Three Sister Handmaids to Love
By John Taylor; 2009 April 23, Jalal 14, 166 BE
First in a Series on the Impact of the Panorthosia of Comenius on the Principle of Harmony of Science and Religion
"I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.' (I Cor 14:15)
This Biblical admonition, referred to by Comenius in Panorthosia, could well be taken as model and motto for his thinking about the divine principle of harmony between religion and science.
Comenius conceived of, planned and through his writings and correspondence had a hand in the birth of a new educational and scientific institution. It was to be founded in England and he was invited to move back there in order to become its first president. Unfortunately, circumstances (including war and revolution) decreed that it was never built. However it soon transformed into the wall-free institution known as the Royal Society. This amorphous but brilliant institution whose members included the likes of Harvey, Newton and Boyle, led the systematic inquiry into nature for some two centuries. In the mid-19th Century natural philosophy combined with wider education and the systematic, experimental laboratory method pioneered under Napoleon Bonaparte in France. This changed the activity so radically that the older name "natural philosophy" was dropped and it became known from then on as science.
Scholastic thinkers of earlier centuries had subordinated science to religion, as evidenced by the saying that "philosophy is the handmaid of theology." Comenius would have none of that. Properly conceived of science had the potential to contribute every bit as much as religion to order, advance and civilization.
"If our Mind is trained and refined by such a philosophy it cannot fail to live in the light, since Ideas and Nature and the Testimonies of God will send their rays to converge upon it so brightly from all directions that at every turn the Mind thus enlightened will find itself in joyful splendour. In this happy event, we may come to describe Philosophy not as the handmaid of Theology, which it has been in the past, but its true-born sister, akin to Politics, these being the three veritable Graces, each making its full contribution to the other two and receiving each other's gifts in return." (Panorthosia, Ch. 11, para 23, p. 185)
A footnote in Dobbie's text of Panorthosia explains that the three Graces in Greek mythology were three daughters of Zeus who attended Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Three sisters, then, work together as handmaids to love. The three equal servants of a single higher power are faith, science and politics.
Comenius took this tripartite format very seriously throughout the over one hundred and fifty books that he wrote. He even modelled upon it, as we have seen, the structure of his proposed world government. He saw these three fundamentals as arising from the nature of the universe, one the physical universe, two, human nature and three the nature of God.
"Universal Philosophy should be the Practice of the Artificial World, Universal Politics that of the Moral World, and Universal Religion that of the Spiritual World." (cf. Pansophia V-VII, Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, p. 206)
Each of the three complements and reflects the others, but is distinct in its field of expertise. Each, in the words of Christ, is known by its fruits.
"Universal Philosophy should be an agent of enlightenment for all men. Universal Politics should be their agent of government, and Universal Religion their agent of blessedness." (Ch. 13, para 12, p. 206)
Our problem is that we fail to treat universals as universals. In our immaturity, we particularize and dichotomize what should be common, or we do the opposite, we choose a part and try to make it into a universal. When human affairs fail and we fall short of happiness, it can always be traced to one of the three basic kinds of disease of the mind, blindness, delusion or violence (abuse).
"What plan must we therefore adopt? Three desperate diseases need three remedies. Blindness needs guidance and eye-salve. Delusion needs removal of darkness and clearer light. Abuses need the true use of things." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 10, p. 146)
The reason we fail to reform these basics and permanently erase these three problems from the slate forever is that we fall short of thinking comprehensively and simply enough for everybody to come to agreement on what is essential.
"But please notice that although Universality, Simplicity, and Agreement ... seem to apply to all three estates of Wisdom, Religion, and Politics, yet there is good reason for close relationship between the first and the first, the second and the second, or the third with the third. For example, our new Universal Wisdom or Philosophy ought to be just as universally available to all human minds as is the light of day to all men's eyes, our new Religion just as pure and simple as God, who is its object, and the new Government of man by man just as peaceful as that of the body by the soul." (Ch. 10, para 49, pp. 171-172)
All attempts at progress and reform will fail as long as philosophers and scientists fail to convey the flame of essential truth to large numbers of people, as long as religious leaders fail to turn souls in the direction of God, and politicians to accustom us to thinking in terms of peace, as Comenius puts it, with the same harmony that the soul controls the body.
"When human affairs are so reformed that our Philosophy, Religion, and Politics are all truly universal, it will be the task of scholars to collect and purify essential truths and transplant them into the minds of men, of churchmen to attract men's souls away from the world in the direction of God, and of politicians to maintain peace and tranquillity everywhere, competing with each other, as it were, in holy rivalry to make an outstanding contribution in their respective spheres to the salvation of mankind." (Ch. 15, para 1, p. 216)
Comenius envisioned the reins of these three basic human endeavours in the hands of three institutions with branches in every locale, region and even on the world level. Like the individual and the family, each of these founding institutions of world order has its own motto to define in a few words its role and mission in the world. These we will examine next time.
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John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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