{i}

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

This is the first of Zubiri’s posthumous books. It has some special characteristics which are here presented to the reader, to facilitate his study and interpretation of it.

First, this is the book Zubiri was preparing for the press when he died rather suddenly. Therefore it belongs to his last period, although we shall soon indicate the extent to which it represents his thoughts at that time. It is a book which he was very keen to publish. The general scheme of the work and its first redaction had been finished to his own satisfaction, at least with respect to fundamentals, although as was his custom he planned to continue working on the texts.

Second, it is a book which Zubiri left somewhat unfinished. Before entering into further details, it would be advisable to warn the reader that this book contains three different redaction levels. The First Part is finished and revised; the Second Part is redacted but it was surely waiting for a new treatment which would have provided it with a new form and enriched it significantly; the Third Part is in a more primitive state, as it consists of the transcription, corrected by him, of three oral conferences.

These circumstances posed two alternatives {ii} to the editor: (1) produce a critical edition that would reproduce the text scrupulously as it had been left, inserting as notes any correcting observations; or (2) try to introduce a minimum of obvious corrections, so that the book would come out in the same form as previous ones of the author, and as the author wished it to appear. The second alternative has been chosen for three principal reasons: first, this option does not preclude that, if the Zubirian investigations so demand it, a critical edition may be published at a later time; second, the corrections to be incorporated were minimal; third, it appeared most appropriate to produce a book similar in its form to the author’s previous works, which is something he desired.

This said, it is useful to explain the history of this book as well as the history of its redaction.

The problem of God, i.e., the philosophical problem of God, had been a permanent preoccupation of Zubiri from his youth. He used to say that there were three main themes which preoccupied him from his years in High School. Even in those early years, he had begun to think and write about them. They are intelligence, reality and God. Concerning the first two, he had already published definitive works before his death: Sobre la Esencia (On Essence, 1962), Inteligencia Sentiente (Sentient Intelligence), comprising three parts: Inteligencia y Realidad (Intelligence and Reality, 1980), Inteligencia y Logos (Intelligence and Logos, 1982), and Inteligencia y Razón (Intelligence and Reason, 1983). Indeed, in the days before his death, he commented happily that he also had near completion a book which he had already entitled El Hombre y Dios (Man and God). Therefore, this book is his answer to one of his vital and philosophical fundamental preoccupations and is, consequently, a book that has a long history.

{iii} During 1935 and 1936, drafted partly in Madrid and partly in Rome, Zubiri wrote the famous essay, so many times re-edited and studied, En torno al problema de Dios (In regard to the problem of God) (Naturaleza, Historia, Dios, 5a. ed., Madrid, 1963, pp. 361-397). In his Parisian exile, during the Spanish civil war, he dealt with the problem of God in several seminars, one of which is reflected in his Note sur la philosophie de la religión (Note about the philosophy of religion) (Bulletin de l'Institut Catholique de Paris, T. 28, no. 10, 1937, pp. 334-341). Dating from this same period (although it has its roots in a seminar given in Madrid about Helenismo y Cristianismo (Helenism and Christianity, 1934-1935), is the theologico-philosophical essay: El ser sobrenatural: Dios y la deificación en la teología paulina (Supernatural being: God and deification in Pauline theology, NHD, 399-478).

During the time of his oral seminars which, in two periods, extend from 1945 to 1976, the problem of God appears several times. The theme of the 1948-1949 seminar is El problema de Dios (The problem of God), with thirty three conferences. After the publication of Sobre la Esencia (On Essence), the conferences concerning the problem of God multiply: El problema filosófico de la historia de las religiones (The philosophical problem of the history of religions), six conferences, followed by two more conferences about El problema de Dios en la historia de las religiones (The problem of God in the history of religions), all of them presented during the seminar of 1965. In 1968 he gave a new seminar about El hombre y el problema de Dios (Man and the problem of God), six conferences, with an incursion into strictly theological problems, to which in 1967 he had already dedicated an extensive seminar Reflexiones filosóficas sobre algunos problemas de teología (Philosophical reflections about some theological problems), ten conferences. However, it was in the 1971-1972 seminar that he outlined and developed the problem; this was the seminar entitled El problema teologal del hombre: Dios, religión, cristianismo (The theological problem of man: God, religion, Christianity), twenty-six conferences, where its three sections appear well defined: man and God, the {iv} history of religions, and that singular religion which Christianity is. Finally, Zubiri again revisited the first of those three subjects in his Rome seminar (Gregorian University, 1973), under the title of El problema teologal del hombre: el hombre y Dios (The theological problem of man: man and God), twelve conferences.

During the course of these years he had also published two articles on the same subject: Introducción al problema de Dios (Introduction to the problem of God) which appeared in 1963 (NHD, 341-360), and El problema teologal del hombre (The theological problem of man) published in 1975, where the main points of the Rome seminar are presented (Teología y mundo contemporáneo, Homenaje a Karl Rahner, Madrid 1975, pp. 35-64) (Theology and the contemporary world, Homage to Karl Rahner). In addition he had published a few other studies in NHD covering the same theme, some Prologues, and an important work concerning the Eucharistic Mystery written for his reception of the Doctorate in Theology, honoris causa, conferred upon him by the University of Deusto, Spain.

All of this history converges, for our purposes, on the Rome seminar. This seminar, transcribed by his wife Carmen Castro de Zubiri, with its text corrected by Zubiri himself, is the one he used as the basis for this book. He considered that everything pertaining to the philosophical problem of God, as dealt with in his previous seminars or essays, had been collected and superseded by the Rome seminar. In fact, I repeat, he was still laboring on it, and it was the only text upon his working table at the time of its last revision. All this, then, gives us an idea of the history of the text; but we now need to know more about the history of the redaction. Let us return then, to the three revision levels mentioned at the beginning of this Introduction.

We have, above all, the First Part entitled La realidad humana (Human Reality). This section had already received its {v} final revision; one which, let us add, had been worked upon by its author during the last months of his life. It was begun in the Spring of 1983 and concluded at the beginning of the Summer of the same year. Only the bridge between the First and the Second parts gave him some doubts; he wondered if some pages at the end of the First Part should be transferred to the Second Part. But this change he never made. For this reason the editor has decided to leave them where they are with only a slight reordering, which takes into consideration the marginal notes written by Zubiri himself. Consequently, this Part is one where everything is by Zubiri, and of a Zubiri completely satisfied with the existing revision.

The situation is different with respect to the Second Part. When Zubiri returned from Rome, he began the revision of this part of the book, entitled then La marcha intelectiva hacia Dios (The intellectual way to God). He estimated that the First Part was under better control and duly perfected, while this Second required further elaboration. To it he dedicated himself with keenness during the end of 1973 and almost all of 1974; he nearly completed it. He did not do so, because upon reaching the section concerning the concretion of faith, he considered that he should make a small digression about the concretion of the human person. This digression, as normal in his way of working, extended itself more than expected, and even reached more than two hundred pages, a disproportionate amount when compared to the approximately one hundred fifty that he had written on the issue of the intellective process of man towards God. He decided to exclude these pages about the concretion of the human person; and he himself desired that they be included in another book, which he indicated should be published and would incorporate a set of anthropological studies. Thus, we find ourselves faced with a {vi} text left at a level of revision differing from the First Part, preceeding it by ten years. Secondly, it lacks terminological and even conceptual changes brought about by the passing of time and his lengthy labors concerning human intelligence, which occupied him at least six years. Thirdly, the text itself is full of notations, a good number of which are due to discussions he had with me towards the end of 1974 and beginnings of 1975, with some of the conclusions he was planning to incorporate into the text, written on the margins of the pages I was passing on to him.

The question then became what to do with a text left in this incomplete state of revision.

The possibility existed to present it just as left by Zubiri, with all its marginal notations and without corrections. This had the merit of bringing to the reader a sample of the agonizing struggle of Zubiri with truth, together with his unceasing changes of conceptualization and formulation in the search for more accurate expressions of what he understood to be the reality of the case. But it was necessary to consider that part of the text had already been included in the First Part and, moreover, that some of its formulations had been developed more precisely in that same First Part. On the other hand, it would have been possible to begin a thorough restructuring of this text, since Zubiri left behind the scheme for a new arrangement. But this would have required a delicate transplant operation, and some important formal corrections. After weighing all the pros and cons, the solution chosen was to reproduce fundamentally the 1973-1974 text, changing only expressions which he himself {vii} had rejected in his previous writings, eliminating from this text elements already presented as a first Appendix to the First Part, and introducing those developments of the content which were clearly redacted in the margins of his text.

The Third Part presented a different set of problems. As indicated above, of this part we have only the transcription, corrected by him, of the Rome seminar given during the Autumn of 1973. Zubiri was fundamentally in accord with what he had said in that seminar, although it is certain that if he had reflected again on the text he would surely have enriched and polished it. On the other hand, it is evident that without the presentation of the Third Part, the book would be unfinished. Therefore, the decision could only be to convert into written language the corrected transcription of the oral language. This had already been done in the final pages of the Second Part since, as already pointed out, Zubiri did not finish them with respect to the topic of the concretion of faith.

The change from oral language to written language is a task upon which I had already embarked on the text of the seminar El problema del hombre (The problem of man), which Zubiri had already approved for the preparation of his Estudios Antropológicos (Anthropological Studies). All that was necessary was to follow the same criteria with respect to the Rome seminar. However, this presented a special difficulty, since the seminar had been given in a Faculty of Theology and of Catholic Theology at that, and Zubiri had used a great number of theological examples referring to the Christian faith. The greater part of these examples had been removed by him from the First and Second parts of the book, because at the time he wanted to produce a strictly philosophical book. But this removal was not an easy task on the {viii} Third Part, since here the examples belong to the argumentative threads of his discourse. He himself was aware of the problem and apologizes in the text, adducing as the reason for them the place where he was lecturing and the importance of showing that he was not talking in a vacuum. As a result of this, the examples have been retained just as examples and not as strict philosophical reflections whenever those examples are, at least, non-contradictory thinkable possibilities. Such occurs with the case of grace and the hypostatic union of Christ, which in this last Part appear repeatedly and importantly. We warn the reader about this, so that there he does not misunderstand the reasons for these examples, or think that Zubiri has introduced specific elements of the Christian faith into philosophical discourse. We have already pointed out that in the overall plan of the work, Zubiri considered that this book should be completed with another one referring to the history of religions and a third one dealing with the specific problems of Christianity.

Finally, the possibility remained of completing this book with other Zubiri texts transcribed from previous seminars. That did not appear opportune because he himself was not using them in the revision of this text which we now offer the reader. This approach does not preclude that at a later date, if circumstances require it, an edition be made of some seminars or parts of those seminars that deal with the problem of God. Of course, all those who study Zubiri will be able in due course to have access to all the necessary manuscripts in order to compare some texts with others and thus appreciate the evolution of a thought that was constantly perfecting itself. {ix} However, an exception has been made with a text previously published, which formally belonged to this seminar. Zubiri had written it with the intention that it would become the Introduction of the book. But he later abandoned it, and composed another Introduction, which is the one that has been preserved. The text in question is El problema teologal del hombre (The theological problem of man), dedicated to Karl Rahner, to which we have already alluded. It is included in the present book “as a conclusion”, because it gathers synthetically the principal points of the work, and opens the ways through which Zubiri’s ideas could be extended towards the history of religions and towards Christianity. Since we offer it as a conclusion, we have removed from it the last lines naming the three Parts of the book.

In sum, we offer a book which is truly all Zubiri and only Zubiri. The elimination of some phrases and examples —nothing has been suppressed in the First Part, very little in the Second, somewhat more in the Third— does not alter the text at all, but on the contrary makes it Zubirian at the level of 1984, just as he himself would have wished it. In the rare instances where, for the reasons indicated above, words have been substituted, it has been done by taking literal Zubirian phrases, those he used to formulate his concepts. The purely redactional substitutions obey only the necessity of reducing to written language the oral one, in exactly the same way as Zubiri himself had done on multiple occasions.

Therefore, although this is not a critical edition, it can be said that it is a purely Zubirian edition, made with the same spirit which he wanted his unedited books to be published, and made also with the greatest fidelity to his own {x} wording. In this way has a new Zubiri book been produced. Strictly considered, it is a book conceived by him as a book, with three fourths of the total carried out by him. It is a book by Zubiri from cover to cover, subjected only to a minimal editorial revision.

The reader, cautioned about the different revisional levels of the work, has the key to arrive at his own conclusions. Further studies will be able to identify points that Zubiri himself would have wished to clarify. There is no doubt that he would have improved his own text, had he had the time and energy to do so. Thus, it remains an open work upon which others will be able to build, as it was his wish, new developments that will bring us closer and closer to the true reality of things.


March 24, 1984

Ignacio Ellacuría
“José Simeón Cañas” University
Central-American University
San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A.