There’s a scene in a Woody Allen movie in which one character points to a map and says to the other character, “The guy we’re looking for lives here.”
The other character responds, “He lives on a map?”
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If you spend any time with Super Catholics, as I did for decades, you will hear people talk about “grace”.
What is grace? Grace is an unearned gift from the Beyond, kind of like life. We exist because of grace, since we cannot make ourselves exist or keep ourselves in existence permanently. Our existence is a freely given gift, the source of which and the purpose of which remain a vast, ineffable, beautiful, awesome and terrifying mystery, and we explore and live out this mystery every day. So we use the symbol “grace” for that.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8)
But the symbol “grace” has become “reified” among Super Catholics. It is not so much a symbol of a mystery that we can all experience; it is often merely a “thing”, a token, a poker chip, a credit in an accounting ledger. You can have “more grace” or “less grace”. A certain quantity of grace can flow though the Sacraments. You can even earn grace, which is a contradiction in terms, but which is another symbolic expression, and one that focuses on the subjective side of desiring the Divine Gift and of our “cooperation with grace”.
At its worst, such reification becomes “surrogation”, which is a word (or symbol) I use for when a sign stops pointing toward what it signifies and becomes a surrogate, an end in itself. A great example of this is the “paper chase” of higher education. Earning college credit, grades and a diploma - all signs that are supposed to indicate that a person has attained a certain proficiency or mastery over the material learned - become, instead, the goal of the enterprise. The sign replaces what it signifies. In fact, if a degree and a high GPA were the purpose of education, one would be better off getting such symbols from a diploma mill and skipping any sort of learning altogether.
We even see this surrogation - this replacement of a reality with the sign that points to it - in our understanding of the physical sciences.
Stanley Jaki, PhD in Physics and PhD in Theology, wrote …
That exact science stands or falls with quantitative operations has been noted countless times. After Heinrich Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves he had to admit that he had failed in his real pursuit, namely to find out what electromagnetism really was. ...
What is true of electromagnetism applies to any other branch of physical theory. Newton's theory of gravitation does not reveal what gravitation is. It merely states that what is called gravitation operates along strictly specifiable quantitative lines, summed up in the idea of a central field of force. One of its implications is the inverse square law of gravitation, another is the times-squared law of the free fall of bodies. They are exact mathematically and therefore provide for exact predictions. ...
Exact science [is] the study of the quantitative aspects of things in motion. Nothing more and nothing less. This notion of exact science gives competence to scientists whenever they deal with matter, but it does not enlighten them as to what matter is, let alone what scientific study is as an exercise of the intellect. Much less does that notion of science enlighten them about their purpose for doing science, and even less about the fact that they presumably do freely what they do.
And when Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46), she is saying (at one level) that through her you see more clearly that which is Beyond her. Symbols, are, therefore, lenses, in a sense, which “magnify” or at least point toward the reality they signify.
Here’s Eric Voegelin, indicating a diagram he’s drawn on a blackboard that’s filled with symbols, including a letter S for Symbol, which he has drawn in the shape of a lens …
The figure in the middle marked with “S” is in the shape of a lens. “S” stands for symbol; this may take the specific form of visual symbols, myths, ideas, philosophical propositions, and so on. It could even take the form of dance or liturgy.
Whatever its form, it functions to represent some aspect of the reality attended to through it and to direct inquiry toward that. This is why it is represented in the diagram as a lens; it is not, when it is functioning properly, an object of attention in its own right, but serves as a focusing device to direct attention beyond itself toward the object of interest.
You might say (symbolically) that it’s one thing to have scratched, foggy or poorly focused binoculars. It’s another thing to stand before an eagle on the other side of the river, looking only at the binoculars and not through them to the majesty of the bird.