God

The Vision of God

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By Jim J. McCrea

God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena - Dialog -  A Treatise of Obedience:

"The obedient man speaks words of peace all his life, and at his death receives that which was promised him at his death by his superior, that is to say, eternal life, the vision of peace, and of supreme and eternal tranquility and rest, the inestimable good which no one can value or understand, for, being the infinite good, it cannot be understood by anything smaller than itself, like a vessel, which, dipped into the sea, does not comprehend the whole sea, but only that quantity which it contains. The sea alone contains itself. So I, the Sea Pacific, am He who alone can comprehend and value Myself truly. And in My own estimate and comprehension of Myself I rejoice, and this joy, the good which I have in Myself, I share with you, and with all, according to the measure of each. I do not leave you empty, but fill you, giving you perfect beatitude; each man comprehends and knows My goodness in the measure in which it is given to him."

It is Catholic teaching that the vision of God is the supreme joy of heaven and our ultimate fulfillment in eternity.

This essay will unpack this somewhat. It's purpose is to help us meditate on God as our Supreme End. With sufficient knowledge and love of God acquired in this life, we may avoid purgatory and enter heaven immediately upon death. For the saved, if they enter purgatory it is because they are still attached to the things of this earth because they have not acquired a strong or pure enough knowledge and love of God. Meditating upon God fervently and continuously will help remedy that.

Let us now consider the attributes of God as elucidated by traditional Catholic theology.

First of all, God is absolutely simple. He has no composition of parts, and all of His attributes are one and the same as each other and His attributes are His very self. For example, God does not *have* knowledge as something distinct from His being, but He *is* the infinite knowledge that He possesses.

God does not have existence, He is existence, and all the rest of His attributes are related by identity.

In heaven the blessed will see that His very existence is His infinite knowledge -  that His infinite knowledge is infinitely loving -  that His infinite love is all powerful - and that His omnipotence is infinitely beautiful.

In the vision of God in heaven, there will be a supreme delight for the intellect in seeing how elegantly and logically God's attributes are connected and flow from each other. He is utterly simple and natural - yet completely non-trivial. All eternity cannot exhaust Him. 

One of the supreme properties of God is His pure and absolute intelligibility. The intelligibility of something is its clarity, understandability, and lucidity - in contrast to something being muddled and confused. The logic of God is absolutely pure and clear to the blessed in heaven. He will completely slake our thirst for truth, and will be seen as the why and how of all things. As profundity gives intellectual pleasure, there will be infinite intellectual pleasure in seeing God because He is Infinite Profundity.

God's infinite intelligibility is connected to His infinite simplicity. God has no parts that are in metaphysical opposition to each other (parts in metaphysical opposition is not necessarily an evil. For example, an automobile has parts in metaphysical opposition in that the wheels are not the engine. That is an aspect of being finite). However in God, there is no part of Him that is not another part of Him. As much we meditate on God, considering this or that attribute or quality of Him, we are considering exactly the same thing, which is nothing but God Himself. When we meditate upon God in this life, we invariably picture or conceptualize Him with some degree of complexity. As an exercise in meditating upon Him, we must always try to bring our minds back to that whatever different things we consider about God we are considering nothing but identically the same thing - purely God. There is nothing in God but God. Such an infinitely simple being is infinitely intelligible because it is infinitely pure. God's infinite purity exists because absolutely nothing in Him is in metaphysical opposition to anything else. Everything is strictly identical. So everything in God (being only one) is speaking exactly the same thing to the intellects of the blessed in heaven, giving rise to His absolute intelligibility. It is an infinite laser focus. This infinite simplicity and intelligibility means that God is infinitely pure which gives infinite joy to the fully pure soul in heaven (that is why the soul must be purified of every last spot before it can enter heaven).

God being infinitely pure means that His love is infinitely pure and intense. Without metaphysical opposition in God, nothing is scattered in Him. Rather than God being good in this or that way, He is Goodness Itself - that is, Pure and Infinite goodness. The highest expression of that goodness is the out-flowing love of God. This out-flowing love is God's very being, as He is a Trinity of persons in which each one pours Himself out fully for the others. This out-flowing love was poured into the act of creation simply so that beings other than Himself could share in His infinite blessedness and beatitude (cf. CCC par. 1).

The blessed in heaven have supreme delight in seeing that the infinite simplicity, intelligibility, and purity of God make Him infinitely beautiful. They have supreme happiness because they also experience that this Infinite Beauty loves them infinitely. The most rapturous human love on this earth is nothing but a pale shadow of the love of God for the soul, and the happiness of the most rapturous love on earth is nothing compared to the happiness of being loved by God in heaven (the martial bond is only a symbol and pale reflection of the union between God and the soul that loves Him). In fact, one only delights in illicit sexual activity on this earth because it simulates love, and something in its feeling reflects the infinite happiness of love in the blessed in heaven. In light of this, the solution to illicit sex (and all the problems it causes in society) is to bring people everywhere back to a contemplation of God and an understanding that our ultimate fulfillment is only in Him.

For this, it is useful to meditate on hell and what the damned have lost through their own fault. For their supreme torment is that they have forfeited an infinite good for a trifle.

On this note, we quote from the Dialog - a Treaties of Discretion - where God speaks to St. Catherine of Siena. 

"The first [torment of hell] is, that they see themselves deprived of the vision of Me, which is such pain to them, that, were it possible, they would rather choose the fire, and the tortures and torments, and to see Me, than to be without the torments and not to see Me."

If we have lost God for eternity, we have lost everything.

We do this by unrepentantly choosing a finite good over the infinite good of God.

That in essence is what one does when one commits a mortal sin and does not repent of it.

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Dialog of St. Catherine of Siena:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog.toc.html

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Metaphysics: the Science of Being

Metaphysics: the Science of Being
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By Jim J. McCrea

The sciences which most people are familiar with, study being under one aspect or another. Physics, for example, examines being under the aspect of physical phenomena. Mathematics studies being in light of the principle of quantity. Logic studies being under the aspect of propositional truth. And Psychology looks at the thinking and emotive processes of human beings. What most people are not aware of, is that there is a science which studies being precisely as being. This science is called metaphysics.

The ultimate first principle on which reality rests, is the law of identity which states that a thing is what it is. This is not a mere tautology, such as the truth A=A in logic. It is much more. It superabounds in meaning.

The law of identity is manifest or differentiated into a number of aspects known as the transcendentals. The transcendentals are the universal modes of being. They are as extensive as being itself. They can be considered convertible terms for being - that is, although there is a distinction between the transcendentals as concepts, they are really different names for being. Being is so rich and deep, that even though it is one, several concepts are required to more thoroughly grasp it (so says Jacques Maritain in his "Preface to Metaphysics").

The first transcendental is unity. This means that as far as a thing has being, it is one thing. Much of today's reductionist science attempts to understand nature more clearly by reducing things to their most fundamental components. If, however, you divide something to look at what it is made of, you depart from that thing. A thing is not simply its parts. The parts must be arranged into a unifying form to make that thing what it is. From this, it can be said that the best description of a thing is itself - that is, a thing cannot be better described in terms of something other than that thing.

The second transcendental is truth. This states that being has the capability of "speaking to" or being understood by an intellect - that is, being is intelligible. An intellect is not limited to grasping a thing piece by piece, but can apprehend it as a whole. As the eastern mystics say, when a tree is observed, its "treeness" is grasped by the mind immediately, without any mediating analysis. This property of "graspableness" of a being by an intellect is its truth.

The third transcendental is goodness. This means that being precisely as being confronts a desire or affective response. In this manner it is related to the will and the affective center of the soul.

An important part of metaphysics concerns an analysis of evil. If goodness is a transcendental - that is, an intrinsic attribute of being - how is evil possible, since we can plainly see that evil has a real presence in the world? Evil is not the opposite of good, as many people believe, but its absence. It is not the absence of just any good, but a good which should be present in a thing, according to its nature. Evil, therefore, does not have existence in itself, but is only a parasite in good. It is a "hole" of non-being in the midst of some existing thing. (An objector may say that a tumor has being, yet it is in no manner good or desirable. The answer to this is that a tumor is not, properly speaking, a real being. It is an aggregate of beings [individual cells] which does not have true unity. Its essence consists of a lack of order in the cellular growth of the tissues of the tumor).

A fourth transcendental is beauty. Beauty is a property which indicates that being has integrity. It is an attribute of being to have a certain symmetry and order to its form. When this is present , there should be a response of delight and pleasure in the sensitive and intellectual faculties of the one who perceives it. When ugliness is validly perceived as an objective aspect of something, it always indicates that a certain element of non-being is mingled with it. Something is missing within it - something it should have by its nature.

It must be realized, that in the study of being, that to be is not necessarily to be a physical object. All physical objects are surrounded by an enclosure of three dimensional space, with their parts distributed in that region of three dimensional space. Entities which we call spirits are not like that. A spirit is a concrete (particular existing) being which is not bound by the limitations of matter. It is not confined by an enclosure of space, and does not consist of parts.

The first to be mentioned are angels. They are not, as often depicted, effeminate creatures with wings. They are pure essences. All material beings are composed of matter and form. Matter is the total collection of parts which make up the thing, and form is the total arrangement and interconnectivity of the parts which gives it its essence as a being (form as defined here, is something deeper than mere shape). Essence is the determining attribute of a thing which makes it that particular type of thing and not another. The component parts of a car, lying in a jumble, is the car's matter. Even though all the parts of a car are present, there is no actual car. When the parts are properly assembled, a real car emerges, because form is added to the matter. When this happens, essence arises. We can therefore say that with matter and form there is "carness" (its essence), in which the intellect can make a true judgment that that thing is an actual car. In an angel, essence and existence alone are present. It has neither matter nor form.

Angels are far simpler than any material thing is, therefore they have a higher degree of unity (In their simplicity, they are not poorer in meaning than material things, but paradoxically richer). Since angels do not have parts or composition they cannot be divided or decomposed. They are, therefore, immortal.

Two material objects of the same essence (say two watches of the same kind), are distinct beings because they are enclosed in different regions of three dimensional space. Angels, which are free from the limitations of space, cannot be distinguished in this way. They are differentiated on the basis of essence alone. From this, it can be concluded that each angel is the sole member of its species.

At the summit of being is God. To have a finite essence is to be limited to one particular aspect of being. One finite essence expresses one aspect of being, and another finite essence expresses another aspect (i.e. a rose does not have the attributes of a sunset and vice versa). God is not a finite essence, and is therefore, not limited to a given aspect. All finite entities participate in being to a lesser or greater extent, but God is Pure Being. Even though angels are simple, in that they have no physical composition, they still have metaphysical composition. A real distinction exists between the love and knowledge an angel might have, and his being. Angels *have* knowledge and love. Because there is a real distinction between an angel and its attributes, it is logically possible for it to be without them. The fallen angels, for example, lack supernatural charity and knowledge. The love and knowledge that God possesses is, on the other hand, identical with himself. He is the very love and knowledge he has. Also, his essence is his own existence. In this, God has neither physical nor metaphysical composition. God is not only simple, but infinite. The transcendentals are, therefore, perfectly realized in him. He is perfect and infinite unity, truth, goodness, and beauty.

The question: "how is metaphysics possible?" can be answered by studying the nature of the intellect. Every faculty has a proper object to which it is oriented. The proper object of the ear is sound and the proper object of the eye is light. The proper object of the intellect is being or that which is. Metaphysics, as the science of being-as-such, is possible because certain truths about being-as-such are necessarily and automatically acquired by the intellect when it comes into contact with being. The law of identity, as mentioned above, is one. It states that if a thing is what it is, it is not necessarily what one believes it to be or would like it to be. This contradicts any form of relativism or subjectivism. The law of non-contradiction is another. This states that nothing can both be and not be under the same aspect at the same time. This law is essential if any form of intellectual reasoning is to proceed. The principle of sufficient reason says that if anything exists, occurs, or is true, it must have adequate grounds for existing, occurring, or being true. Nothing can have these, simply for no reason. The human mind's ability to understand the fact of God's existence is based on the principle of sufficient reason (i.e. this universe can possibly not exist - that is, it is not self existent - therefore, it requires a being who is self existent - that cannot possibly not exist - to explain it, which we call God).

These truths are self evident in themselves. It may be asked, therefore, that if this is so, why do not all philosophers accept them? This is because there is a distinction between their explicit and implicit understanding. Anyone who has a properly functioning intellect has an implicit understanding of them. All effective acts of knowing and acting require their use. In people who have only an implicit understanding of these truths, they are drawn upon automatically without a conscious understanding of them. A certain judgment of the intellect may be held with certitude, without a genuine knowledge of the laws of thought which enable that judgment to occur (i.e. the inference of the fact of God's existence from the contingency of this universe) The metaphysician, on the other hand, is able to reflect on his own mind as it understands reality. Metaphysics does not involve the discovery of any new knowledge, but brings to conscious understanding, that which may be unconscious in most people.

 

 

 

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