I first envisioned this blog to be just an outlet for writing about things that were of interest to me. For a long time, I studied epistemology, but I found that many epistemological theories end up going in circles. The thing I really became fascinated with is the field of metaphysics.

It is impossible to deny metaphysics. Aristotle taught us that to reject metaphysics is to do metaphysics. After all, if one attempts to deny truth, or value judgments, or the nature of reality, he or she is doing metaphysics. The great philosopher and scientist, Stanley L. Jaki once quipped, “the only way to avoid becoming a metaphysician is to say nothing.” Since metaphysics is unavoidable, it is important that we at least try to get it right. That is what I am trying to do here.

As I study metaphysics, I have found that the overarching problem really is the question of the one and the many or more simply, Being and Becoming. The question has not yet been resolved. If, as metaphysicians assert, there are transcendent truths such as mathematics, laws of logic, human rights, and moral truths, how do they relate to the physical world? I am convinced that metaphysics really do explain something about this world, even if it is of a very general kind. I am also convinced that every other field of human endeavor is founded on metaphysical truths. The question which fascinates me—and philosophers since the time of the pre-Socratics—is how exactly is Being related to Becoming? What is the metaphysical connection?

In recent years, metaphysics has made a bit of a comeback. It was once considered a dead field. When I informally began to study metaphysics several years ago, it was considered intellectually unworthy. Back in the 1990s, epistemology was all the rage. I am happy to report that much of that has changed. However, I have not seen a lot of work done in the Being-Becoming relationship. There has been a lot of work done on particular aspects of metaphysics, such as personhood or the nature of causality which is fantastic, but in my research, it appears there has not been very much on the overall relationship between Being and Becoming. Although there have been a few Thomists who have given good historical overviews of the problem, I have found few philosophers who have addressed this problem as a philosophical topic or problem to be addressed. If I am wrong, or if there are good works on the topic, let me know in the comments below.

In an attempt to address this problem, I will try to show on this blog how various classical thinkers have tried to solve it. Along the way, I hope to address related issues of physics and metaphysics and how sometimes the two fields get confused even though they really are different. Cosmology is still an interest and you will probably find a few related posts about that here as well. After all, the first metaphysicians were also cosmologists. Today, physicists and cosmologists who are attempting to describe “a grand unified theory” or “a theory of everything” really are working within the problem of the one and the many, Being and Becoming. Although related, physics and metaphysics should not be confused.

A final note. Although I am a philosophical Christian Theist convinced that the classical arguments for God’s existence are still valid, much of this blog (at least for now) is focused on philosophy proper. The reason for this is that I would like to address and provide greater context to the most important questions of human existence. Everyone benefits by gaining a stronger philosophical context through careful analysis of these important questions. In many discussions and debates that I have witnessed, often the theist or atheist is uninformed about the context or issues involved in a particular discussion. I am convinced that careful thinking and reasoning benefits everyone – Christian, atheist, agnostic, Buddhist or whomever.

So, a large part of this blog will focus on the underlying issues and concerns that have philosophical and practical ramifications that impact all of us one way or another. Clear thinking benefits everyone.

This is why metaphysics is the general focus of this blog. In the Aristotelian tradition, metaphysics is the study of Being as Being and such a study has the clearest implications of how we view the world and how we should live in it. If we do not have a proper understanding of “what is” we cannot have a proper understanding of anything else. Investigating the philosophical underpinnings of reality has important implications for all of us.