For Findlay, the Absolute embodies not only “the metaphysical values of simplicity, unity, self-existence and power” but also “the values...of justice, mercy, truth, beauty, etc.” He holds that “God or the religious absolute cannot fail to will these values because, in a manner which defies ordinary grammar, he not only has them, but is them.” (112). [All page references in this essay, unless otherwise noted are to the Transcendence of the Cave.] Yet at the same time Findlay holds that the “will in the religious absolute can and must determine itself quite freely” (112).
On Findlay’s view, the various values of mind, reason, intelligence and will, along with those of satisfaction, happiness, freedom, fairness, beauty, etc. “culminate in a single, unique intentional object to which devotion, worship, and unconditional self-dedication are the only appropriate attitude (98).”
To this point, Findlay is strictly Neoplatonic, and his views scarcely depart from those contained, for example, in Plotinus’ Enneads. However, Findlay adapts this Neoplatonic view to a far more dynamic conception of the cosmos and God. He does this through a careful phenomenological description of the paradoxes, absurdities and antinomies that are endemic to earthly life, what he refers to, in accordance with the Platonic metaphor, as life within the “cave.”