15 Divine Forms
Living in Alaska, driving every day through the most magnificent alpine vistas in the world, I, as an artist, and as an aesthetician, must necessarily ask several questions:
1. what does all this beauty mean?
2. is this natural beauty more beautiful than man-made environments—like streetlights, parking lots, Walmarts, and condominiums?
3. should an artist seriously attempt to re-create the wonders of nature as an end in itself, or is human expression biased in favor of a different perspective on reality entirely?
4. is the imitation of natural forms the key to the most profound human expressions, or is there more to it?
5. how does natural beauty refer to spiritual truth?
This presentation will explore the subject of form in nature and in spirit; it will also attempt to answer a few of these questions. The most important questions are:
1. must spirit express itself in some form or other, i.e., can the restrictions of material reality contain the essence of spirit? in other words, does EXPRESSION of spirit have to be contained by a coherent form, or may spiritual truth be imparted to us instantaneously, like angel thought? and
2. does spiritual truth manifested through material forms alter the forms, or do the forms alter the truth?
These are age-old questions pondered by all the great philosophers, perhaps beginning (in recorded history) with Aristotle.
From Wikipedia we read:
Aristotelian forms
“Aristotle was the first to distinguish between matter (hyle) and form (morphe). For Aristotle, matter is the undifferentiated primal element: it is rather that from which things develop than a thing in itself. The development of particular things from this germinal matter consists in differentiation, the acquiring of particular forms of which the knowable universe consists (cf. Formal cause). The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (De anima, ii. 2). Thus the entelechy of the body is the soul. The origin of the differentiation process is to be sought in a prime mover, i.e. pure form entirely separate from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter.”
There are several nuggets here right off the bat: the idea that matter is somehow a primal element whose ideal realization (its entelechy) is the soul. This concept pretty much lays the groundwork for everything else that is to come in this lecture: natural forms come into existence through the impulse of the prime mover acting upon matter. I love the sentence:
“pure form entirely separate from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own activity but by the impulse which its own absolute existence excites in matter.”
The idea of an "absolute existence" exciting activity in matter, is such vivid and resonant language, it makes us feel the impulse of the Father radiating through the very muscles of our bodies.
Commenting on this principle, Boethius, in his The Consolation of Philosophy (520-562 A.D), has improved the language of Aristotle by labeling this undifferentiated primal element, “the unchanging mind of God”:
“The engendering of all things, the whole advance of all changing natures, and every motion and progress in the world, draw their causes, their order, and their forms from the allotment of the unchanging mind of God, which lays manifold restrictions on all action from the calm fortress of its own directness. Such restrictions are called Providence when they can be seen to lie in the very simplicity of divine understanding; but they were called Fate in old times when they were viewed with reference to the objects which they moved or arranged. It will easily be understood that these two are very different if the mind examines the force of each.It’s interesting that the description of the dualistic nature of human reality has so many variously articulated opposites; we have “body and soul” “finite and infinite”, Aristotole gives us “matter and form”, Boethius gives us “fate and providence”, and, further down we will hear Martin Luther say, "essence implies a condition, while its expression implies action". How many ways are there to express this dualism, which seems to be deeply embedded in the PROCESS of human consciousness? Notice how our consciousness oscillates between two opposite states, just like the wave/particle behavior of photons described by the new particle physics. Notice, also, that the unchanging mind of God imposes “manifold restrictions on all action”. Here is made the first mention of form as a finite component present in an infinite process of becoming. I have read, many times, the following quote from C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra:
For Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all; while Fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order. Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be, even however infinite: when they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, Fate sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence."
"To those high creatures whose activity builds what we call nature, nothing is "natural." From their stations the essential arbitrariness (so to call it) of every actual creation is ceaselessly visible; for them there are no basic assumptions: all springs with the willful beauty of a jest or a tune from that miraculous moment of self-limitation wherein the Infinite, rejecting a myriad possibilities, throws out of Himself the positive elected invention."So, no matter how much we focus on NATURAL FORMS, we always we come back to the idea of the infinite, incarnate in a finite material package. It must be that the INTERPLAY of divine forms and natural forms creates human expression. Indeed, it may well turn out that: CONSCIOUSNESS itself is a bi-product of the COMBINATION of corporeal and incorporeal elements. Perhaps this synthesis is not Pure Consciousness, but is responsible, merely, for EGO CONSCIOUSNESS. Then again, how we separate the Infinite Father, the Prime Mover, the God with No Name, from the Father of Creation, He who not only IS but DOES?
In spite of the vast cavalcade of dualistic pairs, be they what they may, there are, nevertheless, plenty of three-part descriptions of this continuum. In I.C. Sharma's book, Cayce, Karma, and Reincarnation, we read:
"The second category of creation, the human institution, stands midway between the macrocosmic and microcosmic categories. It has been called Adhyatman, or the category of soul, a combination of the infinite, incorporeal element of pure spirit, and the corporeal element of physical energy."
As we have noted several times, the scholastics of the 1200s attempted to incorporate Greek philosophical principles into their church doctrine. On the subject “matter” the following summarizes the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas in his The Power of God:
“According to Thomas the soul is not matter, not even incorporeal or spiritual matter. If it were, it would not be able to understand universals, which are immaterial. A receiver receives things according to the receiver's own nature, so for soul (receiver) to understand (receive) universals, it must have the same nature as universals. Yet, any substance that understands universals may not be a matter-form composite. So, humans have rational souls, which are abstract forms independent of the body. But a human being is one existing, single material substance that comes from body and soul: that is what Thomas means when he writes that "something one in nature can be formed from an intellectual substance and a body", and "a thing one in nature does not result from two permanent entities unless one has the character of substantial form and the other of matter.
The soul is a "substantial form"; it is a part of a substance, but it is not a substance by itself.”
(This is what Aristotle said.)
“Nevertheless, the soul exists separately from the body, and continues, after death, in many of the capacities we think of as human. The theory of substantial forms asserts that forms (or ideas) organize matter and make it intelligible. Substantial form is what makes a thing a member of the species to which it belongs, and substantial form is also the structure or configuration that provides the object with the abilities that make the object what it is. For humans, those abilities are those of the rational animal.”
Note the word “intelligible” in the preceding paragraph. We cannot fail to see the connection between “intelligible” and “intelligence”. Many times we have used the term “divine intelligence” to refer to the abstract understanding of higher dimensions. Intelligence resides in the domain of higher mind, and yet we humans are able to experience the truths conveyed by divine intelligence into the physical. This is one more example of how the Christ Consciousness bridges the gap between Man and God; furthermore it is the SENSE of a priori knowledge that seems to us to be “intelligent”. By SENSING a priori knowledge, I mean this:
A priori knowledge is kind of like an atomic level of truth--it cannot be stripped down into any smaller or simpler components. 2 + 2 = 4 because, on a lofty level of higher mind, Somebody said so. To SENSE 2 + 2 = 4, our logic systems must shut down, and we simply know.
Back to Wikipedia:
Thoughts on afterlife and resurrection
“A grasp of Aquinas's psychology is essential for understanding his beliefs around the afterlife and resurrection. Thomas, following Church doctrine, accepts that the soul continues to exist after the death of the body. Because he accepts that the soul is the form of the body, then he also must believe that the human being, like all material things, is form-matter composite."
Form-matter composite is a key concept. If a human being is matter/form composite, what, then, must be the creations of man, but reflections or representations of his own matter/form composite nature? The laws of Nature decree that: that which is created from Consciousness must echo the form of the Creator. God created us in His likeness; we create our expressions in our own likeness, which is, in turn, God's Likeness. We live in a house of mirrors, our images reflected into Infinity.
Back to Wikipedia:
“Substantial form (the human soul) configures prime matter (the physical body) and is the form by which a material composite belongs to that species it does; in the case of human beings, that species is rational animal. So, a human being is a matter-form composite that is organized to be a rational animal. Matter cannot exist without being configured by form, but form can exist without matter—which allows for the separation of soul from body."
[Sidebar: I wish to emphasize the thought:
"form can exist without matter"This sentence suggests, once again, that there is such a thing as Divine Form, whose identity is UNDEFINED by human thought, but resonant in the human higher mind. Perhaps the whole idea of Divine Form is an oxymoron; or perhaps Divine Form is just one more discrete level on the Infinite Continuum of the Divine Cosmography culminating in the Infinitely Formless Father.
Back to Wikipedia:]
"Aquinas says that the soul shares in the material and spiritual worlds, and so has some features of matter and other, immaterial, features (such as access to universals). The human soul is different from other material and spiritual things; it is created by God, but also only comes into existence in the material body.
Human beings are material, but the human person can survive the death of the body through continued existence of the soul, which persists. The human soul straddles the spiritual and material worlds, and is both a configured subsistent form as well as a configurer of matter into that of a living, bodily human. Because it is spiritual, the human soul does not depend on matter and may exist separately. Because the human being is a soul-matter composite, the body has a part in what it is to be human. Perfected human nature consists in the human dual nature, embodied and intellecting."
Of particular interest is the sentence already commented on above:
“Matter cannot exist without being configured by form, but form can exist without matter—which allows for the separation of soul from body.”
An interesting question, (not unlike the question of whether a tree, falling in the forest with on one to hear, makes a sound) is whether music can exist without the physical vibration of sound waves, or without physical ears to hear it. Certainly, in a case like that of the deaf Beethoven, music can exist on an abstract level, and the inner ear of the musician is just as acute as the physical ear, if not moreso. However, is the music, we hear inside, a truly abstract intelligence, or is it just muscle memory reliving experiences well-learned before we became deaf. Could Helen Keller be taught to hear music with her inner ear if her physical ears had never been trained? She reports that she can hear music by touching the speaker, and she can even distinguish between the flutes and the violas! Is the abstract sense of music available to those with no prior experience of sound, or is the natural form necessary to impart music’s higher truths?
The William Blake poem The Divine Image ends thus:
“For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And love, the human form divine, and
Peace the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.”
Blake has no doubt that Divine Forms express themselves in altruistic MOODS like, "Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace". Furthermore, he has no doubt that summoning these moods, by the ego, may give comfort.
From Wikipedia:
Summary
“In The Divine Image, the figures of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love are presented by Blake as the four virtues which are objects of prayer in moments of distress, God being praised for his lovely caring and blessing to comfort man. The four virtues are depicted by the author as essential not only in God, but also in man; as Mercy is found in the human heart and Pity in the human face. Similarly, abstract qualities like Peace and Love exist in the human form, becoming the divine form and body of man and resembling God's substantial virtues. Consequently, Blake not only introduces a similarity between the divine image of a benevolent God and the human form but also the concept of the creation of man after God's divine constituency.”
I wish to emphasize the sentence:
“Similarly, abstract qualities like Peace and Love exist in the human form, becoming the divine form and body of man and resembling God's substantial virtues.”
Thus, we, once again, encounter the idea that the human form may become divine in its RESEMBLANCE to God’s substantial virtues. We are wending toward the point that a resemblance to God and an imitation of Nature may wind up being the same thing.
The question of artistic "imitation of nature" has occupied artists for centuries, and there is, by now, pretty general agreement that the closer an artwork comes to an imitation of nature, the more successful the artwork. As Shakepeare's Hamlet says to the players:
"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
The imitation of natural forms is indeed the key to the most profound HUMAN expressions, but, at a certain point there is a quantum leap revealing that there is more to it--that is to say, natural forms may sometimes transcend the limits of the physical in terms of symmetry, and organicism, becoming super-intelligent expressions. The structure and dimensions, of these divine forms, exist beyond the knowable limits of natural forms. Nevertheless, imitation of nature is a very true way of IMITATING OURSELVES; and since self-expression is what art is all about, that is a pretty important point.
All this is coming to the conclusion that we, and all our works, are expressions of God--that is to say, we are God's artworks. Hence, the artworks filter down from God to us in stages, each nested one inside another, like those Russian Matryoshka Dolls; but no matter at what level of manifestation it appears, it essentially, and eternally, comes from God. The clarity in the beauty of nature is that it is matter formed by the impulse of the Father without recourse to human consciousness. Art allows the eyes of God to peek around the corner of matter into the innermost depths of human beings.
From The Doctrine of the Lord--New Church Views of the Lord, Mar 29, 2014, by Richard De Charms, we read:
“Existence does not exist of or by itself. Note: the Divine is Infinite and Eternal in itself from which all things are. Existence is not in the Divine, but from the Divine. Existence is the external manifestation of the essence or esse, which is substance and form.
While Divine Essence is only One and the only substance, and is of only one form from which all essences, substances and forms are derived (created).
Divine Essence is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom and is indivisible.
Celestial and spiritual love is the very being (esse) of the man who is being regenerated, but the Rational and the Sensitive, when it is imbued with that love, is his existing. What exists in this world (universe) is natural and of natural substances and is in all and every form. Yet, man is more than just of or from natural substances. He also has affections and thoughts, which are not of or from natural substances, but are of spiritual substances.
A man’s affections and thoughts direct (rule) his natural body. Explanation: man has an external and an internal or a natural and a spiritual body and mind. In this world, in his natural body, is his external mind, and when he comes into the spiritual world he is in his spiritual body and mind. However, his mind, both the external and internal, is of spiritual substances. This is because the mind leads and directs (rules) his natural body, while he is in this world.
The ground of unitarian error in conceiving of God lies in an undue exercise of a particular property of the human mind called abstraction. The human mind can abstract color cloth from the countenance from the bony and fleshy visage, intelligence from the eye, affection from the thought, and the whole mind of man from ITS spiritual or materials embodiment; but in fact these things do not and cannot exist abstractly.
The human mind has the power of abstracting, in thought, the attributes and qualities of things from the things in which they inhere, in nature or in fact. THUS no such abstraction exists in the human mind. In fact, length or breadth or depth nowhere exists abstractly, from the matter in which it inheres universally. So there is no such thing as an abstract principle. Such a notion is a mere thought or notion of the mind in its apprehension of the attributes and qualities of the natural things.
The human mind can give a perfect existence to its own abstractions and its imaginative faculty esta. Hence, the mind can conceive of essence abstractly from form or cause from effect or end from cause or mind from body. And it can conceive of an abstract divine mind, can conceive of a divine essence abstractly from a divine form, though in the nature of things no such abstraction can or ever did exist."
[Sidebar: this is a very interesting phrase:
"In the nature of things no such abstraction can or ever did exist."
Emphasize "NATURE OF THINGS". The sentence suggests that Divine Forms and Natural Forms are, in some sense, incompatible. Perhaps this is a reference to the idea of the two faces or a vase:
This image is famous for declaring that you can see the faces, and you can sees the vase, but you can't see both at the same time. It must be the same for Divine forms in opposition to Natural forms. To be sure, the Natural forms often break a trail up to the experience of Divine form. Perhaps De Charms is saying that we cannot experience form outside the physical dimension, not because we are unable to sense the Infinite, but merely as an article of proper epistemology. This idea, that there is no such thing as a REAL abstraction, is linked to the question of whether spiritual truth manifested through material forms alter the forms, or do the forms alter the truth? Truth on which level of the continuum, which forms?
In one of my favorite movies, Hero, Dustin Hoffman explains about truth to his young son:
"You remember when I said how I was gonna explain about life, buddy? Well the thing about life is, it gets weird. People are always talking ya about truth. Everybody always knows what the truth is, like it was toilet paper or somethin', and they got a supply in the closet. But what you learn, as you get older, is there ain't no truth. All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak."
Ah! Vanity thy name is Bullshit!
We will get deeper into this next week.
Back to De Charms:]
"The word is the agent of God Which is with God,
in the beginning of every work created, and Which thinks it not robbery to be equal with God. God is the divine essence, the word is the divine form. Anything hence is made not by the divine essence abstractly, but by the divine essence in the divine form, that is: by the divine form from the divine essence, or by the word from God.
Now Jesus Christ is the word of God, that is the Son of God, the form of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, the express image of His substance by Whom as the apostle Paul EXPRESSLY says further, “I made the worlds.” THEREFORE the divine essence nowhere exists out of the divine form. Consequently the divine essence or God exists in Jesus Christ and nowhere out of him. And the unitarian conception that God the father exists, as a Simple principle of unity out of Jesus Christ, is a mere exercise of the human mind's power of abstracting, in thought, an essence from a form Which exists nowhere so abstracted in nature or in fact.”
The following is from An Open Life - Joseph Campbell in Conversation With Michael Toms:
TOMS: Human beings throughout history have been searching for their source. How do you see today’s search?
CAMPBELL: I think our search is somewhat encumbered by our concept of God. God as a final term is a personality in our tradition, so that breaking past that "personality" into the transpersonal, whether within one’s self or in conceiving of the form beyond forms – although one can’t even say form – is blocked by our orthodox training. This is so drummed into us, that the word "God" refers to a personality. Now, there have been very important mystics who have broken past that. For instance, there is Meister Eckhart, whose line I like to quote:
"The ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God."
TOMS: Many people seem to be coming to the search for God.
CAMPBELL: Well, that’s the great thing about it. As soon as you smash the local provincial god-form, God comes back. And that’s what Nietzsche meant when he wrote that God is dead. Nietzsche was himself not an atheist in the crude sense; he was a man of enormous religious spirit and power. What he meant was that the God who’s fixed and defined in terms appropriate for 2,000 years ago is no longer so today. And of course the words of Meister Eckhart give an earlier variation of Nietzsche’s remark. So the concept of God beyond God is in our tradition.
There is no absolute truth — each truth has its particular mission at a certain time. Truth evolves, as does everything else in the world. It is the form of the divine Spirit, but the divine Spirit has many forms. If we thoroughly imbue ourselves with this characteristic of truth, we shall acquire a quite different relation to it. We shall say: Indeed we live in the truth, but it can take many forms."
The following is from Martin Luther's Postil: Volume I :
"Christ was in the form of God; that is, both the essence and the bearing of Deity were his. The phrase "form of God" does not receive the same interpretation from all. Some understand Paul to refer to the divine essence and nature in Christ; meaning that Christ, though true God, humbled himself. While Christ is indeed true God, Paul is not speaking here of his divine essence, which is concealed. The word he uses --"morphe," or "forma' --he employs again where he tells of Christ taking upon himself the form of a servant.
Philippians 2:5"Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant."
"Form of a servant" certainly cannot signify "essence of a real servant"-possessing by nature the qualities of a servant. For Christ is not our servant by nature; he has become our servant from good will and favor toward us. For the same reason "divine form" cannot properly mean "divine essence"; for divine essence is not visible, while the divine form was truly seen.
"Form of God," then, means the assumption of a divine attitude and bearing, or the manifestation of divinity in port and presence; and this not privately, but before others, who witness such form and bearing. To speak in the clearest possible manner: Divine bearing and attitude are in evidence when one manifests in word and deed that which pertains peculiarly to God and suggests divinity. Accordingly, "the form of a servant" implies the assumption of the attitude and bearing of a servant in relation to others. It might be better to render "Morphe tu dulu," by "the bearing of a servant," that means, manners of such character that whoever sees the person must take him for a servant. This should make it clear that the passage in question does not refer to the manifestation of divinity or servility as such, but to the characteristics and the expression of the same. For, as previously stated, the essence is concealed, but its manifestation is public. The essence implies a condition, while its expression implies action."
We've established today, the idea that the Divine manifests through nature, and the forms created in nature are somehow sacred, and appear as fundamental components of human made art. Humans bring to the table their carnal knowledge, their human frailties, their physical limitations--and these are the limitations which enable the divine form to manifest in the heart of man. Without that sympathy, without that connection, the divine thoughts would never penetrate our thick skulls, so weighted down with mundanities.
Earlier we asked the question, "What does this beauty mean?" Some weeks ago we spoke about angelic language, and how angels think instantaneously, outside any time, thereby raising the essence of whatever truth or message it is that they are vibrating with, to a level of abstract spirituality. Thus, if art is expressed in angelic language, then possibly the beauty expressed in it is the instantaneous thought of Angels. There is always one point in a work of art that is the pinnacle, the peak, or the climax; it may be at the beginning, but more usually a toward the end, but all artworks include this ONE moment when we experience what we call the aesthetic response. We have repeatedly mentioned the idea of a graduated Continuum of consciousness states.
"Perhaps Divine Form is just one more discrete level on the Infinite Continuum of the Divine Cosmography culminating in the Infinitely Formless Father. . . .The imitation of natural forms is indeed the key to the most profound HUMAN expressions, but, at a certain point there is a quantum leap revealing that there is more to it--that is to say, natural forms may sometimes transcend the limits of the physical in terms of symmetry, and organicism, becoming super-intelligent expressions. The structure and dimensions, of these divine forms, exist beyond the knowable limits of natural forms."
We have suggested it may be that the moment in which we experience the so-called "aesthetic response" is the exact moment when the transmission of angel thought, projected onto the proscenium of our mundane conceptual world, accelerates human truth out of physical reality into the dimension of the Divine.
How do we appreciate these forms in nature? How do we really perceive them, and then work them into our art? More importantly, how do we, as an audience, perceive the artistically conveyed natural truth? I suppose we will have to deal with that next week.
Let us pray: Jesus thank you for creating the necessary intelligence conduit between God and us. Because the visions that you have planted in our heads are indeed glorious, let us reaffirm that the heavenly light of hereafter is available to us right now. Amen.
