On Reason

The Cause of Reason

What is reasonable is that which is subject to reason, and therefore has a rationally discernable origin & end. The Cause of reason cannot be subject to reason since the Cause makes reason be, and so the Cause of reason can have no intellegible origin or end, since It at any rate has no beginning or ceasing. So one cannot prove or otherwise know by reason the Cause above reason.

But the superrational Cause operates in the world, and Its operations clearly have an origin & end. It creates, and so reveals in Itself a power of goodness. It sustains what It created, and so reveals a power of wisdom. It judges what It sustained, and so reveals Its power of justice. As the creatures It creates, sustains, and judges have a beginning & end, so too do the operations of their Cause. They were created, now sustained, and will be judged. So then the superessential Cause is called the Good, the Logos, and the Just.

Now as that which is reasonable as defined above, even though the Good is intellegible in Its operations, It cannot be said to be reasonable in Its own being. As anyone learned in logic knows, actions are predicated of beings. So we can no more than believe the Good exists from the knowledge of Its operations.

This is related to what I said before, although I’m saying this for its own sake. When we ask how can we know whether something is good, like whether something is rational, the answer to both prerequires faith in & knowledge of the Good & Logos to be able to say whether, for something good, it abides in the Good, or something rational, it abides in the Logos. So any answer for one without faith will be unsatisfactory.

Being and Activity

If the Good’s acts were identical to Its being, as some say, then It’d be totally unknowable, or Its being would begin & cease to exist with Its acts. The latter is not even addressing that the disolution of a real distinction between Its being & acts would mean It wouldn’t really exist to begin with. But, moving on, since It does not always act—as the world has not always existed, nor could it be sustained in well-being without first existing, nor could it arrive at true well-being without first being sustained in well-being—if Its being were identical to Its acts, either the world has always existed with Its being, or Its being did not exist until the world did. As the world is reasonable & so has a beginning, and the Cause of existence cannot be limited in existence to have a beginning, it is clear the Good’s act of creating the world, which began & ceased, is not identical to Its being.

Now some might argue that the Good’s acts are identical to Its being, but that the effects of Its acts do not co-exist with Its acts. They might use the example of the sun which is always shining yet its shining does not always bleach an object. Ignoring how first this implies there is a relation of shining, and second the composite is incomparable, by definition, with the incomposite, this is if nothing else a category error. The effect of being bleached is proper to the object as actuated, but the cause of bleaching is proper to the sun as action. Now an actuation which doesn’t actuate the effect in its object fails by definition to be an action. In other words, an action which is outwardly—since the sun cannot bleach itself nor is there a plurality of suns to co-actuate each other—must, to exist, act outwards. And, notice, the sun’s being qua being doesn’t bleach, but the rays of its being. The bleached doesn’t directly interact with the body of the sun, but the rays from that body. Returning to the Good, the actuation in creatures of their being had a beginning even as their being does, and has an end when they continue onto well-being, so that neccesarily the actuation of their being has a beginning & end as it did not always effectively actuate & has ceased effectively actuating. But, of course, the Good’s own act of self-existence, which has always been actualized among Itself, pre-eternally, has no beginning or end, and so one cannot say the Good has ever been, in Itself, without activity, or existence, or well-being, or perfect well-being, since the actuation of these in creatures is evidently a causing of other entities to participate, in the modes proper to them, in what the Good has always superpossessed in Itself of no other.

Still some would agree to some degree but say the activity in the Good is identical to Its being, but not Its actuation of us, which, they say, is niether identical nor even natural to the Good. They have gone in a big circle. Who are the actuation of creatures then? If themselves creatures, then what action actuated them? If the Good, then how can Its act be of another being than Its own? So if the actuation of creatures is the Good, then they cannot be unnatural. If not the Good, then it merely pushes the question of what actuated the being they are natural to then. At any rate, if the actuation of creatures’ being is not the Good, but only the acts which It has in Itself above creatures, then we have no way of knowing the Good. Again one might say here that the eternal actions are knowable through the created temporal ones, but what in the temporal creature would be the Good? If the actuation of these temporal actions, then everything said before about actuations of things with beginning & end follows. If the actions we know & actuate our being are not temporal, then neither would our being which is actuated. So those who claim the Good is absolutely simple deny the existence of the Good, since It at any rate is in Itself beyond the simple activity known of It.