Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Titel: Collection: Papers bei B. Lonergan

Stichwort: Finalität (qui, quo), cuius gratia; vertikale, horizontale Finalität: instrumental, dispositive, material, obödiential

Kurzinhalt: the ... distinction between finis qui and finis quo has given two distinct types of finality: the absolute finality of all things to God in his intrinsic goodness; the horizontal finality: instrumental, dispositive, material, obediential

Textausschnitt: 1 Vertical Finality

19a The common instances of finality fall into two classes: the response of appetites to motives, and the orientation of processes to terms. But if we are to formulate the notion of vertical finality, b it is extremely important to break away from instances and to conceive things generally. First, then, the mere fact of response or of orientation does not constitute finality. Any positivist will admit that appetites do respond to motives, that processes are orientated to terms. Quite coherently, any positivist will deny final causality since, beyond such concomitance and correlation, causality requires that appetite respond because of motive, that process be orientated because of term. Moreover, causality is not yet final causality. If appetite responds because motive moves, if process is orientated because an intelligent agent envisages and intends a term, there is causality indeed; but it is efficient and not final. No doubt, in the concrete, such efficiency is connected intimately with finality. But rigorously one must maintain that there is final causality if, and only if, appetite responds because the motive is good; if, and only if, process is orientated because the term is good. (Fs) (notabene)

19b For the final cause is the cuius gratia, and its specific or formal constituent is the good as cause. Under this formal constituent may be had either of two material differences: the good may be cause as motive for the response of appetite or as term for the orientation of process. But with regard to the formal constituent itself, it is necessary to distinguish between qui and quo, between the good thing which is motive or term and the mode of motivation or termination. Now in our hierarchic universe God is at once absolute motive and absolute term: 'omnia appetunt Deum'; 'omnia intendunt assimilari Deo.' On the other hand, the mode in which the different grades of being respond to God as motive or attain him as term is always limited; this remains true even in the beatific vision, in which the infinite as motive is apprehended finitely and as term is attained finitely. Further, the ground of such limitation is essence: remotely it is substantial essence; proximately it is the essence of an ontological accident, the essence, say, of sensitive appetite, of rational appetite, of infused charity; for it is essence that limits, that ties things down to a given grade of being, that makes them respond to motives of a given type, that assigns them their proper and proportionate ends. Finally, there are many grades of being, each with its defining essence and its consequent and commensurate mode of appetition and process; accordingly, one has to think of the universe as a series of horizontal strata; on each level reality responds to God as absolute motive and tends to him as absolute term; but on each level it does so differently, for the limitation of essence reappears in the limitation of the mode of appetition and response, of process and orientation. (Fs) (notabene)

20a Thus the application to the hierarchic universe of the notional distinction between finis qui and finis quo d has given two distinct types of finality: the absolute finality of all things to God in his intrinsic goodness; the horizontal finality of limiting essence to limited mode of appetition and of process. But now attention must be drawn to a third type of finality, that of any lower level of appetition and process to any higher level. This we term vertical finality. It has four manifestations: instrumental, dispositive, material, obediential. First, a concrete plurality of lower activities may be instrumental to a higher end in another subject: the many movements of the chisel give the beauty of the statue. Second, a concrete plurality of lower activities may be dispositive to a higher end in the same subject: the many sensitive experiences of research lead to the act of understanding that is scientific discovery. Third, 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: examples are familiar. Fourth, 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. (Fs)