Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Finalität; 4 Arten einer vertikalen Finalität: instrumental (Meißel), dispositiv (Fragen -> Einsicht); material (Evolution), obödiential

Kurzinhalt: ... there is vertical finality, which is 'to an end higher than the proportionate end.

Textausschnitt: eg - verikale Finalität: Finalität, die das proportionierte Ziel (Wesen = vertikale Finalität) übersteigt
eg - 4 Arten einer vertikalen Finalität: instrumental (Meißel), dispositiv (Fragen -> Einsicht); material (Evolution), obödiential

60/2 'Finality' denotes the relation of a thing to its end, where the end motivates an appetite or orients a process precisely because the end is good (FLM:18 [CWL 4:19]). There are three kinds of finality. The first is absolute, an orientation to God who is intrinsic and essential goodness; it is shared identically by every finite being because 'if there is anything to respond to motive or to proceed to term, then its response or tendency can be accounted for ultimately only by the one self-sufficient good.'1 But as creatures differ by reason of their essences, so too does the manner in which they respond to or tend towards God. Hence, there is a second type of finality that is horizontal, which 'is to a motive or term that is proportionate to essence' (FLM:21 [CWL 4:22]). Neither of these first two kinds of finality would sound strange to the ears of a typical Thomist. (56f; Fs)

61/2 Not so with the third kind of finality, for it is a notion that, if it can be found in the writings of Aquinas, is certainly not there in anything like the explicit and generalized form Lonergan gives it.2 Besides absolute finality to God as intrinsic goodness and horizontal finality to the proportionate end that is determined by essence, there is vertical finality, which is 'to an end higher than the proportionate end.'3 That finality can be manifested in four ways (FLM:19-20 [CWL 4:20-21]). First, 'a concrete plurality of lower activities may be instrumental to a higher end in another subject'; this manifestation is illustrated by the movements of a chisel that permit the artist to realize his or her end of producing a sculpture.4 Second, vertical finality may be dispositive, that is, a concrete plurality of lower activities may dispose to a higher end to be realized in the same subject, as when one's questioning and reasoning set the stage for the occurrence of an insight. Third, vertical finality can have a material manifestation, by which Lonergan means that 'a concrete plurality of lower entities may be the material cause from which a higher form is educed or into which a subsistent form is infused'; the former can be illustrated by biological evolution, the latter by the fertilized human ovum. For our purposes, however, the fourth manifestation of vertical finality is the most significant: (57; Fs)
[A] concrete plurality of rational beings have the obediential potency to receive the communication of God himself: such is the mystical body of Christ with its head in the hypostatic union, its principal unfolding in the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit by sanctifying grace, and its ultimate consummation in the beatific vision which Aquinas explained on the analogy of the union of soul and body.5
62/2 Vertical finality, then, is a feature of world-order; were it not, there would be no place for sciences such as physical chemistry, biochemistry, and biophysics. Just as subatomic particles can participate in the relatively supernatural events of chemical reactions or biological processes, so human beings can participate in the absolutely supernatural events of knowing and loving God uti in se est. The radical discontinuity that sets off the absolutely supernatural order from all other created orders of being does not preclude participation. Far from it - as constituted by or oriented to the attainment by creatures of God uti in se est, the absolutely supernatural order has to do precisely, and in an eminent way, with the participation of lower grades of being in higher.6 (57; Fs) (notabene)

62/2 Vertical finality, then, is a feature of world-order; were it not, there would be no place for sciences such as physical chemistry, biochemistry, and biophysics. Just as subatomic particles can participate in the relatively supernatural events of chemical reactions or biological processes, so human beings can participate in the absolutely supernatural events of knowing and loving God uti in se est. The radical discontinuity that sets off the absolutely supernatural order from all other created orders of being does not preclude participation. Far from it - as constituted by or oriented to the attainment by creatures of God uti in se est, the absolutely supernatural order has to do precisely, and in an eminent way, with the participation of lower grades of being in higher.1 (57; Fs) (notabene)
63/2 Note that every manifestation of vertical finality has its basis in 'a plurality of concrete entities': essences acting in conjunction with one another exhibit what Lonergan refers to as an 'upthrust' from their own to higher levels (FLM:2O-21 [CWL 4:21-22]). Hence, while horizontal finality has its roots in the abstract essences of things and therefore pertains to things even in isolation, vertical finality is in the concrete; in point of fact it is not from the isolated instance but from the conjoined plurality; and it is in the field not of natural but of statistical law, not of the abstract per se but of the concrete per acadens. Still, though accidental to the isolated object or the abstract essence, vertical finality is of the very idea of our hierarchic universe, of the ordination of things devised and exploited by the divine Artisan. For the cosmos is not an aggregate of isolated objects hierarchically arranged on isolated levels, but a dynamic whole in which instrumentally, dispositively, materially, obedientially, one level of being or activity subserves another. The interconnections are endless and manifest. (FLM:21-22 [CWL 4:22]) (58; Fs)

64/2 This vertical finality, which 'seems to operate through the fertility of concrete plurality' (FLM:20 [CWL 4:21]), constitutes the basic dynamism of the created universe. It is the very possibility of development, of novelty, of synthesis, of the emergence of higher grades of being and activity. (58; Fs)