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 THEMATISING REVELATION IN THE ECUMENICAL AGE
Introduction:
Acknowledging a revelation, in the sense an of interventionfrom on high, is in our culture the mark of the "religious" option. As such itis routinely distinguished from "mere" religious philosophies such asBuddhism or various "individualistic" views and practices. What cannot bedenied is that there is a
tradition
to be followed or not, as there is in allcultures. It was on this point that even Socrates was condemned. Yet hisfollower Plato often not so much clinched as concluded his argumentationby appeal to the mythical traditions of his Greek society’s religions.
1
 The division this introduces in man’s mind is often valued as embodyingself-transcendence or transcendence of our nature, which comes in thiscontext to be viewed as wicked or ”fallen”. In Hegel such wickedness isextended, as a characterisation, to any deviation from current
Sittlichkeit 
or conventionality inclusive, somewhat shockingly, of such deviation asexpressing conscience or conscientiousness. Yet in this way the
stigma
of wickedness is overcome and we rejoin Goethe’s serene acceptance of the
Unzulängliche
. This is equally the conclusion of McTaggart, that we shouldnot, cannot without dishonesty, wish to be better than we are.
2
This mightseem to contradict the Apostolic predicament of 
Romans 7
("The evil that Iwould not, that I do," etc.), yet there it is the doomed effort to obey an
imposed
law that is chiefly engaged with. This in turn, of course, raises aproblem about
Sittlichkeit 
, surely equally imposed even though, astradition, having its roots in nature. Furthermore, Hegel’s ownphilosophical efforts seem to many anything but
sittlich
in the sense of conventional. This, however, underlines an (his?) ambiguity concerningwickedness.Wickedness, that is to say, becomes identified with finitude as such. Itsmore spectacular forms, murder, genocide, should not therefore beseparated off from our shared finitude as more "radical".
3
There but for thegrace of God go I is the again traditional teaching of the saints. That is, just as all sin participates in this final enormity, so this enormity too is partand parcel with the falsity of everything finite. What can fail, says Aquinas,sometimes does, adding that there is no rock-bottom to sinning. One canalways be worse. Yet it remains finite as
semper in subjecto
, always in abasically good created being, such as Satan would always be. For nor doesAquinas make the moral good equivocal with other forms of good, as weseem to find in Kant and here too Hegel seems to rejoin the older strand of thought, prior to the modern doctrine of "values" as somehow divorcedfrom being and the actual. This, all the same, might seem to gloss over theorthodox teaching that sin is an infinite offence, because against aninfinite being. Such transposition of forensic discourse, however, is therebyfigurative and belongs to religion as an imperfect from of apprehendingthis content. Really God does not command and so, in that sense, thereare no sins, only wickedness, as a name for the finite, from which we haveto extricate ourselves in both thought and deed.
1
Cf. J. Pieper,
Über die platonischen Mythen
, Kösel, Munich 1965.
2
J.M.E. McTaggart,
Studies in Hegelian Cosmology 
, Cambridge University Press, 1901.
3
Hannah Arendt’s perspective on the death-camps in her
Origins of Totalitarianism
.
 
Attempts were made from the beginning to soften this confrontation of thetraditional and the natural, the infinite and the finite. This in fact is thewhole sense of myth. Thus the author(s) of 
Genesis
, no doubt themselvesalready following a tradition, cite a
covenant 
earlier than that withAbraham and his descendants, one made with Noah as sole representativeof humanity, along with his family, after the Flood. The pledge of thisburying of the hatchet, patching up of the quarrel between God and man,self and super-ego, was God’s "bow in the clouds", the rainbow. In perhapsunthinking echo of this Nietzsche compared forgiveness, the mark of thesuperior man to come, to a ”rainbow after long storms”. This was a pointerto the pivotal nature of forgiveness as recognising finitude. "Forgive themFather for they know not what they do." Yet they knew as well as anyoneever knows.Behind this rainbow covenant God’s dealings with the first man of all, andhis woman, are presented in the same way. There will be peace betweenus if you remain within certain limits. The fact that they did not raises aquestion about our finitude, though this is only darkly touched on in thetext.
4
Consciousness as to these issues became strong in the nineteenthcentury. So the theory of 
traditionalism
should not have surprisedanybody, though Church authorities quickly condemned it. De Bonald, itsfounder, argued that man must have attained speech by revelation (hence"traditionalism"), on the questionable ground that one cannot
think 
without speech and so cannot invent or attain to it.Revelation, like traditions in general or moral teaching, is perfected in aprocess of internalisation, precisely the difference between education andindoctrination. This is referred to sometimes as "the birth of Christ in thesoul", which the Nativity festivities should prefigure. In this way theoutside becomes the inside, as dialectic shows, and the two categories aresuperseded together. This is why here we will show how revelation as acategory finally becomes absorbed within philosophical thinking as"accomplishing" religion. The truths of faith cannot be said to be beyond Reason absolutely. Reason,in fact, cannot but be absolute, as the subject, any subject, cannot beother than subjectivity itself, intrinsically repelling conditioning by anyalien other. Thus the true God, finally beyond idolatry, must be
intimior memihi
, closer to me than I am to myself, as Augustine expressed it. I amthat, say the Indians, "I in you and you in me", says our own tradition,where we are "all members one of another".Faith, that is, naturally culminates in "the birth of Christ in the soul" andphilosophical enlightenment, if it is ever to be such, cannot be other thanthat. In so far as this birth of Christ is, professedly, birth of "the Son of Man", it may be said to happen or to have happened eternally. The
intentions
of Reason are one with their execution. In this sense man, everyman, is an infinity, not constrained from without. Only thus is he end andnot means. Only thus is he truly the unknown Christ we serve or spurn, asthe Gospel says he is. If philosophy anticipated or "accomplished" thisinitially figurative presentation, so liable to be misunderstood as mereimputation, yet philosophy only achieved this
 post factum
, when the
4
Cf. Hegel,
Encyclopaedia
50.
 
religious praxis and belief was in place. We may beg to discern a"backward causation" here, in so far as revelation is precisely therevelation which is the eternal Reason, none other than self-manifestation,as we shall argue below. Thus such philosophy contains all of the
content 
of religion under its own more perfect form and is not a watered downversion, but a result, as the dialectic terminates as result in the absolute. Just so the biologists tell us the eye would
necessarily 
(and thereforedialectically) "evolve"
5
in nature, as in fact has happened in at least fourotherwise distinct natural histories. The content of absolute religion quitenaturally passes over into a higher form, which is another way of saying, intransposition, that philosophy is religious.I. REVELATION AS COVENANT The Jews considered themselves chosen. How can we respect, even sharethis belief? Hegel maybe considered the claim historically born out. Maybewe could accept that too. Perhaps even other groups consider themselveschosen, e.g. certain Australian tribes believe their particular ancestorscreated the world. The faith claims of around half the world include suchan exclusivist approach or at least a claim to privilege. A rejection of intolerance needs to tolerate, even affirm that. Is it possible? Hegel seemsto attempt it. Jewish writings (one should perhaps say Hebrew or Israelite, Judaea was just one tribe, though it came to see itself as the "right" or orthodox one)humbly stress their nation's insignificance apart from this selection. Theyaccord the River Jordan and prophets such as Elijah or Elisha healingpowers beyond the "great" rivers of, for example, the conqueror Naaman'sland.One can think that this sense of uniqueness comes from the rejection, theintellectual seeing-through, of idolatry. Their God, they came to see, if God, is as such infinite. "The gods of the heathen are nought." There couldnot be two or more infinite gods. They would not have gone on to abstractthis quality from their God or idealise it in itself, like Plato maybe. It is justtheir God who in earlier tradition "saved" them, who has this quality. Therefore they are as a people important in this transcendent way. This idea is carried through into Christian theology, as it has to be if this"fulfils" the Law. "I am the way". "No man comes to the Father but throughme" and we have started to interpret this "invisibly", talking first of "invincible ignorance" and later using less insulting but still moremysterious schemes to show, in Hannah Arendt's words, writing of JohnXXIII, that Jesus is for everybody. Not very encouraging for those who havebuilt their lives and wisdom on teachers they feel bound to consider atleast as central.Here a perspective of absolute idealism offers us a short way through thistangle. Such idealism will also accept the Kantian thesis of a kingdom of ends, implicit in Christian ethics anyhow one might think (and thereforeitself calling for absolute idealism where souls have been capable of it). As
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We must look behind this word too.
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