Lines and How They Get That Way

This question of where to draw the line is more consequential than you might think, especially in a league game. Seriously, what even is a line, how can they exist, and who draws them?

Let's consider the existence of a particular line that has been both controversial and deeply troubling to western civilization for at least two weeks, that is, the line between the sexes. It is a line "in a manner of speaking," but a line nonetheless. Who drew it? How does it get here?

You're not wrong if you say "nature," or biology, or natural selection, and the only way to eliminate this line is to draw a different, impenetrable line between intellect and reality. But to paraphrase what Chesterton said about the rejection of God, folks who don't believe in science don't believe in nothing, rather, anything.

There are natural lines between man and woman, as there are between species. Last I checked, biologists aren't exactly clear on how it is possible for the impregnable lines between species to exist. 

I'm not here to argue with them, because I am not attracted to goats anyway, but I will say that the reason is not totally reducible to nature. As with the categories of male and female, these are prolongations of archetypal ideas and principles that go all the way up. 

For nature itself is supernatural, not just in some romantic or sentimental way, but literally. Put conversely, if nature isn't supernatural, then there can be no laws of nature, let alone a being who discovers and understands them.

But because these lines are above nature while immanent in it, they can appear vague. In the past we've used the example of a cloud in the sky. From a distance the difference between cloud and sky appears crisp and clear, but as one approaches it, the line grows blurry until it disappears altogether.  

Think of the millions of endarkened human beings who have no idea they are living in a cloud of tenure. Yet, they are precisely the people most responsible for excreting the crocktrine that no lines exist!

Now, the first line is God and world, or Creator and creation, Principle and manifestation, Absolute and relative, One and many, etc. While we're at it, let's totally demythologize and even deconceptualize this primordial distinction and just call it O <---> ( ). 

Whoever, wherever, or whenever you are, you cannot not make this distinction -- whether implicitly or explicitly -- and still be human. Put conversely, deny this line and you have basically cashed in your chimp and left the world of factsimians above and behind. 

I hear the objections: this primordial line needn't come from above! Science can fully explain it or any other distinction in the world.

OVER THE LINE! I'm sorry, that's a foul. Next paragraph. (Words of Walter in khaki.)

Science, of course, is predicated on the prior existence of a permeable and translucent line between intelligence and intelligibility. Just try to do science without it. We'll wait.

What is the first thing the Creator does in Genesis? Draw a line in the sand between the heavens and earth, which is to say, O and ( ), respectively. Horizontal and vertical. Transcendence and immanence.

I want to switch seers over to Schuon, to an essay called Creation as Divine Quality. In it he makes the startling-but-obvious-once-you-think-about-it claim that creation is coeternal with God. No, not this or any other creation, but rather, creation as such. Just as God can't help being good, nor can he help creating. 

Ironically, this shouldn't be the least bit surprising to a Christian, since the Father never stops begetting the Son, such that they are coeternal. Thus, you could say that this is literally the first line, the principial line of which any and every other line is a more or less distant reflection.

In case you were wondering. 

We're just getting started, but that's enough for one post.   

OVER THE LINE!