[MD] The case for an Uncreated Source

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hi Ham,

Thanks for the reference to the essay by Peter Williams. Unfortunately, I 
was unable to bring up the site you indicated at the end of your post. But 
from the excerpt you presented I think I got the flavor of his argument. It 
reminded me of similar thoughts penned by Edgar Alan Poe that began:

"An immortal instinct, deep within the human spirit, is a sense of the 
beautiful. That is what administers our delight in life. But there is still 
something in the distance which we know of, but are unable fully to 
attain."

There's no doubt in my mind that Pirsig's "Quality" is comparable to a 
"transcendent something sensed within or through aesthetic experience" 
except that instead of being a special kind of experience sensed only on  
occasions of "delight," it is experience itself, always present -- "an 
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum." Thus, it is not something 
uncommon but rather our everyday normal awareness. That in itself is 
miracle enough for me without positing the existence of a mysterious  
"supernatural happiness," although one can always hope that such 
awaits.

Best regards,
Platt


On 30 Jul 2009 at 14:50, Ham Priday wrote:

> 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