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The Absolute
The definition given in the book which serves as the core argument for the current version of this website runs as follows:
an absolute [...] remains empirically unknown but is nevertheless empirically assumed. It is an absolute because our perception of things is conditioned by it in ways that are beyond our control. An empirically unknown absolute is one that totally eludes all physical and tangible parameters. Unknown, but whose reality we presuppose because of the coherence with which our experience is conditioned. (p.2)
The absolute is thus seen as a universal: it touches everyone and is so acknowledged. It is a firm point of reference even though it cannot be analyzed in the same way we analyze its effects. There are, however, different parameters or, we might say, universes within which different absolutes may be operative.
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The ultimate absolute (1)
But then there is the case of what we may call the ultimate absolute: this remains wholly undefined and unlimited, and yet just as conditioning as the vanishing point or the grammar. It is unlimited because there is no outside expert (like the linguist or the painter) who can define it. And yet it is pervasive as we attribute to it countless events in our lives for which we have no explanation.
It is ultimate in a dual sense.
- On the one hand, it is seen as being at the highest level of significance because it conditions the deepest moments of our lives: death is one such moment, as it irreparably affects both the dying person and the survivors. It is ultimate spatially, we may say metaphorically, because it is the highest.
- On the other hand, it is ultimate because it is beyond control. We do not have the equivalent of a linguist or a painter who can define rules and limits: this is the boundary where our analytical ability stops. It is ultimate temporally, we may say, because it is the last, the one that has not (yet?) been “solved.”
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Metaphor and antinomy
There is an inherent paradox in the use of the plural “absolutes” and in the notion of a “limited absolute” – and we will look at this more closely below. At this point, two considerations are in order.
On the one hand, the notions of the vanishing point and the grammar as “limited absolutes” may be viewed as metaphors to explain the dynamics intrinsic to the notion of absolute: a person may not know the details of a conditioning factor (the grammar, perspective), but will nonetheless feel that facto as real and operative, in the sense that the actions of the speaker or the viewer must take that factor fully into account.
On the other hand, the metaphor may emerge as a reality: in this case, the “ultimate” absolute is viewed as only temporarily unlimited: given enough time, continued analysis will yield full control of everything and remove all limits, bringing it eventually under the control of an expert.
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The ultimate absolute (2)
Whether the ultimate absolute is viewed as being inexhorably unlimited, or only temporarily so, it is clear that, in our historical condition, as well as in that of Mesopotamia and the Bible, we have what we may call an operationally ultimate absolute. It is a proper universal that can be so acceped by everyone – and it is in this sense that we will understand the term in the rest of our discussion.
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The confrontation
How, then, do we face this ultimate absolute? How did, more specifically, the people of Mesopotamia and of the Bible face it?
I see spirituality as the moment of realization, when the absolute is felt as a conditinoing factor. The argument is inferential becuase there is no explicit evidence in the sources, but it can be seen as the implicit explanatory factor for a number of cultural phenomena that are otherwise well attested.
And how did they cope with it?
I see religion as the moment of codification, when specific and well documented cultural mechanisms articulate the response, on the individual and especially on the communal level.
Mesopotamia and the Bible provide two excellent benchmarks in this regard: : it is here that the strong structural contrast between the two emerges, because we are dealing with the fundamental issues that define the respective mindsets. There is no word for “absolute” in any of the pertinent languages, but the concept is very much operative.
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Religion
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● Mesopotamia
In Mesopotamia, the notion of fate or destiny emerges as a close approximation to an explicit definition of the absolute, all the way from myths to folk proverbs (this is brought out in several places in the core argument).
However, fate or destiny are never the subjet of action in the myths nor is there any form of cult to it – no prayers, rituals, statues, temples. In other words, fate or destiny are not within the institutional framework of the religious system.
Nor can the many gods and goddesses be properly identified with the absolute: their “divine nature” (ilūtum) is an attribute that is diluted by virtue of the reciprocal limitations among the various consituents of the pantheon.
It appears then that the absolute has in effect no real explicit presence in the religious system of Mesopotmia
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● Bible
There is no word
My Giussani article ,
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Spirituality
Spirituality is the locus where the experience of the ultimate absolute is felt and made manifest.
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● Mesopotamia
decreeing the fate
Ludlul
Cerutti
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● Bible
A topic which is frequently found, for instance in the first writings of Luigi Giussani (1966, republished in 1994), on p. 20: «… that first fundamental sense of being that does not depend on me, while I depend on it, implacable presence that imposes itself upon me» (my emphasis).
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(Un)predictability
Predictability is a central aspect of any analytical effort to set limits
Whatever factor is at work is not only unknown except for the way it affects us, it is also unpredictable.
biblical predictability: God’s faithfulness
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The paradox / The structural contrast{#paradox}
Not only the use of the plural “absolutes,” but even more the qualification of the absolute as “limited” are paradoxical. Etymology helps us in stating the terms of the paradox. The term (first used in the late Middle Ages) comes from ab-solvere, where ab has a negative or privative meaning (getting away from) and solvere means “to loosen, to set free (of limits).” If it is free of limits, it cannot be limited, and once there are no limits, there can also be only one absolute.
And yet.
In a historical perspective it is fair to say that the development of our species has been punctuated by a constant striving at limiting one absolute after another, bringing them progressively under our theoretical and practical control (anaysis and experimentation). Whether it was an early paleolithic individual who developed, with the heightened perception I have called “para-perception,” ever more refined ways of chipping tools; or the alloying of copper and tin to make bronze; or the splitting of the atom – in each case there was a removal of limits to what unutil then appeared as an unsolvable (ab-solute) problem.
We may then say that, at some level, the notion of progress, pushed to its extreme (if unproven) extreme, implies that there in fact is no ultimate absolute: the belief is that the ultimate absolute is but a congeries of absolutes that can be progressively, if slowly, be brought under full control – just as grammar or the vanishing point in the case of language and painting. There is faith in the assumption that even what is ultimately “un-solvable” can in fact be “solved.”
We may say that an absolute as experienced when speaking grammatically without knowing the grammar is a limited absolute. It is absolute for the speaker, but not for the linguist:
The question that arises is whether the ultimate absolute can be so limited and relativized. To which there can be two, and only two, answers. They take shape in the form of two diverse religious configurations, but they extend beyond the level of religion (see also the theme about innumerability).
structural contrast ~ universal it is here that the strong structural contrast between the two emerges, because we are dealing with the fundamental issues that define the respective mindsets.
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The absolute as a sum
Polytheism is the classical historical manifestation of the quest to relativize the ultimste absolute. The absolute is “effable” in the sense that it can be analyzed: within the religious framework the “gods”
Outside the religious framework – progress, science
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The absolute as a whole
ironically, the “logos” but “made flesh” – hence mystery
Buddhism
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Relevance
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Mesopotamia
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Interactions
relative absolute accepts the whole, not the other way around
Presumptions of uniqueness
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Research trends
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