0062 In the second section, the author offers a Thomistic account of original justice.
Aquinas starts with the fundamental states of human existence.
Here are my associations.
0063 A state of innocence associates to original justice.
“Justice”?
Yeah, I heard that word used, before. I also heard it misused. After all, any spoken word is simply a placeholder in a system of differences. Shift the system of differences and the word adjusts. If I put the word, “justice”, as the focus (A) of a Greimas square, what do I get?
Perhaps, the following will do.
0064 The focal word (A) is “justice”.
Injustice (B) contrasts with justice (A).
Well-governed (C) speaks against (contradicts) injustice (B) and complements justice (A).
Here, I may add that well-governed includes self-governed.
Ungovernable (D) contrasts with well-governed (C), speaks against justice (A) and complements injustice (B).
0065 How curious.
That seems to work well.
Now, let me turn the nouns into adjectives to further illuminate a distinction hidden within the horizontal dimension.
0066 With this figure in mind, I consider what the author says about Aquinas’s teaching concerning the relation of both (1) prelapsarian adamah to God and (2) of parts within the hominin. As to (1), the highest in the innocent person is subject to God. As to (2), the hominin exhibits a certain rectification of order in interior disposition. The inferior powers of the soul (and body) are subject to the superior.
0067 A well-governed body (C) complements a just soul (A).
0068 While many imagine that Aquinas discusses an idealized philosopher, whose, if I remember correctly, members are supposed to be subject to logical reason, when one starts to grasp that Aquinas’s teaching applies to people, who would scare the wits out of any civilized person, yet would welcome that civilized person as one of their own (and if not that, eat him), then we are looking at, as Graeber and Wengrow put it, “the dawn of everything”.
Or “the dawn of everything that moderns never imagined possible”.
0069 The noble savage is noble because he is innocent?
Does Aquinas’s teaching, applied to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, predict darwinian social and sexual selection favoring those who are just within their social circles and those who can govern their bodies in ways that modern athletes of all sports would admire?
It is as if each person contains his own society, with diverse factions (parts and appetites and tendencies) that need to be governed (that is, made whole). The challenge requires both material and immaterial (that is, relational) training. The relational entangles the material. The material entangles the relational.
0070 The lesson applies to more than the body and soul of each individual.
It applies to the social circles as well. Social circles work in harmony.
If they don’t, then natural selection works its scythe.
Hominins adapt to survive in Aquinas’s state of innocence.
0071 For physical anthropologists, a familiar instance of a whole bringing its parts into being through proper governanceis the Oldowan stone tool.
The Oldowan stone tool is made on the spot by hitting one stone against another in a specific manner, causing the target stone to fracture. After a series of blows, the target stone expresses a sharp, jagged edge, making the stone tool like a giant tooth, capable of stripping muscle off bone and cracking long bones in order to expose the marrow fat.
0072 What is going on?
The whole stone on the left has within it, parts that are removed when struck, with good aim, by another rock. The result is the Oldowan stone tool on the right.
If I go back to Aquinas’s Greimas square and replace “soul” with “aim” and “body” with “stone”, then I obtain another way to appreciate the implications of Aquinas’s formulation.
0073 Without a doubt, Aquinas idealizes the prelapsarian adamah, because he works from the Biblical text, written in Latin, not in the common vernacular. He also examines philosophical texts, translated from Arabic to Latin. He “baptizes” Aristotle and other ancient Greek philosophers. So, the prelapsarian Adam seems like an incredible person, just like the philosophers of old.
0074 Aquinas lives two centuries before the Europeans “discover” the Americas, populated by peoples who were exposed to speech-alone talking civilizations, but were not quite ready to surrender their happy-go-lucky hand-speech talking ways. These hand-speech talking folk appear radically naive to the Europeans. Some might say that the descriptor, “original innocence”, applies to the North American Plains Indians. They have no idea that Eurasian civilizations are three-thousand years older than the earliest American civilizations.
Late-medieval Europeans are shocked by reports of life in the Americas. Indeed, early modern Europeans are dismayed after some of these hand-speech talking Americans learn European languages and say, “Y’all are the most miserable creatures that I can imagine.”
0075 Once this connection is made, everything changes.
Aquinas’s exploration into the nature of the prelapsarian adamah does not apply to some sort of philosopher king. It applies to a noble savage. Even weirder, it applies to noble savages who could not express the qualifier, “noble”, using hand-talk. No, these savages embody everything that makes humans noble. But, they have no gesture-word corresponding to the speech-alone term, “noble”.
What is there to picture and point to?
0076 The conceptual shift is jarring, accounting for John Paul II’s use of Aquinas as a soapbox on which to stand while proclaiming “biblical teachings” from passages of Genesis that must be regarded as prelapsarian. The Genesis passages point to a Lebenswelt on the other side of the first singularity, to a time when we are who we evolved to be.
John Paul II suspects, but does not articulate, that the soap-box on which he stands contains a pot of conceptual gold.
0077 How can that stone, lying next to the partially eaten remains of… a dead wildebeest… say, “I am the target stone that contains, within me, the sharp edges that will provide the toothiness you need to scrape dried meat from ligaments and crack long bones to get the marrow fat.”?
Even the stones cry out.
Grace inflows nature.
The hominin knows, at a glance, that this stone will do. After a few sharp blows, the Oldowan tool is in hand, ready for work. Other members of the team stand by, also holding little stones, watching for any sight of a curious predator. Yet, potentially disruptive predators know that these hominins can injure from a distance. There is nothing quite as unforgiving as a well-thrown stone.
0078 Yes, grace is everywhere. It flows through the scene, where a team of hominins scavenge from the corpse of a wildebeest, in the open, on the savannah, which is a dangerous place to linger. No one works alone. Everyone belongs to the team. Without grace, the lucky find would be worthless.
0079 Thomas Aquinas has no knowledge in regards to the scientific construct of evolutionary theory.
He has no idea about the impending “discovery” of a new continent, standing to the west, between Europe and India. He has no idea that this new continent is filled with people that start trending towards civilization around 3000 U0′, rather than 0 U0′.
He has no information about ancient civilizations that lasted hundreds, even thousands of years, in the Near East, only to leave dusty hills containing royal libraries of cuneiform clay tablets, fired into bricks.
0080 What does Aquinas know?
The Genesis stories of Adam and Eve offer clues.
Aquinas portrays Adam and Eve as individuals, in the state of original justice. Original justice manifests as a rectitude of order among the parts of the sovereign person, who is ultimately wholly grounded in the rectitude of an order towards God.
This seems like a metaphor for royalty to me.
There is no rebelliousness within the kingdom.
The passions among the parts (the people) do not conflict with the soul’s (the king’s) dominion.
Indeed, the reasoned judgment of the soul (the king) cultivates and trains the expression of passions (among the people) in order for the person (the kingdom) to survive and flourish.
0081 How does the double (personal and political) vision of Aquinas key into the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
0082 In Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the authors of the reviewed book make great hay over Robin Dunbar’s formula correlating mammalian brain size to group size. The hominin brain to body mass ratio increases significantly in the millions of years from the southern apes to Homo sapiens. So does group size. Hominins start as bands (50) and end up with communities (150), with higher resonances, all the way to tribe (1500).
The idea of group size resonances occurring at factors of three plays a role in their argument. However, the authors of the reviewed book do not realize that the evolution of talk might occur within one social circle (the team), then later expand to the entire group (the community) when circumstances change. Hand talk is locked within the team for over a million years, until the domestication of fire offers a platform for talking itself: gossip after a fire-cooked meal.
Well, hand talk covers more than gossip. Over time, hand-talk becomes fully linguistic, allowing the proclamation of grammatically correct yet counter-intuitive statements, such as “the raven gathers pebbles from the creek”. In hand talk, the statement is grammatically correct. But, it does not make much sense, because ravens don’t swim.
0083 Here is a picture of the various social circles in operation in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0084 Each social circle exhibits its own relational logic. Each social circle is a site for natural selection of individuals suitable for that social circle. This includes diverse teams. Over generations, each long-lasting successful exercise of obligate collaborative foraging selects for adaptations, including neural and muscular, that make the team activity more productive and more fun. For example, the physics of rock fragmentation becomes intuitively natural, for some, eventually leading to the invention of a new stone tool technology, the Acheulean stone tool, that is made ahead of time and carried along in the team activity.
0085 Team activity?
Hominins figure out all sorts of ways to obtain food that does not conflict with the interests of other creatures.
For example, bury a lot of overripe fruit, then wait a few weeks. The hole is now full of delicious edible bugs. The creativity of our ancestors must have been incredible. Their range of culinary traditions may put our own to shame. Each successful team selects for its own adaptations, both anatomical and physiological, making its exercise of obligatory collaborative foraging more… um… “natural”. No wonder the size of the hominin neocortex expands over time, along with group size. It’s like a giant menu of what and how to eat.
As well as what and how to avoid being eaten.
0086 Is this where Aquinas comes into the picture?
Aquinas’s double vision is both personal and political. The prelapsarian adamah is both a kingdom of parts and a sovereign over a kingdom. Plus, this sovereign answers to the order of God.
Consider each social circle to be an individual writ large. Consider the individual hominin as a social circle writ small. Each social circle has its own nature and grace. Each person has his or her own nature and grace.
0087 Does Aquinas know that the term, “Adam”, in Genesis, is a pun, meaning both “humanity” (adamah) and “an individual’s name” (Adam)?
Certainly, his political-personal approach calls to mind a harmony of the social circles, where higher social circles operate as sovereign, and lower social circles operate as the kingdom of parts. Plus, the higher social circles are always aware of an order higher than their own.
0088 Now comes the kicker.
A perfect or complete justness within the souls of the social circles associate to a more perfect or complete governance of the bodies of the social circles, so that the whole and the parts are (relatively speaking) immortal. Surely, the people who compose the social circles are mortal. But, the bodies of the social circles are not mortal. So, adamah is immortal, even though Adam is not. Yet, adamah is Adam and Adam is adamah.
0089 To me, the immortal harmony of the social circles, selected through cultural (for each expression of a social circle) and natural (for individuals with aptitudes for being productive and having fun within social circles) selection, corresponds to the tree of life, in the garden of Eden. The mortality of the person resides within the immortality of the tree of life. We (hominins) are the roots. We are the fruits of the tree of life. Plus, the tree of life grows in a garden ordained by God.
Culture and hominins co-evolve.
0090 Yes, this evolution-informed vision is different than an immortal Adam, as some sort of philosopher king, ruling over all the parts of his body, while remaining ordered to the rectitude of God.
Certainly, it sounds different and more research is needed.
But, my goal is only to establish a principle that is intimated by John Paul II’s theology of the body.
The ethos of the gift is a phenotypic expression of our species, because the trait is an adaptation to the gift, as a triadic relation.
0091 Once one starts to fill in the cognitive blanks about human origins that have been opened during the past eight centuries…. as soon as one tries to translate what Aquinas says about the prelapsarian Adam into the evolution of adamah, humanity, in the double framework of the souls and the bodies of mortal beings participating in the souls and bodies of intergenerational beings,composed of diverse and nested (not so much hierarchical) social circles that promote the survival and flourishing of its participants… does one begin to appreciate the intellectual daring of John Paul II’s proclamation of a blessed, holistic and Christian theology of the body.
0092 At this point, I examine the fourth section, covering John Paul II’s integration of original innocence and the ethos of the gift.
To start, take a pencil and strike out the word, “perfect”, and replace it with the word, “complete”.
Why do I do this?
I know a few perfectionists, and they are not completionists. Completion means fulfillment of an intention. An oak tree is the fulfillment of the intention of an acorn. The oak tree completes the acorn.
0093 Aquinas mentions three states of humans. The following figure shows how the terms associate to biblical teachings, the hypothesis first singularity, and to Alexander Dugin’s political theology.
0094 Well, maybe the above figure overstates the importance of the hypothesis of the first singularity and Alexander Dugin’s political theology. I mean, look at the three items for glory. There is no way that they are equivalent.
I am sure that Pope John Paul II, looking down from his heavenly perch, chuckles at the folly.
0095 John Paul II refers to humans before original sin as living in a state of innocence and receiving the gift of grace. Current Christian philosophy and theology have yet to grasp the implications. What is the nature of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Aquinas’s account of original justice seems a little too academic. The state of innocence involves a complete ordering of the lower parts of man by that which is highest in him. The rule of the soul over the body may be simultaneously labeled “self-mastery” and “interior freedom”.
0096 Too academic?
Doesn’t Aquinas’s account follow the rules of the Greimas square?
0097 Well, yes.
Nevertheless, Aquinas’s explicit abstractions defy the experiences of modern civilized folk… until… “man” is replaced the the term, “adamah”. “Humanity” adapts to social circles, each of which offers opportunities to exploit and dangers to overcome. The harmony among these social circles corresponds to the higher parts ordering the lower parts, allowing all social circles to flourish and adapt.
In short, adamah is the human writ large, just as Adam is adamah writ small.
0098 In our current Lebenswelt of unconstrained social complexity, social circles translate into institutions and organizations. See A Primer on How Institutions Think, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0099 Self-mastery is required to participate in each social circle. Plus, social circles celebrate interior freedom. No one forces a person to join one team or another, even though an evolutionary anthropologist may call teamwork, “obligatory collaborative foraging”. Social circles celebrate the responsibility to make a choice as to which team to participate in.
I call the distinction between freedom and responsibility a “co-opposition”.
Responsibility3 serves as a normal context for the possibility of freedom1.
Freedom3 serves as a normal context for the potential of responsibility1.
The integration of the person and social circles ranges from the male-female bond that founds each family (5) to the elders who arrange and negotiate occasional gatherings of communities (1500). Participation is a gift. Willingness to participate gives peace of mind. Participation generates productivity and fun.
Participation3 serves as a normal context for the possibility of purpose1.
Purpose3 serves as a normal context for the potential of participation1.
0100 Of course, Pope John Paul II does not know the hypothesis that the human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
Yet, he focuses on a relation that is undeniably relevant to natural selection. For our lineage, male-female pair-bonding is evolutionarily ancient, perhaps starting as a co-adaptation that contributes to a successful transition to bipedalism.
0101 How so?
Bipedalism evolves to facilitate transit between widely separated regions of seasonally rich resources, characteristic of the ecology of mixed forest and savannah.
0102 The problem?
The female cannot walk long distances and forage and feed her children by herself.
0103 The solution?
The male adapts to become the female’s helper.
“The marriage deal” is an evolutionary concept discussed in The First and Second Primers on the Organization Tier, as well as A Primer on the Family. The male offers protection and provisioning. The female offers fidelity. Without fidelity, the genes of the protective and provisioning male do not make it to the next generation. So, fidelity is key to “the marriage deal”.
Further adaptations, both organically and culturally, serve to increase the benefits of the marriage deal.
0104 Of course, a scientific discussion of the so-called “marriage deal” does not compare to the theological rhetoric of Pope John Paul II, where the communion of male and female in mutual self-giving is congruent with adamah’s original happiness. But, such scientific discussion suggests that the rhetoric applies to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0105 Big time!
The pope’s treatment of marriage applies to every social circle. Maybe not so romantically. But, definitely so practically. Every social circle entails giving and receiving, because the triadic relation of the gift is intrinsic to its operation. The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.
0106 In Theology of the Body, Pope John Paul II proposes that original innocence entails a gift of holiness given to man and to woman, enabling them to participate in the inner life of God, through their radical giving of self to one another, in purity of heart.
He concludes that the ethos of the gift may serve as the basis for a truly adequate anthropology.
0107 To this examiner, Pope John Paul II stands on the soapbox of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. He proclaims biblical teaching.
At the same time, he points toward the prelapsarian Adam… or adamah… and subtly suggests that a truly adequate anthropology may be found in… an application of Aquinas’s metaphysics and biblical teaching to who we evolved to be.
0108 Male and female we evolved to be?
And more…
Male and female in mutual self-giving, we evolved to be.
0109 Here is a picture with another way to appreciate the relation between John Paul II’s specific application and the broad application that The Theology of the Body intimates.
This schema may be applied to all social circles.
0110 Adamah is “humanity”, when the hominin and the social circle may be distinguished but not separated. Adamah do not articulate triadic relations using explicit abstractions. Rather, adamah live them and, over generations, adapt to them. We live by implicit abstraction. Implicit abstractions are built into our souls and bodies. Adamah associates to the “image of God” of Genesis verses 1:26-31.
0111 The foundational social circles are family (5) and friends (5).
The social circle for obligatory collaborative foraging is the team (15). Here is where our lineage learns to be productive and have fun. Proto-linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to teams. Teams engage in sensible construction.
The social circle that provides safety in numbers in travel and at night is the band (50).
The social circle that brings harmony to diverse teams is the community (150). Here is where we learned to be more than productive and experience more than fun. Fully linguistic hand talk is an adaptation to community. Communities engage in social construction. Social construction is the meaning underlying the term, “religion”.
0112 The social circle that gathers bands and communities in seasonal celebrations is the mega-band (500). Here is where singing is first used for social synchronization. The gathering cannot last long, in order to avoid disease. So, rapid social synchronization is required.
Once the voice is under voluntary control due to social and sexual selection, the voice is exapted at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens, over 200,000 years ago. Humans practice hand-speech talk until the first singularity.
The social circle that calls for wisdom and offers deep witness to the signs of The One Who Hand Talks the World Itself is the tribe. The tribe is a linguistic community.
0113 Unbeknownst to Pope John Paul II, a theology of original innocence as a disposition towards interpersonal self-giving may be precisely the metaphysics needed to conceptually elucidate the dynamic harmonies within and among social circles that characterize hominin evolution.
0114 Man is not meant to be alone, as a radical individual, whose sexuality is a tool to satisfy “needs”, according to some theoretical -ismist construction.
Yet, man is alone, caught in a web of explicit abstractions promising to solve his alienation, by incorporating him into an idea, an “-ism”, concocted by some “Western Enlightenment inspired” political philosopher. If he buys into the agenda, then he may be a person, among an ideologically defined people.
Such theory may be technically correct, but it is wholly misleading. Now, -ismists are increasingly discredited.
0115 In our current Lebenswelt, we live in the state of original sin.
We are not alone in contemplating our condition.
Alexander Dugin calls for a fourth political theory.
Pope John Paul II offers a theology that complements Dugin’s vision.
Dugin offers a political theory that complements the pope’s theology.
0116 Just beyond Adam, representing our current Lebenswelt, there is adamah, prelapsarian humanity, representing the Lebenswelt that we evolved to be. Philosophical inquiry into biblical teaching may allow us to see that humans and social circles co-evolve, so man was never meant to be alone.
The people are beginning to realize that the -ismists are wrong, the narod is where we could be, and the ethnos is where we can never return to. We long to return. But, we cannot. So turn around and see what God has to offer.
0117 Perhaps, now, in a confused and exploratory fashion, we can modify our scientific interpretation of human evolutionand stand on Aquinas’s soapbox just like the the pope does, and greet the prelapsarian adamah, as who we evolved to be.
0118 My thanks to the author for publishing an article worthy of examination.
Surely, this examiner goes to places that the author never envisioned.
Such is the way of scholastic inquiry. Commentaries follow commentaries. Then, everything changes.
0001 Daniel W. Houck juggles five challenges in his attempt to recover Thomas Aquinas’s teachings on original sin.
0002 One, Aquinas does not challenge Augustine’s mechanism of original sin. Original sin descends through Adam to all humans through human reproduction. Augustine’s speculation is now on the chopping block, because modern biologists observe no large genetic bottleneck, as required by Augustine’s proposed scenario. Concupiscence may be undeniable. But, it does not plague humans due to descent from a single ancestral pair.
On one hand, original sin cannot be accounted for as a sexually transmitted disease.
On the other hand, sexually transmitted diseases can, in part, be accounted for by original sin.
0003 Two, original sin is inextricably tied to a difficult conversation about the fate of the souls of infants and fetuses, who tragically die. Where do the souls of aborted fetuses go? To the city dump?
0004 Three, the doctrine of original sin does not appear in Scripture. Instead, original sin comes from interpreting Scripture. It’s like the smell of the rotting food. If one reads Scripture and follows the unfolding theodrama with care, one cannot help but conclude with Paul, in his notorious Letter to the Romans, that Adam and Christ are linked. The Scriptures stink of original sin. Yet, the fragrance of redemption overcomes the sordid aromas. That is the Good News. Jesus is a breath of fresh air.
0005 Four, despite recent attempts to revive the theology of Thomas Aquinas, his account of original sin remains neglected. There is a reason. Thomas never locks onto a clear and concise reckoning. A hundred years ago, Aquinas’s thoughts on the matter are debated. Jean Baptiste Kors publishes an in-depth examination under the title, La Justice primitive et le peche originel d’apres S. Thomas (1922). Now, it is crickets.
0006 Five, Houck consigns even the crickets to silence, because the crickets never considered Neodarwinism and how it puts Augustine’s speculation on the chopping block. In light of the shimmering axe of negation poised above the City of God, much less the City of Man, the crickets may silently snicker at Houck’s promise to tie together Aquinas’s account of original justice with other areas of the great medieval theologian’s thought. Does a synthesis matter? After the blade of scientific expertise comes down on the idea that Adam and Eve are the first humans, will the executioner call out, “Next, original justice.”?
0006 Already modern theologians slink away from the historicity of the Fall.
Can they do without this non-scientific nonsense?
Houck does not think so. No responsible Christian theologian thinks so.
Houck must juggle these five juggernauts, as if each does not have a life of its own.  What is the secret that brings them into obedient motion, where one goes up while another comes down?
It is not to be found in his book.
0007 It is to be found in the hypothesis of the first singularity.
The stories of Adam and Eve, along with all currently known written origin stories of the ancient Near East, point to a recent time-horizon, beyond which civilization cannot see.
They point to the first singularity.
They cannot see beyond this event.
The ancient myths say, “Humans are made right before civilization starts.”
Now, archaeologists testify to humans before the time horizon of the first singularity.
Humans walk the earth long before the dawn of history.
0008 Is Adam the first human, as suggested by Augustine, as well as by the Genesis text?
If Adam is not the first human, then who is Adam?
Adam must be a figure in a fairy tale. The fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. We (moderns) do not know much about what came before this event. We know more than nothing. Neolithic stone tools that tell us that, after 12,000 years ago, plants become very important as food. The remains of sedentary villages tell us that we learned to give plants as food to the animals.
The Neolithic marks the invention of agriculture.
The Developed Neolithic combines stockbreeding and agriculture.
0009 There is an intimation, in Genesis 1:26-30, of a humanity before Adam. If that is the case, then why does the Story of the Garden of Eden start with God creating Adam from dust and Eve from Adam’s rib?
Oh yeah, the story of the Garden of Eden is a fairy tale. And, a fairy tale may be about an event, or something like an event, hidden in time. At the start of this event, Adam busies himself with the garden and names the animals. He gets to contribute a rib to make Eve. He is innocent. So is Eve. Together, they portray everything that the hominins evolved to be.
In the garden, there is the tree of life. This tree is a metaphor for Thomas Aquinas’s notion of original justice. It is also a metaphor for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The tree of life is a metaphor for the Lebenswelt where humans are what they evolved to be.
0010 The noumenon of humans, like all animals, is hylomorphic.
The word, “hylomorphe”, combines two words, “hyle” (matter) and “morphe” (form). According to Comments on Daniel De Haan’s Essay (2018) “Hylomorphism and the New Mechanist Philosophy…”, Aristotle’s hylomorphe associates to Peirce’s category of secondness. Peirce’s secondness consists in two contiguous real elements. Here, the two real elements are matter and form. The contiguity? May I use the word, “substance”?
The contiguity is placed in brackets. Secondness is denoted by the subscript.
0011 For humans and animals, the hylomorphe is body [substance] soul2.
According to A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, actuality2 is potentiated by the possibility of ‘something’1 in a particular normal context3.
0012 In Genesis, humans are created twice.
Chapter two presents a fairy-tale creation.
Chapter one offers an evolutionary-style scenario, consisting of a progression of days which build on one another. Some say the Creation Story describes the making of the tent (or temple) of the heavens and the earth. In the final act of this tent-construction, God intends (Gen. 1.26), then creates (1.27), then blesses (1.28), then gives plants as food (1.29) to us, who are created in His image. He then tells us to give fodder to the animals (1.30).
0013 In the triadic structure of the Genesis Creation Story, an evolutionary scenario3 brings the dyadic actuality of our kind2 into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘being an image of God’1.
0014 The logics of normal context3 include exclusion, alignment and complement. Clearly this normal context3 excludes (what we now call) original sin. How can an image of God already be fallen?
Christians who speculate that Adam and Eve are the first humans, based on their independent manufacture in the Garden of Eden, fail to notice the gap between Genesis 2.3 and 2.4. The gap is similar to the pause between different movements in a single work of classical music. Everyone knows that one is not supposed to applaud during this awkward moment, when the musicians flip pages and wait for one another to get into sync. This brief interval is supposed to be ignored. This is precisely what many interpreters of Genesis do.
0015 The fairy tale manufacturing of Adam and Eve manifests a different normal context than the creation of humans in an evolutionary dance between God speaking and the earth bringing forth in response to His commands.
What does this imply?
Adam and Eve associate to our current Lebenswelt.
The creation of humans in the image of God goes with the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Adam and Eve associate to original sin.
Humans in the image of God touch base with original justice.
Adam and Eve eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Humans in the image of God, like prelapsarian Adam and Eve, enjoy the gifts of the tree of life.
0016 Neither Aquinas nor Houck draw these associations. These associations are implicit in their discussions.
0017 How does original justice contribute to my appreciation of the initial category-based nested form?
In Comments on Fr. Thomas White’s Essay (2019) “Thomism for the New Evangelism”, the issue of primary and secondary causality arises. Primary causality associates to normal context3 and potential1. Secondary causality, often confounded with material and instrumental causalities, points to the independent workings of actuality2.
Here is how that looks.
The primary cause of our creation associates to original justice. The secondary cause associates to our actualization as the image of God. The image of God1 potentiates the hominin body [and] soul2 in the normal context of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in3, as indicated, imaged and symbolized by the first chapter of Genesis.
0018 When Aquinas addresses original justice, he follows Augustine in jumbling together the two creation movements in Genesis. The prelapsarian Adam and Eve are created as images of God.
0019 What does Houck say?
First, original justice is natural. Well, it is not merely natural. It is “preternatural“. In other words, it is not like the primal justice of the animals. One animal may harm another in the pursuit of its own good. In this, nature appears to be cruel, heartless and mechanistic. We counter this reality with charity, empathy and cleverness.
Nature is full of goods and evils. An evil is a privation of a good. Each species appears designed to protect against certain evils. Turtles have shells to hide in. Each species is adapted to exploit some natural advantage (or good). Some turtles love to eat veggies. We are not so different than the turtle in this regard. Our bodies are designed to avoid certain dangers and seek certain opportunities. These active designs are felt in our bones. They move our flesh.
They guide our senses.
0020 A movement of the sensate soul asks, in innocence, “Do I feel that I should avoid what I am sensing or do I feel like I should seek what I am sensing?”
The activity of the body [substantiates] the sensate soul. Our bodies sense. Our sensate soul feels. So, the contiguity between them converts the operations of the five senses (along with internal proprioceptors) into qualia or feelings.
All this is natural, or maybe, a little more (preter) than natural. Once feelings are triggered in the sensate soul, the active body serves as a sign-vehicle. The active body stands for something other than itself. The active body signifies what the sensate soul feels.
0021 Second, and in apparent contradiction, original justice is supernatural. It takes us beyond the preternatural.
What does it mean for me to say, “Nature is scarce, horrifying and petty, leading me to sense futility, danger and nastiness. I want to avoid the privation of goods. At the same time, nature is bountiful, beautiful and awesome, inspiring me to sense thanksgiving, admiration and wonder. I seek goodness.”?
0022 The secondary causality of active body [substance] sensate soul addresses the causal nexus between our five senses and our immediate feelings.
The primary causality of original justice (or something like original justice) places the actuality ofour sensations and feelings into a category-based nested form. Our ancestors adapt to the fact that our world presents itself as things and events2 within normal contexts3 and potentials1. Our active bodies register things and events2 (including communicative gestures and words). Our sensate souls conjure an appropriate, immediate, normal context3 and potential1. But, not surprisingly, this immediate normal context3 and potential1 is… well… not necessarily what a scientist would have them be. (But, there is a remedy that may please the scientist.)
0023 For example, before modern times, many people think that salamanders come from fire. They notice a pattern. When a log is thrown into a fire, sometimes a salamander runs out. That is the actuality2. So, in the normal context of the four elements3, the actuality of the salamander2 emerges from the potential of one of the four elements, fire1.
0024 So, what do the four elements do?
They provide a way to formulate (or explicitly symbolize) the normal context3 and potential1 that accompany an actuality2.
0025 Aristotle proposes his four causes as an alternative to the four elements. They work in the same manner, but they are far superior in elucidating the potential1b of sensations and feelings2a.
Here is how that looks.
0026 What do Aristotle’s four causes do?
To start, if one encounters a thing2, that thing2 may be regarded as a hylomorphe, composed of two contiguous real elements, matter and form.
Why matter?
Matter is what our active bodies sense. If the thing is not present, then we cannot use our five senses to detect it.
Why form?
Form is what our sensate souls feel. The sensate soul notices all the clues to form, such as shape, color, odor and so on. In doing so, the sensate soul raises some questions, “Do I avoid? Do I approach? Do I safely ignore?”
0027 Next, Aristotle’s four causes allows one to synthesize what must be true for this actuality2.
The thing2 has matter, a physical aspect, and being, a relational aspect. Matter and being are two poles of a continuum. Material causes link matter and being to form. The contiguity, labeled, “substance”, can be interpreted in a myriad of material ways. Indeed, scientists love to fill this contiguity with the machinations of various neurons and glands and receptors and inhibitors and so on. But, in the Arisotelian paradigm, a “substance” tends to eliminate contradictions to allow the two real elements, active body and sensate soul, to remain contiguous.
A thing2 has its own operations, which can be observed with our senses. These processes exhibit certain patterns, our senses trigger our feelings, and then we try to situate sensations and feelings2a. Instrumental causes follow the logic of secondness, the laws of contradiction and non-contradiction. Instrumental causes bring the actuality2 into relation with its potential1.
The thing2 has a purpose, a teleology, and an end. Final causality entangles normal context3, actuality2 and potential1. With final causes, we begin to see the big picture. We begin to understand.
The thing2 has a formal design. This design has formal requirements. If these requirements are not met, then the good suffers a privation.
The question of evil, arises when a potential1, a good, is not fulfilled as an actuality2, within its normal context3. A common metaphor for sin is “missing the mark”. The normal context3 is archery. The actuality2 is arrow [strikes] target. The potential1 is accuracy. Sin is a more than a failure of accuracy. It is a failure to achieve God’s design.
0028 Aristotle’s four causes are one way to figure out what is true about an actuality2.
0029 Now, I propose an intrepid question and ask, “If I apply Aristotle’s four causes to the actuality2a, active body [substance] sensate soul2, as if it is matter [substance] form, what type of understanding could I achieve?
In particular, could I generate an understanding that would make a scientist smile?
What happens when I apply Aristotle’s causes again, as if I am refining the actuality of sensations and feelings2 into a content-level nested form, with an appreciation of scientific inquiry in mind?
0030 I start with the hylomorphe, active body [substance] sensate soul. That goes into a content-level actuality.
Next, I turn to Aristotle’s four causes to weave a normal context3a and potential1a.
The material cause concerns the contiguity between the active body and sensate soul2a. I know that the active body senses itself and its surroundings. I know that the sensate soul expresses corresponding qualia. So, I ask the questions, “If my active body encounters ‘something’, then what am I encountering? What is it supposed to be? Should I fear, approach or safely ignore?”
This implies that the hylomorphe may be understood as a foundation for a nested form for human psychology. And clinical psychology. And anatomy and physiology. Indeed, nested forms can be constructed for almost any science studying animals, particularly mammals.
So, material causality tells me that humans are animals. Animals adapt to their niche. The niche is the potential of something independent of the adapting species in the environment of evolutionary adaptation.
0031 The instrumental cause connects whatever engages sensations and feelings2a to a potential1a. As the original nested form stands, the potential is the image of God. What do images require? Interpretation? Then, how do I interpret? I need a framework in which interpretation is possible. To the modern mind, the more scientific the interpretation, the better.
In the normal context of the Creation Story3, God is the One who Signifies, or Speaks, and, in response, the earth brings forth. This source of signification is way beyond speech, even though the Creation Story makes it seem like God speaks like a person in our current Lebenswelt. Yet, human evolution starts before language. Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk. So, if God is talking to nature at this time, He gives His commands in manual-brachial gestures, hand talk, and the earth sees what God intends and responds to His signs.
Okay, instrumental causality suggests that God’s handiwork involves signs.
That tells me that humans are semiotic animals.
For further discussion of this claim, consider Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October, 2023.
0032 Where do instrumental and material causes take me?
They take me to triadic relations. The triadic relation, in the category of thirdness, brings actuality, the category of secondness, into relation with possibility, the category of firstness. Signs are triadic relations.
According to the masterwork, The Human Niche, our genus adapts to the potential of triadic relations. If I look back at the first nested form, Aristotle’s instrumental, material, final and formal causes allow me to pass from secondary to primary causes (that is, from actuality to understanding). Understanding comes at the moment that I comprehend an entire triadic relation. So, I have the possibility of being an image of God1 and I have the capacity to recognize triadic relations. One potential appears in the first chapter of Genesis. The other potential corresponds to the human as a semiotic animal.
Material and instrumental causes demystify the content level. In the normal context of an evolutionary paradigm3a, our active bodies [substance] sensate souls2a come into relation with the potential of triadic relations1a, the human niche1a. The human niche1a is what hominins ultimately adapt to. In doing so, our ancestors increasingly image God.
Yes, the human niche1a is the potential of triadic relations.
Aristotle’s instrumental and material causes can start with the same actuality2 that serves as a first approximation for the creation of humans in Genesis and produce a content-level nested form more palatable to modern biologists (who study nature as if primary causes are not relevant).
0033 Here is a picture of what happens when I apply Aristotle’s four causes to the dyadic actuality2 of active body [substance] sensate soul with the intent (final cause) of pleasing biologists and with a formalism (formal cause) compatible with science. Remember, for scientists, the positivist intellect has a rule that says, “No metaphysics”.
This content-level nested form appears free of that superstitious nonsense.
But, aren’t Aristotle’s four causes superstitious nonsense?
Uh-oh.
The content-level potential1a shifts from the possibilities inherent in the image of God1 to the human niche1a. A niche1ais the potential of an actuality that is independent of the adapting species. For humans, that actuality is triadic relations. Triadic relations give us the potential to be images of God1. That potential is the human niche1a.
0034 In regards to the content-level actuality2a, I will, on occasion, compress our sensations and feelings2a into one word, “sensations2a“, in order to refer to the content-level actuality in future diagrams.
What does this mean for the first approximation to body [substantiates] soul?
The first approximation is active body [substantiates] sensate soul.
Well, there must be a second approximation, corresponding to a situation-level actuality.
In other words, there is a second, situation-level hylomorphe2b. The situation-level normal context3b should complement the content-level normal context3a. This type of differentiation reflects a dichotomy familiar to modern academics, “the department of arts and sciences”. The arts situate the sciences.
0035 Here, Aristotle’s four causes offer a way to clarify the content level, directly, and the situation level, indirectly.
I could say that Aristotle’s four causes hold the potential to situate the content level1b. That would be correct. But, not complete.
Aristotle’s four causes, as brilliant as they are, do not offer the only way to situate content. Indeed, my use of the four causes in refining the original nested form is anything but standard. I already mentioned that the four elements work in the same manner. They are also paths to situate content-level actualities.
Understanding requires us to figure out the normal context3 and potential1 that attends to any encountered, sensed and felt actuality2. Civilized humans have devised many ways to accomplish this task, with varying degrees of success. The process is synthetic, rather than analytical. Consequently, the actuality2b that virtually situates sensations2a can be pretty crazy, but at least it2b presents the subjective sensation2a as an object that may later become intersubjective.
So, here is how the original nested form starts to differentiate into a two-level interscope
0036 I now consider the nature of the situation-level actuality2b.
A human, like an animal, can be described as a hylomorphe, body [substantiates] soul.
Here, an old, traditional word, “substance”, gains a new technical meaning. “Substance” grounds the contiguity between any two real elements in Peirce’s category of secondness. In this use, the distinction between noun and verb dissipates. The contiguity is both noun and verb, just like the word, “glue”.
0037 As it turns out, for humans, body [substantiates] soul is not equivalent to its commutation, soul [is substantiated by] body. I already appreciate this with the content-level hylomorphe, active body [substantiates] sensate soul2a, suggesting that the situation-level actuality is the commutation.
0038 Here is a picture of the differentiation of the original hylomorphe.
0039 What is the reactive body?
It is the seat of the emotions.
Is there a name for the perceptive soul [informs] the reactive body2b?
Yes, it2b is called a “phantasm”.
Perceptive soul [informs] reactive body2b virtually (not directly) emerges from (and situates) active body [substantiates] sensate soul2a.
Phantasm2b virtually (not directly) emerges from (and situates) sensations2a.
0040 At this point, a final cause for the original nested form (of primary and secondary causation) comes into view.
The normal context of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in (revealed by Genesis One)3 brings the actuality of body [substance] soul2into relation with the potential of the descriptor, “image of God”1.
0041 The final cause is the purpose, the goal and the end of the original nested form. Final causes entangle primary and secondary causations.
The formal cause harmonizes the normal context3 and actuality2, suggesting that the Creation Story puts the human body and mind into context.
The same final causes apply to the content-level nested form.
The normal context of scientific inquiry into evolution3a brings the actuality of the active body [substance] sensate soul2ainto relation with the human niche1a.
The final cause says that the human body and mind2a situates the potential of triadic relations (such as sign-relations)1awithin an evolutionary framework3a. The problem faced by evolutionary anthropologists is the troubling reality that triadic relations are immaterial beings.
Well, they1a are immaterial beings that entangle material and instrumental causes.
Here is the difficulty. For scientists, the formal cause, the harmonization of the evolutionary paradigm3a and the human body and mind2a, should not break the rule of the positivist intellect. Metaphysics is not allowed. Unfortunately, metaphysics is required when the human niche1a is the potential of triadic relations1a.
0042 So, the original actuality of body [substance] soul differentiates.
“Sensations2a” (active body [substance] sensate soul) is a good word for the content-level actuality.
“Phantasm2b” and “perception2b” (perceptive soul [informs] reactive body) are good words for the situation-level actuality.
0043 A two-level interscope characterizes sensible thinking.
If I look at the original nested form for the Genesis Creation Story, I can start to figure out what the situation-level normal context3b and potential1b must be. Note, the potential1b will not be Aristotle’s four causes. Rather, it will be a picture that encompasses them.
We humans think sensibly. We rarely question the formal design. Our incredible abilities to situate content are good enough. Once we start to question what is sensible, then we begin to discern another level, the perspective levelc.
0044 Ah, that brings me back to Houck’s book, which brings Aquinas’s concept of original justice out of its slumber.
If I look at the elements that associate with primary cause for both the content and situation levels, I see original justiceat work.
The content level is preternatural. From the very start, the human niche is not about some particular material feature of the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Triadic relations constitute anuniversal immaterial feature. Our sensations and feelings2a are tuned to the signs of nature (rather than some material thing in nature).
The situation level is full of grace. Like water, grace may come in flavors. Is sanctification a flavor of grace? I don’t know.
I do know that the production of a phantasm2b, where the perceptive soul [informs] the reactive body2b, requires synthesis, in addition to analysis. That explains why it2b is full of emotion. The reactive body2b externalizes what the perceptive soul1b internalizes. That accounts for why the phantasm2b is subject to correction.
Narrative3b is a normal context that facilitates such synthesis and analysis. Clearly, the Creation Story of Genesis does not ask us to situate our origins using Aristotle’s four causes. Rather, chapter one of Genesis calls us to imagine a possibility. Our phantasms2b are snapshots of what we think is going on. Imagination1b labels the potential of situating content1b.
Here is a picture with a noteworthy title.
0045 So, Aquinas’s notion of original justice is compelling, especially when it comes to appreciating the Creation Story of Genesis as a sign of the evolutionary record.
Original justicemust occupy a slot on the perspective levelc.
Original justice2c is intimated in the initial two-level interscope pictured above.
Original justice2c touches base with primary causation on the content and situation levels.
Original justice2c illuminates the normal contexts3a,3b and the underlying possibilities1a,1b.
0046 But, before I proceed to these topics, I want to step back and look at the actualities2a,2b associated with secondary causation. These actualities compose a model for the way that humans sensibly think, as they go about their daily lives, without paying attention to the perspective in which they operate. I would go as far to say that humans do not evolve to directly represent actualities such as original justice2c. They evolve to live them2c.
In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, humans adapt to the potential of triadic relations1a, by constructing phantasms2bfrom sensations2a. Those sensations2a are stimulated by nature. They are also triggered by our own intentional manual brachial gestures2a. Our sensations2a are attuned to external and internal significations. Our phantasms2b construct internal objects, which our bodies react to.
So, when I encounter a turtle, my sensations and feelings construct an object, hey, this will cook up nicely, that causes my mouth to water. So, I gesture the words, here turtle, to a fellow teammate and my object2b becomes intersubjective.
0047 In sum, the content- and situation-level actualities2a,2b represent a portrait of the way humans are in the world.
Phantasms2b virtually situate sensations2a.
Here, I would like to pause an note that a scholastic diagram for how humans think appears in A Primer on The Individual in Community, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0048 Humans evolve to live in original justice2c.
Yet, we do not evolve to image or point to this perspective-level actuality2c.
We evolve to live within it2c.
0049 I now want to explore a picture of the human in the world.
It looks like this.
0050 What world am I writing about?
Is this world, the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
Is this world, our current Lebenswelt?
It must be both, even though our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0051 So, what is the difference between our current Lebenswelt and the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?
So far, the Biblical Creation Story tells me this. God declares that the Lebenswelt that we evolved in is good. So the primary causes, which are now empty slots, touch base with original justice.
But, once I pass Genesis 2:3, the Story of the Garden of Eden suggests that, with Adam’s rebellion, original justice is lost. It is just like a fairy tale, where an enchantment is lost, from one point of view, and insights are gained, from another point of view.
0052 So, the normal contexts3a,3b and possibilities1a,1b are empty for a reason.
In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, these actualities2a,2b address hominins in the world.
In our current Lebenswelt, these actualities2a,2b present a picture of human subjectivity.
0053 Human are sensible. They take the perspective level for granted. Only when the situation goes horribly wrong do humans question their perspective. Indeed, our current capacity to question our perspective suggests that our situation has already gone horribly wrong.
0054 So I ask, “What give rise to sensations2a?”
Sensations and feelings2a emerge from (and situate) the potential of ‘something’1a in the normal context of what is happening3a.
0055 What about phantasms2b?
Emotional responses2b emerge from (and situate) the potential of situating content1b (that is, our imagination1b) in the normal context of what the content means to me3b.
0056 Here is a picture of human subjectivity (as opposed to God’s subjectivity).
0057 Human subjectivity covers adaptations within the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The Lebenswelt that we evolved inassociates to original justice and the Edenic tree of life. This sensible structure for human subjectivity remains intact as it passes to our current Lebenswelt.
Yet, there is a difference between our originating and current Lebenswelts.
In the first, our hominin ancestors live within a perspective level that they cannot image or indicate with their hand (and later, hand-speech) talk. So, the question arises concerning how our ancestors experience the signs of an unnamable perspective-level actuality2c.
In the latter, we have a way of talking, speech-alone talk, that is primarily symbolic. Consequently, we can explicitly abstract and label the elements of our perspective-level actuality2c. Uh-oh. Does that suggest that we can generate our own perspective-level actualities, that don’t even come close to the originating original justice2c?
0058 With that question left on the table like an apparently dead turtle, allow me to introduce a picture of the content and situation levels along with the currently obscured perspective level for human subjectivity.