Stichwort: Subjekt

Autor, Quelle: Lonergan, Bernard J.F., The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: Subjekt - relativer Ausdruck

Index: Subjekt - relativer Ausdruck; zeitliches, ewiges Subjekt

Kurzinhalt: 'Subject' is a relative term. It has as many different meanings as there are specific instances where something is a subjec

Text: 399d 'Subject' is a relative term. It has as many different meanings as there are specific instances where something is a subject. (Fs)

We are dealing here not with a logical subject (anything concerning which a predication is made) nor with a recipient subject (that in which something is received, as when act is received in potency, existence in essence, form in matter, or an accident in a substance) nor with a subject of a habit (which is related to a habit as an object is to an act; in this last sense, God is said to be the subject of the science of theology). (Fs)

401a We are dealing rather with a subject that is a person and, indeed, a person as conscious. Hence 'subject' is understood as a distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature; and this subject is considered in relation to his intellectual nature. (Fs)

401b The analogy, then, about which we are inquiring is the analogy of the subject as subject; for a temporal subject as well as an eternal subject is a distinct subsistent in an intellectual nature, but a temporal subject and an eternal subject are related to their respective intellectual natures in different ways. (Fs)

An eternal subject is one that is intrinsically immutable. (Fs)

A temporal subject is one that is not only mutable but also material. (Fs)

401c Consequently, the now of an eternal subject is always the same, while the now of a temporal subject changes. For now is to a subject as time is to the motion of a subject; and therefore the now of an immutable subject is always the same, while the now of a mutable and material subject is continuously flowing.1

401d Note that temporal subjects really and truly change and yet remain the same in their subsistent identity through both substantial changes (death, resurrection) and accidental changes. For a subject is a distinct subsistent, that is, a being in the strict sense, that which is, that which has a substantial essence and other constitutive principles. Therefore, since a subsistent is really and truly constituted by its own intrinsic principles, when they change the subsistent itself really and truly changes; and yet, since the subsistent is not adequately2 the same as its constitutive principles, it remains the same in its subsistent identity even though, within certain limits, its principles may change. (Fs) (notabene)