I had a strange dream the other night where someone was trying to show me a family crest and tell me what it should be. They kept shouting at me and repeating the motto, so I wouldn’t forget. And when I woke up, I didn’t. I had to look it up to make sure what it meant. The motto pressed upon me was “Praxis in principia”.

Setting aside whatever dream logic produced it, and whether it even makes linguistic sense, I do see what the point was. It’s not a simple motto. It’s a statement of tension and complexity. Praxis, practice, action, the practicum. In principia, in principle, within or under the rule of principle.

I can see why. It’s meant to be a solution to the question of faith vs works, unconditional or conditional love, abstract laws and concepts or concrete actions and results. The right way of living is to live within both, for the two to be married. Any separation of the two hollows both out. They are an ontological unity in a human being. We live across both domains, and we must live across both domains. We cannot afford to be either Plato or Aristotle. We must follow the example of Jesus, the finite infinite. The incarnate abstract. The embodied principle.