Universe without Space and Time: An Essay on Principles for Relational Cosmology Drawn from Catholic Tradition and Empirical Science

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He cites all the good "dissident" physicists: Mach, O'Rahilly, Duhem, Assis, the two Graneau`s, Weber, Wesley, et al.!

ch. 2 (ref:15.9):

There is no special word in Hebrew for what we call the world or the universe or what the Greeks called cosmos. Instead, Genesis uses more concrete terms like heaven , earth , waters , land and sea. The Hebrew word shamayim is ** translated “heaven,” in the Douay-Rheims version. But it does not mean God’s special abode except in a metaphorical sense[…]

∄ Hebrew word for "universe"?

Now, the question you ask is one I have found myself to disagree quite a bit with many Hebrew scholars on, the consensus of sorts being that, as Victor Warkulwiz writes, “[t]here is no special word in Hebrew for what we call the world or the universe or what the Greeks called cosmos.”

To my view, this is not quite accurate (I shall explain why in more detail after the following reminder). Also, recall that “cosmos” in Greek (κόσμος) means quite literally “order,” which itself implies a structuration of Nature as a specifically differentiated whole, per Creation itself, thereby providing an intellectual remedy to the errors of naturalist Greek philosophers and tragedians, opposing κόσμος to χάος, and thus failing to escape the deadly pitfall of theological demiurgism (which contemporary thinkers with a bent toward Eastern spiritualities and quantum-related theories, happily fall back into). Here is how I broke it down in previous emails, to explain my notation and the underlying logic, as provided by the revealed text of Gen 1:

Recall the following dynamical structure undergirding Gen 1:1-2:

E 0 א ↔ E 1 א ↔ E 2 א ↔ E 3 א

with E 3 standing for CNNE3, that which Can Never Not Exist = necessary (created) existence, which the sacred text subsumes under the term “Heavens” (שמים); E 2 for CCNE2, that which Can Come Not to Exist = contingent existence, which the sacred text subsumes under the term “Earth” (ארץ); E 1 for CCE1, that which Can Come to Exist = potential existence, which the sacred text subsumes under the term “Waters” (מים); and E 0 for CNCE0, that which Can Never Come to Exist = impossible existence, which the sacred text subsumes under the term “Abyss” (תהום).

[…]

Next, I borrow the Greek letter κ from the Greek word κόσμος/cosmos (the literal meaning of which is “order”). With this notation and the above-mentioned quaternary logical operations, we can arrive at some better appreciation and understanding of the uniqueness and remarkable precision of the revealed text, as shown from its use of such an unusual compound expression, tōhû and vōhû , in Gen 1:2.

The two terms are linked as conjunction of one and its negative, κ ∧~κ. Specifically then, κ ∧~κ ≡ CCNE2 ≡ E 2 ≡ הָאָרֶץ is properly seen as denoting the structural substance governing physics (“the Earth,” where contingency rules), which indeed consists in an unbreakable tension of order (κ) & non-order (~κ); meaning, in the revealed Hebrew text of Gen 1:2, an unbreakable tension of תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ. Retranslating this very verse, we thus can read it as follows:

“And the Earth (CCNE2) was order (κ ≡ תֹהוּ) &/וָ non-order (~κ ≡ בֹהוּ) …”

Physics, which pertains to הָאָרֶץ (“Earth”) is constitutively the intrinsic “mixture” of κ and ~κ , which is in fact what the world of (real) particles and their interactions (forces) actually displays. Hence, all the aspects of matter contingent upon the properties of (electric) particles and their forces also fall within the analytic framework of κ ∧~κ.

E 3, הַשָּׁמַיִם, is what comes first in Gen 1:1, as “strict order” (κ) immanent to both visible and invisible Creation and comprising the set of what we may call the “laws of its nature,” CNNE3.

E 1, הַמָּיִם, the “Waters” of “non-order” (~κ), represents the state of all things potential in Creation, CCE1.

E 0, תְהוֹם the “Abyss,” represents a limit, as it delineates all “things” impossible in Creation, CNCE0; and further points, as “neither order nor non-order” (~(κ ∨~κ), to the irreducible nature of the human intellect created in the image and likeness of God (an abyss in which man, therefore, cannot look nor try to apply measurements, as he might, for example, in secular, pride-driven IQ tests).

Thus, it is not that “Genesis uses more concrete terms like heaven, earth, waters, land and sea,” dixit Victor Warkulwiz. These category-terms, especially the ones occurring in Gen 1:1-2 (Heaven, Earth, Waters), are not concrete terms intended to vaguely and poorly describe the physical universe, as if the revealed text of Genesis was a kind of very primitive, basic, and quite simplistic physics account of the universe (Creation, in any event, being distinct from what we call “universe” today, and not primarily about the visible realities of our earthly life here on earth, although these too are ultimately the effects of the invisible act of Creation). What the revealed text refers to here relies on a sophisticated semiosis and inner logic carrying the unsurpassable meaning intended by the divine Word to provide enfleshed intellects like ours with a narrated translation of the very work of divine Creation, which we ourselves are a living expression of as we breathe, think, write, and read about it, right now 🙂!

Returning to the matter of Hebraic terminology in Scripture for “universe,” even when it is not so explicit, let us consider the term עוֹלָם (ôlām), which biblical scholars tend to claim only means “time,” “constancy,” “time to come,” “forever,” “eternity,” as opposed to “universe.” My problem with this take is primarily that the strong time-related meaning of ôlām (which does also imply non-time, since it is also to refer to eternity) does not imply that it does not also mean time-related universe, which is certainly consistent with some scriptural occurrences of the term. In fact, one of the uses of ôlām in Genesis occurs in reference to God Himself (in 21:33), called אֵל עוֹלָם, translated as “everlasting God.” However, there is another word for “everlastingness” in Scripture, namely נֵצַח (nēşaḥ).

In Gen 21:33, beyond the seemingly anecdotal reference of Abraham planting a tree, the Saint more significantly imitates a divine operation performed in the work of Creation, when the Blessed Trinity “planted a Garden in Eden,” as we read in Gen 2:7. Here we read:

“And Abraham planted a tamarisk-tree in Beersheba, and called there on the name of YHWH, the Everlasting God.”

The underlying reference to God, Y-H0-W-H (the Most Blessed Trinity) having planted a preternatural Garden of trees when He made the world so as to place His filial rational creature there to “[liturgically] worship [לְעָבְדָהּ]” and “contemplate [by keeping the divine regulation, לְשָׁמְרָהּ]” (Gen 2:15), suggests that אֵל עוֹלָם in Gen 21:33 can be more precisely translated, by explication of what is implied there, “God [Who has made the visible an invisible] world/universe.”

Furthermore, taking the New Testament in its primarily Aramaic form building upon and opening the meaning of the Hebraic Old Testament, we encounter the strict equivalent of עוֹלָם (ôlām), namely עלמא (âlmā), to mean “world” or “age” (Gk. αἰῶνος) interchangeably (as they indeed both mean the same), demonstrating the isolation of “time” from the “world” or “age” (“age” being easily used in reference to “time” too) to typically be a contemporary reading scholarly artifice.

For example, in Matt 28:20:

“And behold I’m with you all the days [כלהון יומתא/πασας τας ημερας -> time-based reference] until the completion [שולמה] of the world/age [עלמא].”

Referring to the same eschatological economy, Our Lord also says, in Matt 13:40:

“Thus shall it be at the completion [בשולמה] of the world/age [עלמא].”

Finally, Victor Warkulwiz writes:

“The Hebrew word shamayim is translated "heaven," in the Douay-Rheims version. But it does not mean God’s special abode except in a metaphorical sense […]”

I would be a more precise about “Heaven” (שָּׁמַיִם). As seen in Gen 1:1, it is a category-term belonging to the created structuration of reality, specifically referring to E 3 ≡ CNNE3 (= that which Can Never Not Exist). But, analogously taken (rather than just “metaphorically”), it designates the abode of the Blessed, where they see the Blessed Trinity face to face in the beatific vision.

Time and time again, it appears that the Book of Genesis remains poorly understood (often because of diehard prejudices in relation to the first chapters), and thus too awkwardly used in reference to physics (cosmology), event when drawing from Catholic Tradition...

St. Jerome uses nemus and the Douay uses "grove", not "tamarisk-tree" in Gen. 21:33. (Interestingly, I have a tamarisk tree in my backyard.)

What is a "grove"? The OT mostly uses that word to refer to a place for idolatry, doesn't it? The OED says "grove" is "used (following the Septuagint and the Vulgate) to render"

a. Hebrew Ashērāh , which is now understood as the name of a goddess or of a pillar serving as an idol.

b. Hebrew ēshel (Revised Version ‘tamarisk tree’).

Why the same word to refer to both?

A grove is not a tree, but rather like a small plantation of trees, like a small “woodland” eventually to become a thicket. So, the LXX’s use of “grove” would suggest a plantation of more than one tree, by which the reference to the original Garden is made even clearer, since a garden implies more than one tree (and the original preternatural Garden, in Eden, was indeed comprised of “all trees,” כָּל-עֵץ, Gen 2:9).

In Gen 21:33, אֶשֶׁל/ēshêl quite specifically refers to Tamarix syriaca , the tamarisk tree, the only instance of which is found in this place in Scripture (and you have one in your garden, which tells me that Saint Abraham is watching over you, which pleases me, Deo gratias! 🌳 🙂). Thus, translating as closely to the Hebraic syntax and proper meaning of the words of Gen 21:33 as one can in English, the verse reads as follows:

.וַיִּטַּע אֶשֶׁל בִּבְאֵר שָׁבַע וַיִּקְרָא-שָׁם--בְּשֵׁם יְהוָה אֵל עוֹלָם

“And he planted an ēshêl /tamarisk-tree in Beer-sheba, and he called there

on the Name of YHWH, the God of the universe [אֵל עוֹלָם].”

As for the planting of an אֲשֵׁרָה/ashēra , an idolatrous cultic post (and, as in our own time, sometime a pole intended to the sexually-charged worship of the “opening,” as I might have pointed out a few years ago regarding the range of meanings and practices associated with ashēra) also called a “tree,” as in Det 16:21, it is forbidden as an antithesis of what Abraham does, for example in Gen 21:33, when he calls upon the Name of the Blessed Trinity, the One true God, and plants a tree in mystical imitation of the Creator of all things (אֵל עוֹלָם), Who planted the original Garden comprised of all trees of knowledge intended for his rational creatures (Gen 2:7-9).

The relationship between taking in light from above (to perform photosynthesis) and being firmly planted in the ground, which treeness expresses in the physical world, is a proper universal symbol (a true analogy) of the intellectual constitution and function of Adam in creation, as he is the rational creature to precisely perform the sym-bolic connection (συμ-βολή) between the visible and the invisible, being the bridge, literally the pontifical being between both the angelic and sub-rational orders. This is made explicit in the Gospel when Our Blessed Lord heals the sight of the blind man of Bethsaida in Mk 8:22-26, thereby operating and signifying the restoration of the vision (חזא) of an analogical understanding of the world in universally blinded humanity (since creation is both visible and invisible, therefore necessarily signifying by way of analogous signs, to which fallen man has become blind, thus dull in his intellect, i.e., foolish enough to think the visible world, everything he sees, to just be there as a meaningless terminus ad quem).

In Mark 8:23, the Savior, having performed a precise mystagogic action upon the eyes of the blind man, asks him: “Do you see anything?” Whereupon, looking up (and being healed of not being able to see signs as such), the latter exclaims (translating from the Aramaic text of the Peshitta):

“I see [חזא] men [בני אנשא] as [= the (analogous) comparative איך] trees [אילנא] walking!”

So, in short, אֶשֶׁל and אֲשֵׁרָה are not the same words, and therefore do not refer to the same realities.

A idololatria libera nos, Domine.

As for συμ-βολή , it is properly the noun giving, of course, sym-bol in English (συμ-βόλος means exactly the same, with slightly less precision as to the underlying action, more below on this); and I use it in the specific sense described in the previous email and elsewhere, in so far as it closely corresponds to the activity signified by the Hebrew word בִינָה (the faculty of understanding), which implies an “in between” (בין, the exact same root as בינה), i.e., a separation of two orders, respectively a visible and an invisible one (a real symbol does not exist without such a separation and two such distinct orders); which it is then the sym-bolic function of man’s intellect to bridge by use of analogies, παρα-βολή (hence the importance of the para-boles in the Gospel, in opening the eyes of man’s fallen and blinded intellect).

Properly speaking, a sym-bol /συμ-βολή – yes, the underlying verb is συμ-βάλλειν , συμ-βολίσει – literally means and consists in the “confluence,” the “junction” of two separated parts “thrown together”

Reminds me of Brian Kemple's 15 min. talk On the Meaning of "Objective": sub-iacere / ob-iacere , that which is "thrown below/under" / "thrown toward/to".

His Ens Primum Cognitum in Thomas Aquinas and the Tradition p. 153 (PDF p. 161n22) discusses the etymology of cadere in when St. Thomas says "ens cadit in apprehensione ;" cadere means "to fall under, to belong, to be placed in" (Blaise p. 123 // PDF p. 96), as though simple apprehension is as natural as the descent of a freely-falling weight!

Very interesting these physics words' role in human intellection, in Latin and Greek.

in order to be “brought together” and eventually be seen (by the operation of intelligence) to correspond with one another (when the sign if grasped in relation to its signified reality), by way of analogy (which is the function of the parables to specifically train in).

Understanding (להבין/בינה), in this specific sense, is therefore to see ana-logously (proportionally, ανα-λογικά), to grasp and bridge the “in-between” gap (בין) that separates two cohering orders, a sign and its sym-bolized referent, to discern that they belong to each other without being identical (hence the gap always implied, since a sign never is, by definition, what it signifies).

For this reason, we see St. Luke precisely describing Our Lady’s contemplative intellect (in (Lk 2:19) as “keeping/storing all these things, sym-bolizing them [συμ-βάλλουσα] in her heart.” The inner relationship between sym-bolizing and understanding (intellectually, Lat. intellectus) is confirmed by the underlying Aramaic text, as St. Luke uses the verb מפחמא (mfârmā), “understanding” (choosing the Greek συμβαλλουσα to best render the specificity of that activity of the intelligence exercising its proper analogous function in uniting together the visible and the invisible, in comprehending one in the other):

“But Mariam storing was all these things-words [מלא], and understanding them [מפחמא, συμβαλλουσα] in her heart.”

Genesis is simpler Hebrew?

Yes, Genesis (the whole Pentateuch) is much easier linguistically to fluently read and understand than later scriptural accounts, such as the Prophets (involving larger sets of words and more intricate grammar clauses and forms). I read the whole Pentateuch in Hebrew, and translated parts of Genesis, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Canticle of Canticles when I studied in the Holy Land. I also learned some original texts by heart from these texts, which helped me recognize some of the forms underlying the Aramaic New Testament, after studying the grammar and basic word sets of the Peshitta.

Reading and translating the Hebraic Pentateuch is comparatively easier than reading and translating the rest of Sacred Scripture (not because the multilayered semiotics implied by the alphanumerical nature of the texts, the multiplex semantics, or the theological realities referred to therein are easier to grasp) on account of the lesser number of words involved (smaller vocabulary set) and the stricter format of Mosaic oral texts, which structurally and texturally consist of the interconnection of formulaic, bilateral, and rhythmical rules of composition:

(1) Formulaic composition: found in recurring framework of traditional formulas designed to easily store, call up, and pass on information containing variables (for example, all the various genealogical profiles punctuating the Book of Genesis -> a general, constant memory framework about x , y , z people’s specifications).

(2) Bilateral composition (parallel or antinomic, e.g., blessings and curses): consistent with our symmetric, two-sided physical constitution -> these texts are therefore bodily memorized (learned by heart) from childhood (balancing one’s body up and down, right to left, back to front.

(3) Rhythmical composition: the rhythmic format of Semitic recitations as found in the BookS of Moses is especially useful as a mnemonic and arithmetic means of memorization and sacred (ritual) cantillation (most strikingly so in the aptly titled Book of Numbers, from the Greek Αριθμοί).

Yes, "symbol" as in "creed", a collection/"throwing-together" of beliefs.

“Symbol” as in “creed” is ~~[a]~~ not used in the literal, wider intellectual apprehension-related meaning of σύμ-βολον. In the narrower Greek sense given to the Creed, a “symbol” can be “a collection/"throwing-together" of beliefs.” Yet the symbolic function of the human intellect, analogously akin to a tree (making the transformative connection between light from above and the ground conditions of its root system), consists exactly of what Our Lady is doing with her intellect in Lk 2:19, “ συμ-βάλλουσα these things/words/verbs [מלא, ρηματα , verba] in her heart.”

Recognizing and apprehending the symbolic function of visible objects in this physical creation is therefore to see them in their specific analogous relationship to their corresponding invisible archetypes, “con-fluencing”/συμ-βάλλοντας them together intellectually. In that specific way, man’s intellect is truly a pontiff, an immaterial bridge between the visible and the invisible. The bridging act of the intellect trained in the contemplation characterizing Our Lady in Lk 2:19 (and, of course, through her whole life) is what sym-bolizing properly means, as a universal function of man’s capacity to discern and grasp immaterial realities.

Thus, we do not conventionally make anything to become a symbol, as moderns think (symbolization, in the proper sense, is always free from the influence of and therefore far above convention). Symbols are given with Creation. We can only come to learn the science of these irreducible types of signs (be it a tree, a fishing net, a fish, a stone, bread, a mustard seed, yeast in dough, etc.) to apprehend, through the process of analogy passing from the visible to the invisible (which is much more than merely making an arithmetical comparison of a proportional nature), what are the inner verbs – λογοι (the reasons) – of the things we see as a given and universal language of created signs.

para- does have the sense of "analogous to" (paralegal,paramedic, etc.).

Likewise, beyond the specified fields of “para-legal, para-medic, etc.,” which entails merely para-lleling the legal field, or the medical field, as opposed to what is properly meant by an analogy formed in intellectual apprehension of a visible reality in light of its invisible reference, παρα-βολή (-> Hebrew משל/MāSHāL and Aramaic מתלא/MāTLē or פלאתא/PHêLāTā) refers to the double act of paralleling (by comparing a and b together/sym -) in order to (literally) -bolize them, and thereby see one (the invisible) in the other (the visible).

Moderns have lost both the physics and the metaphysics correlatively attached to what shows a thing to have an intrinsic symbolic function in relation to the human intellect. And as substitute, they have raised the power of cultural convention as the ultimate reason for why words, and things, and artificial signs mean what they (supposedly) mean, transitorily, without need of reality and of archetypal λογοι to inform the λόγια.

His Ens Primum Cognitum in Thomas Aquinas and the Tradition p. 153 (PDF p. 161n22) discusses the etymology of cadere in when St. Thomas says "ens cadit in apprehensione ;" cadere means "to fall under, to belong, to be placed in" (Blaise p. 123 // PDF p. 96), as though simple apprehension is as natural as the descent of a freely-falling weight!

Your interesting remark about the natural comparableness between “falling”/cadens (or “falling down” into [the receiving grasp of the intellect]) and “apprehension” (recipere apud apprehensione) in St. Thomas’s “ens cadit in apprehensione” hiding in the etymology of cadere , concurs with the diagnosis I have outlined here, the natural remedy of this particular expression of modernism being the real linkage between physics, metaphysics, symbolism (rerum ut significationes*), and man’s bridge intellect.

Intelligere means intus-legere , "to read in-between"!

Indeed! The ancient languages fundamentally agree, in ways betraying their deep relation to reality – the relation modernism has avidly sought to destroy (tragically succeeding in the intellects of modern men).

*A thesis derived from a key doctrine consistently held by the Fathers (St. Maximus the Confessor being one of its eminent representatives) owing to both their philosophical realism and their inspired knowledge of Sacred Scripture, something I experienced first hand back in my days as a formal student working with and on real objects (such as the ones presented throughout Scripture, infallibly placed therein to instruct the intellect under some aspects of their universal symbolic function), to see that their intrinsic properties are truly mirroring some invisible reality (some “archetype,” in the proper, non-psychological sense of the term, as used especially by St. Maximus, along with “type,” “prototype,” and “antitype”).