Ruminations & Review: Childhood & The Imagination (Part II)

A Review of Ferdinand Ulrich’s Man In The Beginning: Toward a Philosophical Anthropology of Childhood

In the first part, we covered some of the ground work of Ferdinand Ulrich’s metaphysical concepts of personhood as it relates to childhood. We were able to see how he holds childhood in a tension of both ‘nothingness’ (which is a child’s potential, also called poverty) and also ‘fullness’ (which is a child’s still full personhood regardless of development, also called wealth).

In covering these things, and how they related to the role of parents, we saw how it also related to our being children of God. Now I know that I said in this post we would dive into more about our ontological poverty, but I must confess, as I have read and considered more, that we will not be covering that subject. Not because it is unimportant but rather because a small paragraph in Ulrich really struck me.

Before we get into the paragraph and its explanation and application, a quick reminder on the imagination. The imagination is the faculty of the soul given us by God which is concerned with stories and meaning. The imagination cannot function on it’s own however. It needs our senses by which we grasp and take in things, and our intellect which understands those things as “truth” or “not truth.” The imagination needs material by which it constructs stories. The imagination is not our memory which merely reminds us of a thing or event, but rather it assembles new things and stories from what it has received.

The key to understand: The imagination is an extremely practical faculty. It only utilizes what it has been given. If it finds a gap, it will fill it in with what it has.

Now let us look at the paragraph and break it down.

“The whole man is, as a child, wealthy and poor at the same time is only thus the ‘symbol of the beginning.’ The moment the child loses his primordial trust in the unity of life and death in being as love, he attempts to replace it through the retroactive mediation of ‘universality and particularity,’ ‘genus and individual,’ ‘ratio and sensuousness,’ transcendentality and categorical objectivity,’ in order to ground the integrity of his broken humanity.”
-Three Short Works, Man in the Beginning, pg. 121

Let us break down this paragraph into digestible sections.

“The whole man is, as a child, wealthy and poor at the same time is only thus the ‘symbol of the beginning.’”

This first sentence makes brief reference to what has already been stated and explained in our previous post and briefly above.

“The moment the child loses his primordial trust in the unity of life and death in being as love…”

This here is significant. First, we must note that “the unity of life and death in being as love” represents a number of things. Most immediately it is a reference to the parents of the child. He refers to them here as “unity of life and death in being as love” to make certain that the reader understands the particular frame in which he is examining them. The longer one thinks on this phrase the more one will come to realize that this is the essence of anything that might be called good parenting.

(Good) Parenting is a death of self. It is one of the most practical areas in a which a Christian might live out Christ’s command regarding the death of self. It is a death of the management of my time according to my needs, death of the bend and intention of my days, and the death of certain hobbies and interests. But all of this death is for the purpose of life. Life of another, life and value to another’s time, life and concern to another’s needs, life and interest to another’s hobbies.

These things ground the child’s being in love. It is, according to Ulrich, the only means for a complete flourishing into self. So what happens when this is not the case? This is where “the moment the child loses his primordial trust” comes in. The trust a child has in their parents is baked into their very being from the beginning. A child does not trust his parents only after he is able to reason and says “Hm, these people seem like trustworthy folks! I guess I’ll give it a shot!” It is as if the echo from Eden reverberates in their bones that every good and perfect gift comes from my Father who is unchanging (James 1:17), and so too it must also be with my father and mother.

So when this trust is broken, either by parental neglect or significant trauma or abandonment, or other circumstances, the child will (upon coming into reason) retroactively replace what should have been the parent’s self-giving love, with other things in order to, as Ulrich says, “Ground the integrity of his broken humanity.” Remembering that a child is both full being but also a developing one, the growth of that child in stature and identity is embedded in his very nature (Luke 2:52).

The Bent Tree

I’d like to offer an analogy before continuing with Ulrich.

Just as a we can see a tree grow despite obstacles, so a child will too. As we observe a tree adapt and develop according to its surroundings and challenges, so too we see the child. One can observe a tree from its base to its midpoint reach straight to the sky but as the eyes move up, one can likewise observe a significant bend, at times even around objects like fences or buildings merely to develop. That fence or building represents an immoveable obstacle to growth and development with which the tree has two options: 1) Adapt or 2) Die. It may adapt, by bending itself in whatever manner it is capable to reach the sun, to find some sense of nourishment. If it cannot do this, it will wither and die.

So what of this analogy for Ulrich’s metaphysic of Childhood? When a child faces the immoveable obstacle of the lack of self-giving love, or the broken trust by that giver, what will he do? He will find the “sun” in whatever manner possible, or he will perish into the identity of nothingness.

What are the “bends” which this child will perform? Ulrich gives the extreme categories, “‘universality and particularity,’ ‘genus and individual,’ ‘ratio and sensuousness,’ transcendentality and categorical objectivity…’ But what do these mean? All of these in some form or fashion are an attempt to locate oneself (the individual) with or in others (the newgivers). As we elaborate on these categories, we will see how the imagination will function within. These categories become “stories” of “me” that I locate myself in, and then, my imagination will tell me again and again. And so I will be formed.

1) Universality — Particularity

The person (child), attempting to locate himself here, will attempt to find meaning in identity as an individual (Particular) within a broader more primordial collective (universality). An example here would be personality theories like Myers-Briggs or The Enneagram. These things proport a broad universal nature, almost as if an element of creation itself, and thus a form of “stability” with which the individual can find meaning and therefore “myself.”

2) Genus — Individual

Here again, we see the location of the child within the group but in a different manner. It is not in some primordial universality but rather with a Genus or group. Think here of the utilization of particular theological groups (“I am a Thomist”) or particular jobs (“I am an Academic,” “I am a counselor”). You will see that none of these things are wrong. None of these things on the surface would seem to be a thing which would malform an identity because with the right grounding (grounded as a being in love) these things do not become replacements.

When these things do in fact become replacements, the weight of identity is shifted onto groups or institutions with no material history with the person (child). There are no pictures of “the academy” or “Thomas Aquinas” rocking the child to sleep or playing with the child and his toys. Even if one has pictures in dad’s college office or with his books, we can see, even by the construction of the sentence, where the weight of identity lies: dad’s office and dad’s books. Like the other examples to come, when this thing is lost (the academic job is gone or my theology shifts), grief comes and uproots identity, for grief is nothing else but the question: “Who am I now that _____?”

So we can see examples of those who have shifted careers or maybe settled into different theological traditions, but they remain the self-same person, grounded and rooted just as they were. Maybe they have a different wardrobe, but they persist in that same enduring smile. For others, we may see, this is not the case. The answer Ulrich gives is whether the person (as child) is grounded in being as love or not.

3) Ratio — Sensuousness

Here, we must understand Ratio not to be the comparison between two things but rather Rationality or Reason. Here the person (child) grounds themself either into reason at the expense of their emotions, or emotions at the expense of their rationality. Their system of guidance, their caretakers, have become one of these.

As I write this, I sit here in a bookshop. It’s raining outside so there is a great hustle and bustle in here. I see children picking up and looking at books. I see other children upset and throwing tantrums because they want to walk or touch or do whatever they are being told not to. These however are not the only two categories I see. I see some children walking willingly beside their parents. Their parents walk slowly and assuredly alongside them. I see they have a freedom to walk up to a shelf and explore, or walk up to me and my backpack and explore. They are free to read or free to smile, but bound to neither. They are free because they are gently guided in love. My Ratio and my Sensuousness is guided by my givers (my parents). When one of them (ratio or sensuousness) reveals a new thing, I turn unto my givers (parents) and ask, “what is this?”

Ulrich seems to ask, “What happens when the Ratio or Sensuousness presents something and there is no one to turn to?” The person (child) will assume, “I don’t need to turn anywhere. This is my giver.”

4) Transcendental — Categorical

Lastly we have the philosophies. Again we must note, that the categories (pun intended) themselves aren’t inherently bad or barriers to identity, but rather it is the locating oneself as being within them.

So a person (child) from a sense of lack, begins to attempt to answer the deepest questions of life, to understand being itself, or goodness, or maybe the beauty of particular things (categorical). When this is done from an emptiness, it in reality becomes a shift to, “If I can solve this, then maybe I am good and beautiful. Maybe I might be received.”

So Now What?

As I close out this post, I know the questions become, “So now what do we do? How do I begin to (re)form identity without the pitfalls? How do I avoid the total collapse of self, and how ought my imagination draw me closer to God.”

There is a quote that has stuck with me, and likely will (Lord Willing) never leave my mind.

“Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

But how? I can think to none other than Augustine. When Augustine has surveyed all of his senses and examined the vast fields of his memory he says this,

“I scrutinized some items, pushed some into the background, dragged others into the light: what, then, of me? No, I was not You either, not even as I did all of this: the faculty, that is, by which I achieved it, not even that faculty in me was You; for You are that abiding Light whom I consulted throughout my search. I questioned You about each thing, asking whether it existed, what it was, how highly it should be regarded; and all the while I listened to You teaching me and laying your commands upon me.”

Augustine continues,

“It is still my constant delight to reflect like this; in such meditation I take refuge from the demands of necessary business . . . nowhere amid all these things which I surveyed under Your guidance do I find a safe haven for my soul, except in You . . . from time to time you lead me into an inward experience quite unlike any other, a sweetness beyond understanding.”

Notice how, for Augustine, in all of the retroactive work, in all of the work of memory (despite what Augustine may have encounter or endured), he is led to be able to examine things freely. He is able to examine and move about things freely as they are not the core that shapes his identity. The LORD is the ultimate Giver (James 1:17), who gives freely and out of His abundance (Psalm 36:8) and of His faithful love (Psalm 36:10). The LORD is Augustine’s abiding Light. The LORD is his constant delight. The LORD is the safe haven for his soul. The LORD is the sweetness beyond measure. This grounds Augustine’s identity and so it also should ground ours.

I will end with this quote from Augustine as you hold in mind: love and self giving and how this turns our imaginations to God,

“How you loved us, O good Father, who spared not even your only Son, but gave him up for us evildoers! How you loved us, for whose sake he who deemed it no robbery to be your equal was made subservient, even to the point of dying on the cross! . . . For our sake he stood to you as both victor and victim, and victor because victim; for us he stood to you as priest and sacrifice, and priest because sacrifice, making us sons and daughters to you instead of servants . . . With good reason is there solid for me in him, because you will heal all my infirmities through him who sits at your right hand and intercedes for us. Were it not so, I would despair.”