As society reaches its final stages of decay, the price of denying reality will prove ever greater, awakening people to their folly and ruin. A metaphysical crisis of vast proportions awaits a world that has long ignored existential questions to its peril. Thus, there needs to be a return to order reestablishing metaphysics, to know the nature of things. God the Creator will then be acknowledged, and people will share again the things they love. That will make society whole once more and there will be unity and peace.
As American society reaches its final stages of decay, the price of denying reality will prove ever greater, awakening people to their folly and ruin. A metaphysical crisis of vast proportions awaits a world that has long ignored existential questions to its peril.
These are anti-metaphysical times. Most people don’t realize it because they know nothing about metaphysics and how it affects their lives.
However, rejecting metaphysics has tragic consequences for individuals and society in general. An anti-metaphysical world gives rise to individuals who fail to ponder things deeply, skimming the surface of life. Such habits result in persons without certainties, convictions and principles.
Society also suffers because there can be no unity when there are no certainties, convictions, and principles. As this advances, polarization occurs because people can no longer understand the things that might unite them.
Defining Metaphysics
America’s missing metaphysics need not be complicated. It only needs to address the fundamental notion of things.
Metaphysics is the science of determining the real nature of things, thus allowing people to perceive the meaning, structure and principles of whatever exists. With this foundation, it is easy to establish certainties and thus, facilitate unity and communications.
Without realizing it, the innocent child constantly explores the frontiers of metaphysics in the quest to know the world. Throughout life, virtuous people refine their notions of reality and act accordingly.
The key is to know things as they are. For example, a metaphysical concept of “book” would be to consider it to be a bound set of written or printed sheets of paper. Using this concept in everyday life, a person can classify as a book all that conforms to this general notion. Any discussion of a book outside this idea leads to absurdity and disconnection from reality.
When people stay within the notion of what a book is, an immense variety of books can be imagined and produced, including magnificent, splendorous or banal books; large, regular and miniature; page-turners and unappealing; rare, new and used. Thus, metaphysics is the foundation of logic, discussion and debate. It makes progress possible by anchoring the notions of things in reality. It allows the creative imagination to soar while keeping the person away from dangerous fantasy disconnected from reality. Take metaphysics away, and there is no common understanding that can enable communication. This sets the stage for chaos.
Modernity’s Attack on Metaphysics
The modern world has long had a problem with metaphysics. Indeed, modernity seeks to dominate nature, not to understand it. It wants to bend nature to the will of humanity. Its philosophers see metaphysical definitions and categories as restrictive and tend to minimize them.
Modern man limits his understanding of what things are to what helps dominate nature.