The Transcendentals - DTC 1.4
DTC, that is, Deep Thinking about Christianity, or some such similar thing, is a series of nontechnical posts that contain my responses to the biggest intellectual challenges to Christianity. As I explain in the preface, I hope that both naturalists and believers will benefit from this series. The Introduction contains a prospective outline.
The transcendentals, as understood by medieval theologians like Duns Scotus, are the fundamental properties of being that transcend the categories of Aristotle and apply to everything that exists. Given our discussion thus far, a more apt definition for transcendentals is properties of being that are present and knowable in our existence and can be understood to be part of the divine existence by analogy. The notable medieval philosopher Albertus Magnus specifically lists four transcendentals: Unity, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Medieval philosophy of the transcendentals involves much more complexity than is necessary to explore here. In fact, the specific list of “transcendentals” is relatively inconsequential for our purposes as well; the method is far more fascinating.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What even is a “transcendental”? What makes something “transcendental”? It’s all a bit fuzzy. Given our exploration so far, we know that both we and the divine have something we might call “being” and that we can explore this relationship of being via the notion of analogy. Well, if we dig deeper into what “being” really is — what the necessary properties of being are — we should directly discover “transcendentals”. To be very clear about this, something (some property) is a transcendental if and only if it applies to every thing, entity, object, and being that exists, and if that property is essential (necessary) to that thing’s, entity’s, object’s, or being’s very existence. This is why we can rightly call transcendentals “facets of being”, a concept that we can develop further as we explore the transcendentals themselves.
Let’s explore the typical medieval philosopher’s list of four transcendentals in light of the analogia entis. In doing so, we can seek to make catophatic (positive) statements about the divine, and perhaps even build out by example a method of sorts for exploring additional potential transcendentals, or facets of being.
Unity
Let's begin with unity. Consider any entity that exists - it must, by definition, be one thing. Even if it is composed of parts, it maintains a unity that distinguishes it from other entities. This oneness is not an additional property added to the being but rather an intrinsic aspect of its existence. Without unity, a thing would not be distinguishable from anything else; thus, it would not truly exist as itself. Therefore, unity is necessary to being; wherever there is being, there is unity.
As a transcendental, unity frames divine existence as a single entity. However, as we know, unity is difficult to pin down. We may have a vague notion of a “single entity”, but in all conceivable cases, entities as we know them are composite, or composed of parts. If we imagine true unity, it is a oneness that transcends our material existence; it cannot actually exist in a material way, yet we recognize its partial instantiations. In this way, when grasping at what the unity of the divine being is like by way of analogy, comparing it to what we know of unity in our existence, we find that divine or transcendental unity implies a non-composite, simple existence. Simple existence means that the entity does not have parts as we understand them. Whatever the divine being is, it is just that; there exist no parts into which it may be subdivided.
This will be particularly useful when discovering more facets, as we are able to apply the concept of simplicity or unity to those facets as well; whether the divine being “possesses”, “may access” or otherwise “relate to” the transcendentals, such as truth, goodness, and beauty, the divine being actually is those things. In its simplicity, its nature somehow is comprehensive of the transcendentals, without being reduced to any single one of them. Indeed, the transcendentals are elements of the analogy of being but must not be confused with the divine being itself.
If there are elements of the divine that we seek to identify and explore, as we are doing now, it is actually better to recognize that there is a simplicity beneath all of these elements; there is a single entity without division. For this reason, it is actually better to call these “elements” or “parts” “facets” or “faces”, clarifying the point that these are merely visible glimpses of the surface-level knowledge of the divine, simple entity. However, even these faces are not directly visible to us; we only glimpse them by analogy.
Truth
Truth is a tricky notion to pin down. For our sake, it may be best to begin with the concept of intelligibility. For something to exist, it must be intelligible - it must have a nature that can, in principle, be known or understood. To be a bit pedantic, existing things must have the ability for propositional truths to be stated of them. This intelligibility is what allows us to grasp the essence of things, to distinguish one thing from another, and to make true statements about reality. Even if we don't fully understand something, its very existence implies that it has a nature that could potentially be known. Thus, truth, or intelligibility, is also necessary to being.
We mere mortals, finite beings, posses truth as a facet of our existence insofar as we conform to reality and can be known. We are really real, so we’ve got truth. However, while truth may be instantiated in principle, our ability to perceive and rightly know it is fundamentally limited. Obviously, this is true of the scope of truth that is accessible to our being. Perhaps the transcendental form of truth is, then, something like “all-knowledge” or omniscience. I would argue that thinking of truth in accordance with the analogia entis suggests a limit in our ability to know truth itself: an epistemological limit. We could spend a long time developing this idea, but it’s actually relatively intuitive. Consider any object; can you know it fully?
Can you comprehend the existence of an apple fully? This would involve understanding how it was grown on a tree, perhaps the history of that tree, the nutrient and energy pathways from the soil and the sun through the tree, not to mention the various genetic information of the tree that “coded” it to make the apple in a particular way. Even in perceiving the apple itself, all that we have access to is what our senses tell us about it: an imperfectly precise electrical signal representing its color, smell, textures, taste, and so on. All that we have access to are these imperfect renders, these samples of the truth. To comprehend even an apple, fully, is an absurd and impossible task.
Thus, divine or transcendental truth is not limited by precision of knowledge. Whereas we glimpse imperfect, imprecise images of reality, transcendental truth implies a perfect understanding of existence. However, “understanding” implies something like “mind”, and this is not a concept that we can comfortably assert of the divine — that would be to take the analogy too far. Rather, we can simply say that while we as beings posses truth imperfectly, the divine being possesses it wholly. In this way, by the relationship of analogy, we see that while our own being can sample the truth, the divine being has actual truth: complete and perfect reality. By its simplicity (or oneness, unity), we may assert that the divine being simply is truth.
Goodness
Goodness, in the transcendental sense, is not strictly about moral virtue. Instead, it is about the usefulness or fulfillment of purpose that an entity achieves.
There is a natural goodness in an ecosystem, as each organism fulfills its niche. We might say that a nonnative organism has less goodness in that ecosystem.
The concept is difficult, as it seems to require the endowment of purpose from some creator of the entity and some meaning found in the fulfillment of that purpose. Essentially, we’re still appealing to some sort of universal standard of goodness. This is all a bit much when we haven’t even elucidated “what is god?” yet. Even in the above example, it’s impossible to fully evade counter-arguments of moral relativism or “goodness relativism” (I didn’t even try). Still, the concept works well enough when we apply it to human-created and human-used entities. Let’s stick with that, for now.
A chair is good and useful only to the extent that it fulfills its purposes as a chair, and it is able to do so only to the extent that it is an actualized chair, according to the nature of chairness.
Another perspective on goodness is found in an entity’s ability to be an object of desire or will. Once again considering the human-relative context, it is clear that certain objects posses desirableness. Specifically, objects that may be used to achieve or further our goals are desirable. These objects are desirable, not inherently because of their nature, but because they are good for something — for fulfilling the human will.
A chair possesses goodness to the extent that it is good for being used as a chair.
Goodness is only partially attainable in our finite existence: an object cannot forever fulfill its purpose, has limitations on the extent to which or scope within which it may fulfill its purpose, and will be utilized imperfectly in the fulfillment of that purpose. Humans also have some sort of “nature” that may be understood as our potential purpose, yet we will never fully fulfill that nature because of environmental factors. Divine or transcendental goodness has no such limitations; it fulfills goodness in a fundamentally superior and perfect way. Whatever its nature is, it fully actualizes it: divine being fully is and achieves its nature. The divine being is the perfect being. As an aside, this concept is essentially identical with the concept of “omnipotence”.
Beauty
Beauty is probably the most elusive of the four transcendentals under consideration here, as the widely varied arguments in the field of aesthetics in philosophy reflect. In our finite experience, beauty is often seen as a subjective idea, a matter of personal taste or cultural norms. However, as a transcendental, beauty refers to something more fundamental - the pleasing quality of being when apprehended. Just as truth relates to the intellect and goodness to the will, beauty relates to our aesthetic sense.
The observation of objects is inherently subjective; the subject observes certain things, likely in accordance with their “experience”, but more specifically, according to their goals and needs. An oasis is very beautiful to someone who thirsts, yet it may appear to be a muddle puddle to someone who does not thirst.
However, beauty is also clearly objective — that is, it is something that is an inherent quality in the object itself. Objects and entities automatically posses beauty to the extent that they posses a structure. Structure occurs when parts comprise a whole. As we saw before, entities are composite wholes, possessing unity imperfectly. The parts harmoniously interact to create the form and order of objects. According to what we know of physics, objects are, indeed, well-structured. How an atom is comprised is a thing of beauty, and objects are comprised of atoms. How the atoms are arranged is another layer of structure. Emergent systems upon structured atoms are surely even more beautiful still. Biological systems… well, you get the idea.
Beauty, understood in this way, is always present, all around us, existing in every object. The world is full of beauty. We simply are too busy and goal-oriented typically to observe it, not to mention our limitations on actually observing it. This is why beauty is a good candidate for a transcendental in the first place: it is possessed in part and in differing degrees by all entities.
Divine or transcendental beauty is, then, beauty that is not tied to subjective judgement or composite structure. Paradoxically, both sides of the aesthetic argument, namely, the side of subjective beauty and that of objective beauty, seem to fall short when applied to the divine being. That’s actually perfectly fine in our line of reasoning, as we’re simply trying to find the threads or facets of the analogy of being. What actually is beauty in our existence is merely analogical to the beauty of the divine being, after all. The argument leads us to assert that divine being must be beauty itself. The divine being has and is the perfect order, the perfect harmony and unity of form and content, and the ultimate standard for and source of our subjective sense of beauty.
Divine Existence
In each of the above examples, as briefly, imperfectly, and tenuously explored as they were, the common thread of the analogia entis is present. By making argument not of quality or quantity, and by allowing a certain epistemic gap between knowledge of the finite instantiations of the transcendentals and the divine being of the transcendentals, we find ourselves in a dance of apophatic and cataphatic statements, each framing the divine existence from a new perspective. We find that transcendentals, while present in all material entities, perfectly exist as the divine being itself. This leaves room for the discovery of additional transcendentals, although that is a well-worn path in philosophy.
Surprisingly, if the analogia entis and its accompanying transcendentals are accepted, we are able to discover several very descriptive and compelling ways in which to describe “god”, accepting that title for the “divine being”. While this is probably not an exhaustive list of what we can discover of God using this method — there are probably more transcendentals out there, for one thing — it’s good enough for our exploration. Having anything to say about the divine based on nature is really all I set out to do in this chapter. Nevertheless, the findings have exceeded my expectations:
God is Unity, wholly united in its own being, without division or part.
God is Truth, actually existing as the perfect reality.
God is Goodness, fully achieving its own nature.
God is Beauty, entirely expressing aesthetic perfection.