Dilemmas for eternity

The jokes about how the scholastic theologians debated how many angels can dance on the head of a pin would seem to me to be quite dated (... about seven centuries dated), but indeed they do endure. Actually, I have yet to find that exact debate, though there were many debates about angels, including speculation about whether they defecate (needless to say, I am not interested in the conclusion, and cannot recall the consensus.) It's usually Thomas Aquinas who is cited, but the rare Franciscan who embraced scholasticism tended to be worse yet - John Duns Scotus could leave one reading the same passage twenty times and wondering where to find the point. One cannot list on exam papers, of course, that those such as Thomas and Duns Scotus (or such neo-Thomists as Karl Rahner, who was brilliant and totally confusing in his language as well) were so deeply 'into' prayer (therefore aware that it was all straw in the end) that they were contented with God's being essentially unknowable. I believe that those who have caught one of the deeper glimpses of divine glory would recognise the limitations of our vision and expression.

I've been studying Philosophy of Religion in depth. I believe that embarking on these fascinating and stormy seas (...longing for sight of a man who walked on water) is what reduced me to such confusion that I actually had my cat write the last blog entry. Very recently, I have been pursuing the chapter about Eternal Life. So far, I have three conclusions. (1) Scientific advances, and the natural outgrowth of having to refer to physics, relativity, atoms and the like tend to make the old questions about angels and whether mice sacramentally communicated if they nibbled at the Eucharist seem tame. (2) Nothing brings forth the ego (I just might mean that in the vernacular sense, but don't tell on me) more than debates about whether my identity could survive, whether I would be 'me' whilst disembodied, whether I am greedy if I want more than to live in only the divine memory, or whether one should care about surviving personally. (3) I'm beginning to think it would be more restful, and perhaps more coherent, to be a Buddhist (or a Hindu at least.)

Unlike the other members of my blog, both of whom are gifted in matters scientific, I have no talent for the least understanding in such areas. I have read the works of great scholars (theist, atheist, revisionist, Thomist, whatever) on the topic of eternal life these past weeks, and indeed am enjoying the arguments, the more when they refute one another. (Dare I admit that a rogue such as Bertrand Russell shares my occasional cynicism about humanity? Or that it never before occurred to me that Thomistic views of the afterlife do not include a concept of society, where one meets old friends and possibly is shocked at the sight of old enemies, because, being the man of prayer, Thomas would not have stopped to pout at any idea that the company of God would be insufficient?) I have pondered everything from whether the resurrection makes sense, whether it alone makes sense, whether it is absurd, or whether the Platonic vision (I don't recall Plato's believing in a Creator, or thinking the material world was all that wonderful...) refutes the Christian and Jewish emphasis on the material. I'm so unlikely to ponder the scientific that I nearly laughed at one argument which not only hinged on how identity is physical and must have atoms interacting with other atoms but, funnier to me, proposed the resurrection as absurd because where would we all fit?

I recognise, of course, that in laughing at such things, without being able to construct an argument or refutation of same here, I am revealing myself as a standard, dumb Franciscan. However, as usual when my intellectual side comes to the fore (actually, it always does), and I become a 'dualist' (in the sense only of sounding like a Franciscan perpeptually arguing with a Dominican), I am on verge of conceding that, as far as the philosophical arguments go, I still think Thomas' is the one that makes the most sense.

Now, I must find arguments which can back up my own view, which is more along the lines of the Cappadocians. I see eternity (however we exist, whatever spiritual bodies we have, whether we are disembodied in some dream world or tripping over one another at the general judgment) as meaning constant growth and awareness. I do not see it as static - but as white hot love that cannot be quenched. I see it (well, of course) as constantly increasing, intense knowledge of the divine, which will only lead us to realise, again and again, that the more we come to know, the more we realise we know nothing. (Of course, I also believe that, when the very much alive Jesus of Nazareth said, 'the kingdom is here,' he did not mean one must be dead to enter eternity... somehow or another, it already is here.)

There's no sarcasm in 'somehow or another.' I believe in the Incarnation, resurrection, ascension, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. I haven't the slightest notion of what any of it means. I'm about to outline an argument, for my eventual exam (at the university, not the general judgement), about our continued, personal existence - and I am hard put to even define what 'life' or 'soul' or 'God is. I find myself sympathising with 'revisionist' philosophers (theists, not Bertrand Russell), because, though they put it in a more subtle fashion, they don't see what is so wonderful about this earth and all of us that they assume it reflects a hankering for the divine - but, at least, they agree with me that an afterlife of reward or punishment is rather dismal.

Eureka! Deep down, the Christian (and other theist) philosophers know that nothing, about eternal life or any element of 'proofs' for God's existence, is possible, beyond conceding that a concept is philosophically coherent and feasible. The Fathers of the Eastern Church would wonder what the commotion was about in the first place, and just recommend the Jesus Prayer. The Buddhists would wonder, first, why we are asking such questions, and, second, why we are so concerned with maintaining our personal identity... I can deal with just about anything except Immanuel Kant and morality proving God's existence, or any theory which says that hankering for eternity means that we must have it round the corner.

Anyone interested in a paradox for the day on the grass roots level? I don't think 'experience' proves anything... yet my entire life centres on worship, and that in a tradition of such experiences as burning bushes and witness to a crucified man who rose from the dead. :)