Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Definition: Natur, natürlich - übernatürlich (natural - supernatural)

Kurzinhalt: Hence, one can define the natural simply as that which falls within the proportion of a given nature, where 'nature' is taken in its strict sense (that is, as constituted by substance).

Textausschnitt: 52/2 Scholastic manuals on grace frequently define 'natural' as that which pertains to a nature constitutively, consequentially, or exigitively. Lonergan lists everything that can be deemed natural according to this definition: (54; Fs)

In a broad sense nature is constituted by substance, the act of existing which follows substance, and the accidents which flow from substance.

There result from nature principally the end, which is an operation or complex of operations, and secondarily those things which are received in the subject either as ordered to the end or as due to the attainment of the end.

Nature has an exigence for the extrinsic conditions of existing [esse] and of existing well [bene esse], that is, so that it may exist and, for the most part, attain its end. (DES:20)

53/2 This itemization, while unobjectionable in itself, cannot qualify as an essential or theoretical definition: it stops short of explaining exactly why the natural is natural. The reason why we say that anything is natural with respect to some being is that it is proportionate to that being's nature. Hence, one can define the natural simply as that which falls within the proportion of a given nature, where 'nature' is taken in its strict sense (that is, as constituted by substance). This definition establishes analytically or theoretically what the other, despite its sheen of technical terminology, only enumerates (DES:20). Still, both refer to the same object: (54; Fs)