Monday, January 31, 2011

Bonald, Aristotle, Satan

Thus modern philosophy confounds, in man, the spirit with the body; in society, the sovereign with the subjects; in the universe, even God with nature; everywhere, the cause with its effects. It destroys all order, general and particular."--Louis de Bonald, again, very freely translated by me.--Louis de Bonald

Although Bonald probably didn't know his Aristotle, this passage is very Aristotelian. What is order? A positioning of before and after. What is the disorder he attacks? That which reverses this order.

One nevertheless sometimes must question the value of these long, almost schematic comparisons showing the consistency of the the modern worldview. Is the unity it displays real, or just a clever concatenation of similar words?



Well, the passage shows the reductionistic nature of the modern view; we like to break apart unities and try to explain them entirely by their parts. But why are we reductionistic? First, we can control things we can so reduce. Second, we can explain things we can so reduce. And in man's desire for complete control and complete knowledge, we try to shape our view of the universe into a shape where we can have this control and knowledge. This desire for control and for knowledge is, rather simply, the desire to be God.

Although modernity is quite an outbreak of that, sadly the desire is not unusual.

And the serpent said to the woman: "No, you shall not die the death."

"For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil."

And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat.

My understanding is that some interpret "knowing good and evil" to be knowing good and evil as God does--that is, as dictating, in some fashion, what is good and what is evil. And in the next fashion we see what causes her to eat the fruit--concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16).

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"Ainsi la philosophie moderne confond, dans l'homme, l'espirit avec les organes; dans la societe, le souverain avec les sujets; dans l'univers, Dieu meme avec la nature, partout la cause avec ses effets, et elle detruit tout ordre general et particulier."

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