Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: A Second Collection

Titel: A Second Collection

Stichwort: Schoonenberg, Chalzedon (Chalcedon): Bedeutung: Person, Hypostase, Sohn; 3 Bedeutungen: "eins", Einheit; Möglichkeitsbedingunen der Inkarnation; dogmatischer Pluralismus - "ewige" Wahrheit

Kurzinhalt: To return, then, to Fr. Schoonenberg, it is true that Chalcedon does not speak of the actual personal pre-existence of the Logos or the Son. But ...

Textausschnitt: 257c To return, then, to Fr. Schoonenberg, it is true that Chalcedon does not speak of the actual personal pre-existence of the Logos or the Son. But it also is true that it speaks of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in divinity and the same perfect in humanity, before all ages begotten from the Father in his divinity, and in these last days the same for our sakes and our salvation born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to his humanity. (Fs)

258a There remains the systematic issue. Just what was meant by "person or hypostasis" in the context of Chalcedon? To put the question equivalently but differently, How are we to understand these terms as they occur in the Chalcedonian decree without intruding into them the many and varied associations they have since acquired? As long as Scholastic theology was alive, answers were available. But today in many parts of the world Scholasticism has withered and vanished. Can anything be done to meet the current needs for clarification?

258b A first step in this direction I have already suggested. It is to overcome the ambiguity of realism. As long as the world of immediacy and the world mediated by meaning are not clearly distinguished, as long as the criteria to be used with respect to these two worlds are not clearly distinguished, confusion will be endless and attempts at clarification will largely be unsuccessful. (Fs)

258c A second step would be to distinguish three meanings of the word, "one." The first of these meanings is associated with experiential activity; it is "one more"; it is the numerical "one" in the sense that one is more than zero, two is more than one, three is more than two, and so on indefinitely. The second meaning of "one" is associated with understanding. Understanding grasps the functional unity of the parts of a machine, the functional and organic unity of a living thing, the developmental unity of a person's life. The third meaning of "one" is associated with judgment: it is "one" in the sense of identity. To affirm implies negations. Jones is all that Jones is, but he is not somebody else or all that somebody else is. He is himself and just himself. (Fs) (notabene)

258d A third step would be to state the conditions of the possibility of the Incarnation. A first condition would be that the Father, Son, and Spirit be identities in the positive sense: each is himself. A second condition would be that they be identities in the restrictive sense with regard to one another: The Father is not the Son; the Father not the Spirit; the Son is not the Spirit. A third condition would be that the Son need not be an identity in the restrictive sense with regard to some rational creature: the Son can become a man. A fourth condition is that a man may have his identity not in himself but in another. To affirm the possibility of the Incarnation is to affirm that these conditions can have been fulfilled. To affirm the Incarnation as a fact is to say that these conditions have been fulfilled. To say what the Incarnation means is to explain the conditions of its possibility. (Fs)

259a The foregoing statement is a statement of the meaning of the repeated "one and the same" in Cyril's second letter to Nestorius and in the decree of Chalcedon. There is in Christ, God and man, only one identity; that one identity is the identity of the Word; the man, Jesus, has an identity but not in himself but in the Word. Finally, the person or hypostasis of the second paragraph of the Chalcedonian decree refers back to the "one and the same" of the first paragraph. The distinction between persons and nature is added to state what is one and the same and what are not one and the same. The person is one and the same; the natures are not one and the same. While later developments put persons and natures in many further contexts, the context of Chalcedon needs no more than heuristic concepts.1 What is a person or hypostasis? It is in the Trinity what there are three of and in the Incarnation what there is one of. What is a nature? In the Trinity it is what there is one of and in the Incarnation it is what there are two of. (Fs)

259b I have still to relate the foregoing to what I said both in the Père Marquette lecture on Doctrinal Pluralism and once more in my chapter on "Doctrines" in Method in Theology.1 In both these writings I accepted the statement of the first Vatican council that what has been both revealed by God and defined by the Church is permanently valid in the sense determined by its own historical context. But similarly, in both this and other writings, I contrasted classicist assumptions to the effect that there exists de jure one fixed and immutable culture for the whole of mankind with the empirical fact that there have existed and exist several human cultures all of which are subject to development and decay. When classicist assumptions are pushed to the point of denying matters of fact, I feel I must disagree. The meaning of the term "person" at Chalcedon is not what commonly is understood by the term today, and theologians at least have to take that fact into account.2 (Fs) (notabene)