1. The fundamental problem of philosophy is implicit in its name: love (philein) of wisdom (sophia). Socrates and Plato interpret this love as a (distant) “seeking for . . .” (wisdom), as distinguished from an immediate “possession of . . . (wisdom)." In this case philosophy tends to have the character of a general aporetics, and for this reason it is a doctrine concerning ultimate questions. By contrast, the traditional Eastern conception of philosophy is one in which the “love of . . . (wisdom)” signifies a “union with . . . (wisdom)" (as the word philein suggests, connoting the intimacy and union of an embraced, embracing love). In this case, in this form of participation in wisdom itself, philosophy becomes a system of universal principles, and thus a doctrine concerning ultimate foundations. Both forms of philosophy, however—that of an aporetics and that of a systematics of principles—manifest themselves in terms of theoretical and practical philosophy. As theoretical philosophies, they manifest themselves in the superpersonal, objective form of a “knowledge of . . ." that is prosecuted reflexively and can be transmitted in terms of method and concepts: as an aporetics and a systematics of principles in the properly neutral sense of these terms. As practical philosophies, however, they are lived out in the intrapersonal form of life of a “posture within . . ." that can be realized only in a direct fashion, and that is witnessed to by example and imitation: aporetics here being understood as the objective expression of the personal posture of the "self-abnegating sage” (who “sees through” everything in terms of its final questionability)—while a systematics of principles is understood as the objective expression of the personal posture of the “contemplative sage” (who “surveys" everything in light of its ultimate foundations). Such are the antitheses that cut across and through the entire history of philosophy: critique versus intuition, pure knowledge versus life-knowledge.
2. The shape of philosophy can be defined more precisely in light of its standing with regard to science and theology. Science, according to its subject matter, has to do with particular regions of reality; these regions it then investigates, according to its method, in terms of their inner lawfulness, inner coherence, inner order, inner sense—that is, their inner “logos." Thus bio-logy is concerned with the logos of bios, i.e., vegetal life, psycho-logy, with the logos of psyche, i.e., the sensible and intellectual aspects of the life of the soul, etc. Consequently, science is conducted between two limits: at its lower limit it is in effect a gathering of purely material data (in which case, seeking the closest approximation to “positive facts,” it is conducted as a “positive” science—to the point, at one extreme, of becoming a pure “positivism”); at its upper limit it aims at the pure form proper to its given area (in which case, seeking the closest approximation to its “pure idea” or "pure structure,” it is conducted as a “constructive” science—to the point, at the other extreme, of becoming a pure “constructivism”). What remains common to both, however, is that in each case thought ascends from below to above: whether it be from disordered to ordered material (in the case of “positive” science) or from the material to the formal (in the case of “constructive” science).
Theology, by contrast, according to its strict concept, proceeds in the reverse direction, moving from above to below: not only as regards its subject matter—that is, its “speech” concerning the “meaning and coherence” of God (theo-logy in the sense of “logia” concerning God)—but also as regards its form—that is, God himself speaking about his meaning and coherence (theo-logy as “logia” on the part of God). What goes on in theology is not a kind of research that leads from the creature to the Creator, or from the grounded to its ground, but rather a self-revelation of the Creator to the creature, or of the ground to the grounded. It is, of course, “speech” in the medium of “creaturely signs” (Thomas Aquinas), but only insofar as it is God himself who speaks. And it is, of course, a “speech” that created men labor to interpret. But they are theologians only insofar as their labor—always dependent and provisional—depends upon the sole authority of the God who speaks. Thus, since theology is a movement from above to below, it is neither a doctrine regarding the natural relationship of man to God (a philosophy of subjective religion), nor a doctrine regarding God as the ground and meaning of the world (a philosophy of objective religion), nor a doctrine regarding God solely in himself (a philosophy of the divine as such). Rather, it is a doctrine regarding the free relation of God to man (as a theology of salvation), the mysteries of God in himself (as a theology of God), and the being and history of the entire world as it derives from God (as a theology of the kingdom of God).
Right in the middle—between science, understood as a strict movement from below to above, and theology, understood as a strict movement from above to below—lies philosophy. On the one hand, seen from the standpoint of science, it is the home of those “pure ideas” or “pure structures” at which science, understood as constructive science, aims. In this respect, philosophy appears either within a movement immanent to the creature, from below to above, as an a posteriori “philosophy of the sciences” (since its final conclusions depict that very region of “pure structures” at which science aims), or it presents itself within a movement immanent to the creature, from above to below, as an a priori “pure philosophy” (inasmuch as it comprises a direct vision of those "pure ideas,” proper to particular regions of science, by which scientific research is guided and towards which it strives, or at least inasmuch as it provides the “pure method,” be it critical or intuitive, to which scientific research turns for guidance). One finds the mirror image of this when one views philosophy from the perspective of theology. In this respect, either philosophy—when it moves from the creature to God, from below to above—bears a special resemblance to a ’’natural theology,” understood as a doctrine of the divine insofar as the divine appears as the ground and end (principium et finis) of the creaturely world; or—when it moves from God to the creature, from above to below—it becomes a “theological philosophy,” since it sets out from theological data, but according to a philosophical method, in order to connect the answers of theology to the questions and presentiments of philosophy, and thus to arrive at a system (as, in fact, is the practice peculiar to the Summae of classical scholasticism).
3. A properly Christian perspective has the final word: for there is only one concretely existing order between God and creature in this concretely existing world: the order between original sin in Adam and redemption in Christ, the crucified. The concretely existing face of philosophy (every philosophy, that is, found within the concretely existing world and its history) is not visible except from the perspective of this order (within which, as an objectively universal order, every concretely existing human being stands, whether he or she knows it or not). Consequently, the question of a “Christian philosophy” is not the question of one particular philosophy among others within the ambit of philosophy as such—rather, the question of the relation between Christianity and philosophy is the question concerning the concretely existing shape of philosophy as such (within this single, concretely existing order that obtains between original sin in Adam and redemption in Christ).
With regard to how we understand this concretely existing shape, the dual maxim that traces back to Thomas Aquinas is apposite: grace (or faith) does not destroy nature (or reason), but rather presupposes it and perfects it, providing its final form. When the stress is placed upon "grace and nature,” the maxim—as it pertains to our question—means that while being and history, as the object of philosophy, have the “grace” of redemption in Christ as their final form (per-ficit), they are perfected in such a way that their natural shape continues to be preserved. When a corresponding stress is placed upon “faith and reason,” the same maxim means that while thought—understood as the act of philosophy—has “faith” in redemption in Christ for its final form (per-ficit), it is perfected in such a way that its natural lawfulness continues to be preserved.
The meaning of these maxims becomes clearer if we take a closer look at the essence of Christianity, which is the “final form,” but which nevertheless does not negate the “natural form,” but rather includes it. By what is Christian here we mean: the incarnation of God, redemption in the cross, and incarnation and redemption as church (since Christ is “one Christ, head and body”). In this way what is properly Christian is opposed to original sin: the incarnation is opposed to man’s seeking to become God; redemption in the cross is opposed to man’s seeking to assert himself into eternal life; the church (whose religious orders involve blind obedience) is opposed to man’s seeking to be independent. Everything comes down to this one antithesis: whereas Adam (and in him all of humanity), by taking the path of unconditional self-affirmation, plunges into sin, death, and hell—salvation, eternal life, and heaven are opened up by the unconditional self-offering of Christ (and the offering in him of all who are redeemed by him). "Life through death” (in the mystery of redemption) is opposed to “death through life” (in the mystery of original sin). This is the word of the Gospel: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25).
The consequence of this for philosophy is that, insofar as the form of the cross constitutes its ultimate form, philosophy preserves its natural form. Concretely existing philosophy occurs as genuine philosophy within the one concrete order of original sin and redemption to the degree that its operative principle is the Pauline “dying, and yet we live” (2 Cor 6:9). The either-or of concretely existing philosophy stands between ’’fallen" philosophy under the sign of “original sin” and “redeemed” philosophy. A fallen philosophy is one that seeks to be absolute (it is no accident that the formula of original sin in Gen 3:5 is that of “knowing . . . like God”), only then to succumb either to the dead absoluteness of “pure concepts” (in a “pure logic”) or to the hellish absoluteness of a “pure critique” that rends everything apart (in a “pure dialectic”) and thus truly progresses from sin to death to hell. A “redeemed” philosophy not only knows itself to be living before the one living absolute (God) in its creaturely distinction from this absolute (and hence to be living within the unfettered creaturely movement of genuine “becoming”), but also and precisely recognizes its own native tendency to fall into the death of “pure concepts” and into the hell of “pure critique” (and for this reason realizes its ever new becoming in the fashion of an ever new resurrection from an ever new death and an ever new hell, since it suffers an ever new fall into these “original sins” and through them dies into an ever new redemption).
Thus Christian philosophy, in the proper sense, consists in Christianity’s transformation of “fallen” philosophy into “redeemed” philosophy, redeeming it from “philosophy as God” and into a “philosophy of the creature coram Dea" (in the “analogy” of “ever greater dissimilarity” within ’’a unity, however great"). What is at issue, therefore, is the "ensign,” so to speak, that is borne by the problematic of philosophy as we developed it in the first two parts of this section. If it is the ensign of "original sin,” then this problematic becomes an either-or between the contradictions that exist between mutually exclusive absolute philosophies. If, on the other hand, the ensign is that of "redemption,” then this same problematic reveals itself as a tension, resulting from a genuinely creaturely movement, between the various aspects of a single whole.
Such is the position sketched out in certain corresponding propositions of the Vatican Council. On the one hand, the Christian moment constitutes the “final form”: since “the church . . . has its right . . . and duty from God to condemn any science, falsely so called, in order that no one be deceived by philosophy and vain falsehood.” On the other hand, however, it is precisely in this way that a genuinely “natural form” of philosophy arises: since “the perpetual consensus of the Catholic Church has held and holds” that natural knowledge and research possess their own “object” and “principle,” and that “such disciplines, each in its domain, use their own principles and their own methods.”
It is precisely this problem of concretely existing philosophy that brings us to the problem of the individual philosophical disciplines.
4. Philosophical striving—when marked by “original sin"—attempts to attain an “absolutum” within the realm of the creaturely itself, from which one might then unfold the coherence and meaning of being and history. Almost every one of the individual philosophical disciplines one encounters in the course of the history of philosophy appears to be such an attempt. Philosophy qua cosmology or the philosophy of nature is grounded in the cosmos as an “absolutum”—whether static or dynamic—by which all the questions of philosophy are resolved: as we see in the Chinese Tao, the Ionian philosophy of the elements of the world (earth, fire, water, air), the Aristotelian philosophy of the cyclical revolution, the Renaissance philosophy of the divine cosmos. Philosophy qua anthropology is either grounded in ‘’humanity" as an absolutum: as we see in Enlightenment philosophy and in the contemporary philosophy of the human sciences; or it is grounded in the “totality” (of humanity, of the folk, of community or society) as an absolutum: as we see in the Enlightenment philosophy of man, the folk philosophy of Herder and Romanticism, and the recent sociology and philosophy of race. Philosophy, understood as the noetics of a cognitive philosophy or a philosophy of mind, is grounded in “pure thought” as an absolutum: as we see in Eckhart and German mysticism, empirically in contemporary psychology, methodologically in Descartes and modern phenomenology, critically in Kant, metaphysically in Leibniz, Hegel, and German Idealism. Philosophy qua ethics is grounded (at the level of the act) in the absolutum of a “pure desire” or (at the level of the object) in the absolutum of a “pure value”: as we see in Chinese Confucianism, original Socratic Platonism, late medieval voluntarism, and modern philosophies of life, value, and existence. Philosophy qua aesthetics is grounded in “pure rhythm" or “pure harmony” or the “pure ideal" as an absolutum: as we see in the development of Platonism into neo-Platonism, Schelling’s “polarity” regarded as a development of certain intimations in Kant’s Critique of Judgment, and the tragic pessimistic or tragic Dionysian “rhythm of the world” in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Philosophy, understood as ontology or metaphysics, appears historically either in the forms we have delineated above (the cosmos, or man, or the true, or the good, or the beautiful, understood as “the” proper name for being) or as something under the direct guidance of theology, as a philosophy concerning creation and the creature: as we see in the philosophies of India, patristic philosophy, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, and neo-scholasticism. These last philosophies present themselves historically either as direct “theological philosophies" (in the sense we touched upon earlier), or as philosophies that, guided by theology, assume guarded or circumspect positions with regard to the philosophies we sketched out above, with their respective absoluta—or as a mixture of both types.
5. From this picture of “fallen” philosophies we can now identify the features of “redeemed” philosophy: just as Romans 11:32 introduces the “mercy” of redemption in the midst of the “obstinacy of unbelief” (over to which “God has bound all men”).
The redemptive de-absolutization of all fallen “absolute” philosophies allows, firstly, the absoluta that we delineated above to appear in their creaturely relativity, thus resolving the mutual contradiction and conflict between differing absolute philosophies into a tension that arises naturally from objective possibilities proper to philosophy’s various aspects. Hidden within philosophy qua cosmology and anthropology we discover the one objective span between nature and spirit (centered in man as the midpoint of the passage between them). In philosophy qua noetics, ethics, and aesthetics we discover (at the level of the act) the one span of the so-called transcendentals: among the true, the good, and the beautiful. And, logically, a philosophy of the objective span (between nature and spirit) will appear under the ensign, respectively, of one of the three transcendentals; just as any “total” philosophy will logically appear as a suspended correlation among these three.
But, secondly, it is precisely here that one comes to see in the form of suspended correlation the particular form of creatureliness in its ontological correlation of existence and essence. For in the case of the true, the stress of this ontological correlation falls on the side of a relatively pure essence; in the case of the good, on the tension of becoming between existence and essence (“become what you are”); in the case of the beautiful, on a relatively ideal existence. Thus, what emerges out of the aforementioned “total” philosophy is a philosophy of this intrinsic ontological correlation between existence and essence: an ontology or metaphysics of creaturely being.
But, thirdly, this ontology or metaphysics of creaturely being logically comes to completion when it envisions God: since the tension of the correlation of existence and essence (essence in-and-beyond existence) proper to the realm of the creaturely points beyond itself to an absolutum of existence-and-essence: to God, that is, understood as the essential identity of existence and essence, as the pure Is (ipsum Est, as Augustine puts it; ipsum esse, as Thomas Aquinas puts it).
Fourthly and finally, the intra-creaturely absoluta proper to “philosophies shaped by original sin," divested of their absoluteness, are transformed into just so many similitudes of this divine Is. Indeed, from the perspective of trinitarian theology (taken as the core of Christian theology), the threefold flowing of the true, the good, and the beautiful within the ‘’total" philosophy can now appear as a vestigial image of the triune flowing of the intra divine life. If Hegel’s philosophy, as an “absolute philosophy” marked by original sin, usurped the realm of the Trinitarian, and made it identical with the intrinsic form of the philosophizing mind, even this is now ‘’redeemed": for the one true “imago Trinitatis” appears within concretely existing philosophy’s final aspect: the beautiful is assigned to the Augustinian memoria, and thus to the “Father”; the true is assigned to the Augustinian intellectus, and thus to the “Son”; the good is assigned to the Augustinian voluntas, and thus to the “Holy Spirit.”
We see the structure of “redeemed” philosophy in this ascent of a three-streamed transcendental philosophy to an ontology of creaturely being to an ontology of the relation between God and creature to a philosophy of the imago Trinitatis (one, however, that must first be developed from theology). In this respect, philosophy truly does lie between science and theology; it is conditioned by both, but is at the same time relatively independent of them. In this respect, equally, it bears the particular ensign of “redeemed” philosophy as its inner form: the “analogy” of “ever greater dissimilarity” in every “unity, however great” (as opposed to “pure logic” and “pure dialectic,” understood as forms of “fallen” philosophy). In the ascent from transcendental philosophy to an ontology (of creaturely being and its relation to the Creator), philosophy proceeds from the "analogy” between existence and essence to the incomparably greater analogy between the unity of existence and essence in the creature (as a tension of correlation) and the unity of existence and essence in God (as an essential identity). And, in the case of the crowning philosophy of the imago Trinitatis (as developed from theology), it is no longer even the kind of analogy that might open from below to the above (not even in the form of an “ever greater dissimilarity”), but is a mysterious “likeness” that becomes manifest solely through God’s Word.
Such is the shape of philosophy—as it commences in the pre-Christian era, having the features of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy (though under the form of absolutisms marked by original sin); as it is delineated by theology in the Christian era, during the patristic and scholastic periods; as it is clothed in modern philosophy (since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment) in a new absoluteness marked by original sin (as follows from the Reformation’s doctrine, which stands at the inception of modern philosophy, of the ineradicability of original sin); but also as it seeks to be resurrected anew, passing through and beyond this most recent absoluteness, as a true ’’redeemed" philosophy, possessing its “own method” and its “own principle.”
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article is excerpted from Analogia Entis: Metaphysics: Original Structure and Universal Rhythm (Eerdmans, 2014). All rights reserved.
