Western Philosophies' Critical Error                                                                                                    by Richard Quist I propose that the current prevailing spiritual and philosophical attitudes of the Western World, which, except for the views of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches generally reflect either simplistic spirituality or an out right anti-spiritual attitude, are the result of the combination of a Roman Catholic theology that historically has not properly distinguished between uncreated metaphysical reality and created metaphysical reality in it's attempt to unify faith with reason, and the philosophical precept known as Ockham's Razor.    Uncreated reality, as defined by early Church theology, is God proper, who is incorporeal, formless and transcendent, while created metaphysical reality is the spiritual realm created by God and which possesses a distinctive type of corporeality and form and includes metaphysical entities such as souls, heaven, angels (etc.). The Roman Catholic Church, while always having accepted that there is a distinction between created and uncreated metaphysical reality, later incorrectly defined the nature of this distinction in it's explanations of God's grace and also de-emphasized it in other aspects of it's theology, and then proceeded to neglect it's true significance when scholastics in the Church attempted to logically demonstrate the existence of God.  This eventually led to refutations of these demonstrations based upon principles of unknowability, but these refutations also neglect the concept, well known and accepted in the Eastern Orthodox Church, of there being two different aspects to metaphysical reality, a created aspect, which is knowable to created beings because it has a distinct type of corporeality and form, and an uncreated one, which has great limitations in it's knowability for created beings because of it's incorporeal, formless and transcendent nature.   The Razor, attributed to William of Ockham, a Franciscan monk of the fourteenth century, states that, all things being equal the simplest solution to a problem is always the best. This has been the basis used by many in their attempts to refute Roman Catholic theology, and ultimately in the long run, the notion of the existence of metaphysical reality.  It is my contention that the lack of proper understanding of the concept that there exists two distinct aspects to metaphysical reality, created and uncreated, has made Roman Catholic theology and philosophical views that embrace the concept of the existence of a spiritual realm vulnerable to the Razor.   With the Razor, William of Ockham introduced an approach to evaluating belief systems that led to the concept of nominalism, and eventually, in the hands of some, eliminated the value all but immediately and explicitly provable truth and faith.  His was originally an effort to refute the concept that the world of ideas, called "universals", have a metaphysical existence distinct from physical reality, and also the scholastic theologians' attempts to reconcile faith and reason which for the most part incorporated universals to a degree.  Ockham's approach to analyzing belief systems became popular in both philosophical and theological fields just when there was a growth and proliferation of knowledge of natural law and physical reality, and this eventually helped lead to the domination of the study of and regard for natural law in academia, it being more susceptible to easy proofs than is supernatural law.  In the long run this eventually led to the elimination of created metaphysical reality and God in many philosophers' world view, as these concepts became classified as products of self-delusion and flawed reasoning since they couldn't philosophically and scientifically be proven to exist and are thus unnecessary complications in any attempt to know actual truth.    In regards to theology, Ockham's approach began a path to a type of monothesism (the belief in the real value of only the divine nature of Christ, at the expense of his human nature), because the elimination of man's capacity to partake in the created supernatural aspects of reality (for this is the result of the elimination of created metaphysical reality) inherently diminishes the importance of Christ's humanity through it's redefining of His humanity in terms of only obvious physical reality.
The first problem in applying Ockham's razor to theological issues is the caveat "all things being equal".  The Razor actually means that when there are two solutions to a problem that produce the same answer, thus equal answers, the simpler solution is preferred. What is many times neglected when applying the Razor is the natures of the resulting answers to the problem that each solution gives and whether they are in fact equal.  In regards to soteriology, the nature of the product of each plan of salvation, that is, the saved person, must be considered. The question must be asked, is a person who is formed by a plan of salvation that does not include a factor of free will in all things equal in nature to a person who is formed by one that does.  I would say no.  Plans of salvation based upon simply predestination or faith alone do not form the same type of person as does a plan of salvation which includes the factor of self-willed choices in all things, and naturally lend themselves to simpler, if not simplistic, explanations.  A plan of salvation that attributes true value to good self-willed choices provides a basis for giving genuine dignity and respect to those who make good choices, while one that doesn't does not.  Consequently, it is not valid to use the Razor when comparing the merits of a plan of salvation that incorporates free will in all things with one that does not because they do not produce equal results.  This issue of the quality of the product of salvation, meaning the type of person formed, is also relevant to the question of the distinct existence of universals. This is because if a mind can only acquire information through interactions with physical reality while operating in the physical world through a physical body then it's access to information is limited, and thus so is its potential capabilities.  A plan of salvation that includes free will in all things necessarily requires that more information be made available to those who make free willed choices than one that does not since correct choices require the availability of the necessary information to make good choices.  That God would structure reality as Roman Catholic scholastic theology claims He has makes sense when one of the purposes of God is to convey the necessary information for correct free-willed choices.     In proper Christian theology the simplicity desired by Ockham and others is actually had in the Trinity.  One acquires the Spirit of God through following the Son of God and this brings one to a deeper awareness of God the Father.  Complexity comes in attempting to know and follow the Son, who has both an uncreated divine nature and a created human nature.  Because of Christ's unity with Creation, which is embodied in His taking on a human nature, truths of God are expressed and acquired through both super-natural and natural Creation.  The need for super-natural Creation rests in the purposes of God, which is to empower human beings to become capable of making good free-willed choices in all things, and also to give human beings the opportunity to exercise that empowerment in a manner that is beneficial to God and man.  The existence of created metaphysical reality provides the possibility for human beings to exert their will in this realm, and is thus a possible path of empowerment that is not available within simple physical reality.  True intercessory prayer is an obvious example of this.     Simplicity can also be had in following the Son if one has the humility to accept the proper authority of those who have been given the capacity to understand the complex issues involved in following the Son.  This then explains why God would create a church such as the Orthodox and Catholic Church, which has explanations of the complex issues but which also enables a person to know how to follow God without having a complete understanding of these issues.
Scholastics theologians made a legitimate effort to explain universals, but it was flawed.  They developed a compromise between the Platonic view that universals exist in an eternal metaphysical reality and the Aristotelian view that they exist only in particular objects within physical reality by claiming that they essentially exist in both realms, in the objects of physical reality, with these forms being related in some way to forms that exist in a metaphysical realm.  The problem with this solution is that metaphysical reality is not clearly described in terms of two distinct realms, created and uncreated, with universals attributed only to the created, and not the uncreated, metaphysical realm. Not properly defining a created metaphysical realtity in which universals can exist in such a way that they are unified in a knowable way with physical reality had the effect of leaving in place a solid barrier between the metaphysical and physical realms, encouraging a dualist approach to the issue both in terms of the relationship between the metaphysical realm in general and the physical realm and later in terms of the specific metaphysical entity, the mind, and it's relationship to the physical realm. This mind-body dualism reached full flower in the field of philosophy in the work of Renee Descartes.  This later became the central problem in Western philosophy, and in my view the lack of a satisfying solution to this problem in the long run led philosophers to dismiss the existence of metaphysical reality.
	The mind-body problem includes the issue of whether the mind and it's perceptions exist distinctly and separately from physical reality, distinctly and in unity with physical reality, or not distinctly at all, but simply as the activity of a complex physical entity, the brain.  If there is a distinct existence for the mind then there exists a distinct metaphysical reality, since in this case the mind itself would have metaphysical constructs.  What has been neglected by most Western philosophers when considering this problem is that when one accepts the possibility that there are two distinct types of metaphysical reality, created and uncreated, then the analysis of this issue is altered significantly. This is because the possibility of the existence of two aspects to metaphysical reality fundamentally affects our understanding of the relationships between the metaphysical realm (God, soul, mind) and the physical world (body, physical Universe), since a created metaphysical reality can have forms and mechanics connected to physical reality which are very knowable and even provable, all the while co-existing with an uncreated metaphysical reality which is transcendent and formless.  With this approach the scholastic-Cartesian duality problem evaporates.   In his writings, Immanuel Kant, arguably the most influential philosopher on modern thought, claims that the existence of both physical and metaphysical reality is not provable, and thus ultimately can only be known subjectively, though a subjectivity circumscribed by reason.  This leads to the conclusion that since physical reality can be empirically measured and scientifically analyzed and metaphysical reality can not, we can be more sure of our knowledge of and the existence of physical reality than of metaphysical reality. However, in his analysis he basically neglects the concept of the possibility of there being two distinct types of metaphysical realms, created and uncreated, and in doing so confused what can be known and how it can be known with what can't be known in regards to metaphysical reality.  None the less, his criteria for knowability became the standard for most later Western philosophers, and this helped redirect many philosophers' attention away from efforts to know the mechanics of metaphysical reality.
An important aspect of Kant's influence rests in his defining the parameters of knowability in regards to the degree that the mind can know external realities, whether physical or metaphysical, with his conclusion being that this question is not definitively answerable but this doesn't matter because through the use of reason the mind can relate to both realities well enough to make sufficiently accurate conclusions about them.  In my view this is an example of an overly simple solution to a problem, as opposed to the simplest valid solution called for by the Razor.  For many, however, Kant's solution made the issue moot, while others looked for new ways to strengthen the bond between the mind and physical and metaphysical reality.  This led to two separate and almost opposite directions in philosophical inquiry, one, followed by Kierkegaard and others, using Kant's parameters to justify a turning away from the issue and to an emphasis on subjectivity, individuality, and effect of will, and the other, most notably followed by Hegel, emphasizing the concept that greater knowledge of the specifics of reality can be had through a greater understanding of the unity of reality, while basically following a platonic model of unity. Time has  improved man's capacity to know the mechanics of physical reality.  Through progress in the field of physics and the other sciences we now have an extensive understanding of physical reality and it's unified nature. This supports the Hegelian view for unity and the concept that one acquires more accurate perceptions based upon an understanding of unity, at least in regards to the physical realm, and also to a degree enhances the bond between the mind and physical reality by demonstrating the correlation between the results of the mind's use of abstract mathematical concepts to not only describe physical reality but also to predict it's structure, and actually observe structures of physical reality that were previously unobservable.  The problem, though, is that metaphysical reality has been left by the wayside, as for many everything is now reduced to simply physical reality, and philosophers and theologians have not found an acceptable way to incorporate metaphysical reality into this physically based unity.  In my view this is because of the neglect, continued by Hegel, of the concept of there being two different aspects to metaphysical reality, the uncreated, which is God proper, and the created, which can be understood in terms of forms, and through these forms be related to physical reality.  This distinction is necessary in order to accommodate concepts such as eternity, formlessness, non-being, and total transcendence in such a way that they lay outside knowable reality, so that there can be completeness and full unity within knowable reality.  Otherwise, there will be confusion as to what is knowable or not, this inevitably leading to an undermining of our understanding of the unity and completeness of knowable reality.
This confusion is reflected in the Platonic concept of emanations, the idea that reality emanates from and reflects perfect eternal forms. Besides it's difficulty in accommodating the concepts of formlessness and non-being, this concept implies an eternal, as opposed to an everlasting or temporal, nature for the soul and even physical reality, leading to the concept that man is by nature an integral part of God, thus also intrinsically possessive of the qualities of all knowingness and total transcendence.  Assuming these qualities for man is easily questioned.  If however, we assume that there are two aspects to metaphysical reality, uncreated and created, then these qualities are not implied as intrinsic to man's nature, which is created.  It also becomes possible to describe time itself as created, and thus souls and universal forms can be described as created, everlasting and time transcendent, giving them what can be termed relative transcendence, as opposed to total transcendence.
The early Church had always taught that there are two aspects to metaphysical reality, the uncreated, God, and that which He created, this including Heaven, Hell, the human soul and the mind.  It is in the person of Christ that these two aspects of metaphysical reality are united, in the union of his divine nature (uncreated), and human nature (created), which includes his soul and mind.  According to Orthodox Christian theology (St. John of Damascus), the soul (a created metaphysical entity) and the body (a created physical entity) are each corporeal in their distinctive ways (with only uncreated metaphysical reality, God, being completely incorporeal), and also in union with each other in particular ways at all times, even in death.  This reflects the unified, though distinct, natures of created metaphysical and created physical reality.  The mind is the interface between the soul and physical reality.  The soul and the mind reside in metaphysical reality, but a metaphysical reality that is unified with physical reality.   If we extend the concepts defined by the Church to include the idea that Christ's created mind and soul were actually created with the creation of the Universe and in union with all other souls and minds which are also created at the creation of the Universe, and since these souls, in time, are eventually born into the physical world, we then have a basis to say that in the fullness of time all souls and minds are united with the physical universe.  The unifying principle binding the soul, mind, and physical body together would be the everlasting soul's capacity to transcend time, meaning that once created the soul has the capacity on some level to experience all time periods simultaneously. This characteristic would also be the basis for defining it's unique corporeal nature, a corporeality based upon time transcendence, thus one not directly detectible through time dependent physical entities.  With this structure metaphysical reality is the unifying construct of reality, while physical reality is the differentiating construct, with the metaphysical construct binding together physical reality through it's capacity to transcend the barriers and gaps, including those described by quantum theory, within physical reality. The mind, residing in the soul, would have some capacity to perceive reality through this time transcending characteristic of the soul while acting and reacting in both the metaphysical realm and the physical realm. Through the souls capacity to transcend time the mind acquires a type of information about physical reality, and this information can be considered to be a type of universal, not a type that is separate from physical reality but one that is united with it.
Since according to Orthodox Christianity there is a distinction between uncreated and created metaphysical reality, it is possible to conceive of the above construction for reality without including the existence of God and the specifics of Christianity.  For a Christian it is the uncreated grace of God, sometimes referred to as His divine energies, which influences a mind's perceptions of Creation and determines a soul's true condition, and, while the mechanics of the created soul and mind can be understood and while uncreated grace manipulates perceptions through these mechanics, the mechanics of the interface between uncreated grace and the created soul and mind are unknowable since one of the components of the interface, uncreated grace, is formless and incorporeal.  From this we can draw a line between what can and cannot be analyzed and defined.  This line is what historically has not been properly drawn, and this led to flawed analysis and conclusions in regards to determining the true nature of reality.  The construction for created reality described above provides a basis for uniting all souls and minds with all physical creation, and also for uniting every soul and mind with every other in such a way that, theoretically, they could communicate with each other through the created metaphysical realm.  A person's thoughts then could manipulate both other peoples minds and physical reality, positively or negatively.  Ideas themselves could also form or break down metaphysical barriers within minds, blocking or enabling accurate perceptions. I've just presented one example of a structure for reality which includes a created metaphysical reality that is in union with physical reality and knowable.  When a belief system leads a society to believe that something can't be known, then that something can become unknown, since little effort is made to know it, and this is what has happened to Western society under the influence of their philosophers in regards to metaphysical reality.  With the approach I've put forward here it is possible that a created metaphysical reality could be theoretically proven to exist by demonstrating that physical reality can only exist as it does if it has this type of metaphysical component.  It is also possible that experimental proofs of telepathy and telekinesis, which in fact are abilities claimed by Christians for Christ, could be devised through the development of this approach, and this would provide a definitive proof of the existence of a created metaphysical component to reality.  These proofs however are far less important than the simple idea that the metaphysical realm is in fact always being experienced by all beings whether or not they define the experience as such, and one's consciousness of the experience of the metaphysical can be increased through a growth in one's understanding of the truths of reality.