THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
37
words are occasionally unclear, at times he may even have been
uncertain in his own mind exactly what he was struggling to say, he
may have changed his mind about certain matters in his later years, etc.
The present work, which is plainly titled The Knucklehead's Guide,
means to present arguments to "normal people" in an intellectually
respectable form, but in words they can understand. Neither Fr. Keefe
nor anyone else can be held responsible for niceties not remarked on,
or for subtleties massacred, in this book.
Here then, for the benefit of the "normal people" who are readers
of this book, is the author's take on Plato's classic representation of the
conundrum. The representation is a now-familiar one:
Forms
(Time-less, Meaningful, Coherent, Intelligible)
|
|
|
Matter
(Ones in free motion)
< -- And buddy, there's absolutely
nothing in here.
These Ones, even to exist, have to have a kind of temporary
coherence -- otherwise they would just be no-thing. Somehow, Plato
reasoned, the Forms "fell," and the universe as we can find it appeared.
In particular, we "fell" from our pre-existence in the time-less world of
Forms, retaining the barest wisp of memory of that world from which
we came. This memory, which can be heightened, particularly by the
use of "dialectic," is both why we are aware of the Forms at all, and the
source of our longing, our eros, for we want instinctively -- pre-
instinctively, even -- to return to the Forms. (Here Plato must, and
does, resort to myth to 'explain' this "fall".)
Thus the universe as we can find it is made up exclusively of Ones
in free motion. However, that universe only exists because the Forms
"fell," causing the existence of Ones in free motion by giving them the
ability to coalesce temporarily and fragmentarily, into something
partially intelligible, something like a Form.
Because we "fell" from the Forms, we retain the merest wisp of
remembrance of them. Somehow, we know the Forms must be there --
but also, we can not articulate this, or even really defend it. Everything
that we can find now -- including our very thoughts -- are Ones in
motion. Our retention of that merest wisp of memory of the Forms is
what causes us to long for coherence and to seek it, though we are
always disappointed in our quest. But nothing of Ones in motion can
hold a Form, so it would be a contradiction in terms to try to really
articulate that wisp of memory. The very nature of the universe makes
such articulation impossible.
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.