Autor: Liddy, Richard M.

Buch: Transforming Light

Titel: Transforming Light

Stichwort: Leeming, Marechal; Inkarnation, Suarez, distinctio realis, Definition, Hypostase, Person, Durchbruch, distinctio realis (major or minor); 1 Person, 2 Naturen; hypostatische Union, Chalcedon

Kurzinhalt: ... which convinced me that there could not be a hypostatic union without a real distinction between essence and existence ... if you have a real distinction between esse and essence, the esse can be the ground of the person and the essence ...

Textausschnitt: 29/7 Lonergan always attributed his basic intellectual conversion to the course he took in the Catholic doctrine on Christ in the fall and spring of 1935-1936 with the Jesuit, Bernard Leeming, S.J. (1893-1971). Of course, he brought his own questions to Leeming's course! (114; Fs)

30/7 To Leeming, along with Maréchal, Lonergan attributes his first acceptance of the label 'Thomist.' 'I had become a Thomist through the influence of Maréchal mediated to me by Stephanos Stephanou and through Bernard Leeming's lectures on the unicum esse in Christo.'1 The whole of his previous development was 'rounded out' by Leeming's course: that is, at this point all the intellectual influences from his early years come together. (114; Fs)

It was through Stephanou by some process of osmosis, rather than struggling with the five great Cahiers, that I learnt to speak of human knowledge as not intuitive but discursive with the decisive component in judgment. This view was confirmed by my familiarity with Augustine's key notion, veritas, and the whole was rounded out by Bernard Leeming's course on the Incarnate Word, which convinced me that there could not be a hypostatic union without a real distinction between essence and existence. This, of course, was all the more acceptable, since Aquinas' esse corresponded to Augustine's veritas and both harmonized with Maréchal's view of judgment.2

31/7 As someone once said to me, 'Moments of enlightenment come during periods of enlightenment.' That this was a period of enlightenment is certainly evident from the feeling-charged letter Lonergan wrote to his superior in January 1935. But 'the whole' of his previous development was 'rounded out' by this moment in Leeming's course, the moment he later remembered as the key moment in his own intellectual conversion. (114; Fs)

32/7 The precise question that was being dwelt with in the course was the unicum esse in Christo, the one act of existence in Christ. What did this mean? What was this 'unicum esse in Christo'? The basic theological issue came down to this: If, as Christian faith always held, Christ was both divine and human, what were these 'two' in him? Furthermore, if we must maintain that there is an underlying and substantial unity in Christ, what is that 'one' in him? (114; Fs)

33/7 At the time traditional European scholastic philosophers were engaged in a battle over the 'real distinction' between essence and existence. Many traditional Thomists held the real distinction between these two principles of being, but others, especially Jesuits influenced by Suarez, denied the distinction and its presence in St. Thomas.3 I remember Jesuits telling me that even during the 1950s, soon after entering the society, they were approached by other young Jesuits during recreation periods to ascertain their fundamental feelings on the 'real distinction.' Difficult as it may seem to believe to people today, it was a question which, at least for some, had an existential import! In an interview Lonergan gives an account of the relevance of the controversy. (115; Fs)
I was very interested in philosophy, but I [had] no use for the scholastic philosophers. I first discovered that Saint Thomas might have something to say when I was taught 'De Verbo Incarnate' in Rome. Can you have one person who has two natures? The argument given me by a good Thomist, Father Bernard Leeming, was that if you have a real distinction between esse and essence, the esse can be the ground of the person and the essence too. If the esse is relevant to two essences, then you can have one person in two natures. On that basis I solved the problem of Christ's consciousness: one subject and two subjectivities. It wasn't the divine subjectivity that was crucified, but the human subjectivity; it was the human subjectivity that died and rose again, not the divine person.4

34/7 The theological problem was to maintain the full integrity of the humanity of Christ and at the same time to explain why such a full humanity is not that of another person besides the person of the Word of God. Francisco Suarez, who held the real identity of essence and existence, held that the personhood of Christ was merely a 'substantial mode' added to the existing essence. To Suarez' position Leeming in his Christology textbook replied that it was not at all evident why a fully existing singular nature would not by that very fact be a suppositum, that is, a thing in itself. The Suarezian 'mode,' in this case the personhood of Christ, seems to be nothing other than an accidental property of something already fully constituted in itself. (115; Fs)

35/7 Leeming chose to follow the opinion which he believed was that of St. Thomas, the opinion also of the Thomistic commentator, Capreolus (1380-1444). The latter held that the core of personhood is to have one's own existence in oneself. By the very fact that essence is united with existence, there is the subsistence and 'incommunicability' of personhood. Capreolus' opinion, Leeming felt, best maintains the integrity of the human nature of Christ, while also explaining the unity of Christ. (115f; Fs)
It shows that Christ is one person, precisely because he has one esse, one act of existence; it shows that in which the human nature and the divine nature communicate: that is, in the esse of the Word; but it leaves the human nature entirely whole in its essence. Christ is one; truly the Son of God is human; truly this man is God; and in these sentences the word 'is' is indeed a logical copula; but in our opinion it is much more than that: it is especially taken in a real sense and not just as a denotation.5

36/7 Leeming goes on in his notes to comment on the use of such philosophical distinctions in the understanding of a theological and religious doctrine. (116; Fs)

Someone might say that this opinion is grounded on a philosophical distinction that, if not uncertain, is at least denied by many, namely the real distinction between essence and existence. To which we reply: the revealed dogma evidently teaches a truth which can be called philosophical: namely, that a singular nature cannot be identified with personhood. We should, therefore, clarify our philosophical concepts in such a way that this truth remains uncontested. But, if among the philosophical systems that try to explain this truth, one is found to be more apt than the others to properly protect this truth, while the others are less apt, then this is obviously an argument in favor of that system.6

37/7 What the terms essence and existence add to Lonergan's philosophical vocabulary are the objective correlatives of the subjective acts he has been so intent on differentiating in his own consciousness. As he would later point out, Aristotle had basically pointed to two types of questions that the human spirit asks: questions of the type, 'What is it?' or 'Why is it so?' and questions of the type, 'Is it?' or 'Is it so?' The first type of question cannot be answered by a 'Yes' or a 'No.' This type of question heads toward an understanding of the nature of something, eventually, its essence. On the other hand, the second type of question can only be answered by a 'Yes' or a 'No'- or 'I don't know.' It aims at judgment, the determination of existence. (116; Fs)

38/7 What Lonergan was coming to see, the core of his own intellectual breakthrough, was that the entire Aristotelian metaphysical system of Aquinas was really the objective 'heuristic' framework for the acts he had all along been so intent on coming to know. One dimension of that metaphysical system was the real distinction between essence and existence. Later on he would define a distinction as real if it is true that (1) P is not Q; (2) P is real; and (3) Q is real. A real distinction is asserted on the level of judgment, not on any previous level of consciousness, certainly not by a prior imagined 'look.'7 Such real distinctions are major or minor. Major real distinctions are between things. Minor real distinctions are between the elements or constituents of proportionate being, such as between essence and existence. (116f; Fs)

39/7 In his Latin Christology notes, written during the 1950s, Lonergan uses the distinction between soul and body as an example of a minor real distinction between constitutive principles of a person.8 He then shows from Church doctrines the effort to express this kind of a distinction in understanding the humanity and divinity of the one person of Christ. It is not just a mental distinction, a distinctio rationis. It is a real distinction, though a minor real distinction: not between two things, but between two principles in the one person of Christ. Of course, because it is a case of understanding the humanity and divinity of the Son of God, all these terms have to be understood analogously. (117; Fs)

40/7 Certainly, such a distinction puts a great weight on words. But so does modern science. And so do all the doctrines of the Church. They reflect the understandings and judgments of the human family. They mediate our knowledge of reality. As he would later point out in the article 'The Origins of Christian Realism,' the ability to make such distinctions is rooted in the fact that we are human beings. We exist, not just in the infant's world of immediacy, but in the far vaster world mediated by meaning.9 (117; Fs)

41/7 An empiricist or a naive realist confuses the criteria for knowing the world mediated by meaning with the criteria for the world of immediacy. The latter is known by merely feeling and touching and seeing. The idealist knows there is more to human knowing than what the empiricist or naive realist assert, but he conceives that 'more' in sensitive terms and so concludes that our knowing cannot be objective. The critical realist asserts that objective human knowing takes place, not just by experience, but by experience completed by human understanding and correct judgment. (117; Fs) (notabene)

42/7 The Thomistic metaphysical terms used by the Christian community to interpret its belief are 'heuristic' categories correlative to human understanding and judgment. Just as the scientist uses technical terms to penetrate to the constituents of physical reality, so the theologian uses terms like 'nature,' 'person,' 'essence,' 'existence,' to understand the realities of Christian faith. They aid our human understanding. While later developments put persons and natures in many further contexts, the context of the ancient Council of Chalcedon needs no more than these heuristic concepts. (117f; Fs)
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 what there are two of.10

43/7 Though such a heuristic understanding seems incredibly 'simple,' still it can be a tremendously rich method of focussing our thinking within the framework of the judgments of faith. It is similar to the methods of the scientists that enable them to focus on unseen realities far beyond the realm of immediate experience. (118; Fs)

44/7 It was in relationship to this course in 1935-1936 with Bernard Leeming on Christology that Lonergan first uses the term 'intellectual conversion' to identify the intellectual transition he was undergoing. (118; Fs)

So there was considerable room for development after Aristotle and you get it in St. Thomas when he distinguishes existence from essence and makes them really distinct; and to make them distinct really you have to have something equivalent to an intellectual conversion even if you don't know what is meant by an intellectual conversion. I had the intellectual conversion myself when in doing theology I saw that you can't have one person in two natures in Christ unless there is a real distinction between the natures and something else that is one. But that is the long way around.11

45/7 Lonergan spoke of his intellectual breakthrough as taking 'the long way around,' since it came by way of his theology course on Thomistic Christology. He implies that there could be a short way around-perhaps by reading his Insight? (118; Fs)

46/7 In the same interview Lonergan gives a pithy description of the ultimate psychological and intellectual basis for the Thomistic real distinction between essence and existence. 'I once gave a talk to psychiatrists at Halifax General Hospital and at the end of the talk one of the doctors said to me, 'Our patients have all kinds of insights; the trouble is they're wrong!' Well that is the basis of the distinction between essence and existence. They have hold of an essence, but it isn't true.'12 (118f; Fs)

47/7 Before going on, let us note a line from his 1972 Method in Theology where he explicitly speaks of faith in the Word of God as a possible source of intellectual conversion. (119; Fs)
Finally, among the values discerned by the eye of love is the value of believing the truths taught by the religious tradition, and in such tradition and belief are the seeds of intellectual conversion. For the word, spoken and heard, proceeds from and penetrates to all four levels of intentional consciousness. Its content is not just a content of experience but a content of experience and understanding and judging and deciding. The analogy of sight yields the cognitional myth. But fidelity to the word engages the whole man.13

48/7 In the mid-1930s it seems obvious that Lonergan has explicitly recognized 'the cognitional myth' that conceives of intellectual activities in sensible terms. But if, as in his own case, intellectual conversion is promoted by faith in the Word of God, still in itself it regards coming to know the intrinsic character of our own human intelligence and the relationship of that intelligence to reality. (119; Fs)