Traditional Quotes and Symbols
What constitutes the miracle of man is not subject to change, for, in the image of God, there can be neither decrease nor increase. And that man is this image follows from the simple fact that he possesses the concept of the Absolute.
Pure "dogmatism" and mere "speculation", many may say. This in fact is the problem: a metaphysical exposition appears as a purely mental phenomenon, when one does not know that its origin is not a mental elaboration or an attitude of soul, but a vision which is completely independent of opinions, conclusions and creeds, and which is realized in the pure Intellect - through the "Eye of the Heart".
A metaphysical exposition is not true because it is logical (in its form it could also not be so), but it is in itself logical, that is to say, well-founded and consequential, because it is true. The thoughtprocess of metaphysics is not an artificial support for an opinion that has to be proved, it is simply description that has been adapted to the rules of human thinking; its proofs are aids, not ends in themselves.
St. Thomas Aquinas said that it was impossible to prove the Divine Being, not because it was unclear, but, on the contrary, because of its "excess of clarity". Nothing is more foolish than the question as to whether the supra-sensory can be proved: for, on the one hand, one can prove everything to the one who is spiritually gifted, and, on the other, the one who is not so gifted is blind to the best of proofs.
Thought is not there in order to exhaust reality in words (if it could do this, it would itself be reality, a self-contradictory supposition), but its role can only consist in providing keys to Reality; but the key is not Reality, nor can it wish to be so, but it is a way to it for those that can and will tread that way; and in the way there is already something of the end, just as in the effect there is something of the cause.
That modern thought, still wrongly called "philosophical", distances itself more and more from a logic which is deemed to be "scholastic", and more and more seeks to be "psychologically" and even "biologically" determined, does not escape our notice, but this cannot in any way prevent us from thinking or being in the manner that the theomorphic nature of man, and hence the sufficient reason of the human state, demand.
One speaks much today of the "man of our time" and one claims for him the right to determine the truth of this "time", as if man were a "time", and as if truth were not valid for man as such; what in man is mutable does not belong to man as such; what constitutes the miracle of "man" is not subject to change, for, in the image of God, there can be neither decrease nor increase. And that man is this image follows from the simple fact that he possesses the concept of the Absolute. In this one primordial concept lies the whole essence of man and therefore also his whole vocation.
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Frithjof Schuon: Sophia Perennis
What constitutes the miracle of man is not subject to change, for, in the image of God, there can be neither decrease nor increase. And that man is this image follows from the simple fact that he possesses the concept of the Absolute.
Pure "dogmatism" and mere "speculation", many may say. This in fact is the problem: a metaphysical exposition appears as a purely mental phenomenon, when one does not know that its origin is not a mental elaboration or an attitude of soul, but a vision which is completely independent of opinions, conclusions and creeds, and which is realized in the pure Intellect - through the "Eye of the Heart".
A metaphysical exposition is not true because it is logical (in its form it could also not be so), but it is in itself logical, that is to say, well-founded and consequential, because it is true. The thoughtprocess of metaphysics is not an artificial support for an opinion that has to be proved, it is simply description that has been adapted to the rules of human thinking; its proofs are aids, not ends in themselves.
St. Thomas Aquinas said that it was impossible to prove the Divine Being, not because it was unclear, but, on the contrary, because of its "excess of clarity". Nothing is more foolish than the question as to whether the supra-sensory can be proved: for, on the one hand, one can prove everything to the one who is spiritually gifted, and, on the other, the one who is not so gifted is blind to the best of proofs.
Thought is not there in order to exhaust reality in words (if it could do this, it would itself be reality, a self-contradictory supposition), but its role can only consist in providing keys to Reality; but the key is not Reality, nor can it wish to be so, but it is a way to it for those that can and will tread that way; and in the way there is already something of the end, just as in the effect there is something of the cause.
That modern thought, still wrongly called "philosophical", distances itself more and more from a logic which is deemed to be "scholastic", and more and more seeks to be "psychologically" and even "biologically" determined, does not escape our notice, but this cannot in any way prevent us from thinking or being in the manner that the theomorphic nature of man, and hence the sufficient reason of the human state, demand.
One speaks much today of the "man of our time" and one claims for him the right to determine the truth of this "time", as if man were a "time", and as if truth were not valid for man as such; what in man is mutable does not belong to man as such; what constitutes the miracle of "man" is not subject to change, for, in the image of God, there can be neither decrease nor increase. And that man is this image follows from the simple fact that he possesses the concept of the Absolute. In this one primordial concept lies the whole essence of man and therefore also his whole vocation.
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Frithjof Schuon: Sophia Perennis