Opening the Doors to the Higher and Lower Levels of Things

by David Fleischacker

This one will be short.  One important element that young people should come to discover on their own, but through a carefully prepared environment is the higher and lower orders of being.  Materials and experiences in life can open up this grand discovery.  Descriptively, we get a sense of this order —  rock –> plants –> animals –> human beings. But few get to the why of this order.  This is the real breakthrough of theoria that will happen during the teenage years and beyond.  

How do we get there?  Part of the answer is a universal one, relevant for all ages. One can find it articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas. 

1. We encounter external activities through our senses.
2. Through these sensed activities, we begin to discover the interior operations of a thing. 
3. In coming to understand the nature of these operations  we discover powers.
4. Then when we discover all the powers of a thing and the relationships of the powers, we discover the essence.

Now, this rough sketch above about how we discover the interior being of things belongs to the world or theoria. It explains why descriptively some things do more than others (why rocks just are, but plants grow for instance).  Young children of course are fascinated by all of these things, and so allowing them to develop a rich experience of all created reality then provides the necessary beginnings of step 1.  This can then unfold in different ways up through young teenage years were theoria begins to open new doors to them, and they begin to discover the mysterious inner realities of creation.  It is not until between 30 and 40 years that the full “metaphysical” character of created things arises (at least if Aristotle and St. Thomas are right).

As the interior life of creation opens up, they will then begin to understand the interior unity of the whole order–how rocks become part of plants, plants become part of animals, animals of human — and I do not mean just because one eats the other! More technically, what unfolds at the stage of theoria is how quarks are part of atoms and molecules, atoms and molecules are parts of DNA and cells, how cells and cell systems are parts of sensate consciousness, and how sensate consciousness is part of intellectual and moral life.  Too often, these interior elements are discovered only by those who have a type of utilitarian view of life — a view that tends toward control and manipulation for selfish ends. This view does not open up to the mysterious and beautiful higher and lower levels of all things, and their unity into a whole.  But in an authentic school of life, these levels and unity will open up, all within the mystery of the whole.

My point here is not to provide a path to this higher and lower unity of being, but to send out a calling.  The world has an intrinsic unity in its order.  It is beautiful and there is a great mystery in it.  In a fragmented world, it is important to begin opening up the goodness of all and how we live ultimately in a friendly universe and not one created out of gods of war.  One key in this is to prepare an environment with materials and experiences that set the stage for the higher and lower levels of things and the order which they constitute.

You could start with all the materials and activities that you have, and ask how might these open doors or be constructed to open doors to the higher and lower levels of things in this world. As you begin to design things, the children will be your signs of success.  If they (or at least some) receive life and joy from the material or activity, then it is right.