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II. We now have to deal with the problem of what the reality of Christ is in first act, as substantive reality. And we do not have to depend on a speculation, but just to proceed with the considerations we have started. Anything else would be a Christology hanging from the clouds.

Man is an open essence. And as such open essence it consists ecstatically in being a molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life. What God intended when creating man was not to create a rational animal, but to create precisely the finitude of the Trinitarian life outside itself.

We shall begin by affirming that Christ in his first reality is Son of God. That is the fact of the Incarnation. But this is precisely what we must face. Who has incarnated in Christ? Theologians are quite fond of great and subtle speculations based on the Council of Chalcedon. They affirm that the only thing the second person of the Trinity has given to this concrete man, son of Mary, is what they call the personal subsistence, the character of the Word. Of course this is true, but it seems radically insufficient to me. Let us take in the case of the Trinity the fullness of the reality of the person, while removing the impropriety that this term incorporates, as we explained in Chapter two. It is impossible to reduce any of the three persons in their integral reality (neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit) to the formal reason for paternity, filiation, or spiration, not at all. The persons are physical persons in their integrity. The fact is they are not really three different persons that would be a tri-theism. Therefore, there is no doubt that what has incarnated is precisely the physical person of the Word, and not only his reason for filiation. From my perspective, it was essential to strongly maintain this point of view. It is the incarnation of the physical person of the Word.

{273} Furthermore, [all of us incorporate the molding of the Trinitarian life]¹, and consequently, this physical reality of the Word, just as the general physical reality of the Father or the Holy Spirit. The fact is that this version ad extra can have several degrees.

1) There is a first version that is consubstantial to creation by virtue of which the reality of God, and therefore, his three his-ownnesses in the unity of his reality are fontanally subjacent to the whole created work. That is the fontanal presence, the fontanality of God in creation. Obviously, in this case the physical person of the eternal Word is fontanally subjacent to the reality of Christ, just as he is to my reality and all the others.

2) There is a second degree that consists precisely in this person and the other two, to which it is constitutively referred (there would be no Son without a Father, and without a spiration of the Holy Spirit), being there not just fontanally. This is so, because I am a reality that consists in the molding of a Trinitarian life ad extra or at least the outline in which the Trinitarian life is going to exist. In addition, that molding is positive and not aversive as in the case of the sinner. Therefore, the Trinitarian presence, and consequently the presence of the Son, is much more profound. This is precisely the presence by grace; more intimate and more radical as the justice and sanctity of the man who lives that way may be more profound and real. Undoubtedly, in the case of Christ it had an exemplar and exceptional reality, no doubt about it. However, he would not have been the Son of God only because of this, that was the error of the Adoptionists.

3) There is yet a deeper and more profound degree, which is not only the fontanality, and the grace founded {274} on fontanality, but something more. It is the case of a presence through something I would call ultimate intimacy. In the first place, the intimacy is so great that the man to which the physical person of the Word is present in that form is the very manifestation of that physical presence of the Word. All Docetisms have been founded on this, and because of that in the Christological and Trinitarian errors, we must not only look at the error, but also to that coefficient of truth that must be inexorably captured in any theology. The human individual, the man called Christ is through intimacy something unique, and like no other man. He is the very manifestation of the Son of God, of the second physical person of the Trinity. And not just that, but in second place it is a vital, living manifestation. Precisely not to have maintained the integrity of this life was the error of all the Apollinarians. However, what doubt can there be that precisely by maintaining it was the case of a living act, and a vital manifestation they were holding to one of the greatest truths it was necessary not to have forgotten or ignored in theology.

4) But in fourth place, there is something even much more profound that is not only a presence through personal intimacy, but also something much more radical than a mere presence. There is a true filial reality, where filial reality cannot be understood just as the mere presence of God in man, but something much more radical and profound. It can be described by regarding this from the point of view of God, from the physical person of the Word, and from the point of view of the man, son of Mary. From the point of view of God, it consists in the physical person of the Word being immanent to this man in an intrinsic, radical, and ultimate way, which is necessary to explain. It is immanent to the human. But reciprocally, what we call the man is pierced, and penetrated by the divine reality, which is immanent in him.

{275} This means that if we continue elevating gradually (as we have done) that unity through immanence and immersion of the divine condition and the concrete man, this presence and unity can reach such heights (here is precisely where the mystery lies) that man no longer belongs to himself. The his-ownness comes to him precisely from the Word. Of course, it has been received. His intimacy has reached towards receiving this singular man into the intrinsic structure of the generational process in which the eternal procession of the Word consists. In this case the man does not belong to himself. Not in the sense of being obedient or holy or just, but metaphysically. He lacks his usual his-ownness, and a complete one is given to him from the his-ownness in which the eternal and generating procession of the Word consists. He does not belong to himself any more.

Therefore, this is the sense in which the New Testament revelation transcends all the senses that the term “son of God” had in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament itself when the matter has not been presented thematically. Yes, the just, the holy, the people of Israel were sons of God. And more the sons of God as they were more just and holy. But no one has ever reached to this level, which seems like an evanescent characteristic, but however, incorporates the ultimate secret of the person of Christ, which is precisely to be part of the Trinitarian generating procession. He is Son of God in a transcendent sense. And to have pointed to it this way is precisely in what the Messianic secret consists.

This man has no his-owness. It will be noted that theology has pointed out that the subsistence of that human individual is owed to the Word. Yes, but neither in the case of the Trinity or in the case of men or in the case of Christ I believe the first and radical characteristic is subsistence. Subsistence is the consequence of his-owness. A person is subsistent precisely {276} in the measure it is person, i.e., that it is his-own. And precisely the man Christ, the concrete individual Christ, this young carpenter that walks on the streets of Jerusalem has no other his-owness than the one conferred to him by the eternal generation of the Word in which he is immersed. This man does not belong to himself. He has subsistence, but a subsistence consequent to the his-ownness of the Word.

Because of this, the presence of God in Christ is not a union it is a unity. It is the intrinsic, and radical unity, theological, and unique in creation, between the procession ad intra, which is the eternal generation of the Word, and the man who in a mysterious way is immersed, and inserted not only in what God is, but in the very manner of being of God, i.e., in His own eternal generation. Because of this, in this sense, the divine reality of Christ does not annul his humanity, but on the contrary, sublimates it. Therefore, we must now answer three important questions.

In the first place, in what does his-ownness consist?
In second place, what relationship does it have with the I we mentioned above?
And, in third place, what do the other persons of the Trinity do in that structure?

a) Let us see what his-ownness entails. This his-ownness, I said above, is precisely the last degree of immersion of man in God, and reciprocally of immanence of God in man. Therefore, in order to find out what this his-ownness is it can be described from the point of view of God, and from the point of view of man.

aa) From the point of view of God. Let us recall what I mentioned when I expounded the Trinitarian mystery. That in the case of God his nature, his essence or his reality (all languages are inadequate when dealing with God) is intelligent and volitional precisely {277} because it is his own. It is not his own because it is intelligent and volitional. Having intelligence and will is the radical way of realizing his very his-ownness. Then, if we wish to make a distinction, even though it may only be virtual, and from reason, between the his-ownness, and that which belongs to him (intelligence and will) we will have to say that the radical metaphysical priority is held by the person. To be a person because one is intelligent, and volitional is what happens in the case of man, but not in the case of the infinite person, which God is.

Therefore, based on the above we must say that the divine nature (let us call it that using common practice) is the form into which is molded and realized, through the identity of properties, the his-ownness in which each one of the divine persons consists. However, the his-ownness of the Word does not mold itself exclusively in a divine intelligence and will. It molds itself also, through a mysterious act, in a finite intelligence and will. This is the case of Christ. It is the sense present in the kénosis St. Paul mentions (cf. Phil 2:7). A theme much disputed during the Protestant Reform and present day theology. It is a kind of suspension (becoming empty), at least ad extra, of the divine qualities Christ would have had as Son of God. Doing this in order to take not only the morphé, the human form, but also the schéma, the concrete human characteristic of this poor carpenter circulating on the streets of Jerusalem. From the point of view of his kénosis we must say that the his-ownness of the Word is realized not only in the infinite and consubstantial intelligence and will with the reality of the Father. It is also realized in this form, in this organism, in this soul, in this finite intelligence and will, which belong to the son of Mary, descendant of David.

bb) This can also be described from the point of view of this man, the son of Mary. Then we must {278} say that the reality of this son of Mary (to have stomach, brain, psyche, passions, sentiment, will, intelligence) does not proceed directly from the Word. But that all these things may be his (his-ownness) does come from the Word. In other words, if by reality we understand as we should what belongs to himself, all the reality of Christ the man insofar as his is precisely the same as the Word.

From the first point of view the Word appeared conferring his very his-ownness to a particular concrete man. Here this concrete man appears not belonging to himself, but having his whole reality, insofar as his own, in the Word to whom he is intrinsically and essentially united. Therefore, the identity of these two affirmations is, to my way of thinking that in which the person of Christ formally consists. Twenty years ago I wrote, “the person of Christ ‘realizes’ his divine personality in a finite and singular nature” ²; “the person of the Son in a certain way renounces to only realize himself in a divine form”³; “in Christ, the Son of God realizes himself in a human nature”⁴. It is the case that the Word may realize himself in a finite individual, and that in turn, from the other point of view, this finite individual may have all his reality (in the sense of his own) precisely in the Word. Because of this we must say not only that this man is man divinely, but also that the Word is God, but humanly. And in this intrinsic unity is where all the reality of the person of Christ is found.

One may ask why the one incarnated was precisely the second person of the Trinity. Why not the {279} first or the third? We could reply that in fact that was the way it happened. Yes, but probably there is a deeper reason. The fact is that if the substantive I this man is going to realize throughout his life has the function to be the real truth of the Father, within the Trinity the his-ownness of the Son consists precisely in being the real truth of the Father. Therefore, it is not something arbitrary, but somewhat fitting due to the very type of the facts of the case that it may be precisely the subsisting truth in which the eternal Word consists to be the one that incarnated. And confer his personal his-ownness in the form of real truth to the person of Christ. However, here the expression “real truth” appears twice. It appears like a case of Deus ex machina. “Real truth” appeared when we discussed the I with respect to the substantive reality of Christ. “Real truth” now turns out to be the entire reality of Christ with respect to the Father. Are there two real truths? What do we mean by real truth? Is it a device?

b) That is the second question, the relationship of the substantive reality of Christ as Son of God with the I of his own substantive being. Indeed, they are not two real truths, but two moments of just one real truth, that is the question. In the end something similar to what happens in the case of each man. My I is my real truth, but that real truth is real truth of my substantive reality, which is true in the sense that it is not reducible to another. But it is not the case of two truths, the real truth of my own substantive reality, and (in the case of Christ) of his unity as Son in the physical person of the Word. This real truth is the real truth that concerns the substantive reality of Christ, i.e., the first act. On the other hand, the other truth, the truth of the I is a truth, but in second act. Therefore, this means that the real truth in first act is precisely called to mold, and expand itself in reality as second act, in {280} the case of Christ inasmuch as in mine or in any one of us. And reciprocally (limiting ourselves for a moment to the case of Christ) the real truth in which his I consists (his substantive being) is nothing but the display in a certain way integral of that in which initially, radically, and fundamentally his real truth consists as Incarnation of the Word.

Nevertheless, this step (I have used the term “display” intentionally) is precisely the entire life of Christ. It is precisely the stepping from his real truth as substantive reality to his real truth as the substantive truth of his I. From my point of view we can now understand the text of St. Paul at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans when he tells us he preaches the Gospel “of his Son, born of the family of David according to the flesh, and horisthéntos (constituted) Son of God in power according to the Spirit of sanctity by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:3-4). Precisely “born”, here is where his substantive reality resides, not only the human, but also the divine, born of God and born of Mary. But in second place “constituted”. Constituted precisely in second act. It is not the case that he was given the ability to act with a power he lacked. In this problem the exegetes have been rather easygoing saying that for whatever reason because of his kénosis Christ did not wish to manifest himself fully as God, but did so after the resurrection. Of course, this is true, but there is a much more radical truth where this truth is inscribed, precisely the stepping from real truth in first act to real truth in second act. Here is where the horisthéntos resides. The fullness with which real truth in first act has been displayed and constituted in second act is that in which the fullness of filiation precisely consists. Hence, St Paul tells us it is “with power”. And that term “power” is {281} what the fullness of real truth in second act expresses with respect to truth in first act, which is the very reality of Christ. It is not the case that Christ was not the Son of God, but that he did not have power. Not because he radically lacked it (how could we possibly say that?), but because that power was not yet in action since it had not been made explicit and displayed in its entire richness. It would be so when his I had been constructed, his substantive being. However, St. Paul adds, “according to the Spirit of sanctity”, which is the Holy Spirit. Now we face the problem of what the other persons of the Trinity are doing in the reality of Christ.

c) When I was discussing man and his position in creation I was saying that every open essence is the molding ad extra of the Trinitarian life. Insofar as a substantive reality man is with respect to his own life what the Father can be with respect to the divine life. The I is precisely his real truth, the figure of his substantive being. And the reversion by way of identity of the I to the substantive reality is what constitutes the metaphysical intimacy. This scheme is applied to Christ without any exception. One might then ask, was the Father the substantive reality of Christ? Yes, and no. Because certainly insofar as divine qualities these also belonged to the Father. If not, we would have three gods. This reality is identical in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Through what he had of physical characteristics in the sense of intelligence and will, when God incarnated in Christ in the way I have described, what exists in Christ is the very divine nature in which the Father is molded, and the Holy Spirit is molded. What is different is the his-ownness. It is the exclusive his-ownness of the Word, but the same reality of the Father. In the end, the divine reality of Christ is possessed by Christ in a filial way. That is what is essential.

And, reciprocally, it is necessary to add that this reality is not {282} only received and lived by Christ in a filial way, but in addition (here is where the I appears) it is going to revert through intimacy on his own substantive reality. This means that his intimacy is precisely inscribed in that radical metaphysical and theological intimacy in which the Holy Spirit consists. The Holy Spirit in Christ is precisely the Spirit of his intimacy. That is why the Holy Spirit by being the Spirit in which the intimacy of Christ is inscribed, through the reversion by way of identity between the substantive I, and his substantive reality, is the deepest item of the Messianic secret. In addition, it is what constituted the fountain of the Biblical tradition where Christ incorporated and transmitted himself to his disciples by means of a personal adhesion. That was the effusion of his intimacy. The sending of the Holy Spirit is nothing but this, both to individuals and to history. The effusion of the very intimacy of Christ, i.e., of the Spirit in which his intimacy consists.

For this reason, even though only the second person incarnated, there is no doubt that this second person, with respect to the nature it has, and with respect to the Spirit where its intimacy is inscribed, is an absolutely Trinitarian reality. Trinitarian because it is strictly a filial one. And precisely by being filial the life of Christ was able to be not only a declaration, but also a manifestation in actu exercitu of the very Trinity. The reality of Christ is essentially Trinitarian. It is the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit the one who effectively, and really confers his-ownness to the finite nature into which it molds itself. On the other hand, it is in the person of the Son where, in a Trinitarian way, the finite nature in which man consists is realized. The Monophysitisms have not been entirely wrong. They confused the his-ownness with what belongs to him. This has to be completely avoided. But what is also untenable is to dichotomize Christology, and propose {283} on the one hand, the idea of a hypostatic union, and on the other, the idea of a divine nature and a human nature.

From my point of view, this is what definitely constitutes the answer to the question of, who is Christ? He is the Son of God in the way I have just explained, as incarnation of the physical person of the Word, which confers to him a his-ownness that is identical to the his-ownness the human individual has by his theological immersion in the reality of God. And in that his-ownness is realized the real truth in which the I consists, in an intimacy inscribed in the Holy Spirit. Of course, we now face the question, How did Jesus Christ know he was the Son of God?


B) How does He know himself as Son of God?

After all, Jesus Christ walked the streets of Jerusalem just like anyone else. If he got lost in the Temple (quite a few surely did), how did he know he was the Son of God? It is a problem that medieval theology never addressed at all. It was proposed at the beginning of the XXth century in a way, from my point of view completely unfortunate, from the perspective of consciousness, “what is the foundation for the filial conscience Jesus Christ has?” There have been two kinds of replies to this question. Those clinging to the classical theory have said that into this conscience ultimately in one form or another (since we do not know how) God has introduced the notion that He is the Son of God. Others, somewhat less chimerical, have said that since Christ sees God even on Earth he knows himself clearly in God, Son of God.

But that is the question, is it the case that the divine filiation is known by Christ in a way similar to looking into a mirror, and seeing oneself in an objective manner? This appears to me radically untenable. And {284} the fact is that we are accustomed to consider (which is true up to a point) that his-ownness is never a principle of action and operation. Obviously, no one acts or behaves except through the properties one has. One’s own being is not a principle of operation, no doubt about it. It is not an operational principle, but it is precisely the very principalship in which the properties consist, which is a different matter. From this follows that in the performance of all his acts every man knows himself precisely as his own in the triple form of myself, my, and I, but not in an objective way as an object or a reality on which man reflects, and becomes aware it is his own. Also, not because others do tell him since that obviously would not be sufficient. Man knows himself as a person, which is provided with a his-ownness, through the physical exercise of his myself, his my, and his I. It is truly a lived knowledge. It is the very life in which the activation of the real truth of the second act consists. Therefore, it must be interpreted from that point of view, which is precisely the origin and fundament that the son of Mary possessing a divine his-ownness may perfectly know himself as Son of God. He knows himself as Son of God simply because he is such; because in his internal and intrinsic reality he is performing, and therefore living in an intrinsic way that characteristic of myself, my, and I.

For this reason the exposition of a great theologian with whom I am not going to compare myself, Karl Rahner, seems to me completely insufficient. For him Christ knows himself as Son of God through a Grundbefindlichkeit, through a radical way of finding himself⁵. Yes, but what is that radical way, in what does this Sichbefinden, this self- finding, consist? It was necessary to have pressed the concepts, in order to precisely reach the idea of the myself, of a my, and {285} of an I. Because the I is not riding on itself, but rather on a my, and in turn the my rides on a myself. And the myself is lived in the very act of exercising its own reality. The second act is constituted in a vital way. And this vital constitution is precisely the modest, and radical way in which knowing myself as of my own precisely and accurately consists. I say “modest and radical” because the step from the myself to the my, and from the my to the I is a kind of progress to which, evidently, the human reality of Christ, and his reality as Son of God was subjected. But in addition his own I has developed throughout the whole length of his life.

The I as second act has been increasing with new features throughout the life of Christ. Indeed, we shall have to ask in the next section in what the personal life of Christ consists. However, one thing is quite obvious, that we should not imagine that Christ came to this world with a kind of glorious vision of what he was as Son of God. Also, that anything else was just a set of organic vicissitudes that he adopted only to make himself accessible to all men. This is completely chimerical. If that had been the case, the life of Christ would have been a gigantic fiction. That is a kind of gigantic biographic Docetism, as I have called it numerous times, as if the biography of Christ had nothing to do with his reality. This is absolutely inadmissible. At any rate, Christ knows himself as Son of God purely and simply in that rudimentary, obscure, but inexorable form, which consists in the myself, the my, and of the I insofar as it is founded on the myself, and the my. In the case of man this is not a psychological experience, it is something more. It is a metaphysical experience, the experience of my own self, mine. And in the case of Christ it is more than a metaphysical experience, it is a theological experience. It is the theological experience through which he knows himself, as a myself, insofar as Incarnate Word.

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¹ This phrase is taken from the 1967 seminar in order to clarify the corresponding passage, somewhat obscure, of the 1971 seminar.
² X. Zubiri, Nature, History, God, op. cit., p. 512. At that time I used the term “personality” in the etymological sense of personalitas, that I would not use today (note by X. Zubiri).
³ Ibid., p. 512.
⁴ Ibid., p. 517.
⁵ Cf. K. Rahner, “Dogmatische Erwägungen über das Wissen und Selbstbewußtsein Christi”, in his Schriften zur Theologie, vol. 5, Einsiedeln, 1962, pp. 222-245.