Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Person, Bewusstsein: existentialistische Auffassung - im Medium der Wahrheit; Verfehlen der Wahrheit (3 Stufen): Sensismus, Empirismus, Positivismus, Pragmatismus, Idealismus, Phänomenologie; Existenz

Kurzinhalt: QUESTION 10/2 -What should be understood by the word 'person'?; ... at one time it takes the form of materialism, then of sensism, third of empiricism, fourth of phenomenalism, fifth of positivism, and sixth of pragmatism. Others, however...

Textausschnitt: 313b However, a more detailed clarification is needed here, since a heuristic structure generally develops in such a way that it not only leads to a fuller knowledge of the truth but also betrays and manifests the darkened mind of fallen humanity. For this reason it seems worth while to say something about individual stages in the process. (Fs)

313c First, then, although Boethius's definition can be correctly explained,1 still this is not easy to do. For if a person is an individual substance of a rational nature, the three persons would seem to be three substances. But we admit only one substance in God, and therefore this definition as it is worded creates more difficulties than it solves. The definition of Richard of St Victor seems to have only a certain historical importance, and so we have felt it sufficient to discuss it in a related question about the meaning of incommunicability.2 Therefore we are left with St Thomas's definition, which we have expounded at greater length elsewhere.3 (Fs)

315a Next, although there has been a great deal of disagreement about the constitution of a finite person,4it is scarcely possible to dispute the constitution of an infinite person, since the simplicity of a divine person is so great that the essence, the act of existence, the relation, the subsistence, the property, and the notional act of the same divine person are one and the same. Therefore, since the realities are beyond dispute, the only disagreements are about the formality of divine person, and we have judged it more convenient to setlle these in related questions. (Fs)

315b Third, the question about consciousness is more profound, more subtle, and more serious. Its seriousness is obvious: if there are as many persons as there are consciousnesses, then either three persons would mean that there are three gods or else God would be one person because of divine unity.5 There is a similar case in Christology, where either the oneness of the person leads to monophysitism or the duality of natures leads to Nestorianism; nor does kenoticism provide a valid third way. (Fs)

315c The subtlety of the question arises from the very nature of consciousness. It is one thing to be conscious, but it is quite another to know, through knowledge in the proper sense, that one is conscious. To be conscious belongs to everyone, for consciousness is simply the presence of the mind to itself. This self-presence is effected by the very fact that our sensitive and intellectual nature is actuated by both apprehending and desiring. It does not matter what object is apprehended or desired, since we as conscious subjects consciously apprehend and desire different things. Nor do we become conscious by adverting to ourselves, since consciousness is on the side of the adverting subject and not on the side of the object adverted to. But when this adverting to ourselves is done, we begin the second step, namely, knowing that we are conscious. For one who is conscious places oneself on the side of the object inasmuch as one understands and conceives consciousness and truly affirms that one is conscious. Therefore, a conscious subject and the consciousness of the subject precede and accompany all understanding and conception and affirmation of oneself as conscious, and remain when these operations regarding oneself are omitted. But unless we define what consciousness is, and unless we truly affirm that we are conscious in the sense of this definition, we do not attain knowledge, properly speaking, of our own consciousness.6 (Fs)

317a In addition to the subtlety of the question there is its profundity. Knowledge that is properly human is achieved in three steps: first, we experience externally or internally; second, through inquiry into the data of sense or of consciousness, we understand and conceive; and third, by reflecting and pondering the evidence we affirm what is true, and through truth as through a medium we know being. But it is one thing to complete the process of knowing through these three steps and quite another to come to know by this same three-step process that our knowledge is achieved in these three steps. For this reason, in completing these three steps, those who come to know only the first step join the ranks of the empiricists, who do not acknowledge that there is anything we can know besides external sensible data and an internal empirical 'ego.' Despite the fact that this position is manifestly in conflict with their own intelligence, nevertheless this same position is defended in many different ways: at one time it takes the form of materialism, then of sensism, third of empiricism, fourth of phenomenalism, fifth of positivism, and sixth of pragmatism. Others, however, in completing this three-step cognitional process, do so in such a way that they clearly and distinctly grasp not only the first step but also the second. And since the same or similar data of sense and data of consciousness are wont to be understood by different persons in different ways, there are some that are called relativists, who cannot consider any intelligible to be absolutely true, or immanentists, for whom truth, through which alone being is attained, is unknown, or idealists, who hold that nothing can be true except a perfect understanding of all intelligibles, or instrumentalists, who hold that any intelligible is true only as long as it leads to successful practical results, and so forth. Others, finally, not only know by the three-step cognitional process but also grasp the nature of those three steps. They are the realists, who affirm that being that is proportionate to our knowing is composed of potency, form, and act, just as our knowing is achieved through experience, understanding, and judging. (Fs) (notabene)

317b In view of this, one who discusses human consciousness will easily fall into error unless he or she has a thorough grasp of virtually all philosophies, discerning what is true from what there is false in them. But if it is so easy to err regarding human consciousness, falsity will even more easily enter in when one proceeds to conceive divine consciousness by analogy with the human. So it was not unreasonable for theologians to remain silent rather than to err on the question of divine consciousness. (Fs) (notabene)

319a In our day, however, this question has become much more acute. For, on the one hand, the deepest meaning of person seems to be more clearly understood: what is said to be proper to and distinctive of a person is that a person is what one has understood one can be and what one has willed to become. This understanding and becoming of the person is for all practical purposes what is meant by Existenz.7 It is not achieved in some ideal isolation, but in the concrete circumstances of human living and together with other persons. On the other hand, while this conception of the human person is true, it is not easy to take the next step and conceive analogically a divine person. Indeed, and far more serious, there is such an emphasis on the subject and such disdain for anything that has the formality of object that this doctrine is incompatible with both faith and traditional theology. Since our faith is an assent to the true (DB 1789, 1791, DS 3008, 3010, ND 118, 120), so that through the mediation of the true we arrive at the divine reality that has been revealed to us, one cannot oppose the whole notion of object and of objectivity without at the same time rejecting our faith itself as understood by Vatican I. Moreover, since the Catholic theological tradition is founded upon truth and being, to despise the object is necessarily to despise traditional theology as well. (Fs)

319b Accordingly, since we ought neither to be ignorant of nor to disregard more recent notions,8 we hold that true contemporary opinions about the person should be separated from those that proceed from philosophical empiricism or immanentism. For a correct understanding concerning the meaning of person is not based on a position that fails to go beyond experience and understanding and to rise, to the third step in human knowing. In fact, to the extent that one ignores rational reflection, the grasp of the virtually unconditioned,9 the autonomous intellectual necessity whereby the uttering of a true word emanates from reflective understanding, and the similarly autonomous intellectual necessity consequent upon it, in which moral obligation and the spirating of volition consist - to that extent one surely ignores those features that are most proper to and distinctive of a person. (Fs)

319c Again, although we speak of objectivity and object in many different ways in keeping with the various steps in which human knowledge is achieved, all other meanings are reducible to this principal one, that objectivity is simply truth, and 'object' denotes only that which is known through the medium of the true. No one who has grasped that the supreme perfection of a person consists in the intellectual emanations in the realms of truth and goodness can reject this meaning. Nor is any other meaning of objectivity or of object required either in order to accept the meaning of faith according to the First Vatican Council or in order to acknowledge the soundness and depth of traditional theology. (Fs) (notabene)

321a However, we should not overlook what apparently misleads many in this matter, namely, that as there are two realisms, naive and critical, so also 'real,' 'object,' 'evident,' 'to know,' and similar notions have two different meanings. The first is a meaning of reality, objectivity, evidence, and knowledge according to which a kind of animal faith is carried toward a world of objects that are each already, out, there, now, and in this sense, 'real.'10 The other, quite different meaning of these very same notions is that according to which the mind, led by questions, conceives the natures of things from an understanding of what it has experienced, affirms the true from grasping an unconditioned, and apprehends being in the true as in a medium.'11 (Fs)

321b Now, the ambiguity of prephilosophic knowledge is that it is realistic in both senses. The misfortune of immanentism is that it rejects naive realism without arriving at critical realism. The character of transcendental phenomenology is that it begins from naive realism, considers this naive reality as a phenomenon by suspending not only judgment but also every 'interest,' recognizes internal as well external phenomena, rejects the naive tendency and orientation that reduces internal phenomena to external (mechanism, behaviorism), and extols a new 'transcendental' orientation that reduces external phenomena to internal.12 All this merely produces an inversion of naive realism: where previously everything was reduced to the object of naive realism, now everything is reduced to the subject of the same realism, conceived, no doubt, in a more subtle way. But this sort of subject is less than human. Nor is anything really achieved towards revealing a human subject until the true is arrived at through an unconditioned, and being is known in the true as in a medium. But if there is no arriving at the true and being, understood in this sense, one can, of course, use the words 'true' and 'false,' 'being' and 'existence,' 'existent' and 'transcendent,' 'presence' and 'participation,' but without thereby really getting beyond the limits of some new immanentism. (Fs) (notabene)

323a We have said all this in order that it may be seen more clearly how we ought to proceed with regard to consciousness. For if consciousness is apprehended and studied under the formality of the true and of being, then at one and the same time there are preserved the meaning and nature of consciousness, the method of traditional theology that treats truths and beings, and Catholic dogma, which through the true attains God as triune. If, however, one is afraid of what seems to be antiquated thinking, if one rejects the notions of the true and of being so that one can examine the subject more intimately, not only does one involve oneself in immanentism, idealism, and relativism, but also willy-nilly one joins the liberals and the modernists. (Fs) (notabene)

323b Thus, we must discuss the consciousness of a divine person as being known through the true. If this is done, there will hardly be any difficulty in dealing with any of these questions. For 'unconscious understanding' makes no sense; similarly, 'understanding unconsciously' makes no sense. But the divine act of existence is the divine act of understanding; the divine act of existence, therefore, is conscious and consciously is. Moreover, the divine processions, the divine subsistent relations, and whatever else is said to be really in God are also really identical with the divine act of existence; they are therefore likewise conscious and consciously are. Hence, if the real, subsistent divine relations really distinct from one another are persons, those persons are conscious and are consciously distinguished from one another. (Fs) (notabene)

323c Finally, the reasoning is practically the same for interpersonal relations. A praiseworthy personalism is one thing, but an exaggerated personalism is quite another. By an exaggerated personalism we mean one which, ignoring the formalities of the true and of being, wants to attend only to the experience of intersubjectivity. But we deem that personalism praiseworthy which so insists upon and adheres to the true that the true is always the measure, and revealed truth is never compromised in order that it may seem to accord more clearly and more easily with concrete personal life experience. (Fs)