{123} (cont’d)

II. It might be thought that the point of departure for which we are searching would have to be found in man himself as something different from the cosmos. This would not be a cosmic way, but an anthropological way. However, man is a reality of quite varied aspects. Hence the anthropological way has assumed diverse forms throughout history. Let us look at some of the most important only. St. Augustine {124} reaches God starting with the fact that man possesses truths; and any truth, he tells us, bases itself upon a subsisting truth, upon “the” truth. Kant focuses on the will. Man not only wants things, but he has to want, categorically, duty for the sake of duty. And this is possible only if there exists in re a good in itself. Schleiermacher centers his attention on the sentiments. Among them there is one in which man is overcome by the sentiment of unconditional dependence on the infinite: this is the sentiment of an infinite irrational reality. Intelligence, will and sentiment are the three characteristics, which man in fact possesses and which as facts may lead to a subsistent truth, to an optimum good, to an infinite reality. It is not my desire to discuss the progress of the mind along this anthropological path until it reaches God. The only thing in which I am interested is the point of departure itself, namely, that which conditions the character of the God at which we seek to arrive.

1. The starting point: Is the alleged point of departure really “facts”, or “data” (the term is indifferent)? That is the first question, and it is more obscure than might appear at first sight.

A) Above all, when following this anthropological path, one starts with aspects of man that are undeniably real: intelligence, will, sentiment. But what happens is that these aspects are just that: aspects. Whence it follows that the human reality from which one starts is only partial: it is not man, but only a part of him. Under these conditions, those aspects taken as real notes of man are not strictly speaking facts, but more or less fragmentary moments of a unique human reality. Now, {125} this human reality is one that never appears in St. Augustine, Kant, or Schleiermacher. Is it the case that man needs God as his fundament only because he is intelligent, only because he is something that wills, or only because he feels one way or another? It would seem rather that we should take man as a whole. But this approach is opposed to the conception, which these philosophers have of intelligence, of the will, and of sentiment.

B) In fact, even taking each of these moments in itself and by itself, that in them, which constitutes the point of departure for our problem is anything but an unimpeachable revelation. St. Augustine starts from “the” truth as something that resides in the interior of man, though in contrast to “the” truths, which in their plurality would only be “veri-similitudes” (in the etymological sense of the term). The “fact” from which St. Augustine really starts is not exactly intelligence, but the radical dualism therein between “the” truth and “the” truths. This presumed “fact” is nothing but the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus. Kant starts from the will as seat of the moral imperative. And as such it is, for Kant, a categorical will; something toto cælo different from —and even opposite to— the volitions, which integrate the process of my mental life. There is thus a radical dualism between an intelligible will and an empirical will. But, is this a “fact”? The case of Schleiermacher’s sentiment of unconditional dependency is the same. It is not a sentiment of the kind, which man experiences when facing things, facing the other men, or even when facing himself; but a sentiment of a radically different kind. And this is true not only by virtue of its object, the {126} infinitude (which is not something given), but as happened with Kant’s volition, by virtue of the mode of feeling being itself different, namely, unconditional. The intellection of St. Augustine, the volition of Kant, and the sentiment of Schleiermacher all are constitutively perforated by an internal dualism. Because of this, not only are they partial aspects of man, but they are also partial aspects of intelligence, will and sentiment. This is the intrinsic dualism of those human moments according to these philosophies. And that is no accident.

C) The fact is that a radice one starts with an extremely determinate conception of man. Not only is he not considered as a mere res naturalis, he is in fact considered precisely and formally as something contradistinguished from any res naturalis: this is man in and of himself independent of cosmic reality. But since man, whether he likes it or not, is in the cosmos, it follows that when he is set over against it, human reality is cut into two zones: one, more or less integrated with the cosmos, and a zone, which goes against it or at least without it. The dualism internal to each of the aforementioned aspects of man is thus the inexorable consequence of this impossible antithesis man-cosmos.

The partial nature of the aspects, the dualism internal to them, and the contradistinction with respect to the cosmos: are three characteristics of intelligence, will and sentiment, which are sought as the basis for our march towards God. But ultimately, they are a segregation of man with respect to cosmic reality. This is not a fact; indeed, it is not even something viable.

2. And precisely because it is not, this anthropological way leads to a radically inadequate idea of God. The {127} segregation of man vis-a-vis the real world leads to a God more or less segregated from man. It is true that St. Augustine, Kant and Schleiermacher integrate the God at which they arrive with the real world. But this is not the issue. What is decisive is that they need to so integrate Him because the God to which this anthropological way leads does not refer formally to the reality of the world. Subsistent reality, the optimum good, and the infinite may be real in themselves; but their reality does not formally involve a reference to the rest of the real world, only to man. After having reached God, one returns from God towards the world; and each of the three thinkers, in a different way, seems to lodge the world in God. But in itself, the God to which this anthropological way leads is, formally, a reality segregated from the world and therefore juxtaposed to and only posteriorly convergent with it. Now, the God to which we all refer is not just possibilitating and impelling (be it in an intellectual, volitional or sentimental way), but is also formally and at one and the same time, the ultimateness of the real, of this reality, which is cosmos and with which we all make our being out of the substantive. If the cosmic way does not reach a possibilitating and impelling God, this anthropological way does not reach a God as ultimateness of the real. In both cases the point of arrival is not God qua God.

So neither by virtue of its point of departure nor by its final point of arrival are these classical cosmic and anthropological ways the adequate road to reach God. From this stems the necessity to undertake a different road.

III. To do this let us remember once more what we said in previous chapters and which I restated at the beginning of this one.

{128} 1. Man is a personal reality whose life consists in making his I physically and really. The human person realizes himself as a person based on the power of the real. Only in and by this support can a person live and be: that is the phenomenon of religation. A person is not simply linked to things or dependent upon them, but is constitutively and formally religated to the power of the real, which eo ipso constitutes the very fundamentality of personal life. Religation is not mere linking or sentiment of dependence, but the constitutive and formal turning towards the power of the real as fundament of my personal life.

a) Because of this, religation is above all a fact, the very fact in which my living consists.

b) Not only this, but religation is something, which precisely and fundamentally affects the whole of my human reality, from my most modest physical characteristic to the most elevated “spiritual” traits. What is religated to the power of the real is not one aspect or another of my reality, but my own personal reality in all its dimensions, because it is in accordance with all of them that I construct my I. Therefore religation is a fact, indeed an integral total fact, because it is a fact which concerns my reality and my personal being. That is why the way of religation is formally neither cosmic nor anthropological, but is both things eminently.

c) Finally, religation is something basic and radical. By religating myself to the power of the real as fundamentality of the construction of the I, religation is the very root of this I of mine, of this personal life of mine. It is not only a fact and a total fact, but above all, a radical fact; it is the root of my being.

{129} From this fact starts the way, which we must now undertake in the problem that concerns us.

2. It might seem that this is an anthropological way, perhaps more complex than the usual ones, but when all is said and done just another anthropological way. Nothing could be further from the truth.

a) In religation, indeed, we are religated to the power of the real. But religation would only be something anthropological if it were a “relation” between man and things. However, it is not. We are not dealing with a “relation” between man and things, but with the fact that religation is the “respective structure” in which the power of the real occurs. I make my I among real things and with real things, and this turning to them is not a relation consequent upon my “needs” (or anything like it), but the constitutive respective structure of my action itself. The power of the real is the power of each thing qua reality, be it cosmic or human. My own substantive reality is enclosed by the power of the real. From this follows that religation is not something human in contradistinction to the cosmic, but the very occurrence of all reality in man and of man in reality. Religation is at one and the same time and in a radical sense, something human and cosmic. Here “at one and the same time” means that it is not a causal relation, but something toto cælo different: the dominance of a power. Whether causally dependent or not on things, a person is formally dominated by the power of the real. Because of this, to say that religation is the occurrence of the power of the real is the same as saying that religation is formally and “at one and the same time” something human and something cosmic. The way, which starts from religation, therefore, is neither cosmic nor anthropological.

b) In what does this occurrence consist? The power of the real is the power of reality as something ultimate, possibilitating, {130} and impelling. And this occurrence is “manifestative experience”, and therefore, manifestation of the power of the real in its three moments. Whence it follows that the constitution of my I, the realization of my person, may be a problematic experience of the power of the real as something ultimate, possibilitating and impelling.

In all its dimensions, notes and forms, to live and to possess oneself as an I is always but to move oneself, to make oneself in the power of the real. That is why religation to the power of the real is the base of our whole problem and the point of departure of the discussion.

3. In this experience the outline of that which is sought is inexorably sketched, regardless of whether its reality is admitted or not. Put another way: without some idea of God, all talk about Him would be vacuous; God would be nothing but a verbal vagueness, more or less solemn. Whether to affirm, deny, or even ignore him, you need some idea of God. Where to obtain it? We are not dealing with a merely nominal idea chosen arbitrarily, but with an idea, which in one form or another is at the very base of the discussion. This base is the religating experience to the power of the real. And so, this experience is the one, which traces the outline of the very idea of God. That is the reason we all agree with it, not qua reality, but indeed qua idea. What is this idea? To my way of thinking it can be reduced to three points.

a) God has to be the fundament of the power of the real. Therefore, he is eo ipso an ultimate fundament, possibilitating and impelling. If, by way of religation, we reach God, then we shall have reached a God qua God. God is not only a first cause, a first {131} unmoved mover, etc. To such a God no one would address a prayer or a supplication. The celebrated exclamation tu causa causarum miserere mei (Oh you, cause of the causes, have mercy on me) makes no formal theological sense. But the way we have taken avoids a limine the dissociation between ultimateness on one side and possibilitation and impellence on the other, precisely because the power of the real has, at one and the same time and formally, all three of these moments; it is the idea of a God qua God.

b) This God has to be a supreme reality, but not a supreme being. The identification of what is real with being is an important consequence of the acceptance of Greek philosophy. It is what I have termed the entification of reality: things are not entities unless they have being. Now, to be is always but an ulterior act of the real. Whatsoever a being may be, it is always and only being “of” the real. Ulteriority is the precise meaning of this “of”. Therefore, reality and entity are not formally identical. Prior to being entities, and precisely in order to be able to be so, things begin by being real. The fundament of being is reality. And this is still more true, if it is fitting, when we are dealing with the reality of God. God is not the subsistent being, is not the supreme being, not even when festooned with the attribute of infinitude. God is not a divine entity, He is supreme reality. The important assumption common to St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, to which I referred above, is just the entification of reality and, therefore, the identification of God with the supreme entity. No. God is beyond being. God has no being; only worldly things have being, which by virtue of “already” being real, “are” in the world. As fundament of the power of the real God would formally be supreme reality that is ultimate, possibilitating and impelling.

{132} c) In what does the “supreme” character of this questioned reality consist? The power of the real is the fundament of the constitution of my I. And my I, according to what we have seen, is something absolute. That my I should be absolute means that it is I “confronting” the whole of reality, that is, confronting reality as such. But this I is only relatively absolute because it is an I acquired by “confronting” reality as such, i.e., because it is an absolute, which needs this reality as such in order to be absolute. In other words: the I is absolute, but in its own manner, relatively. If there is a God, He will be a reality, which is the fundament of my relative absolute being. Therefore, He will be an absolute reality, not in His own mode, but simpliciter; a reality, which is fully real and absolute, not “confronting” reality as such, but “in and by itself” qua real. This is what I shall call “absolutely absolute reality”. In this problem “supreme” means “absolutely absolute”. And this would be, if it exists, divine reality.

The way of religation to the power of the real is then an experience that traces before my eyes the figure of a God as absolutely absolute reality, ultimate reality, possibilitating and impelling, which is the fundament of the power of the real. Such would be the point of arrival of our way: not only God, but God qua God. This experience is not just individual. There is also an historical and social experience of the religation to the power of the real, and in it the idea of God progressively acquires a still more precise figure. But all historical experience of religation essentially presupposes its personal aspect: to be able to move oneself religatedly in the power of the real as formal structure of life itself, that is, of the constitution of my I. This moving oneself is to move oneself problematically, {133} because the power of the real is constitutively enigmatic. And the enigma consists in that the human person, qua religated to the power of the real, when making its relatively absolute I, does not fully know if it is being compelled or not by the power of the real itself, in having to reach an absolutely absolute reality as fundament of that power and, therefore, of the I. From the foregoing we realize the completely necessary and indispensable character, which fixing the base for discussion has. Above all, without it any discussion is lost in a vacuum. But with it we have achieved, not only the basis for a dialectical discussion, but the basis for a real discussion. The religation to the power of the real actually traces an idea of God which is perfectly determinate, common to all. And in its enigmatic character is already taking us to a live discussion, that is, to a live testing, not just a speculative one, of the reality of that absolutely absolute reality. Does this reality exist? That is the question we must now address.


{134}

§ 2

JUSTIFICATION OF THE REALITY OF GOD

As I indicated at the beginning of this chapter, the problem of the reality of God is not merely a theoretical problem, but a personal one as well. And this is why the point of departure and the basis of the discussion is religation as a total fact and as the root of the construction of my I. This religation is an experience, that is, a physical enterprise, some characteristics of which may profitably be reviewed at this point, even at the risk of being repetitious. Above all, religation is something, which forces us to make our own I. In religation we are carried to build our own I. In the second place, we are carried physically, that is, we are not dealing merely with a conceptual progression, but a real and physical progression of our person. In the third place, we are carried physically, but in a problematic way. Religation is the experience of the problematism of our own being; it is a problem which is physically problematic. And so, this physical problem is what we must now explain. It is the problem of God.

Justification of the reality of God is not piling speculative arguments on top of speculative arguments, but rather is the intellective explanation of the actual progress of religation. It is an intellective explanation; as such it cannot but involve a moment of fundamentation. It is the explanation of an experience we are experiencing physically; and because of this it always has the resonance of a problem so characteristic of personal life.

{135} This intellective explanation will be carried out in several steps.


I

Man is a substantive reality one of whose essential notes is intelligence. Formally intelligence is the capacity to apprehend things as realities. Therefore, reality is the formality proper to everything man apprehends intellectively. Also, real things are given primarily through impression. Hence it follows that in each impression there are two distinct moments: one, which we may call (without questioning the finer points of the term) “content” or “quality” of what is apprehended, and another which is the moment of its formality as real, what I have called the “impression of reality”. This is not a second impression added to quality, but rather both are only moments of a single impression, the single impression of a real thing. I refer to this as impression of reality only for ease of communication. This impression, let us emphasize it, is a physical moment of the thing: the thing is not only red, heavy, etc., but is also real. Since to apprehend reality is intelligence, and to have impressions is sensing, it follows that the intellective apprehension of man is sentient: his intelligence is a sentient intelligence. From this we draw important conclusions.

1. It certainly follows that man is among the things he apprehends, but he is in them in reality. Man is a substantive reality, which thanks to his type of intelligence lives in reality sentiently. Each new thing, which reaches him not only follows the previous one or joins with it, but is {136} a new thing in reality: man spends the entire course of his life in reality. Man lives in the field of reality and in the real world. And among the “things” of his life his own substantive reality is inscribed. To put it briefly: man, by virtue of his sentient intelligence, constitutes and moves himself in the “medium” of reality.

2. Since my own substantive reality belongs to this medium, it follows that man performs his activities, not only in view of their content, but precisely and formally in terms of my own reality qua reality. Therefore the acts of man are not only acts, which belong to him de suyo, but are formally and in a double sense “his own” (suyos), they are acts of his reality. Hence, man is a reality, which is “his own” (suya): he is a person. “Personhood” is “his-ownness” (suidad). This is not a psychological character, but a metaphysical structure.

3. What does a person do when performing acts? Certainly that in which his reality consists: talking, running, sleeping, etc. But he does something else, because not only do I “talk”, “run”, “sleep”, etc., but while acting, “I am” a speaker, “I am” a runner, “I am” a sleeper, etc. That is, in his acts, man acquires the figure of that which we call I. To live is to acquire an I, which displays a figure of this or that type. And the whole of life is but the progressive configuration of my I: it is not “I eat”, but rather “I am the one that eats”, etc.

4. What is this I? It is the figure of the being which I acquire through my acts. Man is a substantive reality, and the I formally consists in the worldly actualization of this reality. It is the figure of my being in reality, of which I am a real part: it is I eating, I talking, etc.

{137} But that is not all. Not only am I who talks, but “it is I who is”. My I, my being, is something that configures itself with respect to the reality in which I am and in which I move. My being configures itself not only with respect of things qualitatively determined, but with respect to these things qua real. In other words, the I “is” confronting the whole of reality regardless of type: stone, neighbor, God himself. Confronting any reality qua reality, I am who I am. By virtue of this, the being of man, his I, is an “ab-solute” being. Absolute because it is mine, and because it is determined in function of “the” reality simpliciter.

5. However, though the I is an absolute being, this is something acquired. By virtue of this we shall say that the I is the “relatively ab-solute” being. Relatively, because it is an acquired being; but absolute in the sense we have just explained. And since the acquired is absolute it follows that man is radically restless in life. And since this restlessness is constitutively inscribed in my reality qua reality, it follows that it is this reality which clamors in that restlessness. This clamor is the voice of conscience. The voice of conscience is the clamor of reality on its way to absolute being. Reality becomes present to me as an announcement in the voice of conscience.

Here we have the first step of our explanation: the personal life of man consists in possessing himself by making his own I, his own being, which is a relatively absolute being, an acquired absolute.