A Theologico-Metaphysical Thought Experiment
for the Stout of Brain and Desperate of Heart

Reppy Duart, D.D.

The Set-up, Part 1
Imagine, if you will, a state of being, a very large state of being. Call it a "universe." Not our universe, please—this is only a thought experiment.

In this imaginary universe let's let many entities exist, from the extremely small to the extremely large. Again, just by way of comparison, think of our own universe with its atoms and its galaxies, its muons and its galactic clusters. Our imaginary universe also has animate entities displaying a similar range in size, from wee micro-organisms to planetary behemoths (perhaps like our whales) and even to extra-planetary creatures (like nothing we know).

The Set-up, Part 2
So far, so good. Now I ask you to imagine—and here the the thought experiment gets a little trickier—that in our imaginary cosmos there co-exist congruent, even over-lapping layers of "reality." For convenience we can call these "strata." The inhabitants of one stratum sense their residence as vast, and vastly adequate, not unlike, say, our own universe. With their sensory limitations, they are unaware of the other strata that co-occupy their universe. Though mystified (like most creatures) by the puzzle of being, they are content with the endless study of and rumination about their own stratum.

The Set-up, Part 3
Creatures in the other strata of this imaginary cosmos are not all quite so confined in this alien universe. Some are perhaps sensitively aware not only of other strata but of the creatures living and thinking there as well.

Further, as in the messy splaying of geological strata we see on our own planet, here and there in this stratified, hypothetical universe, one encounters actual "bleedthroughs" where one stratum not only impinges on another but actually intrudes into and penetrates the reality of another quite different state of being.

Some universe, huh? Just keep on imagining. We’re not finished yet.

Recall also that in these different strata we are dealing with different modes and ranges of perception. What is visible in one place may well be invisible in another and thus seem not merely non-existent but so absurd as to not even warrant thinking about.

The Pay-off
Given all that complexity as foundation, let us suppose that once upon a time in this multitudinous stratification, a very large, especially clever entity from one of these intrusive strata was exploring the other stratum into which its own state of being extended. Suppose it came upon a whole planetful of lovely, if still quite primitive, creatures showing all the signs of sentience.

First came a delighted gasp of recognition: Ah!

To be sure these minature beings are, by this particular entity’s scale, small, but the entity well knows that in things metaphysical size usually doesn’t matter. They are tiny but they are clearly
1. intelligent,
2. clever, and
3. astonishingly creative, displaying both creative and destructive
    inventiveness of a rare richness.

Our large intrusive entity is instantly not only taken with this wee race. It is in fact smitten.

It, in a word, falls in love.

What to do, what to do. The entity is aware of the scale problem. Even simple discourse will be hazardous, not to mention other sorts of intercourse that immediately occur to our entity as extremely desirable.

What to do, indeed.

Like all swains, our smitten entity wants nothing so much as to be with its love-object… always. So it takes to hanging about. For a time—quite a long time actually, simple observation is enough. But extended observation breeds knowledge, and sympathy. Infatuation slowly slides over into love, and love wants above all intimacy.

Oh dear. Various, indeed, multitudinous manifestations are dreamed up and, worse, attempted. Alas, our entity—a modest enough creature—has never thought of itself as possessing "grandeur" in any way whatever, and it is also only too aware of the limitations of its own knowledge and wisom.

A few tries at a voice from the heavens or direct intervention in this or that natural catastrophe quickly reveal the terrible dilemma of our swain. For the creatures respond to these initial declarations of love with a mixture of awe and—there’s no other word for it—fear.

"Fear?! The one I love is afraid of ME??"

Retreat and think think think. New strategies are needed and are eventually come up with. Our lovelorn entity scales its manifestation way, way down and takes to appearing as one of them, the tiny beloved. Yet no matter how accurate the simulacrum, they always guess that something’s afoot. They always somehow sense that this lovely, all-too-solid apparition before them is more than it seems, a sensing which pretty much renders the kind of intimate tete-a-tete our entity has in mind impossible.

Attempts at intimacy accumulate. Manifestations now and then become desperate, even grandiose, and occasionally quite melodramatic, but all with the same response: awe and fear.

Time passes. Frustration grows. "Lovelorn" merges over into "forlorn." But slowly, strangely, "love" itself matures. Entity wants, still, to be with, to communicate with; but now entity begins to want to help, to assist, to ease the way through the great mystery for these lovely, lovable creatures.

What to do, what to do.

Miffed? Yes, a little. (If the truth be told, our entity once or twice even let its miffedness show.) Disappointed? Of course. Worried? Yes. Entity knows it has, in its trans-strata behavior, transgressed and, in its love born out of early infatuation, has continued to transgress. But, it rationalizes: it was so lonely. And so smitten. And wanting so much to enter into long, stimulating dialogues about, well, everything.

"Clues," finally thinks entity one day, "I can leave clues. These, my beloved, are smart enough, and when time is finally (finally!) ripe they will figure out my clues and we can finally (finally!) talk as the equals that in my heart of hearts I know we are!"

So it acts. The entity scatters clues of many kinds, of many visibilities and invisiblities. Then it sits back and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

END

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