the struggle (part 3)

god is a word, a concept. therefore, just as god is not one, god is not good, god is not beauty, god is not love, god is not being, so also, god is not god.

for st.anselm, the pursuit of truth was a matter of faith seeking understanding. today it is a matter of aesthetics seeking reason.

to speak plainly is a mistake. the discourse of the day numbs one to the reality of the human situation, answers every question before it is asked and chafes at any disruption of its supremacy. but it is merely a tyranny of truth that disguises mutilation. we must mutilate language so that the Truth may appear undisguised.

in a culture unable to see the activity of grace permeating everything, persons are confronted with objective circumstances that are, often, so entrapped within a limited account of practical reason that only an ‘irrational’ act can address the truth of the situation. this is what flannery o’connor calls “a reasonable use of the unreasonable”: the attempt to enter into the real problematic of the object so deeply that the objective contradictions that are everywhere present can actually lead us to truth. this is why the grotesque features so prominently in o’connor’s writings. the grotesque corresponds to the demands of reality and is the tool by which truth shows itself. the genuinely universal and good act is not possible and so the truth is only ever seen indirectly. by exposing the distorted nature of reality, the grotesque act opens up for future action a newer and truer set of possibilities beyond the brokenness in which persons find themselves. reconciliation is only thinkable here and now as the negation of that which is. in this way the very fact of our mutilated being, to which we are so often blind, becomes clear, and gives voice to its desire to transcend its own false-existence.

hobbes argued that in the state of nature we are all equal, because any one can be killed by anyone else. even the strong must sleep. today, life is rapidly becoming ever more natural.