Professional Documents
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The question of whether life exists beyond death remains one of the
most pertinent of our existence, and theologians continue to address
what relevance the answer has for our life in the present. In this
book, William J. Hoye employs the phenomenon of emergence
the way higher forms of existence arise from a collection of simpler
interactions as a framework for understanding and defending the
concept of Eternal Life, showing how it emerges from our present
life, our human longing for fulfillment and happiness, and our
striving for knowledge of reality. Hoye uses the work of Karl Rahner
and Thomas Aquinas to explore questions concerning suffering, the
ultimate relevance of morality, and how the fundamental idea of
responsibility changes when viewed eschatologically. Contemporary
reasons for denying an afterlife are examined critically and extensively.
This book will be of great interest to those studying systematic
theology, theological anthropology, and Catholic theology.
WILLIAM J. HOYE
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom
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William J. Hoye 2013
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First published 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Hoye, William J.
The emergence of eternal life / William J. Hoye.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-107-04121-9 (hardback)
1. Future life Christianity. 2. Catholic Church Doctrines. I. Title.
bt903.h69 2013
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isbn 978-1-107-04121-9 Hardback
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To
my friend Mitch,
Alden F. Mitchell
Contents
vii
viii Contents
4.7 The necessary structure of the vision of God 144
4.8 The mode of Gods presence: The forma intelligibilis 148
4.9 The vision of God as the whole of Eternal Life enfolded 153
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 157
4.11 Interim conclusion 167
5 The human factor 169
5.1 Happiness and human nature 169
5.2 A minimal and maximal heuristic principle 171
5.3 The desire for truth 176
6 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life 180
6.1 The eternity of salvation as the fulfillment of time 181
6.2 Time and eternity 183
6.3 Longing in time as the predetermination of the vision of God 191
6.4 The theological notion of memory 201
6.5 The eternal significance of temporal suffering 204
6.6 The eternal relevance of morality 216
7 Sensuality: the resurrection of the body 237
7.1 Sensuality as an end in itself 243
7.2 Sensual pleasure as a part of eternal happiness 247
7.3 The difference between joy and happiness 249
7.4 The corporeal unfolding of the vision 252
7.5 The soul and the body 258
8 The emergence of Eternal Life a conclusion 276
Bibliography 278
Index 290
chapter o ne
Everything desires most of all its own last end. But the human mind is
moved to more desire and love and delight over the knowledge of divine
things, little as it can discern about them, than over the perfect knowledge
that it has of the lowest things.7
Otherwise, this assertion that knowledge of God is the goal of human life
would sound incredible.
6 Augustine, De civitate Dei, XI, 27. 7 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25.
1.1 Emergence: The causality of Eternal Life 5
The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply
the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. The con-
structionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin diffi-
culties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new
properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied
chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but
very different from the sum of its parts.14
11 Cf. Brandt, Konnen Tiere denken?, 1516: Materialistic reductionism has been overcome by the
new emergence research on biological systems. It has arrived at the acceptance of characteristics that
cannot be predicted by an individual examination of the physical components (physics, chemistry).
12 This principle of emergence is as pervasive a philosophical foundation of the viewpoint of modern
science as is reductionism. It underlies, for example, all of biology . . . and much of geology. It
represents an open frontier for the physicist, a frontier which has no practical barriers in terms of
expense or feasibility, merely intellectual ones. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 92 (July 1995), in an
introductory paper at a colloquium entitled Physics: The Opening to Complexity, held June 26
and 27, 1994, at the National Academy of Sciences, in Irvine, CA, 6653.
13 Ibid., 66536654. 14 Anderson, More Is Different, 393396.
8 Introduction to the question
Konrad Lorenz criticized the notion of emergence because he felt that it
suggested that something that had already existed but had been hidden
now comes to light. He preferred instead to use the notion of fulguration
(i. e., the act of flashing like lightning), as though the new quality arose
suddenly and without having any preexistence whatsoever.
Emergent wholes are qualitatively different from their individual parts.
A sentence is different from a list of individual words. It possesses the
capacity to be true or false, whereas a list of words no matter how many
does not possess this quality (although a phrase may be composed of many
words). A word can have a meaning, whereas the collection of letters that
has the external appearance of a word may be void of meaning.
A hurricane is an example for emergence. Another example of emergence
that is often cited is an ant colony. The queen is not the monarch, giving
direct orders and communicating to the different ants what they must do.
Instead of there being a hierarchical structure, each ant reacts to stimuli
that occur in the form of chemical scent from larvae, other ants, intruders,
food, and buildup of waste, leaving behind a chemical trail, that, in turn,
provides a stimulus to other ants. Here, each ant represents an autonomous
whole, which reacts depending on only its local environment and the
genetically encoded rules for its variety of ant. Nevertheless, despite the
lack of centralized decision making, ant colonies reveal complex social
behavior.
Emergence is not magic and neither is Eternal Life a miracle. In a sense,
both entail getting something out of nothing. The question that causes
problems for physics is naming the cause. Aristotle explains the idea that
the whole may be more than the sum of its parts by distinguishing between
form and matter. But if, as we say, one element is matter and another is
form, and one is potential and the other actual, the question will no longer
be thought a difficulty.15 With these categories, Thomas Aquinas was able
to explain the unity of a human person by viewing the human spirit as
the form of the material body. However, these explanations are intended
to explain the unity of the whole but do not explain the phenomenon of
emergence itself. What brings about the unity?
The temperature of gases is also cited. While gas has a temperature,
the individual molecules of which it is composed do not. In other words,
the whole has a quality that the parts lack. Organisms have life, but a cell
is not a tiger, just as even a single gold atom is not yellow and gleam-
ing. Moreover, within consciousness, we directly experience a kind of
21 Cf. Aristotle, Physics, III, 1. 22 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 16.
1.2 The happening of reality (Creation) 11
essentially different from every other kind of causality that we know. As an
idea, it is not thinkable for the natural sciences, which always presuppose
something from which something arises. Physics knows of no causality
from nothing. Thomas Aquinas argues as follows:
The more universal the effect, the higher the cause: for the higher the cause,
the wider its range of efficiency. Now being is more universal than motion.
Therefore above any cause that acts only by moving and transmitting must
be that cause which is the first principle of being; and that we have shown
to be God. God therefore does not act merely by moving and transmuting:
whereas every cause that can only bring things into being out of pre-existing
material acts merely in that way, for a thing is made out of material by
movement or some change.23
27 Ibid. 28 Ibid.
chapter t wo
2.1 Difficulties
This book pursues two intentions: (1) the question of whether there really
exists life beyond death is to be examined as stringently as possible, and
(2) the relevance of such knowledge for our present life is to be studied.
With the ingenuousness appropriate to such questions, I intend to present
an affirmative answer to the first question and to show that life after death
reveals the ultimate meaning of the present life; however, a number of
obstacles stand in the way.
25 Rahner, Foundations, 13. (Throughout this volume and unless otherwise noted, Rahner refers to
Karl Rahner.)
26 Disbelief in a life after death
religion is not simply based on Christs teaching. It is similar with the
Church, if she is given a role that is overly essential. Seeing that the
Christian religion is not identical with the Christian Church, Rahner also
emphasized that the Church is not the central teaching of Christianity.26 It
is easy enough to have an institutional church that is void of religion and
to celebrate divine services without God.
Faith in Jesus Christ must be responsible. Rahner explains that Christ
himself is a question of conscience. In the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, it
would be immoral to believe in Christ if ones conscience were (erroneously)
convinced that belief in him contradicted truth. Someone in this state
would be rejecting truth if he or she believed in Christ and, thus, would
be contradicting the meaning of Faith in Christ.27 (Noteworthy is the fact
that Fyodor Dostoyevsky took the opposite position: he maintained that he
would choose Christ if he were confronted with the hypothesis of choosing
between Christ and Truth.28 ) What is important here is that there is a
kind of knowledge of God that is not adequately mediated through the
encounter with Jesus Christ.29 Jesus himself presupposes an elaborate
theology. Moreover, Christ himself represents a theological question. It is
certainly not by chance that Aquinas does not take up Christology until
the third and final part of his Summa theologiae and the fourth and final
part of his Summa contra gentiles.
It is a crucial mistake to identify what is specifically Christian with
the essence of Christianity. If Christ is to be viewed theologically, the
background must be composed of a mature theology. There exist different
Christologies because the presupposed perspectives are different. Neither
the experience of Christ nor belief in him can replace this; Faith and reason
are not alternatives. Here, too, the axiom Grace perfects nature holds.
Some would consider it ironic that it is the Catholic teaching office that
emphasizes the indispensability of philosophy within theology. To be sure,
The Catechism of the Catholic Church begins with a question about Faith
but, in order to treat this, it first explains the natural human capacity for
God [capax Dei], which consists in a desire for God [desiderium Dei]. This
is essential to understand Faith.
26 Cf. ibid., 324. 27 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 19, a. 5c.
28 Cf. his letter of February 20, 1854, to Natalja D. Fonvizin (Gesammelte Werke, Vol. XII, 297);
English: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more
manly and more perfect than the Savior . . . If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the
truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not the
truth. Quoted in Dirscherl, Dostoevsky, 52. A few years later, the same dilemma is recounted in
The Demons, Part II, Chapter 1, 7.
29 Rahner, Foundations, 13.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 27
In his tribute to philosophy in the encyclical Fides et Ratio (1998), Pope
John Paul II underlines the fact that Christian thought allows for nei-
ther a fideism nor a Biblicism. Both fideism, which fails to recognize
the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the
understanding of Faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God, and
Biblicism, which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scrip-
ture the sole criterion of truth, overlook the role of philosophy and reason
in theology. That there can be no contradiction between Faith and reason
is a traditional Catholic conviction. As Thomas Aquinas argues, this is so
because the light of reason and the light of Faith both come from God.30
It is not possible to hear or read Revelation without being influenced by
a philosophy. Most people read the Bible in translation and are influenced
by the philosophical presuppositions of their language. Holy Scripture does
not come purely; it cannot be understood without interpretation, being
otherwise nothing but language without content. No one has the whole
of Revelation present in his consciousness of what Christianity is. We all
make selections from what is revealed and put these ideas in a hierarchy of
importance. It is not Revelation that does this.
An ideal situation would be that the theologian is his own philosopher.
He should begin his philosophy simultaneously with his theology and not
borrow a philosophy or consider it to be merely a system of categories or a
referee of logic or a language into which theological ideas can be translated.
Instead, it reveres truth as much as theology does. The touchstone for the
seriousness of the involvement of philosophy can be found in the notion
of reality. Does the theologian simply presuppose this notion or does he
himself reflect on it and take responsibility for his notion of reality?
Rahner considers the philosophical presuppositions to belong to the
content of Revelation theology.31 He calls philosophy an element within
Christian theology and maintains that there even exists a unity between
philosophy and theology insofar as both study the whole.32 According
to Pope John Paul II, the deep unity of Faith and philosophy must be
reached anew.33 There is a natural-philosophical teaching on God and, as
Rahner asserts, it is not carried on next to Revelation theology.34 Rahner
describes the philosophical element . . . as a transcendental presupposition
within the theological sphere.35 At least in his own case, philosophical
reflections are certainly not pre-theological, as has been claimed.36
30 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 7; John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, n. 43.
31 Cf. Rahner, Foundations, 36. 32 Ibid., 11.
33 Cf. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, n. 48. 34 Rahner, Schriften, 5051.
35 A letter of July 24, 1968; as quoted in Eicher, Anthropologische Wende, 79, n. 1.
36 Cf. Fischer, Mensch, 160, n. 109.
28 Disbelief in a life after death
The relevance of philosophy for theology is not exhausted by the fact
that the Church has adopted philosophical notions to express dogmas.37
Much more important is that the Church has drawn from philosophy in
order to gain a deeper understanding of Faith.38 Hearing the divine word
and understanding it are two different acts. Pope John Paul II encourages
philosophers to trust in human reason and not to be overly modest in
defining their goals.39 He further recommends that it is necessary not to
abandon the passion for ultimate truth, the eagerness to search for it or
the audacity to forge new paths in the search.40 It is natural to Christian
Faith that it presents reason with a challenge. It is Faith, he states, which
stirs reason to move beyond all isolation and willingly to run risks so that
it may attain whatever is beautiful, good, and true. Faith thus becomes the
convinced and convincing advocate of reason.41
For this thoroughly positive viewpoint, which is no more than the
axiom that grace presupposes and perfects nature, Thomas Aquinas is cited
as follows:
Thomas recognized that nature, philosophys proper concern, could con-
tribute to the understanding of divine Revelation. Faith therefore has no fear
of reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature
and brings it to fulfillment, so Faith builds upon and perfects reason.42
Both philosophy and theology have the final goal of human existence as
their object.43 Both should be seeking Truth, each with its own autonomy.
Rahner describes the relationship between believing and thinking as a
circular movement between the question and the answer. The question that
the human being himself is presents the condition of the possibility for
hearing the answer that Christian Revelation is. The question establishes
the condition for real hearing, he says, and the answer first brings the
question to its reflective self-givenness.44 The circle runs between the
horizons of understanding and what is said, heard, and understood.45 In
this way, the philosophical presuppositions become a part of the content of
Revelation theology, and philosophy is seen to be a factor within Christian
theology.46
Pope John Paul II expresses a warning about the attempt to separate
theology from philosophy. The result, he notes, would not be an inde-
pendent theology but rather an impoverished and enfeebled theology.
37 Cf. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, n. 55. 38 Ibid., n. 5. 39 Cf. ibid., n. 56.
40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Cf. ibid., n. 43. 43 Cf. ibid., n. 15.
44 Rahner, Schriften, 23. 45 Rahner, Foundations, 24. 46 Cf. ibid., 25.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 29
Without philosophy, theology is reduced to particular feelings and experi-
ences. Thus, it would become a study of myths instead of being:
Deprived of reason, Faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so run the
risk of no longer being a universal proposition. It is an illusion to think that
Faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary,
Faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition. By the
same token, reason which is unrelated to an adult Faith is not prompted to
turn its gaze to the newness and radicality of being.47
Not for pastoral or pedagogical reasons but instead by the very nature of the
revealed word do certain tasks that are the responsibility of theology itself
demand recourse to philosophical enquiry.48 Because of this, the believer
must do philosophy before doing Christology. Faith in Christ presupposes
reason.
61 Teresa of Avila, Life, c. 10, 1. 62 William of St. Thierry, Nature and Dignity, c. 4, n. 31, 91.
63 Egan, Soundings, xviii. 64 McGinn, The Foundations, xvii. 65 McGinn, Flowering, xi.
34 Disbelief in a life after death
Gods quid est is unknowable. In this life, we can only know his quia est.
We can, however, learn something about what God is not (i.e., about quid
non est) and substitute this knowledge for quid est knowledge. What we
can know about God himself is only that he exists. It is distinct of God
that he does not have existence there being no whatness in him that
could have it. Creatures, in contrast, have existence.66
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following as the first definition
for reality: The quality of being real or having an actual existence.
Other than the fact that actual existence would seem to be redundant,
this definition is perfectly appropriate. Hence, we have an awareness of
existents and existence, which is had by existents and for which reason
they are so designated. Unicorns are not existents. Moreover, we are aware
in every experience of existence itself, which is identified with God. God
cannot be an existent, just as water cannot be made wet. To say that
God exists is, according to Thomas Aquinas, like saying that running
runs.67
Aquinas acknowledges two kinds of visions of God. The first is the
eschatological vision, the second the insight into Gods unknowableness:
The vision of God is twofold. One is perfect, whereby Gods Essence is seen:
the other is imperfect, whereby, though we see not what God is, yet we see
what he is not; and whereby, the more perfectly we know God in this life,
the more we understand that he surpasses all that the mind comprehends.68
The first takes place in heaven, whereas the second is its state of inchoation,
as possessed by wayfarers.69 For Thomas it is, therefore, not an experience
of God, to say nothing of a mystical experience, which represents in this
life the reference to the eschatological vision.
What, then, are the experiences of God that are recounted in the Bible?
Thomas responds to this question with unhesitant consistency:
But that some men are spoken of in Sacred Scripture as having seen God
must be understood either in reference to an imaginary vision, or even a
corporeal one: according as the presence of divine power was manifested
through some corporeal species, whether appearing externally, or formed
internally in the imagination; or even according as some men have perceived
some intelligible knowledge of God through his spiritual effects.70
66 I have treated this especially in my article on Die Unerkennbarkeit.
67 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In ebdomadibus, lect. 2.
68 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 8, a. 7c. 69 Ibid.
70 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 47. Cf. also In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 7,
ad 2. The expression having seen you with my own eyes (Job 42:5) is interpreted in the same way;
cf. ibid., ad 3.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 35
However, Augustines teaching confronts Thomas with a problem, for
Augustine explicitly says that we are able to see God in the present life.
Thomas responds by differentiating between the wording and the meaning:
From these words then of Augustine it cannot be gathered that God is seen
in his substance in this life, but only as in a mirror, which the Apostle also
confesses of the knowledge of this life, saying (1 Cor 13:12): We see now as
in a glass darkly.71
Thomas further clarifies his position by maintaining that in a successful
proof of Gods existence, it is not Gods being that is attained. Proofs do not
reach God himself but rather only a sentence namely, that God exists.72
Revelation adds new truths, but it does not essentially alter the natural
situation:
Although by the Revelation of grace in this life we cannot know of God what
he is, and thus are united to him as to one unknown; still we know him more
fully according as many and more excellent of his effects are demonstrated
to us, and according as we attribute to him some things known by divine
Revelation, to which natural reason cannot reach, as, for instance, that God
is Three and One.73
Contrary to his contemporary St. Bonaventure, according to whom knowl-
edge of Gods quid est can be attained by grace,74 Thomas allows for no
exception. An experience remains a unity of essence and existence no matter
where it originates. Thomas maintains that Revelation, in particular, does
not change Gods unknowableness, for he is not unknowable in himself
but only for us. If his Revelation is to be heard by us, then it must conform
to the human presuppositions [gratia supponit naturam]. The essence of
human beings sets down the structure transcendentally.75 Although we
are elevated by Revelation to know something that would otherwise be
unknown to us, nevertheless not with the effect that we would know in
any other way than through sensibles.76
77 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 18, a. 3c. 78 Cf. Hoye, Lehramtliche Aussagen.
79 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 10, a. 11, obj. 14. Thomass response to this objection: Auctoritas
illa dupliciter exponitur in glossa. Uno modo ut intelligatur de visione imaginaria . . . Alio modo
exponit glossa Gregorii de visione intellectuali, qua sancti in contemplatione divinam veritatem
intuentur; non quidem sciendo de ea quid est, sed magis quid non est.
80 According to Dionysius (Coel. Hier. IV) a man is said in the Scriptures to see God in the sense that
certain figures are formed in the senses or imagination, according to some similitude representing
in part the divinity. So when Jacob says, I have seen God face to face, this does not mean the
divine essence, but some figure representing God. And this is to be referred to some high mode
of prophecy, so that God seems to speak, though in an imaginary vision . . . We may also say that
Jacob spoke thus to designate some exalted intellectual contemplation, above the ordinary state.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 11, ad 1.
81 Cf. ibid. 82 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 7, ad 1.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 37
The problem of extraordinary religious experiences becomes acute when
Aquinas treats what he refers to as prophecy and rapture. When he does
take up these questions, it is noteworthy that he never argues from his own
mystical experiences but instead remains within the bounds of purely theo-
logical argumentation. Although prophecy and rapture go far beyond what
normally is referred to when speaking of mystical experience, observing how
Thomas treats these extreme cases will serve to accentuate his basic posi-
tion. On mysticism in general, Thomas wrote nothing. Unlike his teacher
Albertus Magnus, he surprisingly wrote no commentary on the famous
work On Mystical Theology by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, although
he did write commentaries on other works of Dionysius Dionysius being
one of his greatest authorities. The extraordinary religious experiences that
he treats are presented to him normatively by Holy Scripture, not from the
spiritual life of the later Church. It might be presumed that if Thomas had
not been bound by Faith authorities, he would have taken up such topics
only in his eschatology.
With regard to what is called prophecy, Thomas teaches that such expe-
riences never attain the divine essence, although they are involved with
knowledge that transcends natural reason and therefore require a special
supernatural illumination.83 Thomas remains uncompromising. But he is
certainly not fighting in favor of a fundamental skepticism against the idea
of experiencing God. To the contrary: he adamantly defends a direct expe-
rience of God but solely in the afterlife. To uphold this conclusion, it is
essential to his approach to exclude the idea of an experience of God in this
life. The eschatological vision, which he understands as a direct conscious
union with God, is a focal point of his whole theology. His theological
teaching on Gods unknowability is by no means a propaedeutic to mysti-
cism. It is far from his mind to conclude, Out of this negative theology,
that is, of the impossibility of knowledge of God, there follows the mystical
step of union, of the unio mystica.84 Just the opposite is rather the case:
the possibility of mysticism undermines in his eyes a belief in a life after
death. The fulfillment of the natural desire to see God is quite different
from mysticism. For this reason, Henri de Lubacs criticism that Thomas
did not succeed in harmonizing rational thinking with mysticism entirely
misses the point.85
86 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 173, a. 1c; q. 171, a. 2c.
87 Cf. ibid., q. 174, a. 5c. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., q. 173, a. 1c. 90 Ibid., q. 174, a. 5, ad 1.
91 Cf. ibid. 92 Ibid., q. 173, a. 1c. 93 Cf. ibid., q. 175, a. 1c. 94 See page 34.
95 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 47.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 39
Thomas is so insistent that he readily disagrees with the authoritative
opinion of St. Augustine (see page 35).
The fundamental situation in which human beings find themselves is
essential for our understanding of life after death. We are present in reality
(in that sense of the word that does not allow a plural form), but we have
conscious contact only with realities. Realities are always concrete, meaning
precisely that they have being but are not their being. Human existence is
for this reason an anticipation of Eternal Life, where we shall be united
with Being itself.
97 Cf. Historisches Worterbuch, Vol. II, 703. 98 Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 53.
99 Ibid., 5758. 100 Cf. Schillemeit, Erlebnis, 330. 101 See pages 139142.
102 Cognitio est secundum quod cognitum est in cognoscente. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,
I, q. 16, a. 1c.
103 Ibid., q. 54, a. 1, ad 3.
104 Sic ergo entitas rei praecedit rationem veritatis, sed cognitio est quidam veritatis effectus. Thomas
Aquinas, De veritate, q. 1, a. 1c.
105 Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 53: It is surprising to find that, unlike the verb erleben, the noun
Erlebnis became common only in the 1870s. In the eighteenth century it is not to be found at all,
and even Schiller and Goethe do not know it. Cf. Schillemeit, Erlebnis, 319320: The earliest
evidence occurs sparsely and hesitatingly in the first decades of the nineteenth century . . . Not
before the middle of the century can the word be found more frequently, but in this case not easily
and with meanings that do not correspond fully to present-day usage.
2.2 The Experience Prejudice 41
So the question naturally arises of why there is a need for such a word,
which has acquired an overwhelming, inflationary popularity in innu-
merable areas of contemporary life. There seems to be almost nothing in
consumer advertisements to which it cannot be applied. Other European
languages have taken it over. Obviously, the problem is an acute need for
reality, real reality and not just virtual reality. Contemporary culture has
become deaf to reality, and the advertisers try to fill the need with the
promise of an Erlebnis:
Just as the remoteness from and hunger for experience, caused by distress
over the complicated working of civilization transformed by the Industrial
Revolution, brought the word Erlebnis into general usage, so also the new,
distanced attitude that historical consciousness takes to tradition gives the
concept of Erlebnis its epistemological function.106
Perhaps the word indicates a discontent with the rationalism of the
Enlightenment.
Erlebnis seems to emphasize a further aspect namely, a transcendence:
it extends beyond the immediate object:
The representation of the whole in the momentary Erlebnis obviously goes
far beyond the fact of its being determined by its object. Every experience
is, in Schleiermachers words, an element of infinite life. Georg Simmel,
who was largely responsible for the word Erlebnis becoming so fashionable,
considers the important thing about the concept of experience as this: the
objective not only becomes an image and idea, as in knowing, but an element
in the life process itself.107
According to Gadamer, life is seen as a totality in an Erlebnis.108 The
whole person is involved in the experienced reality. Erlebnis is not just an
aspect of life (life in German is Leben, from which Erlebnis stems);
it actualizes the totality of life.109 It seems to have a religious dimension:
In contrast to the abstractness of understanding and the particularity
of perception or representation, this concept implies a connection with
totality, with infinity.110 No wonder, then, if we consider it an indication
of the human hunger for fulfillment in being. Experience strives for more
than experience.
106 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 56. 107 Ibid., 60. 108 Cf. ibid., 58; 60.
109 If we look more closely at what is here called life and which of its aspects affect the concept of
experience, we see that the relationship of life to experience is not that of a universal to a particular.
Rather, the unity of experience as determined by its intentional content stands in an immediate
relationship to the whole, to the totality of life. Ibid., 59.
110 Ibid., 55.
42 Disbelief in a life after death
114 Ibid., 344. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid., 386.
118 Weizsacker, Ambivalence, 275. 119 Weizsacker, Seligpreisungen, 15.
2.3 The Praxis Prejudice 45
126 Heidegger, Holzwege, 268. 127 Heidegger, Question, 332. 128 Ibid., 333.
129 Ibid. 130 Ibid., 331 (emphasis in original). 131 Ibid., 332.
50 Disbelief in a life after death
opinion, if this is not seen, then Eternal Life will have to be judged
superfluous.
Exegetes often understand the parable as simply broadening the term
neighbor, thus remaining within the horizon of the original question.
They say that everyone who needs help is my neighbor. Hans Kung inter-
prets the parable as teaching that a neighbor is everyone who needs me.132
Need implies that the persons state can be changed; he embodies, so to
speak, a kind of receptiveness for my practice. In his commentary of Lukes
Gospel, Karl Heinrich Rengstorf expresses it crassly: To whom am I
neighbor?, that is, who is dependent upon me to accord him full selfless
love?133
As a matter of fact, Jesus does not give an answer to the question at all;
he changes the question. The parable recounts an occurrence that prepares
the listener for the new question. The emphasis is not on the suffering
man but rather on the manner in which the Samaritan experiences him.
The Samaritan becomes his neighbor. It is not, By helping I become his
neighbor.134
If one reads the original Greek text attentively and not some transla-
tions that turn it into a teaching on praxis it is clear that the verb that
Jesus uses is to become. He asks, Who has become neighbor to the man
who fell among the robbers? In other words, it is not doing that is primary
but rather becoming. Jesus does not simply repeat the question of who
is my neighbor? The act of becoming occurs before the Samaritan does
anything for the man. It happens when he sees him and is moved by com-
passion. The other two travelers also saw him but passed by on the other
side, whereas the Samaritan saw him and was moved by compassion.
What is translated as moved by compassion is an unusual and drastic
verb in the original Greek namely, [splagchnizomai]. The
verb comes from the Greek substantive [splagchna]. Splagchna
are the innards of an animal sacrifice the entrails, kidneys, liver, and
lungs which are the best parts. Literally, the verb would mean that one
lets his entrails be eaten. Later, it came to mean the total sacrifice of the
animal inside and outside. Today, we would use the metaphor heart
instead; we might say, He let his heart be touched by him or His
heart went out to him. Furthermore, the verb does not occur outside of
Judeo-Christian literature. In the New Testament, it is mostly used to
characterize the divineness of Jesus behavior.
132 Kung, On Being, 258: It is impossible to work out in advance who my neighbor will be. This is
the meaning of the story of the man fallen among thieves: my neighbor is anyone who needs me
here and now (emphasis in original).
133 Rengstorf, Das Neue Testament, 141. 134 Leitheiser/Pesch, Handbuch, 304.
2.3 The Praxis Prejudice 51
What happens is, first of all, the change in the Samaritans heart. He then
helps because he has become the neighbor of the man and not vice versa,
as is sometimes asserted. The main motion does not go from the Samaritan
to the man but instead in the opposite direction. The Samaritan acts on the
man actively and externally but, passively and internally, he is acted upon;
that is, he lets himself be acted upon and this is just the opposite of the
direction in which technology works. He has the ability to perceive reality
affectively, which the other two travelers seem not to have. His perception
is not simply the factual registration that a neighbor lies next to the road
and that the duty of love of neighbor applies. It is a personal, existential
experience, which is not praxis at least not in the modern sense, albeit
the Greeks would have called this praxis. From the Christian viewpoint,
it is the kind of love that is life, as 1 Jn 3:1517 expresses it: If you refuse
to love, you must remain dead . . . If a man who was rich enough in this
worlds goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his
heart [ ; ta splagchna] to him, how could the love of God be
living in him? Love is a kind of becoming. Love means union, Thomas
Aquinas teaches, defining love more precisely as a union of the affect [unio
affectus or unio affectiva]; the effective aspect of love [effectus amoris] occurs
later.135
After the Samaritan has become one with the suffering man, he then
goes to him and does something to help him. As Aristotle said, the beloved
is like another self. There is simple love, with which one desires something
for oneself, and then there is the love of friendship, which desires something
good for the other. Aquinas expresses it as follows:
Love is twofold, that is, love of concupiscence and love of friendship, each
of these arises from a kind of apprehension of the oneness of the thing loved
with the lover. For when we love a thing, by desiring it, we apprehend it
as belonging to our well-being. In like manner when a man loves another
with the love of friendship, he wills good to him, just as he wills good to
himself: wherefore he apprehends him as his other self, insofar, that is, as he
wills good to him as to himself. Hence, a friend is called a mans other self
(Nicomachean Ethics, IX, 4), and Augustine says (Confessions, IV, 6), Well
did one say to his friend: Thou half of my soul.136
135 The union of lover and beloved is twofold. There is real union, consisting in the conjunction of
one with the other. This union belongs to joy or pleasure, which follows desire. There is also an
affective union, consisting in an aptitude or proportion, insofar as one thing, from the very fact
of its having an aptitude for and an inclination to another, partakes of it: and love betokens such
a union. This union precedes the movement of desire. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III,
q. 25, a. 2, ad 2.
136 Ibid., q. 28, a. 1c.
52 Disbelief in a life after death
Presumably, the two other travelers saw the man on the wayside as their
neighbor according to the law but are not criticized by Jesus. It would seem
to follow as a confirmation of my reading that this was not the point of
the parable. What distinguishes the Samaritan from them is the manner
in which he sees. Umberto Eco wisely wrote in The Name of the Rose:
The most that one can do is to look more closely. Aquinas described the
union of love as follows: The beloved is contained in the lover insofar
as he or she is impressed in his or her affect by a kind of accompanying
delight [complacentia].137 The sequence is Love precedes desire138 and
praxis follows desire.
The becoming of love in the affect is an ontological extension of self-
love. Hence, real love of another being is grounded in self-love. We are to
love our neighbor like ourselves. The beloved is a second self. To speak
of selflessness is a misunderstanding, despite the fact that many Christians
consider selflessness as the specific characteristic of Christian love.
Neither is action Christian love itself. It is an effect, as well as a sign,
of love. Love of ones neighbor is more than morality, more than the
fulfillment of a moral law. Weizsacker appreciates this when he writes: In
the end the final basis of human social life is love and not morality. Morality
is the next-to-the-final basis.139 He explains:
In real human life equality can never be completely realized. The hierar-
chy that not even reason can abolish is the hierarchy of reason itself. The
relationship between parents and dependent children, between teachers and
students, between doctors and patients, even between those with knowledge
and those without, cannot be symmetric. The balance is what religion calls
love. Those with knowledge treat those without knowledge basically as
their equals. One loves even the partner who cannot or does not want to be
proven equal. One loves even ones enemy. In modern civilization, exactly
because of a belief in the autonomy of reason, there are few things more
difficult than love. But without love, humankind in its community cannot
survive.140
Suffering is one source of love, the love of compassion. However, there also
are positive sources of love above all, the beautiful. Weizsacker also saw
this:
For humans, erotic love has become, next to morality, a second and com-
pletely different kind of release from the ego, and in a different way moves
the ego toward maturity. Common to both, despite all the differences of
how they are experienced, is a quality of sensation that one could perhaps
141 Ibid., 101. 142 Kung, On Being, 256; 255. 143 Wendland, Ethik, 15.
144 Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, VI, 401. Cf. ibid., XXIII, 407.
145 Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. I, 279.
146 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 180, q. 2, ad 3.
54 Disbelief in a life after death
refutes his philosophy. The important thing, as he obviously realizes, is, in
fact, not the alteration of the world but rather the experience of the world,
the openness to reality. In a moving letter to his wife in Trier,147 Marx
expresses this insight unmistakably:
My darling Sweetheart, I am writing to you again because I am alone and
because it is irksome to converse with you all the time in my head without
you knowing or hearing or being able to answer me . . . But I put right
what the suns rays have wrongly depicted, discovering that my eyes, spoiled
though they are by lamplight and tobacco smoke, can nevertheless paint not
only in the dreaming but also in the waking state. There you are before me,
large as life, and I lift you up in my arms and I kiss you all over from top to
toe, and I fall on my knees before you and cry: Madame, I love you, and
love you I do . . . Who of my many calumniators and venomous-tongued
enemies has ever reproached me with being called upon to play the romantic
lead in a second-rate theatre? And yet it is true. Had the scoundrels possessed
the wit, they would have depicted the productive and social relations on
one side and, on the other, myself at your feet.
Marx continues his reflections:
My love for you, as soon as you are away from me, appears for what it
is, a giant, and into it all the vigour of my mind and all the ardour of
my heart are compressed. I feel myself once more a man because I feel
intense passion . . . Love, not for Feuerbachian Man, not for Moleschottian
metabolism, not for the proletariat, but love for a sweetheart and notably
for yourself, turns a man back into a man again.
One can hardly imagine a more telling refutation of the Praxis Prejudice.
The Praxis Prejudice is like a pair of blue eyeglasses. Once I have gotten
used to them, I forget that I am wearing them and that the visible world
does not consist in variations of blue. We have become so used to this
viewpoint that we see things in accordance with it that do not fit at all. For
example, when I say God created the world in a lecture at the university,
what I am doing is called theory, as a preparation, say, for teaching in
a secondary school. But when the same sentence is said in school, it is
now called praxis. College studies a term that originally meant a kind of
love for knowledge, for theory have become use-oriented. Many study
in order to have a good job afterwards and this can mean simply to
earn more money. University studies are then basically comparable to the
manual training of a craftsman. The notion of theory has itself become
praxis-oriented; it is understood as a preparation for praxis. Theory today
147 Cf. Marx, letter to his wife, Jenny Marx, of June 21, 1856 (Marx/Engels Correspondence 1856;
MECW Vol. XL, 54).
2.3 The Praxis Prejudice 55
is a practical, a technical notion. If theory does not lead to praxis, we refer
to it derogatorily as mere theory.
Theory is a good notion to underscore the difference between the
Praxis Prejudice and the Christian position. For the former, theory is praxis-
oriented thought. For example, the cabinetmakers concept, the architects
plan, and the physicians knowledge all have the essential purpose of being
put into practice. For the latter, theory is rather a kind of experience of
reality. The historical development of the notion of theory is extremely
informative.
148 Weizsacker, Garten, 435. 149 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, X, 8. 150 Ibid.
56 Disbelief in a life after death
Furthermore, this teaching does not occur in an esoteric book on mysticism
but rather at the culmination point of Aristotles philosophical ethics, which
for him is the foundation of political science. All practice leads to theory,
which is the highest form of praxis.
Robert Spaemann describes theoria in terms of celebration, expressing it
as follows:
For Aristotle this going on holiday is the highest form of being human.
Theoria is a holiday. A holiday is not in the service of the everyday; it is not
there simply to replenish energy in order to return refreshed to the everyday
world; rather, it uses strength for the best. It does not serve praxis; it is its
ultimate and highest possibility.151
151 Spaemann, Happiness, 59. 152 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25.
153 Ibid.
2.3 The Praxis Prejudice 57
Thomas even claims that Holy Scripture agrees with Aristotle in under-
standing mans final happiness as speculation. Contemporary English does
not allow the following translation of the Latin, in which Thomas empha-
sizes his statement with the expression the speculation of what is most
speculative [speculationem optimi speculabilis].
Nicholas of Cusa, at the end of the Middle Ages, makes the same claim:
For speculatio, or contemplatio or visio, is the most perfect act, rendering
our highest nature, namely, the intellectual, happy, as Aristotle has also
shown.154
It is obvious that the term speculation has taken on quite a different
meaning since his time, for he can write: Speculation [speculatio] is living
in peace, for it is the resting of the rational spirit, or its final happiness.155
Cusanus also refers to the speculation of truth, writing: This speculation
is for those who see life and eternal happiness.156
With the word speculation, the problematic reveals its acute chal-
lenge for today. For us, speculation represents just the contrary to what
Cusanus, together with the entire Western tradition preceding him, under-
stood by it. It is next to impossible for us to understand speculation as
fulfilling happiness. For us, it does not signify intensive reality but rather
a separation from reality, like the word abstract. Moreover, not only has
the word been given a meaning contrary to the original, it is also a term
with a strong negative connotation. It is used in a psychological com-
bat against the traditional meaning. For this tradition, speculation is a
deep grasping of the essence of a reality, deeper in any case than concrete,
empirical perception in time and space. Man has no better way of reaching
reality.
For Cusanus, God is closely associated with theory. The word God
[theos], he asserts, comes from the word theory.157
The Greek word theoria is also translated into Latin as meditation or
contemplation. The contemplative life [vita contemplativa], as opposed
to the practical life, is the theoretical life [ ]. As with the
words theory and speculation, the meaning in popular language has
been reversed. Whereas meditation, or contemplation, originally meant an
apprehension of reality, today the tendency is to think of them as turning
inward, away from objective reality. The perceptive thinker Weizsacker is
one of the few who realized this. He observes:
154 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo CCLI, n. 2. 155 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo XCIX, n. 2.
156 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo CCIV, n. 8.
157 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, Directio speculantis, XXIII, n. 104.
58 Disbelief in a life after death
The often held opinion that meditation is narcissism and exists in opposition
to involvement with other people is an error the existence of which is
difficult to understand. There are also, though rarely, contemplative ways of
living that do more good to others through inaction or even without human
contact than through any activities.158
Meditation, he maintains,
is not a flight into ones own inner world, but it is a shield against those
innermost inhibitions that prevent us from facing our neighbor and reality.
And there is something else: A large part of what is thought to be an active
facing of reality is actually nothing but a flight from the facing of oneself.159
2.4 Hedonism
The reduction of happiness to a feeling is perhaps the dominant philosophy
of the present day. Hedonism teaches practical methods for attaining the
feeling of happiness. With the appropriate discipline, a little can bring about
the same feeling as much can. The gourmet can enjoy more pleasure in his
tiny portions than the glutton in his immoderate portions. The hedonist
attempts to be content with what he has or what is presumably acquirable.
He substitutes contentedness for happiness. The ideal of contentedness
has become, in fact, the predominant enemy of happiness and religion.
We tell ourselves, for example, that we should be content with health or
with the little that we actually have instead of striving for greater joys and
then being disappointed. The striving for happiness is curtailed or, at least
as an ideal, moderated. Hedonism can be defined as the ideal of reducing
happiness to an affect.
One form of hedonism focuses on sensual pleasure, but a higher, more
serious form revolves around spiritual joy. While it is easy to see the error
in sensual hedonism, this is more difficult in higher hedonism. Greek
hedonists such as Epicurus (342/1270 bc), who put great value on the
joys of friendship, who derived more delight from doing a good deed than
from receiving one, who considered dying for a friend good, who lived
an ascetical life were responding philosophically to the question of what
mans highest good is. In other words, what is the meaning of life? What
are we striving for ultimately and universally? Hedonism of this kind is a
qualified answer to the question of ethics: What is the goal of life?
Epicurus taught that everyone should realize that the highest good lies
not in human beings or noble things but rather in the pleasure, or delight,
we derive from them. Accordingly, the ultimate is a subjective feeling.
158 Weizsacker, Ambivalence, 25. 159 Ibid., 290. Cf. Wahrnehmung, 421; Garten, 434436.
2.4 Hedonism 59
Although he was well aware that most people are concerned explicitly with
other matters, Epicurus was convinced that this is the objective ideal of
human life. Whereas we today tend to think of morality as a matter of
duty, of norms, rules, commandments, prohibitions, compromises, and so
forth, the Greeks saw delight as a sign of the most mature virtue.
The purpose of morality was for them to become happy. However,
on the question of what happiness consists in, a hedonist differed from a
Platonist. For Plato, happiness is the attainment of the Good. The hedonist,
in contrast, contends that what we want ultimately and most of all is to
feel good. We have been taught to spurn Plato and, in fact, hedonism is
a popular approach in our time (filling, as it were, the place that religion
previously held). Enjoying life as much as is decently possible is for many
the highest goal. I dont feel like it today is accepted as an excuse. Carpe
diem! is the first self-evident principle of this convincing anti-eschatological
worldview. Whether it can be said that happiness is something that can
be acquired, or at least sought after, in this life is a question that will be
addressed in a subsequent chapter.
Hedonism is also concerned with pain. Avoiding pain is the negative
side of seeking pleasure. Accordingly, one must accept compromises that
arise from weighing the possible advantages and disadvantages. One may
try to either maximize pleasure or minimize pain. The former is typical
for the wealthy, who can afford the costs of pleasure. The latter, chosen
by Epicurus himself for whom the greatest pleasure lies in the avoidance
of pain in the body and in quietude in the soul involves asceticism; one
tries to reduce ones desires so that frustration is minimized. A little should
suffice. Choices become a calculation: to gain one pleasure, I may be willing
to forbear another. Health thus becomes crucial today, and the hedonist,
for example, may avoid certain tasty foods because they are detrimental to
his health. Expect as little as possible and we will be more easily content.
With the right discipline, more pleasure can be derived from what one
has. Freedom from inner turmoil called ataraxia becomes a key to
happiness ironically. That there is something wrong with this philosophy
is indicated in one of Epicurus teachings: Even on the rack the wise man
is happy . . . When on the rack, however, he will give vent to cries and
groans.160
Hedonism seeks to discover the original motivation for all decisions. It
sees that everything sought by us is accompanied by some kind of pleasure
or delight. From this, it concludes that what we always seek is delight. In
animals and babies, neither of whom have been unfittingly educated, this
160 Diogenes Laertius, Lives, X, 117118.
60 Disbelief in a life after death
is quite obvious. However, hedonism applies this principle to all human
beings. Everything else takes on the appearance of means to this end.
Hence, delight would seem to be the final end because it is an end in itself.
This implies that Eternal Life would consist more in the will than in the
understanding. To this, Thomas Aquinas offers a differentiating response:
Delight, though it is not the last end, is still a concomitant of the last
end, since from the attainment of the last end delight supervenes.161 This
relationship requires closer examination.
The primary opponent of hedonism is human nature itself, which hedo-
nism tries to suppress or discipline. It is based on a subtle misunderstanding
of human experience. It sees something that is really there but, when reflect-
ing on it afterwards, it misinterprets the relationships within an experience.
In reality, a feeling follows the awareness of a corresponding reality. It is
normal that when I see a person dear to me and am conscious of my seeing
him or her, delight arises. Delight is always delight about something or
someone. Delight is always dependent on the reality that comprises its
content, or definition. By nature, we do not seek delight for its own sake,
even though we talk ouselves into believing it. Consequently, hedonism
involves a contradiction, for we are not delighted most of all when we seek
nothing but delight. Spaemann appreciated this paradox:
However, just as skepticism overcomes itself by bringing the standpoint of
doubting into doubt, so does hedonism overcome itself in that the hedonistic
reflection looks at itself and questions whether we really feel our best when
we are concerned with nothing besides feeling good. The answer to this
question is no.162
Aristotle argues that we would still strive after certain activities like seeing,
knowing, remembering, and acquiring a good character, even if they did
not provide any pleasure. In his own words:
No one would choose to live with the intellect of a child throughout his
life, however much he were to be pleased with the things that children are
pleased with, nor to get enjoyment by doing some most disgraceful deed,
though he were never to feel any pain in consequence. And there are many
things we should be keen on even if they brought no pleasure, e.g., seeing,
remembering, knowing, possessing the virtues. If pleasures necessarily do
accompany these, that makes no odds; we should choose these even if no
pleasure resulted. It seems to be clear, then, that pleasure is neither the good
nor that all pleasure is desirable.163
161 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 26. 162 Spaemann, Happiness, 32.
163 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1174 a.
2.4 Hedonism 61
What lover who is suffering under unrequited love would prefer to do
without the knowledge of the beloved, to forget the person as though he
or she never existed? As Alfred Tennysons well-known expression puts it:
Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.164
The problem with hedonism is not the fact that reality thwarts pleasure.
Hedonism does not say, Be realistic! It is deeper than the Freudian reality
principle, which compels one to defer pleasure when necessary because
of the obstacles arising in reality.165 Although it is true that reality all too
often opposes our wishes, this is not the error. Hedonists are well aware
of this aspect. As a child, one already experiences the fact that reality
does not permit an unlimited fulfillment of all wishes. Reality does not
adapt to us; we must adapt to reality. But this is far from calling us
hindered hedonists. What is required is more than realistically calculated
restraint.
It is a further mistake to think that reality is nothing but a negative force.
As Spaemann says: It is not at all true that reality is for us in the first place
something adverse, opposing us, to which we must perforce adapt. For it
is, at the same time, that which we want to miss at no price whatsoever.166
Through his bodily senses, mans consciousness comes into contact with
the reality of the world. His spirit is spirit-in-the-world. Consciousness
is like a light that shines on its objects, thus making them knowable
that is, present to consciousness. This fundamental structure holds true
throughout life.
Delight itself cannot be our goal because it only occurs on the presup-
position that the goal has already been reached, as Aquinas argues:
Delight seems to be nothing but a resting of the will in some befitting good,
as desire is an inclination of the will to the gaining of some good. Now
it is ridiculous to say that the end of movement is not the coming to be
in ones proper place, but the satisfaction of the inclination whereby one
tended to go there. If the principle aim of nature were the satisfaction of
the inclination, there would never be an inclination. An inclination exists
so that thereby one may tend to ones proper place: when that end is gained,
there follows the satisfaction of the inclination: thus the satisfaction of the
inclination is not the end, but a concomitant of the end.167
Now when we say that delight is the perfection of activity, we do not mean
that activity specifically considered is directed to the purpose of delight
the fact is that it is ordained to other ends, as eating is ordained to the
preservation of the individual we mean that delight ranks among the
perfections which go to make up the species of a thing: for through the
delight that we take in any action we apply ourselves to it more attentively
and fittingly.173
In brief, delight is similar to beauty and bodily strength. Both serve a being
and not vice versa. The body does not exist in order to be beautiful or in
order to be healthy.
171 Amor est laetitia concomitante idea causae externae. Spinoza, Ethica IV, propos. 44.
172 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 26. 173 Ibid.
64 Disbelief in a life after death
The author concludes by posing the question of what the bishops will
think if Christians who are true to the Bible do not accept the bishops
new teaching, according to which no one resurrects but only receives a lost
sociological contact.
In a few sentences, Siebel construed a complicated conflict among
Catholic believers. The theologian Kung is posed against the German
bishops, who in turn are seen in opposition to Scripture and tradition but
in conformity with scholarly exegesis. Finally, the people of the Church
are placed in opposition to the bishops. The Christian Siebel, who claims
to be orthodox and finds himself in a position to judge which teaching is
orthodox, stands above all of these different Revelation sources. How am
I to decide a dispute like this among Catholics and there is no reason
to doubt that they all look upon themselves as true Christians striving for
truth in this case by simply listening to Revelation? How am I to decide
which position is the true teaching of Revelation? In any case, I will not
succeed by simply appealing to Faith.
227 Eckhart, Liber parabolarum Genesis, n. 2. 228 Galilei, Opere, Vol. XIX, 403.
chapter t hree
77
78 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
you have. But this does not come down to a Cartesian method of doubt,
as if the believer were expected to prove his conviction before he believed
or to presume that his Faith played no role. Descartes wanted to doubt
everything possible and discovered even under this condition that he could
not get beyond his own thinking. Reason is not the first step. Rather, one
begins with an awareness, a self-reflection, a kind of connatural knowledge,
convincing by means of an affective concordance, a sympathy. It is a matter
of a kind of circular movement. To give my reason for believing in logic, I
do not have to, and I cannot, abstract from logic and prove its legitimacy
before doing it. Methodical doubt does not go that deep. If I find no
reason to deny logic, then I am adequately justified in believing in it. If,
to cite another analogy, I want to justify the fact that I am writing this
book in English, then I will hardly avoid using the English language to
defend myself. Many things in life are like this. To have a mother tongue,
one must start learning a language at an early age. One cannot wait until
one is old enough to make a rationally grounded decision on the question;
then it is too late. To be sure, one can later find good reasons to retain
ones mother tongue or to desist in using it and learn another language
although this new language will hardly ever become a mother tongue.
But how can I find plausible reasons for believing in an afterlife? The
question is instead how the misunderstandings that deny it can be cleared
up. This is down to earth; it is not dealing with reality beyond the empirical
world but rather with human thoughts occurring here and now. The
theological work in this case resembles that of a window cleaner, who
merely removes the obstructions to a clear view.
Various approaches to an answer are worth considering. In addition to
simply turning to the teaching of Faith (see page 64) say, in the Apostles
Creed one can argue from Christs Resurrection. The conviction can also
be approached as being something basically natural.
One of the obstructing misunderstandings that must be corrected is
the influential idea that belief in the immortality of the soul is something
medieval and has been overcome by the Enlightenment. The historical fact
is that precisely Enlightenment thinkers not only believed in but also put
great emphasis on the idea of the immortality of the soul. This conviction
could even be called a dogma of the Enlightenment. A few examples can
prove instructive.
In 1767, one of the most influential books of German Enlightenment
philosophy appeared: Moses Mendelssohns Phaedo, or on the Immortality
of the Soul, which became extremely widely read and discussed. Gotthold
Ephraim Lessings Education of the Human Race, published in 1780, shortly
3.1 The question 79
before the end of his life, summed up the whole of Christian teaching in
a single sentence: And so Christ became the first reliable practical teacher
of the immortality of the soul.1 Both Rousseau and Robespierre believed
in a personal God and in divine providence, as well as in the immortality
of the soul. In 1794, Robespierre had the Convention promulgate the brief
decree stating that the French nation believed in the immortality of the
soul as well as in a Supreme Being. After declaring, To the tomb, and
to immortality! in his last speech to the National Convention before his
execution, Robespierre added, Death is the beginning of immortality.
Goethe claimed to have been caused a good deal of trouble by the poem
Urania, written by Christoph August Tiedge and ending with the stanza:
When my eyes their final tears have shed
You beckon, call me to divinity.
A man, a pilgrim, lays down his weary head,
A god begins his passage instantly.
Goethe was annoyed by the time when nothing was sung and nothing
declaimed except Urania. Wherever you went, you found the Urania on
all tables; Urania and immortality were the subject of every conversation.
He complained that stupid women who plumed themselves on believing
in immortality along with Tiedge had sometimes examined [him] on this
point in a very conceited way.2
It is not surprising that immortality has been called the real central
dogma of the Enlightenment.3 In his lectures on the destiny of the
scholar, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the enlightened philosopher par excel-
lence, emphatically sung the praises of immortality:
What is called death cannot interrupt my work . . . I have . . . seized hold of
eternity. I lift my head boldly to the threatening precipice, to the raging
cataract and to the rumbling clouds swimming in a sea of fire, and say: I
am eternal, and I defy your power. Rend apart the last mote of the body I
call mine: my will alone . . . will soar boldly and coldly above the ruins of
the universe.4
A solution to the problem of harmonizing natural catastrophes like the
Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 was found in the immortality of the soul.
Rousseau, for example, argued:
If God exists, he is perfect; if he is perfect, he is wise, powerful and just;
if he is wise and powerful, all is well; if he is just and powerful, my soul
1 Paragraph 56, which contains only this one sentence. 2 Pieper, Werke, Vol. V, 376377.
3 Stange, Unsterblichkeit, 105. 4 Fichte, Bestimmung, 322323.
80 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
is immortal; if my soul is immortal, thirty years of life are nothing to me,
and they are perhaps necessary to the preservation of the universe. If I am
granted the first proposition, the ones that follow will never be shaken; if it
is denied, there is no use arguing about its consequences.5
Kant, too, maintains that the theodicy problem can be solved only if the
soul is immortal.
Not only in the European Enlightenment does the belief in immortality
play an important role. The American statesman and political theorist
Thomas Jefferson also held it high. The second point in his three-point
creed is that there is a future state of rewards and punishments.6 The
elder statesman Benjamin Franklin, who represented the essentials of a
secularized Christianity, listed in his own credo that the soul of man is
immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its
conduct in this.7
Nonetheless, I hesitate to presume that the immortality of the soul can
justify the Christian belief in Eternal Life. Actually, in itself it could not even
be called life but simply bare existence. Not only is some kind of realization
of sensuality necessary but, above all, God is required. As Benedict XVI has
expressed it, Belief in Eternal Life is merely the application of belief in God
to our own existence.8 In a further sense, it can be seen in relationship to
the belief in Christs Resurrection, which ultimately represents an unfolding
of the belief in God. The human hope for fulfillment is a participation in
belief in God. This aspect was deeply reflected on by Rahner.
16 Ibid., 269. 17 Ibid. (emphasis in original). 18 Marcel, Thou Shall Not Die.
19 Ibid., 271. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid.
3.2 Transcendental hope in ones own resurrection 83
of time, as a baby is the fruit of a pregnancy. Eternity rather subsumes time
by being released from the time which came to be temporarily, and came
to be so that the final and definitive could be done in freedom.24 Eternity
can be understood only as the maturing of time. Without a relationship to
time, it would be vacuous.
This does not deny that our imagination has no choice but to conceive of
eternity in temporal categories; we speak of after death and the afterlife.
It is difficult to avoid this, but we can be aware that it is a falsification.
Abstracted from our imagination, we can know that through death there
comes to be the final and definitive validity of mans existence which has
been achieved and has come to maturity in freedom.25 Rahner clarifies this
with a deliberate paradoxical expression: And this happens in such a way
that becoming ceases when being begins, and we do not notice anything
of it because we ourselves are still in the process of becoming.26 In various
ways, we can gain an awareness of this eternity, at least in a desire for it.
But all joy wants eternity wants deep, wants deep eternity, to quote
Nietzsche.27
This is the context in which Christ must be seen. Within our own
lives, we cannot find a confirmation of the impetus to definitive validity.
But it is possible to look for this confirmation in the experience of the
final and definitive fulfillment of another person. Christs Resurrection
corresponds to this hope. Thus, Rahner arrives at his principal thesis
regarding resurrection:
The transcendental experience of the expectation of ones own resurrection,
an experience man can reach by his very essence, is the horizon of under-
standing within which and within which alone something like a Resurrection
of Jesus can be expected and experienced at all.28
Hence, it is not the case that we have no contact at all with Christs
Resurrection and that we examine it without prejudice. The searching
awareness in our being comes together with the historical witness to his
Resurrection, which surprisingly is unique, for where else in our culture
does one find a similar claim? (Even mystics to whom Christ appears
do not claim to have an experience of the Resurrection.) The searching
presupposes a kind of knowledge that is sought. Rahner claims that only
he is able to believe in Christs Resurrection who has already had this kind
of experience himself.29 The influence is reciprocal.
24 Ibid. (emphasis in original). 25 Ibid., 272.
26 Ibid. 27 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, The Drunken Song, c. 59.
28 Rahner, Foundations, 273274. 29 Ibid., 274.
84 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
Accordingly, it is not applicable to demand from the witness of the
apostles that their claim fulfill all of the requirements for a reliable witness.
If the testimony of the apostles about the resurrection were to be judged
only according to the secular model of a witnesss statement, it would have
to be rejected as incredible, Rahner asserts.30
He further writes: We ourselves experience the resurrection of Jesus in
the Spirit because we experience him and his cause as living and victo-
rious.31 Of course, the historical event conforms to the laws of temporal
reality. Christs heavenly beatitude, for example, is not visible and if it
were to become visible, then it would no longer be a heavenly beatitude.
What can be said is that enough is revealed in time to conclude that Jesus
overcame death and therefore that my hope finds affirmation.
3.4 Wonder
Human beings are able to wonder about being. Wonder arises, as Thomas
Aquinas observes, in agreement with Aristotle, when an effect is manifest
and its cause hidden.33 When we see an effect as such, we naturally wonder
about the cause.34 In the present question, what we are concerned with
is reality; we wonder about the cause of reality namely, God, absolute
Being.35 Of course, all animals have contact with reality but only self-
reflection is capable of knowing reality as reality. In this case, the cause is
not an efficient cause but is more like a formal cause, similar to light as the
cause of colors, or to meanings as the cause of sentences, or health as the
final cause of a surgical operation.
If we apprehend a reality precisely as a reality and wonder about it, then
our attention is factually directed toward God. As Thomas Aquinas wrote:
The rational nature, in as much as it apprehends the universal notion
of good and being [universalem boni et entis rationem], is immediately
related to the universal principle of being [essendi principium].36 Religion
begins not with an experience of God but with such existential wonder. It
awakens, moreover, a striving. Wonder about reality is an indication that
we are destined for the future, no matter what might come. Wonder is the
connector between reality and belief. Believing is trusting in the dynamics
of wonder about reality. God is not the content of religion, as Thomas
astutely asserts; he is its end.37
Hence, the fundamental relationship to God is not initiated by Faith.
Faith is not necessary to enter a relationship with God. Its necessity arises
45 Ibid., 166.
46 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 13, a. 3, ad 9. Cf. Augustine, De Genesi, XII, 26, 54.
47 Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 168.
3.5 By his very nature man strives for fulfillment 89
Those germs of madness.
But with gentle touch
Venus subdues the pangs in midst of love,
And the admixture of a fondling joy
Doth curb the bites of passion. For they hope
That by the very body whence they caught
The heats of love their flames can be put out.
But Nature protests tis all quite otherwise;
For this same love it is the one sole thing
Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns
The breast with fell desire.
...
When once again they seek and crave to reach
They know not what, all powerless to find
The artifice to subjugate the bane.
In such uncertain state they waste away
With unseen wound.48
A person is not simply what he or she is, a person is what he or she has
become. In an important sense, a person is more than what he or she is.
In other words, we are also determined by what we love and for which
we are striving. Actually, our longing to be more than we are comprises
the most relevant aspects of our life. Our will is more important than our
achievements. Moreover, our will is more important than our reason. A
person is defined by what he or she loves. Love is not the fulfillment of a
desire to be united with the beloved; it is the union of desire itself [unio
affectus] with the beloved.49 I am not simply what I am. What I want is
decisive. This is the primary criterion for the meaning of life.
It is important to acknowledge the object of willing, for willing itself is
not what I desire but rather its object. Desire is not empty; it is always the
desire of something, as Lewis said.
Desire is comprehensive, being both diverse and unified. The idea of
happiness is defined in such a way that it embraces all desires and defines
the meaning of life. Everything that we do and love is directed to an end.
Life is a history, defined ultimately by goals, and the human spirit embraces
the body. As Rahner expresses it:
For the spiritual soul, of course, as spirit, and as form of the body, does not
possess two completely different functions but in both its partial functions it
has only one, namely, to fulfill its unitary nature as spirit. Consequently, its
corporeality is necessarily an integrating factor of its constitution as spirit,
61 Cf. ibid., II, c. 55: Impossibile est naturale desiderium esse inane: natura enim nihil facit frustra.
62 Ibid., III, c. 2.
3.7 The final and comprehensive goal of human nature 97
As already mentioned, we should avoid thinking that the Creator has
intentions when he creates. God does not have final causes of his own. He
himself is the final cause of everything, for all things strive for actualization.
This means that all agents, except God, strive for some goal and, at the same
time, are recipients. These are imperfect agents, and to these it belongs to
intend, even while acting, the acquisition of something.63 Because he is in
himself the absolute plenitude of being, God has no final end, as Aquinas
explains:
It does not belong to the First Agent, who is agent only, to act for the
acquisition of some end; he intends only to communicate his perfection,
which is his goodness; while every creature intends to acquire its own
perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness.
Therefore the divine goodness is the end of all things.64
Every agent strives for something good and, since nothing is good and
desirable except insofar as it participates in the likeness of God goodness
itself all agents strive ineluctably for God, regardless of whether the agent
is aware of this.
Hence, we ought to avoid speaking of the intelligent designer, although
from our own point of view, we may discern intelligent design in nature.
God does not have plans or intentions. He does not strive for goodness but
rather simply communicates his goodness. As Augustine explains, using the
argument of the unity of time in God, the divine consciousness embraces
all three modes of time but in a more perfect way than we do. He knows the
past but not by looking back and the future but not by looking forward.
For he does not pass from this to that by transition of thought, but beholds
all things with absolute unchangeableness.65
66 Cf. Aristotle, On the Heavens, I, 4; 271 a 33; On the Soul, III, 9; 432 b 21sq.; 12; 434 a 3132. Cf. Huby,
What Did Aristotle Mean, 158166; Aristotles De Partibus Animalium, 9398; Johnson, Aristotle
on Teleology, 8082; Lennox, Aristotles Philosophy, 205224; Kullmann, Die Teleologie, 2425.
67 Cf. Albertus Magnus, Super Dion. Epist. V, p. 494, 5765, who draws a comparison to the way light
is seen in everything visible.
68 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 75, a. 6c: Therefore, it is impossible for the intellectual
soul to be corruptible. Moreover, we may take a sign of this from the fact that everything naturally
aspires to existence after its own manner. Now, in things that have knowledge, desire ensues upon
knowledge. The senses indeed do not know existence, except under the conditions of here and
100 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
God and nature and allows for exceptions, claiming that God upholds the
rule more than nature.69
Against this it could be objected that animals have a natural desire to
exist and nonetheless they die. The difference is that as far as we know,
animals, in fact, do not crave after permanent existence. Only a being that
can reflect on its temporal existence is capable of this. So the question is
an exclusively personal one.
On the basis that it is impossible that a natural desire be in vain, for
nature does nothing in vain,70 Aquinas expands the principle to include
the human striving for fulfilling happiness. Commenting on Aristotle,
Thomas sees God as the reason for natures doing nothing in vain. God
causes with intelligence, he argues, implying that God has an end for his
actions viewed in human categories. God does nothing in vain because,
being an agent by way of intellect, his action has an end.71 Since God
is like the primary cause and nature is like a secondary cause, the divine
intelligence is concretized in nature. The famous analogy of Thomass is
that of the arrow shot off by the archer, who has a certain target in view.
He is the primary cause. The arrow is a merely secondary cause when it
moves to the target. The secondary cause does not have to have its final
cause explicitly in view in order to strive for it objectively.
Thomas also argues that the reason for natures doing nothing in vain
lies in the fact that everything in nature exists for a reason other than
itself.72 That is, nature itself is in a state of becoming. There exists an
interconnectedness among events in the world. Actions entail reactions. If
something is moving, in an instant later it will be in a different place than
it is now; it is impossible that it is moving and getting literally nowhere.
Movement is by nature teleological. It is impossible that something is
changing now but has no future. It is impossible that the longing for
happiness is a longing for nothing. In other words, emergence is an essential
characteristic of nature. Hence, as we have seen, the desire for happiness,
now, whereas the intellect apprehends existence absolutely, and for all time; so that everything that
has an intellect naturally desires always to exist. But a natural desire cannot be in vain. Therefore,
every intellectual substance is incorruptible. Cf. also Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 79: A natural
craving cannot be in vain. But man naturally craves after permanent continuance: as is shown by
this, that while existence is desired by all, man by his understanding apprehends existence, not in
the present moment only, as dumb animals do, but existence absolutely. Therefore, man attains to
permanence on the part of his soul, whereby he apprehends existence absolutely and for all time.
69 Cf. Henry of Ghent, In De caelo, I, c. 4; 271 a 33; In De anima, III, c. 9; 432 b 21sq.; Summa,
a. XXXVXL, a. XXXV, q. 6; p. 43; a. XLVIILII, a. XLVII, p. 4.
70 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 55.
71 Thomas Aquinas, In De caelo, I, lect. 8, n. 14.
72 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In De anima, III, lect. 17, n. 5.
3.8 The expectation of the fulfillment of human desire 101
and not the immortality of the soul, is, according to Thomas Aquinas, the
basis for asserting a life after death.73 Here, the Christian Thomas differs
explicitly from Aristotle:
By the name of beatitude the ultimate perfection of rational or of intellectual
nature is understood; and hence it is that it is naturally desired, since
everything naturally desires its ultimate perfection. Now there is a twofold
ultimate perfection of rational or of intellectual nature. The first is one
which it can procure of its own natural power; and this is in a measure
called beatitude or happiness. Hence, Aristotle says that mans ultimate
happiness consists in his most perfect contemplation, whereby in this life he
can behold the best intelligible object; and that is God. Above this happiness
there is still another, which we look forward to in the future, whereby we
shall see God as he is. This is beyond the nature of every created intellect.74
It would seem that the reason for the difference results from the Thomistic
notion of being. Whereas in the eyes of Aristotle, being [ousia] is an abstract
notion for beings, which for Aquinas is entitas, Thomass own conception
of being is the act of being [esse, or actus essendi]. He therefore has an
awareness of human striving that transcends beings. This aspect makes
it understandable why Aristotle never extended his principle to apply to
an afterlife. Having no notion of Being itself [esse] but only of beingness
[entitas], his perspective is limited to concrete being. Thus, he is unable to
see spirit and body as a unity.
Nicholas of Cusa offers an argument based on the presumption that God
is not a sadist. According to Cusanus, God cannot contradict himself. Being
directed by his intellect, he would be contradicting himself if he caused
man to live in frustration never to be fulfilled since he would be directing
human beings to an end that could never be reached. But this is impossible,
Nicholas reasons, because God only bestows good things, in accord with
reason.75 This is something quite different from Gods permitting suffering.
In itself, suffering does not imply an unavoidable contradiction to the
divine goodness, but the frustration of the desire for happiness would
involve a contradiction and is for this reason impossible.
This principle is, of course, not valid for all kinds of desires. It is limited
to desires that are embedded in the very nature of things. Animals, for
73 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 48 (quoted on page 95).
74 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 62, a. 1c.
75 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo CCXI, n. 10, 122: Deus enim nihil frustra agit, et dare torturam,
quod optimo Deo non est ascribendum, qui solum novit dare bona. Cf. also De docta ignorantia,
III, c. 4; De visione Dei, c. 19; Sermo CXXXV, n. 14, 916; Sermo XLI, n. 8, 3236; Cribratio Alkorani,
Prol. 1; De docta ignorantia, I, c. 1.
102 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
example, have a natural desire for food, but it cannot be concluded on the
basis of this principle that they are going to find food. Among those desires
that human beings imagine but that do not fall under the principle are
those arising from free choice. Free choices are not natural in the sense
meant here. It would seem that the end comes first and then the desire for
it. If Paris did not exist, I could not plan a trip to Paris. If I take a normal
French flag into the sunshine, red, white, and blue are going to be visible.
Why is this necessary?
We have no reason to think that reality does not include the kind of
existence called Eternal Life. However, we know of no alternative that
would explain our longing. Human nature is not like the speed of light,
which presents an absolute limitation. There is no reason why emergence
should stop with the human species. Are we like Fourth of July rockets
that shoot up and, when extinguished, drop as ashes? Or does evolution
continue?
The specifically human act of reflection is the key. Aristotles thought
remains within the world of realities [entitates] but does not reach as far as
reality in the sense of the act of being [esse] although, of course, despite his
philosophy, he himself exists in being. Through reflection, we apprehend
the act of existence, of which Aristotles philosophy does not take account.
We apprehend it in a reality that has existence. We wonder about the
ground of existence. Why is there something and not rather nothing? Why
do I exist? From where does my existence come? Not just What is that?
That it is at all is the point. This opens us to universality as well as to the
idea of happiness. But as long as our reflection is limited to realities, the
longing cannot be fulfilled.
The end of our striving is not something existing absolutely in the
future. We strive for being at every moment. We do not have our eyes set
on the beyond, and in and through this striving we seek God, the ground
of being. All things, by desiring their own perfection, asserts Aquinas,
desire God himself, inasmuch as the perfections of all things are so many
similitudes of the divine being.76 All of the therapeutic activities of a
physician, for example, converge in the striving for health. When he treats
me in a certain way no matter what he is trying to bring about my
health. Every striving for reality, whether as something (e.g., chocolate)
or someone or as some actuality (e.g., eating or writing), converges in
the fundamental, all-encompassing striving for being. The end does not
have to be temporally separated from the means. Reality here is not too
77 The beatific vision and knowledge are to some extent above the nature of the rational soul,
inasmuch as it cannot reach it on its own strength; but in another way it is in accordance with its
nature, inasmuch as it is capable of it by nature, having been made to the likeness of God. Ibid.,
III, q. 9, a. 2, ad 3.
78 Rahner, Potentia oboedientialis, 62.
79 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 48 (quoted herein on page 133). 80 Cf. ibid.
104 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
When nature does anything at all, then it has already reached an end
in the very doing itself. Although the nature of talking is to communicate
thoughts, when I talk, no matter what I say, I am already actualizing at
least one end namely, the act of talking. Here, obviously nature cannot be
frustrated no matter what I say. This must hold, analogically, for Eternal
Life.
The desire for Eternal Life exists now and is actualized in the general
ontological form of desire. At death, the desire does not change and God
does not initiate a new activity a second creation, so to speak. God
does not change, neither when he creates nor when he re-creates. The only
possibility is that the quasi-light of being continues to shine and now, at the
death of the body, Eternal Life is caused by it. The emergence into Eternal
Life does not mean that one is transported somewhere else, any more than
being conscious of an object means departing from it to another sphere.
Consciousness is a different mode of being but not a total separation from
its object. In the same way, Eternal Life is not a totally new way of living
but simply a higher level. But why does this freedom from empirical reality
result in a higher level of life?
Death means that we are no longer bound down to time and the concrete.
More of what is contained in reality can reveal itself. Man always bears the
openness to more reality in himself, but he is unable to leave the temporal
ground until the physical collapses. If an experience of God were to occur
before biological death, then the person would already be, in an essential
sense, dead. There exist only two possibilities for us. Either we exist in time
or we exist in times eternal fulfillment that comes with death.
It is safe to presume that Faith teaching does not provide a great deal of
information about hell. Not much more can be asserted than the existence
and the eternity of hell. The idea that hell can be abbreviated if this
makes any sense in the realm of eternity does not alter the dilemma.
A further aspect is the teaching that hell begins immediately upon death.
The teaching magisterium leaves open the question about the nature of the
punishment. In the article on hell in the German Lexicon for Theology and
the Church, Ratzinger writes: There exist no dogmatic determinations on
the nature of the punishments of hell.86
There is general agreement that the essential punishment is to be
viewed as a distance from God. The authoritative Historical Dictionary of
81 Ratzinger, Holle, 448. 82 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 23, a. 3c.
83 Ibid., ad 1. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid., q. 60 a. 5, ad 5.
86 Ratzinger, Holle, 446447. The teaching office set down a simple and clear premise: Hell exists
and its punishments are eternal. Bender, Weggehen, 130.
106 Justification of belief in Eternal Life
Philosophy accepts this definition.87 Precisely, hell is a deficiency, not
except possibly metaphorically the antipode of heaven.
I know of no better appreciation of this than the thought of Thomas
Aquinas. He has consistently maintained this teaching even in the case of
pure spirits, who are not influenced by concupiscence as human beings are
and whose deficiency cannot be explained as a moral deficiency. He comes
to the conclusion that even a fallen angel could not desire something evil
in itself; rather, the deficiency must lie in the manner in which the angel
desires the good. Thomas refers to Dionysius the Areopagite in his subtle
teaching: Just so, Dionysius says in his work On the Divine Names: Evil
for devils, therefore, consists in a turning away, namely, inasmuch as their
desires turned away from the direction of a higher rule, and too much of
suitable things, namely, inasmuch as they exceeded their due measure in
desiring suitable goods.88
Aquinas exacerbates the dilemma involved in the discrepancy between
the idea of hell and the universal desire for happiness by treating it, further-
more, from the perspective of predestination. As is his habit, he does not
deviate from his principles. God causes the pains of hell: The reason for
the predestination of some and reprobation of others, must be sought for
in the goodness of God.89 He then goes on to explain how punishment
comes from divine goodness. He considers it to be insane to imagine
that the merits of the saved are the cause of their divine predestination,
for God knows no motivations for his willing. This represents a way of
thinking that has no place in God. He does not examine the sinner and
then decide to punish him. In sinning, the sinner causes his own pun-
ishment. Aquinas sees God as the primary cause and the creature as the
secondary cause. The secondary cause determines what the primary cause
wills:
We cannot assign any cause of the divine will on the part of the act of willing;
but a reason can be found on the part of the things willed; inasmuch as God
wills one thing on account of something else. Wherefore nobody has been
so insane as to say that merit is the cause of divine predestination as regards
the act of the predestinator.90
Rahner sees this state as a loss of humanity. It would be the life of a zombie:
Man would forget all about himself in his preoccupation with all the indi-
vidual details of his world and his existence . . . He would remain mired in
the world and in himself, and no longer go through that mysterious process
which he is . . . Man would have forgotten the totality and its ground, and,
at the same time, if we can put it this way, would have forgotten that he had
forgotten . . . He would have ceased being a man. He would have regressed
to the level of a clever animal.103
Eternal Life, in its essence, is the union of human consciousness with God.
By calling it a vision, emphasis is put on the immediateness of the union
with the known in its own reality that is, with existential objectivity.
A vision in this sense is different from an inner picture, enclosed in
consciousness; it is intentional; that is, it implies a relationship to the
known in its own being. But a vision of the Truth is not an understanding
of the Truth and neither is vision the same as insight.
To start treating Eternal Life in a way that distinguishes it from temporal
life, the common distinction between abstract and concrete can be
helpful. Since we are able to abstract from concrete matter, we have an
ability to conceive of abstractions; that is, we can apprehend realities in such
a way that we transcend their individuality in an immaterial mode. Owing
to the act of abstraction, we are able to open ourselves in a rudimentary way
to higher reality but without necessarily sacrificing the experienced reality.
Taken in this sense, the act of abstraction is not a cutting off of an aspect
of the object, separated from the object, but rather what Thomas Aquinas
calls an abstraction of the whole1 from a part. For example, the abstraction
white prescinds from the whole of the concrete object, whereas tree
includes leaves, roots, branches, and so on. This kind of access to abstract
forms presents a basic capacity for Eternal Life.2 Nonetheless, this capabilty
111
112 Eternal Life as the vision of God
of consciousness to be open to more than the concrete object should not be
overestimated. Under present conditions, it is not a vision of God. Rather,
it is the emergence of religion, which is a directedness toward God without,
however, being an experience of him.
But if in the case of Eternal Life God is the object of consciousness,
there must be an essential abstraction not just from the materiality of
reality but also from the material senses themselves, whereby the senses are,
nonetheless, not eliminated.3 Sensuality as an abstract notion is neither
itself sensual nor does it exclude the senses. Abstraction is the human
way of being in contact with concrete reality. We live in the concrete
world abstractly that is, in the human manner. Differentiating between
concrete and abstract is the specific human mode of encountering reality.
(If it succeeds, then we have what is called truth.) Nevertheless, the union
with God in Eternal Life is not a comprehension; it is not the mode in
which God knows himself.4
The beatific vision and knowledge are to some extent above the nature of
the rational soul, inasmuch as it cannot reach it of its own strength; but in
another way it is in accordance with its nature, inasmuch as it is capable of
it by nature, having been made to the likeness of God.29
Therefore, it can be said that the light of glory is the medium sub quo, the
medium quo, and the quod. If the divine essence is to be seen, then it can
only be seen in and through itself. It can be said that it is the content of
the vision that is, that which is seen, as well as that by which it is seen. In
other words, the divine essence must be the quod and the quo of the vision.35
Since God is seen as the light of glory, he remains incomprehensible in
Eternal Life, even more so than in this life. Sunlight can be blinding, but
that is little in comparison to looking directly into the sun itself.
39 Plato, Laws, V.
4.4 The primacy of knowledge in the European tradition 123
a politician. A competent politician for him is one who prefers, above all,
the life of pure theory:
And if they [the cave dwellers] were in the habit of conferring honors among
themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and
to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which
were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to
the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories,
or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, Better to
be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than
think as they do and live after their manner?40
One should not forget that in the cave allegory, the levels of abstraction
seem to imply an increased distance from the realities as abstraction is
often understood but, in fact, they mean a deeper penetration of them.
He who has realized that the horses, turtles, and so forth on the wall,
which represents the concrete reality of the prisoners, are in truth shadows
of horses, turtles, and so forth knows the shadow-realities better. He who
realizes that the things projecting shadows are only horses, turtles, and so
forth made, let us say, of clay in any case, products of human work
understands better what these horses, turtles, and so forth really are. At
the final level of ascent that is, in the heaven of ideas the philosopher
continues to see the same horses, turtles, and so forth but now finally in
their most real reality.
Aristotle expressed the same view unequivocally: The activity of God,
which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of
human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most
of the nature of happiness . . . Happiness, therefore, must be some form of
contemplation [; theoria].41
Taking this into account, it is not surprising that Thomas Aquinas
claims that Aristotle and the Bible share the same teaching with respect to
contemplation as being mans happiness.42
In the third century ad, the Neoplatonist Plotinus (205269/70 ad)
movingly described the apex of mans ascent to the Good, where the
contemplator marvels at Beauty itself:
One that shall know this vision with what passion of love shall he not
be seized, with what pang of desire, what longing to be molten into one
with This, what wondering delight! If he that has never seen this Being must
hunger for It as for all his welfare, he that has known must love and reverence.
51 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo CCXVI, n. 31. 52 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo LIV, n. 24.
53 Nicholas of Cusa, De dato patris luminum, I, n. 92.
54 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, De filiatione Dei, III, n. 69.
55 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, De dato patris luminum, V, n. 113.
56 Cf. ibid., n. 115. 57 Nicholas of Cusa, De beryllo, VI, n. 64.
126 Eternal Life as the vision of God
person is still exercising various acts of sensual perception, characteristic
of animals. Although he is certainly performing acts that are more than
vegetable life, we nonetheless compare his state to it. What is missing
is self-consciousness. The fact that we overexaggerate indicates, I believe,
how important self-consciousness is in our eyes. It is the place where truth
occurs. What we want most of all is to be in the Truth that is, to be
attentively aware of the reality of reality.
But what would happen if the same taste of chocolate were caused by a
pill or some chemical mixture that was put into my mouth? What would
happen if I knew this? Why does a placebo work only if we do not know
that it is just a placebo? And why do we consider it to be an impermissible
violation of human dignity if I view a person solely as a means to my
pleasure?
It is a matter of deepening ones knowledge of the empirically perceived
reality. It is not necessary to see purely spiritual things. Rather, it is a
question of different kinds of apprehension of the same object. The climb
out of the Platonic cave of the empirical world is only metaphorically a
withdrawal from the primary realities. In reality, it is composed of new
(higher) apprehensions, which see the primary objects in a different way
that is, in a deeper and truer way. Therefore, [in that state] the intellect
perceives all things intellectually and beyond every sensible, distracting,
and obscuring mode. Indeed, it beholds the entire sensible world not in a
sensory manner but in a truer, viz., intellectual, manner.58
In everyday life, we are familiar with the overlapping of apprehension
levels. For example, while listening to music, it is possible to hear nothing
more than the notes, following one another. But it is also possible to hear
a melody in the same notes. In the sense in which Cusanus means it, we
can say the truth of the notes has been heard. It is a further, higher
form of apprehension when I hear the beauty, the true beauty of the
melody.
When we listen to someone talking, the same thing can happen. If I listen
to a language that is completely unknown to me, I hear just sounds. If I am
able to hear meaning in the sounds, then I have a deeper appreciation of
the talking. It is even possible to hear truths of which the speaker himself is
not aware. For both the learned man and the unlearned man, as Cusanus
writes, see the letters of the alphabet59 but what they apprehend is quite
different.
58 Nicholas of Cusa, De filiatione Dei, VI, n. 89. 59 Nicholas of Cusa, Compendium, VI, n. 18.
4.4 The primacy of knowledge in the European tradition 127
An analogy for which Cusanus has a predilection is that between light
and colors, with colors being understood as forms of physical light. They
concretize light:
Color is the limitation of light in a transparent medium in accordance
with one mode [of limitation] red, in accordance with another blue. And
the entire being of color is given through descending light, so that in all
colors light is all that which is. Color is not light; rather, it is light received
contractedly in the foregoing manner. By means of such a likeness [we see
that] as the form of light is related to the form of colors, so God (who is
Infinite Light) is related as the Universal Form of being to the forms of
created things.60
The empirical perception of colors results from the concurrence of physical
light with the eyesight. As perceptual sight stands in relation to perceptible
light, so the minds sight stands in relation to this intelligible light.61
The light of reason comes from the light of the intelligence and this
resembles the divine light,62 which is the transcendental light of all
lights.63
Cusanus explains this interrelationship of light forms in the following
way:
Light manifests itself in visible things not in order to show itself as visible
but, rather, in order to manifest itself as invisible, since its clarity cannot be
grasped in visible things. For he who in visible things sees lights clarity as
invisible sees lights clarity more truly . . . Transfer, then, to intelligible things
these [considerations about] perceptual things. For example, . . . [transfer]
to [absolutely] Simple Being [considerations about] the being of color.64
Light, therefore, is never seen in itself but rather always concomitantly.
In our own time, a few further witnesses can be found. No less a thinker
than Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is well known for the sentence, What
cannot be said clearly, should not be said at all, once wrote enigmatically:
The life of knowledge is the life that is happy in spite of the misery of the
world.65 The physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker is
concise: To see God is the highest promise that can be granted to a human
being. It is beatitude.66
Can this revered teaching be made understandable for our modern
mentality, not to speak of becoming convincing? My presumption is that
60 Nicholas of Cusa, De dato patris luminum, II, n. 100. Cf. De quaerendo deum, II, n. 34; Compendium,
I, c. 1, n. 2.
61 Ibid., c. 10, n. 34. 62 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo LIV, n. 23.
63 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, De apice theoriae, n. 8. 64 Ibid., n. 89.
65 Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 81. 66 Weizsacker, Der Garten, 500. See pages 69 and 114.
128 Eternal Life as the vision of God
everyone is actually, almost intuitively, already aware that this conception of
life is accurate, provided that we let our experience speak without prejudice.
The ultimate state of fulfillment for us is the (conscious) apprehension of
Truth but not taken in the sense of a kind of pure reflection. A pure
apprehension is impossible for us, although we are able to abstract from
sensuality and materiality. (Human reflection is only a partial reflection,
always taking place in union with another act and not in itself. Our
reflection does not reflect on itself directly.) Our spontaneous rejection of
the classical teaching is not so much a result of insight as of education. By
bypassing our education and returning to the old tradition, we can free
ourselves from prejudices that restrict our view.
Nicholas of Cusa took it for granted that the consciousness of truth
is the most valuable thing we have. According to him, reflection is the
apprehension of truth and this, in turn, involves the apprehension of an
apprehension, without this, however, being without an object. It is not
the case as, for example, Rudolf Carnap thinks, that philosophers generally
accept that the senses provide the material of cognition, reason synthesizes
the material so as to produce an organized system of knowledge.67 Rather,
it is a kind of co-apprehension.
Actually, we should marvel at the fact that we have a notion truth at
all. What is at play here is, on the one hand, quite well known and, on the
other hand, quite difficult to focus on rationally and to analyze what is so
familiar to us. Presumably, neither any other animal nor a computer can
do this. Once we have made the step, then we can continue further on to
distinguish different levels of apprehension from one another.
The mind, according to Aristotles often quoted teaching, is in some
sense everything. In potency, at least, it is a microcosm.68 Therein lies our
truth capability, and if and when consciousness and reality meet, we have
truth.
Self-consciousness, to repeat, can never occur alone that is, without
some content other than itself. We do not enjoy an act of pure self-
consciousness, independent of reality. The self is present only concomi-
tantly. This implies, conversely, that consciousness envelops the other. My
apprehension of the apple and my consciousness of apprehending the apple
have the same formal content. The addition of attention does not add an
object. Self-consciousness is similar to a light in that it heightens the object
but lacks a separate object of its own. That is why I can know that I am,
69 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 46. Cf. In III. Sententiarum, dist. 23, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3;
De veritate, q. 10, a. 8; Summa theologiae, I, q. 87, a. 1; a. 3.
70 Cf. Hoye, Gotteserkenntnis, 270; Trottmann, La vision, in particular 115208.
130 Eternal Life as the vision of God
intermediary realities. The immediacy of the final relationship to God is
dogmatically set down once and forever.
Of course, a thinker like Thomas Aquinas is not content to stop thinking
once the teaching of Faith has been defined. He sees the possibility of
interpreting the dogma in the sense that the contrary position represents
not the truth question but only an inappropriate manner of speaking
[inconvenienter dicitur].71 To pose the truth question, one must refer to
reason. Faith must be justified by reason. Thomas wants to show that the
opposite position is false, in addition to being heretical72 : It is foreign to
Faith and outside of reason.73
Despite the fact that we are dealing here with a supernatural matter,
Thomas still wants to demonstrate that strict philosophical thinking arrives
at the same truth as Revelation. His theological efforts are directed toward
a deeper understanding of Faith teaching.74 According to Faith, all ratio-
nal creatures who attain beatitude should see God through his essence,
Thomas remarks. Now, however, we must consider or understand how we
can see God through his essence.75
What does Thomas take as his starting point in order to bring Faith and
reason together? He proceeds in the same way as Aristotle does namely,
by approaching the question from the point of view of the final end; that
is, the goal of all goals: happiness.76 Actually, this is not what one would
expect. This presents the opportunity of taking philosophy as the starting
point so that philosophy is not viewed only as the handmaid of theology.
Aristotles analysis of happiness brings him to the teaching that happiness
consists in a kind of knowledge. As Aquinas emphasizes, knowledge of the
highest object. For Thomas, this is God and it can take place only after
death [post mortem].77
Before presenting this thesis, Thomas takes up the question of whether
man can know himself without intermediaries. His position is that man
71 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 1c.
72 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III c. 54; De veritate, q. 8, a. 1c.
73 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 1c.
74 Une decision des autorites ecclesiastiques ayant precise le donne de foi, les theologiens, doivent
en penser laccord avec la raison. Trottmann, La vision, 196. Cf., for example, Thomas Aquinas,
Quaestiones quodlibetales, VII, q. 1, a. 1c: It must be said that it is to be held beyond doubt that the
divine essence will be seen immediately by the glorified intellect in the fatherland. To demonstrate
this one must know that . . .
75 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 8, a. 1c.
76 Cf. Trottmann, La vision, 309312 (subtitle: Originalite de la problematique de saint Thomas: Le
desir naturel de voir Dieu).
77 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 49. Post hanc vitam. Ibid., c. 48. Impossibile
est animae hominis secundum hanc vitam viventis, essentiam Dei videre. Summa theologiae, I,
q. 12, a. 11c.
4.5 The apprehension of truth 131
is unable to know himself directly that is, through himself. This is
important because then God is the only object of human consciousness
that can be known through itself. Although man is closest to himself and
identical with himself, he is nevertheless unable to know himself through
himself.78
It is clearly important to Thomas to show that Faith and philosophy
coincide at this point. Similarly, Thomas teaches that the ultimate knowl-
edge that can be gained about God in this life is the same in philosophy
and Faith. Revelation does not invalidate or relativize the insight that what
God is remains absolutely unknowable in the present life.79 On this point,
theology and philosophy have to cope with the same problems.80
To substantiate that the goal of human life consists in knowledge of
God, Thomas proceeds in two ways: he argues directly and indirectly. In
both cases, he arrives at a result that he considers to be both Christian
and Aristotelian: Thus, we have reached by way of induction the same
conclusion that was formerly established by deductive reasoning, that mans
final happiness does not consist in anything short of the contemplation
of God.81 By calling God the object of fulfilling knowledge, Thomas
goes beyond Aristotle by using Aristotles principle, thus exemplifying how
Faith has inspired reason. Assuming Aristotles principle that a natural
desire cannot be in vain, Thomas concludes that the vision of God must
be possible.82 Then he notes that such a vision has been promised to us in
the Bible.83 Consequently, both reason and Biblical Revelation teach the
same thing. Therefore, it can be said that it is natural that there be a vision
of God in the afterlife.84
78 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 46. With this teaching, Thomas stands in
contradiction to Augustine, who speaks of seipsam per seipsam novit (quoted ibid.).
79 Cf. Hoye, Gotteserkenntnis, 269284; Die Unerkennbarkeit, 117139.
80 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 1c.
81 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 37. 82 Cf. ibid., c. 51. 83 Cf. ibid.
84 One can know God in many ways: through his essence, through sensible things, or through
intelligible effects. We have to make a similar distinction about that which is natural to man. For
something is contrary to nature and according to nature for one and the same thing according to its
different states, because the nature of the thing is not the same when it is in the state of becoming
and when it has complete existence, as Rabbi Moses says. Thus, full stature and other things of the
kind are natural to man when he has reached maturity, but it would be contrary to nature for a boy
to have full stature at birth.
Thus, it must be said that to know God in some fashion is natural for the human intelligence
according to any state. But in the beginning, that is, in this life, it is natural for it to know God
through sensible creatures. It is also natural for it to reach the knowledge of God through himself
when it reaches its full perfection, that is, in heaven. Thus, if in this life it is raised to the knowledge
of God which it will have in heaven, this will be contrary to nature, just as it would be contrary to
nature for a baby boy to have a beard. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 13, a. 1, ad 1. Nevertheless,
132 Eternal Life as the vision of God
After having gotten this far, Thomas continues on with a deeper analysis.
At the end of twelve chapters, in which he treats various aspects, he comes
to the following recapitulation:
If then the final happiness of man does not consist in those exterior advan-
tages which are called goods of fortune, nor in goods of the body, nor in
goods of the soul in its sentient part, nor in the intellectual part in respect of
the moral virtues, nor in the virtues of the practical intellect, called art and
prudence, it remains that mans final happiness consists in the contemplation
of truth.85
The idea of a vision of Truth itself The final end is the manifest vision
of the first Truth in itself 86 and not of a truth or truths is extremely
abstract. The fundamental situation is that we see a reality and the seeing
of the reality is a truth. But Thomas is not content with this, for the notion
of a vision of Truth is not unequivocal. What does it mean to see Truth
itself? When we say that God is Truth itself, clearly we do not mean that
he is an abstract notion, no less than calling God absolute Being means
that he is the abstract notion of beingness. That would certainly not be the
source of fulfilled happiness. Now I must imagine what it would mean not
only to see a tree but also to see the truth of the seeing. Then this must
be universalized and made transcendent, and then we have the vision of
Truth itself. What is the content of such a vision?
After excluding other kinds of knowledge, including metaphysical con-
templation and the knowledge attained through Faith, Thomas summarizes
his examination:
Now it is impossible for human happiness to consist in that contemplation
which is by intuition of first principles a very imperfect study of things,
as being the most general, and not amounting to more than a potential
knowledge: it is in fact not the end but the beginning of human study: it is
supplied to us by nature, and not by any close investigation of truth. Nor can
happiness consist in the sciences, the object-matter of which is the meanest
things, whereas happiness should be an activity of the intellect dealing
with the noblest objects of intelligence. Therefore, the conclusion remains
that the final happiness of man consists in contemplation guided by wisdom
to the study of the things of God.87
What is important is that the knowledge required cannot be attained in
the present life:
it is supernatural in the sense that its realization goes beyond the capabilities of a human being. Cf.
ibid., q. 14, a. 2c.
85 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 37.
86 Ibid., c. 152: Ultimus autem finis est manifesta visio primae veritatis in seipsa. 87 Ibid., c. 37.
4.5 The apprehension of truth 133
If then human happiness does not consist in the knowledge of God whereby
he is commonly known by all or most men according to some vague estimate,
nor again in the knowledge of God whereby he is known demonstratively in
speculative science, nor in the knowledge of God whereby he is known by
Faith . . . ; if again it is impossible in this life to arrive at a higher knowledge
of God so as to know him in his essence, or to understand other pure spirits,
and thereby attain to a nearer knowledge of God; and still final happiness
must be placed in some knowledge of God; it follows that it is impossible
for the final happiness of man to be in this life.88
The only kind of knowledge of God that would fulfill a human is a
knowledge that comes about by Gods immediate union with human con-
sciousness, so that God and man somehow become one in the act of
consciousness.89 This is what is called knowledge of God through his
essence. Faith teaching implies that nothing else but God himself could
mediate a divine experience. Faith animates reason to investigate more
deeply.
His mature position on how the divine substance is united to conscious-
ness is elucidated in the Summa contra gentiles:
Since the perfection/maturity of the intellect is that which is true [verum],
that intelligible alone will be like the forma in the genus of intelligible things
which is Truth itself. This belongs to God alone, for, since the true [verum]
follows being, that alone is its own Truth [veritas] which is its own being
[esse], which is proper of God alone.90
The divine being is the pivotal point: As God is his being, so too is he his
truth [veritas], which is the forma of the intellect.91 Hence, we have the
divine essence as both that which [quod ] is seen and that whereby [quo] it
is seen.92
However, it cannot be that God is subsumed into human consciousness,
with the consequence that man becomes more than God:
It is manifest that the divine essence may be related to the created intellect
as an intelligible species by which it understands . . . Yet, it cannot be the
form of another thing in its natural being, for the result of this would be
that, once joined to another thing, it would make up one nature. This could
not be, since the divine essence is in itself perfect in its own nature. But
an intelligible species, united with an intellect, does not make up a nature;
rather, it perfects the intellect for the act of understanding, and this is not
incompatible with the perfection of the divine essence.93
99 Duden. Grammatik, 471. 100 Ibid., 468. 101 Cf. ibid., 471.
136 Eternal Life as the vision of God
point in Weizsackers position is that he understands reflection solely as an
apprehension of an apprehension.
Weizsackers approach begins by attempting to understand better what
possibility and reality mean. This approach is interesting because Aris-
totle, from whom we have inherited this distinction, considered the con-
cepts to be absolutely fundamental; that is, he made no attempt to explain
them or reduce them to any deeper principle. Weizsackers intention is to
delve more deeply into both notions. This he does by taking the notion of
time into consideration. Truth, he explains, is appearance of the unity of
time.102 Consequently, he interprets possibility and reality as temporal
concepts. However, his translation of Aristotle appears forced:
Aristotle defines movement with the help of the terms reality and possi-
bility . . . Movement is defined as the reality of a possible reality as such.
In our way of speaking possibility signifies the characteristic of the future,
reality the characteristic of the present. Facticity is the past reality that has
been preserved in documents. In a stylizing manner one can accordingly
say: Movement is the presence of the future.103
This analysis is appropriate for something like walking or a melody. While
hearing individual notes, one simultaneously hears the sequence of the
notes. In other words, one hears past notes as possibilities that can be
realized and one hears the present note not only as a reality but also
simultaneously as a possibility (which can become past or which could have
become present). But an analysis like this cannot explain why sentences
consist of no more, and no less, than two parts (subject and predicate);
neither can it deal with sentences that are independent of time (e.g., two
plus two is four). As a result, in my opinion, Weizsacker is unable to
explain why sentences can have no more than two parts; in other words, he
is unable to distinguish in this respect motion from a sentence. It seems to
me that Thomas Aquinas is right in basing the phenomenon of the truth
of sentences on the co-apprehension of the act of existence rather than on
the co-apprehension of time, as Weizsacker attempts to do.
The unification of a sentence is accomplished by the verb to be or other
verbs signifying modes of being. It is understandable, then, why normal
language normally uses the verb to be as the copula in nominal sentences.
It is the elementary verb, so to speak, the least common denominator of
verbs. Verbs consist in modes of being. Being is, as it were, the verb purely
and simply.
126 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 12. Cf. Summa theologiae, I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2 (quoted
on page 35).
144 Eternal Life as the vision of God
act of understanding is the proper operation of an intellectual substance. Therefore, this act is its
end. And that which is most perfect in this operation is the ultimate end, particularly in the case
of operations that are not ordered to any products, such as the acts of understanding and sensing.
Now, since operations of this type are specified by their objects, through which they are known
also, any one of these operations must be more perfect when its object is more perfect. And so,
to understand the most perfect intelligible object, which is God, is the most perfect thing in the
genus of this operation of understanding. Therefore, to know God by an act of understanding is
the ultimate end of every intellectual substance. Ibid., c. 25. Cf. De veritate, q. 8, a. 1c.
132 Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, a. 5, ad 1.
133 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25.
4.7 The necessary structure of the vision of God 147
it is actual [in actu], God, who is pure act without any admixture of
potentiality, is in himself supremely knowable.134 Once the goal has been
reached, the genetical structure of knowledge, of consciousness, is turned
around: No longer is reality experienced in the mode of particular realities;
instead, reality itself is immediately encountered. This is the only way
in which Eternal Life is conceivable. For the present, we encounter only
realities immediately; then we shall encounter reality itself immediately
and, through its mediation, everything else. As Aquinas expressed it:
Those who see the divine essence see what they see in God not by any
likeness, but by the divine essence itself united to their intellect . . . According
to the knowledge whereby things are known by those who see the essence
of God, they are seen in God himself not by any other similitudes but by
the divine essence alone present to the intellect; by which also God himself
is seen.135
This means that the attention directed to God does not in any way distract
from the attention paid to creatures.136 To the contrary, it intensifies the
consciousness of creatures, makes them, literally speaking, more real. As
Cusanus expresses it, they will be seen in their truth. The experience
implied here is given expression in his enigmatic phrase, the apprehension
of truth.
That psychosomatic influences work in both directions is well known.
True as it may be that all knowledge begins with the senses, still we are
acquainted with enough phenomena in which the process starts with the
mind. As Einstein wisely noted: The theory determines beforehand what
can be observed.137 Normal physical actions can begin with a conscious
decision. A powerful delight can bring tears to ones eyes. Out of fear,
bodily organs can react by quivering. Guilt can make a face turn red. Being
in love can cause laughter, and so on.
This attempt to come to terms with the inner structure of Eternal Life
may not be extremely informative, but it at least gives us a standpoint
to believe in it responsibly. Furthermore, it does provide us with enough
knowledge to orient our present life, at least showing that the decisive
factor in life is desire.
134 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 1c. 135 Ibid., a. 9c.
136 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 28, a. 9, ad 1: When the two motions are altogether different,
they cannot coexist in the same power. But if one is the reason for the other, then they can coexist,
because they are in some sense a single motion. When, for example, a person desires something
for the sake of an end, he, at the same time, desires the end and the means. Cf. also In IV.
Sententiarum, dist. 44, q. 2, a. 1, C, ad 4: Since God is apprehended by the blessed as the ratio of
everything that is done or known by them, their occupation with whatever they know or do will
not impede in any way their divine contemplation, and conversely.
137 Quoted according to Weizsacker, Aufbau, 331.
148 Eternal Life as the vision of God
The divine reality is like an energy field. Whatever lies within it is
rendered real. It is analogous to light. What lies in the cone of light takes
on the appearance of color. In himself, God as light is directly knowable.
The divine essence is purely light [pure lux], Thomas states, and for that
reason no other species than this light itself is required in order to see it.138
Whereas normally light and some object is necessary to see something,
in Gods case, light alone suffices. This is a possible way of interpreting
the Biblical sentence, By your light we see the light (Ps 36:9). The
same interpretation could be expressed by saying that light is an abstract
concrete. If Gods essence is to be seen, the mind must see it in the divine
essence itself, so that in such vision the divine essence shall be at once the
object which [quod ] is seen and that whereby [quo] it is seen,139 Thomas
concludes.
144 Rahner, Concept, 66 (emphasis in original). 145 Rahner, Theological Investigations, 329.
4.8 The mode of Gods presence 151
and reality brought about by a divine self-communication of quasi-formal,
not efficient type, are identical concepts.146
146 Rahner, Concept, 66. Without Revelation this formal causality would be unknown to us; cf.
Theological Investigations, 330.
147 Cf. Rahner, Der dreifaltige Gott, 336337, n. 31; 338, n. 34; Der Begriff des Geheimnisses,
9497.
148 Rahner, Theological Investigations, 327. 149 Rahner, Spirit, 87.
150 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 1, ad 8.
152 Eternal Life as the vision of God
forma of our mind.151 Neither is God compared to a form because a true
one arises out of the divine essence and our mind. The reason for the
analogy lies rather in the fact that the relationship of the divine essence
to our mind is like the relationship of the form to matter.152 Forma is
therefore to be taken in the ontological sense but applied to consciousness,
which, of course, is also a reality; it does not determine what consciousness
knows but rather that consciousness takes place.
In the Disputed Question on Truth, we find a more mature presentation
of Thomass position:
It is not necessary that the divine essence become the forma of the mind
itself, but that it relate to it as a forma; as one being in act arises out of
a forma, which is a part of the reality, and matter, so one in knowing
although in a different way is made out of the divine essence and the
mind, while the mind is knowing and the divine essence is known through
itself.153
The different way is crucial. If God really were a forma of consciousness,
then he would be included within human consciousness an absurd
idea. Thomas upholds the Faith teaching that the divine essence is seen.
However, he differentiates in the following manner:
The form by which an intellect sees God when it sees him through his
essence is the divine essence itself. From this, however, it follows, not that
the essence is that form which is a part of a thing in its existence, but only
that in the act of knowing it has a relation similar to that of a form which
is a part of a thing in its existence.154
The similarity with God, which is the goal of every creature, does not derive
from the content but rather from the mode of knowing. Understood in
this way, the divine essence is at once the object of the vision and that
whereby it is seen.155
God nevertheless unites himself immediately with human consciousness.
It is not a matter of some representation of God, a theophany. The forma
by which the mind of the individual seeing God through his own essence
sees God is the divine essence itself, Thomas emphasizes. He then goes
on to explain, Nevertheless it does not follow that it be that forma that
is part of a thing in being, but that it function in the act of knowing like
151 Quod quidem non debet intelligi quasi divina essentia sit vera forma intellectus nostri; vel quia
ex ea et intellectu nostro efficiatur unum simpliciter, sicut in naturalibus ex forma et materia
naturali: sed quia proportio essentiae divinae ad intellectum nostrum est sicut proportio formae
ad materiam. Ibid., sol.
152 Ibid. Cf. Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 51; De veritate, q. 8, a. 1, ad 6.
153 Ibid., a. 1c (emphasis added). 154 Ibid., ad 5.
155 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 51; In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 1c.
4.9 The vision of God as the whole of Eternal Life enfolded 153
the forma that is a part of the existing thing.156 This means that God
is not a species (i.e., a content) of consciousness taken in a strict sense.
Consciousness is rather being compared to matter, which is rendered a
reality by the ontological form. But, again, God is also not literally an
ontological form; his causality is only analogous to one.
Aquinas explanation of this unique situation is undoubtedly somewhat
complicated. He admits that the infinite and the finite cannot be related to
one another. But he does not admit that this implies that we can have no
knowledge of God. It is enough to assert, as he says, a relationship similar
to a relationship [proportionalitas quae est similitudo proportionum].157 In
this sense, he claims that there is not a relation but rather a relationship
[proportionalitatem tantum] between God and man in consciousness.158
Thomas justifies his calling God a forma of the vision in the following
manner:
Whenever in a receiver two things are received of which one is more perfect
than the other, the relationship of the more perfect to the less perfect is like
the relationship of the form to that which can be perfected by it . . . And,
therefore, since the created intellect, which exists in a created substance, is
more imperfect than the divine essence existing in it, the divine essence is
compared to that intellect in a certain way as a form.159
Texts like these, it must be said, have been overlooked in studies of Thomas.
Thomas argues that consciousness, the visio, is the act by which man
most resembles God, and resembling God is the goal of every being.
Furthermore, the ultimate goal of consciousness is seeing God, this being
also the way God knows everything.160 The resemblance to God consists
in the mode of existence (i.e., consciousness) and the object [quod videtur]
of this mode as well as the causality [quo videtur] of it.161
170 Frankl, Mans Search, 3637 (emphasis in original). 171 Ibid., 37.
172 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25 (quoted on page 146).
173 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 26, a. 4c (quoted on page 254).
174 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 2, a. 1, ad 3.
175 Cf. ibid., q. 8, a. 4, ad 11.
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 157
it is one and the same to love God and to love any good thing whatsoever,
since all good things [omnia bona] are in God.176 This means that the
more a mind knows different things in God, the more perfectly it sees
God.177
180 In particular, in the Commentary on the Sentences, the De veritate, the In De trinitate, and the
Summa contra gentiles.
181 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In III. Sententiarum, dist. 23, q. 1, a. 5; dist. 24, q. 1, a. 3; De veritate, q. 14,
a. 10; In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1; Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 5; III, c. 152.
182 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 1, a. 5c; IIII, q. 2, a. 5.
183 Cf. ibid., a. 2; a. 7, where the subject of theology is declared to be God, not Faith.
184 It is the future-orientedness and not, for example, God, or Christ, or the Church that distinguishes
the supernatural virtue of Faith from faith in general. Cf. ibid., IIII, q. 4, a. 1c; a. 7c.
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 159
But how does it come about that the abstract notion of being makes
Faith necessary for the attainment of salvation? This is the problem with
which I would now like to try to cope.
Let me begin by recounting the steps of the succinct argumentation
in the Summa article. Thomas commences by establishing in general that
there does not have to be an incompatibility implied between simultaneous
natural and supernatural causality. As an example, he cites the fact that
water naturally tends to move downward, but it is nonetheless susceptible
to being moved sideways by the gravity of the moon, causing the ocean
tides a phenomenon of which Galileo Galilei seems to have been unaware.
With this as the general background, he then moves on to the particular
case of Gods supernatural causality and argues that only human beings are
susceptible to the immediate influence of God himself because only they
enjoy a direct relationship to him. This relationship, far from being a threat
to human self-determination, is grounded in our natural ability to think
universals.185 This capability should not be interpreted as separate from
concrete life; it consists in a manner of apprehending concrete particulars
as universals that is, in a manner not restricted to the concrete particular:
Our intellect is able to consider in an abstraction what it knows in the
concrete.186 The relationship to God, who is the universal principle of
being, is especially established by the ultimate, universal abstraction of
being and the good. The rational nature has an immediate relationship to
the universal principle of being, Thomas argues, insofar as it apprehends
the notion of the good and being [boni et entis rationem]187 (see page 85).
A nature of this kind, as he continues to reason, cannot possibly achieve
full happiness on its own;188 by its very nature, it requires supernatural
knowledge namely, the vision of God himself. Mans ultimate happiness
consists in a supernatural vision of God.189 Yet, the question remains:
What role does believing play in this context?
At this point in the argumentation, Thomass thought assumes an inter-
esting development. After asserting that the necessary reason for believing
depends on the fact that we affirmatively know being, he explains that the
beatific vision can only be reached in the manner of a learning process; in
this metaphor, God is (surprisingly) put in the role of a teacher: in the
185 Now the created rational nature alone is immediately subordinate to God, since other creatures
do not attain to the universal, but only to something particular, while they partake of the divine
goodness either in being only, as inanimate things, or also in living, and in knowing singulars,
as plants and animals. Ibid., q. 2, a. 3c.
186 Ibid., I, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3. 187 Ibid., IIII, q. 2, a. 3c.
188 Cf. ibid., III, q. 5, a. 5, ad 1. 189 Ibid., IIII, q. 2, a. 3c.
160 Eternal Life as the vision of God
manner of someone being taught by God as ones teacher.190 The point
of this analogy is that faith in a teacher is not necessary for every kind of
learning but only for knowledge, as it were, which is developing that
is, for the knowledge of a student, gradually learning an existing science.
(In the application of the same analogy in De veritate, by comparison,
Thomas speaks expressly of the succession of time [successio temporis]
and the path of believing [via credendi]191 but in De veritate, there is
no mention of the notion of being and the emphasis is not on the teacher
but instead on the principles of the science.192 ) In the relationship to God,
it is decisive that human nature, being intrinsically historical, demands a
process, a development: Man is made a participant of this kind of learning
not immediately, but successively, in accordance with his nature.193 This
is the kind of learning that requires faith in a teacher who already enjoys
the possession of the culminating principles to which the pupil is only
gradually approaching. With this, Thomas finds that he has proven his
thesis: Hence, in order for a human being to attain the fulfilled vision
of happiness, it is pre-required that he believe God as the pupil does his
teacher.194
The implication here that much can be said at this point is that our
universal notion of being is anything but a static culmination, denoting a
kind of culminating apex of intellectual life; to the contrary, it is understood
as the very grounding of personal history. So now it can, at least, be
appreciated why Thomas prefers to emphasize acts of believing rather than
belief itself. Whereas supernatural Faith is infused by God and future-
oriented, believing is our own activity in the present. Thomas defines the
habit of Faith as the inchoation of Eternal Life195 ; he defines believing as
thinking with assent.196 Thinking [cogitatio] implies a growing process;
it is prone to expansion [ad evagationem pronus].197 Life is thus viewed
as an ongoing inquisition, propelled by the fact that we think being, that
we have, in other words, a conscious affirmative relationship to reality.
Through the learning analogy, Faith is not looked on as the answer to the
190 Ibid. 191 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 14, a. 10c. Cf. ibid., ad 3.
192 In his In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, Thomas uses the learning analogy in the same way. There, too, he
is thinking not of faith in a teacher but rather in the first principles of a science, necessary for the
beginning student, who must start with concrete, particular knowledge. Temporarily, the student
simply accepts the principles on faith alone and learns a posteriori. The analogy is applicable
to supernatural Faith insofar as the goal of human life, which is ultimate happiness, consists in
knowledge of God and such knowledge is comparable to the first principles of a science.
193 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 2, a. 3c. Cf. In I. Ethicorum, lect. 11, n. 2.
194 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 2, a. 3c.
195 Cf. ibid., q. 4, a. 1c. 196 Ibid., q. 2, a. 1c. 197 Ibid., q. 180, a. 3, ad 1.
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 161
question of being; it is not the climax, it is the launching of a temporal
process that continues on in time.
Hence, faith is regarded not so much as a commitment or an option for
something specific but rather as an opening up, as an impetus. To enjoy
eternal happiness, it is not simply a matter of dying in the state of grace;
we must first live through a life history in which we develop our individual
character. Faith sustains us on this journey.
By depicting God as a teacher an idea that is especially striking if we
consider the fact that the truth being taught is God himself (veritas prima)
Thomas diverts the focus of attention from God to the concrete reality of
this world, for a teacher is normally concerned with communicating a
truth other than himself. Faith in a teacher, as used in the Summa article, is
quite different from the faith, say, between husband and wife.198 Although a
teacher is usually not himself the truth taught, he is someone who enjoys the
possession of this truth. Hence, confidence in him provides the strength
to temporarily presume the truth of the fundamental principles and to
proceed with learning.199
Nevertheless, it still remains unexplained how the reason for this
dynamic, process conception of life can lie in the thinking of being,
which represents for Thomas, paradoxically, the ultimate termination200
of understanding in this life, the culmination of the via resolutionis, and
would, thus, appear to be terminative and static. To understand this, other
texts of Thomas must be consulted.
As a beginning, some helpful hints can be found by comparing other
analogies employed by him to explain in what sense Faith functions as a
medium.201 For example, he also calls Faith a light: The light of Faith
makes one see what one believes.202 Light is related to concrete colors like
a formal cause to material causes. According to Aquinas, the same kind
of relationship is characteristic of Faith in respect of what is believed.203
198 In the Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 5, n. 1, the text concentrates on God and not on the reality of the
world. Emphasis is put on the aspect of desiring. But what one should learn here is desire, desire
for God himself. The argumentation presupposes the principle that one cannot strive after the
unknown: Nullus enim desiderio et studio in aliquid tendit nisi sit ei praecognitum. Ibid., n. 2.
For this reason, it is necessary that desire for God be learned. Cf. ibid. This explicit application of
the learning analogy to desire paves the way to the approach in the Summa theologiae.
199 On the temporariness of Faith, cf. ibid., IIII, q. 9, a. 2, ad 1.
200 Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate, q. 6, a. 1c (22).
201 Precisely speaking, it is a medium propter quod. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 2,
a. 2c; cf. ibid., q. 5, a. 3, ad 2.
202 Ibid., q. 1, a. 4, ad 3.
203 Cum enim fides non assentiat alicui, nisi propter veritatem primam credibilem, non habet quod
sit actu credibile nisi ex veritate prima, sicut color est visibilis ex luce; et ideo veritas prima est
162 Eternal Life as the vision of God
Truth itself [veritas prima] is like a formal object and all of the other
objects (except for God) are like material objects.204 However, the light
analogy can be deceptive for, strictly speaking, the light of Faith . . . does
not move by way of the intellect, but rather by way of the will. Hence, it
does not make one see what one believes . . . , it makes one freely assent.205
Not knowledge but rather the voluntary assent is the essence.206 Indeed,
Thomas goes so far as to maintain that what is externally proposed [i.e.,
the truths of Faith], derived initially from divine Revelation, functions
like the empirical helps that present the occasion for insight into the first
principles of thought.207
The influence of Faith on what is believed is also comparable to the
kind of medium that consists in the demonstrative force of a proof in
geometry. The conclusions are like material objects; the proof is like the
formal object.208 The principles presumed by the proof virtually contain
the whole science.209
These metaphors clarify the significance of the universal notion of being.
It represents the cardinal point of our relationship to both God and the
world, in which we live out our life history. By choosing it as the key factor
for his argumentation, Thomas succeeds in uniting the fundamental com-
ponents of life: God, the world, and human beings. By explicitly adjoining
to it the notion of the good, he underscores the duality characteristic of acts
of Faith, which involve both the intellect and the will simultaneously.210
The believing will causes the firm adhesion of the intellect.211 Beings are
grasped as good, and this is truth; Faith adds the supporting affirmation.212
Experienced realities spontaneously give rise to desire. The convertibility
of being, truth, and the good is brought to life.
What still must be explained now is how this structure works out in
the succession of history. Knowing any reality, as Thomas asserts, gives rise
formale in objecto fidei, et a qua est tota ratio objecti. Quidquid autem est illud quod de Deo
creditur . . . , hoc est materiale in objecto fidei; ea autem quae ex istis credibilibus consequuntur,
sunt quasi accidentaliter. Thomas Aquinas, In III. Sententiarum, dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 1. Passio,
et alia hujusmodi quae continentur in symbolo, se habent materialiter ad objectum fidei. Ibid.,
ad 1.
204 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 1, a. 1c; ibid., q. 5, a. 1c; ibid., q. 7, a. 1, ad 3; In
III. Sententiarum, dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 1, ad 1.
205 Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4.
206 Assensum, qui est principalis actus fidei. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 6, a. 1c.
Cf. ibid., q. 4, a. 1c; q. 8, a. 5, ad 3; q. 4, a. 1c; q. 14, a. 1; a. 12; I, q. 16, a. 2; In III. Sententiarum,
dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 2; dist. 23, q. 2, a. 2, sol. 1.
207 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4.
208 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 1, a. 1c.
209 Cf. ibid., I, q. 1, a. 7c. 210 Cf. ibid., q. 4, a. 2c.
211 Ibid., a. 1c. 212 Cf. ibid., q. 2, a. 1, ad 3; q. 4, a. 1c.
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 163
to the desire to know its cause.213 This is experienced as wonder [admi-
ratio].214 But every object of knowledge is a being. Being [ens], as the
ultimate resolution possible to human thought, encompasses abstractly
everything in the world. Hence, the desire to know the cause of beings as
such transcends the causality within the world. In this way, being discloses
the divine transcendent causality.215 Since ens is for us the culmination
of knowledge in the world, Faith is eschatological. It is the affirmation
of the real possibility of the desired knowledge, revealed through each
and every being. It follows, then, that supernatural Revelation, in com-
parison to Faith, can only claim a secondary role. Everything contained
in Scripture divinely handed-down is related to the object of Faith, as
Thomas puts it, accidentally or secondarily.216 Revelation contributes
support to the natural situation in which human beings find them-
selves; and this, as Thomas describes it, is a gradual ascent [gradatim
ascendens] toward God. Creatures are paths [viae].217 The paths leading to
God are as diverse as the world itself.218 With regard to our practical deci-
sions, the cardinal virtue of prudence is necessary. Revelation is required
because these paths are so difficult to climb on our own.219 Faith, although
coming from above, conforms to the same paths.220 Above all, supernatural
Revelation for example, the teaching that God is one and three supports
the experience of wonder, and this it does by reaffirming the unknowability
of the transcendent cause of being. Therein lies the relevance of the fact that
Revelation proposes things to human thought that lie beyond the reach
of reason.221 Faith does not reveal to us what God is, what truth is, but
only that God is, that truth is but that suffices to ignite desire.222 More
213 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25; De malo, q. 9, a. 1c.
214 Inest enim homini naturale desiderium cognoscendi causam, cum intuetur effectum; et ex hoc
admiratio in hominibus consurgit. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 1c. Cf. ibid.,
q. 105, a. 7c; IIII, q. 180, a. 3, ad 3.
215 Intellectus autem humanus cognoscit ens universale. Desiderat igitur naturaliter cognoscere
causam eius, quae solum Deus est. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25.
216 Per accidens autem vel secundario se habent ad obiectum fidei omnia quae in Scriptura divinitus
tradita continentur. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 2, a. 5c.
217 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 1. Cf. the beginning of Thomas Aquinas, In De
trinitate.
218 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 1.
219 Cf. ibid. Revelation does not alter the manner of knowing; cf. Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate,
q. 6, a. 3c.
220 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 1. 221 Cf. ibid., c. 7.
222 It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer
knowledge of God. For then only do we know God truly when we believe him to be above
everything that it is possible for man to think about him; for, as we have shown, the divine
substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that some
things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the
164 Eternal Life as the vision of God
is not necessary. Through Faith, the initial contact of conscious life to
God is established; the first article of explicit belief is Gods existence.223
This contact sets conscious life in motion.224 Everything else contained in
the teaching of Faith can be regarded as belonging to what Thomas calls
implicit Faith.225 Thus, the meaning of Faith does not lie so much in
offering an answer; to the contrary, it keeps the enquiry going. Finally, it
is by the desires acquired in life through the knowledge of realities that the
fulfillment in the eschatological vision of God is determined.226
This viewpoint brings the comprehensive universality, the true catholic-
ity, of Christian Faith to light.227 To explicate this, it suffices to cite a few
brief points. Truth, Thomas states lapidarily, must be the end of the
whole universe.228 The contemplation of truth represents the ultimate,
fulfilled act, unifying the plurality of life.229 All of our desires and all of
our operations are grounded in truth; in truth they find their end.230 The
object of Faith is nothing other than truth itself, but Faith is not happi-
ness. Salvation, which is nothing other than conscious union with Truth
itself,231 implies full happiness; and happiness is the meaning and goal of
the practical life. What makes ultimate happiness comprehensive is the
fact that it consists in the knowledge of Truth.232 God as the principle of
being is the Truth that is the origin of all truth.233 A human being finds
view that God is something above what he can think. Ibid., I, c. 5. Summa theologiae, I, q. 1, a. 1
argues in the same way. With regard to truth, cf. In III. Sententiarum, dist. 24, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 2.
223 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 16, a. 1c.
224 The act of faith is the first motion of the mind toward God. Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate,
q. 3, a. 2c (5). Fides est necessaria tanquam principium spiritualis vitae. Summa theologiae, IIII,
q. 16, a. 1, ad 1; cf. ibid., q. 3, a. 1, ad 3; q. 4, a. 7; q. 7, a. 2c.
225 Ibid., q. 1, a. 9, ad 2; a. 10, arg. 1; q. 5, a. 4c; q. 6, a. 1. He also makes a distinction between primary
and secondary Faith: creatures and human actions belong to Faith in a secondary sense. Faith,
first and principally, is about the first truth, secondarily, about certain considerations concerning
creatures, and furthermore extends to the direction of human actions. Ibid., q. 8, a. 6c. Cf. ibid.,
I, q. 1, a. 7c; In De trinitate, q. 5, a. 4, ad 8.
226 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 6c (quoted on page 169).
227 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 3c; ad 1.
228 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 1.
229 According to Dionysius, between man and angel there is this difference that an angel perceives the
truth by simple apprehension, whereas man arrives at the perception of a simple truth by a process
from several premises. Accordingly, then, the contemplative life has one act wherein it is finally
completed, namely, the contemplation of truth, and from this act it derives its unity. Yet it has
many acts whereby it arrives at this final act. Some of these pertain to the reception of principles
from which it proceeds to the contemplation of truth; others are concerned with deducing from
the principles, the truth, the knowledge of which is sought; and the last and crowning act is the
contemplation itself of the truth. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 180, a. 3c.
230 The first truth, which is the object of Faith, is the end of all our desires and actions. Ibid., q. 4,
a. 2, ad 3; cf. Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25; In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 2c (3 and 4).
231 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3. 232 Cf. ibid., q. 2, a. 5c.
233 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, c. 1, n. 5.
4.10 Never-ending wonder in the vision of God 165
fulfillment in knowledge,234 in consciousness. Happiness arises to word
it provocatively from (theoretical) speculation.235 Consequently, even the
practical life is integrated into Faith, despite the speculative character of
Faith.
From this point of view, the religious relevance of reality comes to light.
The life of Faith is a journey, step-by-step, through the world of beings to
their grounding source, a return journey back home, so to speak.236 The
human ability to regard things as beings opens the path to transcendence;
Faith moves us onward. Life is a learning process, upheld continuously
by the optimistic affirmation of reality, of whatsoever nature. We learn
to apprehend being as good. The subject matter of divine teaching is
reality itself. Life in the world arouses desires that prepare us for future
beatitude. Beatitude is grounded in self-affirmation.237 Thinking being,
the specific human way of living in reality, is the pivotal point, joining
reality with its source by way of the successive experience of wonder.
Acts of believing are the actualization of the opened possibilities in the
medium of desire. Therefore, Faith in the supernatural is not an alternative
to moral engagement in the present world. It does not mean as a common
modern reproach against religion likes to imagine seeking consolation
in another world beyond the present one; it means, in fact, a growing
commitment to reality. Faith provides moral engagement in reality with
infinite motivation. Why then is Faith necessary? Faith in supernatural life
after death is necessary, it can be said in conclusion, in order to live out to
the full the successive possibilities of the present life.
Faith ceases with death. In heaven, Faith is superfluous, having attained
its purpose. Wonder, however, cannot cease. This is the reason why total
beatitude cannot be boring to respond to an old problem that still finds
234 Each thing intends, as its ultimate end, to be united with God as closely as is possible for
it . . . An intellectual substance tends to divine knowledge as an ultimate end. Ibid., III, c. 25.
That operation of man is substantially his happiness, or his felicity, whereby he primarily attains
to God. This is the act of understanding, for we cannot will what we do not understand. Therefore,
the ultimate felicity of man lies substantially in knowing God through his intellect. Ibid., c. 26.
Its felicity will consist in understanding God. Ibid., c. 25.
235 Faith consists primarily and principally in speculation, in as much as it is founded on the first
truth. But since the first truth is also the last end for the sake of which our works are done,
hence it is that faith extends to works. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 9, a. 3c.
The practical arts are ordered to the speculative ones, and likewise every human operation to
intellectual speculation, as an end. Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 25. The end of the intellect is
the end of all human actions . . . Consequently, the first truth is the ultimate end. So, the ultimate
end of the whole man, and of all his operations and desires, is to know the first truth, which is
God. Ibid.
236 Via fidei. Thomas Aquinas, In De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1c (3).
237 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 1, a. 7c.
166 Eternal Life as the vision of God
its proponents today. The question is posed: Since heaven consists in seeing
God face to face for eternity, must this not become boring? Furthermore,
if the vision of God is the fulfillment of our natural desire for happiness,
how can there be any wonder? For wonder is a kind of expectation of a
cause but, in Eternal Life, the universal and first cause itself will be known.
The causality that grounds wonder about beings is not efficient causality.
In this connection, the idea of an efficient cause is not relevant since an
efficient cause is a being and not universal being itself. Wonder will not
cease although it will forever be the same face that is viewed. Seeing God
himself is not the same as comprehending him. He will be seen in his totality
but not totally [totus, non totaliter]. Since he cannot be comprehended by
us, there will be even more intensive wonder. It is not the wonder arising
from an effect and directed to the cause. The cause itself arouses wonder
because of its incomprehensibility. Consequently, boredom is unthinkable
in Eternal Life.
According to Rahner, the very essence of human existence lies in its ori-
entation to the divine incomprehensibility. He describes man as the being
who is oriented to the mystery as such, this orientation being a constitu-
tive element of his being both in his natural state and in his supernatural
elevation.238 Human nature remains unchanged in the afterlife; other-
wise, it would not be the respective person itself. Neither grace nor glory
impairs human nature. From the principle, Glory fulfills nature; it does
not destroy it, Thomas concludes, Therefore, even the imperfection that
belongs to nature is not removed by the light of glory, like, for example,
that it exists out of nothing. For this reason the created intellect falls short
of the possibility of comprehension, and cannot be brought to comprehen-
sion by the light of glory.239 Hence, not even the eschatological fulfillment
of the beatific vision effects the rescindment of the incomprehensibility of
God. He remains essentially and perpetually the holy mystery.240
In other words, the vision of God can never become boring because won-
der cannot cease. Nothing that is looked upon with wonder can become
tiresome, since as long as there is wonder desire is moved, as Aquinas
states. The divine substance is ceaselessly seen with wonder by whatsoever
created intellect, for no created intellect comprehends it. Consequently, it
is impossible that an intellectual substance become weary of that vision.241
238 Rahner, Concept, 49. 239 Thomas Aquinas, In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 3, ad 8.
240 Rahner, Concept, 61. For Rahner, it is fundamental that God remains a mystery now and in eter-
nity. Grace does not illuminate the divine mystery; rather, it makes it definitive and unforgettable.
Cf. Geheimnis, 449.
241 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 62.
4.11 Interim conclusion 167
Wonder in the face of reality as well as the desire to grasp reality cannot
come to a standstill in the vision of God, regardless of the fact that the
very ground of reality is seen. The inadequacy testified to in wonder, being
thoroughly human, cannot be removed without removing human nature
itself.
1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 6c. Cf. In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 2, a. 1, ad 2.
169
170 The human factor
beatified.2 In this sense, God alone, in fact, suffices but, on the other
hand, as Thomas further clarifies the matter, it is still better to see both
God and, in God, creatures:
Although it is more to see God than to see all things else, still it is a greater
thing to see him, so that all things are known in him, than to see him in
such a way that not all things, but the fewer or the more, are known in him.
For it has been shown in this article that the more things are known in God
according as he is seen more or less perfectly.3
The intensity of the vision of God is proportionate to the degree in which
creatures are seen in him and vice versa. In any case, it is crucial to realize
that both visions comprise but one. The vision of God is thus individually
defined.
In sum, Eternal Life must be my, or our, Eternal Life. This implies that
it can be neither less nor more than my, or our, fulfillment or salvation.
Eschatology is comparable to a signpost, which points the way but is not
itself the goal. What is referred to here as the human factor is a heuristic
rule. It helps us to think in the right direction but it does not show us the
particular content. We can know that Eternal Life consists in the vision
of God, but what it is really like remains unimaginable. Signposts are,
however, essential while we are travelling to our goal. A theology of the
afterlife serves its purpose if it guides us in the present life. Wanting to
know more about it comes down to superfluous curiosity.
Needless to say, what we can learn is not just minimal, it is unavoidably
ambivalent. We are looking through a dark glass, which distorts what we
see. We may succeed in reaching one aspect of reality but never the whole.
If I know that a number is a multiple of the factor five, then I know that
whatever the number is, its last cipher will be either five or zero; otherwise,
I have no idea what the number might be.
Another analogy that may be helpful is the relationship between the
celluloid filmstrip of a movie and the movie itself as viewed in the theater.
The filmstrip is brought to life by the projector light. When I look at the
filmstrip, I see nothing moving, nothing alive, just one state after another.
In the theater, I forget where I am and submerge into a new reality. I laugh,
fear, sympathize, wonder, and so on. What happens when the projector
light illuminates the film and moves it at the proper speed is like a new
creation. Yet, it remains true that everything is contained in the filmstrip,
except for the light and movement. I would like to think of Eternal Life as
the illumination of my life history through divine light.
2 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 12, a. 8, ad 4. 3 Ibid., ad 3.
5.2 A minimal and maximal heuristic principle 171
Classical eschatology uses terms that are based on a relationship to
things that we know. Eternal Life implies some kind of heightened
life. Salvation depends on our natural need. Redemption refers to
something that needs to be redeemed. Fulfillment derives its meaning
from some kind of emptiness. Happiness, or beatitude, presupposes
an unfulfilled striving. Resurrection means that something rises again.
Hope is directed to something desirable that we do not possess at the
moment. The New Jerusalem expresses an obvious correlation. Heaven
is meaningful only if there is an Earth.
The traditional theological axiom whereby grace presupposes nature and
fulfills it indicates that grace stands in correlation to nature. Grace perfects
nature according to the manner of the nature, as Thomas maintains. As
every perfection is received in the subject capable of perfection, according
to its mode.4
In any case, salvation is the salvation of a human being. It necessarily has
human coordinates for otherwise it would not be human. It is important to
conceive of Eternal Life as a union of a human being with the divine being.
Both God and man are factors. What it is like when this union occurs is
unimaginable, but we can be sure that it remains somehow human that
is, within the ultimate, albeit infinite, horizon of human possibilities. As
Aquinas states:
Now it is manifest that nature is to beatitude as first to second; because
beatitude is superadded to nature. But the first must ever be preserved in
the second. Consequently, nature must be preserved in beatitude: and in
like manner the act of nature must be preserved in the act of beatitude.5
These principles set down a limit in two directions, defining the max-
imum and minimum of what is essential to Eternal Life. In other words,
an approach is offered to determine what happiness must include both at
the least and at the most. It cannot be more and cannot be less than what
corresponds to human nature and to an individuals nature, that is, generi-
cally and personally. Otherwise, Eternal Life would not be the Eternal Life
of a particular person. The individual cannot be fulfilled if his nature is
altered, so that his desires are amputated or expanded with fulfilled desires
that are not his. The two heuristic principles provide us with a means for
determining a rule that interprets the eschatological teaching of Faith.
How can this approach be justified? Why, first of all, can Eternal Life
not go beyond our desires? Of course, the fulfillment of our desires is sure
to have a quite unexpected quality, but it will not go as far as to include
aspects of life and reality to which we have utterly no access.6 It would
be something wonderful to possess all kinds of talents that lie beyond
my limitations; however, this would not be my fulfillment but rather the
fulfillment of some ideal human being, with whom I could never identify.
My weaknesses along with my particular set of strengths contribute to the
definition of who I am. I can have no desire to be simply replaced by a
person who enjoys a happiness greater than that of which I am capable.
A supernatural end in the sense of a perfection beyond the reaches of a
nature, writes Jorge Laporta, is a contradiction in terms. What constitutes
the crowning of a being (its end) would be that to which this being does
not tend, it would have no relationship with the nature in question.7
No human really wants to be an angel, even though he may think angels
are loftier beings than he is. The fulfillment of an angel is something
beyond our imagination, beyond the horizon of the human, and beyond
both human desire and fulfillment.
Nicholas of Cusa presents a noteworthy argument for this position. In a
sermon, he argues that humans must remain humans even when they have
6 What is foreign to human nature cannot, as Gradl, Deus beatitudo, 209, writes, participate in human
happiness, but it is wrong to assert that nothing that is accidental can belong to it. Accidental aspects
are not absolutely necessary and cannot be a ground for expecting Eternal Life since they do not
comprise the desire of nature, but they nonetheless can belong to complete happiness. See pages
252258.
7 Laporta, La destinee, 100.
5.2 A minimal and maximal heuristic principle 173
been raised to a state of perfection. In other words, a human being cannot
desire to be either an angel or an animal; hence, his fulfillment can consist
in neither of these. Cusanus calls fulfillment repose [quies]: As long as man
does not come to repose in his species, he will not attain the fulfillment
of his immortal species. Man therefore desires to attain all fulfillment in
his humanity, which he does not wish to leave.8 Cusanus claims that such
fulfillment is possible because a desire instigated by nature cannot be in vain:
And since this movement in man arises from the nature of his humanity,
therefore it follows that man, who is moved neither in vain nor outside the
bounds of his species, is able to attain the repose of this movement within
the species of humanity.9
Consequently, man cannot strive to be an angel. As Cusanus states: Man
is unable to desire what belongs to another species, even to be an angel.10
Similarly, what the eye desires is only to see. It would not be the eyes
salvation if it were given the ability to hear; no less can a dog want to be
a cat or a pig or a bird or a fish.11 He goes on by arguing that man strives
for fulfillment more in his rational life than in his sensual life, seeing that
this is specific to him as distinguished from animals. Man would rather
desire not to exist at all than not to be a rational animal . . . Therefore
every human desires in his humanity to possess a perfect, rational and
unceasing life,12 Cusanus concludes. Mans fulfillment remains within
the boundaries of his own possibilities:
I do not think that we become sons of God in such a way that we will be
then something other than we are now; instead, then we will be in another
manner that which now we are in our present manner.13
Jasper Hopkins offers the following comment: This transformation is not
a transformation of the human essence is not a transubstantiation.14
What is possible is that we desire the best possible mode of existence
within the potential circumference of our own species. Plato, for example,
desires to be Plato although he may wish to be more learned or healthier.15
26 Nicholas of Cusa, De apice theoriae, n. 28. 27 Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo LIV, n. 21.
28 Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei, IV, n. 13. 29 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo CCXI, n. 10.
30 Cf. Nicholas of Cusa, Sermo LIV, n. 26. 31 Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei, XVI, n. 71.
5.3 The desire for truth 177
Teach me, O Lord, how it is that by a single viewing you discern all things
individually and at once. When I open a book, for reading, I see the whole
page confusedly. And if I want to discern the individual letters, syllables,
and words, I have to turn to each individually and successively. And only
successively can I read one letter after another, one word after another, [one]
passage after another. But you, O Lord, behold at once the entire page, and
you read it without taking any time.32
However, God, being one as well as all, also adapts to each individual,
so that he embraces individual histories as eternity, in which, as Cusanus
often emphasizes, motion is rest. By this, he embraces time:
Now, if two of us men read the same thing, one more quickly and the other
more slowly, you read with both of us; and you seem to read in time, because
you read with us who are reading. But above time you see and read all things
at once; for your seeing is your reading. Simultaneously from eternity
and beyond all passing of time you have viewed all books that have been
written and that can be written, and you have read them at once; but you
also now read them successively, in accompaniment of all who are reading
them. You do not read one thing in eternity and another thing in time, in
accompaniment of those who are reading. Rather, you read [one and] the
same thing doing so in [one and] the same manner, because you are not
mutable, since you are fixed eternity. But since eternity does not desert time,
it seems to be moved with time, even though in eternity motion is rest.33
Without a concrete life history, there could be no fulfillment in the light
of the truth of the same life history. Truth is both the result of and the
motivation for life history. It is impossible for a human to be utterly happy
without God since only through God can he reach the truth of the realities
of his own life. Since this mode of the manifestation of Absolute Truth
is the ultimate, vital happiness of an intellect that is thus enjoying Truth,
it is God, Cusanus concludes, without whom the intellect cannot be
happy.34 Eternal Life represents the epitome of an ascent. It is not a
rupture with temporal life; it is not a leap into an unrelated reality but
rather an emergence.
Nicholas of Cusa thus views the relationship between the present life and
the afterlife as one between truth and the Truth. What we experience in
the world is like the image of its exemplar. Truth in the world represents an
ascent to the truth of the heavenly world. Truth is the passage to eternity.
Therefore, it must be the case that the truth [veritas] of every thing that
is made, he writes, is only its exemplar. This true nature [or exemplar]
180
6.1 The eternity of salvation as the fulfillment of time 181
Neither is benevolence that is, the willing of good the essence of love.
Thomas criticizes Aristotle for not going deeply enough when he defines
love as benevolence. According to Aquinas, benevolence follows upon love.
Like helping, benevolence is a manifestation of love. The Philosopher, by
thus defining to love, Thomas explains, does not describe it fully, but
mentions only that part of its definition in which the act of love is chiefly
manifested.71 The essential union is not the union with the desired good,
or with the friend for whom it is desired, but rather, as Aquinas perceptively
puts it: Love precedes desire.72 In other words, there is a union preceding
desire and a union following desire. The affective union precedes the move-
ment of desire.73 Thus, love is a kind of becoming, taking place in the affect:
union. This union precedes the movement of desire [Unio affectiva . . . praecedit motum desiderii].
Ibid., ad 2.
74 Ibid., IIII, q. 27, a. 2c. 75 Cf. ibid., III, q. 28, a. 1, ad 2. 76 Augustine, De trinitate, VIII.
77 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 25, a. 1c. The union of lover and beloved is twofold.
The first is real union; for instance, when the beloved is present with the lover. The second is union
of affection: and this union must be considered in relation to the preceding apprehension; since
movement of the appetite follows apprehension. Now love being twofold, viz. love of concupiscence
and love of friendship, each of these arises from a kind of apprehension of the oneness of the thing
loved with the lover. For when we love a thing, by desiring it, we apprehend it as belonging to our
well-being. In like manner when a man loves another with the love of friendship, he wills good
198 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
The union, therefore, that love is in its essence takes place in the affect.
There occurs a mutual presence: The beloved is contained in the lover
insofar as he or she is impressed on the lovers heart [impressum in affectu] by
a kind of accompanying delight [per quandam complacentiam].78 (And,
conversely, the lover is also truly contained in the beloved insofar as the
lover pursues in a certain manner what is intimate in the beloved.79 )
Now, a further characteristic of the essence of love between friends,
desiring the company of one another, is that this desire remains essen-
tially unfulfilled. This is primarily owing to reflective consciousness. It is
reflection that renders love unavoidably unfulfillable in the present human
condition. Since reflection differentiates between the being and the forma
of the object, the more self-conscious love becomes, the greater the cleft
between desire and its fulfillment. Observing oneself, even when it means
observing oneself being happy, implies a detachment: I as both the observer
and the observed.
Self-reflection lies at the core of the problem of human love for it is, on
the one hand, an indispensable prerequisite for fulfilling happiness and,
on the other hand, an ineluctable deterrent. It is fundamental that for
human beings happiness must be conscious, if it is to be happiness at all.
There is nothing, it may be presumed, which we value more highly than
consciousness. Human love is specifically conscious love. It is precisely I,
or we, who love. Through self-reflection, we are able to view whatever is
good qua good.80
Aquinas teaches, furthermore, that, as opposed to animals, we are able
to view sensual beauty as beautiful.81 Whereas, according to Aristotle and
Thomas, animals do experience pleasure, humans additionally take pleasure
in the beauty of sensible things.82 As a rule, the spirit enhances the sensual.
This can be explained by the fact that self-reflection always has some reality
as its content and it apprehends this content both as real and as possible,
thus enhancing its presence and rendering it, so to speak, more real. It
sees the contingency of reality. In fact, this is precisely the mode in which
human reflection grasps reality.
to him, just as he wills good to himself: wherefore he apprehends him as his other self, insofar,
to wit, as he wills good to him as to himself. Hence, a friend is called a mans other self (Ethic.,
IX, 4), and Augustine says (Confess., IV, 6), Well did one say to his friend: Thou half of my soul.
The first of these unions is caused effectively by love; because love moves man to desire and seek
the presence of the beloved, as of something suitable and belonging to him. The second union is
caused formally by love; because love itself is this union or bond. Ibid., q. 28, a. 1c.
78 Ibid., a. 2, ad 1. 79 Ibid. 80 Cf. ibid., I, q. 59, a. 1c. Cf. De veritate, q. 23, a. 1c.
81 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 91, a. 3, ad 3.
82 Cf. ibid., IIII, q. 141, a. 4, ad 3.
6.3 Longing predetermines the vision of God 199
The first thing to which the desire for good arising from love is directed
is the existence of the beloved. (Actually, self-reflection is nothing else but
the apprehension of the act of existence.) As Aristotle expressed it: what we
desire most with regard to ourselves is the apprehension of our existence.
Hence, the friend being a second self, what we desire most of him is
his existence.83 Here, the typical irony of the basic human situation comes
into play: self-reflection means both self-possession and self-alienation. For
conscious living, being present implies observing oneself, which in turn
involves a gap between oneself as subject and as object. Even in the word
I, which has the appearance of being able to attain complete identity, there
still lies a dualism of the observer and the observed. As subject, I see myself
as object. I thus involves a certain self-alienation, an inner cleft. Living in
reality implies an asymptotic hiatus. (This ontological suffering, moreover,
cannot be assuaged by justice.) Human experience remains per se conscious
experience. With its three distinct words, a statement like I love you is
disappointingly complex in comparison to the union it is trying to express.
The complete union with the other can be achieved only in a situa-
tion in which no cleft exists between what exists and its act of existence.
We conceive complete happiness as comprising the perfect identity of the
apprehension of the presence of the beloved together with ones conscious-
ness of this. Ecstasy is therefore imagined to imply the extinguishment
of self-consciousness, self-forgetfulness, and conversely the total and
immediate presence in the other. But the realization of this vision shat-
ters the vision, splits it in two. Complete union with the other with full
awareness would indeed overcome the dualism of the experience and the
experienced, eliminating the gap between being both one with oneself and
one with the other. Truth is nothing else but the conscious presence of an
object accompanied by the active awareness of this presence. If a knowing
subject were to obtain complete objectivity that is, a thoroughgoing iden-
tity of thought and object then, according to the standpoint of Thomas
Aquinas, there would be no truth at all. Truth always involves two fac-
tors namely, the object and the subject and, for there to be truth, the
subject must contribute something of its own [aliquid proprium].84 With-
out this duality, there could not be the phenomenon that we call truth
a name for the specific human way of being in reality. Not having the
problem of intentionality, an animal can be subsumed into its object unin-
hibitedly. A dog while eating is, enviably, one with its eating. Not having
83 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, IX, 12; 1171 b 291172 a 3; 9; 1170 b 1019.
84 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 1, a. 3c. Otherwise, Aquinas explains, one could not speak of
an adaequatio, as in the traditional definition of truth.
200 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
intentionality that is, being completely one with itself it is presumably
devoid of an awareness of distance from its object. Separateness from one-
self and separateness from ones object have the same source.
Happiness for us must be true that is, conscious happiness. I have to
be aware of the fact that I am happy in order to be really happy. I have
to observe myself being happy. But, as I have said, this self-observation
perforce undermines happiness. Inevitably, we distinguish between what is
happening and that it is happening in other words, between essence and
existence. This dualism is typical of human conscious life. Consequently,
ecstasy is pure happiness only in our memory or in our hope. As it occurs
in actual reality, happiness is accompanied by a strain of disappointment.
Hence, the longing effected by love is insatiable at least, in the kind of
split existence that characterizes our temporal existence.
Human love opens the religious dimension, for God, and God alone,
can bring the difference between being and its knowability to a union
of identity. Now the aspect under which our neighbor is to be loved,
Thomas observes, is God, since what we ought to love in our neighbor
is that he may be in God.85 In God, essence and existence are identical.
This sublime truth, as Thomas calls it,86 lies at the primal ground of all
reality, love presenting no exception.
There is a logic, then, in Erich Fromms definition of love as the fulfill-
ment of the desire for union and his understanding of God that is, what
he calls his non-theism.87 Atheism leaves no room for a transcendence that
can go beyond interpersonal relations. The problem of knowing man,
he states, is parallel to the religious problem of knowing God.88 Hence,
love of God is analogous to our love of human beings:
The basis for our need to love lies in the experience of separateness and the
resulting need to overcome the anxiety of separateness by the experience of
union. The religious form of love, that which is called the love of God, is,
psychologically speaking, not different. It springs from the need to overcome
separateness and to achieve union.89
In his novel Joseph and His Brothers, Thomas Mann depicts what he calls
The Sunken Treasure, lying more deeply in memory than the concomi-
tant suffering:
She did not curse the man she loved because of the suffering he had caused
her, or that she had caused herself on his account, for the pains of love are
special pains that no one has ever repented having endured. You have made
my life rich it blossoms! Those were the words of Enis prayer in the
midst of her anguish, and one can see in them the special nature of loves
torments, which can even emerge as a prayer of thanksgiving. In any case,
she had lived and loved loved unhappily, to be sure, but is there really
such a thing and should not every sense of pity here be dismissed as silly and
officious? . . . And yet at the bottom of her soul lay a treasure in which she
secretly took greater pride than in all her spiritual and worldly honors, and
which, whether she admitted it or not, she would not have surrendered for
anything in the world. A sunken treasure in the depths but it still silently
sent its light up into the murky days of her renunciation. And however
much it represented her defeat it also lent to her spiritual and worldly pride
an indispensable element of essential humanity a pride in life. It was a
memory not so much of him, whom she heard had now become lord over
Egypt; he was merely an instrument, just as she, Mut-em-enet, had been an
instrument. But rather almost independently of him it was a recognition
102 Wright, Surprised by Hope, 103. 103 Wilde, De profundis (emphasis added).
104 Wordsworth, The White Doe, line 56. 105 Wilde, De profundis. 106 Ibid.
206 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
This is certainly not utterly foreign to a Christian viewpoint. George
MacDonald even related it to Christs own suffering: The son of God
suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their
sufferings might be like his.107
Weizsacker did not hesitate to defend the position: In a Christian
society, but just as well in the societies of other religions, every mother knew,
every mature man knew that living at the same time means suffering.108
Suffering is not in principle unjust. Judging it to be so is presumably a
secularized form of a Christian conviction that eternal happiness lies before
us. But this expectation does not apply to the present life. As Weizsacker
writes:
Christian Europeans knew what all religions know, namely, that human
life is finiteness, suffering and guilt. However, Europe of the Modern Age
is characterized by radical projects and an orientation toward happiness.
Radical projects are the abstract constitutional state of absolute monarchs
and liberals, the secular eschatology of the technocrats and socialists. What
these projects are striving for and what the contemporary citizen considers
his undisputed right is happiness in this life.109
The positive side of the ambivalent state in which we find ourselves lies,
for Weizsacker, in the resulting suffering that arouses insight. Its danger
lies in the incorrigible acceptance of partial happiness.110 Of course, this
does not imply the passive acceptance of concrete suffering; resistance is
the essential component. Suffering has this advantage over pleasure and joy
that it does not tempt us to stand still. For this reason, John of the Cross
could make the claim that the road of suffering is more secure and even
more profitable than that of fruition and action.111
This insight is old; many centuries earlier Boethius had written:
Strange is the thing I am trying to express. And for this cause I can scarce
find words to make clear my thought. For truly I believe that Ill Fortune
is of more use to men than Good Fortune. For Good Fortune, when she
wears the guise of happiness, and most seems to caress, is always lying; Ill
Fortune is always truthful, since, in changing, she shows her inconstancy.
The one deceives, the other teaches; the one enchains the minds of those
who enjoy her favor by the semblance of delusive good, the other delivers
them by the knowledge of the frail nature of happiness. Accordingly, thou
mayst see the one fickle, shifting as the breeze, and ever self-deceived; the
114 In Rilke, Mir zur Feier. 115 Frankl, Mans Search, 65 (emphasis in original).
6.5 The eternal significance of temporal suffering 209
The fact that a few prisoners were able to make sacrifices is for Frankl a
proof that a fundamental freedom of choice still exists:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked
through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that
everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose ones own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day,
every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which
determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which
threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which deter-
mined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance,
renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the
typical inmate.116
According to Frankl, external circumstances can never inescapably reduce
a human being to a mere function of these circumstances. Even in the most
abasing circumstances, he maintains, we are able to react internally to our
situation and thus mature morally as a person:
The mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem
more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological
conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food
and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to
react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of
person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not
the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can,
even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him mentally
and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration
camp.117
Frankl refers to Dostoyevsky, who asserts that one can become worthy of
ones suffering, if the inner freedom is upheld:
Dostoyevsky said once, There is only one thing that I dread: not to be
worthy of my sufferings. These words frequently came to my mind after
I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose
suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom
cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings;
the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this
spiritual freedom which cannot be taken away that makes life meaningful
and purposeful.118
122 Cf. Havel, Am Anfang, 104106. 123 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, ll. 179182.
124 Wilde, De profundis. 125 Ibid. 126Ibid.
212 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
In Wildes view, love of man is the explanation for suffering:
Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation
of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot
conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other,
and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has
been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of
man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection.
Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.127
So Christianity is not in the first place a fundamental struggle against
suffering that is, a reaction occurring subsequently. Simone Weil made
the following observation: The infinite greatness of Christianity stems
from the fact that it does not seek supernatural relief for suffering but
rather a supernatural usage of suffering.128
The meaningfulness of suffering can be viewed eschatologically, as Paul
does in a frequently neglected passage of his Letter to the Romans (8:1824),
where he compares it to labor pains, preceding new life:
In my estimation, all that we suffer in the present time is nothing in
comparison with the glory which is destined to be disclosed for us, for
the whole creation is waiting with eagerness for the children of God to
be revealed. It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration
imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it with the
intention that the whole creation itself might be freed from its slavery to
corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of
God. We are well aware that the whole creation, until this time, has been
groaning in labor pains. And not only that: we too, who have the first-fruits
of the Spirit, even we are groaning inside ourselves, waiting with eagerness
for our bodies to be set free. In hope, we already have salvation; in hope,
not visibly present, or we should not be hoping nobody goes on hoping
for something which is already visible. But having this hope for what we
cannot yet see, we are able to wait for it with persevering confidence.
To the fetus, birth appears to be death. What the caterpillar calls the end
of the world, to quote Laotse, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.
It certainly goes without saying that this does not mean that suffering
is eliminated or alleviated in itself. But it does reveal a dimension that
is meaningful and hence a way to legitimatize suffering. If absolutely no
meaning could be found in connection with suffering, then the logically
compulsory conclusion would be a rejection of God, at least, as he is under-
stood in the Christian tradition. A believer cannot simply be consternated
and then go on living as before.
127 Ibid. 128 Weil, Cahiers, Vol. III, 32.
6.5 The eternal significance of temporal suffering 213
The classical theodicy problem can be turned around. As Boethius
remarks: If evil exists, God exists [Si malum est, Deus est].129 Thomas
Aquinas argues in the same way on the grounds that the awareness of evil
and the protest against it are the result of a presumption that evil should
not be that is, that it stands in contradiction to a fundamental good.130
As Thomas reasons: For there would be no evil, if the order of goodness
were taken away, the privation of which is evil; and this order would not
be, if God were not.131 The theodicy problem exists, then, from the start
only if God exists. Against this background, the question arises about the
meaning of the groaning inside ourselves. The existence of God not only
gives rise to the theodicy problem, it also provokes a deeper reflection about
suffering. A Christian does not simply direct his attention to a promise of
relief in heaven. To the contrary, he confronts suffering more deeply than
an atheist.
The Letter to the Hebrews (2:10) speaks of being made perfect through
suffering an assertion that demands attentive reflection. Johns Gospel
(16:20) teaches that joy will arise out of sorrow. Franz Kafka makes an
enigmatic remark that seems similar: Only here is suffering suffering. But
not as though those who suffer here will be elevated someplace else because
of this suffering, but in such a way that what in this world is called suffering
in another world, unchanged and only freed from its contradiction, is
happiness.132
Aquinas and Augustine argue that God allows suffering because he is
able to draw good out of it. At the beginning of his Summa theologiae,
Thomas defends Gods existence in the face of suffering, responding to
the argument that God does not exist, because if one of two contraries
be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. As he expresses the
argument: But the word God means that he is infinite goodness. If,
therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is
evil in the world. Therefore, God does not exist. In response, he cites
Augustine and writes: As Augustine says: Since God is the highest good,
he would not allow any evil to exist in his works, unless his omnipotence
and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil. This is part of
the infinite goodness of God, that he should allow evil to exist, and out of
it produce good.133 This is quite different from the erroneous translation
enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it
with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledges, has supreme power
over all things, being himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil
among his works, if he were not so omnipotent and good that he could bring good even out of
evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good?
134 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 71.
6.5 The eternal significance of temporal suffering 215
God, then it would be a sign of sickness not to strive for absolute meaning
(i.e., God). It would be a subjective defect not to need God. Whatever
arouses a subjective awareness of a need for God would be a means of
becoming healthy. Then, the definitive completion of life can take place;
otherwise, there would be nothing that could come to completion. In the
inner response to failure, the true attitude toward life is revealed.
Regardless of whatever else can be said about suffering, at least viewed
eschatologically, it possesses a positive aspect, which depends on the natural
resistance to it that suffering ignites. This in no way implies a weakening
of the fight against suffering. To the contrary, the attitude of fighting
suffering can quite readily distract from a genuine appreciation of it; often,
compassion is a more appropriate reaction. Granting forgiveness for a
suffered injustice also represents a highly noble response impossible
without the existence of guilt, which is a deep form of suffering. Easily
convinced that suffering should not really exist, we tend to overlook its
essence. But we overlook the essence of life itself if we believe that suffering
does not belong to it but that it is rather the result of external conditions
that can be eliminated. Weizsacker argues:
The idea that suffering is simply a result of reproachable social developments
is naive (or a projection); why do we have the ability to feel physical and
psychological pain if we did not have need of these indicators?135
The essence of morality lies in the cardinal virtue of prudence. The morally
good human is the prudent human. According to the Catechism of the
Catholic Church (n. 1806), prudence is called auriga virtutum (the chario-
teer of the virtues); it guides the other virtues by setting rule and measure.
It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience. Pru-
dence is the virtue that makes the other virtues be virtues.144 It is the ori-
entation of human life in accordance with reason, which, in turn, receives
its orientation from reality. Every moral virtue, as Thomas also expresses
it, is necessarily prudent,145 and No moral virtue is possible without
prudence.146 Temperance is not per se a virtue. If temperance be in the
concupiscible, without prudence being in the rational part, temperance is
not a virtue,147 Thomas emphasizes.
What prudence accomplishes is to put the concrete act into the per-
spective of the final end, thus uniting the universal and the particular. It
concretizes the general goal of life in individual decisions.
Because it views the concrete in a universal perspective, it is called the
wisdom that is accessible to humans.148 The specific human form of the
contemplative life, which actually transcends the human [superhumana], is
the moral life that is, the living out of the moral virtues.149 As Thomas
explains:
merely negative (relief from preceding anxiety); and this alone is what can be ascribed to virtue, as
a struggle against the influence of the evil principle in a human being (emphasis in original).
143 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 83.
144 Cf. Pieper, Werke, Vol. IV, 5. 145 Thomas Aquinas, De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 12, ad 23.
146 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 14, a. 6.
147 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 4, a. 5c.
148 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI, 8; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 47, a. 1, ad 2.
149 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De virtutibus, q. 5, a. 1c.
218 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
Wisdom considers the absolutely highest cause: so that the consideration of
the highest cause in any particular genus belongs to wisdom in that genus.
Now in the genus of human acts the highest cause is the common end of
all human life, and it is this end that prudence intends. For the Philosopher
says (Ethic. VI, 5) that just as he who reasons well for the realization of a
particular end, such as victory, is said to be prudent, not absolutely, but in a
particular genus, namely, warfare, so he who reasons well with regard to right
conduct as a whole, is said to be prudent absolutely. Wherefore it is clear
that prudence is wisdom about human affairs: but not wisdom absolutely,
because it is not about the absolutely highest cause, for it is about human
good, and this is not the best thing of all. And so it is stated significantly
that prudence is wisdom for man, but not wisdom taken absolutely.150
This is, of course, not explicitly Christian language, but associating God
with Being, or the total integrity of Being is common enough in Christian
theology. In any case, in responsibility, there exists a transcendence beyond
the concrete world and in this transcendence human identity has its essence.
Responsibility is always responsibility to someone:
There is something more essential here than just the assumption of a mem-
ory of Being (what is done cannot be undone), a kind of total registration
of everything. It is as though man assumed not only that everything is
known somewhere, but that in this somewhere everything is evaluated,
consummated, draws its final validity and therefore is given meaning; that
it is not, therefore, just a passive, optical backdrop but chiefly a moral
one, including standards of judgment and expectation, an assumption of
absolute justice, the conferring of absolute meaning.
6.6.2 Responsibility to
The idea of responsibility includes more or less distinctly an awareness of
an all-knowing judge, who even sees our thoughts. One can be responsible
230 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
for having a bad character without its resulting in actions. Havel describes
a feeling that we are being observed by a transcendent judge, a supernatural
conscience, so to speak. Responsibility is not limited to taking on respon-
sibility for something; we can also be held responsible for something.
Responsibility implies a personal relationship to a higher being. As Picht in
his important essay on responsibility writes, when we call the accountabil-
ity of a subordinate to his superior responsibility, an ethical dimension
in the relationship is revealed. The superior appears as the representative
of a higher order that possesses an unbounded absoluteness.177 For Havel,
our personal identity arises out of this relationship.178
At the beginning of the history of modern democracy, the essential Chris-
tian elements of our notion of responsibility were articulated in the Amer-
ican Declaration of Independence, albeit in a deistic form. In the final
paragraph, two phrases were inserted into Jeffersons original version.
One is an explicit appeal to the judge of the world (appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions) and
the other states: with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Prov-
idence. In this context, the notion of responsibility would be superflu-
ous. In fact, the word did not exist in English at this time. The concept
of divine predestination, however, was common. The idea of democracy
originally included a historic consciousness. History was believed to be
moving toward a goal. Even if the goal remained unknown to us con-
cretely, the belief in it was supported by the belief in the divine will.179 In
the United States of America, there prevailed a sense of mission for the
world.
It can be observed that the idea of responsibility to is gradually dis-
appearing. In the Constitution of South Africa, in which the notion of
responsibility occurs, as mentioned previously, in an inflationary manner,
the expression responsibility to is completely missing. Responsibility is
being secularized. The element of transcendence is being eclipsed.
187 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 96, a. 2c. 188 Ibid., ad 2.
6.6 The eternal relevance of morality 235
In this way, Thomas arrives at the conclusion that civil law must not always
be in conformity with the divine eternal law:
The natural law is a participation in us of the eternal law: while human law
falls short of the eternal law. Now Augustine says: The law which is framed
for the government of states, allows and leaves unpunished many things
that are punished by divine providence. Nor, if this law does not attempt to
do everything, is this a reason why it should be blamed for what it does.
Wherefore, too, human law does not prohibit everything that is forbidden
by the natural law.189
Of course, it can also be morally appropriate for an individual to contradict
a legitimate law. The classical virtue of equity represents a higher form of
justice, going beyond justice in the normal sense. It implies, for example,
that one is, in given cases, morally justified when ignoring or breaking
a legitimate law. Aristotle, who was the first to treat this virtue, calls it
epikeia. He emphasizes that the equitable is superior to the just, for it is
a correction of legal justice.190 Aristotles explanation is that universal laws
cannot hold for all individual cases and that the lawgiver acknowledges
this.191 Thomas Aquinas adds further emphasis: To follow the letter of the
law when it ought not to be followed is sinful.192
Finally, one can go further and maintain that even perfect justice is not
enough. As Aquinas rightly declared, peace and harmony among humans
can be attained only if love is present.193 Parents, for instance, who are
no more than just toward their children are bound to be inadequate.
Where love is, justice follows automatically and effortlessly. The merciful
Samaritan did not offer his help because of justice but instead because of
compassion.
Responsibility entails, therefore, more than simply following laws and
rules. Even a democratic constitution that is grounded on the sovereignty
of the people is not so sovereign that it does not submit to responsibility.
The German Constitution begins with the phrase Conscious of their
responsibility before God194 and the Japanese Constitution acknowledges
that the state derives its authority from the people, but, at the same time,
it relativizes this principle by asserting that no state is responsible only to
itself.195 Responsibility refers to a higher authority than the state or the
people. The Japanese Constitution speaks here of obedience.
189 Ibid., ad 3. 190 Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, V, 10. 191 Cf. ibid.
192 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 121, a. 1, ad 1.
193 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Primae redactiones Summae contra gentiles, III.
194 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Preamble. 195 See page 220.
236 Life history as the predetermination of Eternal Life
The idea of responsibility makes it clear that the ultimate meaning of
morality is eschatological. In the last resort, morality is not self-explanatory.
The radical question, Why should I be moral?, makes sense. Moral
behavior is determinative of Eternal Life.
chapter s ev en
Sensuality
The resurrection of the body
In this chapter, the heuristic principle that I have called the anthropological
factor is applied explicitly to the resurrected body. When it has become
conscious, human sensuality is not a purely biological phenomenon; added
to it is a participation in spirit. There is an essential difference between the
ordinary processes of gathering information through stimuli and reacting
to it in my stomach while it is digesting and the discomfort or pain that
might arise from it and enter into my consciousness. Conscious sensuality
represents a heightening of preconscious sense activities. If life has a mean-
ing, then we must let our thinking and willing be shaped by the structure
of means and ends that is given by reality. Living like this in the truth does
not impinge on human dignity; it is a conformation to it. Conformity of
this nature is not self-alienation but rather leads to an inner harmony, to a
kind of friendship with ones self. As a result of the peculiar intentionality of
human nature, friendship with reality brings about friendship with oneself.
Human existence is per se existence in the world. Similarly, sensuality must
be viewed and affirmed in its true role in reality, thus becoming specifically
human. Then its relevancy for the perfection of human nature will become
visible. If we understand body or flesh as signifying sensuality, then the
question arises in what way the resurrection of the body is a participation
in Eternal Life. What does a body, or bodiliness, have to do with the vision
of God? In what does the relationship of sensuality to God consist?
The Christian teaching speaks paradoxically but happily of a spir-
itual body (Sown as an animal body, it is raised as a spiritual body. 1
Cor 15:44). In other words, a non-bodily body a real body and yet not a
body. Although it is not an oxymoron, the term spiritual body is admit-
tedly misleading. The Greek word provides some help. Greek adjectives
ending in -ikos describe not the material out of which things are made but
the power or energy that animates them,1 notes Wright with regard to
1 Wright, Surprised by Hope, 155.
237
238 Sensuality
spiritual, which in Greek is pneumatikon. Tradition also calls it a resur-
rected body, a transfigured, glorified body, illuminated as it were by the
Light of Glory. Glorification is an appropriate term. We cannot know
now what such a body will be like, but we can presume that it will not
be less real than our present body. Strictly speaking, it can be said that
whatever can be experienced as good in our present body will have to be
included in the resurrection.
Conversely, to see God, there must be an abstraction from the bodily
senses. It is a matter of attention, and attention is a kind of abstraction. The
mind must be fully concentrated on God and not diverted by attention to
the senses. It is typical for human beings that they cannot pay attention
to all of the cognitive powers simultaneously. If I am listening attentively
to someone, I may be neglecting my seeing and smelling. Hence, Thomas
states:
But for the understanding to be raised up to the vision of the divine essence,
the whole attention must be concentrated on this vision since this is the
most intensely intelligible object, and the understanding can reach it only by
striving for it with a total effort. Therefore, it is necessary to have complete
abstraction from the bodily senses when the mind is raised to the vision of
God.2
Furthermore, the importance of attention is even accentuated for spiri-
tual consciousness since the mind operates in an immaterial sphere, either
by knowing abstract things or by abstracting from material things. Thus,
knowledge is more or less freed from materiality as such. The more imma-
terial its object, the higher the intellects knowledge. Thomas notes:
Therefore, if it is ever raised beyond its ordinary level to see the highest
of immaterial things, namely, the divine essence, it must be wholly cut off
from the sight of material things, at least, during that act. Hence, since the
sensitive powers can deal only with material things, one cannot be raised to
a vision of the divine essence unless one is wholly deprived of the use of the
bodily senses.3
The force of an intellectual act can result in a complete abstraction from
the senses.4 We can be so concentrated that we forget everything around
us.
This would appear to make the resurrection of the body unlikely, if it
were not for the fact that it is also psychologically possible for the intellect
to be distracted from the senses and yet include them. This means, on
the one hand, that Eternal Life must be freed from the senses and, on the
2 Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 13, a. 3c. 3 Ibid. 4 Cf. ibid., ad 10.
Sensuality 239
other hand, that the senses partake in Eternal Life. Put in another way:
death is a prerequisite and the resurrection is a necessity. In other words,
if physical existence ceases, it can in a certain sense be resurrected in the
vision of God. The difference lies in the structure of the relationship. If
a multitude can be seen in a unified whole, then this is possible. If many
things can be viewed under one aspect, as is, for example, the case with
universal notions, then it is possible to grasp many things simultaneously
with one simple act. This is a general rule:
In this way our intellect understands together both the subject and the
predicate as forming parts of one proposition; and also two things compared
together, according as they agree in one point of comparison. From this it is
evident that many things, insofar as they are distinct, cannot be understood
at once; but insofar as they are comprised under one intelligible concept,
they can be understood together.5
Seen in this way, the vision of God can include a multitude of everything
that one has loved in this life but included in this one, single, eternal vision
of God.
The resurrection of the body is also described as an overflowing [redun-
dantia]. As Aquinas expresses it:
After the resurrection, the beatified soul will be joined to the body in
a different way from that in which it is now united to it. For, in the
resurrection, the body will be entirely subject to the spirit to such an extent
that the properties of glory will overflow from the spirit into the body.
Hence, they will be called spiritual bodies . . . Therefore, in the resurrection
there will be no defilement of the understanding and its power will not be
weakened in any way by any union whatsoever with the body. Hence, even
without transport out of the bodily senses, it will contemplate the divine
essence. However, the body is not now subject to the spirit in this way.6
Because we are a unity, the senses can distract from the intellect in the
present life and in Eternal Life, the intellect can overflow to the senses.7 It
belongs to the essence of the human soul that it needs the senses: Since
the soul is united to the body as its natural form, it belongs to the soul to
have a natural disposition to understand by turning to phantasms.8
Sensuality must be distinguished from the senses. The senses are physical,
whereas sensuality occurs within consciousness. C. S. Lewis articulates it
well:
9 Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 121. 10 Ibid., 121. 11 Ibid., 123 (emphasis in original).
Sensuality 241
only matter we know and would miss. Neuroscience speaks of the qualia
of consciousness. Our experience is not as concrete as we might tend to
think. That is, I know matter but my knowing is not material. I know that
my body is composed of chemicals, but I am usually not really interested
in them. The neuronal processes in my brain are not as interesting to me
as the qualia they make possible.
We are standing in a fascinating countryside, seeing the hills and trees,
smelling the vegetation, feeling the warm air on our skin, hearing the birds
and insects. All of this exists in our consciousness as a unity and in a higher
form than in the world or in the senses (the brain knows no such feelings).
The resurrection of the body must be analogous to this.
We are familiar with an emergence from the physical to the spiritual.
When I see a rose, for example, activities take place in my nerves. The form,
the smell, the color of the rose have arisen in my nerves. But I do not yet
experience them. Then it can happen that they emerge into consciousness.
I am aware of seeing and smelling the rose. By reflecting on my experience, I
can realize that the rose is red. At this point, I have a predicative perception
of the rose; I can form sentences about it, which may be true or false. This
is knowledge that arises through the senses, but it is of a higher nature. It
implies that I do not just see the rose; I also am aware of seeing it. I see
it, in other words, as a reality. This is a perception of which the senses are
incapable. Out of materiality, something immaterial has emerged.
The emergence of the original perception can continue further. I can see
the rose as beautiful and good. I take pleasure in it; or, even further: I may
experience joy or delight. Joy is more spiritual than pleasure. Moreover,
out of pleasure, joy can arise and out of joy, the happiness of Eternal Life
can arise.
There can be no doubt that for the Christianity of the Modern Age,
the whole dimension of sensual pleasure has been quite foreign. However,
the theology of the Middle Ages commonly had a rather open attitude
toward eros. This is exemplified by the many commentaries of the Canticle
of Canticles and also in the Scholastic Dotes-teaching that is, the depiction
of essential aspects of the heavenly happiness in the metaphorical imagery
of bridal gifts [dotes].12 The erotic garden inspired not only Bernard of
Clairvaux and Mechthild of Magdeburg but even the schoolmaster and
stone-collector Albert the Great, who uses the physical touches of love
[tactus amoris] to depict the highest form of contemplative union with
God. He refers, for example, to inherence [inhaerentiam]; that is, when
12 Cf. Wicki, Lehre, 202237. Particularly interesting is the fact that the brides role in the Christian
nuptial metaphor belongs to the human being, who receives illogically the bridal gifts.
242 Sensuality
one enters as it were into the other.13 The rich and multifaceted frieze of
Christian nuptial mysticism reaching as far as phenomena like Teresa of
Avilas experience of mystical transverberation bears witness to a positive
relationship to erotic sensuality. Berninis statue of St. Teresa in ecstasy
renders eros and mysticism indistinguishable.
Finally, the fact that the belief in a resurrection of the body is a central
dogma makes it hardly possible for Christianity to maintain a thorough-
going rejection of the body. For dogmatics, there can be no doubt that
corporeality belongs to Eternal Life. The whole person is to be fulfilled.
The body represents the concretion of spirit, the expression and embodi-
ment of the soul. How then, the question arises, is an orthodox Christian
to conceive sensual pleasures in the afterlife?
Thomas formulates the question in more precise and differentiated ways.
One form is: Are such carnal pleasures necessary for fulfilling happiness?
Applied to Christ, he asks whether it was necessary for him to eat after his
Resurrection; to this form of the question, Thomas answers negatively.14
Thomas criticizes the interpretation of the pleasures of Eternal Life as being
identical to the carnal pleasure in the present life [sicut et nunc]. This is
underlined by a comparison to the Christian heresy of chiliasm, or millen-
nianism, which also taught that during the thousand-year reign of Christ in
the future of this world, the resurrected would enjoy such carnal pleasures.15
In these teachings, there is notably no reference to a spiritual body.
Having rejected the idea that there is a necessity involved, Aquinas goes
on to express an affirmative position on sensuality in the afterlife: Then
happiness will not only be in the soul, but also in the body, and even the
happiness of the soul will be increased extensively insofar as the soul will
enjoy not only its own good but also the good of the body.16
In his response, Thomas draws a comparison to the beauty of the human
body, which need not be beautiful by necessity but is surely improved by
beauty: sensuality is related to the spirit, he says, like beauty to the body.
In the case of the glorified body, there must be an increase in happiness.
Thomas emphasizes this by expressly teaching that the senses of smell and
sight will enjoy an unsurpassable perfection in the afterlife.17
13 Tertia (conjunctio) est per inhaerentiam, quando unum quasi ingreditur alterum, et contrahit
impressiones et affectiones a natura ejus: et hic est tactus amoris, et assimilatur tactui naturali, in
quo tangentia agunt et patiuntur ad invicem, et imprimunt sibi mutuo suas proprietates. Albertus
Magnus, In I. Sententiarum, dist. 1, a. 12 (Ed. Par. XXV, 25, 2930).
14 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 83; In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 44, q. 1, a. 3d, ad 1
and ad 4.
15 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 83.
16 Thomas Aquinas, In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 49, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 1c.
17 Sed in corporibus gloriosis erit odor in ultima sua perfectione . . . Et sensus odoratus in sanc-
tis . . . cognoscet non solum excellentias odorum . . . sed etiam minimas odorum differentias. Ibid.,
7.1 Sensuality as an end in itself 243
Thomas is clear and consistent in his argumentation. Without a body,
man is for him not a person.18 He even considers concupiscence an
element of original sin to be something good to have, seeing that it
belongs to human nature, although it rebels against reason. Naturally, he
does not deny that the spiritual soul is the essential principle of human
existence, but he nevertheless grants the body and sensuality their rights
on the basis of their belonging to the integrity of human nature.19
dist. 44, q. 2, a. 1d, ad 3. Visus corporis gloriosi erit perfectissimus. Ibid., ad 6. Aquinas holds
sexual pleasure to be the greatest among the sensual pleasures. Cf. De malo, q. 15, a. 4c; Quaestiones
quodlibetales, XII, q. 14, a. 1c.
18 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 14. Cf. also Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 26: The
minds act of understanding is not its being; and its will act is neither its being, nor its act of
understanding. For this reason, also, the mind understood and the mind beloved are not persons,
since they are not subsisting. Even the mind itself existing in its nature is not a person, for it is not
the whole which subsists, but a part of the subsistent; namely, of the man.
19 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 4, ad 8. 20 Cf. ibid., q. 15, a. 2, ad 18.
21 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 83.
22 Thomas Aquinas, In III. Metaphysicorum, lect. 11, n. 470.
244 Sensuality
normal to feel misused if one is merely the means for another persons
pleasure. No one wants to be perceived as nothing but a means to an end.
Decisive is what is enjoyed. The feeling depends on the content or, more
precisely, on what one thinks the content is. It is possible to enjoy the taste
of some foreign dish and then, on learning what it was that one had eaten,
be overcome by nausea. The feelings of pleasure and joy presuppose the
existence of a corresponding reality or, at least, an awareness of it. They
require an object.
The basic principle of Platos teaching on pleasure and joy can be summa-
rized in the phrase Without desire, no joy.23 In normal life, it is difficult
to avoid a mixture. But even when sensual pleasure is only partially a
final end, there is something wrong. The inversion of the natural interre-
lation can be subtle and occurs sometimes without us being fully aware of
what is happening. Lewis gives a good analysis of an all-too-well-known
experience:
A lover, in obedience to a quite uncalculating impulse, which may be full of
good will as well as of desire and need not be forgetful of God, embraces his
beloved, and then, quite innocently, experiences a thrill of sexual pleasure;
but the second embrace may have that pleasure in view, may be a means
to an end, may be the first downward step toward the state of regarding a
fellow creature as a thing, as a machine to be used for his pleasure. Thus
the bloom of innocence, the element of obedience and the readiness to take
what comes is rubbed off every activity. Thoughts undertaken for Gods
sake like that on which we are engaged at the moment are continued as
if they were an end in themselves, and then as if our pleasure in thinking
were the end, and finally as if our pride or celebrity were the end. Thus all
day long, and all the days of our life, we are sliding, slipping, falling away
as if God were, to our present consciousness, a smooth inclined plane on
which there is no resting.24
We must not do theology because we enjoy it.
Furthermore, according to Aquinas, the result of keeping carnal pleasure
in its natural subordination, as seen by reason, implies not a decrease
of pleasure but rather an increase. The dominance of reason does not
mean a repression of passion. One might expect that the domination of
reason would be detrimental for pleasure the more attention one pays
to one act, the less one pays to others but just the opposite is the case.
Unintended and innocent pleasures are stronger than pleasures sought for.
The question arises for Thomas when treating the state of innocence,
The ironic truth that the controlling influence of reason, seeking objective
truth, can cause an increase in carnal pleasure is worth thinking about to
understand the glorified body better. We are all familiar with an analogy
in which sensual reality becomes heightened through its becoming more
spiritual. Memory has this ability. It can bring back physical experiences,
including carnal pleasure, and render them even more real than they actu-
ally were when they took place in the past. In his unsurpassable fashion,
Lewis compares the glorification to the power of memory:
25 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 98, a. 2, obj. 3 and ad 3. Cf. Gilson, Le thomisme, 346,
n. 29.
26 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIII, q. 141, a. 2, ad 3.
27 Cf. ibid. 28 Ibid., a. 8, ad 1.
246 Sensuality
It need no longer be intermittent. Above all, it need no longer be private
to the soul in which it occurs. I can now communicate to you the fields
of my boyhood they are building-estates today only imperfectly, by
words. Perhaps the day is coming when I can take you for a walk through
them . . . Thus in the sense-bodies of the redeemed the whole New Earth
will arise. The same, yet not the same, as this. It was sown in corruption, it
is raised in incorruption . . . What was sown in momentariness is raised in
still permanence.29
Similarly, fear of a future possibility or the joy of the expectation of a joyous
event can also be more real than the actual event, which may turn out to
be a disappointment.
The resurrected body will necessarily be a more real body than the
one we know at present. Sensual life will awaken out of the quasi-dream-
reality in which we are now living. What we apprehend as being, which
is distinguished from becoming, must itself be a sort of becoming in
comparison to the being of Eternal Life. Applying the distinction that we
know as that between subjectivity and objectivity, we could say that what
now appears as objective reality will itself then, when it is glorified, appear
as subjective reality. Trying to gain some kind of understanding of this
relationship, Lewis offers the following explanation:
I dare not omit, though it may be mocked and misunderstood, the extreme
example. The strangest discovery of a widowers life is the possibility, some-
times, of recalling with detailed and uninhibited imagination, with tender-
ness and gratitude, a passage of carnal love, yet with no re-awakening of
concupiscence. And when it occurs (it must not be sought) awe comes upon
us. It is like seeing nature itself rising from its grave. . . . What was sown as
a becoming, rises as being. Sown in subjectivity, it rises in objectivity. The
transitory secret of two is now a chord in the ultimate music.30
Memory is a spiritual faculty that includes in itself sensual experiences,
raising them up to a spiritual level in a way comparable to light but without
sacrificing their sensuality. It offers us a good analogy that foreshadows
how the light of glory will affect the blessed. In memorys treasure, the
experiences of life are preserved and carried into eternity.31
What this comes down to is that sensual pleasure may not be excluded
from eternal beatitude in every possible sense. Insofar as it is subsumed
under a higher end, it has its due place in human fulfillment. Insofar as it
is sought for its own sake, however, it is extracted from its natural role.32
29 Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 121122.
30 Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 122123. 31 See pages 201203.
32 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 83.
7.2 Sensual pleasure as a part of eternal happiness 247
Removed from its natural place, sensual pleasure cannot participate in
ultimate happiness.33 Kept in its natural place, it must necessarily attain
fulfillment.34
46 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 31, a. 3c. Il ny a pas une seule des choses que nous
desirons dont le desir, interprete et regle par la raison, ne puisse recevoir une signification legitime.
Gilson, Le Thomisme, 435.
47 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, III, q. 31, a. 3c.
48 Cf. Gradl, Deus beatitudo hominis, 212.
49 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 26.
250 Sensuality
reflect on empty consciousness; there must always be some content within
consciousness, which occasions the reflection. To be self-conscious, I must
be simultaneously conscious of something else this could be one of my
own thoughts. Just as it is impossible to think thinking itself without some
other reality making up the initial content, so too it would be impossible
for the will to be active in any sense if solely the will itself were to be
the content. But the first object of the will is happiness, for whatever
we will, we will for the sake of happiness. Therefore, happiness cannot
consist essentially in any act of the will, whether this be love, desire, or
delight. Delight cannot be the last end, for the very possession of good,
as Thomas argues, is the cause of delight, while we either feel the good
now possessed, or remember the good possessed before, or hope for the
good to be possessed in the future: delight therefore is not the last end.50
The ultimate end of anything is by nature that which is first attained and
not what may follow on this. For someone who has made getting money
his final end, his final end is the getting of the money and not the desire or
love of money. The final end of man is God and, consequently, the activity
in man that makes up the substance of his happiness is that by which he
first attains God. This act is an activity of knowing since we cannot will
what we do not know. Therefore, the knowing of God is mans final end
and not some act of the will. The fact that the ultimate good is the object
of the will does not necessitate that the essence of the ultimate good be an
act of the will itself. From the fact that it is the first object, it rather follows
that it is not an act of the will.
A further reason for holding delight to be the final end is the fact that
delight follows on the attaining of what is desired and brings it, so to
speak, to completion, as beauty does to youth. Delight ranks among the
perfections which go to make up the species of a thing, Thomas states,
for through the delight that we take in any action we apply ourselves to it
more attentively and becomingly.51
The will is the source of movement, as it were the energy of human life.
Our understanding, as well as everything else, is dependent on our willing
to understand. On this basis, it would seem that the ultimate human
fulfillment lies in the will and not in the intellect. But this is another
subtle misunderstanding. Although in a certain sense the will moves the
intellect, in a deeper sense understanding moves the will, for whatever is
willed is somehow known beforehand. What is known as good appeals to
the will; otherwise, the will would remain inactive. This is a different kind
50 Ibid. 51 Ibid.
7.3 The difference between joy and happiness 251
of causality, lying deeper than efficient causality. When the will moves
the understanding, moreover, this happens thanks to the apprehension
of the act of understanding as being a good itself. In other words, the
will starts moving on the actual apprehension of an object, for the will
would never desire to understand if the act of understanding were not first
apprehended as something good. Understanding moves the will as its final
cause, and final causality is more fundamental than efficient causality and
occurs before it. Nothing moves without a final cause.
If we hold delight for the goal, then we turn the situation upside down.
What we want, first of all, is reality, not an illusion. If an illusion is realized
to be an illusion, it loses its influence. A placebo stops working when the
deception is unmasked. What we want is truth and not a feeling devoid of
truth. Hence, it is the intellect that makes the difference, for it is responsible
for distinguishing the true from the false. The delight is in itself the same,
regardless of whether it is enjoying true reality or a counterfeit.
To the question of why there is such a thing as delight in life, the
following answer can now be given: There is pleasure and delight in life so
that we might become happy. Delight is a help on our pilgrimage. Dante
described this well:
And just as the pilgrim who walks along a road on which he has never
travelled before believes that every house which he sees from afar is an inn,
and finding it not so, fixes his expectations on the next one, and so moves
from house to house until he comes to the inn, so our soul, as soon as it
enters upon this new and never travelled road of life, fixes its eyes on the
goal of its supreme good, and therefore believes that everything it sees which
seems to possess some good in it is that supreme good. Because its knowledge
is at first imperfect through lack of experience and instruction, small goods
appear great, and so from these it conceives its first desires. Thus, we see
little children setting their desire first of all on an apple, and then growing
older desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess
fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then
greater riches, and then still more. This comes about because in none of
these things does one find what one is searching after, but hopes to find it
further on. Consequently, it may be seen that one object of desire stands
in front of another before the eyes of our soul very much in the manner
of a pyramid, where the smallest object at first covers them all and is, as it
were, the apex of the ultimate object of desire, namely, God, who is, as it
were, the base of all the rest. And so the further we move from the apex
toward the base, the greater the objects of desire appear; this is the reason
why acquisition causes human desires to become progressively inflated.52
Now, it is often presumed that by saying that the vision of God is the
whole of Eternal Life, an unacceptable individualism is implied, but this
is a misunderstanding. A human individual is by nature a social being.
Friends are necessarily included. Thomas explains that happiness is socially
constituted, writes Gradl. Heavenly happiness is no purely individual
matter but a union with God and other happy humans.74
Taken in this sense, God is a medium. The seeing of him encompasses
all knowledge and even every activity:
The Blessed are united to God in such a way that he is the rationale [ratio]
of all knowledge and activity, for otherwise the act of happiness would be
impeded by the other instances of knowledge and activity. Therefore, the
attention of the Blessed is directed first to God himself and they have him
as the medium of every other instance of knowledge and as the rule of every
operation [regulam cuiuslibet operationis].75
73 Ibid., q. 57, a. 2c. 74 Gradl, Deus beatitudo hominis, 315 (emphasis in original).
75 Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones quodlibetales, VIII, q. 9, a. 2c. Cf. In IV. Sententiarum, dist. 44, q. 2,
a. 1, sol. 3, ad 4.
76 Weizsacker, Ambivalence, 251.
256 Sensuality
can also be a preparation for praxis even for those who are more inclined
to the active life. Those who are more adapted to the active life can
prepare themselves for the contemplative by the practice of the active
life, Thomas asserts.77 Conversely: Those who are more adapted to the
contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life, so
as to become yet more apt for contemplation.78 In other words, theory
encompasses praxis, as light encompasses colored things; it makes praxis
conscious, thus rendering it human. Moreover, theory makes praxis more
real; praxis makes theory richer and more comprehensive.
Consequently, Thomas can conclude that the end of the intellect, which
is truth, is the end of all human actions, and the ultimate end of the
whole person is, therefore, to know God, who is Truth itself.79 It is crucial
to understand this. In other words, truth means the presence of reality
in consciousness. The entire capability of the creature will be applied to
seeing and loving God.80 The striving of the will includes in itself all
human strivings:
For it is not only things pertaining to the will that the will desires, but also
that which pertains to each power, and to the entire man. Wherefore man
wills naturally not only the object of the will, but also other things that
are appropriate to the other powers; such as the knowledge of truth, which
befits the intellect; and to be and to live and other like things which regard
the natural well-being; all of which are included in the object of the will, as
so many particular goods.81
Consciousness includes not only knowledge but also embraces love and
joy as well as every practical activity. At a next lower level, sensuality is a
participation in consciousness.
One might think that a spirit without a body would be more god-
like since God is pure spirit. But Thomas argues in favor of the opposite
position: The soul united to the body is more like God than separated
from the body because it then has its own nature more perfectly.82 Hence,
Aquinas rejects two misinterpretations, the first being that the body does
not participate in Eternal Life. He argues from the standpoint that I
shall see God and that I consists in soul and body. The bodies of the
resurrected, moreover, are not just heavenly bodies; in a certain manner,
they possess flesh. Without its body, the soul is not a person. The other
misinterpretation understands the body as having the same mode of exis-
tence as it does on Earth. Thomas underlines that the resurrected body
exists as a participation in the vision. Finally, he sees in the text (my eyes
will gaze on him) a rejection of the idea that it is not the individual but
merely the human species that is saved. This would be a kind of everlasting
life of the species but one lacking self-identity [identitas eiusdem]. Thomas
insists that the text teaches a resurrection of the individual in the afterlife.85
As a further clarification, Thomas draws a comparison to the cause of
a work of art. Yet, in this case, the cause in question is not the artist
but rather art itself. Everything that is expressly revealed in the work
of art is completely included implicitly and originally in art itself, he
explains. And in a similar way, whatever appears in the parts of the body
83 Cf. ibid., a. 4A, ad 1. 84 Thomas Aquinas, Super Iob, c. 19. 85 Cf. ibid.
258 Sensuality
is completely contained in the soul originally and in a way implicitly.
Thomas continues:
Man could not be complete unless all of that which is contained implicitly
in the soul would be explicitated in the body exteriorly. Nor would the body
fully correspond to the soul, for in the resurrection of the body there must
be a total correspondence to the soul, since it resurrects only in accordance
with its relationship to the rational soul.86
The resurrection of the body has, thus, the mode of an explicitation. It
is not something completely new, added to happiness. As we shall see in
the next subchapter, soul must be understood in a comprehensive sense.
It can be said that the beatific vision is related to everything else that is
enfolded in it in a way analogous to the way light is related to colors
colors being nothing other than certain light waves.
98 This is in head-on contradiction to the religious beliefs of billions of human beings alive today.
Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis, 261.
99 Singer, Ein neues Menschenbild?, 10. 100 Singer, Der Beobachter, 39. 101 Ibid.
102 Singer, Gehirn&Geist, 32. 103 Singer, Ein neues Menschenbild?, 88.
104 Singer, Uber Bewutsein. 105 Cf. ibid. 106 Ibid.
7.5 The soul and the body 263
The idea of an immaterial soul is for Singer a mere construct, which is
scientifically unsupportable.107 The classical notion of the soul that lies
in the mainstream of Catholic thought is explicitly rejected by him, despite
the fact that he shows no knowledge of it.
For the sake of clarification, the following could be considered: When
I write down a sentence, I am materializing in ink a thought that I want
to communicate. If the reader were now asked what it is he is reading, he
would not answer that it is ink; and if one wanted to understand it, one
would not carry out chemical analyses. Strictly speaking, that would not be
false or impossible, but it would miss the whole point. Both of us, author
and reader, see an immaterial thought in this ink, and this thought is not a
separate reality existing outside of the ink. If I write, The car in the street
is green, then, of course, I do not mean that this word car here on the
paper is green; neither am I asserting that there is a car on this paper. I
am speaking of another reality and if the reader does not accept this, then
the worth of any book is literally no greater than the paper on which it is
printed. Shakespeares writings are not paper.
Let us leave this level of discussion and get on with our reflections.
Thomas Aquinas expands the Aristotelian definition, which applies only to
living bodies, to include immaterial life, thus raising the question to a higher
perspective. Human beings are not just animals but, as individuals, they
consist of spirit and body (it would be preferable to say spirit and matter).
Their souls must encompass both. This is not easy to think through since
the material and immaterial seem to exclude one another. As the result
of much reflection, Aquinas arrives at the thesis that the human soul is
unique. It is the actualization of the spirit and the body, with the spiritual
soul being the form of the body.
To call this position dualism is misleading, for soul and body form
one person. Hylomorphism thus represents a third possibility between a
reductionist monism and a radical dualism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church basically stands in the Aristotelian
tradition. It is aware of the fact that there are different definitions of the
term soul (which cannot be said for Crick and Singer). Referring to the
usages in Scripture, it states:
In Sacred Scripture the term soul often refers to human life or the entire
human person. But soul also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that
which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in
Gods image: soul signifies the spiritual principle in man.108
107 Singer, Angriff, 3233. 108 Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 363.
264 Sensuality
The Catechism then goes on to develop a more mature understanding,
making use of abstract, philosophical notions:
The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul
to be the form of the body: that is, it is because of its spiritual soul that
the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter,
in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single
nature.109
Here, Aquinas is mirrored. We can turn to him for a contraposition to
the cited neuroscientists. The significance of the soul becomes clear in his
teaching that the soul is not the I.110 Without a body, man would not be
a person111 ; the mind [mens] is not a person.112
Moreover, the very notion of the soul necessarily implies a body. In the
definition of the soul, Thomas writes, the body is posited.113 Sunflowers
and dogs have souls but angels, having no bodies, do not. The notion
of the soul is not even thinkable without simultaneously thinking body.
Soul must be conceived in function of a body. Without its body, the soul
would be helpless. To think at all, it requires the body. Without a brain,
there would be no consciousness. Thomas accentuates this by saying: The
soul is united to the body because of thinking [intelligere].114 Without the
body, the soul would be incomplete. It is united to the body so that the
human species may be complete.115 The soul requires the body in order
to attain its end,116 remarks Thomas.
Although the teaching that man has a soul sounds reasonable, in fact, it
is highly problematic, representing a provocative claim. The offensiveness
of the thesis has been lost to us because we have become accustomed to
it. It is actually paradoxical that man, who exercises immaterial acts, has a
soul, seeing that according to the Aristotelian definition, souls are restricted
to bodies. The question arises how it can be that man has only one soul,
embracing contradictory acts. But this is exactly what Thomas Aquinas
claims; and this is what it comes down to when we seriously assert the
unity of man. Of course, it is required by Christian Faith, and as long as
109 Ibid., n. 365. Reference is made to the Council of Vienne (1312) (DS 902).
110 Man naturally desires his own salvation; but the soul, since it is part of mans body, is not an entire
man, and my soul is not I; hence, although the soul obtains salvation in another life, nevertheless,
not I or any man. Thomas Aquinas, In I Ad Corinthios, XV, lect. 2.
111 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 9, a. 2, ad 14.
112 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 26: The mind itself existing in its nature is not
a person, for it is not the whole which subsists, but a part of the subsistent, namely, of the man.
113 Thomas Aquinas, De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 9, ad 4. Cf. In De anima, II, lect. 1, n. 3.
114 Thomas Aquinas, De anima, q. unica, a. 8, ad 15. It is united to it so that it might acquire
knowledge. Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 83; cf. Summa theologiae, I, q. 76, a. 5.
115 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, II, c. 68. 116 Ibid., III, c. 144.
7.5 The soul and the body 265
we do not reflect on it, we may live without seeing the problem. But once
we begin to think about it philosophically, the task ahead is strenuous.
Consequently, it is clear that matter and form share one and the same
act of being [unum esse].135 A thought and the sentence expressing the
thought cannot share the same being, but the meaning in both cases can.
The meaning that I thought in my head and wrote down is, under normal
conditions, the meaning of the sentence. If I am misunderstood, then I
naturally feel that something has gone wrong.
The immaterial soul shares its being with the bodys being by way of
the form.136 The act of being is the key: The spiritual soul is united to
the body as its form through its being.137 Although spirit and matter are
contraries, both are modes of being. To combine contraries in a unity, a
higher level of abstraction must be attained. Thomas accomplishes this
through his understanding of being. The body is thus more than just the
symbol of the spirit. Its very being is the same as the being of the spirit.
The spirit is not just the first actuality of the body; the first actuality of
spirit and body is one and the same.
What does form [forma; Greek: , ] mean? One way to
explain it is to say that everything that we experience or know except for
the act of existence is a form. What a dictionary contains are forms. But
how then can the soul be a form since it is the act of living existence? In
fact, form itself does not exist, but it is determinative of existence. For
example, the term dog in the dictionary does not exist as a real dog. But
what makes a really existing dog a dog is the form defined in the dictionary.
The meaning of abstract notions (i.e., a universal) does not itself exist in
some nominalistic way. Running per se does not run, but a running dog is
running thanks to the form of running. Running is not the efficient cause,
the dog is; running is the formal cause. Seeing is the form of a living eye.
Living is the form of a living being.
134 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 76, a. 1, ad 5. The same act of being that belongs to the
soul is communicated to the body, Thomas emphasizes, so that there is one act of being of the
whole composite. De anima, a. 1, ad 1.
135 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 81. 136 Cf. ibid., II, c. 68.
137 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, q. 76, a. 6, ad 3.
7.5 The soul and the body 269
144 Ibid., c. 72. 145 Rahner, Hominisation, 58. 146 Ibid., 64. 147 Ibid., 65.
272 Sensuality
and increasing reality is inserted side by side with the causal efficacy of the
finite cause as though fundamentally it were itself a partial cause. When we
are dealing with a form of becoming which is truly an increase and not just
a variation, the relation of the absolute ground of being to the finite agent
must rather be envisaged in such a way that the absolute ground of being
and becoming is always regarded as a factor linked to the finite agent and
belonging to it, though transcending it.148
An intelligent designer could cause nothing that secondary causes do not
cause. With a hammer, I cannot write a letter. Being must be present: For
an agent to be able to do what it cannot do of itself, writes Rahner, must
involve its having infinite being as its transcendent ground in such a way
that, while this ground is not a factor in the agent itself, it nevertheless
belongs to it.149
The interdependence between matter and spirit is, of course, fundamen-
tal. Rahner brings it to the point:
What is material, therefore, is for a Christian, theistic philosophy only
conceivable at all precisely as a factor in relation to spirit and for the sake
of (finite) spirit. Consequently, Thomistic philosophy at least has always
regarded what is material simply as a kind of limited being.150
He even goes so far as to claim that the perfected material reality must be
a factor related to the perfection of spirit itself, not something that there is
as well, in addition to spiritual perfection . . . Spirit must be thought of as
seeking and finding itself through the perfection of what is material.151
The union arising from the emerging of spirit out of matter is only
possible because of the presence of Being since spirit represents a real
increase in being and not just a form of matter. Matter and spirit become
real through the effect of Being. Rahner explains the divine causing of
mans self-movement as follows:
The agents rising beyond and above itself in action and becoming takes place
because the absolute Being is the cause and ground of this self-movement,
in such a way that the latter has this fundamental ground immanent within
it as a factor intrinsically related to the movement.152
Human consciousness is characterized by a transcendence toward its creator
as its final cause (which is a form of formal causality). As Rahner asserts,
the term of this transcendence causes the movement toward itself.153 The
orienting term of transcendence moves the movement of the mind; it is
160 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 22. 161 Rahner, Hominisation, 78.
7.5 The soul and the body 275
Hence, reality includes more than material reality and more than what
exists in the present, just as light includes more than the colors visible at a
given time. This is not to say that immaterial reality is included in material
reality but, in a real sense, it can emerge out of it without being simply
added or grafted to it. Nonetheless, materiality itself on its own strength
cannot cause immateriality. Divine causality, to repeat, is analogous to the
way light causes colors. In a dark room or in empty space, no colors exist. If
light is shining, then colors can exist provided that the appropriate matter
be present. If, for example, a sunflower is present, then yellow will be
visible.
Rahner comes to the conclusion that human parents are the cause of a
child, although a child is not, so to speak, deducible from its parents; it is
not an extension of them but instead represents an independent entity. The
child is truly the parents child and nevertheless an autonomous being
without involving a contradiction.
In striving for more being, a creature strives for similitude with God,
returning, as it were, to God.162 There exists a striving like this in all of
reality. According to Thomas Aquinas, even matter has such a striving
[appetitus materiae]; ultimately, the physical world strives, as it appears,
toward human existence. In the process of generation [processus genera-
tionis], inorganic matter tends toward vegetable life, and this in turn strives
for animal life; animal life tends in turn toward intellectual life.163
162 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, III, c. 22. 163 Cf. ibid.
chapter eight
I see no reason for not applying the insight explicated in the previous
section to the question of Eternal Life and viewing Eternal Life as a further
case of emergence. This implies that Eternal Life emerges out of temporal
life. It is the fulfilling actualization of human potentiality. By the name
of beatitude the ultimate perfection of rational or of intellectual nature is
understood, Thomas argues, and hence it is that it is naturally desired,
since everything desires by nature its ultimate perfection.1 It is more than
temporal life but it is not simply an effect having its cause completely
within temporal existence. For example, it is not simply an extension of
temporal life. Actually, the difference between matter and spirit is greater
than the difference between spirit and fulfilled spirit.
For new reality to emerge, a potency for it must exist. An animal lacking
wings is not likely to fly. An animal without a highly developed brain will
not think self-consciously. The actualized thinking of human beings is a
potency for Eternal Life. The technical term for this is potentia obedientialis;
that is, a capacity that can be actualized but only by another agent. Rahner
understands human life in the whole of its essence as a potentia obedientialis
for Revelation and Eternal Life. Eternal Life is not a miracle; moreover, it
is just the opposite of the abrogation of a natural law. Being the fulfillment
of a natural desire, the heavenly vision is not to be considered a miracle.
Etienne Gilson even goes so far as to assert that the Christian has a right to
happiness insofar as he is a human being.2 Accordingly, the beatific vision
is in one sense natural and in another supernatural. With respect to what it
consists in, it is natural; the cause of its taking place is supernatural. What
takes place is codetermined by human nature, while the fact that it takes
place presupposes a causality lying beyond the reach of human powers.
Depending on when it occurs, the same activity can be both in conformity
with ones nature and contrary to it. As Thomas Aquinas argues, it would
1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 62, a. 1c. 2 Gilson, Sur la problematique, 86.
276
The emergence of Eternal Life 277
be unnatural for a newborn child to have a beard; but later, when he
has reached puberty, it is natural. Although it is normal for a person to
have a full-sized body, it would not be natural if a newborn child did.
Similarly, in the present life, it would be against human nature if we were
to know God in the way in which he is to be known in Eternal Life.3
Thomas writes: Although it is natural for the human intellect that it will
at some time arrive at the vision of the divine essence, it is, nevertheless, not
natural for it to arrive at it under the conditions of the state of the present
life.4 Therefore, although it may be contrary to human nature to have
consciousness without the senses, this holds true only for the present life.
Nature is directed to more than this. To achieve the fulfillment of human
nature, there is no need for God to change. Within the light of Being, all
real possibilities are eternally present.
If Eternal Life is the fulfillment of the longing for reality, then the
meaning of life in time consists in the development of this longing, realized
in the multifarious forms included in the comprehensive notion of reality:
joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, spiritual and sensual, individual and
social. The becoming of a human person cannot itself be happiness but is
the necessary preparation and precondition for happiness. About this we do
not know much, and what has been envisioned in this study is admittedly
abstract, but we need to know no more. More could even be too much.
3 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 13, a. 1, ad 1. 4 Ibid., a. 3, ad 6.
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Index
290
Index 291
Claudel, Paul, 195 end
concrete, 3133 of all human actions, 146
double structure, 146 of the mind, 146
conformity, 140 Engelhard, Markus, 29
conscience, 223, 224 Eni, 203
Last Judgment, 226 Epicurus, 58, 59
consciousness, 191, 202 epikeia, 235
contemplation, 155, 253 Erlebnis, 3941
of the beloved, 156 eros, 90
contemplative knowledge, 122129 Eternal Life
Biblical teaching, 120122 boredom, 166
contemplative life, 57, 217, 253, 255, 256 life history, 180236
co-perception, 135 eternity, 180
copula, 136 definition, 183
creation, 1012 fullness of time, 181
and succession, 11 motion and rest, 190
evolution, 269, 274 time, 181190
out of nothing, 8 experience, 2041
Crick, Francis, 261263 concrete, 241
curiosity, 1619 Erlebnis, 3941
of God, 2939
Damascene, John, 114 predicative structure, 135143
Dante, Aligieri, 251, 253 experience of God
delight, see joy Bonaventure, 29
Descartes, Rene, 78, 141, 262 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 30
desiderium naturale, 17, 8692, 96, 101, 131, 145, concrete, 3133
276 Hans Urs von Balthasar, 29
boundaries, 172176 in the Bible, 3439
desire, 191201 mysticism, 33
and joy, 88 rapture, 3839
Dickens, Charles, 108 theodicy, 3031
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 39
Dionysius the Areopagite, 14, 36, 37, 106, 114, faith, 91
164 act, 158
disbelief in a life after death, 1376 and Eternal Life, 6476
experience prejudice, 2041 and philosophy, 131
natural aversion, 1416 and reason, 28, 130
philosophical prejudices, 1963 as light, 161
vain curiosity, 1619 faith authorities, 65
Dondaine, Hyacinthe F., 114 habit, 158
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 26, 74, 204, 209, 220 implicit, 164
doubt, 65 wonder, 157
Feinendegen, Norbert, 87
Eckhart, Meister, 76, 119, 265 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 79
Eco, Umberto, 52 fideism, 27
ecstasy, 199 final-decision hypothesis, 194
Edwards, Jonathan, 192, 193 final end, 98
Egan, Harvey D., 33 Fischer, Klaus, 27
Eicher, Peter, 27 Fonvizin, Natalja D., 26
Einstein, Albert, 188 form, 268
emergence, 59, 112119 two kinds, 148
Aristotle, 6, 9 forma intelligibilis, 116, 148153
from physical to spiritual, 241 Frankl, Viktor, 155, 156, 208210, 219, 221
in consciousness, 9 Franklin, Benjamin, 80
seminal reasons, 6 Freud, Sigmund, 61
292 Index
friend heuristic principles, 171
second self, 199 history, 230
friendship Hodges, Herbert Arthur, 39
with oneself, 237 Hoffmann, Georg, 68
Fromm, Erich, 37, 195, 200 Hofstadter, Richard, 74
fulguration, 8 Homer, 123
future perfect tense, 82 hominisation, 269275
hope
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 40, 41 in ones own resurrection, 8084
Galilei, Galileo, 76, 94, 159 transcendental, 80
Gilson, Etienne, 118, 245, 249, 276 Hopkins, Jasper, 173
Glorieux, Palemon, 194 Horkheimer, Max, 3
goal of human nature, 9799 Hoye, William J., 18, 29, 31, 3436, 89, 94, 107,
God 114, 129, 131, 134, 149, 230
being, 229, 270 Huby, Pamela M., 99
efficient cause, 270 Hugh of St. Victor, 73
essence and existence, 200 hylomorphism, 262
experience, 2939
final cause, 272 idea, 2324
holy mystery, 166 immortality of the soul, 7880, 181
immanence of God in world, 254 in the Enlightenment, 7880
immanence of world in God, 254 theodicy, 7980
knowledge of God through his essence, 133 implicit Faith, 164
light, 148 individuality, 169, 172, 175
Truth, 133, 134 intelligent designer, 97
unchangeableness, 112 interpretation of eschatological teachings,
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 40, 62, 79, 7176
109
Good Samaritan, 4952 Jacob, 121
Goriceva, Tatjana, 204 Jefferson, Thomas, 80, 230
grace and nature, 26 Job, 257
grace presupposes and fulfills nature, 171, 181 John of the Cross, 30, 206
Gradl, Stefan, 172, 248, 249, 255 John Paul II, 2729
Gregory of Nyssa, 73, 190 John Scotus Eriugena, 74, 114, 226
Johnson, Monte Ransome, 99
Habermas, Jurgen, 119 Jonas, Hans, 220
Hamilton, Alexander, 222 Jonsen, Albert R., 219
happiness, 132133 joy, 8889
and human nature, 169171 and desire, 88
divine, 145 and eternity, 83
joy, 249252 happiness, 249252
right, 276 pleasure, 248, 249
Hardon, John A., 261
Hattrup, Dieter, 122, 173, 182 Kafka, Franz, 213, 216
Havel, Vaclav, 92, 210, 211, 221, 227230 Kant, Immanuel, 9, 53, 80, 141, 216, 222227
hedonism, 5863, 243 the other world, 9
Heidegger, Martin, 4749 Kasper, Walter, 66, 67
hell, 104110 Kehl, Medard, 109
deficient love, 109 Kierkegaard, Sren, 201
free will, 106 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 233
objective loneliness, 108 knowledge
Henry of Ghent, 100 effect of truth, 142
hermeneutics, 7176 Kremer, Klaus, 265
historical reading, 73 Kullmann, Wolfgang, 99
theoretical reading, 73 Kung, Hans, 50, 53, 65, 66
Index 293
Laertius, Diogenes, 59 McGinn, Bernard, 33
Laporta, Jorge, 172 meaning of life, 180
Last Judgment, 222, 224226 Mechthild of Magdeburg, 241
conscience, 226 medium quo, 114, 119
leisure, 4748 medium quod, 148
Leitheiser, Ludwig, 50 medium sub quo, 115, 119, 148
Lennox, James G., 99 memory, 201204
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 78 human dignity, 201
lethargy, 92 Mendelssohn, Moses, 78
Lewis, Clive S., 8789, 92, 93, 109, 110, 182, 193, morality, 216236
203, 206, 239, 240, 244246, 252, 253 civil law, 233235
life before death, 180 divine will, 231232
life history, 170, 175, 180236 epikeia, 235
Eternal Life, 180236 failure, 221
life through death, 182 God, 235
light, 170 love, 217, 218
God, 148 prudence, 217218
of Being, 118 responsibility, 219233
of Faith, 161 solicitude, 218
of glory, 112119, 144, 183, 203 wisdom, 217218
Lorenz, Konrad, 8 motion, 143
love, 82, 89, 191193 mysticism, 33
a feeling, 53, 63
agape, 90 naiveness of statements on Eternal Life, 1314
as union, 52, 195198 nature does nothing in vain, 95, 96, 99100, 104,
atheism, 200 131, 145, 173, 201
eros, 90 Nicholas of Cusa, 57, 76, 101, 124128, 147,
essence, 196 172174, 176179, 253
existence of beloved, 199 Nicolas, Jean Herve, 19
goodwill, 197 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 83
not helping, 195
of God, 191192 obediential potency, 103, 276
of neighbor, 192 Ott, Heinrich, 67, 68
the beautiful, 52
unfulfilled, 198 Paul, 212, 219, 240
union of the affect, 195, 196, 198 peace, 221
unity of love of God and love of neighbor, Pegis, Anton Charles, 266
253 Pesch, Christian, 50
vision, 201 phantasm, 202, 239
Lubac, Henri de, 37 Picht, Georg, 222, 230
Lucretius, 88, 89 Pieper, Josef, 47, 48, 79, 217
Luther, Martin, 221 pious interpretation, 73
Planck, Max, 262
MacDonald, George, 206 Plato, 23, 24, 59, 122, 123, 126, 135, 137, 139, 140,
Madison, James, 222 142, 173, 178, 195, 244, 252, 253
Mahler, Gustav, 168 pleasure
Mann, Thomas, 203, 204 good, 248
Marcel, Gabriel, 82 joy, 248249
Marx, Jenny, 54 love, 247
Marx, Karl, 45, 46, 53, 54 reason, 244
Marxism Plotinus, 123, 124, 148
self-criticism, 5354 poiesis, 122
matter, 240, 272 positivism and neopositivism, 2225
divine knowledge, 254 possibility, 135
frozen spirit, 274 and reality, 136, 143
294 Index
Pound, Ezra, 191 redundantia, 239, 253
praxis prejudice, 4258, 122 senses, 240
immorality of eschatology, 4244 spiritual body, 237
predestination, 230 Revelation, 1819, 162
predication, 135143 and philosophy, 130
present and reason, 74, 131, 163
all-embracing, 188 revelata and revelabilia, 158
eternal, 188 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 208
present time, 186, 188 Robespierre, Maximilien de, 79
proofs of Gods existence, 143 Robinson, John A. T., 68
providence, 190 Rosa, Hartmut, 3
prudence, 217218 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 79, 80
human wisdom, 217
solicitude, 218 Schaeffler, Richard, 24, 25
Schillemeit, Jost, 40
quasi-formal causality in beatific vision, 150 Schnackenburg, Rudolf, 121
Schneider, Theodor, 267
Rahner, Johanna, 154 secondary causality, 271
Rahner, Karl, 2529, 31, 7173, 8084, 86, 89, self-consciousness, 10, 98, 128, 138, 216
90, 103, 108, 109, 112, 122, 137, 140, 142, 150, self-knowledge, 130
151, 154, 166, 181, 182, 192, 201, 202, 252, self-love, 192194
269276 self-reflection, 10, 198
rapture, 3839 self-transcendence, 273
rationality of reality, 9297 senses of Scripture, 7576
Ratzinger, Joseph, see Benedict XVI sensuality, 237275
reality end in itself, 243247
and Eternal Life, 8485 sentence, 135
and possibility, 135 truth, 139
as happening, 1012 unity, 136, 138
realized eschatology, 6870 Siebel, Wigand, 65
Biblical basis, 6970 sin
reductionism, 7 Satans, 174175
reflection, 102, 135, 137, 185, 190 Singer, Wolf, 262, 263
existence, 137 solicitude, 218
reflective consciousness, 137, 146 soul, 98
Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich, 50 and body, 217, 258268
responsibility, 219233 body in soul, 252, 265
atheism, 220 definition, 258, 263
Christian source, 222 emergence, 269275
for the world, 220 form of body, 265268
individuality, 230233 hylomorphism, 262
judge, 223, 224, 229231 in body, 252
peace, 221 self-knowledge, 260, 266
responsibility to, 229230 whole soul in each part of body, 265
secularization, 222 Spaemann, Robert, 56, 60, 61, 175, 218, 219, 221
transcendence, 220, 229, 230 species, 149
resurrection, 81, 237275 species expressa, 149
abstraction from the senses, 238 species impressa, 149
Christs, 81 God, 151
Christs and mine, 8084 species intelligibilis, 202
glorified body, 238 species intelligibilis impressa, 151
memory, 240, 246 speculation, 5658, 124, 165
of the flesh, 181 Spinoza, Benedictus de, 63
overflowing, 239, 248, 253 spirit enhances the sensual, 198
pleasure, 243249 spiritual body, 237
Index 295
Splett, Jorg, 42, 43 desired in every desire, 176
Stange, Carl, 79 end of all actions, 256
subject-predicate dualism, 135136 God, 134
suffering, 95, 101, 204216 levels, 141, 178
self-consciousness, 216 life history, 177
theodicy, 204205, 213 objectivity, 139
plurality of life, 164
technical mindset, 4547 reality, 142
essence of technology, 4849 unity of time, 136
Marxism, 4547
morality, 4955 unity of man, 266
teleology, 96 unity of sentence
temporality, 180 meaning, 139
Tennyson, Alfred, 61 Updike, John, 93, 94
Teresa of Avila, 242
theodicy, 79, 80, 204205, 213 verification principle, 23, 24
theology and philosophy, 2729, 131 vision of God, 111168
theophanies, 129 contemplation, 154
theoretical life, 57 corporeal unfolding, 252258
theoria, 122, 124 creatures seen in God, 170
theory, 5458 emergence, 167
and praxis, 256 face to face, 154
celebration, 56 friends, 255
happiness, 55 individuality, 255
Thomas Aquinas, 3, 811, 13, 14, 1719, 2528, multitude, 239
30, 3340, 51, 53, 56, 57, 6063, 65, 7375, natural, 276
85, 88, 91, 9597, 99103, 105108, 111, 112, structure, 144148
115119, 123, 129149, 151166, 169171, 174, supernatural, 276
175, 181, 183, 185, 189202, 207, 213218, supernatural and natural, 117
231235, 238, 239, 242250, 252268, 270, whole of Eternal Life, 153157
274277 wonder, 157167
Tillich, Paul, 53 Voltaire, 80
time, 97
and being, 137 Weber, Edouard Henri, 114
and eternity, 8283 Weil, Simone, 212, 216
definition, 183184 Weizsacker, Carl Friedrich von, 13, 14, 44, 52, 55,
desire, 191201 57, 58, 68, 69, 90, 114, 127, 135140, 143,
distentio animi, 186 147, 187, 188, 206, 215, 255
modes, 187, 188 Wendland, Heinz-Dietrich, 53
unity, 97, 137 whole, 5
transcendence, 229 Wicki, Nikolaus, 114, 241
Troisfontaines, Roger, 194 Wilde, Oscar, 205, 211, 212
truth, 139142 William of Occam, 70
and knowledge, 134, 142 William of St. Thierry, 33
and Truth itself, 76 wisdom, 217218
and truths, 132, 133, 177 wonder, 9, 8586, 145, 157167
becoming, 139, 141 and God, 8586
before knowledge, 141 faith, 157
conformity, 140 Wordsworth, William, 87, 205
desire for, 176179 Wright, Nicholas Thomas, 19, 205, 237