Part 2: Chapters Two to Four (Expanded)

Part 2: Chapters Two to Four

Chapter Two: The Basic Principles of True Thought

As I have observed the unchanging ratios that govern the flight of birds and the flow of rivers, so in the soul there exist three immutable principles, revealed by God and confirmed by the Fathers and Councils before 1300:

1. Esse – Being
   All that exists is sustained by the uncreated Act of God:
   “I AM WHO AM” (Exodus 3:14, Greek: Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν).
   St Augustine (†430): “If the creature were left to itself even for a moment, it would fall back into nothingness.”
   Therefore the first axiom is: Nothing exists apart from God’s sustaining will.
2. Veritas – Truth
   The intellect was made for truth as the eye for light.
   St Anselm of Canterbury (†1109) teacheth: “Truth is rightness perceptible by the mind alone.”
   Christ Himself is Truth incarnate: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
   To think falsely is to woundeth the soul more gravely than any bodily injury.
3. Bonum – Goodness
   Every being, by the very fact that it exists, is good in its essence:
   “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
   Evil is not a substance but a privation of due good (St Augustine, Confessions VII).
   The will was created for the Supreme Good alone.
   St Bernard of Clairvaux (†1153): “To love God is already to possess Him.”

From these three flow all lesser truths of the mind: the soul’s immortality, the freedom of the will wounded by sin, the necessity of grace, and the possibility of knowing God from creatures (Romans 1:20).

Chapter Three: The Conditions of Existence

Existence hath three conditions, each mirroring the divine life:

1. AS-IS-NESS – Pure Being
   The instant of creation, when God spoke and it was: “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).
   This is the state of the blessed in the Beatific Vision, seeing God “as He is” (1 John 3:2).
2. IS-NESS – Appearance in Time
   The creature’s participation in being through secondary causes.
   St Thomas (drawing from Boethius and Augustine) calleth this the “esse commune” – common being under the flux of change.
   It is marred by sin and subject to corruption.
3. ALTER-IS-NESS – Change or Corruption
   When the creature, through sin or accident, is altered from its proper form.
   This is the state of fallen man: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The fourth, illusory condition is NOT-IS-NESS, the lie that something does not exist when it does, or exists when it does not.
This is the root of all delusion and the devil’s chief weapon: “He is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

The remedy is the return to AS-IS-NESS through grace and truth:

• Confession restoreth the soul to its original purity.
• Contemplation lifteth the mind to the unchanging Good.

Chapter Four: The Eight Spheres of Life (The Eight Dynamics)

Man’s existence is ordered across eight inseparable spheres, each ordained by God and sanctified by the Church:

1. Self – Care of the body and soul as temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).
2. Creativity and Procreation – “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).
3. Family and Posterity – Honour father and mother (Exodus 20:12).
4. Community and Nation – Love of neighbour extended to the polis.
5. All Mankind – “Go and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
6. Living Creatures and Creation – Man’s dominion as steward (Genesis 1:26).
7. The Spiritual Order – Angels, demons, and the unseen realm.
8. God Himself – The Supreme Dynamic, source and end of all.

St Gregory the Great (†604) teacheth that these are concentric circles: the love of God irradiateth outward, ordering all lesser loves.
He who neglecteth any sphere woundeth the whole.

Say “next” for Part 3 (Chapters Five to Eight).