(Originally Written Feb. 29, 2008 in the Journal).
Lachelier states that beauty is the only truth that is solid and worthy of the name 'truth'.
Taine held that beauty is the manifestation of the essential characteristic of any important idea more completely than it is expressed in reality.
Goyau taught that beauty is not a thing in the object itself, but is the blossoming of the thing onto that which it appears. Art, according to Goyau evokes the deepest consciousness of existence in us and the highest feelings and loftiest thoughts. "Art lifts men from his personal life into the universal life" (Maude, 105).
Cherbuliez held that art is an activity that:
1. Satisfies our innate love of forms
2. Endows form with ideas
3. Afords pleasure to our senses, heart and reason
He held that beauty exists in our souls, not in objects. He rejected absolute beauty.
Coster held that the ideas of the beautiful, the true and the good were innate to us. Those innate ideas illuminate our mind and are identical to God who is Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
Mario Pilo held that beauty is a product of our physical feelings. He held that the aim of art is pleasure, but this pleasure is necessarily highly moral.
Gevaert held art is the connection between the past and the religious ideal of the present.
Sam Pedlan stated that beauty is a manifestation of God. "There is no reality than God, there is no truth than God, there is no beauty than God" (Maude, 106).
Véron rids aesthetics of the idea of absolute beauty. He states art is a manifestation of emotions transmitted by a combination of forms, lines, colors, etc.
The English aesthetic theories state beauty is entirely dependent on the spectator.
Charles Darwin states beauty is not only a feeling of man, but to animals and the ancestors of man. Darwin held that the origin of music lies in the call of males to females for sex.
Herbert Spencer claimed the origin of art is play. Play is animation of real activity; so is art. He claimed that there are three sources of aesthetic pleasure:
1. That which exercises the faculties in the most complete way
2. The difference of stimuli which awakens a glow of agreeable feeling
3. THe practical revival of the same with special combinations
Todhunter claims beauty to be infinite loveliness which we perceive by reason and by enthusiasm of love. He claims that therefore, beauty depends on taste and there is no criterion for taste. He puts forth a cultural definition of beauty.
Grant Allen claims that there is a physical origin of beauty. He held that aesthetic pleasure comes from the contemplation of the beautiful, but the conception of beauty is a physiological process. He claimed that taste can be educated and that the educated men form the the taste of the next generation.
Ker claimed that beauty enables man to make part of the objective world intelligible to us. Art destroys the opposition between the one and the many between the law and its manifestation between the subject and the object.
Sully dismisses the concept of beauty altogether. He defines art as the production of some permanent object or passing action that supplies active enjoyment to the producer and passive pleasure to the spectator.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Chapter 3 (A)
(Originally Written Feb. 28, 2008 in the Journal)
Baumgarten (the founder of aesthetics) states the object of logical knowledge is truth and the object of aesthetic or sensual knowledge is beauty.
"Beauty is the perfect recognized through the senses; truth is the perfect perceived through reason; goodness is the perfect reached by moral will" (Maude, 92).
Baumgarten sees beauty as a correspondence of the relations of the parts to the parts and of the parts to the whole.
The aim of beauty he states, is to excite a desire.
Baumgarten's followers did nothing more than separate the pleasant from the beautiful.
Sulzer, Mendelssohn and Moritz claimed that the aim of art is not beauty, but goodness.
Johann Georg Sulzer held that which contains goodness can be called beautiful. He contended that the aim of humanity was welfare in social life. He intended to achieve this through moral education; and art, serves this purpose only.
Moses Mendelssohn held that art is the development of beauty until it becomes true and good. He held that the end of art is therefore, moral perfection.
While Baumgarten was concerned with the Perfect or the Absolute, Mendelssohn and Sulzer divided into three forms: truth, goodness and beauty. Beauty then merges back into both the good and the true.
Johann Winckelmann (a German art historian) said that only external beauty is the aim of art. Winckelmann separated beauty from goodness and divided it into three categories:
1. Beauty of form
2. Beauty of idea
3. Beauty of expression
He claimed that beauty of expression could only happen after both beauty of form and beauty of idea had first been accomplished. Winckelmann held that beauty of expression is the highest aim of art. He claimed that it was attained in antique art and therefore, modern art should be aimed at imitating ancient art.
The German aestheticians like Lessing, Herder, and Goethe understood beauty in the way of Winckelmann until Immanuel Kant changed it all.
Aesthetic theories arose in England, France, Italy and Holland that were also equally cloudy and contradictory The started their theories with a conception of the beautiful as existing absolutely and somehow it intermingled with goodness or at least had the same roots as it.
Shaftsbury held that which is beautiful is harmonious and proportionable, that which is harmonious and proportionable is true, and what is beautiful and true is agreeable and good. Shaftsbury held that beauty is only recognized by the mind. He held that God is the fundamental beauty and that beauty and goodness proceed from the same fount.
Hutchenson held that the aim of art is beauty. Beauty's essence consists in evoking a perception of uniformity and variety in us. Hutchenson held we are guided by an internal sense to what art is. He also held that in this internal sense one could contradict the ethical sense and that beauty does not always correspond with goodness and could actually run contrary to it.
Lord Kanes held that beauty is what is pleasant. Therefore, for him, beauty rests solely in taste.
Burke held that the sublime and the beautiful were the aim of art and have their origin in self-preservation and society. He also claimed that art is a means for the maintenance of the race through the individual. The first self-preservation (and the preservation of the individual) is through 1) nourishment, 2) defense, and 3) war. The second self-preservation (the preservation of the society) is achieved through 1) sex and 2) propagation. Self-defense and war are the source of the sublime. Sociability and the sex instinct are the source of beauty.
Yves Marie André held that there are three types of beauty:
1. Divine
2. Natural
3. Artificial
Charles Batteux held that art consists in imitating the beauty of nature. The end of art is enjoyment.
The French and the English held that taste decides what is beautiful. They also hold that the laws of taste cannot be determined.
Pagano held that art consists of uniting the beauties dispersed in nature. He held that the capacity to perceive these beauties is taste and the capacity to bring them together is artistic genius. He held that beauty is goodness made visible and that goodness is inner beauty.
Muratori stated that art is an egotistical sensation founded on the desire for the preservation of self and society.
Hemsterhuis, the Dutch writer, influenced the Germans, particularly Goethe. He held that beauty is that which gives the most pleasure. He held that enjoyment of the beautiful is the highest form of cognition to which men can attain.
Kant held that:
1. Man has a knowledge of nature outside him and himself in nature.
2. He seeks truth outside himself. He seeks goodness inside himself.
3. Seeking truth is pure reason. Seeking goodness is practical reason.
4. Aesthetic feeling is a judging capacity without reason and produces pleasure without desire.
5. Beauty is in subjective meaning. It is that which without reasoning and without practical advantages, nonetheless pleases.
Schiller held that the aim of art is beauty, which is the source of pleasure without practical advantage.
Fichte held that the perception of the beautiful proceeds from nature. Nature has two sides; 1) the sum of our limitations and 2) the sum of our free idealistic activity. In the sum of our limitations we see deformity. In the sum of our free idealistic activity we see beauty. He held that beauty therefore does not exist in the world, but in the beautiful soul (Schöner Geist). He also held that art is the manifestation of this beautiful soul and that the aim of art is the education of the whole man.
Schlegel held that beauty is understood too incompletely. He held that beauty is in art, nature and love. The truly beautiful is expressed by the union of art, nature and love.
Adam Müller held that there are two types of beauty:
1. General beauty which attracts people as the sun attracts the planets
2. Individual beauty which consists in the observer becoming like the sun and attracting beauty.
Thus, a world which harmonizes all contradictions is the highest beauty. He held that art is a reproduction of this universal harmony and that the highest art is the art of life.
Schelling held "art is the production or result of that conception of things by which the subject becomes its own object, or the object its own subject" (Maude, 99). He held that beauty is the perception of the infinite in the finite. The chief characteristic of works of art is unconscious infinity. Art unites the subjective and the objective, nature with reason and the unconscious with the conscious. He held that because of this, art is the highest means of knowledge. "Beauty is the contemplation of things in themselves as they exist in the prototype" (Maude, 99). The artist does not produce the beautiful by knowledge or skill, but by the beauty inside himself.
Krause held that positive beauty is the manifestation of the idea in an individual form; art is the actualization of the beauty existent in man's free spirit.
Hegel held that God manifests himself in nature and art as beauty. God manifests himself in two ways: on the object in nature and in the subject in spirit. Only the soul and what pertains to it is truly beautiful. The beauty of nature is only the reflection of a spiritual content. The sensuous manifestation of spirit is only appearance and this is the only reality of the beautiful. Art, religion and philosophy are means of being and expressing to the consciousness the deepest problems of humanity and the highest truths of the spirit. Hegel held that truth and beauty are one and the same. The idea as itself is truth. The idea, manifested externally, is beauty.
Weisse held that art is the introduction of the absolute spiritual reality of beauty into the external, dead, indifferent matter. Weisse held that the idea of truth entails a contradiction between the subjective and the objective and then the individual ego discerns the universal. Beauty is a reconciled truth.
In addition to Hegelian aesthetic theories there were contemporary and contradictory German theories like Herbart's and Schopenhauer's.
Hebart denied that there can be such a thing as beauty in itself. He held that there are certain relations we call beautiful and that art consists of finding these relations.
Schopenhauer held that the will objectifies itself in the world on various planes. The highest plane has the highest beauty but, each plane contains its own beauty.
Hartmann held that beauty lies in the seeming or "schien" produced by the artist. "The thing in itself is not beautiful, but it is transformed into beauty by the artist".
Schnaase held that there is no beauty in the world. Art gives what nature cannot. Beauty is disclosed then in art.
Kirchmann held there are six realms of history:
1. Knowledge
2. Wealth
3. Morality
4. Faith
5. Politics
6. Beauty - this is art.
Helmholtz held that beauty is manifested by the artist unconsciously and therefore cannot be analyzed.
Bergmann denied defining beauty objectively is possible. He held that beauty is held subjectively and therefore the job of aesthetics is to define what pleases whom.
Jungmann held that:
1. Beauty is a suprasensible quality of things.
2. Beauty produces pleasure by contemplation
3. Beauty is the foundation of love.
Cousin held beauty always has a moral foundation.
Jouffrey held that the visible world is the clothing by means of which we see beauty.
Lévêque held that beauty was a force behind nature and revealed itself in ordered energy.
Ravaisson held that beauty was the ultimate aim and purpose of the world.
Baumgarten (the founder of aesthetics) states the object of logical knowledge is truth and the object of aesthetic or sensual knowledge is beauty.
"Beauty is the perfect recognized through the senses; truth is the perfect perceived through reason; goodness is the perfect reached by moral will" (Maude, 92).
Baumgarten sees beauty as a correspondence of the relations of the parts to the parts and of the parts to the whole.
The aim of beauty he states, is to excite a desire.
Baumgarten's followers did nothing more than separate the pleasant from the beautiful.
Sulzer, Mendelssohn and Moritz claimed that the aim of art is not beauty, but goodness.
Johann Georg Sulzer held that which contains goodness can be called beautiful. He contended that the aim of humanity was welfare in social life. He intended to achieve this through moral education; and art, serves this purpose only.
Moses Mendelssohn held that art is the development of beauty until it becomes true and good. He held that the end of art is therefore, moral perfection.
While Baumgarten was concerned with the Perfect or the Absolute, Mendelssohn and Sulzer divided into three forms: truth, goodness and beauty. Beauty then merges back into both the good and the true.
Johann Winckelmann (a German art historian) said that only external beauty is the aim of art. Winckelmann separated beauty from goodness and divided it into three categories:
1. Beauty of form
2. Beauty of idea
3. Beauty of expression
He claimed that beauty of expression could only happen after both beauty of form and beauty of idea had first been accomplished. Winckelmann held that beauty of expression is the highest aim of art. He claimed that it was attained in antique art and therefore, modern art should be aimed at imitating ancient art.
The German aestheticians like Lessing, Herder, and Goethe understood beauty in the way of Winckelmann until Immanuel Kant changed it all.
Aesthetic theories arose in England, France, Italy and Holland that were also equally cloudy and contradictory The started their theories with a conception of the beautiful as existing absolutely and somehow it intermingled with goodness or at least had the same roots as it.
Shaftsbury held that which is beautiful is harmonious and proportionable, that which is harmonious and proportionable is true, and what is beautiful and true is agreeable and good. Shaftsbury held that beauty is only recognized by the mind. He held that God is the fundamental beauty and that beauty and goodness proceed from the same fount.
Hutchenson held that the aim of art is beauty. Beauty's essence consists in evoking a perception of uniformity and variety in us. Hutchenson held we are guided by an internal sense to what art is. He also held that in this internal sense one could contradict the ethical sense and that beauty does not always correspond with goodness and could actually run contrary to it.
Lord Kanes held that beauty is what is pleasant. Therefore, for him, beauty rests solely in taste.
Burke held that the sublime and the beautiful were the aim of art and have their origin in self-preservation and society. He also claimed that art is a means for the maintenance of the race through the individual. The first self-preservation (and the preservation of the individual) is through 1) nourishment, 2) defense, and 3) war. The second self-preservation (the preservation of the society) is achieved through 1) sex and 2) propagation. Self-defense and war are the source of the sublime. Sociability and the sex instinct are the source of beauty.
Yves Marie André held that there are three types of beauty:
1. Divine
2. Natural
3. Artificial
Charles Batteux held that art consists in imitating the beauty of nature. The end of art is enjoyment.
The French and the English held that taste decides what is beautiful. They also hold that the laws of taste cannot be determined.
Pagano held that art consists of uniting the beauties dispersed in nature. He held that the capacity to perceive these beauties is taste and the capacity to bring them together is artistic genius. He held that beauty is goodness made visible and that goodness is inner beauty.
Muratori stated that art is an egotistical sensation founded on the desire for the preservation of self and society.
Hemsterhuis, the Dutch writer, influenced the Germans, particularly Goethe. He held that beauty is that which gives the most pleasure. He held that enjoyment of the beautiful is the highest form of cognition to which men can attain.
Kant held that:
1. Man has a knowledge of nature outside him and himself in nature.
2. He seeks truth outside himself. He seeks goodness inside himself.
3. Seeking truth is pure reason. Seeking goodness is practical reason.
4. Aesthetic feeling is a judging capacity without reason and produces pleasure without desire.
5. Beauty is in subjective meaning. It is that which without reasoning and without practical advantages, nonetheless pleases.
Schiller held that the aim of art is beauty, which is the source of pleasure without practical advantage.
Fichte held that the perception of the beautiful proceeds from nature. Nature has two sides; 1) the sum of our limitations and 2) the sum of our free idealistic activity. In the sum of our limitations we see deformity. In the sum of our free idealistic activity we see beauty. He held that beauty therefore does not exist in the world, but in the beautiful soul (Schöner Geist). He also held that art is the manifestation of this beautiful soul and that the aim of art is the education of the whole man.
Schlegel held that beauty is understood too incompletely. He held that beauty is in art, nature and love. The truly beautiful is expressed by the union of art, nature and love.
Adam Müller held that there are two types of beauty:
1. General beauty which attracts people as the sun attracts the planets
2. Individual beauty which consists in the observer becoming like the sun and attracting beauty.
Thus, a world which harmonizes all contradictions is the highest beauty. He held that art is a reproduction of this universal harmony and that the highest art is the art of life.
Schelling held "art is the production or result of that conception of things by which the subject becomes its own object, or the object its own subject" (Maude, 99). He held that beauty is the perception of the infinite in the finite. The chief characteristic of works of art is unconscious infinity. Art unites the subjective and the objective, nature with reason and the unconscious with the conscious. He held that because of this, art is the highest means of knowledge. "Beauty is the contemplation of things in themselves as they exist in the prototype" (Maude, 99). The artist does not produce the beautiful by knowledge or skill, but by the beauty inside himself.
Krause held that positive beauty is the manifestation of the idea in an individual form; art is the actualization of the beauty existent in man's free spirit.
Hegel held that God manifests himself in nature and art as beauty. God manifests himself in two ways: on the object in nature and in the subject in spirit. Only the soul and what pertains to it is truly beautiful. The beauty of nature is only the reflection of a spiritual content. The sensuous manifestation of spirit is only appearance and this is the only reality of the beautiful. Art, religion and philosophy are means of being and expressing to the consciousness the deepest problems of humanity and the highest truths of the spirit. Hegel held that truth and beauty are one and the same. The idea as itself is truth. The idea, manifested externally, is beauty.
Weisse held that art is the introduction of the absolute spiritual reality of beauty into the external, dead, indifferent matter. Weisse held that the idea of truth entails a contradiction between the subjective and the objective and then the individual ego discerns the universal. Beauty is a reconciled truth.
In addition to Hegelian aesthetic theories there were contemporary and contradictory German theories like Herbart's and Schopenhauer's.
Hebart denied that there can be such a thing as beauty in itself. He held that there are certain relations we call beautiful and that art consists of finding these relations.
Schopenhauer held that the will objectifies itself in the world on various planes. The highest plane has the highest beauty but, each plane contains its own beauty.
Hartmann held that beauty lies in the seeming or "schien" produced by the artist. "The thing in itself is not beautiful, but it is transformed into beauty by the artist".
Schnaase held that there is no beauty in the world. Art gives what nature cannot. Beauty is disclosed then in art.
Kirchmann held there are six realms of history:
1. Knowledge
2. Wealth
3. Morality
4. Faith
5. Politics
6. Beauty - this is art.
Helmholtz held that beauty is manifested by the artist unconsciously and therefore cannot be analyzed.
Bergmann denied defining beauty objectively is possible. He held that beauty is held subjectively and therefore the job of aesthetics is to define what pleases whom.
Jungmann held that:
1. Beauty is a suprasensible quality of things.
2. Beauty produces pleasure by contemplation
3. Beauty is the foundation of love.
Cousin held beauty always has a moral foundation.
Jouffrey held that the visible world is the clothing by means of which we see beauty.
Lévêque held that beauty was a force behind nature and revealed itself in ordered energy.
Ravaisson held that beauty was the ultimate aim and purpose of the world.
Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art? Chapter 2
(Originally Written Feb. 28, 2008 in the Journal)
What is Art?
Chapter 2
Tolstoy is angered about the money that the government gives to the arts by taking money from the poor who never get to experience what their money goes to.
We must decide if art is so good and so important as to redeem the evil that art causes.
Art lies between the practically useful and all unsuccessful attempts at art.
The common answer to what is art? Is that which creates beauty. The problem with this answer is that it assumes the concept of beauty is fully known. But, it is obscure and cloudy.
In Russian, the word Krasotá (beauty) means only that which pleases the sight.
Could beauty be defined as "that which pleases the senses" so long as we include an ethical, moral and religious sense to the other five senses?
The concept of good (in Russian) entails the concept of beauty, but the concept of beauty (in Russian) does not entail the concept of good. In every other European language beauty and good are conceptually synonymous. But, these other languages now have no suitable word to express beauty of form.
What is Art?
Chapter 2
Tolstoy is angered about the money that the government gives to the arts by taking money from the poor who never get to experience what their money goes to.
We must decide if art is so good and so important as to redeem the evil that art causes.
Art lies between the practically useful and all unsuccessful attempts at art.
The common answer to what is art? Is that which creates beauty. The problem with this answer is that it assumes the concept of beauty is fully known. But, it is obscure and cloudy.
In Russian, the word Krasotá (beauty) means only that which pleases the sight.
Could beauty be defined as "that which pleases the senses" so long as we include an ethical, moral and religious sense to the other five senses?
The concept of good (in Russian) entails the concept of beauty, but the concept of beauty (in Russian) does not entail the concept of good. In every other European language beauty and good are conceptually synonymous. But, these other languages now have no suitable word to express beauty of form.
Notes on Tolstoy, What is Art, Chapter 1
(Originally Written Feb. 28, 2008 in the Journal)
What is Art?
Chapter 1
Much is spent to pursue art, including the sacrifice of the lives of men.
People are turned into specialists by numbering them to every other important aspect of life.
Is art for art's sake worth all the cruelty and malice it takes?
Art has turned men against one another. Different schools disown other schools or all others. Each member of a school is so devoted to his own personal fancy that the very definition of art is muddled.
Can we allow a thing we cannot even define to swallow so many lives?
What is Art?
Chapter 1
Much is spent to pursue art, including the sacrifice of the lives of men.
People are turned into specialists by numbering them to every other important aspect of life.
Is art for art's sake worth all the cruelty and malice it takes?
Art has turned men against one another. Different schools disown other schools or all others. Each member of a school is so devoted to his own personal fancy that the very definition of art is muddled.
Can we allow a thing we cannot even define to swallow so many lives?
Notes on Tolstoy, On Art (1895-7) C
(Originally Written Feb. 28, 2008 in the Journal).
A work of art will be perfect when its content is important and significant to all men and therefore, moral. The expression will be clear and intelligible to all and therefore, beautiful. The author's relation to his work will be sincere and therefore, true.
Imperfect works will meet each of these criteria to a lesser degree.
Imperfect works will fall under one of three categories:
1. Those with important content
2. Those with extraordinary beauty
3. Those with heartfelt sincerity
The young artists tend to have their work stand out for sincerity. Among older artists their work stands out for content. Laborious artists tend to have their work stand out for beauty.
All works of art, and in general, all mental activities are appraised and are appraisable based on these three fundamental qualities.
Art is correctly evaluated only when all three conditions are taken into account. Art is incorrectly evaluated on one or two categories, but not the third.
Evaluating art on only one category lowers the general level of what is demanded of art.
The prevalent theories of aesthetics each err on focusing on only one category.
Tendencious art theory accept duly the moral aspect of the piece. It praises solely based on the content. Art for art's sake only considers art based on beauty and form. The realistic theory only considers the author's relation to the piece. Each of these theories forgets a fundamental part of the creation of art: The artist's ability to see something new and important.
In order for a man to see new things that are also important things, the artist must be morally enlightened.
An artist cannot be selfish.
If an artist can see what is new and important he will find the form to express it and he will sincerely do so.
The artist must work solely to satisfy his inner needs and not to satisfy external forces.
True works of art stem from revelation which we cannot fully grasp and arise from the soul of the artist. This art, when expressed, light up the path on which humanity progresses.
A work of art will be perfect when its content is important and significant to all men and therefore, moral. The expression will be clear and intelligible to all and therefore, beautiful. The author's relation to his work will be sincere and therefore, true.
Imperfect works will meet each of these criteria to a lesser degree.
Imperfect works will fall under one of three categories:
1. Those with important content
2. Those with extraordinary beauty
3. Those with heartfelt sincerity
The young artists tend to have their work stand out for sincerity. Among older artists their work stands out for content. Laborious artists tend to have their work stand out for beauty.
All works of art, and in general, all mental activities are appraised and are appraisable based on these three fundamental qualities.
Art is correctly evaluated only when all three conditions are taken into account. Art is incorrectly evaluated on one or two categories, but not the third.
Evaluating art on only one category lowers the general level of what is demanded of art.
The prevalent theories of aesthetics each err on focusing on only one category.
Tendencious art theory accept duly the moral aspect of the piece. It praises solely based on the content. Art for art's sake only considers art based on beauty and form. The realistic theory only considers the author's relation to the piece. Each of these theories forgets a fundamental part of the creation of art: The artist's ability to see something new and important.
In order for a man to see new things that are also important things, the artist must be morally enlightened.
An artist cannot be selfish.
If an artist can see what is new and important he will find the form to express it and he will sincerely do so.
The artist must work solely to satisfy his inner needs and not to satisfy external forces.
True works of art stem from revelation which we cannot fully grasp and arise from the soul of the artist. This art, when expressed, light up the path on which humanity progresses.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Early thoughts on the Problem of Evil
(Originally written February 27, 2008 in Book 22)
Evil then exists in a vacuum. This vacuum is created by the self-deprivation of God's ultimate goodness. Evil is the cause of sin. Sin therefore exists in a vacuum.
Evil then exists in a vacuum. This vacuum is created by the self-deprivation of God's ultimate goodness. Evil is the cause of sin. Sin therefore exists in a vacuum.
As a result of sin, Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden (which was Heaven on Earth). Earth is corrupted now along with all of its inhabitants, even the beings and created things without free will. Earth is a vacuum, void of God's goodness. Thus, evil and sin exist in the world.
God removed his ultimate goodness in the world by removing himself from Earth and breaking a "physical" communion and vindicating ultimate righteousness and ultimate holiness. However, all of creation, that is not a free-will being is still a testament to God's creative power. They work on instinct and still taste in His ultimate goodness, yet they are in this vacuum of the world and are subsequently subject to imperfections seen as mutations or adaptations. In this world, the only free will beings are humans. They still revel in the remnants of God's ultimate goodness because they are made in the image of God.
Imagine it this way. God is the sun and man is the moon. The sun gives a perfect light to the world. It illuminates the world, heats it, and sustains life. God illuminates the world and sustains all life in it. Hypothetically imagine that, the sun were much closer to the Earth, so close that it lit up the entirety of the world all at once, without burning it up. This is how God was before the Fall. He dwelled on Earth and walked on the Garden. As a result of man's rebellion God removed himself (theoretically the sun returned to its original place). However the sun still illuminates part of the earth part of the time and sustains it continually. So too does God illuminate some creation some of the time, but sustain it all of the time. Since the world is now devoid of God's ultimate goodness it has been corrupted and at times, God's creation, namely man, cannot see his illumination or feel his sustaining power. The sun too is blocked by imperfection in the world (clouds) clouds can partially block or fully block the light of the Sun, but cannot stop it from sustaining the world. So too can the state of fallen creation partially or fully block the illumination of God, but cannot prevent God's ability to sustain life.
Man, being created in the image of God, has some of God's attributes and subsequently some of his abilities, but not all. God is to man as the Sun is to the moon. God is completely perfect whereas man was (prior to the Fall) perfect, yet a fragmented perfection. Man reflects the perfect image of God. God (and the Sun) are unaffected by the imperfections like Evil and sin (for the Sun oncoming asteroids or comets). They cannot hurt him. Sin and Evil have smashed into humanity like the asteroids and comets into the moon causing both man and the moon to be scarred and crater filled. These distortions have caused man's reflection of God (or the moon's reflection of the Sun) to be even less complete than a reflection already.
Class Notes on Spinoza and Leibniz
(Originally written February 27, 2006 in Book 22)
Class Notes: Spinoza
God
-has infinite attributes through which his essence can be conceived, but only two of them are knowable by man: mind and body
- mind and body are different but not of different substances
- god is substances. substance has infinite attributes, those attributes have infinite modes of being
-double aspect monism (one substance, two attributes)
-self=the two attributes of god (mind and body) united
Spinoza = 1 Substance (god)
Descartes = 2 Substances (mind and body)
Linehan - a set of (very high) of created substances. This tiny sub molecular substances form together to create a physical object or possibly could the elements be the smallest "substance" and that everything that is, is created by the combining of them. This set number of substances combined in various ways combine with other combinations that combine again, again and so forth to form complex objects like human beings.
Leibniz (1646-1716)
Leibniz accused Newton (and vice-versa) of stealing his invention of Calculus.
Leibniz was an overall genius.
Leibniz was a Christian (pious Lutheran)
Sought to unify the Christian Church and all of Europe to a single state.
Epistemology - distinguishes between two types of truth:
1) Truths of reason (a priori). True in all possible worlds.
2) Truths of fact (a posteriori). True in this world and other possible worlds, but not all.
Primary truths (first truths)
-They fall into both categories
Primary truths of fact
ex. "I exist", "something other than me exists"
True proposition: one whose predicate is contained in the subject, "a triangle is three-sided", "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC"
Leibniz: 2 Sources of Knowledge
1) Senses
- Gives us fluctuating data
- Perceive regularities, not necessities
2) Innate ideas
- From the mind's reflecting on its own operations
Examples: unity, plurality
- Equality, differences, etc.
- "Natural inclinations"
- Contra Locke (mind is not tabula rasa)
- Mind is like "veined marble"
Class Notes: Spinoza
God
-has infinite attributes through which his essence can be conceived, but only two of them are knowable by man: mind and body
- mind and body are different but not of different substances
- god is substances. substance has infinite attributes, those attributes have infinite modes of being
-double aspect monism (one substance, two attributes)
-self=the two attributes of god (mind and body) united
Spinoza = 1 Substance (god)
Descartes = 2 Substances (mind and body)
Linehan - a set of (very high) of created substances. This tiny sub molecular substances form together to create a physical object or possibly could the elements be the smallest "substance" and that everything that is, is created by the combining of them. This set number of substances combined in various ways combine with other combinations that combine again, again and so forth to form complex objects like human beings.
Leibniz (1646-1716)
Leibniz accused Newton (and vice-versa) of stealing his invention of Calculus.
Leibniz was an overall genius.
Leibniz was a Christian (pious Lutheran)
Sought to unify the Christian Church and all of Europe to a single state.
Epistemology - distinguishes between two types of truth:
1) Truths of reason (a priori). True in all possible worlds.
2) Truths of fact (a posteriori). True in this world and other possible worlds, but not all.
Primary truths (first truths)
-They fall into both categories
Primary truths of fact
ex. "I exist", "something other than me exists"
True proposition: one whose predicate is contained in the subject, "a triangle is three-sided", "Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC"
Leibniz: 2 Sources of Knowledge
1) Senses
- Gives us fluctuating data
- Perceive regularities, not necessities
2) Innate ideas
- From the mind's reflecting on its own operations
Examples: unity, plurality
- Equality, differences, etc.
- "Natural inclinations"
- Contra Locke (mind is not tabula rasa)
- Mind is like "veined marble"
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