Looking into Jacques Maritain, (1882–1973), French philosopher and political thinker.
What is "unknown in itself and activating all beings”?
Maritain suggests "another Whole […] another Being, transcendent and self-sufficient.”
Lotsa snow today, and more and more that I don’t know, and so, and so, let’s think.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes:
There is, Maritain writes, an intuition that is awakened in persons when they are engaged in thought—that is, that it seems impossible that they, as thinking beings, should at some time have not been. As a thinking being, one seems to be free from the vicissitudes of time and space; there is no coming to be or ceasing to be—I cannot think what it is not to be. Nevertheless, we all know very well that we were born—we came into existence. We are confronted, then, with a contradiction—not a logical contradiction, but a lived contradiction. The only solution to this is that one has always existed, but not through oneself, but within “a Being of transcendent personality” and from whom “the self which is thinking now proceeded into temporal existence” (Approches de Dieu, in Oeuvres complètes, Vol. X, p. 64 [Engl. tr., pp. 71–72]). This being
must contain all things in itself in an eminent mode and be itself—in an absolutely transcendent way—being, thought and personality. This implies that the first existence is the infinite plenitude of being, separate by essence from all diversity of existents. (ibid., p. 66 [Engl. tr., p. 74])
Maritain also acknowledges the possibility of a natural, pre-philosophical, but still rational knowledge of God (see Approches de Dieu, pp. 13–22). This is, Maritain claims, a ‘knowledge’ that is necessary to—and, in fact leads to—a philosophical demonstration of God’s existence. (In this way, then, one can know that some religious beliefs are true, even without being able to demonstrate them.) Maritain’s argument, which resembles the Thomistic argument from contingent being, is that, in one’s intuition of being, one is aware, first, of a reality separate from oneself; second, of oneself as finite and limited; and, third, of the necessity that there is something “completely free from nothingness and death” (ibid., p. 15 [Engl. tr., p. 19]). This is concurrent with a “spontaneous reasoning” that follows the same course to the conclusion that there is
another Whole […] another Being, transcendent and self-sufficient and unknown in itself and activating all beings […] that is, self-subsisting Being, Being existing through itself. (ibid., p. 16 [Engl. tr., p. 20])
This knowledge of God, Maritain admits, is not demonstrative but is, nevertheless, “rich in certitude” (ibid., p. 19 [Engl. tr., p. 23]) and is both presupposed by, and is the underlying force for, philosophical demonstrations of God’s existence.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maritain/#NatuTheoPhilReli
The thing about thinking about God is that there’s no end to it. And, if I read things correctly, no beginning. And thinking, not just the rational-logical type of thinking, but the building-dwelling thinking transports the thinker places that cannot be described in familiar designation or composition.
I watch the film “Lions for Lambs (2007). AI sums up the experience:
"Lions for lambs" means brave, strong individuals (lions) are misguided or sacrificed by weak, incompetent, or self-interested leaders (lambs), often referring to soldiers sent to war by politicians, a concept popularized by the Robert Redford film. It highlights the tragic irony where courage meets foolish strategy, or where the powerful exploit the earnest, though the phrase also carries biblical undertones of peace (the lion and lamb together) and contrasting spiritual strength and sacrifice.
It's a slant jeremiad, for which patience is required, still rings true twenty years later, through the acting and direction of Robert Redford and the way Meryl Streep is able to look from side to side so authentically.
We are beyond curious about what we cannot see. For example, our not being able to discern when we are being used and abused by self-obsessed narcissists whose only interest is self-interest. Or the sei pazzo characters of the White House cabinet whose primary task is to praise and fawn over the debilitated chief whose ring and rear they pathetically kiss.
Maritain would prefer we talk about God. I would too. But we're in a different crisis than a theological one. A pickpocket is not only taking our money, he's taking our neighbors. He kidnaps them. He executes them. He shunts off neighboring countries. He alienates foreign allies. We see this. We know this. But... we're uncertain what to do or how to do what we don't know.
It's always been that way with God.
Now we have a president who thinks he is God.
He's not. He's delusional. But our sanity is tested.
I do not feel "rich in certitude."
But I am curious.
A bit disconcerted, but curious.
I think we are seeing through God, and God is seeing through us.
But we do not seem to have the language to satisfy our curiosity.
Perhaps "God's existence" is an outdated concept.
Maybe "God's insistence" comes closer. One thinker talks about "explicitness"
CIRCLING AROUND EXPLICITNESS: Adventures in the 'thatosphere'. Season 2, Ep. 24, Tuesday, October 7, 2025. In this conversation philospher Raymond Tallis talks about his new book 'Circling Around Explicitness: The heart of human being'. Ray's book opens with a quote from German philosopher Friedrich Schelling ‘Uniquely within us nature opens her eyes and sees that she exists.’ What follows is an exploration of the meaning of 'thatness', his attempt to, in his words, 'eff the uneffed'. Our circling alights on a number of thinkers who he believes oversimplify misrepresent being, how 'the blob and the brain' become 'the bloke' . Donald Hoffman, Phillip K. Dick and Martin Buber get a mention, not all favourable, as does the 'autocidal tendency in contemproary philosophy', as we work through the four section of his book. To close he reads the closing paragraphs and gives us a peek at what is coming next.
Worth the labor.
To open our eyes.
