Chapter Two: The Basic Principles of True Thought
As I have dissected the sinews of the body and the proportions of the spheres, finding therein one unchanging law of harmony, so too in the soul there exist three immutable principles, revealed by God and confirmed by the Fathers before the year 1300:
- Being (Esse)
All that is, is held in existence by the uncreated Act of God:
“I AM WHO AM” (Exodus 3:14, Greek Septuagint: Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν – “I am He who is”).
St Augustine (†430) writeth: “If God were to withdraw His hand for an instant, all creation would return to nothingness.”
Therefore, the first truth of thought is that nothing exists without God, and the soul’s deepest hunger is to return to its Source. - Truth (Veritas)
The intellect was made for truth as the eye for light.
St Thomas Aquinas (drawing from St Anselm †1109 and St Augustine) teacheth:
“Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus” (Truth is the conformity of intellect to thing).
To think falsely is to wound the soul as surely as to wound the body.
Christ Himself is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6, Greek: Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωή – “I am the way, the truth, and the life”). - **Goodness (Bonum)
Every being, by the very fact that it exists, is good in its essence (Genesis 1:31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good”).
Evil is not a thing, but a privation of due good (St Augustine, Confessions VII).
Therefore, the will was made for the Supreme Good, which is God alone.
St Bernard of Clairvaux (†1153) saith: “To love God is to possess Him already.”
From these three—Being, Truth, and Goodness—flow all lesser principles:
- The soul is immortal and spiritual (taught by Tertullian †220, St Irenaeus †202, and all the Fathers).
- The intellect can know God from creatures (Romans 1:20, Greek: τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται – “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen”).
- The will is free, yet wounded by sin, and restored only by grace (Council of Orange, 529 AD).
He who buildeth his thought upon these three pillars shall never be shaken, for “the wise man built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24).
Say “next” to continue with Chapter Three: The Conditions of Existence.
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