Double Sonnet of William James: Grace That Brings Good Order in the Head (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Double Sonnet of William James

                                   I.
  
Descartes, pure mind and body can't be kept

Apart as claimed.  Drawn from experience,

They share a common nature, common sense

That both derive from shared experience.

I am therefore a monist.  I accept
That all is drawn from pure experience:
The body, mind, and all relations.  Hence,
Truth, too, must come from shared experience.

Truth is what works in shared experience.
With free will, physics is indifferent.  Hence,
Determinism turns on how we find

An absence of free will.  Because we find
Determinism horrid, we are led

To free will's higher order in the head.

                            II.

Descartes, why suffer needless doubt except

When something fails to work.  There's little sense

In doubting for the sake of doubt. I've kept

So many years of James I see no sense

In doubting James.  Efficiencies accept

That James exists until experience

Astounds such thinking--I of course accept

Doubt when thought stumbles with experience.

For me, religious doubt makes little sense.
Belief in God disturbs no physics.  Hence,

If God brings better order to my mind,

I'd err denying God.  Of tender mind,

I savor God and angels overhead,
And grace that brings good order in the head.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Augustine: Faith Must Come First (Addition to "The Apology Box")

          Augustine’s Lines and Acrostic

                     (A bishop of Hippo)

Si fallor, sum! I no doubt must exist
However fraught with error since to err

I must be there to do the errant thing.
Pure skepticism therefore can't be true
And truth I set off early to pursue. 

The Manicheans moved my ears with tales

Of light and dark in endless war they proved

Through daily combat of the light and dark,
Through daily rise and fall of suns and stars,

Through all our politicians and our priests

Forever mixed in virtue and in vice--

Such Manichean proof was powerful for

A youthful head untrained in reason or

How easily a fact can be a whore.

In time, I learned the syllogism and

Abandoned Manichean foolishness--

By definition good lacks evil.  Hence,

The good and evil cannot be conjoined

In such theatric struggle.  Thus, I turned
To logic and more careful use of words,

Learned rhetoric, but soon I wanted more--
I'd not forgotten my "si fallor, sum!"  
Through Plato I found changeless Truth and Good
Which briefly brought great pleasure though it vexed
Me next.  If real is really past all change

(Which seems required, too, if God foreknows all),

Must that not mean that everything was set

In stone from the beginning?   Thus poor Eve

Was forced to sin, the serpent to deceive?
I flailed about until I could perceive:

All inquiry of course fails where I am

Beliefless.  Credo ut intelligam--

How can I seek an answer unless I

Am clear first on the means with which to try?
Faith must come first to put some terms in place
That we can use for parsing up a case.

Gathering up my thoughts, I thus confessed

Raw sin throughout my life.  In faith, I'd rest

And pray for undeserved last clemency

Content to rest in God's hands knowing the

Election might have long passed over me. 


© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.