We can see, hear, taste, touch, smell. Why? Where do senses come from? What’s the theological rationale for sensation? Why this “mediation” of the world through sensible experience? (Or, is that even the right way to ask the question?)
My speculative guess that the answer is in pneumatology. The Spirit is linked in various ways with several of the senses: The burning eyes of the Lamb are the seven Spirits of God; the Son is the Word, but the Spirit is also heard blowing around; Hebrew ruach (spirit) puns theologically with Hebrew reyach (aroma).
Is Augustine’s pneumatology (the Spirit as mediating Love between Father and Son) the key? How do the Son and Father “see” each other? By the eyes of the Spirit? Is the Spirit the scent, the mnemonic aroma, that arouses the desire of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father? Does the Father’s Word reverberate back from the Son to the Father by the Spirit? Does the Spirit opens the ears of the Father and Son?
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