{604} (cont’d)

With this we have sketched the great outline of critical theology. The initial revelation entrusted to the deposit is a substrate that incarnated in historical concretion maintains its identity in the form of actuality of the manifest reality as such. This is theological truth. Its historical incarnation is, therefore, an occurrence, i.e., the realization of the possibilities of affirming itself as identical to itself, when giving of itself in the order of manifestation. Because of this the occurrence carries within itself the very imprint of theological truth; and this imprint is what allows discerning the pure giving of itself, the aspectualization, from any transformation and corruption. This is “criterion”, the logos of discernment. The formal characteristic of this criterion is the unity of doctrinal development with the substrative deposit, with the initial revelation. And in turn this unity occurs in several forms, depending on the different possibilities with which manifest reality affirms itself as reality. Manifest reality can affirm its reality above all as “sameness” in the occurrence of a “con-sensus” in a same belief. Manifest reality can also affirm its reality as “permanence” in the occurrence of the “con-tinuation” of a same received teaching. Finally, manifest reality can affirm its reality as “internal richness” in the occurrence of a “con-spiracy” towards the fullness of manifestation. Sameness, permanence and richness are the three dimensions of manifest reality insofar as reality. Since this reality {605} is temporal, the sameness is identity “in” all the moments of time; permanence is identity “of” transmission; internal richness is identity “towards” fullness. The fact is that manifest reality has a substrative characteristic. To affirm itself as reality in each of these dimensions is a possibility that among others this reality has. The realization of these possibilities is the occurrence. In it goes the imprint of the unity of reality as such. This unity of the substrate is a hén, a primary unity. It is a unity, above all, of the “initial dogmas” with themselves. But, at one and the same time, unity of all of them in the solidarity of the “body” of revelation, in the unity of its somatic joining together (Lt. compago). It is the unity of this body, which in the last instance always “occurs”. Including when apparently it is the case of only one dogma. In reality it is occurring to the whole revealed body, because the corruption of any of its elements has a corruptive effect upon the entire body. And reciprocally, the unity of the revealed body assures the intact identity of each of its elements, of each dogma. Thus, in the occurrence of this primary unity as such there is a unity that is the imprint of that primary unity, i.e., its ratification, the ratification of its hén. This other unity of ratification is the unity of the “with” (Gr. sín, Sp. con). It is the unity of con-sensus, unity of con-tinuation, unity of con-spiracy. These are three modes of the “con”, three modes of occurrence of the unity of doctrine “con” (with) the unity of the initial revelation. By virtue of this the three modes of occurring are three criteria of theological truth. Every theological criterion is simply criterion of unity. Every corruption is a rupture of unity and reciprocally.

Let us be more precise. The constitutive joining together of the soma, of the corporeity of revelation is, in accordance with what we said above, not only solidarity of reality such as it is in reality, but also as it manifests itself in the whole historical concretion {606} of the occurrence. It is solidarity and a historical corporeity, the corporeity expressed in the “con”. It follows that the consensus, the continuation, and the conspiracy do not consist in one merely material unity (so to speak), but constitute one strictly formal unity, i.e., a unity that is not only in fact, but knows itself to be such, a kind of unity formally and reduplicatively “one”. This is publicity. Consensus, continuity and conspiracy are three means of publicity. Publicity constitutes the community of the faithful in communion, in revelation. The occurring as actuality of manifest and public reality, as occurrence of actuality in a “con”, impresses the community, insofar as founded on communion in the manifest reality with a triple characteristic. The community in the actual manifest reality (in the temporal sense), i.e., the consensus, is not only coincidence in a same belief, but is belief that is known as shared, co-sensed, and is professed as such. This elevation of material coincidence to formal consensus constitutes a dimension of the community; it is “unanimity”. Unanimity is formally and expressly consensus co-sensed and professed. “We”, the faithful, are above all the ones that have a unanimous spirit, the ones that make profession of unanimity in manifest reality. The unanimity is certainly a “physical” characteristic of intelligence, but founded on the fact that a reality is actually manifest to it publicly. This is the publicity of the present as such, as fundament of community. The same occurs with continuation. It is not mere inert permanence, but a continuation, which knows and professes itself as such, a formal unity of continuity. This is the community of the faithful by its communion in the actual reality insofar as formally received from the past. It is the publicity of the received reality, insofar as received, as fundament of community. By virtue of this, that community has a specific characteristic, {607} the “genuineness”. Etymologically it is the characteristic that a son has formally been recognized by his father. It is also a physical characteristic of intelligence, but inasmuch as a reality is publicly manifest to it, which remains being what it was before. A characteristic of community founded in publicity with respect to the past. Finally, the same occurs with conspiracy. It is not only the fact that it may have a tendency towards a truth, towards an express subsequent manifestation, but that it is an aspired and professed convergence as such. It is publicity with respect to the future. By virtue of this, the community of the faithful in their communion with its future has a particular characteristic; it is “fertility”. It is a physical characteristic of intelligence, but only insofar as its convergence in the expression of reality is publicly manifest. Unanimity, genuineness, and fertility are the three dimensions of the somatic solidarity or community of the faithful insofar as founded on the communion with revealed reality, i.e., in the publicity of the body of revelation in itself. Revelation is actual and actualized presence in the Church. As such, confers to it a “physical” characteristic founded on such actualization. This actualization in its three public dimensions of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy make of the Church a “body” comprised of unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. In other words, the “con”, on the one hand, expresses the occurrence of the primary unity (hén) of the body of revelation, according to its three possibilities. On the other hand, it expresses eo ipso, the joining together of the community of the Church, its “mystical body”, the corporeity, which the occurrence of the body of revelation impresses on the community of the faithful. The mystical body is the body of the faithful minds insofar as communion with the body of revelation.

The unity of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy I mentioned above, are criteria of theological truth because they are the occurrence {608} of the primary unity of revelation. We now see that in reality they are theological criteria because they are the expression of the mystical corporeity as unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. Corruption as rupture of unity is concretely scission, adulteration, and sterility.

Of course, this will be true if actually the “con” is the real occurrence of the primary unity of revelation. This takes us to a deeper point, to the problem of the fundament of every criterion. Undoubtedly, left to itself, the body of revelation might evolve on its own in such a way that it could give the wrong impression of a unity of the doctrine with the initial revelation that would simply be illusory, that would not be aspectualization, but transformation. However, this does not occur precisely because the body of manifest reality is not abandoned to itself in the historical occurrence; it is deposited in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. By virtue of this, it is impossible that the entire Church would err as such in a belief of faith, in a continued transmission or in a unitary conspiracy. Therefore, when guaranteeing the truth of this “con”, the Holy Spirit is the theological fundament of every criterion as such. The fundament that in the “con” there occurs, really and effectively, the primary unity of the body of revelation, and that in this occurrence the unanimity, the genuineness, and the fertility of the mystical body as such is constituted.

The three enunciated possibilities are three auto-possibilities of intellection of manifest reality. But they are only possibilities, dimensions according to which manifest reality can affirm its reality in occurrence; but it does not mean that necessarily the three have to be occurring. The only thing we say is that as possibilities they belong intrinsically to the substrate, to the revealed deposit, to the body of {609} manifest reality as such. Also, we do not say that they may be the only ones. We do not know. But there is no impediment to leave the door open to other possibilities, which perhaps only in a remote future may appear and be realized; with them we would have other forms of occurrence, and therefore, new criteria of theological truth. By simply thinking of the first Christian generations it will be seen this is not impossible. In them, the only possibilities of occurrence were just the universal consent, and the continuity of the apostolic preaching, i.e., the possibility of revealed reality to affirm itself in its reality as sameness and permanence. Only afterwards was the possibility of affirming reality as internal richness in unity of conspiracy activated. Until that moment no one would have suspected there was a third possibility. There is no reason, therefore, to think we have already exhausted all the possibilities with which the initial revelation affirms its identity as manifest reality.

The occurrence of revelation in accord with these three possibilities is, as we mentioned above, unity of doctrine “con” (with) the unity (hén) of the initial revelation. Because of this, reciprocally, taken as characteristics of occurring, the historical reality of consensus, continuation, and conspiracy are criteria of theological reality of a pure evolution, of an aspectualization. As criteria they do not exclude each other. On the contrary, they may help each other because they are nothing but the occurrence of a selfsame primary unity of manifest reality. Consequently, in the end, more than three different numerical criteria, they are three aspects of only one criterion or signal of theological truth, the unity of occurrence with the revealed deposit.

Their actual application, we have already seen it, only provides us with approximations, in greater proximity to a true doctrine as the circumstances for their application may be favorable. {610} It is impossible to find one criterion that will automatically allow us to solve the problem of the legitimacy of a development. Not even the magisterium, despite having the assistance of the Holy Spirit has considered it can do without having recourse to human means with all their limitations. The three criteria, taken together and handled with prudence provide at the beginning a verisimilitude that in the middle of possible fluctuations continues to grow until reaching a true moral certainty that we are before a truth that can be a “defined dogma”. Since in general we only have a moral certainty, it is reserved to the magisterium assisted by the Holy Spirit to take the final step, i.e., to define the doctrine as dogma, as a truth that was there inexpressively contained in the manifest reality of the initial revelation. It has been an evolution by aspectualization. This intervention of the magisterium is not in general, as it is frequently mentioned, of a purely formal character, i.e., an intervention by which something already known as a truth with absolute certainty through purely human means is ratified by the Church as a truth of faith. In general, the intervention is deeper because we do not always have through purely human procedures the absolute certainty of the truth of a doctrine, but only a moral certainty. By virtue of this, the intervention of the Church is not limited to “ratifying” the truth in question as a truth of faith, but “completes” the mere moral certainty into absolute certainty by the indefectible assistance of the Holy Spirit.


Let us summarize the general lines of this investigation. We saw at the beginning that revelation is constitutively progradient, i.e., that by its own characteristic it has to give of itself that, which the “defined dogmas” are. The question is, how? That was the second step; the way of the progress is formally “evolution”. What is it?

{611} Evolution, above all, presupposes that whatever progresses has a substrative characteristic, i.e., it is not only a subject that supports progress, infected by it, but something that is involved in the progress because it is something that gives of itself something new but from itself, through its own structures. The revelation of the Old Testament and the New in the time of Christ and the apostles did not have this characteristic. Its progress was an accrual, and because of this it did not give of itself from itself, but through a new action of God. It was not substrate and there was no evolution. Only the post-apostolic revelation has a strictly substrative characteristic. It is a fontanal, intrinsic unity, and of historical concretion, which has its own formal characteristic, it is concluded. This means fullness of the manifesting donation of God to men, but because of this has the exigency of a better manifesting itself in the historical occurrence, therefore, a stepping march towards the fullness it already was as reality (reflexivity) in the order of manifestation. In other words, revelation is substrate precisely because it is concluded. Conclusiveness is subtrativeness.

However, in order to evolve this substrate is immersed in a situation. We then asked what was the function of the situation in the evolution of the substrate. We saw that, in general terms, it consists in “making” that the substrate may give of itself from itself. Without the situation, the substrate would not be such, it would be a mere inert deposit and there would be no evolution. In what does this making consist? Of course, it is not a kind of interior assimilation of foreign elements into its own substance; that would be “crasis” and its result “syncretism”. The fact is that the substrate remains identical in every situation. It is an identity not only of each one of its elements, but in the real body, which by intrinsic solidarity they constitute. The “making” of the situation is, therefore, of another type. It is to make that the substrate give from itself what it already was in itself. Therefore, it is a “making” that does not affect but the {612} order of manifestation, a making that the revealed reality manifest itself better. It is what we here call pure evolution. Therefore, the situation is a kind of interrogation or internal pressure to make that the substrate may define itself on the line in which it has been placed. What is given of itself already was, regardless of the form, in the substrate. The form of manifestation, according to the formal line of the situation is the “sense”. The unity of these two moments is what I have called “aspect”. The aspect emerges from what the substrate already was, and therefore, it is not added to it. Evolution is not accretion, but aspectualization. By virtue of this, aspectualization maintains the identity of the revealed substrate in all situations. But, how? In other words, in what does this identity consist? It is not the identity of a mere amorphous impulse, which goes on acquiring and abolishing senses (aspectualization by transformation). Since aspect comes from the substrate as something that was already in it, the identity of the body consists in the preservation of the sense in the course of history, i.e., it is unreformability (aspectualization by preservation). The solidarity of the real body of revelation is not only a quiescent solidarity, but also a historical solidarity of all the aspects it goes on offering. Unreformable aspectualization, this is the precise function of situation in the evolution of the substrate. And this is evolution in the primary and proper sense of the concept. It is not necessarily a biological phenomenon of transformation, but pure evolution, i.e., a sameness that by its own structures gives from itself a diversity of new modes of manifestation, of new aspects of what it already was. And in this sense (and only in this one) the concept of evolution can and should be applied to human history.

With this an important problem surfaces, the problem of the legitimacy of the occurrence of the revealed body, i.e., the legitimacy of the doctrinal development in each case. Is it a transformation {613} or aspectualization by preservation? It is the problem of the critical theology of occurrence. Since occurrence is the realization of possibilities, there will be as many types of criteria as types of possibility manifest reality may have qua reality of affirming its own reality, i.e., as many types of auto-possibility it may have. It can affirm it as sameness of “con-sensus”, as permanence of “con-tinuation, as internal richness manifested in “con-spiracy”. It is the triple form in which up to now the identical unity of the body of the initial revelation occurs. By virtue of this, the very occurrence carries the imprint of this unity; it is the “con”. The “con” is the aspectual occurrence of the primary unity of the body of revelation, of theological truth. By virtue of this, the communion of the faithful in the body of revelation confers to the very community the characteristic of a body by unanimity, genuineness, and fertility. Consequently, the possibility of seeing in the occurrence of “con” the criterion of theological truth. A limited criterion, which only provides moral certainties that only the magisterium through the indefectible assistance of the Holy Spirit can define as absolute truth, as “defined dogma”.

With this we have clarified the function of situation in the evolution of the revealed substrate; to make that this substrate manifest and realize its auto-possibilities through a simple and unreformable aspectualization in the occurrence of a unity of consensus, continuation and conspiracy. Pure evolution is “unveiling”.