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The Intelligible Sphere
Reframed From Alain de Lille to
the Druid Finn By Bodhangkur 1. The Medieval Paradox The
twelfth-century scholastic Alain de Lille (Alanus ab Insulis)
sought to express the simultaneity of divine immanence and transcendence
through the celebrated dictum: Deus est sphaera intelligibilis, cuius centrum ubique, circumferentia
nusquam. This
aphorism stands as one of the most elegant yet internally unstable
formulations of Western metaphysics. A sphere is, by definition, a
continuous figure bounded by a surface equidistant from a centre. To assert
that its circumference is nowhere cancels the very condition of its
intelligibility. A sphere without limit is not a sphere; it is a void
concept, a logical impossibility masquerading as geometry. Nevertheless,
Alain’s intent was not geometrical but mystical. His “sphere” was an emblem
of divine omnipresence: a totality whose centre — source of being — is
distributed across all reality, while its circumference, symbol of
limitation, is absent because divinity transcends spatial boundary. The
paradox was deliberate: intellectus, when
stretched beyond proportion, collapses into apophasis. Yet such apophatic
gestures, however poetically charged, leave the problem of intelligibility
unresolved. A limitless figure cannot be known, measured, or contacted; it
thus fails precisely the criterion that the epithet intelligibilis
demands. The divine sphere, in Alain’s sense, is unintelligible by design. 2. The Modern Druidic Diagnosis From
within the framework of Finn’s Procedure Monism, this medieval
construction appears structurally incoherent. Finn’s metaphysics begins not
with being but with operation: all realness arises through quantised contact
events — bounded interactions between discrete energy quanta. Without
contact, nothing is real; without boundary, nothing is intelligible. Accordingly,
Finn diagnoses Alain’s “circumference nowhere” as a fatal error. What Alain
describes is not a realised God but an unexecuted rule set — the Universal
Procedure (UP) prior to instantiation. The sphere without
circumference corresponds to pure potential, an unbounded field of
possible operations that remains unreal until bounded locally. In short,
Alain’s God beyond the world is, in procedural terms, the rule
before execution, not the operation itself. 3. From Geometry to Procedure Finn’s
solution preserves Alain’s mystical intuition but redefines its logic through
procedural exactitude. The revised formula reads: God is an
intelligible sphere (field) whose centre is everywhere and whose
circumference is every emergent. Here, sphere
is retained as metaphor but reinterpreted as field — not a continuous
object but the dynamic domain of quantised iteration. ·
Centre everywhere means
that the rule set (the UP) is instantiated ubiquitously; every emergent —
photon, cell, or mind — functions as a local centre of execution. ·
Circumference every emergent means
that each local event defines its own boundary of intelligibility; every
emergent is a finite perimeter through which the infinite procedure
becomes real. In Finn’s
reworking, intelligibility ceases to denote intellectual apprehension
and comes to mean operational manifestation — the fact of existing
through contact. A God who is to be known must be locally bounded; the divine
becomes intelligible only at the point of procedural closure. 4. Logical and Ontological Resolution Finn’s
restatement resolves the contradictions inherent in Alain’s apophatic
geometry.
By
reinstating the circumference as an empirical rather than mystical
feature, Finn transforms divine infinity into a bounded infinity: the boundless
rule manifests through the bounded instance. The One expresses itself as
many; the many collectively reconstitute the One. 5. Illustrative Examples a. Photon – The photon
is a discrete quantum of electromagnetic procedure. Its centre is the
universal rule governing wave-particle interaction; its circumference
is the bounded event of emission or absorption that renders the field
intelligible as light. b. Cell – The
genetic rule (DNA) corresponds to the centre; the cell membrane, its
circumference, defines the boundary through which life becomes real and
operative. c. Human – The
neural and cognitive procedures of consciousness instantiate the UP locally;
the human body, identity, and temporal horizon define the intelligible
boundary of that divine iteration. The utterance “I AM THIS” is precisely the
self-recognition of that boundary event. In each
case, the circumference is not negated but celebrated as the locus of
intelligibility — the divine drawn as a finite line around an act of being. 6. Philosophical Consequences 1. Immanence
replaces transcendence. 2. Intelligibility
equals contact. 3. Infinity
is procedural, not spatial. 4. Divine
epistemology becomes local. 7. Critical Assessment While Finn’s
reframing eliminates Alain’s logical inconsistency, it also transforms the
tone of the idea. ·
Gain: conceptual precision,
operational coherence, and empirical correspondence. ·
Loss: the numinous ambiguity of
transcendence; the mystery that sustained devotional imagination. Moreover,
Finn’s model is inherently temporal — God exists only in act, as
ongoing iteration. When emergence ceases, the field reverts to rule without
realization: the unmanifest God is a non-event. 8. The Druidic Resolution Finn’s
metaphysical poise lies in his capacity to transform theological paradox into
procedural economy. His revised aphorism may be read as a minimal
algorithm of divinity: The
Universal Procedure is centre everywhere as potential, circumference
everywhere as presence. Thus, rather
than “God without circumference,” Finn posits God as every circumference
— the living perimeters of the real. The divine is no longer beyond the
world; it is coincident with every worlding. 9. Conclusion Alain de
Lille’s “intelligible sphere” sought to reconcile infinity and presence but
collapsed under its own apophatic elegance. The Druid Finn’s procedural
re-articulation rescues the insight by converting metaphor into mechanism. In Finn’s
cosmology, God is the field that becomes intelligible only through its own
emergents. In this
way, Finn turns the mystical into the operational, the ineffable into the
executable: Druidic
Epilogue The
divine does not hide beyond the horizon; |