The One and the Many, An Interesting Observation

Cornelius Van Til did brilliant and inspired work on examining how the philisophical problem of "the one and the many" may only be "solved" in God the Holy Trinity. All unbelieving systems absolutize either universals or particulars, and doing so destroys reason entirely. Following Van Til, R. J. Rushdoony wrote The One and the Many to examine the various ways in which that played out in different eras of philosophy.

The other day it occurred to me that there is a tendency for unbelieving systems to run headlong in the opposite direction from their absolute. I can't think of a philosophy that doesn't do this, or, I haven't thought of one yet.

For example, Hinduism sees all as one, Brahman. Distinctions are ultimately false. But what do they do? Worship over a million gods who are supposed avatars of this one. That's a lot of distinctions right there, I don't care who ya are.

Again, Moslems, with their absolute monad god, insert all kinds of intermediary angels or djinn into the equation.

In the other direction, humanistic materialists claim that all is ultimately many: billions of meaningless brute facts. It isn't until a bunch of apes evolve to the point of creating categories that there are any connections between things, and ultimately, those connections are meaningless. But what is the tendency of humanists? Totalitarian statism, or corporate monopoly, are some other kind of monolithic "one."

God made reality, and His One-ness and Three-ness are equally ultimate. His world inescapably reflects that. You can run, but you can't hide.