I Think This is It - More on Metaphors

Ask my daughters, I am quick to distinguish between a why question and a how come question. But I believe my thinking had not gone far enough.

After considering the rise of nominalism before and during the reformation, I believe I am beginning to understand the reason the church reacted so strongly against men like Galileo and Luther. Men like these were asking the church to disband completely a particular world view. I will try to illustrate:

Take my metaphor of Sleep as an example. We ask the why question, Why does man sleep? The answer is obvious, God made us that way. Ok, so we ask instead, How come man sleeps? The answer is typical, body needs rest, rejuvination, health, cleansing, etc.-rudimentary scientific answer. But let us return to the Why question. I believe the premoderns did not leave the answer at "God made us that way." I believe they continued to ask, "Why did God make man to sleep?" Aha, now we reach the metaphors. Now indeed we view the world not as a modernist, but as a pre-modern would see it.

Thus, if a pre-modern asks, "Why do we sleep" and one should reply scientifically, he should scandalize the pre-modern mind.

If this is true, and if it should be accepted, it changes the way we think about everything for then all things have meaning--including the four, square, ugly, white-walled, white-ceiling, white-lighted office in which I sit.