|
|
Dionysius and Kant: From The Celestial Hierarchy to the Critique of Practical Reason in the Changeless Ideology of Western Philosophical Traditions. (06/28/2001)
In the long tradition of Western ideology surprisingly few
original ideas have entered the arena of philosophical debate.
While many concepts might have original details in their articulation,
even ones that seem to change the essential nature of the idea
being formulated, the essential message nevertheless always seems
to remain the same. In his Critique of Practical Reason,
for instance, Immanuel Kant employs the concept of the summum
bonum (the supreme or highest good) to establish, or prove,
the immortality of the soul, on the one hand, and the existence
of God, as Creator, on the other. As a function of pure practical
reason, which is an original twist he added to prior articulations
of the same ideology, even if that concept is only marginally
novel in itself to the notion that reason has its seat in the
human soul, Kant's perception of how the summum bonum functions
to guarantee the elevation of the individual consciousness to
a higher level of morality, and hence to goodness itself, while
more sophisticated in its argument, is nevertheless essentially
identical to the one put forth by Dionysius the Areopagite, fully
1,200 years earlier, in his treatise entitled The Celestial
Hierarchy. A primary distinction, apart from the differing
levels of sophistication, is that Dionysius only implies that
the contemplation of the summum bonum requires an infinite
amount of time, thus proving the immortality of the soul, to elevate
human subjects to godlike status, whereas Kant overtly advocates
that condition as a result of contemplation, but suggests that
a truly godlike consciousness of the Good cannot be said to exist
in any finite creature because that achievement can only happen
in infinitum. One reason for the difference is probably
connected to the fact that in the 6th Century AD people
in the Christian faith were more inclined to accept the immortality
of the soul as a given, while in the 18th Century that
possibility was less certain as an article of faith. In other
words, Kant felt compelled to prove it; Dionysius the Areopagite
was not confronted by any doubt over its validity whatsoever.
According to Kant, then, in the Critique of Practical Reason,
"the perfect accordance of the mind with the moral law is
the supreme condition of the summum bonum" (Chapter
2, Part IV). Kant goes on to note that this "perfect accordance
of the will with the moral law" is the same as "holiness,"
a condition that cannot be achieved by any "rational being
of the sensible world . . . at any moment of his existence"
because perfection is something that no one can ever actually
realize. Given this circumstance, and since Kant assumes "on
the principles of pure practical reason" that "progress
in infinitum toward that perfect accordance" is necessarily
"the real object of our will," "this endless progress
is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of
the existence and personality of the same rational being (which
is called the immortality of the soul)." Kant concludes this
aspect of his argument by stating that
"The summum bonum, then, practically is only possible
on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently
this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law,
is a postulate of pure practical reason (by which I mean a theoretical
proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable
result of an unconditional a priori practical law)." (Chapter
2, Part IV)
Kant clearly states here, because the summum bonum is
"the real object of our will," that human reality is
irresistibly drawn to the effort of achieving a perfect accordance
of the will with the moral law but, since a human realization
of supreme goodness is not possible in our flawed state of temporal
mortality, the rational faculty of the soul must be immortal,
and personal, by virtue of necessity in pure practical reason,
in order for the summum bonum to exist at all. A problem
with this argument, however, seems to exist, from the point-of-view
of a strict Christian orthodoxy, since it implies that the idea
of the supreme goodness depends, not on the a priori existence
of God, which cannot be demonstrated apart from the prior existence
of the summum bonum, as noted below, but only on the ground
that human reality is irresistibly drawn to it as "the real
object of our will." In other words, the supreme goodness,
according to Kant, does not seem to have any independently fixed
existence prior to becoming an object of human will. This subordinates
the highest good to human desire and not, as it should be in Christian
orthodoxy, the other way around. Kant suggests that God is more
a construct of human reason and desire than he does the obverse,
that man is a product or result of God's creation.
Kant then argues that a "second element" of the summum
bonum exists as "happiness proportioned to that morality,"
where morality is necessarily defined as the "first element"
of the highest good. He argues that "Happiness is
the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything
goes according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore,
on the harmony of physical nature with his whole end and likewise
with the essential determining principle of his will" (Chapter
2, Part V, emphasis Kant's). While it is difficult to say with
certainty that this concept exists as an orthodox object of Christian
theology, where it probably does, it is problematic on grounds
very different from the ones that were discussed above. The essential
problem here, and one always encountered as ultimate truth in
Western ideology, concerns the opinion that man is always perceived
in contradictory terms as the highest but most flawed aspect of
God's natural creation. Kant restricts the flaw to man's inability
to conceive of the highest good in his temporal reality, requiring
the added component of an immortal soul, but nevertheless makes
him the highest achievement of creationist ideology when he suggests
that man's happiness is the "whole end" and purpose
of the "harmony of physical nature" and the "essential
determining principle of his will" to comprehend the summum
bonum. To say that morality, as the "first and principle
element" of the highest good, is realized in a human happiness
characterized as coming into existence only when the "harmony
of physical nature" exists for man if, and only if, "everything
goes according to his wish and will," falsely elevates
human reality, as Christianity has always done, above any and
every constraint imposed on it/him by virtue of being part of
nature, and not its whole purpose and end, as Kant suggests here
that it/he is. Kant makes this point explicit when he says that
"There is not the least ground, therefore, in the moral
law for a connection between morality and proportionate happiness
in a being that belongs to the world as a part of it, and therefore
dependent on it, and which for that reason cannot by his will
be a cause of this nature, nor by his own power make it thoroughly
harmonize as far as his happiness is concerned, with his practical
principles." (Chapter 2, Part V)
In Kant's reasoning, of course, this statement opens the way
for postulating the existence of a supreme cause for the existence
of that happiness which is the result of the "harmony of
physical nature" with man's whole purpose and end simply
for the reason that man is not capable of doing this for or by
himself. This Supreme Being, as cause of the world, and as justification
for the existence of the summum bonum, is further perceived
and described as "a being that is capable of acting on the
conception of laws [as] an intelligence (rational being),
and the causality of such a being according to this conception
of laws is his will; therefore the supreme cause of nature,
which must be presupposed as a condition of the summum bonum,
is a being which is the cause of nature by intelligence
and will, consequently its author, that is God." Here,
of course, as all Western ideology demands, Kant establishes the
pure ground for the existence of binary opposition and hierarchical
structure as essential elements of practical reason. Kant's mission,
then, with only a few twists and turns added to his argument to
make it appear more contemporary than it can actually be called,
is to reestablish for his own audience the timeless necessity
of God's dominion over man, through the creature's dependence
on the summum bonum for the achievement of a happiness
that can only be realized in infinitum, and man's dominion
over every aspect of nature, which is realized without any moral
restriction on how that dominion is practiced during every day
of his/her life. In other words, being the dominant force over
nature, because man is elevated above and outside its constraints,
by virtue of his possession of a rational and immortal soul, which
no other part of nature has, can be said to be the sole ground
for determining whether a person is moral or not, where morality
is achieved or not according to how well or how badly a purely
human "harmony of physical nature" is maintained in
a state where "everything goes according to his wish and
will." Overcoming nature, then, and bending it to a superior
human will, in the same way that God is perceived as bending man
to His superiority, with the difference that man is given free
choice to resist that coercion but nature has no active agency
whatsoever, no choice at all, becomes a determining factor in
how well or how badly man lives up to an expectation of the moral.
That this essential ideology has nothing in it that can be
called novel, with differences only in the verbal surface of the
articulation, can be seen clearly in the work of Dionysius the
Areopagite, specifically in The Celestial Hierarchy. In
the initial explanation of his subject, Dionysius argues that
the purpose behind hierarchical structure is to provide man with
an object of contemplation that will uplift human reason from
a lower to a higher level "through the spiritual and unwavering
eye of the mind" (Chapter 1). Less sophisticated than Kant's
perception of a "pure practical reason," of course,
the Areopagite's "eye of the mind," a phrase
he repeats consistently throughout his treatise to signify the
conceptualization of the rational faculty of the human soul, performs
the same essential function that practical reason plays in Kant's
argument. The Areopagite characterizes God's presence in figurative
terms rather than in rational ones when he notes that He provides
an "original and super-original gift of Light" for the
purpose of allowing us to "strive upwards toward Its primal
ray" in order to achieve union with the "Source of Divinity"
(Chapter 1). He goes on to note that
"For this Light can never be deprived of Its own intrinsic
unity, and although in goodness It becomes manyness and proceeds
into manifestation for the uplifting of those creatures governed
by Its providence, yet It abides eternally within Itself in changeless
sameness, firmly established in Its own unity, and elevates to
Itself, according to their capacity, those who turn towards It,
uniting them in accordance with Its own unity. For by that first
divine ray we can be enlightened only insofar as It is hidden
by all-various holy veils for our upliftment, and fittingly tempered
to our natures by the Providence of the Father."
The idea that the holy and divine Light "elevates to Itself
. . . those who turn towards It" is essentially the same
argument Kant employs in describing the effects of the summum
bonum as a driving force behind man's elevation to a higher
consciousness of the supreme Good as "the real object of
our will." While Kant expresses the opinion that the immortality
of the soul is a necessary condition of the existence of supreme
goodness, as noted earlier, the Areopagite only implies the same
thing when he notes that the elevation and upliftment of people
turned towards God's light always occurs "according to their
capacity" and that it is always "fittingly tempered
to our natures." Dionysius uses this, or similar, terminology
every time he mentions the uplifting power of the celestial hierarchy.
Since man's capacity and nature always turns more toward a flawed
and sinful nature than it does toward supreme goodness in Christian
ideology, the Areopagite's constant reference to that capacity
and nature as a limiting factor in man's potential for upliftment
certainly implies that a less than perfect union with God is possible
over the course of the merely temporal duration of life allotted
to any individual. Putting this same idea in slightly different
terms, Dionysius says that the purpose of the hierarchical structure
of God's creation is to "further . . . the attainment of
our due measure of deification" (Chapter 2). Here, again,
he clearly implies that perfection is tempered by only a "due
measure" and not by a total or absolute one. Making this
same point absolutely clear, Dionysius says that
"The aim of Hierarchy is the greatest possible assimilation
to and union with God, and by taking Him as leader in all holy
wisdom, to become like Him, so far as is permitted, by contemplating
intently His most Divine Beauty." (Chapter 3)
Union with God, then, as an ultimate teleological goal for
man's flawed state of existence, is the reason behind the fact
that He created the world in hierarchical structures in the first
place, since the "aim" of such structures is to elevate
man from the lower ranks to the higher ones. There is a minor
contradiction here, however, since the story of the Fall in Genesis
clearly states that eating the fruit of the knowledge of good
and evil was covered by God's absolute prohibition because doing
so would elevate him/her to a status of becoming "like one
of us, with his knowledge of good and evil" (3: 22). Since
Dionysius argues that contemplation of the celestial hierarchy
is meant to guide man to "become like [God], so far as is
permitted" (an equivocation that does not appear in Genesis),
it seems reasonable, if not inevitable, to assert that God, in
His "holy wisdom," fashioned the universe in such a
way that would insure man's descent into original sin. Once there,
in a state of sin, man could begin again to aspire to the inevitable
union with deity which, once achieved, would lead again to his
inevitable fall into sin. Man, then, seems nothing more nor less
than a kind of yoyo under the hand of God who is lifted up only
to be cast down because he was lifted up.
Kant, in virtually everything he says about the summum bonum,
without ever going so far as to claim that man can, or should,
aspire to "become like God," nevertheless grounds his
moral philosophy in essentially the same terms when he says that
"The only objects of practical reason are therefore those
of good and evil. For by the former is meant an
object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason;
by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle
of reason." Going back to his earlier point, that harmony
is achieved, and happiness also, of course, only when "everything
goes according to [man's] wish and will," Kant necessarily
equates the good, even the highest good, with that which
man most desires. Clearly it seems reasonable to suppose, even
taken in the ultimate context as "a principle of reason"
itself, that it is better to desire to be like God than it is
to desire to be unlike God. This is true simply because God is
the ultimate source of the highest good and one can only
assume that being "like God" is what Kant has in mind
when he differentiates in the way he does between good
and evil. The same criticism leveled at Dionysius also
applies here to Kant, of course, since his prescription for the
pursuit of the good necessarily drives man toward becoming
"like God," which is the original sin, as opposed to
"unlike God," which by "a principle of reason"
is defined as that which we ought to shun.
In one instance Dionysius uses the term summum bonum when he notes that
"For the divine fiery wheels truly revolve, by reason
of their ceaseless movement, around the highest Good [summum
bonum] Itself, and they are granted revelations because to
them the holy hidden Mysteries are made clear, and the earthly
are lifted up, and the high illuminations are brought down and
imparted to the lowest orders." (Chapter 15)
As the Areopagite implies here, the "highest Good"
is equivalent to God Himself and the "divine fiery wheels,"
which are the source of the light God sheds on the lower orders
of His creation, absord His "holy hidden Mysteries"
to begin the process of lifting up those who are beneath and less
than the entities and powers who dwell at the highest levels of
the celestial hierarchy. The essential difference between Kant
and Dionysius is most clearly expressed in this statement, where
the mystical imagery of the latter conceals, as it were, the more
rational and philosophical terms of the former at the level of
a purely verbal surface that does little else than make one appear
to be less sophisticated than the other. At the end, however,
Kant's perception of man's elevation to a higher plane of existence
through adherence to a divinely ordered and maintained moral imperative
adds little more than a rational surface to the mystical language
of the Areopagite's celestial musings.
While Dionysius does not exactly express the concept of happiness
derived from pursuing the highest good in terms one can find replicated
directly in Kant's argument, that same notion does nevertheless
appear in the Areopagite's treatise when he says that
"The last thing for us to explain is the joy attributed
to the Celestial Orders. For they are utterly above and beyond
our passionate pleasures. But they are said to rejoice with God
over the finding of that which was lost, as well befits the Godlike
mildness of their nature, and as befits their beneficent and boundless
joy at the providential salvation of those who are turned to God."
(Chapter 15)
Here, in distinction to Kant, who makes joy and happiness the end result of the contemplation of the summum bonum for each individual human soul, since that leads to a harmony of the individual will with the will of God in acquiring a purely moral state of existence, a concept the Areopagite tends to relegate to a level well above the one attainable by human beings who can only achieve "passionate pleasures," Dionysius places all the true joy in the natures of the beings who occupy the higher and highest levels of the celestial hierarchy, in those whose "Godlike mildness" allows them to rejoice over those human creatures who manage to turn themselves to the contemplation of the highest good. Not exactly the same thing, of course, but one can see how Kant was able to suppress the highest order of contemplation down from a celestial level to a purely temporal and human one, which brings the Areopagite's conceptualization of happiness down from heaven, so to speak, and gives it over to those people best able to achieve a higher level of morality than most individuals ever manage to do. Put simply: saints are able to rejoice in their higher state of moral perfection; sinners tend only to suffer in misery for their failure to achieve the same status.