Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: Mt, Mk: Einer ist der Gute; Plato - Aristoteles: Erkenntnis reicht - Aneignung von Habitus

Kurzinhalt: 2.8 The Good Known Analogously; contrast between Plato and Aristotle; Tillich

Textausschnitt: 'What is good by its essence?' 'What is good?' asks for the essence, and there is only one thing that is good by its essence, and that is God. Everything else is good by participation; just as there is only one thing that exists by its essence, and everything else exists by participation. That good, that being, is known properly, as opposed to analogously, only in the beatific vision. You know what is the good, what is being, by its essence, when you have the beatific vision. Otherwise you know them only analogously. In other words, ... Consequently, as one's knowledge of finite beings and finite goods becomes more full, more perfect, more adequate, in the same proportion one has a fuller, more adequate, more perfect basis for forming an analogous notion of what the good is. (30f; Fs) (notabene)
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15/2 Perhaps this will help us see what lies behind the profound contrast between Plato and Aristotle. In the Republic Plato wants to find out what the good man would be, and seeks to answer this question by describing the good society. At the term of the argument, he says that, if the good society is to exist, the guardians will have to know the Idea of the good. Knowing the Idea of the good is the ultimate solution to all human problems. But Aristotle said in his Ethics that whatever may be the case with regard to the Idea of the good, obviously it cannot make much difference to the goodness of concrete human living. That is a matter of acquiring the right habits. Aristotle studies things in the concrete. (31; Fs) (notabene)
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Now there is a sense in which both Plato and Aristotle are correct. The Idea of the good really is God himself. The divine essence is the essence of the good, and the only essence of the good, the only place where the essence of the good is found. And that is the measure of all other good. And the good is mysterious because God is mysterious. As Isaiah says, 'My thoughts are above your thoughts, and my ways are above your ways' (Isaiah 55:8). On the other hand, anything that exists and is good by participation is finite, and because it is finite it is not perfect in every respect; it can be criticized. The possibility of noting that it is not good in every respect, that it can be criticized, is for St Thomas the basis of human freedom. One cannot choose between God and anything else, but one can always choose between finite things, because they are finite in their being and in their goodness. They are not good from every possible viewpoint. Criticism is possible. Hence one can say that what is beyond criticism is either God or an idol,