Shelley's First Cause

In The New Individualist's latest issue, which is not yet available online, Roger Donway goes after Shelley's knowledge of theology:

His youthful essay The Necessity of Atheism, which got him expelled from Oxford, was simply an outpouring of ignorance. For instance, it presumed that the First Cause argument is designed to prove that the universe had a temporal beginning, which is just a mistake.

I think Donway's wrong about this. You'll note he doesn't actually sketch out the first cause argument, nor does he quote from Shelley's essay.

Well, I went to a Jesuit high school. So I know the first cause argument, a.k.a. the cosmological argument, has a history, and multiple versions.

The legendary first cause
Pops up in Plato's Laws.

Then it takes off full throttle
In two works by Aristotle.

But perhaps it shows its finest
In 4 "proofs" from Thomas Aquinas.

If we only look at these 3 guys, Donway is right. They don't attempt to prove the Universe had a beginning in time. They try to prove that God exists, but they don't try to prove he created everything.

But it was against the Creator that Shelley was actually arguing:

There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.

So Shelley attacks a version of The Argument which tries to prove temporal beginning for the Universe.

Did Shelley create this version ex nihilo? No:

The mutakallimūm, theologians who used reason and argumentation to support their revealed Islamic beliefs, developed the temporal version of the argument from the impossibility of an infinite regress, known as the kalām argument. For example, al-Ghāzāli (1058-1111) argued that everything that begins to exist requires a cause of its beginning. The world is composed of temporal phenomena preceded by other temporally ordered phenomena. Since such a series of temporal phenomena cannot continue to infinity, the world must have had a beginning and a cause of its existence, namely, God (Craig 1979, part 1). This version of the argument enters the Christian tradition through Bonaventure (1221-74) in his Sentences (II Sent. D.1,p.1,a.1,q.2).

Good golly,
They credit al-Ghāzāli.

I'm not saying Shelley read Bonaventure, but it's pretty clear he had been reading Hume, and Hume argues in particular against a temporal version of The Argument:

Add to this, that in tracing an eternal succession of objects, it seems absurd to enquire for a general cause or first author. How can any thing, that exists from eternity, have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time, and a beginning of existence?

In such a chain, too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty? But the WHOLE, you say, wants a cause. (Dialogues on Natural Religion Section 190)

To those who have followed this far -
What brave fellows you are!

So here, at last, is what Shelley had to say:

It is urged that man knows that whatever is must either have had a beginning, or have existed from all eternity, he also knows that whatever is not eternal must have had a cause. When this reasoning is applied to the universe, it is necessary to prove that it was created: until that is clearly demonstrated we may reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity.

I conclude that he made no such bonehead mistake.
He refuted one version. So give him a break!

Stunning Complaint

The UN "anti-torture committee" doesn't like Tasers. The only thing is... what are the alternatives exactly, when someone is resisting arrest?

Clubbing, tackling, grappling, shooting.

The United Nations may be amazed,
But I'd just as soon be Tased.

Barrelling Along

Is this Stacy Peterson disappearance mystery about to break? The Trib says:

After allegedly helping Drew Peterson haul a large container that was warm to the touch from a bedroom, a male relative of the former Bolingbrook police sergeant told a friend Oct. 28 that he was afraid he had just helped Peterson dispose of the body of his wife, Stacy Peterson, a source close to the investigation said.

But the Sun-Times says:

Prosecutors have not called Morphey to testify before a grand jury examining the 23-year-old woman's disappearance because he has "memory lapses" about loading the barrel into Peterson's GMC Yukon Denali, the source said.

This story just won't let up.

Are these spotty, mysterious memory lapses,
A knotty problem with the man's synapses?

Or is one sometimes better off forgetting -
Avoiding confessing to aiding and abetting?

Left Brain, Right Brain

Suppose you need brain surgery. Not good.

Now suppose the doctors operate on the wrong side of your brain. Double not good.

So if you need brain surgery, be careful about Rhode Island Hospital. They've had 3 operations this year where neurosurgeons got their left and right mixed up.

"We are extremely concerned about this continuing pattern," Director of Health David R. Gifford said in a written statement.

Concerned. Good.

In the mean time, if you opt for brain surgery at this institution, I do have a suggestion:

Write with magic marker on your head,
"Open This Side Only" - or you just might wake up dead.

From Rioting To Quieting?

There has been a steady stream of new stories, from the Chi-town Trib to the NY Times, about life being better lately in Iraq.

I have no special reason to care about the Iraqis, but I know some young men over there, so I hope the stories are true.

I remain amused by the people who confidently declared that "the surge" couldn't possibly work. I wonder what they will say if we somehow... sorta kinda... win.

I will give them a written excuse if they have actually studied counter-insurgency. Everybody makes mistakes. It's the people with no military knowledge, but who were making military predictions, that I feel bad for.

They gave into the urge
To condemn the hopeless surge,
But might it now emerge
As successful?

How stressful.

Socked by SOX

Congress doesn't want to change the Sarbanes-Oxley law. Folks in London will be glad to hear it.

Financial chiefs in London have pointed to the booming public offering business and the omnipresent construction cranes in the financial district, calling their industry “the house that Sarbanes-Oxley built.”

Sarbanes and Oxley,
Wrote their law foxily
Crippling their target:
The U.S. stock market.

Earning the thanks
Of big London banks.

The Pearl Poet

There's a funny old term for alliteration: head rhyme. The Old English poetry relied on head rhyme for it's most striking effect. During the time of Middle English, a transition occurred to "normal" rhyme. There were actually some transitional poems, including "The Pearl," which uses both techniques at once:

Perle, pleasaunte to prynces paye
To clanly clos in golde so clere,
Oute of oryent, I hardyly saye,
Ne proued I neuer her precios pere.

Tolkien rendered it this way:

Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved I any in price her peer.

Another transitional poem, probably by the same author, is "Sir Gawain and The Green Knight." Here, the main narrative is head rhyme, but each verse paragraph is ended with a quatrain in end rhyme.

Challenging was this change in chime.
Gallantly, he got along with the game,
Switching from starting the sounds the same
To rendering the rear in rhyme.

What's Hwaet

Saw Beowulf.

As some critic already rhymed about seeing it 3D at the Imax theater, it was: eye-popping and jaw-dropping.

They reworked the story a lot from the original Old English epic. Which was a good idea.

Beowulf boldly bursts through the screen
Landing in your laps while you lap up the action.

Preaching in Place

My wife and daughter attended the Thanksgiving ceremony at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. That's Rockefeller as in John D.

They went to hear the performance of the Chicago Children's Choir. My daughter used to sing with them. Their performance, I'm told, was excellent.

Not so excellent was the chief sermonizer. He advocated moving beyond hybrid cars, and just staying in place and enjoying your community.

Who needs a car?
Just stay where you are!

You'll soon be feeling noble
If you keep yourself immobile.

A small exception can be made
To march in the Earth Day parade.

But here's what I find ironically funny:
That chapel was built with oil money.

Snow Thank You

With yellow leaves still hanging on the maples,
The snow is whirling down with giant flakes.

So beautiful. Who cares what mess it makes?

No Paltry Poultry

Gobblin', quackin', and cluckin' -
It takes 3 birds to make a turducken.

Gassing Up

Today I'm feeling especially thankful
For gas at fifty dollars a tankful.

You may think my judgment has blundered,
But in Europe it's easily over a hundred.

Of course, it's their taxes that give the big bump
And drive their prices up at the pump.

Seasonal Affective Disorder Strikes Again

I'm feeling sort of surly -
Why is it dark so early?

Why was this planet built
With its axis on a tilt?

Is there a solid reason
For this constant change of season?

Really, I'm way into summer,
But winter's a bit of a bummer.

Descended From Survivors

I'm not a big Giulani fan. But I liked this:

Do we think our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents didn't live in danger and didn't have difficult problems? Do we think the Second World War was less difficult that our struggle with Islamic terrorism? Do we think that the Great Depression was a less difficult economic struggle for people to face than the struggles we're facing now? Have we entirely lost perspective of the great challenges America has faced in the past and has been able to overcome and overcome brilliantly? I think sometimes we have lost that perspective.

Amen to that.

Don't assume
That current doom
Somehow outdoes
What already was.

Me, Thee, and the UCC

At one point in last night's discussion, I compared state laws about marriage to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).

A friend commented afterward: "how romantic -- JE really knows how to sweet talk!"

Perhaps I should write an ode
To our great Commercial Code.

Of course, people routinely talk about "the marriage contract." And psychologists frequently talk about the need for couples to "negotiate fairly." And Objectivists always talk about romantic relationships being based on "trading value for value."

Whether quirky or Uniform,
Marriage works to keep hearts warm.

More Fire on Amazon

My recent (since '94) collection, More Fire and Other Poems, is now available on Amazon.

Many of the poems appeared here first. I published through Lulu.com, so I didn't really have to spend any serious money.

And I'm not stuck with giant piles of physical books to unload. I just read a story in the Wall Street Journal about a guy whose garage was packed full of skids of his wife's book. See article and picture here. I cannot afford to be that guy.

I need the garage to keep my car.
There's "No Parking" where we are.

The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Sonnetized

There's a big painting by Salvador Dali, called The Sacrament Of The Last Supper, that hangs in the National Gallery in DC. While popular, it has always remained controversial.

My theory: Dali was a big critical hit until he started doing paintings that were properly proportioned and pretty.

Paul Tillich, the famous German theologian, intensely disliked it. Michael Anthony Novak, a theologian from Marquette University, defends it in a pdf here.

I've admired it for a long time. I like a lot of Dali's more realistic-looking paintings, but this is my favorite. I even like it better than his hypercube crucifixion, which I like very much.

I wrote a sonnet years ago about the hypercube crucifixion, and I have tried, in the past, to write one about this last supper painting. But it has tripped me up, perhaps because of its mysterious air. I was unhappy with my results. But, having seen the painting in person again, last month, I have dared a new attempt.

The other heads are bowed, but his is not.
He seems immune to what has humbled them.
Glimpsing the darkness, seeing through the plot,
He beams with light, transparent as a gem.

Behind him, rocks and sea. Before, red wine
And broken bread. He casts a shadow far
Into the future. Some obscure design
Surrounds them; something hovers where they are.

For me it is his face that makes the painting.
He wonders at the beauty of the world.
The petals of his inner rose unfurl.
There will be time enough for fateful straining.

He contemplates beneath a glowing sky.
I search for words and worship with my eye.

Shelley Gets Shellaced

After they were done
Kicking Edgar Allen Poe,
They had a bit of fun
Giving Percy Bysshe a go.

Tiny Dancer

Thanks to the illustrious and industrious Ergo for posting about this fascinating optical illusion of a nude woman spinning.

Clock or counter, whichever -wise!
It's in your brain but not your eyes.

Noodle Power

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is starting to show up on the academic menu.

The Pastafarian cult
Has reason to exult!