Love Languages: Adoration and Creation

This next approach to the gestures or languages of love is still philosophical in nature, but moves beyond, or rather to the core of our experience.  There is a lot which should be developed here, and some conclusions I throw out there merit a much longer discussion, but my intention is merely to suggest what gestures we find in Natural Theology.  Already, for example, the very affirmation that a Natural Theology even exists may seem like a pretty substantial conclusion.  And you are correct, the existence of Natural Theology depends upon the discovery of God's existence - and few are they who have discovered the existence of God independently from an attitude of faith.  Indeed, the existence of God is not evident and we cannot experience God strictly speaking.  To add to this difficulty, Atheism has become a tolerated and even respected position in modern society.  But even Atheists ought to respect the potential good that could come from a dialog in Natural Theology.  Today, the objection to God's existence sometimes points to the violence and intolerance of religions and religious persons who claim to act "in the name of God."  If organized religion has that effect on people, we would be better off without it.  The benefits of Natural Theology are to be found, in this case, in its capacity to allow dialog between organized religions.  Without making a definitive pronouncement upon God's existence, the human intellect can still appreciate and adhere to conditional statements.  "If God exists..." he is necessarily all-powerful, etc.  Atheists could use Natural Theology as a platform to encourage peace between religious organizations.  But in any case, my purpose is not political in nature.

One of the other currents that influences the way people think in today's world is something called positivism.  This is the idea that only the visible, sensible, experimental, and therefore material exists.  Anything invisible is non-existent, abstract, or metaphorical.  You cannot see God, therefore he does not exist - and if he does not exist, one shouldn't spend their life as though he did.  Just as one does not live their life as though unicorns exist.

In order to rediscover the validity of claiming that invisible realities can and do exist, it would be useful to begin with invisible realities closer to our experience.  If God exists, he is not immediately obvious - and even the signs of his existence are inconclusive and provide little evidence.  So, without jumping into the signs (or jumping to conclusions), I want instead to look at the other invisible realities we can discover from our experience.

We all have some experience of work, either of making something or of cooperation.  Most people also have some experience of art.  We recognize music, or paintings, or sculptures, and maybe we are artistically inclined ourselves.  Were does art come from?  What is the source of art?  Art is clearly more than just random activity.  Even Pollock was very methodical in the realization of his - seemingly - random and formless paintings.  But method is not the source of art either.  Modern robots have been programmed to draw or paint methodically, producing paintings where even the subjects are not the mere reproduction of previous works.  But the true genius of an artist is not the originality of his subject-matter, nor is it the perfection of his method, it is the originality of his idea which implies something unique about his method.  An artist is able to give birth to his idea, he is able to make visible something that would otherwise remain hidden.  Without Leonardo da Vinci, we would haven ever seen the Mona Lisa.  The idea behind a work of art exists as an invisible source before the artist begins his work.  This is the first example of the existence of something invisible.

Along with the idea we discover as source of a work of art, we can easily distinguish between matter and form in art as well.  A statue has both form and matter.  A statue is visually recognizable - has a form - and is made of something - wood or marble, etc.  The matter renders the form visible, sensible.  So the idea behind a work of art implies a knowledge of the matter used, but is itself a formal principle.  The idea is the source of the artwork's form, not the matter - the matter is given, it is what is provided.  So, an idea is a formal principle, in the line of the formal cause.

Art is not the only kind of reality with matter and form.  Matter and form are found in all the realities we experience.  But the form is not always from an idea - the source of any given reality is not always an idea.  For example, wood is both matter and form without needing any kind of artistic transformation.  Wood as matter can undergo change, and is capable of being transformed.  Wood as form has certain qualities or determinations such as its color, its fibrous nature, its smell, the sound it makes when it is struck.  That is all pretty clear and evident for simple physical realities, but what can we say about more complex ones?  What is a cat made of ? What is it's form?  What makes this particular cat, "fluffy," a real cat?

An artist cannot make a cat.  He can paint a picture of a cat, he can make a statue of a cat, but the idea of a cat is not the form of a cat.  Moder science has become more artistically obsessed in the biological realm, and the attempts to do things such as making animals are becoming commonplace.  Without trying to respond to the question of whether or not science will be able to transform objects or particles into organisms, I'd like to point out at the very least the radical difference between a work of art and a living being, between the form of a work of art and the form of a living being.  Is matter the root cause of life?  Is the correct material configuration of a body what causes it to live?  Or is it just a condition for life?

To understand what causes life, we must first look at our experience.  First remark: we do not experience life as such, we have the experience of breathing, of walking, of looking around, of reading, of thinking. For us, these experiences, among others, describe what we generically refer to as life.  What we do have the experience of, more specifically, is what we call vital operations.  Second remark: we only experience our own vital operations.  Both objectively and subjectively, only I have the experience of my vital operations, and my vital operations are the only ones I actually experience.  So if I want to discover the cause and source of life, I must look for the cause and source of vital operations - and not just any vital operations, but my own vital operations.  What is the cause of my breathing?  What is the cause of my walking?  What is the cause of my seeing?  What is the cause of my knowing?  What is the cause of my loving?  Through my experience of my body, I understand that different organs are implied in these different vital operations, and at the same time I myself am the cause of these vital operations.  Though these operations are diverse, the same reality - myself - is always the cause.  These operation are united, though they are radically different.  The radical source of my breathing is the same as the radical source of my seeing and thinking: it is always me.  This radical source of all my vital operations is my soul.  I discover this source as what my diverse vital operations have in common.  It is not simply the synthesis of all these vital operations realized by my body - the vital operation localized in the organ of the eye is drastically different from the vital operation located in my lungs.  I can breathe whether or not my eyes are open.  I can see even when I hold my breath under water.  What seeing is to the eye, the soul is to the body.  What breathing is to the lungs (and the heart), the soul is to the whole body.  Discovering the soul as cause and principle of the living being requires a discovery of the radical source of my own vital operations.

For the sake of brevity, and to come quickly to my subject, looking for the source of the soul, the origin of our vital source, reveals a hidden actor.  Our vital operations of thought and love, which provides us with our personal dignity, autonomy, and sense of purpose cannot be rooted in a materially generated source.  Our soul's spiritual operations reveal the necessary intervention of a third party in its generation. The analysis of the activity of our intellect reveals that it is not rooted in an organ of the body, it is directly rooted in our soul, and cannot therefore be reproduced through material generation.  The source of the spirit of man is not his parents.  Though a man is born resembling his parents, he does not necessarily resemble them spiritually.  Sometimes, an intelligent father has a stupid son, and sometimes it is the other way around.  We can be influenced by the nature of our parents, but it does not determine us completely.  so where does the human spirit come from?   Where does our spiritual soul come from?

There is a special gaze of the creator upon human generation.  The existence of the human soul implies an intervention by a being who can create spirit from nothing.  So there is, in the life of every man and woman a special gesture of the Creator which becomes source of spiritual life in them.  This gesture has an effect on the body because the human body participates in spiritual activities.  As the spiritual soul of man is not rooted in the matter of his body, it is directly in the hand of God.  This is true to such an extent that I can affirm without hesitation that if I exist, it is because the Creator wills it.  The Creator's act of creation continues and is actual as long as I exist - and my existence does not directly depend upon my body.  Before I existed, I was loved by the Creator of my soul, and it was the Creator's love for me that cause me to exist.  I do not begin to exist as one possibility among an infinity.  I begin to exist because God finds me attractive.  And rediscovering that I am attractive to God in my very existence can rekindle my awe and appreciation for God.  This gesture of God is already the gift of Himself.  God communicates a share, a participation in spiritual life to his human creatures.  We resemble the Creator more than we resemble our own parents and family, and this resemblance is spiritual in nature.  God's greatest joy is to contemplate the source of being, a contemplation that He enjoys superabundantly and ceaselessly.  God's gesture of creation, creation of the spiritual soul of man, gives man the capacity to rejoice in the contemplation of the source of his own being.

This movement of the soul, this interior gaze which recognizes the source of our existence is called worship.  Worship is a gesture of love, a gesture of thanksgiving and appreciation for the one who is the creator of our soul.  Adoration, or worship requires the interior choice to unveil oneself before one's Creator with gratefulness.  It is an interior unveiling, becoming transparent before the Creator, and offering back to Him - with love and freedom - the only gift that is fitting: our lives, our soul.  The interior gesture of adoration is the act whereby we place our lives lovingly and trustingly into the hands of God.  We find this gesture difficult because we don't trust God with our happiness.  But if the Creator created us, it was not because there was something lacking in His own happiness - He created us for our happiness, and He knows perfectly in what our happiness consists.  He also knows and intended for us to freely choose the good that finalizes us and makes us happy.  God does not apply pressure, He attracts, and if we allow ourselves to be attracted, we perform a gesture of adoration, a gesture of presence, quality time, and therefore love.

Just like the other gestures, adoration is fundamentally a gesture of respect.  Whether we feel love for God or not, whether we are attracted to God or not, we respect the fact that there is one who is first in being, and it is not ourselves or our ego.  Without adoration of God, something else inevitably comes first in our lives, and if it isn't our precious ego, it is another creature until we can longer stand their weaknesses or defects.  Adoration requires us to see ourselves for what we are, to become vulnerable before the one who alone is master of being and life.  While with a little coaxing we can easily admit that we are not masters over our being, it is much more difficult to practically admit that we are not the masters of our own lives.  But what joy and freedom for the one who tears down the walls in his heart, receiving his life from and turning his soul back to his Creator.