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CHAPTER 1
THE ACCESS TO GOD IN CHRIST1
It is necessary to begin by remembering something I have explained somewhere else, but is relevant in a certain way to the subject of this book2. The fact that God is always manifest to man, and therefore, is a reality accessible to man. Man has a real and effective access to God in every hypothesis, and in every moment. Of course, this does not have a merely concessive characteristic. The manifestation of God in all religions has a strict and positive characteristic. They all are real and effective ways through which man really and effectively finds God. God, therefore, is always manifest, and is always accessible. What happens is that this manifestation of God is multiform, because of the multiple conditions and ways in which humanity (in its historical, and individual situations) is always receiving this manifestation of God. In this great multiformity of historical and individual situations a great difference is involved {42} through the concrete way, which the manifestation of God is going to have in the spirit of man.
Obviously, one might tend to think that these differences are inscribed in what we may call the duties, which man has to fulfill in accordance to various religions, or even within the elevation, which religious feelings produce in man. All that is very important, but quite secondary. Religions do not distinguish each other precisely by the sentiments they inspire. There is no doubt there is, for example in the Hittite people or in the Assyro-Babylonian world, a great similarity (if not an identity) of sentiments with Israel. It is well known that many Psalms of Israel are adoptions, often literal, from the texts of these peoples3. Sentiments are not what distinguishes religions, but strictly and formally the concrete idea they have about God. An idea, which has its start from a strict manifestation of God, but modulated in a different way in accordance with the individual and historical situations.
Hence, this multiformity is inscribed in the single and unique manifestation with which God is manifest to every open essence4, to every man, by virtue of being fontanally and personally present in the depth of him. From this point of view, of course, every multiformity is covered. Although it is certain that, from the point of view of the historical and individual ways, the manifestation of God acquires this multiformity, however, from the point of view of God who manifests Himself, there is no such multiformity. There is only one manifestation. {43} There may be degrees of manifestation. That is another question. But the manifestation as such is unitary and uniform from the point of view of God. Consequently, man finds himself facing this anticipated and ambivalent situation. On the one hand he accesses God really and effectively in the structure of His manifestation, but on the other, has to discern these different forms, and therefore, has to make a choice, an optative surrender, a personal adhesion founded on a reasonable motive, which is what constitutes faith.
This reasonable motive can have diverse characteristics throughout the length of history. We are going to pay attention to one, precisely, the characteristic of truth. But also adding that this access has to be a real and effective access. It is not the case of a speculation about God. It is the case of man being able to have access in accordance with the concept of access, which I have elaborated upon on a previous occasion5: the access to God really and effectively ultimate, possibilitating, and impelling for the life of man. The opposite would be to make of God what many ancient religions have, a deus otiosus, or to do that to which the last phase of Judaism tended, even at the time of Christ, to place Yahweh in such remote transcendence, that even His name was not even mentioned. With things like these, perhaps man has come close to losing Him. Therefore, it is the question of a way of truth, which may translate itself effectively into the real and effective possession of God. Putting the question this way, from the point of view of the truth of the idea of God, there are a few things we must recall.
So far, there are conceptions of God whose inadmissibility is not founded precisely in motives of personal option, {44} but in motives of strict rational characteristics. For example, all the polytheisms. The merely rational proof that God is a unique and unitary reality eliminates a radice all polytheisms. Of course, this does not mean that it may eliminate a radice all the intermediaries between God and the world, something completely different. Monotheism, above all in the ancient religions, is perfectly compatible with the fact that there may be lesser intermediary entities between God and the world. We are precisely dealing with the fact that the reality of God may be represented by a single supreme and sovereign being. In the second place, even within all the possible monotheist conceptions, by reason of pure rational considerations, we can eliminate all conceptions, which are not personalist. Actually, all conceptions that may appeal to a first cause, which as such, were not to have an intelligent and volitional characteristic can be rationally eliminated. The reality essentially existing belongs to itself essentially in the form of intelligence and in the form of will6.
Thus, after these observations of a purely rational order, there exists a sufficient margin within which an option has to operate. An option through which man surrenders to one way rather than another, because of a credibility motive. And in this case that motive of credibility can only mean one thing: the very exposition of the truth to which one accedes in a personal way, and gives one’s own personal adhesion. That truth is for me, and for many of my readers the personal adhesion one offers to the religion of Christ. In Christ is how really and effectively, by a choice, man believes he really finds God. After all, no credibility motive is superior than being exposed to {45} that to which one offers one’s own adhesion. All the reasonings one might elaborate with respect to a truth of this order are always practically worthless. They may help to eliminate difficulties. But, in the end, no one offers his own personal adhesion to a person except for the intrinsic exposition of the qualities of the person to whom one offers one’s own adhesion. Nevertheless, this presents two essential points, which need clarification.
§ 1. What is understood by the reality of Christ in which man finds God, and what is understood by finding God?
§ 2. How does man really and effectively find in Christ the real and positive promotion of his own individual and historical life?
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§ 1
GOD IN CHRIST
In order to clarify the reality of the encounter of man with the reality of Christ it will be useful to appeal to a text of St. Paul, where for the first time in the history of Christianity the problem of His internal credibility has been presented (cf. 1 Cor 1:22-23). St. Paul tells us: “the Jews ask for signs (semeía aitoúsin), and the Greek search for wisdom (sofían zetoúsin). But we preach Christ crucified, a scandal (skándalon) for the Jews, for the pagans madness (morían); but for those called to the faith in Christ, Jews as well as Greek, Christ is the very power of God (theoú dýnamis), and His wisdom”. It is curious that St. Paul feels obligated, at the beginning of his apostolic activity, to confront this matter. By just reading it we realize that it is the first time, and the first way of dealing with it that the problem of credibility crosses the mind of this apostle. To adequately explain this text it will be necessary to consider five points in succession.
In the first place, it is a problem of credibility. Clearly, some ask for signs; the others search for wisdom.
In the second place, he tells us that the Christ he preaches is a scandal to the Jews. This is the second point we must clarify: Why and in what measure, and in what sense is it a scandal?
In the third place, he says it is madness for the Greeks. Why and in what sense is it madness for the Greeks?
In the fourth place, What is the reality of this Christ, which is a {47} scandal for some and madness for others? What is that “power of God”, that theoú dýnamis?
And, in fifth place, In what does it consist for the reality of Christ to be precisely a crucified reality?
A) The problem of credibility. It was necessary to underline (something not usually done) that this is the first time the problem of credibility is considered.
Indeed, according to St. Paul, the Jews ask for semeía, i.e., something, which may lead to personal adhesion: certain signs by virtue of which one can adhere personally to the one offering the signs. The sign was the motive for credibility to the Jew. The history of Israel is full of signs. The crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus was one of the signs; the manna in the desert another, etc. Prescinding now from the historical problem of these signs, they were signs, which operated partly by their own weight, through “imposition”. They actually impose all by themselves. Because of this even when He was still alive the Jews asked Him for a theophany: “come down from the cross and we shall believe in you” (cf. Mt 27:40). If this had happened, the sign would have been stunning and unquestionable. But what is certain is that Christ, who had already rejected the idea as a messianic temptation at the beginning of His public ministry, rejected it also, reportedly, from the cross. He did not wish the sign to have this characteristic of imposition. He wanted the sign to have a completely different character, the characteristic of a moral invitation towards a personal adhesion to Him. That is the reason why St. Paul finds himself in the predicament of having to explain what a sign is, as a motive for credibility, in order to precisely preach Christ among the Jews.
But there are also the Greeks. And about the Greeks he does not say they “ask” (aitoúsin), but that they “search” (zetoúsin). They search for {48} wisdom (sophía). This is a term, which had a long tradition in Greece, and that finally, in the time of St. Paul, mainly in the hands of Stoicism, had acquired precisely the characteristic of a rational knowledge founded on the noús, in which the universal Law, which rules the universe in an absolute way is discovered and contemplated: its lógos. It is a doctrine “founded on reason”. However, the divine reason that Christianity tries to find in the world does not resemble the reason that Stoicism had proclaimed as an immanent law to the world, which consequently had a characteristic more or less pantheistic for the Stoic.
Facing this, St. Paul refuses these signs and that wisdom. He tells us that he does not preach anything but Christ crucified. For the moment let us put aside the question of His being crucified: he preaches nothing but Christ. Neither signs nor wisdom? Fundamentally, it is a different thing. It is “another” kind of sign, and “another” kind of wisdom. That is the issue. The case of a different set of signs, giving scandal to the Jews. That is the second question.
B) The scandal for the Jews. St. Paul tells us that the figure of Christ he preaches is a scandal for the Jews. Etymologically skándalon used to mean a kind of trap to capture an animal; later it meant something, which is repulsive, and in this case a conduct that is harmful, and repels the one contemplating it. Hence, in this sense, the scandal points to a situation of personal contact. In the end, the Jews have seen in religion (like the whole oriental world, which has had the ingenuity of religion) a personal concretion: the contact from person to person, which continues throughout the whole of history. It is not a question of abstract reasons that the understanding may be able to perceive, and convinced by them, may be able to reach or accept certain opinions. No, it is a question of the strength of {49} personal attraction, through contact from one to another, because of friendship, beneficence, etc.
Let us consider the first step in the history of Israel, precisely in its remote beginning with Abraham. Indeed, Abraham, facing a famine, retreats to the mountains north of Haran until he has an inspiration from God, which indicates to him the way to the promised land. And in the faith of the ancients this God accompanies the family on the way to that land. Clearly, this experience, in a certain way salvific from the side of God, continues to be multiplied throughout the length of the history of Israel. Another fundamental experience is the one it has with Moses in the Horeb, which determines the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Here it is not precisely the case of a friendly God; it is the case of an enemy God, which is going to confront the gods of the others, etc. This continues throughout the history of Israel until the time of Christ7.
Obviously, it would be a serious historical error to think that the successive concatenation of events, such as reported in the Old Testament, has the claim to be a kind of historical chronicle of what has happened to the people of Israel. That would be completely false. The exegesis cannot limit itself to make some theological and speculative commentaries, as valuable as they might be, but must do something much more difficult: the rigorously literal and historical exegesis, with all the elements to interpret what the text says, with the reservation of afterwards building upon it what was meant to be said from the religious point of view. Be that as it may, history, taken in the actual sense of the term, is not always identical to the {50} historical form, which is narrated in the Old Testament. This is quite evident. Probably the twelve tribes were never in Egypt, and never left Egypt. The twelve tribes were constituted much later during the occupation of the land of Canaan. Probably, the ancients (and among them Moses) were never able to distinguish the providential order from the miraculous one, and believed that a provisional circumstance, which allowed a few groups to cross the Red Sea over almost dry ground, constituted a prodigy, which as time went by has grown into the famous image of the two walls of water full of fishes, with Israel passing through the middle of them. Probably this never happened that way in history.
However, Must we then say this history is false? It is, if one has the concept of history we have just indicated. It is not, if what one understands and has had in mind is what Scripture has had in mind, not so much to narrate the details as a chronicle of the events, but to narrate the sense, which events have in the ethnologic and religious history of Israel. Both points of view do not contradict each other. On the contrary, they complement each other. It is true that the mentality of the peoples weaves their religious sense with certain literary types and forms, which would make it an error on our part to take them literally as historical realities. Conversely, it could not be denied that without a base of historical reality the sense of that history of Israel would be left hanging on thin air, and would become pure fiction. It is neither one nor the other. Of course, these factors would continue to imply each other. And in that cycle is precisely where that personal characteristic is constituted, from which the Jews asked for signs when they had Christ in front of them. The Bible gives us faith as it is in history, and without history there would be no faith. That is the hermeneutical problem “history-faith”, on which I cannot delve here any further.
{51} The case of the history of Christ makes no exception to what I have just said. The literary and historical composition of the Gospels is enormously complex. Many hypotheses and tons of paper have been invested on this question. Naturally, with all the literary styles that may be accepted, with all the profound differences that exist between a narrative that has a catechetical destination, another having a missionary destination, and another that might have a kerygmatic destination, there is no doubt that the figure of Christ as prophet (in the sense of preacher) derogated, and changed the law of Israel. As a thaumaturgist he performed some wonders. And as a teacher who teaches mankind, there is no doubt His figure is a rigorously real historical figure in the sense I have just described. Certainly the Gospels do not provide a chronicle, but only the theological sense that the narrative of the life of Christ has. They are an exposition of some of the actions of Christ as seen from the faith following Pentecost. It would be chimerical to try to separate point by point what there is of theological sense, and what there is of historical chronicle. But there is no doubt that one factor neither annuls nor can annul the other.
Therefore, that is precisely what the Jew had in mind when he asked for a sign. Facing this, the appeal to Christ (St. Paul says) constitutes a scandal. Why? Because Christ presents himself as Messiah. And the term “Messiah” had a history of at least two centuries in Israel. The figure of the Messiah was rather turbid. On the one hand, he was the ideal king, descendant of David. On the other, a transcendent personage: a man coming from the other world, a “Son of Man” (Dn 7:13). And it also meant something that never had much currency in Israel, but indeed was there in the book of Isaiah: the suffering and patient servant who expiates for the sins of Israel (cf. Is 42:1-9; 49:1-7; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12). {52} This complex idea of the Messiah is found in the Jewish mind in the primary appellation with which Christ presents Himself to the people of Israel. But then, this Messiah who presents Himself as such to the people of Israel who ask Him for signs, says to Israel: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Mt 12:39-40). Obviously, this Christ who goes to His death in such a manner constitutes a scandal. It is the ruin of the triple concept the Jews had of the Messiah.
C) Madness for the Greeks. If we now look to the other side, to the Greek side, we encounter a different situation. In Greece the history of the human spirit is completely different. It is not a history in which personal trusts cross each other. Obviously, it is not the case they did not have them; they would not have been human. But the great creation of Greece has been precisely wisdom, sophía. The Greek, from the time of the Seven Wise Men, have had a real and well founded veneration for the noús, for the power of intelligence. Oriental wisdom was a khakhmáh (Hb.), an intelligence, not the power of reason as in Greece. For the Greeks it was the case of an intelligence, which was not only theoretical, but in addition had the characteristic of a director. Indeed, with their great noús, with their intelligence and understanding, the Seven Wise Men {53} were not only able to generate the opening of the human spirit to the world of reason, but in addition they were able to direct the life of the Greek. The wise man is not only a theoretician, a speculator; the wise man is, above all, and even up to the time of Plato and Aristotle, a theorós, namely, someone who in the public games observes if the rules have been kept. This idea of wisdom led, during the time of St. Paul, to the Stoic ideal of the wise man. In this case, the theorós is someone who wishes to discover, precisely by the effort of contemplating it, what is the rational structure of the universe. Consequently, applied to the noús, to the mind of man, this directing characteristic, which the wise man has translates into what we call “reason“. The Greek called it diánoia. And this diánoia expresses itself in a lógos, in a proposition. A concatenation of propositions constitutes the demonstration. This is precisely the unfolding of absolute reason, of something, which exists absolutely: the very entity of the universe in that which is its ultimate reality.
But now St. Paul says that the Greek considered this personal reality of Christ he preached to be a madness (moría). What was this madness? That the Jews were not rational? At least, the Alexandrian Jews did not show it at all. They were like any other Greeks. The scandal resided on another point. The fact is that a Greek, with his concept of reason and his concept of reality, searched for the infallible and inexorable necessity with which absolute reason perforates and structures the universe. On the other hand, facing this, What did a Jew offer, Christian or not? Precisely personal fidelities. And that is what a Greek could not tolerate. He could not admit that absolute reason might depend on some perfectly contingent events throughout history. This led them to consider the preaching of St. Paul a madness: the madness of substituting reason with history. The Greek {54} never had a sense of history. They had a sense for stories, for narrative. But what we call history today, as the interplay of actions and human individuals, never had much consideration, if any, in the mind of the Greeks. Neither the idea of person nor the idea of intrinsic historicity ever had a place within Greek reason. On the contrary, for Greek reason, that is precisely what constituted madness. Wisdom in that sense was for the Greeks something, which would render whatever the Jews might say to them into a moría: a madness.
Does this mean that St. Paul, in order to preach Christ, rejects the idea of wisdom? I will say about this what I also said with respect to sign: no. The fact is that St. Paul intended to make a substitution and present a different concept of wisdom. It was not a matter of presenting something, which was neither sign nor wisdom, but another way of being a sign, and another way of being a wisdom.
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1 This text comes from the 1968 seminar on Man and the problem of God (“El hombre y el problema de Dios”).
2 Zubiri refers to what was covered previously in the seminar of 1968, which became the basic content of what was posthumously published in Man and God (“El hombre y Dios”).
3 The most obvious case is the one shown between Psalm 103, and the “Hymn to the Sun” of Pharaoh Amenophis IV.
4 Zubiri has explained the concept of “open essence” in his book On Essence (“Sobre la esencia”, Madrid, 1962, pp. 499-507).
5 Again, a reference to previous conferences prior to the seminar of 1968. The concept of “access” has been exposed by Zubiri in his Man and God (“El hombre y Dios”, op. cit., pp. 179ff).
6 The basis for these affirmations has been expounded by Zubiri in his Man and God (“Man and God”, op. cit., pp. 134-178).
7 Zubiri writes on an attached file card: “The period from Abraham to Christ:
1) The religion prior to Abraham.
2) The road leading to Christ: the history of Israel.
+ Sign = Christ fulfills the sense of Scripture = of the history of Israel. The miracle is sign of this fulfillment through transcendence + divinity.”