Ultimates: Philosophical Theology, Volume One

Chapter Nine. The Metaphysics of Ontological Ultimacy

173 Chapter Nine The Metaphysics of Ontological Ultimacy I. Ultimate Reality, Being, and the Problem of the One and the Many What is the best strategy for developing a proper metaphysical conception of ultimate reality? Reflection can begin on the phrase itself. Ultimate reality is the reality that is ultimate or last in the seeking out of conditions, that which is presupposed by other things but has no presuppositions itself. Furthermore, ultimate reality is not merely accidentally last in the sequence of conditions but is ultimate because it has to be last, because there cannot be some further condition behind it. This formal definition of ultimate reality was given in Chapter 1, Section II, in terms of the theory of finite/infinite contrasts. The ultimate condition by itself would be the finite side of such a contrast, and the fact that there is no further condition behind it would be the infinite side. The contrast involves both sides together and can be felt as such. Now the question is not about the formal definition of ultimate reality but rather about the “material definition,” the candidate conceptions of ultimate reality. All the great philosophical traditions have candidates in the sense of fundamental ideas or metaphors that have been variously developed in many schools. The East Asian traditions point to non-being as the ultimate condition, as in Wangbi and Zhou Dunyi. Non-being is always referred to in relation to the Great Ultimate or some other representation such as the Dao that can be named of that which is pregnant with determinate things. Non-being is the really ultimate condition, however, because it lacks all potentialities that might need some antecedent explanation. Fundamental to Daoist and Neo-Confucian non-being is the function of determinate things spontaneously emerging from it. The South Asian candidates for ultimate reality are framed in the metaphors of consciousness: Behind my conscious life is my consciousness and behind that is atman in which the consciousness 174 v Ultimates of all things is identical; behind that is Brahman with the qualities of being the unconditioned reality, and behind that is Brahman without any qualities whatsoever. The West Asian philosophical theologies of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam take their key from Greek philosophy, especially Plato,Aristotle, and Plotinus for whom the candidate ultimate reality is being. All three associated being with unity, the one for the many. Plato pushed the connection between being and value,Aristotle the connection of being with actuality and completeness of actualization, and Plotinus the transcendence of being over all differentiation. As Heidegger pointed out, the Western dialectic of being is inseparably associated with determinate beings. Our argument here develops a dialectical account of ultimate reality through the metaphoric system of being, mainly in order to take advantage of positions and standard moves likely to be familiar with readers of English. In principle, the same dialectic could be developed through the metaphors of non-being and Brahman. What is being? This extremely complicated question unfolds as our inquiry proceeds. The strategy is to associate the question of being with the problem of the one and the many, a pervasive philosophical problem that arises in nearly every philosophical context. In the context of the question of being, it is the problem of how being is the one for the many beings. What is being, such that everything that has being has it? Or if the metaphor of “having” being is too biased, we can ask,What is it to be, such that everything that is, is? Resolutely vulnerable, the inquiry should begin by considering some doubts about the strategic topic itself. First, some people will say that to inquire into the question of being is inappropriate in two ways. On the one hand, the question of being is so abstract as to be metaphysical in the bad sense supposedly refuted by Kant. The answer to that objection is that metaphysics is hypothetical, contrary to Kant’s view (I, 2, iv); it can deal with abstract questions as well as more concrete ones. The metaphysics of being is difficult, but there is a long history of it in the world’s philosophic cultures, including the East and South Asian as well as the Western. On the other hand, inquiry into being can be thought to be inappropriate for theology because its object is abstract and the object of theology is ultimacy, which has to be concrete.This is to say, there is no proper motive for theology...