The Bio-Theo-Political paradigm of Autarchy

If we are talking about life and living beings within our Western tradition, we will find that a certain scale is built between the different kinds of living beings according to the idea of autarchy or self-sufficiency. In the biological discourse, one could easily detect this scala naturae not only in the humanist scheme of Classic Philosophy, where human beings are at the top of the scale because they own themselves and their dynamism more than the other living beings, but even, for example, in Claude Bernards' physiology, where the perfection of organisms is based in their autonomy and their freedom concerning the external medium (^{Cooper, 2008}: 421-422). In the political, the Polis (City-State) represented the ultimate and perfect kind of association or community because of its autarchy (whereas the family, the Household and the villages are not yet self-sufficient) (Politics, 1252b 28-1253a 3). In the ethical, as well, to live a good life means to be free, to be autonomous, to need the least. The scale of the living was built, thus, upon the criteria of autonomy and reflexivity: vegetable life, animal life, rational life, are the three main stages on this analogical scale. Living beings participate in life the more they own themselves, the more they relate to themselves. The importance of the "self" is grounding every discourse we have on life, from biology to ethics, from politics to theology. Hence, I call our Western understanding of life the Bio-Theo-Political paradigm of Autarchy, for the self is the principle of life, and what defines all the living activities as such.¹ The perfect living being will be, therefore, the one whose reflexivity and autonomy are mostly achieved. In other words, the perfect living being would be the one that is both inalterable and impassible, for it does not change nor it is changed by anything else, for it does not need nothing but itself to be alive. I intend to show in this paper the difficulties of such an understanding of life, not only concerning the privilege given to reflexivity over relationality with others, but mainly concerning the internal contradictions that this paradigm leads to, contradictions that will be shown explicitly when considering God as a living being. My ultimate goal is to deconstruct this whole paradigm of autarchy to enable another understanding of life, a more relational one, one in which otherness is not a problem to be solved, but the key to comprehend living beings and their dynamics. Of course, this paper is just a little piece in this project.

If there is a perfect living being, certainly we are not going to find it in our world, nor in our natural discourses on living entities. However, the figure of a perfect living being is of the most importance to our Western tradition and it is to be found in the grounding discourses of theology and metaphysics. The theological discourse shows how deep our understanding of life depends on the idea of "self" by characterizing God as the "perfect living being" and, thus, how life should look like in ideal terms. If Theology is the archaeological discourse where the World-View is constructed analogically, then it bears the key to the paradigm in which we are living. In this paper, I will argue only from the connection between the theological discourse and the biological and psychological discourse, leaving aside the connections between theology and politics and ethics (which are also bounded by the common idea of life). Concerning the life of God, one should notice that the definition of life by using the reflexive prefix "autos" (that is, chiefly, living being as self-moved entities) shows here its paradoxical situation. For, if there is a self, there is reflexivity, that is, division, separation, a hiatus, within the living itself, and therefore unity is never really achieved. God would express this paradoxical situation, for, as a living being, is self-related and, thus, unable to be One, actually. This theological tension is already at the very beginning of Western Philosophy and Theology, and the basic formula behind it is Parmenides' identity between thinking (nóein) and being (einai). The only living activity that can perform unity is the intellectual act, for only intelligence performs the identity between the act of knowing and the object known. But this is only the case when the objects of thought are not really different from the act of thinking them. In Aristotle's Theology (that is, "First Philosophy" or "Metaphysics"), to achieve this unity is only possible for God, since only He is purely reflexive, that is, if His acts absolutely coincide with its objects, that is, absolute unity is achieved because in God the object of knowing and the act of knowing are ultimately identical. Therefore, Aristotelian God is identified with Intelligence (Nous); that is, with the perfect operation of the perfect principle that starts and finishes in its own perfection, as "thought of thought" (noéseos nóesis). God must only be considered to have no composition, to be simple, to have no commerce with matter (since, ultimately, every composition implies matter, as only what can be dispersed can be compound). God is, thus, an "Eternal and Perfect Living Being" (ton theón einai tzoón aidion áriston), and this eternity and perfection are due to its simplicity, to its absolute Autarchy, to its lack of dependence to any Other, to its Impassibility (apathés) and Inalterability (analloíoton) (Metaphysics 1072b 20-30). The unity of the Intellect is achieved due to its absolute reflexivity, to its sole relationship to itself.

This argument is also to be found in Christian Theology, for instance in a major figure of Classic Theism such as Thomas Aquinas. It is quite interesting that Thomas Aquinas deals with God's Life in the First Part of his Summa Theologiae, in the treatise on "The One God", something hermeneutically important to understand how Greek metaphysics were so deeply rooted in Christian theology, whose God was not just "One", but "Triune": we will find in XXth century's theology -mainly through the work of Karl Rahner- a Trinitarian renaissance that will put into question this subordination of Trinity to Unity.² That the life of God is a question within the first part of the Summa on the "One God" shows how intimately the category of unity is bounded to the idea of life. In fact, the question of the life of God is almost in the middle of this first part of Thomas' Summa, coming after God's Simplicity, Perfection, Goodness, Infinity, Omnipresence, Immutability, Eternity, Unity and Knowledge; and before the part devoted to his Will, his Love, his Justice, his Providence and his Beatitude. We do not consider this organization to be random, for, ultimately, God's Life is defined by his identification with Intelligence, and every other aspect concerning his Will is subordinated to Nous. We must remember that in Thomas' philosophical system will is like a vicar of intelligence, since it is intelligence that sets and defines what shall be done (there is an anthropological and, more importantly, an ethical concern behind the theological systems). God's life is a rational or intellectual life, and Thomas Aquinas summarizes the Platonic and Aristotelian Tradition in his Summa Theologiae. Following Aristotle's conception of life, Thomas states that all living beings are characterized by their capacity to move by themselves (S. Th., I, q. 18, a. 1), and that Life is the substance of the living, and not merely an accidental property (S.Th. I, q. 18, a. 2). God, in this sense of living, is not only alive, but it is the one that has the highest degree of life (vita maximepriore in Deo est), for if Living is defined by the capacity to move itself with no need of an-other (cum vivere dicantur aliqua secundum quod operantum ex seipsis, et non quasi ab aliis mota), then the most perfect living being would be the one that is ultimately independent (I. q. 18, a. 3). After considering all types of living beings, Thomas concludes that it is intellectual life the one that needs the least from others, since vegetative and sensitive living activities are bound to their objects. However, even intellectual life, as found in humans, has a need for an object to realize its capacity. God would be the only living being whose capacity is neither oriented nor determined by any other, but only by his being itself. This is why God has life in an eminent sense, in the highest degree, and, therefore, has Perfect and Eternal Life, always in Act, for his Intellect is a Perfect one, as Aristotle stated.³ Everything in God is alive, for his life is identified with his intellect, and, in God, his thinking and the object of his thinking are the same thing: all of his ideas, by which every being is created, are God himself. In other words, there is no Other with respect to God, for every other being lives in his Life as the Platonic Ideas in which they participate.⁴ God's life, then, is absolute; it is not bound to anything but Himself: God is Autarchy.⁵

Plotinus: Unity and perfection, beyond life and Intellect

Simplicity and absolute unity are in God, however, still in question within these theological schemes, since every living activity is essentially defined by this reflexive duality. In very different philosophical and theological directions (one being mystical-cosmological, the other being atheist), both Plotinus and Jean-Paul Sartre seem to agree in the impossibility to consider God as being alive: God is either One or None. For Plotinus, Unity was the ultimate metaphysical category, and the ontological scale was built upon the idea of "One". Matter itself is non-being, for it is pure plurality and chaos; material objects can be divided endlessly, and their unity is just very fragile; living beings achieve unity by their soul, but they are pierced by instincts and desires, and their unity is always to be conquered; rational and intelligent beings achieve unity most successfully, but are still defined by division, for the act of knowing entails both an intelligence and something intelligible, that is, a mind and an idea. Therefore, for Plotinus, the Divine (God) could not be a living being, not even the Aristotelian Noéseos nóesis: God is the One, beyond both being and thinking (epekeina tes ousías). It is interesting to notice how Aristotle's definition of the Divine as Intelligence was at the heart of later Platonism and middle Neo-Platonism, and how there was a need to surpass an aporia within this very scheme. For, not only Intelligence is already intentional, in the sense that it aims at something else than itself (it supposes an object for its activity), and therefore is not One, but also Intelligence faces a plurality of ideas, and, thus, its unity is even more contested by the necessary multiplicity of its objects. Numenius was one of the first and more prominent philosophers that aimed at solving this aporia by distinguishing two kinds of Gods, one completely motionless (otiotius) and the other that was in charge of the organization of the world (^{Michalewski, 2012}: 32). There are two different kinds of intelligence, one that is said only about the Godhead, and the other that is also divine, but only in an inferior degree. ⁶ Taking over the Platonic cosmological and theological scheme of the Timaeus and Aristotle's metaphysical theology, the Godhead achieves absolute unity in being thought of thought, whereas the divine principle of the cosmos contains an internal division in itself, for He intellects a plurality of Ideas which are the models for the generation and organization of the world. Whereas the Godhead is the Principle and King of the World and does not move in any way because of its essential and perfect unity, the "divine maker of the World" (demiourgós) is already getting closer to the sensible world because of its internal multiplicity.⁷ If we stick to the question of the Godhead in itself, without entering the problem of the World and how a multiplicity is born out of unity (the main question in Platonic and neo-Platonic cosmologies), there is a need in middle-Platonism to distinguish between a Perfect Intelligence (the Platonic Idea of the Good, that is, the Godhead) and an inferior Intelligent divine being (the Platonic figure of the world-maker, or demiourgós). Numenius is aware of this need that is at the heart of his theology and his idea of the Principle.⁸ However, Plotinus -heavily influenced by Numenius-, contested this scheme in the name of Unity and of the transcendence of the Godhead, for the analogical procedure in middle-Platonism is still too strong, and God's Unity is still dependent on the pair Being-Intelligence that is connected to the worldly essence.⁹ As Michalewski argues, the unity of the First is not the same in Plotinus and in Numenius: whereas for the latter, the unity of the first principle is the unity of different elements, being and thought, although achieving an ultimate identity, for Plotinus, the unity of the First is that of the very indifference of an absolute, supra-essential simplicity, that lacks any determination whatsoever (2012: 38).¹⁰ The One is before every-thing and ever-body, even before the Intellect, and, thus, it is beyond stasis, even that perfect identity within duality attributed to the First by Numenius (^{Michalewski, 2012}: 39). Plotinus both criticizes Aristotle's and Peripatetic's cosmological theology, concerning their idea of a First Mover (Enneads, V. 1.19), and their metaphysical theology, in which Aristotle argued for the simplicity of God as the outcome of God's identity between Being and Intellect (Enneads, V.3.12). Plotinus considers that the Intellect is in itself multiple and, therefore, cannot be the First Principle:

And it is clear also from the following that intellect cannot be the first (prótera): it is necessary that intellect exists in its thinking (tòn noûn en tôi noeîn eînai), and that the best intellect, the one which does not look outside itself, thinks what is before it; for in turning to itself it turns to its principle. And if intellect itself is what thinks (nooûn) and what is thought (nooûmenon), it will be double (diploûs) and not single (haploûs) and so not the one (tò hén); but if it looks to another, it must certainly be to that which is better than it and before it. But if it looks both to itself and to what is better than it, in this way also it is second. And one must suppose that intellect is of such a kind that it is present to the good and the first and looks to him, but is also present with itself and thinks itself, and thinks itself as being all things. It is far, then, from being the one since it is richly various. The one then cannot be all things, for so it would be no longer one; and it cannot be intellect, for in this way it would be all things since intellect is all things; and it cannot be being; for being is all things (Enneads, VI.9.2, 30-47).¹¹

The Intellect is multiple in two main aspects: on the one hand, Ideas are the object of the Intellect, and as everything participates in the Ideas, the Intellect is, somehow, everything; thus, being everything, the Intellect is in itself multiple. On the other hand, even in a deeper level (which eludes the possibility of conceptualizing a First Intellect as simple, and the Second Intellect as multiple, as Numenius argued), the Intellect is, by definition, an intentional operation, and as such entails the difference between the activity of thinking (nóesis) and the object of its thinking (nóema). Although the Intellect, as every other vital activity, is reflexive and immanent, for it refers to itself referring to others, its reflexivity is already pierced by duality. If God is the ultimate and first principle, then it cannot be the Intellect, for the criterion of the analogy between everything, what makes everything be every-thing is unity, not duality (Enneads, VI.9.1). As much something achieves unity in itself, the higher degree of being it will have: "for the things which are said to be one each is one in the way in which it also has what it is, so that the things which are less beings have the one less, and those which are more beings, more" (VI.9.1, 25-30). The ontological scale is, thus, construed in the name of the One. The First principle of reality is the One, and as such, no-thing can be really said about it: it is beyond being and beyond intellect, it is beyond every ontic category, such as place, movement, and even rest (prò stdseos).¹² Moreover, being absolutely self-sufficient, it is beyond self-sufficiency (epékeina autarkeías), for to be self-sufficient already entails the reflexive folding of the "self".¹³ God is in itself, but that is also a way of speaking, for there is no such a thing as the self in the One: language is here the limit, and to refer to the One, as it is, in it-self, we already refer to It as self (in analogy with the known realities of this world).¹⁴ However, there is no "self" in the One, properly speaking, and the One does not only relate to others, but It is also not related to it-self, he is in no need of itself.¹⁵ Intellect, on the contrary, being "in-itself", is already multiple, and its reflexive nature entails a necessary duality. In an extraordinary text, Plotinus makes it clear that there is at the heart of consciousness a division, even in attesting one's own existence (preluding somehow all the complications of the Cartesian "ego cogito"):

"For, in general, thought seems to be an intimate consciousness of the whole when many parts come together in the same thing; [this is so] when a thing knows itself, which is knowing in the proper sense: each single part is just itself and seeks nothing; but if the thinking is of what is outside, the thoughts will be deficient, and not thought in the proper sense. But that which is altogether simple and self-sufficient (tò pánte haploûn kai aútarkes) needs nothing; but what is self-sufficient in the second degree (tò deutéros aútarkes), but needs itself (deómenon dè heautou), this is what needs to think itself; and that which is deficient in relation to itself achieves self-sufficiency by being a whole, with an adequacy deriving from all its parts, intimately present to itself (sunòn heautôi) and inclining to itself (eis hautò neûon). For intimate self-consciousness (synaísthesis) is a consciousness (aísthesis) of something which is many; even the names bear witness to this [reference to the word: syn -aísthesis (note of Armstrong)]. And thinking, which is prior, turns inward to Intellect which is obviously multiple; for even if it only says this, 'I am existant', it says it as a discovery, and says it plausibly, for existence is multiple: since if it is concentrated its gaze on itself as something simple and said 'I am existent', it would not attain either itself or existence. For it does not mean something like a stone by existence, when it is speaking the truth but says many things in one word. For this being -which is meant to be real being and not what has a trace of being, which would not even be called being because of this trace, but is as image to archetype - contains many things. Well, then, will not each of these many things be thought? Now if you want to grasp the 'isolated and alone' (éremon kai mónon), you will not think; but absolute being is multiple in itself, and if you speak of something else, being contains it. But if this is so, if anything is the simplest of all, it will not possess thought of itself: for if it is to possess it, it will possess it by being multiple. It is not therefore thought, nor is there any thinking about it" (Enneads, V.3.13, 13-37).

As the Principle of all things, the One is the principle of their unity, for only as far as they are one, they are. The unity is performed by the Intellect in the highest degree as possible, but only because it founds in itself and imitates its Origin, the One:¹⁶ everything else is below this degree and matter itself is itself pure potency in the sense of pure dispersion and lack of unity; in this regard, matter as such (prote hyle, in the Aristotelian sense) is non-being (me ón) (Enneads, II.4). It is pure power, the power of everything (dynamis pánton), not in the sense of the matter that can receive any form whatsoever (pure potency), but, on the contrary, the power that makes everything come to be.¹⁷ The One does not give anything nor causes anything: the gift of the One is to invite everything else to imitate Him and to achieve unity and self-sufficiency.¹⁸ Concerning human, ethical life, therefore, in order to be one-self, one must be One, one must achieve absolute unity in the very losing of the Self, in the mystic road that is reserved for the wise and god-like life of the initiated: "This is the life of gods and of god like and blessed men, deliverance from the things of this world, a life which takes no delight in the things of this world, escapes in solitude to the solitary (phugè mónoupros mónon)" (VI.9.11, 49-51).¹⁹

The impossible idea of a God: Jean-Paul Sartre's critique of a perfect living being

The critique of the idea of the Absolute being a Thought, the Principle of reality being in itself an Intelligence, is not only to be found in Plotinus. Of course, the history of the critique of the idea of God is quite complex and long, and knows many different approaches: coming from the naturalistic World-view, where the hypothesis "God" is rendered useless; or claimed in the name of freedom, where God is seen just as the limitation of our essential power to self-determine; or also coming from denouncing the presence of evil in the world and in history; but also coming from the mistake of making of God one more object or kind of being within the logique of the world (what is called the onto-theological scheme). Interestingly enough, one could find many ways to discard God's existence in the name of all of these problems; however, it is also the case that the very idea of God (let us say, to be precise, the idea of a Judeo-Christian God) is put into question because of its very definition. Coming both from Hegel's dialectic idealism and from Heidegger's "existentialist" phenomenology, Jean-Paul Sartre claimed that the very idea of God is contradictory, for it refers to a "perfect conscious being". To understand this claim, one must look at Sartre's basic ontology, which classifies "Being" into three categories: being-in-itself (être en soi), being-for-itself (être pour soi), being-for-another (être pour autre). Pure material objects, things, are just beings, without any reflexive relationship to themselves. Things are: they are always the same, they are identical to themselves; thus, they do not have any time at all, they do not change, they do not move towards a future. Things conform the realm of pure facticity, of what it is there. However, the realm of consciousness is defined by reflexivity, that is, by being referred to itself, and this reference to itself is characterized in the negative way of lacking²⁰: "The existence of desire as a human fact is sufficient to prove that human reality is a lack" (^{Sartre, 1956}: 87). What defines consciousness is not just Being, but also Nothingness, because reflexivity, to be referred to oneself, entails a difference within one's own being. Even more, the nature of this nothingness is a reflexive negation, for it introduces nothingness by negating the identity between the for-itself "with the in-itself it is a nihilation of the in-itself by the for-itself in order to avoid becoming an object or thing²¹. Thus, existence (something that is properly claimed of human beings, that is, of conscious beings) entails time, for identity is forever deferred, never actually achieved. This nothingness grounds freedom, for human beings are not just what they are, but they are what they are not, and what they choose and not choose what to be. This is what Sartre means when he famously claimed in his little treatise that in the case of human beings, "existence precedes essence (l'existence précède l'essence)'" (^{Sartre, 1996}), for the definition (identity) of men is not given, but performed freely. In few words, "what the for-itself lacks is the self -or itself as in-itself" (^{Sartre, 1956}: 89).²² In the case of existence, that is, the way human beings are, they are both conscious and have a body: therefore, they are referred to themselves and also referred to the others, for their bodies expose them to the look of the other, and therefore to exist is both to be factual and to be conscious. ²³

Human existence is, thus, defined by its need to surpass the internal hiatus between the in-itself and the for-itself. In this need, however, human beings are condemned to failure, because the for-itself or consciousness is but the annihilation of the in-itself. Even more, human existence is itself a failure, and failure is the very trace of its unsurpassable inner division.²⁴ "Human reality is a perpetual surpassing toward a coincidence with itself which is never given" (^{Sartre, 1956}: 89). Human beings aim at surpassing their lack by achieving a totality, that is, being itself as being founded not just by nothingness (as with the for-itself, who founds itself by a reflexive negation), but also being found in its in-itself (which is never founded in itself, but by another, for it is contingent and factual, given to a consciousness).²⁵ And, at the same time, this perfect being, this totality, cannot be just an in-itself, for to become a substance (a being in-itself) would entail the very death of the for-itself, its own annihilation.²⁶ The perfect being, the totality made up of the identity between the in-itself and the for-itself is that what is lacked in human existence, and is that which we long for at all times. However, this idea of perfect being is a chimera, a contradictory conceptual object,²⁷ although it has been objectified in the idea of God:

Let no one reproach us with capriciously inventing a being of this kind; when by a further movement of thought the being and absolute absence of this totality are hypostasized as transcendence beyond the world, it takes on the name of God. Is not God a being who is what he is -in that he is all positivity and the foundation of the world- and at the same time a being who is not what he is and who is what he is not -in that he is self-consciousness and the necessary foundation of himself? The being of human reality is suffering because it rises in being as perpetually haunted by a totality which it is without being able to be it, precisely because it could not attain the in-itself without losing itself as for-itself. Human reality therefore is by nature an unhappy consciousness with no possibility of surpassing its unhappy state (^{Sartre, 1956}: 90).

In sum, taking the definition of God as being both perfect and reflexive, Sartre argues that this would mean that God is, at the same time, absolutely in itself (en soi) and also absolutely referred to itself (pour soi); therefore, the very idea of a perfect living-intelligent God is contradictory, for it would entail that God is absolutely defined by Being (perfection), but also defined by Nothingness (intelligence, consciousness). God is the Being that founds its own being (in-itself) by it-self (for-itself), that is, God is Causa Sui, that which is impossible. Again, God is either One or None. And this entail a more fundamental metaphysical and biological claim: human beings (we could even dare to say, living beings) are forever damned to persist in their inner division, in the inner and dialectical struggle of their own dynamics of life. To search for an ultimate conciliation and harmony with one-self is but a "useless passion".²⁸

Conclusion

In this paper, I aim at showing how the definition of life within the paradigm of autarchy entails an unsurpassable paradox. If life is defined both by reflexivity and by unity, then the perfect life would entail an absolute identity with oneself, but an identity that is pierced by difference, by the hiatus that comes with the very idea of selfhood. This double need in the Western tradition to keep both unity and reflexivity found a key strategical argument in identifying the perfect life with the intellect, in which the act of knowing and its object are the same. The Aristotelian definition of God as "thought of thought" seemed to cope with this challenge of picturing and conceptualizing a perfect living being. The success of this strategy is clearly seen within the whole of our theological Western tradition. However, this strategy is still troublesome, and both Plotinus and Jean-Paul Sartre (coming from very different traditions and writing in very different contexts) showed the difficulties of such a theological scheme. Either God is One, or God is none: but in neither case, can God be a living being. This radical difficulty stems from the definition of life as autarchy, and if we are to think about God as a living being (and that is, for Christian Theology, one of its most important axioms: a Living and Loving God), then one should first deconstruct the Bio-Theo-Political paradigm of autarchy, and find new ways of understanding what life is. Let this paper be just one more attempt to show the need of this deconstruction, in the hope of new theological, biological and political paradigms to come, where life is not defined by its reflexivity and self-sufficiency, but by its relational nature, for life never happens in solitude. Christian Theology bears a critical conceptual tool to foster this new understanding in the dogma of Trinity, a dogma that pictures God not as a lonely and apathetic living being, but as being in itself a community of living personae. Thus, a Trinitarian theology -to be successful- should first deconstruct the basis of the understanding of God, which is to be found in the idea of life.