"The Way begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets the myriad things." Thus writes Laozi, in the Daodejing.
"Basic concepts," wrote Martin Heidegger, "determine the way in which we get an understanding beforehand of the area of subject-matter underlying all the objects a science takes as its theme, and all positive investigation is guided by this understanding. Only after the area itself has been explored beforehand in a corresponding manner do these concepts become genuinely demonstrated and 'grounded'" (Being and Time).
This post is the second on the topic of Deism. Therefore, taking heed of Martin Heidegger's advice, I will try to lay out the basic concepts of my metaphysical model of reality as briefly and clearly as I can.
The word ‘physics’, comes from the Greek phusikós (φυσικός), meaning ‘nature’, and is the study of material or physical nature, which includes chemistry, biology, and the other physical sciences. The word ‘metaphysics’, however, comes from the Greek metá (μετά), meaning ‘beyond, upon, after’ and physiká (φυσικά), meaning ‘physics, nature’, and is the study of that part of nature which is beyond matter.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts. Therefore, metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy.
Firstly, I would like to point out that the relationship between philosophy, metaphysics, and science is not one of opposition, but rather, one of cooperation. Since the aim of metaphysics is to identify first principles and that of science is to understand the physical reality; and since we have defined God as "the sum total of all that exists," then they have the same object of inquiry within their separate fields.
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| Albert Pike (circa 1860-1865). |
Secondly, I would also like to point out that the relationship between philosophy, metaphysics, and religion is also one of cooperation.
"For philosophy," wrote Albert Pike, "is but that knowledge of God and the Soul, which is derived from observation of the manifested action of God and the Soul, and from a wise analogy. It is the intellectual guide which the religious sentiment needs. The true religious philosophy of an imperfect being, is not a system of creed, but, as Socrates thought, an infinite search or approximation. Philosophy is that intellectual and moral progress, which the religious sentiment inspires and ennobles" (Morals and Dogma 3:12).
Thirdly, since philosophy and metaphysics have cooperative relationships with both science and religion separately, then it follows that religion and science need not be oppositional to each other, as has been the case, but can be cooperative as well.
What this means is that God is not separate from creation. An excellent way to understand this is to consider how one’s consciousness, is not separate from one's body, which is made up of individual organs, cells, molecules, and atoms. The awareness of the combined whole is greater than that of its individual parts. Many people suppose that since God is the creator, he is separate from his creation. One reason for this is that according to the Abrahamic religions, God created everything from nothing, which is called ex nihilo, "from nothing."
Wikipedia, last modified on January 13, 2019:
The idea that God created the world out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) is central today to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – indeed, the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared – yet it is not found directly in Genesis, nor in the entire Hebrew Bible. The Priestly authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function. This was still the situation in the early 2nd century AD, although early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God; by the beginning of the 3rd century this tension was resolved, world-formation was overcome, and creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.Even Richard Dawkins, the well-known scientist, and advocate for atheism, based his arguments on the presupposition that God is separate from creation. In his 2006 book, The God Delusion, he stated, "the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer." But as I have already noted, the designer is not separate from the designed. God is the mind and soul of the whole universe in the same way that we are the minds and souls of our physical bodies.
My monistic and pantheistic view of God as "the sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts" is not entirely new, however. Although I have arrived at this conclusion independently, I was surprised when I found it in ancient China.
Although it is not necessary, I am presenting to the reader this ancient Chinese point of view, so that the concepts that I have presented can be seen through their perspective.
Wikipedia, last modified on December 20, 2018:
Chinese theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the classic texts and the common religion, and specifically Confucian, Taoist and other philosophical formulations, is fundamentally monistic, that is to say it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. This is expressed by the concept that "all things have one and the same principle" (wànwù yīlǐ 萬物一理). This principle is commonly referred to as Tiān 天, a concept generally translated as "Heaven", referring to the northern culmen and starry vault of the skies and its natural laws which regulate earthly phenomena and generate beings as their progenitors. Ancestors are therefore regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and therefore as the means connecting back to Heaven which is the "utmost ancestral father" (曾祖父 zēngzǔfù). Chinese theology may be also called Tiānxué 天學 ("study of Heaven"), a term already in use in the 17th and 18th century.My definition of God, like the ancient Chinese, has two facets.
[...]
Chinese scholars emphasize that the Chinese tradition contains two facets of the idea of God: one is the personified God of popular devotion, and the other one is the impersonal God of philosophical inquiry. Together they express an "integrated definition of the monistic world".
The first facet, "that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be," is the personified God of popular devotion. It is the Deity, Providence, the Supreme Being and Nature's God. It is the God of devotion that is felt in the heart, worshiped and prayed to—for prayer "is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence" (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 1:17).
The second facet, "that than which none greater can be conceived, which is the sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts," is the impersonal God of philosophy and metaphysics, which is what I am writing about here.
Because I have defined God as "the sum total of all that exists" I have created a paradox. For whenever a thing exists in thought, as a concept, then its negation, or the opposite, necessarily exists in thought, as a concept.
As soon as I think ‘good’, then ‘bad exists as the negation or opposite of ‘good’. So if I say that God exists then its negation or opposite also exists. And, since I have said that God is existence itself then, necessarily, non-existence exists. But that brings up a bigger question. How can non-existence exist and still be non-existence?
Obviously, non-existence cannot and does not exist. However, the concept of non-existence does. The truth is that one cannot think of non-existence itself, because it doesn’t exist. One can only think of things that actually exist in reality or in the imagination, or think of nothing at all, but one cannot think of non-existence, only the concept of non-existence.
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| Martin Heidegger (1955). |
And here we come to the point where we must ask the ontological question: What is Being? This is a very difficult question to answer. Philosophers have been trying to answer it for over 2000 years. I am going to try to explain the answer to this question as briefly, simply and quickly as I can. So I am not going to explain all the different theories about Being or the reasons why the question is difficult to answer. But it is an important question to ask. In the history of ontology, which is the branch of philosophy that studies Being and existence, let us start at the end with Martin Heidegger and his book Being and Time.
In Being and Time, Heidegger inquires into Being by asking about the being for whom Being is an issue. He then terms this being, Dasein (literally means being-there), which is, "this entity which each of us is himself;" and "is an entity ... [that is] distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it." For Heidegger, Dasein is the human being, as that which is neither a subject nor the objective world alone, but rather a logically consistent Being-in-the-world; a projection of being into a personal world that engages with it in a never-ending process of involvement.
"Dasein," wrote Heidegger, "always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself. Dasein has either chosen these possibilities itself, or got itself into them, or grown up in them already. Only the particular Dasein decides its existence, whether it does so by taking hold or by neglecting. The question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself."
You may be wondering, what then is the answer to the question: 'What is being?
To answer, let me say that, in an abstract sense, Being is 'existence itself', and, in a more tangible sense, Being is 'all that exists'. It is true that 'existence itself' is an abstract concept, like 'permanence' and 'temperance'. It is also true that 'all that exists' is something tangible in reality—that is, it is something that can be observed, measured, felt and experienced. A tangible thing can be permanent, and a permanent thing can be seen, touched and felt. But 'permanence itself' is an idea, an abstract concept, that cannot be seen, touched or felt. The same goes for temperance. A person can be temperate, having self-restraint, and that person can be seen, touched and felt. But 'temperance itself' is an idea that is not tangible and cannot be seen, touched or felt. But 'existence itself' is the exception. It is the one abstract concept that is also tangible in reality.
Even though 'existence itself' is an abstract concept, it comprises all things in existence—that is, 'all that exists'. Consider this, if we were to subtract 'all that exists' from 'existence itself' then 'existence itself' would no longer remain, because, as an idea or abstract concept, it is still part of 'all that exists'. Therefore, 'all that exists' also comprises 'existence itself'. 'All that exists' requires 'existence itself' to exists and 'existence itself' requires 'all that exists' to exist. They are the same.
Furthermore, since 'all that exists' is a whole with an 'absolute awareness of all its parts', it is both subjective and objective and neither of them. However, it could be said that Absolute Awareness is subjective in relation to its wholeness and objective in relation to its parts. But it is neither wholly one or the other. Therefore, like Heidegger's Dasein, Absolute Awareness is "that which is neither a subject nor the objective world alone, but rather a logically consistent Being-in-the-world; a projection of being into [] personal world[s] that engages with [them] in a never-ending process of involvement.
Absolute Awareness is Absolute Dasein, which "always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself. [Absolute] Dasein has either chosen these possibilities itself, or got itself into them, or grown up in them already. Only the particular [Non-Absolute] Dasein[s] decide [their] existence[s], whether [they do] so by taking hold or by neglecting. The question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself."
And what else can "existing itself" be other than 'existence itself', which is 'all that exists'. And what is 'all that exists'? It is none other than Being.
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| The yin-yang symbol, tàijítú (太極圖). |
Within all that exists, there is a duality of absolutes: Absolute Awareness of All That Exists and Absolute Non-awareness of All That Exist: not even the existence of one's self. And since Absolute Non-awareness is associated with the primal matter, such as atoms and molecules, then Absolute Awareness must be related to its opposite, primal spirit.
To understand this better take a look at the yin-yang symbol, tàijítú (太極圖). It represents perfectly the balance of these two absolutes perfectly. Where one half is thickest, the other half is thinnest. And, at the greatest part of one half, lies the seed of the other half.
Again, let us have a look at ancient Chinese theology and see if we can find some useful information that will help further us along in understanding these metaphysics.
Wikipedia, last modified on December 20, 2018:
As explained by the scholar Stephan Feuchtwang, in Chinese cosmology "the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy" (hundun 混沌 and qi 氣), organising as the polarity of yin and yang which characterises any thing and life. Creation is therefore a continuous ordering; it is not a creation ex nihilo. Yin and yang are the invisible and the visible, the receptive and the active, the unshaped and the shaped; they characterise the yearly cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (shady and bright), the sexes (female and male), and even sociopolitical history (disorder and order). The gods themselves are divided in yin forces of contraction, 鬼 guǐ ("demons" or "ghosts") and yang forces of expansion 神 shén ("gods" or "spirits"); in the human being they are the 魂 hún and 魄 pò (where hun is yang and po is yin; respectively the rational and emotional soul, or the ethereal and the corporeal soul). Together, 鬼神 guishen is another way to define the twofold operation of the God of Heaven, its resulting dynamism being called itself shen, spirit.Let us borrow from the ancient Chinese their duality of "forces of expansion" and "forces of contraction" and apply them to our duality of Absolute Awareness and Absolute Non-awareness.
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The dragon, associated to the constellation Draco winding the north ecliptic pole and slithering between the Little and Big Dipper (or Great Chariot), represents the "protean" primordial power, which embodies both yin and yang in unity, and therefore the awesome unlimited power (qi) of divinity. In Han-dynasty traditions, Draco is described as the spear of the supreme God.
Absolute Awareness is equal to absolute expansion because "the sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts" is necessarily an expansion of awareness to all the parts of all that exists.
And Absolute Non-awareness is equal to absolute contraction because it is a contracting of awareness from the parts of all that exists towards the self so entirely that there is not even an awareness of the existence of the self. So, we can see that this duality also exists as a form of primal selflessness and primal selfishness.
But, if God is all that exists, then isn't he necessarily selfish? The answer to this question is yes, but only in the sense of Absolute Non-awareness. In the sense of Absolute Awareness, the answer is no, because awareness and energy expand outward to everything with lesser awareness. Even though God's self, which is all that exists, always benefits at the level of Absolute Awareness, it does so through selfless expansion.
Now that we have conceptualized these absolutes let us give them proper names. Let us call Absolute Awareness Primal-Heaven and Absolute Non-awareness, Primal-Earth. And since we know that we, human beings, belong to neither of those two absolutes, then there must be degrees or levels of awareness between them, and furthermore, there must also be a middle point where these absolutes are unified and balanced.
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| A portion of "Nine Dragons" handscroll by Chen Rong (1244). |
The ancient Chinese imagined the balance of these absolute forces in the form of a dragon, a divine flying serpent; a reptilian and avian beast that represented the embodiment of "both yin and yang in unity, and therefore the awesome unlimited power (qi) of divinity," which were the forces of contraction and expansion, and awareness and non-awareness. The dragon represented the divine forces at the middle point between Primal-Earth and Primal-Heaven. So what is this middle point?
Although it would seem appropriate to place the level of human beings at the middle point, a closer examination makes this doubtful. Consider this, if the level of Primal Earth is Absolute Non-awareness and primal matter, and that of Primal Heaven, Absolute Awareness and primal spirit then the middle point would have to be a level of half-awareness and half-non-awareness, and half spirit and half matter. My argument is that since there are so many human beings that are unaware of the spirit, then we must inhabit a level somewhere below the middle point. The middle point should be a point where the awareness of spirit and matter are equally real and unquestionable.
Since other organic lifeforms, like plants and animals, have awareness, but to a lesser degree to that of human beings, then they must exist at a level between ours and Primal-Earth. Let us call this level, Lower-Earth, and our level, Middle-Earth.
Seeing that we have two levels between the middle point and Primal-Earth then, for balance, there must be two corresponding levels between the middle point and Primal-Heaven. We could call the level directly above the middle point, Middle-Heaven, and the level directly above that, Higher-Heaven. This would mean that the middle point could also be called Lower-Heaven, as well as Higher-Earth. Therefore let us call it the Otherworld.
Wikipedia, last modified on May 6, 2018:
The concept of an "otherworld" in historical Indo-European religion is reconstructed in comparative mythology. The term is a calque of orbis alius or "Celtic Otherworld", so named by Lucan in his description of the druidic doctrine of metempsychosis.In summary, we have seven levels of awareness or worlds:
Comparable religious, mythological or metaphysical concepts, such as a realm of supernatural beings and a realm of the dead, are found in cultures throughout the world. Spirits are thought to travel between worlds, or layers of existence in such traditions, usually along an axis such as a giant tree, a tent pole, a river, a rope or mountains.
- Seventh: Primal-Heaven,
- Sixth: Higher-Heaven,
- Fifth: Middle-Heaven,
- Fourth: The Otherworld,
- Third: Middle-Earth,
- Second: Lower-Earth, and
- First: Primal Earth.
| George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (circa 1925-1935). |
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| Gurdjieff's "Ray of Creation." |
Gurdjieff's system is similar to mine, in that, in his system, the higher the level, the less density of matter and the fewer natural laws of restraint. From what I have read, it seems that he acquired his system from certain esoteric traditions in the East. And that may be true, to some degree, but I suspect that he developed most of his ideas himself. That being said, let us return to the matter at hand.
A good allegorical example that contains elements of this metaphysical model of reality is the Proto-Indo-European myth of the divine twins, which corresponds to chapter 42 of the Daodejing (道德经), a 6th-century BC Chinese text that was written by Laozi (老子), an ancient Chinese philosopher and founder of Daoism:
The Way begets one,
道生一,
One begets two,
一生二,
Two begets three,
二生三,
And three beget the myriad things.
三生萬物。
| Roman marble statuettes of Castor and Pollux (circa 3rd century AD). |
In his 2007 book, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W. Anthony writes:
At the beginning of time there were two brothers, twins, one named Man (*Manu, in Proto-Indo-European) and the other Twin (*Yemo). They traveled through the cosmos accompanied by a great cow. Eventually Man and Twin decided to create the world we now inhabit. To do this, Man had to sacrifice Twin (or, in some versions, the cow). From the parts of this sacrificed body, with the help of the sky gods (Sky Father, Storm God of War, Divine Twins), Man made the wind, the sun, the moon, the sea, earth, fire, and finally all the various kinds of people.The twins in this myth represent two halves of existence, and the great cow represents the conservation of energy, the movement of energy through living systems by way of subsistence, and the storage of that energy as potential and wealth—as that was what cattle represented to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants.
Wikipedia, last modified on September 15, 2019:
Proto-Indo-European society depended on animal husbandry. People valued cattle (*péḱu – Vedic Sanskrit páśu, Latin pecu- *gʷōus – Sanskrit go, Latin bo-) as their most important animals, measuring a man's wealth by the number of cows he owned (Latin pecunia 'money' from pecus)."The Way begets one" (道生一): The traveling of Man, Twin, and the great cow throughout the cosmos, and then deciding to create the world, represents Laozi's "Way" (Dao 道) that "begets one" (生一), and Martin Heidegger's "Everything is Way" (Alles ist Weg) from his 1959 book, Unterwegs zur Sprache.
Let me explain. The Chinese character dao (道) combines the chuo (辶) 'go' radical and shou (首) 'head' character. Also, dao (道) is the phonetic element in dao (導) 'guide, lead'. I interpret this as meaning that the "Way" (dao 道 ) is a natural course, way, or path that represents the natural order of the universe, as a whole, in the present tense of going, guiding, leading, heading; becoming, and way-making. Hence, "Everything is Way" (Alles ist Weg) and "The Way begets one" (道生一).
"One begets two" (一生二): The voluntary sacrifice of Twin by Man represents one-half of existence choosing to lose absolute awareness and becoming primal matter. This represents the division of the whole into the duality of non-awareness and awareness; of yin and yang; forces of contraction and expansion; selfishness and selflessness. This analogy, by the way, is not incompatible with the Big Bang Theory, which is "the prevailing cosmological model for the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution."
Wikipedia, last modified on January 3, 2019:
Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang at around 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe. After its initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements (mostly hydrogen, with some helium and lithium) later coalesced through gravity, eventually forming early stars and galaxies, the descendants of which are visible today. Astronomers also observe the gravitational effects of dark matter surrounding galaxies. Though most of the mass in the universe seems to be in the form of dark matter, Big Bang theory and various observations seem to indicate that it is not made out of conventional baryonic matter (protons, neutrons, and electrons) but it is unclear exactly what it is made out of."Two begets three" (二生三): With the division of the whole into two parts: absolute awareness and absolute non-awareness, there still exists the "sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts" which makes three, which is represented in the myth as the sky gods.
"And three beget the myriad things" (三生萬物): Between absolute awareness and absolute non-awareness, there is a great protean void, like the Ginnungagap of Norse cosmology. And Man, with the help of the sky gods, making all things from Twin's sacrificed body is the interaction of awareness with primal matter, and acting upon it by influencing it, according to the Laws of Nature, the "Way" (dao 道), that results in creating all that exists.
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| Triskele carving at Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland (circa 3200 BC). |
Awareness grows as a soul evolves through experiences and spirals upward through cycles of births and rebirths. This process of spiritual growth and evolution is represented in the Celtic triskele. According to Julius Caesar the philosophers of the Celts, the Druids, taught "... that souls do not die, but after death pass from one to another..." (... non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios...). Greek philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, also taught the doctrine of reincarnation, as did the Hindus and the Buddhist. This is expressed brilliantly in Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī's (جلالالدین محمد رومی) 13th-century poem Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی):
On death, I left being mineral then grew.
And changed from plant to animal form too.
Then died to that, to be a human here.
When did death make me less? What should I fear?
I’ll die to humanness at the next battle.
Then spread my wings and soar above each angel.
I must transcend the angels’ status too.
All perishes except God’s face proves true.
Sacrificed, I’ll die to the angel then.
And go beyond imaginings of men.
I’ll then be Non-existent, and I’ll hear:
To Him we are returning, sound so clear.
(Book III: 3901-3907)
(Book III: 3901-3907)







