Bonus: Greg Sadler on Gabriel Marcel

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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James Finley (0:08)

Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

James Finley (0:13)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:23)

Welcome, everyone, to season 11 of Turning to the Mystics, where we've been turning to the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. And I'm here today with Jim and our special guest, Gregory Sadler. Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, associate editor of Stoicism Today, an APPA certified philosophical counselor, an adjunct professor at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and a faculty member in the Stoa Nova. He has written a book called Reason Fulfilled by Revelation, the 1930s Christian philosophy debates in France, among many other books. And on his YouTube channel, you can find over 3000 videos on thinkers, texts and topics in philosophy. And Jim and I have both enjoyed watching Gregory's teachings on Marcel on his YouTube channel, which is why we invited him to dialogue with us today. So welcome Jim and welcome Greg.

Greg Sadler (1:24)

Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Kirsten Oates (1:27)

So Jim, on the podcast, you've discussed how Gabriel Marcel, like many of the mystics we've covered, incorporates both vision and path elements in his teaching. So could you begin by reviewing the way you've presented Marcel's vision? And then Greg, I'll invite you to comment and expand on what Jim shares.

James Finley (1:46)

Yes. Yeah, I'd like to start with this basic vision of Marcel, like an understanding of reality, his understanding of reality. And the approach that he takes is helping us see the distinction between problem and mystery. And he understands problems as that which we understand to be dualistically and objectively other than ourself. So my car won't start or the roof is leaking, or what's the answer to a complex math problem. And he said, when we turn toward the problem, we turn towards a method to solve the problem, or to someone who is an expert in that method, then once it's solved, we're done. And he says, the order of the problematic is the proper domain of the empirical sciences. And he also refers to it as primary reflection, the subjective kind of thing of that dimension of reality and of our life. He says, mystery is very different.

In the sense in which mystery first, when we turn towards mysteries, we turn towards aspects of reality, we realize that in turning towards them, we're included in what we're turning towards. That is, they're non-objective and they're non-objectifiable mysteries. So when I ask, what does it mean to be human? It's I as a human being, I'm asking what it is to be human. What is love? It's I, my desire for love and experience of love. What is love? What is consciousness? And he doesn't mean it reductionistically, as everything's referred back to my sentiments or my opinions. It's the opposite, that the mystery of myself is extended out into the mystery of humanity, into love and consciousness. And ultimately, it's extended out into being, which he sees as transcendence, or the infinity of reality itself. And the crux of the matter, I think the heart, the turning point for him, is that the infinite mystery of being is presencing itself and giving itself and manifesting itself as the mystery of who I am. That I'm in a transubjective communal state of the mystery, and he's trying to help us stabilize or kind of walk in the clarity of that unity. And he sees this then as a movement towards secondary reflection, which is a reflective process of kind of a state of humility, or amazement, or quiet awe, or open-ended exploration. So if you could respond to that, like how would you expand upon that, or refine it, or help the listeners benefit from that insight?

Greg Sadler (4:20)

Sure, so I think the thing I would want to say at the beginning is that Marcel, he's got a lot of ways of explaining what a mystery is. And one of the ones that I particularly like is that he says it's a metaproblematic. So it isn't as if like you've got mystery over here and problematic over here. In most cases, what we become aware of as mystery in the way that Marcel is talking about, it's because we are engaged with problems and the realm of the problematic. And somehow we start asking the right questions or getting confused about it. And so we move from primary to secondary reflection, sometimes without like deliberately doing so. And a lot of times when we do this, people get very confused and they tell us to shut up and go away and quit bothering them with all of this nonsense. But it's, you know, I think one of the good things about people like Marcel is that he's telling us, no, no, there's something really, really important here. Pay attention to it, follow it out. So there's a number of things that he talks about as mysteries. I know we're going to talk about sort of his transformation of the traditional discussions of faith, hope and charity, as fidelity, hope and love. But death is a mystery.