Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Second Collection

Titel: A Second Collection

Stichwort: Dogmatische Konstitution Dei Filius: Schwierigkeit der Annahme (7 Gründe)

Kurzinhalt: Difficulties with this doctrine are widespread today and they are not confined to those outside the church. A first question would be about the relevance of the doctrine.

Textausschnitt: 119b Difficulties with this doctrine are widespread today and they are not confined to those outside the church. A first question would be about the relevance of the doctrine. It springs from what seems to be an excessive objectivism, an objectivism that just leaves subjects out of account. It tells what can be done by the natural light of human reason, but it does not commit itself either to saying that the possibility ever was realized or to predicting that it ever would be realized. A contemporary would want to know what there is about this possibility that makes any difference to human life or human society. (Fs)

119c Secondly, the context of the doctrine is the distinction between faith and reason, grace and nature, supernatural and natural. This distinction has a long history in Catholic theology, but that history is complex, abstruse, difficult, Scholastic. A contemporary is quite ready to speak with the Bible and the Fathers about God's grace and man's sinfulness. But he will ask whether things must be complicated with the notion of human nature or the natural light of human reason. (Fs)

119d Thirdly, what the doctrine means is that there exists, at least in principle, some valid and certain argument accessible to the human mind that concludes with an affirmation of God's existence. But any such procedure would treat God as an object. Now for very many today God is not and cannot be an object. Consequently, they would repudiate any attempt to prove God's existence. (Fs) (notabene)

119e Fourthly, there are those that would admit the possibility of establishing the existence of a merely metaphysical object, an ens a se, but they would argue with Max Scheler that God is a person, and that no person can be known as an object but only inter-subjectively through co-operation and, so to speak, co-performance (Mitvollzug).1 (Fs)

120a Fifthly, there are all those very religious persons to whom philosophy means little or nothing. They know about God in a very real way and they know that this knowledge is something quite different from the logical business of premisses and conclusions. With Pascal they will distinguish between the Dieu des philosophes and le Dieu d'Abraham, d'Isaac, et de Jacob. So by a simpler route they reach much the same conclusion as the phenomenologist, Max Scheler. The god concluded from premises is not the God Christians worship. (Fs)

120b Sixthly, in our day the obvious instance of valid knowledge is science. Science is empirical. It proceeds from data and it develops by returning again and again to the data. Moreover, it never adds to data any intelligibility, any unity or relationship, that is not verifiable in the data. Now there are no data on the divine. God is not among the data of sense and he is not among the data of human consciousness. God, then, is not a possible object of modern science. (Fs)

120c Further, there is no verifiable principle by which we might conclude from this world to God's existence. For a principle is verifiable only if there are data on both the terms related by the principle. There are no data on God, and so there are not the data for a principle relating this world to God. Hence, to affirm natural knowledge of God in the contemporary context is to lay oneself open to the question, By what unverifiable principle do you propose to conclude from this world to God's existence?

120d One might answer, By an analytic principle. But then one has to meet the distinction between analytic propositions and analytic principles.2 Analytic propositions are to be achieved by merely verbal definitions. Analytic principles are analytic propositions whose terms in their defined sense have been verified. With this distinction one once more is met by the demand for verifiability. (Fs)

121a Seventhly, ontological and moral judgments pertain to quite different domains. In other words "ought" cannot occur in a conclusion, when "ought" does not occur in the premisses. To state that God is good in the moral sense presupposes moral judgments. Such moral judgments proceed not from an abstract ontology but from a morally good person.3 Now the God of religion is the good God, and his goodness is mysteriously in contrast with the evils and suffering of this world. To acknowledge God as good is not just a conclusion; it is to adopt a whole Weltanschauung; it is to make an existential decision. So once more we come to the conclusion that draws a distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of religion. (Fs) (notabene)

121b Such, very summarily, are difficulties perhaps commonly felt about the doctrine of natural knowledge of God. I propose to discuss them, not in the order in which I raised them, but in the order that will best serve to clarify the issues. (Fs)