[MD] The case for an Uncreated Source

[Ham Priday]

Platt, Marsha, and all art lovers --


While searching the net for references to "Uncreated Source" by authors 
other than myself, I came across a fascinating essay called "Aesthetic 
Arguments for the Existence of God" by Peter Williams.  Quoting  St. 
Augustine, J.P. Moreland, C.S. Lewis, and others, he not only treats 
aesthetics much as Pirsig treats Quality, which will please most of you, he 
argues convincingly that the love of beauty is both  "epistemological" and 
"ontological" evidence of a primary aesthetic source, which is sure to 
please the artists in this group.

Before quoting Williams, I'd also like to present an argument to the 
"cause-and-effect" logicians and number-crunchers here who deny a primary 
source on the ground that it leads to an infinite regression of causes.  I 
consider it important, because Pirsig does not really address the primary 
source issue in his metaphysics.  Although I wish I could take credit for 
it, I've copied it from the Evolution vs. Creation (EvC) Forum:

"Asking 'what came before the Universe' is a nonsense question because it 
attempts to use the parameters of the Universe to apply to things outside of 
the Universe. To continue the analogy, within the number set there are only 
numbers, no letters, and the question asks specifically for a number - in 
the question of a 'cause' for the Universe, you're asking for an event in a 
time coordinate that doesn't exist.

"It's true that existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive, 
either/or, black/white binary descriptors.  But you have to ask the right 
question to get the right answer.  The question 'what caused the Universe' 
is the wrong question, because it requires things like 'events' and 'time' 
that don't necessarily apply in the same way 'outside' of our Universe.

"What number comes before 0 in the number set?

"That question doesn't make sense.  You could say that no number exists 
before 0 in the number set.

"Does anything outside of the number set exist?

"Yes.  There's an A."

Okay, folks.  The following excerpts from Williams' essay are especially for 
Platt and Marsha (and maybe even Bodvar).  Although none of us is arguing 
for theism, it will be interesting to get your reactions vis-a-vis Pirsig's 
Quality thesis.

"The thought is that, since naturalistic explanations of the world give no a 
priori reason to expect beauty to arise in either the biological or 
non-biological realm, a theistic explanation, which can invoke teleology to 
explain this fact, gains a measure of credibility.

"This consideration has readily persuaded men of ability and learning. . . 
that the original `idea' is not to be found in this sphere, where it is 
shown to be subject to change. . . And so they saw that there must be some 
being in which the original form resides, unchangeable, and therefore 
incomparable.  And they rightly believed that it is there that the origin of 
things is to be found, in the uncreated, which is the source of all 
creation.

"This same search for that transcendent something sensed within or through 
aesthetic experience was a golden-thread running through the life of C.S. 
Lewis:

'If a man diligently followed this desire, pursuing the false objects until 
their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoning them, he must come at 
last to the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some 
object that is never fully given. . . in our present mode of. . . 
experience. This desire was. . . as the seige Perilous in Arthur's castle - 
the chair in which only one could sit. And if nature makes nothing in vain, 
the One who can sit in this chair must exist.'

As a literary scholar, Lewis picked up on the Romantic term Sehnucht to 
describe a family of emotional responses to the world (melancholy, wonder, 
yearning, etc.) which are linked by a sense of displacement or alienation 
from the object of desire. `Sehnucht', writes Corbin Scott Carnell, `may be 
said to represent just as much a basic theme in literature as love.'  The 
closest English translation for Sehnucht is probably `nostalgic longing', 
and it arises when experience of something within the world awakens a desire 
for something beyond what the natural world can offer as a corresponding 
object of desire.  Sehnucht therefore directs our attention towards the 
transcendent, that which `goes beyond' our present experience.  The power of 
fairy-tales lie in their ability to transport us into a world transparently 
imbued with Sehnucht.  Peter Kreeft considers music, noting how the ancients 
attributed it to gods, as perhaps the most powerful producer of Sehnucht. 
However, Lewis suggests that:

"This Sehnucht points, then, towards the existence of a supernatural 
happiness.  Is there truly any reason to suppose that reality offers 
satisfaction to this desire?  Being hungry doesn't prove that we will get 
fed.  True; but such a criticism misses the point.  A man's hunger does not 
prove that he will get any food; he might die of starvation.  But surely 
hunger proves that a man comes from a race which needs to eat and inhabits a 
world where edible substances exist: `In the same way,' says Lewis, `though 
I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I 
shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists 
and that some men will.' "

The complete essay can be found at 
http://www.quodlibet.net/articles/williams-aesthetic.shtml..

Happy reading!

--Ham