WHAT'S IN A NAME

we are people of the name ... they are people of the word ... we are masters of language ... they are mastered by it ... we excel at manuals ... they have bibles ... we use words to get through things to where we want to go ... they use words to get into things and then sit there and wonder ... even the people of the word concede the power of the name for to name is to command and to command is to get the right to name ... we don't pretend to know things in and of themselves ... it's enough for us to command them ... the people who don't take this seriously are no good in business or war ... they are the ones we command ... the poet on his mountaintop lost in the reverie of his words is the last to speak his language ... the rest are here down on the plain learning ours ... we write the histories we graduate the doctors and the scientists we name the universe ... and then we put it to work ... of all men we are the most humble the most moderate the most reasonable for we know what's in a name and we know it won't last ... all things pass ... in the meantime we intend to thrive

THE ETERNAL PROPRIETY OF CERTAIN PREDICATES?

we usually think we have plenty of time until we get old ... but truth to tell even then ... plenty of time before the crunch ... bozo puts a lit match in an open ashtray an inch below some overhanging papers belonging to odo when odo is in the room next door ... and the library and odo but not bozo go up in flames ... and one of the books burnt with most of the others beyond even a fine grey ash the heat is so intense is a book on predicables properties and accidents ... odo can read that book as when it was new now that he's not with bozo who can't ... now each letter in the book delights his eye with unexpected and playful color ... a kaleidoscopic symphony of meaning tripping across the surface of each word he reads ... what were once sudden or terrifying clusters of light and heat are now joyfully natural and proper to his understanding ... what sang and seduced or then popped and burst an eardrum is now the word of wisdom fitting and proper to his soul ... so odo is now in essence and can predicate a property while bozo fumbles

for bozo and odo see kreeft logic x.3

A PROVOCATION

which is life ... is it a puzzle or maze that we figure out ... or mountain we struggle against something that by will we climb ... is it an answer or an achievement ... now don't tell me both ... I'm not trying to be real here ... I'm just trying to provoke a new opinion ... possibly a new ideal ... or more likely reveal a new aspect of an old ideal ... is it the heart or the head that's the best place to live your life ... which of the two should you let rule ... well suppose it's the head ... how could that be ... why should it be ... we're talking human life here ... at the least animal life and animal hatred and affection ... at most angelic aspiration ... love ... and all that range is a matter of the heart ... yes is my reply but a little hatred and little enough love ... we have within us an impulse which says if we only had more understanding there would be less hate and more love ... I agree with that impulse ... and I'd go further and say all hatred and a lot of accidents proceed from a lack of understanding ... and further still to say understanding is that which first makes us human ... more than judgment more than reason ... because it's first

cf kreeft logic, x.3

COMPUTER PERFECT

why isn't every claim true or false based simply on an analysis of its terms ... so s is p you say ...well just give me a full analysis of s and p and we'll see by comparison at a glance if the claim is true or false ... the balance is either precise and exact or it collapses beyond the province of the truth ... and isn't that the definition of truth ... everything everywhere in balance with everything else everywhere through all time through all space ... stasis supreme ... reality complete ... quick take a picture before it moves and someone somewhere is forced to tell a lie ... well maybe ... but ask yourself is there anything wrong with this four dimensional picture of everything from start to finish ... what about motion for instance ... doesn't it disappear when as here shutter speed hits infinity ... or cause and effect ... who needs that now when everything is explained by its grid coordinates ... or relation itself ... what does that mean when it's lost its wiggle room ... how can the relative be absolute and not evaporate ... what are we missing ... what have we lost ... wait ... is it life

THE ONLY TENSELESS WONDER

some people say the greatest wonder of all is that there is anything at all ... well I suppose ... but what if it all just suddenly went out as if the universe were the last candle in a multiversal chandelier that's already dissolved ... the last candle before the final actual night ... nothing at all ... no god no creation not even the possibility of either ... all the god and all the creation remaining till then wouldn't seem to amount to much without the guarantee that they'll still be around tomorrow whatever day you happen to wake up ... the wonder then doesn't seem to be existence but continued existence ... not now but now not worried about later or hung up in the past as if a pedigree were a guarantee ... not impulse or desire or will ... nor longevity if it comes to an end ... nor steadiness if it peters out ... not the validity of a moment or the verification of a lifetime ... nor the enthusiasm of any particular insight ... but the absolute conquest of time and space ... especially time ... so that there should be no claim but this claim ... not was or will be but am always

TWO VIEWS

house for sale ... each room a mansion and a worthy topic of a flock of books ... but it's the view from just one corner room on the second floor for which I beg your attention ... well really two views from the same room ... one to the north out to the ocean and one to the east along the shore to the mountains in the distance ... one mountain in particular in the far distance yet taller still than all those before ... a pleasing resort around its base if you can get out that far to visit ... as many clever savage trails to the top as there are those brave perhaps foolish to try them ... each trail designed and sure to kill you if you get to the top and the desired promotion ... the view out to sea from the other window passes over a garden maze ... just four or five long blocks square but filled with tunnels overpasses subterfuge and deceit ... none of them perhaps intentional ... but all debilitating ... all distracting but promising ... that is as you might have guessed amazing ... point is to take your pick ... the maze on the way to the ocean or the killing path to the top of the mountain ... question is what's at the top what's in the center

cf moreland & muelhoff, the god conversation, chs 4 & 5

ADAM'S SIN

what am I to adam or what's he to me ... what's what he did have to do with me ... or what I do now or hereafter anything to do with him ... our relation is as tenuous as the claims for his existence ... as the claims for heritable guilt ... as the concept of a moral dna ... how can one drop dye an ocean or one sin influence untold degrees of separation ... how can the relation between adam and his descendents be causal and anything more than accidental ... unless adam is unlike any other man ... any man a son ... any daughter ... and his power if causal somehow is essential ... and how can that be ... unless the cause traveling through essence through the nature of humanity becomes necessary by way of definition ... by way of identity ... I'm the bearer of adam's one sin willful disobedience to god because I am adam ... because I am human ... have his nature ... share his essence ... well I might reply so much for metaphysics and terms of necessity and essence if they lead to such absurdity ... if the absurd in this case didn't make sense ...am I older than ten older than seven ... don't I know I've already committed adam's sin