Bbh
For what it is worth, I appreciate that these observations haven’t provoked the negativity that they often do so we can discuss ideas.
According to the principle of linear gradation, this series ranges in hierarchical order from the barest type of existence to the ens perfectissimum, or God............................
Could you elaborate on the nature of the bares type of existence? Do you mean a hydrogen atom? Or a photon?
From another link on the chain of being: This chart describes the hierarchy. It could be taken further for example to describe atoms within atoms but the chart is sufficient to describe the visible world
http://faculty.grandview.edu/ssnyder/12 ... 0chain.htm
Indeed, each link in the Great Chain of Being represented a distinct category of living creature or form of matter. Those creatures or things higher on the Chain possessed greater intellect, movement, and ability than those placed below. Thus each being in the Chain possessed all of the attributes of what was below plus an additional, superior attribute:
God: existence + life + will + reason + immortality + omniscient, omnipotent
Angels: existence + life + will + reason + immortality
Humanity: existence + life + will + reason
Animals: existence + life + will
Plants: existence + life
Matter: existence
Nothingness
As an aside it is normal for people to believe we are alone in the universe which is just silly. How can something so enormous and intricate only exhibit one quality of life? The angelic realms and the demiurge are just common sense.
The universe is structured on levels of reality. The objective value of a given level of being is determined by its vertical distance from the Source of Being. The being of a dog has a higher objective value than a tree because the qualities of trees exist within animals.
Ah here I find disagreement.
A dog doesn't possess the same mechanisms of photosynthesis, doesn't possess the same sap, doesn't harbour the same power of pressures that exist in a tree - I am not a believer of such linear ranking of beings.
But from the point of view of the above chart the dog is capable of will the tree lacks. It is what defines value to universal existence
In the episteme of cognition the only standard for a hierarchy is ones own place in it.
Yes, but suppose this place can change by evolving from one quality of being into a higher? If it can it would explain the purpose of the essence of religion
Once a person becomes open to the concept of being and the hierarchy of values within the Great Chain of Being, it answers a lot of questions impossible without it.
Could you indicate a question which has been answered in this way? I do not want to outright reject your model as a lot of sound thought has apparently gone into it.
Here are two examples. How do we explain miracles? Levels of reality provide a realistic explanation of a miracle. From this perspective a miracle is a phenomenon normal for a higher level of reality taking place at a lower..
Another more controversial example is the idea of Man’s conscious evolution. Most agree that mechanical evolution has taken place on earth. People can debate that the great living machine called organic life on earth was an intentional action but the point is that once the great machine begins to function it doesn’t require consciousness.
The hypothesis of conscious evolution asserts that Man is unique to life on earth in that it can make the transition from mechanical life serving a mechanical “necessity” and conscious life serving a conscious purpose. Simone Weil describes what I mean:
“Man can never escape obedience to God. A creature cannot not obey. The only choice offered to man as an intelligent and free creature, is to desire obedience or not to desire it. If he does not desire it, he perpetually obeys nevertheless, as a thing subject to mechanical necessity. If he does desire obedience, he remains subject to mechanical necessity, but a new necessity is added on, a necessity constituted by the laws that are proper to supernatural things. Certain actions become impossible for him, while others happen through him, sometimes despite him.”
Excerpt from: Thoughts without order concerning the love of God, in an essay entitled L'amour de Dieu et le malheur (The Love of God and affliction). Simone Weil
How elegant! She describes animal life including animal Man as a cosmic necessity – a creature of reaction. She wrote of a higher conscious quality normal for conscious Man. This is our potential for the evolution of human being. Conscious Man has higher objective value than animal Man. Conscious Man is closer to the source of our being and also capable of consciousness animal Man as a creature of reaction has in potential. This difference describes objective value.
