24 Chapter 2
THE NATURE OF REALITY
We should also look closely at the names of all those beings who
(somehow) make up the One. Every single one of them has the same
name: "many."
many
many many many
many many many many many many
many many many many many many many
many many many many many
many many many many many many
many many many many many
This 'solution' achieves coherence, bridges the unbridgeable gap
between the One and the many, by insisting that there can be only two
names, One, and "many, part of the One." Thus it has no room for real
names, for real Anns and Layas and Bens and Tims. If there were a
real "Ann," if "Ann" were not a mere designation for the "currently-
alive 52 year-old blonde-haired part of the One who lives in Des
Moines, Iowa," then she would be a rival One. There can only be One
source of meaning, one First Thing from which all other meaning
flows -- and that One is not "Ann."
It is thus obvious that this 'solution' is no laughing matter, no
academic exercise. There have been plenty of people, movements,
governments, whole civilizations, in which this particular 'solution' has
achieved a quite vivid reality. Indeed, often enough the 'solution' is
presented not so much as tough-minded realism, but as a comfort or
even an inspiration: Ann, Laya, Ben, and Tim become "part of
something larger than themselves." It bears remembering that this is
not a temporary past-time for them, or something they in any way
'choose' -- they literally have no place, no existence, no name outside
of their place (which is their name) in the great One:
many
many many many
many many many many many many
many many many many many many many
many many many many many
many many many many many many
many many many many many
To repeat, the conundrum of the One and the many is just one
particular (classic) representation of the same basic assumption, that
reality exists as a result of, or within, a time-less framework. In all its
guises, including the one in which the Eucharist is 'over here,' and we
gaze upon it and, in particular, understand it, from some 'place' else,
that basic assumption, and the various 'solutions' to it, are perennial
within human life, and are far from being of merely 'academic' interest.
Eucharist
< - - -
us, over here
For example, give Ann, Laya, Ben and Tim real names:
Ann
Tim
Laya Ben
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.