Stichwort: Schöpfung, Zeit, Ewigkeit

Autor, Quelle: Köhler, Okskar, Saeculum Weltgeschichte Bd. 7

Titel: Zeit - ausdehnungslose Gegenwart (Proust)

Index: Ewigkeit: in sich zurückgewandte Zeit; Nietzsche, Proust; Auflösung der Zeit

Kurzinhalt: Ein umfassender Horizont für die Frage nach der Wirklichkeit ist die Frage nach der Realität der Zeit ... Es gibt da keine Erinnerung, die Geschehenes zugleich in seiner Zeit läßt und es vergegenwärtigt, sondern nur die zeitlose Gegenwart

Text: 419a Von dem konservativen englischen Essayisten Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936) stammt die Bemerkung: "Eternity the largest of the idols"; sie ist eine komplementäre Charakteristik zu Friedrich Nietzsches Zeitdiagnose vom "Idiotismus" des Zählens, Wagens und Greifens. Denn wenn man lange genug gezählt, gewogen und gegriffen hat in der Erwartung, einmal alles gezählt, gewogen und gegriffen zu haben und endlich über die ganze Wirklichkeit zu verfügen, kommt man unversehens am anderen Ende in die Ewigkeit des "Innen", die R. M. Rilke einmal im Blick der Tiere zu sehen geglaubt hatte, und die der Mensch "allmählich ein wenig spürt", im Nachholen des "mühsamen Totseins". Diese "Ewigkeit" hat nicht das Geringste gemein mit dem "per omnia saecula saeculorum" der trinitarischen Formel, schon bei den Romantikern nicht, deren christlich klingende Rede nicht scharf genug analysiert werden kann. F. Schlegels "Sehnsucht nach dem Unendlichen" ist nicht das cor inquietum Augustins, sondern erstreckt sich in den gekrümmten Raum des Universums, biegt sich in sich selbst zurück, in ihr Innen; und wenn Novalis das Unendliche "etwas Bestimmtes und Unbestimmtes zugleich" nennt, dann kommt es entscheidend auf dieses "zugleich" an, für das es keinen Aufstieg vom Unbestimmten zum Bestimmteren und schließlich absolut Bestimmten geben kann. Ewigkeit ist die in sich zurückgewandte Zeit. (Fs) (notabene)

419b Diese Reaktion auf die Philosophie Immanuel Kants ist merkwürdig. Daß der Mensch in seiner Endlichkeit nicht absolut erkennen, daß er nicht zu dem Wahren, dem Guten, dem Schönen transzendieren kann, dahinter geht kein Weg zurück; aber die Angewiesenheit des Menschen auf die sinnliche Affektion und die Begrenzung seiner Verstandes- und Vernunfterkenntnis auf die apriorischen Kategorien und die nur regulativen Ideen kann der Mensch gleichsam nicht durchhalten. Das "Noumenon" - im Sinne Kants das unerkennbar nur Gedachte im Unterschied zum "objektiv Wirklichen" - bleibt zwar der rationalen Erkenntnis verschlossen, ist aber auf der Rückseite der Phainomena da und kann sich arational vernehmbar machen. Das Medium ist für die Romantik der Traum, für die neuere Zeit das Unbewußte; daß der Traum und das Unbewußte Gegenstand psychologischer Analyse sind und zugleich Vermittlung im schöpferischen Akt, kann widerspruchslos nebeneinander bestehen. Daß "die 'absolute' Kunst die dem Zeitalter der analytischen Wissenschaft zugeordnete Kunstgestalt ist" (H. Sedlmayr), wirft die Frage nach dem Grund dieser Zuordnung auf, da es abwegig wäre, diese Kunst aus der Wissenschaftlichkeit abzuleiten. Kunst und Wissenschaft wollen beide in je ihrer Weise die "Wirklichkeit" der Welt hervorbringen, die abhanden gekommen ist. (Fs)


420a Ein umfassender Horizont für die Frage nach der Wirklichkeit ist die Frage nach der Realität der Zeit. In der Kantschen Philosophie, auch hier als Ausgangspunkt aufschlußreich, ist die Zeit wie der Raum das Apriori des anschauenden Subjekts, ist sie nichts an den Dingen selbst und auch nichts als solche selbst. Die Zeit ist im Menschen, sie ist ihm als die Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Erkenntnis mitgegeben, weil er in ihr das ihn Affizierende zu ordnen vermag. Deshalb kann der Mensch auch erzählen, kann er sagen, was geschah und was dann geschah, und im Plusquamperfekt, was vorher geschehen war. Auch ohne die Ewigkeit der Götter oder der Ideen kann die ganze Welt im Roman erzählt werden, solange die Zeit dem Menschen mitgegeben ist und in ihr alles sein Voreinander und sein Nacheinander hat. Es ist mehr als ein literaturgeschichtliches Ereignis, als Flaubert einen "roman sans sujet" schreiben wollte, die Zeit also abgelöst werden sollte vom anschauenden Subjekt, selbst Gegenstand werden sollte. Diese Ablösung geht parallel mit der Ablösung aus der Gesellschaft, mit der Trennung zwischen der äußeren und der inneren Welt. Th. Mann wird schließlich fragen: "Kann man die Zeit erzählen, diese selbst, als solche, an und für sich?" Zunächst scheint es so zu sein, daß die Entdeckung der "inneren Zeit", der nicht von der physischen Zeit bestimmten seelischen Zeit, eine anthropomorphe Wendung der Zeit bedeutet, die als individuell erlebte nicht aufgeht in der allgemeinen Kategorie "Zeit" als der apriorischen Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Erkenntnis. Aber die (schon im 18. Jahrhundert einsetzende) Schichtung der inneren Zeit nach ihren Erlebnisqualitäten und Erlebnisbezügen und die Entwicklung darstellerischer Methoden, mit denen die Gleichzeitigkeit verschiedenen Geschehens (auch in ein und derselben Person, etwa im "Ulysses") erfaßt werden sollte, die aber notwendig die alte Erzählung in Fetzen aufsplitterte, führte in ihrer Konsequenz zu einer Enthumanisierung der Zeit, nämlich zur "ausdehnungslosen Gegenwart", die Thomas Mann meisterhaft als die Zeit des Sanatoriums in Davos, des "Zauberbergs", exemplarisch vorführt. Denn die ausdehnungslose Gegenwart ist die "Zeit" der Götter, aber nicht die menschliche. Die innerliche Zeit, die kein horizontales Vorher und Nachher hat, sondern vertikale Schichten der Gegenwart, ist nicht nur eine andere als die physische, sondern vor allem eine andere als die geschichtliche Zeit. Es gibt da keine Erinnerung, die Geschehenes zugleich in seiner Zeit läßt und es vergegenwärtigt, sondern nur die zeitlose Gegenwart. Geschichte ist nicht ohne Chronologie. "Das scheinbar Vergangene persönlichen Lebens wurde in den Tiefen eines lebendigen Gedächtnisses gegenwärtig entdeckt. Das historisch Gewesene sollte durch die Annahme einer Kreisbewegung der Zeit, einer homologischen Wiederkehr alles Geschehens, in das Heute hereingeholt und mit der Gegenwart verschmolzen werden. Beiderlei Art von Simultaneität hebt die Zeit auf" (E. Kahler). (Fs)

421a Diese Zeit-losigkeit ist das "Ewigkeits"-Substrat des "Innen", ist die "Zeit" der Rückseite der Erscheinungen, dem Menschen abgewandt. "J'avais le vertige de voir au-dessous de moi, en moi pourtant, comme si j'avais des lieues de hauteur, tant d'années." Hat M. Proust in seiner Ich-Erzählung "A la recherche du temps perdu" (seit 1913) seine Identität wiedergefunden, zwischen dem audessous de moi und den lieues de hauteur, tant d'années? Kann sich das Vergangene zu einer Lebensgeschichte versammeln - mit all ihren Biegungen, Brüchen, Katastrophen, gewiß, aber doch auch ihren Fügungen -, wenn das Vergangene durch sinnliche Assoziationen zufällig provoziert wird, wenn "irgendeine" Begegnung eine "Leuchtwirkung" auslöst, "die einen Bezirk des Vergessenen bestrahlt" (E. R. Curtius)? Ist die so in Erinnerung geratene Zeit die Zeit des Erinnernden - oder ist die erlebte Zeit in Wahrheit ohne Subjekt und ergreift sie umgekehrt den Menschen in der unheimlichen Willkür der "Eternity"? "A l'intérieur de leurs passions, ils ne font rien: ils sont passifs, ils subissent les événements sans exercer aucune action sur eux", so charakterisiert P. Claudel die Gestalten Prousts und bezeichnet mit ihrer Passivität genau deren Verhältnis zur Zeit. Wenn praeteritum, praesens und futurum ihren kategorialen funktionalen Bezug verlieren, dann handelt es sich nicht um ein grammatikalisches Problem der "consecutio temporum", das literarisch aufgelöst werden kann; der Mensch verliert seine persönliche Geschichte und seine Identität, wenn er die Geschichte verliert. Sie kommt dann über ihn als "ausdehnungslose Gegenwart". Daß Proust wegen seiner krankhaften Geräuschempfindlichkeit die Wohnung mit Korkplatten verkleiden mußte, ist eine biographische Einzelheit; aber sie versinnlicht einen überindividuellen Sachverhalt: daß der Kommunikationslärm in die Isolierung zwingt, in die Gesellschaftslosigkeit, in die Zeitlosigkeit. Wartet dort der Gott Saturn, wie ihn Goya 1817 gemalt hat, Eternity the largest of the idols? (Fs) (notabene)

421b E. R. Curtius hat gemeint, bei Proust habe "die Kunst etwas von ihrer Isoliertheit, das Leben etwas von seiner Realität verloren", und aus der Verflüssigung der Grenzen zwischen beiden sei "eine höhere Wirklichkeit der Seele" hervorgegangen. Diese höhere Wirklichkeit der Seele, in die hinein die Zeit verinnerlicht wird, ist auch die Gegend, in die hinein die Dinge verschwinden und dabei ihre Identifizierbarkeit verlieren. Man kann es an der Geschichte des Romanes ablesen, dessen Ausdruckschance gerade darin bestanden hatte, daß er die Dinge beschreiben konnte, wohl immer in ihren Bezügen zum Menschen, aber doch so, daß sie in ihrer eigenen Realität erscheinen konnten, in verschiedenen Aspekten, einmal profiliert, einmal im Helldunkel ihrer Bedeutung gelassen. Bei Adalbert Stifter (Seite 381) tritt der Mensch mit seinen Leidenschaften geradezu hinter den Dingen zurück, die mehr sind als Zubehör, die vielmehr haltende Zeichen des Daseins sind, die natürlichen Dinge und auch die vom Menschen geschaffenen. Die Veränderung setzt ein, als sich der Zwiespalt zwischen der Welt- und Selbstdeutung und der mit den Dingen bedenkenlos agierenden Arbeitsgesellschaft auftat und sich immer mehr ausweitete. (Fs)

Stichwort: Schöpfung, Zeit, Ewigkeit

Autor, Quelle: Schindler, David C., Jun, The Catholicity of Reason

Titel: Schöpfung - Ewigkeit - Substanz

Index: Kausalität 6i; Ewigkeit der Welt (Aristoteles) - Thomas; Nicht-Sein nicht zeitlich "früher" als Sein (Ordnung der Zeit d. Natur); Substanz transzendiert Zeit: Th.: Ewigkeit unterschieden von Zeit durch Prinzip der Ganzheit

Kurzinhalt: Composite wholes — whether we call them substances in Aristotle's sense or subsistent beings in Aquinas's — remain absolute in the doctrine of creation, which means that this doctrine entails an integrated notion of causality.

Text: 156b There are some who believe that Aquinas means to present this ancient view as a possibility for reason; guided by the Christian faith, however, which affirms the creation in time of all things and so denies the eternity of the world, we ought to reject this possibility in favor of the other reasonable possibility, namely, that all things come to be in time. If this were the case, one would wonder why he would write an entire treatise on behalf of a position he considers false.1 But there is another way to interpret Aquinas regarding this question. If we consider Aquinas's metaphysical exposition of creation in the Summa, we realize that, for Aquinas, this ancient philosophical notion regarding the eternity of the world is and remains in some respect true, even if this truth does not contradict the affirmation that all things have come to be. We are approaching the height of paradox here, but it is reason that is leading us to it. One of the constant themes in Aquinas's exposition of the notion of creation is that the proper terminus of God's creative act is the particular subsistent being, what Aristotle calls the substance: "Creation does not mean the building up of a composite thing from pre-existing principles; but it means that the composite is created so that it is brought into being at the same time with all of its principles."2 The reason for this is that we can attribute being to parts — for example, to form and to matter — only analogously insofar as they contribute to the reality of things. But being belongs in the proper sense "to that which has being — that is, to what subsists in its own being."3 Aquinas in other words affirms Aristotle's notion that it is wholes, composite beings, that are what is most real, and that other aspects of the world have their reality always relative to these wholes. In this respect, a human being would be more real, for example, than the genes that make him up. He is more real than an atom, or indeed even more than a rock or a tree, insofar as a human being has more independence than they. Composite wholes — whether we call them substances in Aristotle's sense or subsistent beings in Aquinas's — remain absolute in the doctrine of creation, which means that this doctrine entails an integrated notion of causality. (Fs; tblStw: Substanz, Zeit)

Fußnote 1 oben: 31. "Further, let us even suppose that the preposition 'out of' imports some affirmative order of non-being to being, as if the proposition that the creature is made out of nothing meant that the creature is made after nothing. Then this expression 'after' certainly implies order, but order is of two kinds: order of time and order of nature. If, therefore, the proper and the particular does not follow from the common and the universal, it will not necessarily follow that, because the creature is made after nothing, non-being is temporally prior to the being of the creature. Rather, it suffices that non-being be prior to being by nature. Now, whatever naturally pertains to something in itself is prior to what that thing only receives from another. A creature does not have being, however, except from another, for, considered in itself, every creature is nothing, and thus, with respect to the creature, non-being is prior to being by nature. Nor does it follow from the creature's always having existed that its being and non-being are ever simultaneous, as if the creature always existed but at some time nothing existed, for the priority is not one of time. Rather, the argument merely requires that the nature of the creature is such that, if the creature were left to itself, it would be nothing." On the Eternity of the World, trans. Robert T. Miller.

157a The question that arises, here, is whether this absoluteness of wholes presents a difficulty for the temporal coming to be of the world that is entailed in the Christian belief in creation in time. On the one hand, Aquinas affirms that substances as such imply the transcendence of time — "time does not measure the substance of things"4 — and for this reason, because demonstration concerns the essence of things (which represents their non-temporal aspect), creation in time cannot be demonstrated. This implies that a "supra-temporal" aspect of being is essential to its intelligibility, which is what we have argued with respect to the notion of causality. Indeed, Aquinas specifically distinguishes eternity from time by the principle of wholeness: eternity is simultaneously whole, while time is not.5 We may infer from this that, insofar as something is whole, and to that extent it represents something essentially greater than and irreducible to its parts, that thing transcends time. It is important to see the implication: it is not simply a part of a substance — for example, the abstract form or the "ideal" reality of the thing — that transcends time, but that each individual substance must transcend time precisely to the extent that the substance represents an irreducible unity. This does not mean the thing does not exist in time, but only that its temporal reality is not the whole of its reality. Again, it is just this transcendence of time that makes it intelligible. But faith does not contradict reasoning; the light of faith does not obscure the light of reason. This means that the new context into which faith introduces the being of the world preserves the intelligibility, and therefore the time-transcending character, of being even as it transforms it. The sharpest question we must ask, then, is how does the origin in time of things not eliminate the supra-temporal integrity of their intelligible reality? (Fs) (notabene)

158a We cannot here explore this question in all the depth that it demands, but we may nonetheless draw principles of a response to it from Aquinas. Precisely because substance necessarily has an "all at once" quality, it cannot as we said come into being incrementally. Moreover, insofar as creation is a divine act, it does not itself take place in time, as a movement or a change, which always implies the succession of moments. Thus, Aquinas affirms that the world is created simultaneously with time: "Things are said to be created in the beginning of time ... because together with time heaven and earth were created."6 Indeed, God does not "take time," as it were, to create, but rather "He must be considered as giving time to His effect as much as and when He willed."7 It is manifestly not the case that, for example, the matter is first created as a potential to receive at a later moment the form that actualizes it. This would leave form and matter extrinsic to each other in a way that would not allow us to make sense of organic beings, the epitome of the real. To the contrary, not only is no matter present prior to God's creation of subsistent beings, but no possibility is present — or rather, if there is a possibility it lies wholly in God's will.8 God does not operate within the limits of the conditions of possibility, but he gives those conditions in giving being. It is in this sense that each real, subsistent being is created "all at once," specifically as a whole. (Fs)

Stichwort: Schöpfung, Zeit, Ewigkeit

Autor, Quelle: Schindler, David C., Jun, The Catholicity of Reason

Titel: Schöpfung - Zeit - Evolution

Index: Kausalität 6j; Schöpfung - Zeit - Substanz - esse; Sein als Aktualität, begrenzt durch Form; S.: vertikale - horizontale Entfaltung; Möglichkeitsbedingung d. S. nicht vorher in der Zeit, sondern Natur; Evolution fordert Schöpfung

Kurzinhalt: if there is a subsistent being at all, its conditions of possibility were not given merely in the temporal moment prior to its actuality, but rather that its possibility is given simultaneously with its actuality, which transcends time by definition.

Text: 159a Now, while we might be able to imagine in some distant way that God created the world together with time in the distant past, it does not seem to be the case that individual beings are created "immediately," in the manner described. If they were, we would expect to see beings "pop up" into existence literally "out of nowhere." Is it not the case that the beings that make up the world have come to be gradually insofar as they evidently did not exist at the beginning of the universe — something that not only modern science, but Aquinas too seems to have held?9 If this is the case, it seems to contradict the claim we have repeatedly made that substances have an absolute character that does not allow them to be reduced back to anything less than they. There are two points to make in response to this difficulty: first, the absoluteness of substance precludes a "coming to be" from below, but does not preclude a coming to be, so to speak, from above. But such a "coming to be" requires a kind of actuality that is distinct from, and indeed superior to, the actuality of form. Aquinas presents this kind of actuality in his notion of esse, the existence that God shares with the beings he makes be, or the act by which all forms themselves are actualized.10 Esse, according to Aquinas, is formal with respect to all form because it is the actuality of all (formal) acts.11 In this respect, it is that to which the actuality of real beings can be reduced. It is not a potentiality out of which forms are generated "from below," but is rather an excess, so to speak, of actuality that is limited "from below" by the forms to be actualized.12 Because esse, moreover, is not itself a subsistent being, but is rather a substantial-izing act, the reducibility of form to esse does not eliminate the absoluteness of individual substances. To the contrary, it is precisely what makes them absolute. (Fs) (notabene)

160a The second point to make is a more speculative development: it is true that no substance can exist merely temporally; the sheer multiplicity of time is incompatible with any sort of subsisting being. A fortiori a subsistent being does not come to be merely in time. Once we recognize this we are able to say that, if there is a subsistent being at all, its conditions of possibility were not given merely in the temporal moment prior to its actuality, but rather that its possibility is given simultaneously with its actuality, which transcends time by definition. What this means is that we cannot think of the coming-to-be of substances merely "horizontally," but must rather think of them "vertically" as unfolding in time from above. We will explore this notion more fully in the following chapter. The condition of possibility, in any event, does not precede in time but rather in nature, and the reference point for understanding the process lies not in the first moment, and then each succeeding moment thereafter, but in the form that lies above the temporal process altogether. At the same time, of course, the form reciprocally depends on the temporal process for its coming to be in reality, but this dependence is asymmetrical: the substance's dependence on its history lies so to speak inside the history's dependence on the substance. The passage we cited above expresses this point quite nicely: God gives time to the effect that he creates, which we may read as generously allowing it to develop gradually into what it has always been meant to be. (Fs)

160b The inclusion of the horizontal dimension of being within the vertical dimension allows the possibility of a kind of evolution in the biological sphere, even though it precludes a purely mechanistic account of that evolution. It should be noted that, despite claims to the contrary, evolution cannot in any event be accounted for in wholly mechanistic terms insofar as mechanism excludes the possibility of natural forms and therefore of genuine substances.13 This means, ironically, that not only are creation and evolution not opposed in principle, but in fact evolution requires creation to be intelligible at all as the gradual coming to be of real beings. Chesterton captures this point quite well:

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject of thought. Descartes said, "I think; therefore I am." The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram. He says, "I am not; therefore I cannot think."14

161a The reason that there cannot be evolution without creation is because, as we have seen, there can be no intelligibility of any sort without the absoluteness of substance, which the supra-temporal and indeed the supra-formal act of creation alone — if one does not affirm the eternity of species — makes possible. As we have come to see, this acknowledgment of intelligibility requires an inversion of our normal way of thinking that limits physical being to the flux of time, and demands instead that we see time as belonging to things, as unfolding from above in reference to what transcends things. The physical world does indeed exist in time, but not reductively so: all real beings "stick out" ec-statically into the eternity of the God who made them from nothing and "continues" so to make them. The dis-integration of causes is a natural result of the failure to interpret creation thus metaphysically and the subsequent temporalization of being. A recovery of their integration, a restoration of the wholeness of things and thus the basis of any thinking whatsoever, will therefore require a restoration of a proper sense of being as created. (Fs) (notabene)

Stichwort: Schöpfung, Zeit, Ewigkeit

Autor, Quelle: Schmitz, Kenneth L., ExNihilo

Titel: Schöpfung - Kommunikation, Geschenk

Index: Schöpfung - Geschenk; ex nihilo; agens - recipiens: Ordnung: vorher - nachher; bezügl.: aktive Potenz: Präexistenz d. Geschöpfs im Schöpfer (Beispiel: Michelangelo); K. - Geschenk - Schöpfer; Epiphanie: Akt d. Gebers - empfangener Akt

Kurzinhalt: "In giving esse, God in the same act (simul) produces that which receives it."... creation as the absolute gratuity of the gift undertaken by the creator in endowing the act of being and its conditions.

Text: 125a The order of priority and posteriority between agent and recipient is mirrored in the interior communication within the ontological composite unit itself. For within it, existential act communicates the power of actualization which it receives through the creator's communication. In this endowment the principle of act within the creature (quo est) realizes the potentiality of the creature (quod est). Because of the absolute nature of the communication between creator and creature and also, as a result, within the creature itself, there can be no pre-existing matter or substrate. No potentiality or possibility lies out of the reach of such an absolute cause and principle. Outside that reach is nihil, nothing. The creative communication endows act absolutely: to be rather than not. Yet its product is not simply act: it is an ontological composite, a being. In endowing act, the creator also endows the conditions for the reception of act, gives whatever is needed for the reception of its own communication. "In giving esse, God in the same act (simul) produces that which receives it."1 It is not too paradoxical to say that, before the created world had begun to be, it was not possible for it to be. St. Thomas concedes that we can speak of the possibility of the world prior to its being created, and mean by its possibility that it was not contradictory and impossible. After all, God did not create a contradiction. But the real possibility does not lie with the creature. Before it was created, there was no it in any sense; and so, there could be no possibility for it, no potentiality with respect to it. Relations need terms. It is, simply, ex nihilo: it did not exist, it does exist. But St. Thomas continues: If, on the other hand, we speak, not of the passive capacity of the creature, but rather of the active potency of the creative agent, then we can indeed say that the creature pre-existed itself in the power of its creative agent.2 In the creator, a possibility is nothing passive; it is the determination to create by way of some aspect of his riches, for we are born of his riches, not of our need. By an imperfect analogy, it was not in the capacity of the oils to become glorious under Michelangelo's hands; rather, their glory was resident originally in the power of his artistry. Creation, as it were, is as though, not Michelangelo, but an infinitely greater artist produces all: oils, and design, and the actual shining beauty. (Fs; tblStw: Schöpfung) (notabene)
127a I have tried to make available some thoughts that strike me as signs of the still latent power resident in the conception of creation ex nihilo. It is the conception of the great and continuing "metaphysical event." Much depends upon whether it is true or not, since it directs us to take up the universe as the gift of an intelligent and caring creator; it also directs us to take up our own lives responsibly and with the confidence that the interiority and the depth of beings shine with the benison and the risk of an original and final love. I have left many tasks undone, not the least of them is the great question of the existence and nature of the first principle. But such a task should not be taken up lightly. I have tried instead to accomplish two rather more modest tasks as prelude: to clarify the nature of the absoluteness of creation ex nihilo; and to rebuild a sufficiently rich texture of causality as an aid towards understanding better the nature of creative activity. These two themes have come together in the conception of creation as the absolute gratuity of the gift undertaken by the creator in endowing the act of being and its conditions. The non-reciprocity disclosed by the absolute character of act, as well as of the causality that communicates act, is already indicated in the gift. For in giving and receiving we find a moment of absolute gratuity that points towards act in its purity, and a moment of absolute receptivity that points towards nothing. So that giving and receiving, understood as the communication and reception of act, points towards creation ex nihilo, once the inherent absoluteness of radical presence and radical absence has been translated into original act (esse) and original potency (praeter esse) in the creative communication that founds the ontological composite unit, the creature. (Fs)
128a The several aspects of causality are transformed by the privative ex nihilo. It is the badge of the absolute character of creative power in its fullest. In the utter contrast provided by this absolute privation, the aspects of causality, act, form and finality, are themselves disclosed as absolute. The element of power (act) is absolutized, since it needs no pre-existing matter or energy with which to do its work. But the original knowing love is also absolutized, and with it the aspect of finality (the good). In its freedom, this love is bound by no conditions that escape it, or that it does not set for itself. It thereby freely transforms the moment of gratuity in the gift as we know it into its own highest, most intelligent and caring power. For its bounty is uncalled for: this is our absolute privation, and the challenge to receive ourselves well. And its effect is the very being of creatures in the world: this is our esse in actu. Reflection upon creation leads us to the centre of the world. (Fs)
129a We might wish that our philosophical notions were less encumbered by the situation of our being and the experiences of our life. But the conception of creation draws upon deep and sometimes obscure sources. Now, it is characteristic of important and fundamental notions that they arise in the drama of human existence. This is not surprising, however, for they underly issues of great import that test our intelligence and our character: to be or not to be; to be good or evil; to be free or enslaved; to live or die; to know or not know. These conceptions are tempered by sorrow over evil, by grief over the seeming finality of death, but are also lifted by an insistent hope, or a grateful joy. It is characteristic of such important conceptions that they retain their original tensions, even after extensive analysis. They are, in Marcel's sense of the word, ineluctably mysterious.3 Not that we are simply ignorant regarding the conception of creation, for we know a good deal. Yet it continues to draw the mind towards it by the power of a presence that remains hidden even while it reveals something of itself. Now this presence is the nature of truth insofar as it emanates from a mystery. For the question of origins is not to be settled once and for all by verification or demonstration; but it pronounces itself by its power to hold the mind and not to let it go. Again and again, it draws us by a presence within it that is too deep for such dispatch. In creation ex nihilo the very unity of each creature and of the world itself is given. In that giving, an absolute inequality between giver and receiver is itself transcended by the generosity of the communication which intends the freedom and the integrity of the creature. No straightforward reciprocity is possible; only the receptivity on the part of the creature. This receptivity is the continuing opportunity in which the creature finds the integrity already given to it to be realized in its career, and by the human creature in his biography and history. The generosity of the creative giver grounds the absolute character of the act that is given. The glory of the giver shines as an epiphany in the similitude between the Act that gives and the act that is received. The finality of the donation is at once the good of the creature and the goodness of the donor. The question of origins has suggested a path of reflection that carries along towards understanding origination to be the endowment of a being out of nothing in and through the continual knowing and loving communication of absolute act. It is not without risk and not without promise. (E14, 17.11.2014)

Stichwort: Schöpfung, Zeit, Ewigkeit

Autor, Quelle: Spaemann, Robert, Das unsterbliche Gerücht

Titel: Glaube an Schöpfer - Einheit zweier unbedingter Antinomien

Index: Gottesgerücht 02; Gott: Einheit der Prädikate »mächtig« und »gut«; Ort d. Ursprungs als Ort d. Wahrheit vom Standpunkt Gottes aus; Antinomie: Unbedingtheit des Guten - U. dessen, was ist, wie es ist; Einheit d. unbedingten Macht u. d. schlechthin Guten

Kurzinhalt: ... daß das Sein der Dinge und das Leben der Sterblichen weder notwendig noch die Folge eines universellen Trägheitsprinzips ist, sondern in jedem Augenblick Hervorgang aus dem Ursprung. Der Ort des Ursprungs aber ist zugleich der Ort der Wahrheit ...

Text: 17a
10. Ehe man nach dem Interesse an der Wahrheit oder Nichtwahrheit des Gottesgerüchts fragt, ist es gut, genauer zu fragen, was dieses Gerücht genauer besagt. Was meint der, der denkt, daß Gott ist? Es handelt sich um eine synthetische, nicht um eine analytische Wahrheit. Es handelt sich um die wesentliche und notwendige Einheit zweier Prädikate, die empirisch oft getrennt und nur manchmal und in kontingenter Weise zusammen auftreten, die Einheit der Prädikate »mächtig« und »gut«. Wer glaubt, daß Gott ist, glaubt, daß das, was der Fall ist, die Welt unserer Erfahrung einschließlich seiner selbst, eine »Tiefe«, eine Dimension hat, die sich der Erfahrung, auch der introspektiven, entzieht. Diese Dimension ist der Ort, wo das, was ist, aus seinem Ursprung hervorgeht. Und zwar nicht im Sinne eines zeitlichen Folgens auf Antezedensbedingungen, sondern als gemeinsames Hervorgehen mit den Entstehungsbedingungen und zugleich als Emanzipation von diesen, also als Selbstsein. An einen Schöpfer glauben heißt glauben, daß das Sein der Dinge und das Leben der Sterblichen weder notwendig noch die Folge eines universellen Trägheitsprinzips ist, sondern in jedem Augenblick Hervorgang aus dem Ursprung. Der Ort des Ursprungs aber ist zugleich der Ort der Wahrheit, der Dinge an sich, der Welt vom Gottesstandpunkt aus, wobei unentschieden sein kann, ob dieser Standpunkt uns im Prinzip zugänglich ist oder nicht. (Fs; tblStw: Schöpfung) (notabene)

18a
11. Nicht unentschieden bleiben kann, wie wir selbst an dem, was der Fall ist, mitwirken, was uns zu tun und zu lassen erlaubt ist und was nicht. Die Unbedingtheit, mit der sich dies im Gewissen geltend macht, ist das andere Prädikat, das der meint, der glaubt, daß Gott ist. Darum der Name »Stimme Gottes« für das Gewissen. Diese Unbedingtheit des Guten, die nicht mit sich handeln läßt, steht in einem eigentümlich antinomischen Verhältnis zu jener anderen, zur Unbedingtheit dessen, was ist, wie es ist, das keine Appellation aufgrund irgendeines Sollens zuläßt und mit dem sich abzufinden oder gar anzufreunden immer der Rat des Philosophen war. Der Protest gegen das Universum, gegen den Lauf der Dinge, ist absurd. Und doch ist Unbedingtheit auch dort, wo jemand es in Kauf nimmt, daß der Lauf der Dinge sich gegen ihn kehrt, um an der Stimme des Gewissens keinen Verrat zu begehen. Diese Unbedingtheit ist durch keine Faktizität widerlegbar, so wenig wie diese durch jene. An Gott glauben heißt, die Antinomie der beiden Unbedingtheiten nicht als das letzte Wort gelten lassen. Gott ist, das heißt: Die unbedingte Macht und das schlechthin Gute sind in ihrem Grund und Ursprung eins - ein Exzeß der Harmonisierung vom Standpunkt der alltäglichen Empirie, ein Exzeß der Hoffnung. Die Weigerung, die Alternative zu wählen und das Absurde als letztes Wort hinzunehmen, ist wohl nur zusammen mit Pascals Wort zu haben: »Vere tu es Deus absconditus.« (Fs)