The Material and the Metaphysical

I.A. Richards, in Poetries and Sciences, differentiates between truths and “pseudo-statements,” what is more commonly called facts and opinions. Truths are proven by empirical evidence, pseudo-statements cannot be proven by this method. The pseudo-statement may be true, but it cannot be proven. Science presents statements of truth; math presents pure truth. Myth, religion, metaphysics, poetry, all make pseudo-statements. Science is informed, and therefore good for humankind. The others mentioned are ignorant, and a frame of thinking, of believing in “magic,” that was outmoded centuries ago. Richards doesn’t hide his judgment. Strange thing is his statements are pseudo-statements. Just by his word usage – calling all things metaphysical to be magic – he berates anyone who thinks there is something other than the material. I will refer to his scientific perspective as materialistic, and his magical perspective as metaphysical.

I do not intend to try to prove God with empirical evidence. I am not an apologist. I write from the point of one who has already embraced and espoused Christianity. My contention with Richards, at this point, is his pseudo-statement that those who believe the metaphysical perspective are more limited than those who have the materialistic perspective.

The restriction of the metaphysical perspective isn’t ignorance, but it may very well be moral. As a Christian I have abstained from promiscuity, drunkenness, recreational drug use. Many, unfortunately, would describe my life, and my knowledge, as very limited. The fact that I don’t know what a “tea-bag” is when it comes to homo-eroticism proves that. (Incidentally, I have no intention to investigate this further, but I have heard references in pop culture, like the TV show Family Guy.) I would not classify it as ignorance. I may just as well turn the argument on them: they don’t know what it is to be committed, or to have a religious vision, or what baptism in the Holy Spirit is. It seems to me that to classify knowledge as only attainable of what is material is quite restricted.
(This was a journal entry from January, 2009)

Dr. Herod's Tale: Preserver

She's approaching the end of the pier now.
I fear she will get too close.
I want to scream to stop
her, but it is too late
for the voice's effect.
Too late to retrieve
the years, to find
the signs of a life-line,
to read the messages
unreceived. The water
shrouds her quickly, the waves
wash her face undefined, the eyes
little more than oysters,
and the gray casket closes.
I reach out--
as though I might reverse it,
but her arms stay by her side,
and I am sinking faster
with the weight of our demise.
I look up through the murkiness to see
she's walking away from the pier now.

From Dr. Herod's Readings: The Lighthouse

I met a weathered man as old
as the lake of Michigan.
He keeps Kewaunee's lighthouse lit,
he says as long as he can.
"I'm not goin' anywhere,
until God take me home.
I'm stayin' here as long as the winds
and waves are seethin' foam."
He goes by Elbie Scirvener,
some call him Skinner,
cause he's always filleting fish,
every day for dinner.
He lives a lonely life, you know.
But he's determined to.
He says it's for security...
if only people knew.
The cargo ships that sail the lake
still rely on the light,
to know the danger of the shore,
to keep away at night.
But Elbie knows another way
the beacon's rays protect,
they keep at bay the sailor's ghosts
that on the lake shipwrecked.
They nightly try to come aground,
to haunt the docks and bars,
to trim the town in slimy seaweed,
and leave ailwives in the cars.
A crew of mischievous men they are,
with no respect for land.
They'll damage any house or lot,
and bury it in sand.
Retired ex-captain Scrivener
credits the light and horn
for turning back sea-faring ghosts,
as they were always warned --
"Approach the light, it will be your end,
to the darkness return.
The horn will tend your funeral,
repent and head astern."