From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Sep 23 2005 - 02:06:41 BST
Reinier --
I know you're busy with your daughter and friend(s), etc., but when you have
a moment, I'd like you to read this excellent analysis of Cusa's ontology.
(I've copied this particular section from a much larger on-line document.)
Since it speaks of the "potential", "possibilities" and "actuality" of
Creation, it may be germinal to our efforts.
Tell me what you think.
"Cusa begins from the assumption that the sensible world is finite, and
therefore must exist from another (ab alio). Because the world cannot fix
its own limits, it must have something fixing its limits. Think of it this
way: a finite being cannot step outside of finite being and set boundaries
around finite being, otherwise he would not be finite. But finite being
necessarily has a limit. So, there must be something OTHER than finite being
for the finite being to have limits, a being outside the limits who can set
the limits.
"This 'other-from-which-the-world-exists' is a se, that is, exists from
itself. It is the boundary-maker for finite being, and creator. Since
created things only exist from another, this creator does not exist from
another, but from himself. Existing from itself, it is necessarily eternal,
and because it is eternal, it is necessarily invisible. Visible things are
necessarily temporal, Cusa argues. As one commentator points out, this is
not apologetic. We can think of possibilities that Cusa doesn't try to
refute. He is assuming the Creator-creature distinction, and then trying to
fill out the features of a metaphysics based on creation.
"One of the things that he discovers here is a doctrine of possibilities and
actuality, the notion of 'actualized possibility', or what he called
'possest', a combination of Latin 'posse', (able, possibility) and 'esse',
(being, actualization). What does he mean?
"First, everything that exists necessarily is able to be what it is. This
leads to a consideration of actuality itself. Actuality must itself exist,
since it is presupposed by anything that actually exists. If actuality did
not exist, then nothing could actually be. Things are; therefore, actuality
exists. Just as nothing could be white without the existence of whiteness,
no things could be without the actuality of actuality. (The Platonic tenor
of the whole argument is obvious. Patience. It gets better.)
"Yet, if actuality exists, it is able to exist, because nothing can exist
unless it is capable of existing. But it would not have the possibility for
existing unless something else existed, and that something else is
possibility itself: 'without possibility nothing is possible'. If actuality
is able/possible to exist, then possibility must also actually exist.
Neither possibility and actuality cannot be prior to the other. If
possibility were prior to actuality, then possibility would not ACTUALLY
exist; but if actually were prior to possibility, then it would not be
able/possible to exist. Therefore, the two are co-dependent, and must be
equally ultimate, equally originary. In fact, possibility exists eternally,
and since it cannot be prior to actuality, actuality also exists eternally.
This possible-actuality or actualize possibility is God. God is different
from all other beings in being that being that is the actuality of all
possibility: 'He alone is, actually, everything of which 'is able to be' can
be predicated truly. In contrast to Aquinas, Cusa does not describe God in
terms of essence and existence, but in terms of possibility and actuality."
Let me know if you want the Internet address for the entire essay.
I'll wait for your insightful response. ;-)
Essentially yours,
Ham
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