Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Wort: inneres - äußeres

Index: das innere Wort: einfach - zusammengesetzt;

Kurzinhalt: ... whatever we intellectually grasp we also utter or express or manifest in an inner word. But it is one thing to grasp a cause or a reason, and something else to grasp the sufficiency of evidence.

Text: 31c Second, whatever we intellectually grasp we also utter or express or manifest in an inner word. But it is one thing to grasp a cause or a reason, and something else to grasp the sufficiency of evidence. So there are two inner words. The first, by which something is defined in terms of its grasped cause or reason, is called the simple inner word. The second, by which what has been defined is affirmed or denied to exist, is called the compound inner word. And so, just as the understanding in the first operation is in itself neither true nor false, so also the simple inner word in which this understanding is expressed is in itself neither true nor false. (Fs)

31d Third, what we conceive in an inner word we also express in outer words; and since a sample inner word is true or false potentially, the outer words themselves also are often said to be true or false by metonymy. But this can be misleading even in this usage: one can pay more attention to the words themselves than to the intention of the speaker. If the compound inner word of affirmation or negation has not occurred, then outer words express only a simple inner word, whereby a definition or a hypothesis is considered, or some other person's idea is repeated; then of course even if there are many outer words, even if all are taken together, even if they contain the words 'is' or 'is not,' still those outer words cannot be either true or false, since they do not carry an intention to assert something, but only to consider or repeat an idea. Thus, the outer words that express theological understanding as such are not true or false even by metonymy. (Fs)

Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Wort - Einsicht

Index: das Wort fügt nichts zur Einsicht hinzu

Kurzinhalt: ... the word can add no clarity and no distinctness above understanding, since the word is merely the expression of what becomes known through the act of understanding.

Text: 211a The distinction is explained in the following manner. Of itself, the word can add no clarity and no distinctness above understanding, since the word is merely the expression of what becomes known through the act of understanding. In an incidental manner, however, words are necessary for clarity and distinctness when there are many diverse and imperfect acts of understanding; and so if there were no words in us, we should hardly be able to know what we have already grasped and what remains to be investigated. (Fs) (notabene)

Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Wort, Notwendigkeit

Index: Notwendigkeit des Wortes im Menschen (4 Gründe)

Kurzinhalt: A first reason, then, that a word is necessary in us is to enable us to proceed from a grasp of a cause or quiddity to a conception of a thing. For we are moved to an act of understanding by the causes or quiddities of things;

Text: 207e A first reason, then, that a word is necessary in us is to enable us to proceed from a grasp of a cause or quiddity to a conception of a thing. For we are moved to an act of understanding by the causes or quiddities of things; but these causes or quiddities are not the things themselves, but parts or relations of the things; so the first reason that a word is necessary in us is so that from having grasped a quiddity, we may proceed to a thing as quidditatively defined. (Fs)
209a A second reason is to enable us to proceed from definitions and from a grasp of evidence to things as existing. This does not occur unless from a grasp of evidence there proceeds a true affirmation in which, as in a medium, being is known.1 (Fs)

209b A third reason is to enable us to cultivate the sciences. For if universal words were not being produced we would never be able to know the whole visible universe; rather, we would be confined to experienced or imagined particulars. Again, if exactly defined words were not being produced, we would be tossed about by the flow of images after the manner of the mythic mentality, since it would never be clearly and distinctly determined what we were talking about. (Fs)
209c A fourth and final reason is to enable us to proceed beyond the limits of the visible universe by means of analogies and the way of eminence. One could never so proceed unless interior words were being formed both for defining and for judging. (Fs)

209d These four reasons for the necessity of a word have this common source, that the object that moves us to the act of understanding is different from the object toward which we tend as toward a goal. For the object that moves our intellect in this life is the quiddity of a material thing; but the goal toward which intellect tends is the totality of being. Because we begin from a quiddity, the word is required, first, so that the thing may be defined through its quiddity; second, so that we may judge whether what we have defined exists; third, so that we may be directed away from sensibly perceived particulars toward the entirety of the visible universe; and fourth, so that we may be able to reach beyond the material world to God. (Fs)

Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Wort - Dualität: Subjekt, Objekt

Index: Falsches Verständnis von Sein (Objekt - Subjekt): Plato, Scotus, Rosmini, Satre; intellectus in actu ...;

Kurzinhalt:

Text: 211b Objection: The duality of subject and object is intrinsic to the very idea of knowledge. Therefore, if the divine subject were not to utter a word, he would not be able to know himself. But God knows himself. Therefore, he utters a word. (Fs; tblVrw)

Response: The principle presupposed is simply false and has no basis other than imagining a person looking and the object looked at. (Fs)

211c Because of this presupposed principle, the Platonists postulated simple, subsistent, eternal Ideas in a first order, and on the second level the gods who contemplated the Ideas. Because of the same principle, Scotus posited his formal distinction a parte rei, as will be clear below. Because of the same principle, Anton Günther and Antonio Rosmini thought they had discovered a demonstration of the divine Word. Because of the same principle, Jean-Paul Sartre distinguishes between en soi and pour soi in such a way that he impugns as contradictory a God who is real, who is conscious of himself, and who is simple. Because of the same principle, consciousness is conceived as perception of oneself, a view that leads to insoluble difficulties regarding the consciousness of Christ.1 (Fs) (notabene)

211d Aristotelian and Thomist principles are entirely opposed to this supposed principle. For the intelligible in act is the intelligent in act.2 The intelligent and the understood are the same in those things that are without matter. Accordingly, the only reason why the intellect and the intelligible object are not the same is that both are in potency.3 (Fs)

Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Wort: inneres - äußeres

Index: "Ding" (bezeichnet) - Inneres Wort (bezeichnend und bezeichnet) - äußeres W. (bezeichnend); Unterschied: Akt des Verstehens - inneres W.

Kurzinhalt: Hence, primarily and per se outer words, whether spoken or written or present in the imagination, signify and are not signified. Things, on the other hand, are signified, but primarily and per se do not signify. Inner words, however, both signify and ...

Text: 2 The Object of the Intellect as End and Term

563a The object of the intellect as its end is being, in the widest sense of the word. For the intellect is that which can make and become all things, and 'all' is not restricted to any genus. Summa theologiae, 1, q. 79, a. 7 c. (Fs; tblVrw)

But the object of the intellect as the term produced within the intellect itself is the 'word of the heart' or 'inner word.' And since there are two intellectual operations, there are also two terms produced immanently, namely, the simple word or definition and the compound word or proposition,1 that is, the true or the false. De veritate, q. 4, a. 2; q. 3, a. 2; De potentia, q. 8, a. 1; q. 9, a. 5; Quaestiones quodlibetales, 5, a. 9; Super loannem, c. 1, lect. 1. (Fs)

563b The existence of these inner words is proven from the meaning of outer words. We speak of 'man' or 'triangle,' and we surely mean something by these words. Unless, therefore, you believe that universals subsist as real entities, you will necessarily conclude that universals are conceived in the mind and signified directly and immediately by external words. Again, human speech states what is true and what is false. What, then, is signified directly and immediately by a false statement? Unless along with the neo-positivists you maintain that false statements signify nothing, you will necessarily acknowledge a compound word formed inwardly in the mind and signified directly and immediately in an external statement. Finally, we all hold that human speech also signifies things, and yet we do not accept anything unless it is true. But the true and the false are in the mind; truth, in fact, is formally only in a judgment. Again, therefore, one must conclude that outer words signify things, not immediately, of course, but through the medium of inner words that are true. (Fs)

563c Hence, primarily and per se outer words, whether spoken or written or present in the imagination, signify and are not signified. Things, on the other hand, are signified, but primarily and per se do not signify. Inner words, however, both signify and are signified: they are signified by outer words, and signify things themselves. (Fs) (notabene)

563d For this reason one must be careful not to confuse inner words either with the act of understanding or with thinking, defining, supposing, considering, affirming, or denying. An inner word is that which is understood, is thought, is defined, is supposed, is considered, is affirmed, is denied-not, of course, according to its natural existence but according to its intentional existence. Intentional existence is the medium in which a thing is known. (Fs) (notabene)
565a Furthermore, an inner word is not noesis but a noema, not la pensée pensante but la pensée pensée, not an intending intention but an intended intention, not the intention of the one understanding, but the intention understood.2

Stichwort: Wort

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

Titel: Inneres Wort - Notwendigkeit

Index: Akt d. Vestehens; Notwendigkeit des Wortes 2; Objekt als Beweger - als Ziel: vierfache Notwendigkeit d. Wortes (weil das Ziel d. Intellekts weiter ist als das O. als Beweger); Unmöglichkeit des Beweises d. Wortes in Gott

Kurzinhalt: For we have established the necessity of a word in us because of the fact that the object of our intellect as its end is broader than the object that moves it.

Text: 7 The Necessity for the Word

597a There is one object that activates our intellect in this present state of existence and another more extensive object to which our intellect tends, and this is why it is necessary for us to form inner words. (Fs)

598b That which moves our intellect in the present state is its proper object, the quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 84, a. 7 c), which is known primarily and per se (ibid. q. 85, a. 8 a), which is known first (ibid. q. 87, a. 3 c), and is the first thing understood by us in our present state (ibid. q. 88, a. 3 c). (Fs)

598c Note here that this first object is not the species received in the possible intellect (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 85, a. 2 c), nor the act of understanding, nor a definition or inner word, but an external reality, the nature of some material thing (ibid. q. 87, a. 3 c). And since this object moving [the intellect] is restricted to that to which the phantasm stands as the matter of the cause, therefore 'in this present state of life, neither through the possible intellect nor through the agent intellect can we understand immaterial substances in themselves' (ibid. q. 88, a. 1 c.) and 'much less can [the human intellect] understand the essence of the uncreated substance' (ibid. a. 3 c). (Fs) (notabene)
598d But the object to which the intellect tends as to its end is not any genus of things but is being in its widest extension. The intellect is that which can become all things, and 'all' is unrestricted (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 79, a. 7 a). This object, since it is founded upon the very nature of the intellect, is known by us naturally and per se (Summa contra Gentiles, 2, c. 83, ¶31, §1678) and cannot be unknown to us (De veritate, q. 11, a. 1, ad 3m), but is known immediately by the light of the agent intellect (ibid. c). (Fs)

599a We can come to understand the meaning of 'known naturally' both from principles that are known naturally and from our own experience. For principles that are known naturally are grounded upon the meaning of being (Summa contra Gentiles, 2, c. 83, ¶31, §1678; Summa theologiae, 1-2, q. 66, a. 5, ad 4m); a habit regarding them 'is, in a way, innate in our minds by the light of the agent intellect' (Super II Sententiarum, d. 24, q. 2, a. 3 sol; De veritate, q. 8, a. 15 c.) and is more comparable to an infused than to an acquired habit (Super III Sententiarum, d. 23, q. 3, a. 2, ad im). This is confirmed by experience. Children are neither taught nor do they learn to ask, Is it? and Why? about everything; when they do so, they are asking about being with respect to its existence and its essence. (Fs) (notabene)

599b From this difference between the object moving the intellect and the object as its end, a fourfold necessity for the word becomes clear. (Fs)

First, since both God and separate substances fall within being taken in its broadest extent and yet do not move our intellect in our present state of life, we need inner words as means in which to know them analogically. Hence, we do know God in this life inasmuch as from his effects we know 'that this statement which we form about God when we say, "God exists," is true' (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2m). (Fs) (notabene)

599b Second, it is proper to the intellect to apprehend many things as a unity. But a multitude of material objects cannot be represented simultaneously in a phantasm, and therefore in order to achieve a philosophic or scientific synthesis we need inner words to express many things together. (Fs) (notabene)

599c Third, material things consist not only of form or essence or quiddity but also of another principle called esse or existence. This principle is known in the second intellectual operation when we answer the question, Is it? But the question, Is it? is not properly put unless we first define what it is we are asking about, and therefore the forming of inner words is necessary for us to know material things as to their quiddity and their existence. (Fs) (notabene)

599d Fourth, the proper object of our intellect is the quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter. But unless we form an inner word, only the quiddity or nature will be known to us directly through our intellect, and only the corporeal matter through our senses or through a phantasm. But the requirement is that a thing, a unity in itself, become known through one intellectual knowing, and for this the forming of a word is necessary. St Thomas indicates this: 'Therefore what is primarily and per se understood is that which the intellect conceives within itself about the object understood, that is, either a definition or a proposition ...' (De potentia, q. 9, a. 5 c.) (Fs) (notabene)

599e From all that we have been saying, it is immediately evident that by the light of reason alone we cannot demonstrate the existence of the Word in God. For we have established the necessity of a word in us because of the fact that the object of our intellect as its end is broader than the object that moves it. But God is neither moved by anything nor tends to an end. He himself is by identity both existence itself and understanding itself. And because he perfectly understands himself, he perfectly understands both his power and all that lies within the scope of his power. Nor is there within him any discursive reasoning, but in one act and one intuition he comprehends both himself and all other things (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 14). For this reason, then, we say that only by faith do we hold that there is a Word in God (De veritate, q. 4, a. 2, ad 5m; De potentia, q. 8, a. 1, ad 12m; Summa theologiae, 1, q. 32, a. 1, ad 2m). (Fs)

Stichwort: Wort

Autor, Quelle: Sokolowski, Robert, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure

Titel: Offenbarung - Wort, Glaube

Index: Vermittlung d. biblischen Sinnes von Gott: durch Hören (d. Wortes), nicht durch Erfahrung

Kurzinhalt: "Supernatural reality can display itself only through the medium of the human word, as long as it cannot present itself in its own proper reality... in the immediate vision of God." ... The words and the statement come before understanding; hearing ...

Text: 41a We must also add that the radical biblical sense of God comes through hearing and not through direct experience. The gods of, say, thunder and lightning, birth and death, or harvest and nourishment are perceived as the powers immanent in such things, but the God who could be even if there were no world cannot be differentiated from the world by any human perception. We have to be told about him and he must be revealed to us. As Rahner says, "Supernatural reality can display itself only through the medium of the human word, as long as it cannot present itself in its own proper reality... in the immediate vision of God."1 For this reason, the statement "God could be all that there is" is not a report arising from our own experience. It is not the case that we first experience what is meant in this statement by the term "God," and that we then express the feature we have discovered; rather, the full statement comes first, and we are told that we must understand the subject of the sentence in such a way that the statement can be accepted as true. The words and the statement come before understanding; hearing precedes faith (Romans 10:17). (Fs: tblStw: Wort) (notabene)