in, for example: (a) the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets, and therefore in the rhythms of day and night and of the seasons; (b) the life-cycles of organisms, from microbes through plants and animals to humans; and (c) the movements of sub-atomic particles as they interact to constitute material reality. Evidently, the physical world is not devoid of intelligibility, for example as order and harmony, even though it represents a lower reality than the metaphysical world.
By combining the concepts of being and non-being, as well the metaphysical and the physical, we arrive at the following hierarchy (arranged from most real to least real), which encompasses the totality of ‘something and nothing’:
i. Beyond-being (or God), which precedes the distinction between being and non-being;
ii. True being, which comprises the intelligible realm of unchanging Forms, at the apex of which is the universal Mind, or Intellect;
iii. Relative being (or becoming), which is the sensible world of ever-changing phenomena;
iv. Relative non-being, which is unformed matter;
v. Absolute non-being (or nothingness), which exists as an abstraction in human thought.
Relevance
Does this traditional ontology and metaphysics we have been discussing so far have any relevance to the physical world, including its sciences? The answer is a resounding ‘Yes.’ It has been argued, for example, that the standard model of quantum physics allows for the return of metaphysics in the sense in which Aristotle conceived it, after its expulsion from philosophy by Immanuel Kant and from science by nineteenth century materialism. Not only did it bring Being back into the picture of theoretical physics, but also Mind, as experimentation followed theorizing.72 Here are some quotes from eminent scientists:
a. Theoretical physicist Amit Goswami in The Self-aware Universe (1993): “From a fully idealist point of view, we say that a measurement always means an observation by a conscious observer in the presence of awareness”; and therefore “the universe exists as formless potentia [Latin, force or power]73 in myriad possible branches in the transcendent domain and becomes manifested only when observed by conscious beings.”
b. Theoretical physicist Brian Greene in The Fabric of the Cosmos (2004) on the illusory nature of space and time: “Space and time may similarly dissolve when scrutinized with the most fundamental formulation of nature’s laws.”
c. Mathematician Roger Penrose in The Road to Reality (2004): “Any universe that can be observed must, as a logical necessity, be capable of supporting conscious mentality, since consciousness is precisely what plays the ultimate role of ‘observer.’ This fundamental requirement could well provide constraints of the universe’s physical laws, or physical parameters, in order that conscious mentality can (and will) exist.”
d. Astrophysicist Arthur Eddington in Space, Time and Gravitation (1920): “Where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature what the mind has put into nature.”74 That is to say, Mind precedes nature, and the metaphysical is prior to the physical.
More recently, a number of Greek and Serbian scholars have argued that the Big Bang Theory is eminently compatible with the early Christian teaching on the creation of the universe out of nothing. Both conceptions assert that the universe, space, and time have a beginning, so that there is nothing ‘before’ this initial point of cosmic origin. In addition, there is a Greek Patristic notion that the non-being out of which God creates is not pure nothingness, but rather indicates an imperceptible state beyond space and time. This view appears to find a reflection in the astrophysical concept of the false vacuum, which is not entirely stable (unlike a true vacuum) but may nevertheless last for a very long time.75
The transition of the natural sciences from the gross materialism of the nineteenth century to the more ‘metaphysical’ paradigms of the twentieth century has been outlined by Francis Parker Yockey in his magnum opus. To begin with, science (in its materialistic conception) served as the supreme religion of the nineteenth century, so that ‘unscientific’ became the term of damnation. This went hand in hand with the ‘progress’ ideology, with the latter understood not as more knowledge, but as more technique. Some examples thereof are mentioned by Yockey: the problem of poverty was to be solved with more machinery; the horrible conditions that had arisen out of a machine-civilization would be alleviated by more machines; the problem of old age was to be overcome with ‘rejuvenation’; racial problems would be solved by ‘eugenics’; the weather would be ‘harnessed’ and all natural forces brought under absolute control; international problems would vanish, since the world would become one huge scientific unit. In this manner, Yockey writes, all Life, all Death, and all Nature would be reduced to absolute order, in the custody of scientific theocrats.76
However, as Yockey points out, there were already signs that this lifeless, mechanical picture would not last. When the Theory of Entropy introduced the idea of irreversibility into the picture, science was on the road that was to culminate in physical relativity and the subjectivity of physical concepts. Next appeared the Theory of Radioactivity, which again contains strong subjective elements and requires the Calculus of Probabilities to describe its results. Because of these and related scientific theories, Yockey writes, concepts like mass, energy, electricity, heat, and radiation, merged into one another, and it became increasingly clear that was really under study was the human soul. In other words, physical science returned to its foundation in mind, or consciousness. Consequently, “Scientific theories reached the point where they signified nothing less that the complete collapse of science as a mental discipline.” On the one extreme, that of the macrocosm, the cosmos is depicted as finite but unlimited, and boundless but bounded. On the other extreme, that of the microcosm, “the closer it is studied, the more spiritual it becomes, for the nucleus of the atom is a mere charge of electricity, having neither weight, volume, inertia nor any other classic properties of matter.”77
“In its last great saga,” Yockey continues, “science dissolved its own psychical foundations, and moved outside the world of the senses into the world of the soul. Absolute time was dissolved, and time became a function of position. Mass became spiritualized into energy. The idea of simultaneity was discarded, motion became relative, parallels cut one another, two distances could no longer be said absolutely equal to one another. The profound knowledge was realized through the very study of matter itself that matter is only the envelope of the soul . . . matter cannot be explained materialistically. Its whole significance derives from the soul.” Ultimately, “Man possesses a metaphysical sense as the hall-mark of his humanity.”78 There can be no doubt that Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the whole of the metaphysical tradition would have agreed wholeheartedly with this assessment.
55. Heidegger, Introduction, 100–101, 103.
56. Quoted in Smith, Christian Gnosis, 166.
57. Smith, Christian Gnosis, 167–168.
58. Dreyer, Wysbegeerte, 128–129.
59.
