Autor: Walsh, David

Buch: The Third Millenium

Titel: The Third Millenium

Stichwort: Christentum; höchste Differenziertheit der Realitätserfahrung

Kurzinhalt: Only what has emerged historically is available to us; To the extent that Christ constitutes the limits of the differentiation of order, then ...

Textausschnitt: 114a We have no perspective beyond what has differentiated in the course of history. To the extent that Christ constitutes the limits of the differentiation of order, then his is the illumination in terms of which reality must be seen. To adopt anything less would be to settle for a less differentiated and thus less rational viewpoint. We are not free to select or develop an alternative orientation because we are embedded in the historical process. Only what has emerged historically is available to us, and it is our responsibility to immerse ourselves in its ordering light. We do not enjoy the standpoint of absolute reality capable of embracing the whole, viewing it from whatever angle we choose. Our vantage point is from within reality and, to the extent we can attune ourselves to the absolute perspective of Being, then we will see things more clearly. But we must pursue the trail of revelation in order to grasp that fluttering glimpse. We do not possess it. Submission to the gift of revelation as it has differentiated order over history is the only means available to us. The epiphany of Christ represents a unique moment in this perennial human odyssey of illumination. (Fs) (notabene)

115a The aptness of the millennial calculation from the birth of Christ is not merely a holdover from a Christian civilization. It is still expressive of a fundamental structure. Christ is the turning point of history because he marks the limit, the fullness, of the perspective of revelation.1 No more definitive opening toward transcendent Being is possible. The perspective of order illumined by the participation of God in human existence identifies the boundary of illumination. No higher viewpoint can be attained within time. It is noteworthy that Hegel alone, of all the great modern thinkers, recognized this. A measure of the opaqueness of the Christian revelation is the degree to which it has not only been rejected by the ideologues, but marginalized in the broader universe of discourse. Therefore, Hegel's affirmation of the centrality is all the more striking and is a mark of his stature as a thinker. He understood that philosophy cannot simply dispense with revelation and continue as if it had never happened. However it is handled, revelation cannot be ignored because it constitutes an advance in differentiation beyond the perspective emergent in philosophy. One cannot simply neglect what the revelation of Christ says about human nature, its participation in the divine, the redemptive and transfigurative finality of history, as well as the definitive separation of mundane from transcendent Being. No doubt, the task of philosophy would be greatly simplified in the absence of revelation, but we do not create the mystery in which we find ourselves and are called to make our way. Revelation, once it has occurred, is inescapable. A decisive break within time has occurred when the limit of revelation itself has been reached. (Fs)