Does the soul grow?

[504Katrin]

continued response to rossum…

You must remember that Jesus Christ had two natures, a human nature which absolutely could change, and a Divine Nature which could not. It would be incorrect to say that the Divine Nature died, and hence it underwent no change. That being said, because the Son died on the cross, and He is both human and Divine, it is correct to say that “God died on the cross”, however, we need to be aware of the limitations of that statement.

God’s action can terminate in time even though He acts outside of time. Time for another analogy! Pretend you are looking at a timeline beginning with creation and ending with the end of the world. This timeline is written on a piece of paper. In some ways, God must view us very similarly. He sees all of time as if it were present. he sees the beginning, the middle and the end all at the same time. We really cannot conceive of that, except by imagining a timeline on a piece of paper. Now pretend that you reach down and touch the timeline in three places. Maybe put a finger when God spoke to Moses, another during the time of Elijah, and another when a certain census brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. You are touching the line in three places simutaneously.

God’s action occurs in a similar manner. He touches the timeline in many places, all at once, because He is not “in” the timeline… He is above it, standing outside of it, viewing the entire thing at once. Human beings perceive His actions as occuring at different times, because they really do occur at different points of the timeline, but from God’s perspective, even though He touches many points, it is all part of the same action which occurs outside of time.

Let us consider the alternative for a minute. If God were not immutable, He would be part of time, as you have said, and would not truly be Eternal (which properly speaking means outside of time). Neither could God be perfect Act, because any change involves a movement from potency to act. That means that is God has the potential to be something else or do something else, he technically isn’t all powerful. He couldn’t be all perfect either, because **something that is truly all perfect, cannot change since any change would either add to perfection, implying it wasn’t “all” perfect before, or take away seom perfection. **If God is not all perfect, He would not be all good since perfection is a good.

If God were inside of time, how could He know the future? Anything that changes, is passive, and something else affects the change. Is God the efficient cause of His own changes? That would mean that He is not the uncaused cause, the the forever self-causing cause? It doesn’t make much sense. All of the attributes of God fall away if you try to remove this one, i.e. immutability.

All monotheistic beliefs accept the immutability of God as far as I know. It is a tenet shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Were this attribute denied, it is clear that we would not be speaking of the same God, but of something else entirely. You list your religion as Buddhist, so maybe that is something you accept, but the idea is absolutely foreign and incongruous with Christianity.

this seems to be the crux of the matter here and explains why the soul cannot grow. Since we receive our souls from G0d and since all about him is perfect, consequently our souls are pefect, too (Something perfect cannot give something that is not perfect). They cannot change. They stay the same “size”

 

[Love4All]

My theory is Madhyamika

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka (Sanskrit: मध्यमक, Madhyamaka, Chinese: 中觀派; pinyin: Zhōngguān Pài; also known as Śūnyavāda) refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of philosophy[1] founded by Nāgārjuna.

plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/

1. Emptiness and svabhāva

The central concept around which all of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy is built is the notion of emptiness (śūnyatā). Emptiness is of course always the emptiness of something, and the something Nāgārjuna has in mind here is svabhāva. Different terms have been used to translate this word into English: “inherent existence” and “intrinsic nature” appear to be the more popular choices, but “substance” and “essence” have also been proposed.

---

The above are offered to you by way of assurance that I have taken a deep enough interest in you personally to do some research. All with a view to helping you to attain to Nibbana, of course. It is in my compassion for you that I do so. Compassion, is the primary good teaching of the Buddha. Buddhism in general can easily be seen as a means to cultivate compassion. It is this compassion that is Love, in the sense that I mean it when I speak of the New Religion of Love which it is my task to elucidate to the world. Thus, the Buddha, and all true Buddhists, are members of the religion of Love, initiates of the Second Circle.

In accordance with my Mission, since you are in the Second Circle, my aim is to draw you into the Third. To that end, I present the following.

1. All phenomena are empty.
2. God is not a phenomenon.

Invoking the noumenon/phenomenon distinction of Kant, God is not a phenomenon at all; ergo, God is Pure Noumenon. (To make the connection to Catholicism, Pure Noumenon is another way of saying Pure Act.)

Now, did the Buddha, and after him, Nagarjuna, really teach that there is No Noumenon at all? Or did they rather teach that all phenomena are intrinsically empty, but Nibbana is a reachable state? What is Nibbana? Nibbana is the cessation of the clinging that is found within the Five Aggregates of clinging.

Did the Buddha really teach that there is no Nibbana, or did he rather teach that Nibbana is not to be found in any of the Five Aggregates? Did the Buddha really teach that there is no Pure Noumenon, or did he rather teach that there is no Pure Noumenon in anything that is a phenomenon?

If all phenomena are intrinsically empty of existence, and this is taken to mean that everything whatsoever is intrinsically empty of existence, then, I submit, it is impossible that the phenomenal universe could ever arise. Yet we see, that it has. Consequently, it cannot be the case that everything whatsoever is intrinsically empty of existence. Yet it seems that all phenomena are intrinsically empty of existence. Therefore, there must be something that is not a phenomenon. And to attain to That, is Nibbana.

That Pure Noumenon, that which is in no way a phenomenon at all, and thus That to which the condition of intrinsic emptiness does not apply, we call God.

If you were able to follow my logic, you should now be able to accept the reality of the existence of God.

 

[Love4All]

No, I am pointing out that an absence of change is a consequence of what you said earlier:

Now is a subjective and relative measure of time, not an objective measure. The ‘now’ of George Washington differs from my ‘now’. It is incoherent to attempt to use a subjective measure, like ‘now’, as an objective measure.

“Now” doesn’t measure anything. “Now” is simply, what time it is. Always.

If you wish to posit a “George Washington,” then you have moved beyond the realm of here and now, way, way beyond anything even remotely resembling Buddhism, and into the realm of a very Western conception of the hearsay that is history. If you are actually acknowledging that there is any such thing as the “now” of George Washington, then it should be facile for you to admit that there is a “now” of every moment in history and in the future. Then you would have a useful concept of sempere nunc, which is God’s Time.

My theory is Madhyamika while my practice is a mix of Theravada and Zen.

By definition any eternal entity cannot change. Action in time requires change;

Only if the action changes the agent. That is true for us but not for God, who is Pure Act.

if there is no change then there is no action. Hence, only a changing entity can act in time. A changing entity cannot be eternal.

As to what God does in eternity, that is irrelevant. I am not in eternity, I am in time.

And time is in eternity.

Remember that nirvana is not something outside the world, it is part of it. The Buddha attained nirvana aged 35; he died aged 80. For 45 years he was in nirvana while at the same time living in the ordinary world of samsara.

Samsara does not have the slightest distinction from nirvana.
Nirvana does not have the slightest distinction from samsara.

Then why meditate? You are oversimplifying.

Whatever is the end of nirvana, that is the end of samsara.
There is not even a very subtle slight distinction between the two.

– Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika 25:19-20

rossum

I fully get Nibbana-in-Samsara. But to say there is no distinction, does away with everything the Buddha taught. The aim is to attain to Nibbana while still in Samsara.

But one in Nibbana does not cling. So one in Nibbana-in-Samsara does not cling. But one in Samsara without Nibbana, still clings, and still suffers. And that is a very real distinction. Or else, you are asserting there is no such thing as suffering, in which case, why bother to meditate?

The Buddha was definitely a Magus of the highest order. Nagarjuna, I’m not so sure about. But even the Buddha was not in full apprehension of all Reality. If he were, he would have arrived in Jerusalem seeking to become a Jew.

 

[tonyrey]

…The eternal cannot change; whatever changes cannot be eternal…

Truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are eternal and immutable. The facts about spiritual development are also eternal and immutable. That is why the Creator of the universe, all life and spiritual development is eternal and immutable.

 

[Katholish]

That doesn’t make any sense because that would mean when someone donates a kidney then they gave away a piece of their soul?? Or blood transfusion a person gives away some of their soul when they donate blood??

The soul is immaterial, it cannot be divided. If part of the body is removed, that parts ceases to be united with the soul. Saying that the soul is in every part of the body does not imply the soul is divisible.

 

[rossum]

1. All phenomena are empty.

Agreed. They are empty of own-being, empty of any essence.

1. God is not a phenomenon.

I disagree. All gods are part of the universe and are just as empty as everything else. If they were not empty then they could not attain nirvana.

Now, did the Buddha, and after him, Nagarjuna, really teach that there is No Noumenon at all?

Yes. All human reifications, such as Noumenon, are rejected.

“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

– Dhammapada 20:7

What is Nibbana?

Nibbana is one of the “elements of reality” mentioned above. It has no soul, that is no essence.

Nibbana is the cessation of the clinging that is found within the Five Aggregates of clinging.

Yes. That is what the Third Noble Truth says.

Did the Buddha really teach that there is no Nibbana, or did he rather teach that Nibbana is not to be found in any of the Five Aggregates?

He taught that a soul is not to be found in the Five Aggregates. The Five Aggregates are an analysis of a human being, not of nirvana.

If all phenomena are intrinsically empty of existence, and this is taken to mean that everything whatsoever is intrinsically empty of existence, then, I submit, it is impossible that the phenomenal universe could ever arise.

Why? Anything that arises from a cause is contingent, and so does not have self-existence. Hence it must be pure phenomenon without any noumenon. Since we observe that everything in the universe arises from causes, then nothing in the universe has any noumenon.

Yet we see, that it has. Consequently, it cannot be the case that everything whatsoever is intrinsically empty of existence.

Everything is empty of self-existence. Everything is contingent, temporary and changing. One of the causes of suffering is that we imagine, or wish, things to be permanent and unchanging when in truth they are not. The disconnect between what we imagine things to be and what they actually are causes suffering. We imagine that a mirage contains water, when actually it does not. We suffer thirst when we cannot drink.

If you were able to follow my logic, you should now be able to accept the reality of the existence of God.

I could follow your logic, but I disagree with it.

My congratulations on the depth of your study of Buddhist philosophy.

Only if the action changes the agent. That is true for us but not for God, who is Pure Act.

Any action must involve a change in the agent, otherwise if the agent does not change then there is nothing to initiate the process of change and hence no effect. Everything would remain unchanged.

Then why meditate?

It works. When Dorothy arrived at the gate to the Emerald City in Oz, she was given a pair of emerald tinted glasses. We do not see the world clearly because of the various overlays our minds add to our perceptions. Meditation helps us to recognise and remove those overlays so we can see more clearly. What would the Emerald City have looked like if Dorothy hadn’t worn the glasses?

I fully get Nibbana-in-Samsara. But to say there is no distinction, does away with everything the Buddha taught. The aim is to attain to Nibbana while still in Samsara.

Yes, we are in samsara so we have to attain nirvana from here. Even a Pure Land is still in samsara. Nirvana is attained before death so nirvana and samsara can be simultaneously present. The Buddha taught a way for us to take of the emerald glasses and to see the city as it really is. Without the glasses we can clearly see that samsara is nirvana and nirvana is samsara.

But one in Nibbana does not cling. So one in Nibbana-in-Samsara does not cling. But one in Samsara without Nibbana, still clings, and still suffers.

Correct. The Buddhist path is a menu of various techniques to help us eliminate the clinging. Buddhism is far more of an orthopraxy than an orthodoxy. What we do is more important than what we believe.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are eternal and immutable.

What about yellow? Is yellow eternal and immutable? Ugliness? Is hate eternal and immutable?

What phenomena are eternal and immutable and why? What phenomena are not, and why?

The facts about spiritual development are also eternal and immutable. That is why the Creator of the universe, all life and spiritual development is eternal and immutable.

An immutable eternal creator implies an eternal universe; there cannot be a creator who has not created. An eternal universe does not need a creator. Your statement is logically incoherent.

rossum

 

[Katholish]

I disagree. If “something” changes, then it is a different thing. If there were no difference then there would be no change. Before and after cannot be the same if there is a change. That would requires at least two different somethings.

If “something” changes then, it is different in some respect. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it necessarily becomes a “different thing”. I can walk to the other side of the room, which means that I have undergone a change, but I am still the same person. The only way in which I have changed is in respect to location, and that does not affect my identity.

Whenever there is a change, there is something which existed in one way, and later exists in a different way. There is always a difference created by every change, we do not disagree on that. However, not every difference is caused by a change. The notion of a circle is different from the notion of a square, but I would never say the notion of a circle changed into the notion of a square. They are simply different.

As a Buddhist, I imagine that you would object to the entire notion of ex nihilo creation, so I can’t entirely figure out way you would want to debate whether such a creation would constitute a change or not. Whenever there is a change, some existing thing is altered in some way. Change can never start with absolute and total nothingness. It must always start with some existing thing which can then be altered. When God created the universe, there was nothing pre-existing for Him to create “from”.

Are you trying to say that “nothing” is the same as “something”, because there is no change between “nothing” and “something”? If you are then I disagree.

Nope, I am not saying that at all. They are not the same at all, in fact you can’t even really compare them because something is real, nothingness is a complete lack and deprivation. There is really nothing “there” to compare. Just as darkness is not a “thing”, it is only the absense of light. In fact, maybe light and dark are a good analogy. “Some thing” like a basketball, can change from being dark to light. “Darkness” per se, however, can never change into brightness, because darkness is not a “thing” there is nothing present to be illuminated, it is a sheer absense and cannot be the object of change.

Then creation is eternal; it exists for all of time. Something which is co-extensive with time is eternal, and need not have a cause.

God is eternally creating in a sense, but that does not mean creation isn’t contingent. Only God is a necessary Being, and everything in existence is caused by Him.

It is also filled with errors from the point of view of Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy. Nagarjuna starts his analysis with a treatment of change which is very different to the standard Western treatment, deriving from the Greeks. All reification, including Thomist Substance, is rejected. What you see is what you get, there are no hidden depths to be found:

Yes, very different. I do hold, however, that the Western tradition is objectively correct on this topic.

Change is defined as difference within time. At different points in time, God is acting differently. Therefore God is changing. If you look outside time, then the word in not “change” but something else, “unfaarn” perhaps. Since you say God resides well outside our experience, we cannot use words that are derived from our experience to describe Him.

That is dangerous. Time is defined as the measure of change. You cannot use a term in its own definition. You are effectively saying " Change is difference within the measure of change". Which is non-sensical. Human language has its limitations, but that does not mean it cannot be precise and useful in certain limited areas. Obviously, human language cannot encompass the meaning of God, however, we can formulate statements which are objectively true about God even if they do not fully describe Him, but only one small attribute or aspect of His nature.

I accept that, but such a core tenet is also logically impossible. The eternal and unchanging cannot act in time. Whatever acts in time cannot be either eternal or unchanging. If God acts differently at different points in time then either God is changing or there are two Gods, a changing God-in-action and an unchanging God-as-eternal.

Perhaps the trouble is with your assertion that God acts differently. Since God never changes His mind or His will, I would argue that He acts the same throughout all of history. His action might have different facets or aspects which can sometimes appear as change to us, but His act is not different.

Your insistence on an eternal unchanging God denies all possibility of growth.

God does not grow in any sense of the term, so I agree with you there.

An unchanging God can only sustain an unchanging universe.

That does not follow. An unchanging God could sustain a universe which contained change.

 

[Katholish]

this seems to be the crux of the matter here and explains why the soul cannot grow. Since we receive our souls from G0d and since all about him is perfect, consequently our souls are pefect, too (Something perfect cannot give something that is not perfect). They cannot change. They stay the same “size”

God creates our souls, but our souls are not God. They might have every thing they are supposed to have, and hence not be lacking in anything according to their natures, but that does not mean that our souls possess all possible perfect like God does. We are not omniscient nor omnipotent.

 

[Aloysium]

The Church’s view is that the soul comes into existence around the moment of conception. From that moment we grow until adulthood. My question is, does the soul grow? I mean in a dimensional manner, with the body.

This likely has been said and/or contradicted above but :twocents:

the soul seems to grow (or whither)
in Love
in its relationship with its Ground

dimensions have to do with form, the earth; so, no

 

[Love4All]

Agreed. They are empty of own-being, empty of any essence.

I disagree. All gods are part of the universe and are just as empty as everything else. If they were not empty then they could not attain nirvana.

You are conflating God with gods. They are not even remotely the same things. We are gods. All the gods, as you say, are striving for something. God is Pure Act. God already possesses Nibbana, eternally, and cannot lose it. God is, as it were, situated in Nibbana.

Yes. All human reifications, such as Noumenon, are rejected.

“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

– Dhammapada 20:7

Nibbana is one of the “elements of reality” mentioned above. It has no soul, that is no essence.

Yes. That is what the Third Noble Truth says.

He taught that a soul is not to be found in the Five Aggregates. The Five Aggregates are an analysis of a human being, not of nirvana.

Why? Anything that arises from a cause is contingent, and so does not have self-existence. Hence it must be pure phenomenon without any noumenon. Since we observe that everything in the universe arises from causes, then nothing in the universe has any noumenon.

This is a fantasy. It can’t really exist. Reality can’t be like this:



Can you understand why?

Everything is empty of self-existence. Everything is contingent, temporary and changing. One of the causes of suffering is that we imagine, or wish, things to be permanent and unchanging when in truth they are not. The disconnect between what we imagine things to be and what they actually are causes suffering. We imagine that a mirage contains water, when actually it does not. We suffer thirst when we cannot drink.

I could follow your logic, but I disagree with it.

It seems that you did not follow it correctly, seeing that, above, you conflated God with gods. I agree that gods are contingent and empty phenomena; however, God is neither contingent nor a phenomenon, so you did not follow my logic.

My congratulations on the depth of your study of Buddhist philosophy.

I have an intuitive grasp, not the result of much study, except to gain an understanding of the terminology and the thoughts expressed. The essence of the teaching, I do grasp, and I tell you that one or the other of the following is true: either the teaching of the Buddha has been fundamentally misconstrued by many, possibly including Nagarjuna, or, the Buddha simply erred in some of his teaching. Most likely, it is some of both.

Now, it is possible that I have missed something, and if so, I would appreciate it if you pointed it out. Did the Buddha in fact teach, anywhere, that there is no self, or did he rather teach that there is no self to be found in phenomena?

Any action must involve a change in the agent, otherwise if the agent does not change then there is nothing to initiate the process of change and hence no effect. Everything would remain unchanged.

An eternal immutable will does not change, but can initiate change in other things. You say that “there is nothing to initiate the process of change,” but that begs the question. There is in fact an eternal immutable will, and it is that will that initiates the process of change.

It works. When Dorothy arrived at the gate to the Emerald City in Oz, she was given a pair of emerald tinted glasses. We do not see the world clearly because of the various overlays our minds add to our perceptions. Meditation helps us to recognise and remove those overlays so we can see more clearly. What would the Emerald City have looked like if Dorothy hadn’t worn the glasses?

Yes, we are in samsara so we have to attain nirvana from here. Even a Pure Land is still in samsara. Nirvana is attained before death so nirvana and samsara can be simultaneously present. The Buddha taught a way for us to take of the emerald glasses and to see the city as it really is. Without the glasses we can clearly see that samsara is nirvana and nirvana is samsara.

Correct. The Buddhist path is a menu of various techniques to help us eliminate the clinging. Buddhism is far more of an orthopraxy than an orthodoxy. What we do is more important than what we believe.

rossum

One of the elements of the eightfold path is right view or right belief. So it is an integral part of what the Buddha taught, to hold the correct view.

Now, a view that results in a logical contradiction cannot be a right view. So there is something impossible about the “Drawing Hands” picture above, and if you can grasp what that is, then it should be possible for you to grasp that everything cannot be contingent. A Necessary Being is in fact necessary.

 

[tonyrey]

Truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are eternal and immutable.

Physical qualities are in a different category from spiritual realities like truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love.

What phenomena are eternal and immutable and why? What phenomena are not, and why?

Truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are eternal and immutable because they are divine attributes on which spiritual development is based - unlike the transient events in the physical universe. Evil is self-destructive.

The facts about spiritual development are eternal and immutable. That is why the Creator of the universe, all life and spiritual development is eternal and immutable.

An immutable eternal creator implies an eternal universe; there cannot be a creator who has not created. An eternal universe does not need a creator. Your statement is logically incoherent.

Creation is not limited to the physical universe…

 

[rossum]

You are conflating God with gods.

The Abrahamic God is just one of the longer lived and more powerful Buddhist gods. Here He is talking about Himself:

“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be.” (emphases added)

– Digha Nikaya 1, Brahmajala sutta, section 42 (Wrong View #5)

God already possesses Nibbana, eternally, and cannot lose it. God is, as it were, situated in Nibbana.

No He is not. Count up how may people God kills throughout the course of the Old Testament. Compare this with the number of people the Buddha kills. God is not enlightened; His actions show that He is not.

This is a fantasy. It can’t really exist.

It is not a fantasy, it is that reality is deceptive, and we are all too often deceived. A mirage is not a fantasy; it actually exists and is something rather than nothing. The water in a mirage is a fantasy and does not exist, but that does not mean that the mirage is a fantasy. When we see water in a mirage, we are seeing fantasy. When we recognise the mirage as a mirage, then we are seeing reality. The mirage has not changed, what has changed is our perception of it. Our errors in perception are unreal because they do not reflect reality.

you conflated God with gods.

Not I. The Tripitaka itself treats the Abrahamic God the same as the other lesser gods.

Now, it is possible that I have missed something, and if so, I would appreciate it if you pointed it out. Did the Buddha in fact teach, anywhere, that there is no self, or did he rather teach that there is no self to be found in phenomena?

He taught that there is no self. See the Anatta-lakkhana sutta (The sutta on the mark of no-self). The five elements of a human being: form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness, are analysed in turn and all found to lack a self.

Beyond that, all the fundamental elements of reality (dharmas), which includes both humans and non-human constituents of the universe, also lack a soul/essence:

“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

– Dhammapada 20:7

An eternal immutable will does not change, but can initiate change in other things.

How can it initiate change? Why is a change initiated today rather than yesterday? If it is eternal and unchanging, then all the requirements to initiate the change were present yesterday as well as today. Why didn’t the change happen yesterday?

One of the elements of the eightfold path is right view or right belief. So it is an integral part of what the Buddha taught, to hold the correct view.

Of course.

Now, a view that results in a logical contradiction cannot be a right view.

Only where the appropriate logic applies. Is a chessboard black or white? The answer has to be “both”, or possibly “neither”.

So there is something impossible about the “Drawing Hands” picture above

There is nothing impossible about it. Think of three soldiers putting their rifles in a stand:



Each rifle in the stand is held up by the other rifles. No rifle can stand on its own, but as a group they all mutually support each other. Reality is contingent; no part of reality can stand on its own, but relies on the rest of reality for support.

A Necessary Being is in fact necessary.

If there is a necessary being, then all actions by that being are also necessary. Hence everything caused by that being is also necessary. If you start from a necessary being, then all the effects that flow from that necessary being are themselves also necessary – you can never escape from the necessary into the contingent. Since the universe we live in is obviously contingent, your necessary being cannot be the cause of the universe.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Physical qualities are in a different category from spiritual realities like truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love.

I do not accept you splitting reality into categories like that. You are merely putting a few reified concepts into a special category of your own. I reject your reified concepts. Beauty cannot exist separately from an object to which it is applied as a descriptor, just as yellow cannot exist apart from an object to which it is applied as a descriptor. You cannot show me beauty on its own, apart from any object.

Truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love are eternal and immutable because they are divine attributes on which spiritual development is based - unlike the transient events in the physical universe. Evil is self-destructive.

Assertion without evidence. You are reifying. You cannot show me beauty on its own, let alone provide evidence that it is eternal. A woman may have beauty but lose it when she gets old. How is beauty eternal, it it can be lost. Her beauty does not appear to a blind man or to an armadillo. How can beauty be universal if armadillos cannot perceive it?

Creation is not limited to the physical universe…

Of course not. Causation applies to all that exists.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

. . . How can beauty be universal if armadillos cannot perceive it? . . .

au contraire, mon frere

Thick-skinned as they are, armadillos still have feelings, and i cannot let this insult to our un-furry friends go unchallenged.
I will not tread deeply into the issue of animal souls, fearing the wrath of those hoping for reunion with loyal Fido in the afterlife.
I think it suffice to say that altho’ they may not be able to appreciate the Divine, their cute little animal souls do have some awareness of beauty, albeit on an instinctual level.
It is through this, i believe, that God drives what appears as evolution. An armadillo has in itself an unformed idea or image of armadillo hotness. Reproducing it strives for and seeks to maintain this armadilloness. Conversely, that is why creatures of the deep, and those that burrow in the earth, tend to have a visually unappealing, dare i say ugly appearance. This is because, as every older couple knows, in darkness there can be even greater beauty than that which is visible to the eye.
Sorry for not deriving more from your posts, but when i see walls of words, the weirdest things pop out.