"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Hebrews 11:1, KJVThe Latin word fides carries two intimately related meanings: faith and trust.
Dear MNR, what dictionary did you consult, that defines faith as "fidelity?" Notice how faith so defined logically refers to the state of the believer; in what he believes is left completely out of the picture. Presumably, it could be anything — though historically, traditionally, the universal belief of mankind has been in God (or gods, allowing for more primitive experiences of the Divine).
And thus the other cognate meaning of fides, "trust," can never come into the picture.
Here it seems the full meaning of fides has been flattened down — "reduced" — to the "horizonal" extension only. The "vertical" extension — the line of meaning — has been utterly expunged.
If this is so, then I don't like your dictionary very much. :^) Try the On-line Oxford English Dictionary.... It gives etymologies, or the histories of words. It lets you see exactly what the history-killing left progressives who want to rule us would like us to forget....
The idea of horizontal/vertical extension was brought to my attention by Matchett-PI. He sourced to Gagdad Bob, pseudonym of Dr. Robert Godwin, an American philosopher, clinical psychologist and former atheist. I so admire his work!
The horizonal/vertical so strongly brings to mind T.S. Eliot's verse, that
Man stands at the intersection of time and timelessness...."Time" here stands for the horizontal extension of man; "timelessness," the vertical.
My tagline is from another great English poet, William Blake, which, to me, further validate's Gagdad Bob's point: What we see "with" the eye plays out on the horizontal; to see "through" the eye, the vertical is necessary.
Fact lies along the horizontal; but meaning can only be found along the vertical....
One final thought. We've been all over "final cause" on this thread. Robert Rosen was my main cite (after Aristotle himself). He pointed out that the four Aristotelian causal categories were not all unfolding in the same timeframe. That is, there is a "temporal anomaly" between the first three causes — the formal, the material, and the efficient — and the final cause.
I think the horizontal/vertical "model" applies very well here: The first three causes unfold horizontally (and irreversibly) in time. But the final cause is not to be found on that line. It can only be understood in terms of "vertical extension" relative to the horizontal one.
Or so it appears to me FWIW
Thank you ever so much, dear Mind-numbed Robot, for your excellent essay/post!
And thank you, dear Matchett-PI, for introducing me to Gagdad Bob, and for pinging me to his extraordinary essays!
Faith | Define Faith at Dictionary.com dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith - Cached What is the definition of faith? ...
Dictionary.com Ads faith [feyth] Show IPA
noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
However, look at the number 1. definition which is the preferred definition.
Faith - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith - Cached
a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions. 2. a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in ...
You wrote: “...What we see “with” the eye plays out on the horizontal; to see “through” the eye, the vertical is necessary. ...The first three causes unfold horizontally (and irreversibly) in time. But the final cause is not to be found on that line. It can only be understood in terms of “vertical extension” relative to the horizontal one. ...”
Along those lines, here’s a paper (and a book) you and some others might find interesting:
George Murphy holds a PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins and an MDiv from Wartburg Seminary, making him one of a rather small group of people with advanced degrees in both science and theology.
George Murphy:
“God is the First Cause who cooperates with 2d causes, & that the latter is what science studies. I would emphasize that 2d causes are real causes so that, inter alia, humans are real agents.
The traditional view of providence is that God preserves creatures, cooperates with them in their actions, and governs creation toward God’s desired ends. If we think of creatures as having static natures then we’ll picture providence as God keeping those natures in existence & then concurring in their motions. The similarity of this view with the Newtonian picture that I sketched earlier is significant, though it’s originally Aristotelian. But things in the world aren’t inert. They are “composed” of the same interactions that are involved in their motions. It seems to me then that we ought to understand God’s cooperation with creatures as fundamental, and to say that God preserves creatures precisely by cooperating with them.
I discussed divine action in greater detail in Chapter 6 of The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross. http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Light-Cross-George-Murphy/dp/1563384175
.... and to a lesser extent in this paper: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Murphy.html
Excerpt:
[snip]
In any case, we are faced with a paradoxical idea of “mediated creatio ex nihilo” in which God brings into being the instruments with which God will bring things into being.24
It is worth noting that this paradox is by no means a modern one. The ancient rabbinic tractate Pirke Aboth includes in a list of things created on the eve of the first Sabbath, “The tongs made with tongs.”25
More is involved here than a logical puzzle. Even in the origination of the universe, God acts through instruments that are simultaneously masks of God. God is willing to be emptied of the credit for creation, so that the Creator is indeed the one “placed crosswise in the universe.”
Given that physical reality, which does obey the types of laws we have found, does exist, it may be possible to explain the origin even of matter and space-time itself in terms of an adequate quantum theory of gravitation and matter.
Similar things can be said about the origin of living things. It is true that we do not yet have an adequate theory of chemical evolution, of the emergence of the first living systems from nonliving chemicals. But there is no theological rationale for the idea often expressed to the effect that life must have been brought into being by God’s direct and unmediated action. In fact, the first Genesis account of creation points in just the opposite direction, for there plants and animals come into being when God commands the elements of the world, the earth and the waters, to bring them forth (Gen. 1:11-12, 20-21, 24-25). The statement of Ephrem of Edessa on the creation of plants expresses this understanding of the mediated creation of living things held by a number of the church fathers. He said:
Thus, through light and water the earth brought forth everything. While God is able to bring forth everything from the earth without these things, it was his will to show that there was nothing created on earth that was not created for the purpose of mankind or for his service.26
Though it would exceed the scope of the present paper, the question of miracles needs to be part of any thorough discussion of divine action which takes the Bible seriously.27
Yet the Bible gives us no reason to think that the origin of life must be understood as a miracle that cannot be explained in terms of natural processes.
[snip] click here to read the whole paper : http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Murphy.html
I think the horizontal/vertical "model" applies very well here: The first three causes unfold horizontally (and irreversibly) in time. But the final cause is not to be found on that line. It can only be understood in terms of "vertical extension" relative to the horizontal one.
Final cause cannot be understood by projecting an arrow of time. Because it deals with purpose, function or meaning it is not merely the final result of a timeline but the reason it exists in the first place.
Rosen closes the line into a circle in his model which is mathematically convenient but of course does not address the philosophical issue of "why this instead of something or nothing at all." To address that issue the vertical aspect must be considered as you have explained.