Thomas von Aquin: Der Lex-Traktat (German Edition)

Author Merks, Karl-Wilhelm, Edition 1. Systematische Abteilung ; Bd. Catholic Church -- Doctrines. Christian ethics -- Catholic authors. Autonomy Philosophy Notes Originally presented as the author's thesis, Bonn, View online Borrow Buy Freely available Show 0 more links Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"? This single location in All: Open to the public Book German Show 0 more libraries This single location in Victoria: None of your libraries hold this item.

Found at these bookshops Searching - please wait We were unable to find this edition in any bookshop we are able to search. These online bookshops told us they have this item: Tags What are tags? It discloses an undistorted perspec- tive on natural truths by connectmg us with the infinite beauty of a supernaturaltruth.

Seen from this angle, distinctions between revelation and know- ledge, or the supernatural and nature are of merely supplementary significance. The function of God's supernatural revelation is noth- ing other than to recover the natural destination of his creation. For it is the natural destination of his creatures to reveal their creator. And this destination is most comprehensively achieved in the 'scientific' nature of the human mind which is based on the gift to wonder about the traces of the invisible in the visible cre- ation.

Cusa even moves a step further in considering the practice of prayer as part and apex of this natural destination. Our natural striving for knowledge is most comprehensively actualized in a non- propositional 'science of praise5 scientia laudis , which is at once 'the substance of our participation in God', and the root of the gift to develop a non-idolatrous perspective on what 'is verifiable about yes', see Jacques Derrida, , ' N o m b r e de ', in Luce Giard ed. Centre Georges P o m p i d o u.

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SUNY Press, p p. For a survey o n Aquinas's heterogeneous use of this concept, see C. Berchtold, 2 0 0 0 , Manifestatio veritatis: In the words of Cusa: The habit of orthodox worship alone allows us to make sense of our paradoxical desire to touch the 'infinite'. Not so in Descartes. The problem of infinity is a prominent topic of his Meditations, but Descartes no longer humbles himself in an attitude of marvelling and praise.

Rather, his phenomenology of the infinite aims to yield a rational proof of the existence of God. The idea of the infinite assures him of an entity which is even definable. Thus, in accordance with the general rules of scientific rationality, God is eventually defined as causa sui,1 24 'Unde cum naturaliter scientia laudis sit inteliectui nostro conata, est sub- stantia laudis dei participatio; omnia enim, quae de ipso venncantur, in laude dei compiicantur. Radical Orthodoxy's First Deeade': It was a mediated revelation through creatures This meant that the most primordial event of rev- elation was Iiturgical - it already involved a new human habitus, something that humans must consistently do, something which they have already begun consistently to perform.

For an exhaustive discussion of the orthodox distinetion between nature and grace, see de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modem Tbeology and The Mystery of the Super- natural Regardless of whether we accept Descartes' proof, the Cartesian proceeding is symptom- atic of a fundamental shift in the theological attitude toward the infinite. Rather, we are called to acknowledge these manifestations as a gift of the 'reaiity itself; and this means their meaning is only to be touched in an act of marvel and praise. On the other hand, in Descartes, scientific rationality-standards are at least initially to be applied to every reaiity, including the reai- ity of God.

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Thus our adoration of God is not to be considered as the manifestation of a pre-reflexive attitude of prayer. We are no longer alloived to trust in wbat we do not know. Or at least, before we trust, we are obliged to 'determine5 whether this atti- tude is rationally justified and whether the object of our faithful assent is formally intelligible as an object of faith - or respectively, a proposition 'worthy of belief'.

Everything must first pass a pro- cedure of rational evaluation, and God constitutes no exception to this rule. Before we acknowledge his existence, it has to be proved as rationally possible. This position is incompatible from the outset with Cusa's pre- modern concept of knowledge. According to Cusa our adoration of God is not only not provoked by something 'possible', it is actually connected with the manifestation of something impossible. As Cusa puts it in his mystagogic writing De visione Der. Considered against this background, we may summarize the epistemological break between pre-modernity and modernity as follows: Seen from the pre-modern viewpoint of Cusa, Descartes' proceeding provokes the suspicion of idolatry.

Modern rationalism ascribes to a definable and consequently finite theological con- cept, 'what befits only the reaiity itself.

Seen from the rationalist Cartesian point of view, Cusa's proceeding provokes the suspicion of irrationalism: It is possible to demonstrate that Descartes5 narrow concept of rationality is logically fiawed,29 but this is not relevant here, Rather I will focus on the impact of this concept of rationality on the rise of the modern theology of revelation.

We may believe in supernatu- ral revelations in addition, but this is no longer essential for our affirmation of God's existence, Revelation becomes a supernatural appendix to human knowledge. However, it would be mislead- ing to simply equate this theologically far-reaching break with the Cartesian revolution. As in the case of our rational affirmation of the existence of God, the assent of faith is subordi- nate to the theoretical Identification of approved propositions about 29 See Johannes Hoff, , 'Das Subjekt entsichern: Zur spirituellen Dimen- sion des Subjektproblems angesichts der Dekonstruktion des cartesianischen Wissenschaftsparadigmas', in Heinrich Schmidinger and Michael Zichy eds , Tod des Subjekts?

Poststrukturalismus und christliches Denken, Innsbruck and Wien: This Is precisely the point where the concept of 'revelation' becomes a basic concept of modern theology. This is most obvious in the 'extrinsecist apologetics' of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. Are divine actions infallible? Is the human soul immortal? Is revelation possible at all, and how are possible events of revelation to be assured? Are the biblical witnesses of divinations, prophecies, and miracles sufficient to prove that our belief in divine revelations is de facto justified?

The salient point of this proceeding is connected up with the early modern concept of divine authority. Insofar as it Is possible to prove that God is infallible and good, his authority is to be consid- ered as absolute, and thus we are obliged to affirm every sentence the divine 'sender' has revealed. God's revelations are credible and binding independently of their content.

Both traditions tend to agree already in the sixteenth Century that God is to be worshipped and the pagan failure to appropriately worship is to be con- demned because we know that he exists.

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For a concise genealogy of the Reformed tradition see, though it is nevertheiess uncritical with regard to this point, K. Jue Jeffrey, Z, Theologia Naturalis: A Reformed Tradition', in K. Scott Oliphint and Lane G. Tipton eds , Revelation and Reason: I am indebted to the Revd Daniel Whang Lee for drawing my attention to this genealogical difference. Untersuchung zur Entstehung des funda- mentaltheologischen Offenbarungstraktats der katholischen Schultheologie, Mainz: See also note Reconsidered in the light of Cusa's late medieval synthesis, this concept of revelation implies not only a twofold, but a threefold break with pre-modernity.

In the case of pre-modern orthodoxy, revelation not only coincided with the highest form of knowing e. Cusa's docta ignorantia , but also with the marvelling praise of this mystery. This was the only reason why divine revelations were con- sidered to be inconceivable.

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They appeared as 'mysteries' not due to a lack of human explanatory power, but because of the iconoclastic roots of Christian worship. In other words, God is inconceivable to the same extent as he allows us to overcome pagan idolatry. In the case of modern extrinsecism, this threefold unity of apophatic knowledge, revelation and veneration falls asunder: I can acknowledge the existence of God as a matter of 'natural religion', thereby considering every notion of revelation as superfluous as was the case with English Deists and the German 'Neoiogians' of the eighteenth Century ; and I can believe in revelations without venerating God or participating in the ecclesial habit of faith as is the case with secularized Christians who favour a forest walk over the unpleasant logocentrism of modern liturgy.

The affirmation of divine 'mysteries' is no longer intrinsically connected with the veneration of God. Yet simultaneously, the foundations of this 'theory' become increasingly fideistic, smce the arbitrary nature of modern 'mysteries' legitimizes every variety of belief in divine reveiations. It is worth noting rhat such fancifui fideistic trends are not only a feature of Christian branches of the Abrahamitic tradi- tion, as the fate of contemporary Islam painfully demonstrates.

Reveiation as Systematic-Theological Principle in Ciassical Modernity The previous section outlines the historical constellation which enabled the high rating of the concept of reveiation in modern theology. From here on, 'reveiation' will appear as a systematic- theological principle, which marks the characteristic features of the Christian faith and legitimizes its validity claims with regard to secular reason or non-Christian objections.

Extrinsecist apologetics, however, which focused on a proposi- tional concept of reveiation, represents only an intermediate stage which - despite its continuing existence in certain Strands of evan- gelical and Islamic traditions - was soon to be overcome by a second turn of modern theology. See Quentm Meillassoux, , After Finitude: An Essay the Necessity of Contingency, trans.

Pierre Joris and Ann Reid, London: Dulles, , Models of Reveiation, Dublin: The most consistent development of this new paradigm was elab- orated by Karl Barth. First, Barth completely abolished the rational substructure of modern extrinsecism. The prototypical first volume of his Church Dogmatics does not Start with some sort of natural' or 'philosophical theology' the first stage in the above-sketched extrinsecist proceeding but commences with reveiation from the outset.

Second, theology is no longer justified in neglecting rational considerations on problems of doctrinal content. The extrinsecism of early modernity becomes intrinsecist which means that every doc- trine is to be evaluated in terms of its consistency with a unifying principle of Christian theology - the principle of self-revelation. In consequence, the concept of reveiation becomes still more important than before.

From the doctrines of Trinity and incar- nation up to the doctrine of salvation: All doctrines of Christian orthodoxy are to be reconsidered not oniy in terms of their extrinsic mediatedness through reveiation, but also in terms of their intrinsic consistency with the concept of self-revelation.

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Barth's doctrine of the Trinity provides the model of this pro- ceeding. At the beginning of the Church Dogmatics this doctrine is systematically unfolded, departing from an analysis of the concept of self-revelation as such. God n o longer appears as the authorit- ative revealer of divine sentences or of a holy book. The Christian God reveals nothing other than himself; he is at the same time the revealer, the revealed and the act of revealing? The medium is the message. Given the modern splits between knowledge, reveiation and prayer, it is important to notice which problems are solved by this inrinsecist turn, and which are not.

The concept of self-revelation overcomes the 'two-leveP architecture of early modern theology. Theology is no longer required to distinguish a 'natural' substruc- ture of faith from a revealed or 'supernatural' superstructure.

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We may still support a two-level architecture, as is the case in the early tion' is, curiously enough, usually assigned to the Thomist' propositional concept of reveiation. The unsustainability of this assignment is brilliantly demonstrated in Montag, 'Reveiation'. But in the long run such attempts always turn out to be either inconsistent or, like the transcendental-philosophical decorations of the late Rahner, otiose. His smart synthesis rather supports the classical modern attitude of 'outsourcing' the philosophical headaches of the foregoing millennia.

If philosophy does not become a negligible appendix to theology as in Rahner , it becomes reduced to a completely secularized or even 'nihilistic' counterpart to proper theology. It may be consid- ered anthropologically or existentially significant, but even in this case, the liturgical practice of the Church is only derivative of an anthropological or theological theory. This last point, the still-insistent Inversion of the traditional prior- ity of prayer before faith lex orandi, lex credendi , is symptomatic of a certain ideological function of the modern self-revelatory turn.

The Christian God is essentially to be considered as a revealing God, as distinct from non-Abrahamitic religions such as Buddhism; and he is essentially more than a mere revealer of books or propositions, as distinct from Judaism and Islam. Zu einem Grundproblem der Anthro- pologie K. Rahners', Trierer theologische Zeitschrift 95, pp. Verweyen tried to provide an alternative Solution.

For a criticai discussion, see Johannes Hoff, zooi, 'Fundamentaltheologie zwischen Dekonstruktion und erstphilosophi- scher Reflexion: Fiindamentaltheologie zwischen Erstphilosophie und Hermeneutik, Regensburg: Following the German theologian Hans Waidenfels, it could be ar gued that this strategy of identity assurance has broken down in the wake of the most recent inter-religious discussions about the 39 uniqueness of Christianity.

But I will bracket such discussions in order to concentrate on the genealogical background of the modern identity-assurance strategy, and the more fundamental question of whether Christian orthodoxy is really in need of such ideological support. Revelation as a Non-Ideological Supplement in Pre-Modernity Compared with the modern line of development, outlined above, it is remarkable that pre-modern orthodoxy did not feel any need for doctrinal trademarks.

As de Lubac already demonstrated in his early monograph Corpus Mysticwn, the uniqueness of pre-modern Christianity was not based on doctrines, but on the unifying dynam- ics of the body of Christ. The unity of faith was derivative of a bodily experience and liturgicaliy reassured via the veneration and consummation of Christ's 'mysticai body' in the 'mystical body' of the Church. But the creed did not function as a unifying doctrinal principle.

Rather it was used as a symbolon in the literary Greek sense of this word - as an access code to the 'body of Christ'. The same holds true with regard to the Holy Scriptures. The unity of the biblical canon was based on the liturgical use of these Scriptures. The canon did not provide a ready-made signifier, reproducible via print- machines like a modern King James Bibie. The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, trans. Gemma Simmonds, Faith in Reason, London: The unity of the Church was based neither on a doctrinal principie, nor on a membership book, but on the gathering together of the 'mystical body of Christ' in the Light of the inconceivable glory of God.

In accordance with this babitus, the concept of revelation was never considered as a qualifier of 'specifically Christian' Contents, in either its mtrinsecist or in its extrinsecist sense. Like the symbolon, the Holy Scriptures were rather to be used as interpretational keys. Given that God's creation appeared as an overwheiming 'book', which had become deformed in the wake of the fall of men, the 'second book' of the Scriptures provided a supplementary means to decode creation's enigmatic signature.

It did this by offering a guide to its ultimate doxological destination, namely the deifica- tion, transfiguration or transubstantiation of the whole creation into the mystical body of Christ. But this did not necessarily include the conviction that the concept of the triad was something unique; there w7as no necessity to put the doctrine of Trinity under Copyright protection.

Following Augustine and Raimundus Lullus, Cusa, for example, was deeply convinced that Piatonic philosophers had access to faint analogies of the Trinity - he even supposed that they already had a vague idea of humankind's final destination. Our final destination is only to be obtained through the 'foolishness' i Cor. Mark Sebanc and E. Macierowski, Grand Rapids, MI: Rather it was a side effect of the gift of per- severance in the Body of Christ, and of the resolution to attribute to the glorification of the 'Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit' a significance w7hich exceeds the capacities of theoretical jus- tification.

If the concept of the Trinity provided any trademark of Christianity, it was certainly not an unmistakable one. Only the orthodox attitude of attributing to the triunity of God an undis- putable doxological significance provided an unmistakable feature of Christian faith, as opposed to a heterodox attitude of worship. Since Eunomius at the latest, heresy is t a n t a m o u n t to the convic- tion that the doxological foundations of Christian faith derive from philosophical or theological 'theories' about God. To summarize, the 'holy teaching' sacra doctrina of the Church is not based on special theoretical propositions or doctrinal con- fessions; and it is not based on a universal-historical narrative or theoretical considerations on the concept of self-revelation.

Rather, sacra doctrina is based on no-thing and concerned with everything: In disclosing an exceptional 'perspective' on the world, it is con- cerned with everything insofar as the doxological perspective of faith affects every narrative and every true proposition to be made with regard to the 'book of the world' and its destination. Similarly the 'holy teaching' is based on no-thing, since w h a t distinguishes the perspective of Christian faith from the universal concerns of philosophers is not based on a revealed knowledge about myster- 44 Kurt Flasch uses this expression to expiain Cusa's philosophy of ternary rela- tions in the wake of Raimundus Luiius see Kurt Flasch, , Nikolaus von Kues.

However, used in isolation this expression ignores that Cusa has more to say about the Trinitarian mystery. Yale University Press, p. T h e Kantian Roots of Modern Instrinsecism Given this gap between pre-modern and modern theology, we may again turn to the modern concept of self-revelation, which was by no accident almost uniformly of German origin i. To do justice to this Continental movement, we have to con- sider the impact of the epistemological revolution of Immanuel Kant.

According to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, we are no ionger justified in acknowledging any reality independent of what it appears to be for us. Whatever something may be, it is no longer legitimate to affirm its reality as long as it is not 'deducible' as a possible reality which fits to the principles and limitations of human reason.