The Causer of Causes

Even ethereal matter, the forces of which are said in physics to be heat, light, electricity and magnetism, is an intellectual reality, and is not sensible. In the same way, nature, also, in its essence is an intellectual reality and is not sensible; the human spirit is an intellectual, not sensible reality.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 83)

Spiritual causality is of another order than the causes we see at work in this world. Spiritual causality is manifested through Aristotle’s four causes of a created thing: formal, final, efficient and material. These four stages of creational causality are, in relation to spiritual causality, as its signs and effects.  It is as ‘Abdu’l-Baha described how we know of invisible matter:  “If we wish to deny everything that is not sensible, then we must deny the realities which unquestionably exist. For example, ethereal matter is not sensible, though it has an undoubted existence. The power of attraction is not sensible, though it certainly exists. From what do we affirm these existences? From their signs. Thus this light is the vibration of that ethereal matter, and from this vibration we infer the existence of ether.” (Some Answered Questions:189)

  As we infer the invisible ether from the signs of its material manifestation, so, through study of the four causes, we can infer another kind of cause, spiritual causality.  I state this apropos Baha’u’llah statement: “When the eyes of the people of the East were captivated by the arts and wonders of the West, they roved distraught in the wilderness of material causes, oblivious of the One Who is the Causer of Causes, and the Sustainer thereof, while such men as were the source and the wellspring of Wisdom never denied the moving Impulse behind these causes, nor the Creator or the Origin thereof.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 144)

Revelation is the causer of causes.  It is spiritual causality and it manifests in this world through the four causes, formal cause being itself different from the other three.  In the world of creation, formal cause is the first cause and final cause is the last cause, the culmination of a morphogenetic process of manifestation.  But, while they are separate they are inseparable.  Theirs is the union of active and receptive by that attraction which is innate relation—the primal oneness is a polarity.  The formal cause connects with the final cause through the efficient and material causes into a relationship of developing sequences, as the seed and the fruit are connected.  In fact the attraction between formal and final generates the links between efficient and material.  The seed is drawn towards its final form of fruit and, conversely, the fruit attracts the seed to it.  The stages of the tree’s growth are the way to realize this mutual longing.

While the formal cause is the environment of all, the final cause is the focal point of development and progress, what the goal of the work of efficient cause working upon the material cause is to realize.  The final cause is the appearance of the whole complex environment rolled into and within one Figure.

The wave and the particle are complementary states of the photon, both its focal point and the energy radiating from it: wave and particle are the same yet different.  Together particle and wave create a field of influence, the circumference and the pivot of the compass.  Similarly, the whole of the higher spiritual world, the Divine Will, which surrounds the creational world manifests in a focal point, a Manifestation, Who radiates out via His Words over the whole earth the powers of that spiritual world to transform this lower one.  This is true on many levels.  For the individual human being the body is the material focal point for the powers of the soul, and the brain is the physical seat of the whole possibilities of mental intelligence. In fact, this relationship is a universal law: “When ye consider this matter with care, it will become apparent that this is according to a universal law, which one can find at work in all things: the whole attracteth the part, and in the circle, the centre is the pivot of the compasses. Ponder thou upon the Spirit: because He was the focal centre of spiritual power, the wellspring of divine bounties…” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 62)  Thus, the whole is also the center; that is, it manifests as the center of a lower order.

To understand Revelation’s causal creative action on the cosmos, it seems that Revelation is the exemplar of formal causality, meaning that it is the cause of formal causality which is the cause of the other causes.  Revelation is the Causer of causes, but so is formal cause, except for Revelation which creates it.  Rather, formal cause is the Manifestation of the Divine Will, the Primal Point appearing in “the midmost heart” of this world in the form of a Revelator.  This first form is the active force, the generative form, but the Divine Will holds all forms within it. 

Environmental processes are ecological.  Phrases such as “spirit of the age” or “simultaneous discovery”, and “the time is ripe” and the like, indicate environmental process at work which are everywhere at once.  Environmental processes are not just sequential, but both non-sequential and sequential, constantly and reciprocally modifying each other.  Simultaneity concerns a manifestation of innate reciprocal relationships.  These are inferred and seen because at sufficiently high speeds sequencing reveals or flips into structure, the non-sequential or formal.  Jung called such manifestations of the union of spirit and matter “synchronicity”, calling synchronicity “an acausal connecting principle.” (See Jung’s book Synchronicity)   In fact, they are not acausal, but formal cause.  That is why new environments appear suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, as the brilliant insight, the great inspiration, powers emerging onto the landscape of our minds without warning. 

It is for this reason that, unless we know the pattern, the structural characteristics of an environment, and unless we understand the interaction of the formal cause, which is the essential form, and the final cause, or the intended manifest form, our time can only appear chaotic and irrational.  The environment is an active process pervading and influencing every facet and event of a situation.  Every Revelation is a new environment of humanity, but is also a part of a larger environment of divinity. 

The Divine Will is the First Cause of a new creation, not first in time but in form.  It manifests in a Revealer whose Words set the process of transformation going.  He is Formal Cause, His Words as influences and powers working in time are better described as formative causation, for they are generating new forms.  

Till now I have examined the relationship of causes primarily from a scriptural view, for that is where we can understand something of spiritual causality as it connects with formal cause.  We need now to look at this relationship from the complementary and subordinate knowledge structures of science and art and by the analogies they provide further bring out spiritual causality by comparing these thoughts with what we know about physical fields in Nature and of human invention.   Here we also move from formal cause, which is the definition of a thing, the calling it into being, to formative causation, which is transformation, the unfolding of potentials, the calling forth of more being.  That is, we are moving from one metaphor to another, from looking at the Divine Visage imprinting Itself in the mirror of creation to the painter painting her painting.

A direct link to my book, Renewing the Sacred is http://tinyurl.com/cndew5a It is now also in Kindle