{21} (cont’d)

II. The theologic logos

This logos is going to be addressed by the Church in order to attempt being known intellectively by the human logos. The knowledge of St. Paul then becomes an intellective knowing: that is the “theologic” logos. This intellection has developed in different directions.

{22} A) First of all, in that modest way, which consists in preaching the logos that reveals: that is the kerygmatic logos. Actually, kérygma is that primary form of preaching, which consists in proclamation. Many passages of the New Testament have kerygmatic characteristics, which differ from others that have liturgical, catechetical, etc., characteristics. All these passages contain teachings, in one form or another, and therefore, strictly speaking belong to the logos that reveals. That is why we here take the expression kérygma in the sense of proclamation of Christianity beyond the New Testament itself. That proclamation soon acquires the function of propagation. It is the base for the missionary activity essential to Christianity, which is shared by only a few other religions such as Buddhism, Manichaeism, Islam, etc. Most religions are not missionary. Later, mostly because of political and social reasons, propagation became propaganda. Then the logos changes from being truth into being social power. That is what has given us today, for example, the sociological hypertrophy of Christian thought, as if the Church were a “society” and not a “communion” of persons, something quite different¹. Be that as it may, in its triple function of proclamation, propagation, and propaganda, the kerygmatic logos is the first form of the theologic logos in history.

B) Within this kerygmatic logos another form of logos has been gestating, with its roots already in St. Paul. When confronting the many charismatics of his own times, St. Paul does not repudiate them in toto, but demands that no personal illumination be placed above any point of faith. Beliefs constitute a whole and each one has to be taken with its respectivity towards the rest: the logos has to be “ana-logical”. That is the analogy {23} of faith (katá ten analogían tes písteos, Rom 12:6). Here analogy refers to faith insofar as a belief. In time, this “analogical” unity acquired an objective or real sense: the unity of the revealed as such. At this point the analogy of faith turns into what St. Irenæus (II century) later called the “body of truth” (sóma tes aletheías). To show it is the purpose of his book ’Epídeixis toú apostolikoú kerýgmatos (A Showing Forth of the Apostolic Preaching). It is an ’epídeixis, a showing forth (Sp. mostración) or an ostensive or epideitic logos. This is the second form of the theologic logos.

Some phrases of his book clearly describe this new type of logos. Quoting a passage from Isaiah, and translating it poorly, he writes: “If you do not believe you will not understand”² (cf. Is 7:9). The Hebrew uses the concept ’æmæt, which means truth, but in the sense of fidelity, firmness, stability, and must be translated, therefore, “if you do not believe you will not have firmness”. And this truth and its presumed comprehension is what is essential for St. Irenæus: “truth is what drives the acquisition of the faith, because faith is founded upon what is truly the being of things... Since the enterprise of our salvation depends on faith, it is just and necessary that we make the greatest effort to take care and defend it in order to reach the true intellection about things”³. It is quite clear there is progress from a merely preaching logos to a logos, which seeks to penetrate into the intellection of the being of things through faith. And conversely, a logos, which seeks an intellection about faith by means of the truth about the being of things. This intimate unity between faith and the being of things is the typical characteristic of the ostensive or epideitic logos.

{24} C) This logos achieves intellection in a way that is merely a showing forth: showing forth that things are this way. But the unity of faith with the being of things, inexorably led to something more than a manifestation: it led to unraveling the internal structure of what is shown forth, i.e., to “understand” as much as possible. And to understand, even in the case of mysteries, is always nothing but “conceptualizing”. Thus, concepts are the mental organs, which force whatever is conceptualized to show its own structure from itself, i.e., to make us see from itself the internal necessity of that in which it consists. This task is what in an etymological sense must be called “de-monstration”, apódeixis. The showing forth logos or the ostensive one has become the conceptive logos: this is the demonstrative logos or the apodictic one. With it, theologic knowing will turn into a science. That is the third form of the theologic logos: the scientific logos. After the kerygmatic logos, and the manifested logos, now the scientific logos. In it, the body of truth is going to acquire a very precise characteristic, namely, that it is a system. Obviously, the concepts, which the scientific logos is going to use are human; but are only used with reference to God, sub ratione deitatis. And, since in the logos is expressed the conceptualization of what the being of things is, the result is that whatever characteristic these concepts may have, that will be the characteristic of the logos, and therefore, of the theologic science.

1) The being of things was the permanent topic of Greek philosophy. That is why the body of truth acquired its first scientific or systematic conceptualization utilizing the concepts through which Greek philosophy understood what the being of things is. Because of this, the organ of the ratio deitatis was Greek metaphysics. With that, the demonstrative or scientific logos acquired the characteristic of a speculative logos and theology became speculative theology. Without entering into chronological precisions, this theology acquired its first systematic elaboration with the treatise On {25} Principles (Perí archón) by Origen (III century), and in some of the writings of St. Augustine, like his De Trinitate (IV century). In the XI century there appeared, with St. Anselm, the creation of scholastic theology culminating in the XIII century with St. Thomas: it was a theology founded on the idea of ón, of ens, of being.

2) The being of things we are considering here may have a different dimension: not “being” in the Greek sense, but what “things” (in the widest sense of the term) are in the deposit of faith. Then, concepts are the form according to which the faith has been thinking about revelation and the dogmas. Ultimately, it is the being of truth in a tradition (be it patristic, conciliar, theologic, etc.). The Greek concepts themselves appear here as moments of a tradition. The ratio deitatis is then the tradition. The scientific logos is no longer speculative logos; it is historical logos. This was the great creation of Petavius in the XVII century: his Theologica Dogmata. It begins with the following words: “Magnum equidem ac labore inmensum atque copia sed longe pulcherrimum opus subtilem, quae aliquot abhinc orta saeculis jam sola paene scholas occupavit, a quibus et scholasticae proprium sibi nomen ascivit; verum elegantiorem et uberiorem alteram, quae ad eruditae vetustatis expressa speciem, hoc est a dialecticorum dumetis liberioris ad campi revocata spatia, solam ad usum cultumque sui, nativam et domesticam copiam ostentat”⁴.

{26} In opposition, therefore, to speculative theology, he managed to create a historical theology, which is a mixture of what later was called, on the one hand, positive theology, and on the other, the history of dogma. It should be understood that what is intended here is to appropriate the historical only as a method, as a way to fundament the truth, previously admitted, of revelation, dogmas, and the whole of Christian thought. Consequently, although it is true that the methodical characteristic of this scientific logos is not speculative, however, all its concepts are, basically, the same as those of speculative theology.

3) The being of things may yet be taken in another different dimension, which is neither metaphysical nor tradition: that would be the form according to which “things” present themselves and function within the vital context of the ancient Semite. In order to understand them it will be necessary to “interpret” the sense of the biblical text: to understand is now to interpret. Then, the scientific logos is no longer a speculative logos or an historical logos: it is an hermeneutic logos or an exegetic logos. To achieve it, one must appeal to multiple disciplines different from philosophy: archeology, ancient history, philology, history of religions, etc. That was the great creation of biblical science in the XIX century. The ratio deitatis is not the exclusive domain of Greek metaphysics. With this, a new repertory has been achieved, not only of methods, but more importantly, of concepts with which to build theologic science. Instead of asking Greek metaphysics for its concepts, the biblical text itself is asked for the concepts with which its authors expounded their teachings. Thought is no longer expressed in Greek categories, but in biblical categories⁵ . This is biblical theology. Speculative theology gave way to historical theology; now historical theology is retraced to {27} biblical theology. This is a different conceptualization of the “body of truth”.

Today we are especially sensitive to this difference. The New Testament, we are told, is not concerned, for example, with the ontology of Christ, but with His function as revealer of the Father. Certainly this does not invalidate the problem of the reality of Christ, such as it was as an object for the Council of Chalcedon (two natures, one person), but actually the New Testament perspective would be functional⁶ not ontological. In addition, we are told, the New Testament does not formulate an ontology about the consecrated bread as the Council of Trent did (substance, species), but its perspective would also be formally functional. The same thing occurs with the doctrine of St. Paul, etc.

In conclusion, we can say we have a scientific theology logos, which assumes three different forms: speculative logos, historical logos, and hermeneutic logos. They lead to three theologic sciences, not only different, but de facto separated, perhaps even in opposition: speculative theology, historical theology, and biblical theology.

D) At this point, the idea of such a scientific logos makes us stop and proceed with some important reflections. Above all, reflections about each of the “three” theologies. No matter how different they may be they fall under a common coverage. It could not be otherwise since we are dealing with one theologic logos. This overarching perspective reveals some problematic characteristics in each one of the theologies, when viewed from the point of view of the others. Additionally, however, and this is most important, the overarching presents to us the most radical and profound problem concerning what the common root of the three theologies is.

{28} 1) Primarily, then, the problematic characteristic of each of the three theologies.

a) Historical theology and biblical theology clearly establish that speculative theology is not formally dependent on any particular metaphysics. Greek metaphysics is nothing but one mode, among other possible ones, to understand revelation. It may even contribute a series of terms and concepts with which to formulate the dogmas. But these concepts do not form part of the dogma; dogma is only that which in them and with them is “meant to be said”. That is the essential point. Therefore, with other concepts belonging to another metaphysics one could express the same thing that is meant to be said, i.e., the same dogma, and ultimately, the same theology. Historical theology is the proof in vivo that in fact this has been the case.

However, that does not end the matter here. The fact that there may not be a particular metaphysics at the base of theology, Does this mean that scientific theology can exist with no metaphysics at all, i.e., that speculative theology is merely supererogatory? Because it is one thing that the same dogmatic and theologic truths may be thought with different metaphysical systems, but quite another that they may be thought without any. As we shall immediately see, biblical theology is not (because it cannot be) a theology without metaphysics. Then, what certainly is essential for the scientific theology logos is a kind of internal dynamism, if not towards a metaphysics, indeed towards the metaphysical as such. In that case, the lack of solidarity of scientific theology with a particular metaphysics is not a negative note, but an eminently positive characteristic: it consists in opening before us the ambit of several possible metaphysics, towards which that dynamism asks to be taken for the intellection of only one revelation.

b) Biblical theology, seen from the other two theologies, displays something essential. In the first place, that biblical concepts {29} as such are not formally in solidarity with revelation. On this point, the mentality of the ancient Semite stands with respect to revelation in the same condition as a metaphysical system. Revelation expresses itself in Semitic concepts as it might have expressed itself in concepts of other mentalities. Biblical theology has no prerogative at all in this respect: it is a moment of the history of revelation just the same as the metaphysical-theologic systems. Furthermore, within the biblical text itself, the concepts and mentalities, which underlie it are many. The biblical texts not only differentiate themselves, as is commonly stated, by their literary style, but also by their mental or intellectual style; a distinction, which current hermeneutics does not make. From this perspective, biblical theology is a first chapter of historical theology.

But there is something even more serious. The fact that the Semitic mentality and the concepts with which it is molded constitute, at any elementary level, but always really and truly, a metaphysics, which is at the very root of biblical thought. And as such, one among the several possible metaphysics to express what is “meant to be said”. But, on the other hand, it is here where the particular value of biblical theology resides. What speculative theology “means to say” is that which is already “known” as revealed. But what biblical theology “means to say” is “what it is that has been revealed”. Consequently, given that all biblical theology is articulated in speculative theology, all speculative theology is essentially “turned to” and “riding on” biblical theology, i.e., on a hermeneutic, and on an exegesis. And this is essential because it does not refer only to the biblical text. Not only the biblical text, but every dogmatic definition is formulated in an historical context. Therefore, not only Sacred Scripture, but all dogmas need to be historically interpreted. The Bible needs to be “interpreted” not for being a Bible, but for {30} being historical. That is why speculative theology is essentially turned towards the hermeneutical logos throughout the whole amplitude of history.

c) Historical theology, as I indicated above, has biblical theology as its first chapter. From interpretation of the revealed text, i.e., from biblical theology, the development of the history of revelation and dogma takes place. Because of this, historical theology depends essentially on a biblical theology. But then, In what does this “development” consist? Development means, above all, that one stage is based on the previous one and follows after it. Both moments: the “based” and the “after” are essentials to history. We can express them unitarily by saying that history leads from one stage to another, that it has the structure of a “from-to”. That is history as process.

But then, that is not all. Because the fact that one stage leads to another, inexorably presents the problem of the leading itself: What is this leading? It is not just the fact that a first stage may be followed by another, but that it is one stage, which “goes” into another from itself. Then, history is not simply the process, which leads from one stage to another, i.e., history is not a mere method or way, but is an intrinsic moment of the reality of the first stage: it is its intrinsic historicity⁷. The processability (Sp. procesualidad) of history depends on it. There is a historical process, because each stage is in itself and because of its own characteristics, historical, i.e., because it possesses historicity as an intrinsic moment of its own.

Indeed, that is the decisive question. And it is a question essentially speculative. True, the concept of historicity has to be achieved by an examination of the historical process. But then, it is clear that although this process {31} may not involve any particular concept of historicity, however, it inexorably opens the ambit where this concept has to be made more precise. As we can see, every historical theology essentially encompasses an outline or a draft for speculative theology. The historical theology of Petavius was, above all, theology in its historical process, theology in history. But something else is needed, not only a theology that may unfold in history, but a theology that may be historical in itself as theology. It will be a theology as a science founded on an essentially historical logos. The hermeneutical logos is the logos of that which is meant-to-be-said, but in which what is meant-to-be-said is something “ongoing being said”, and can only be said through this “ongoing” being said. Here, historical theology combines, on the one side with biblical theology, and on the other with speculative theology.

2) In the end, the three theologies mutually overlap; each one is constitutively insufficient if it pretended to exclude the other two. But then something looms before our eyes, as I hinted above, which is much more important. Namely, that the three theologies are what they are, because it is the start of the march of each particular logos: speculative, historical, and hermeneutical. From this follows that the overlapping of the three theologies is nothing but the manifestation of the overlapping of the three types of logos. Only because the three lógoi overlap, the theologies founded upon them overlap. Which means that the three lógoi are not three types of different and juxtaposed lógoi, but are the structural moments of a single logos. The three theologies are not three sciences into which theology is divided, but are the moments of a single intellectual movement, they constitute something like the dialectic of a single scientific logos. Scientific theology is, therefore, “one” thing, which must encompass, in an intrinsic and formal way, an exegesis, a history, and a speculation. In other words, the scientific logos must be, at one and the same time, hermeneutic {32} logos, historical logos, and speculative logos. This is the unity for which, from my point of view, every present and future theology must strive.

What kind of unity? The three lógoi in question are the scientific form of the theologic logos, i.e., of our human logos insofar as it expresses the divine revealing logos. Therefore, it is in this theologic logos as such where the unity of the scientific logos is already constituted. But then, the theologic logos is not primarily a scientific logos. The theologic logos insofar as scientific is founded on more primary forms of the theologic logos. No science, not even theology, rests on itself. The scientific logos, actually, has its own object: the system of faith. This system is the internal articulation of the body of truth, and in turn this body of truth belongs to the ostensive logos.

And yet, the ostensive logos is not a mere repetition or duplicate of the original revelation; it is a showing forth logos, but in an “effort” to show. Thus, for example, when Apollinaris taught that the Word of God Incarnate was the rational soul of Christ, the Church rejected that idea not for “scientific” reasons, but simply showing that, if it were so, Incarnation would conflict with Redemption, because what was redeemed was only what was assumed, and therefore, by Christ not having a human soul, it would not have been redeemed. To have shown the unity between Incarnation and Redemption was an effort of the ostensive logos. And precisely because it is “effort” it can unfold as science. The science of revelation, insofar as science, is the unfolding of a previous effort of the logos. Only supported on this effort can the “showing” (Sp. mostración) unfold itself in its “demonstration” (Sp. demostración) proper to theologic science. In other words, by showing that revealed truth is a “body” it can {33} then be explained in the form of a “system”. Theologic science, therefore, rests upon the prior showing of the corporeity of revelation. As such, the unity of the scientific logos is founded on the unity of the prescientific ostensive logos.

Thus, the unity of this ostensive logos is perceived in the mere start of the effort that constitutes it. It is not a concatenation of reasons more or less general and abstract, but the dynamism of a faith, which encompasses, and expresses the whole ambit of belief, and which when doing so, shows us the more or less precise characteristics of each of its own points. The apprehension of the totality of the ambit of faith has a determining primacy over each one of its own concrete moments. Because of this, the dynamism of this logos is special: it can only apprehend and express each point of belief by referring it to the rest. This is precisely what St. Paul called “ana-logy” (logos referred to another, in respectivity to it). The determination of each point as it functions within this analogy is what constitutes the “sense”. Sense is the characteristic of each moment of faith insofar as determined by its reference to the rest. Then, by this internal implication of analogy and sense, we can say that the ostensive logos is inscribed in, and moved by the religious sense of faith. The unity of the ostensive logos is the analogical unity of the sense of revelation. Scientific theology does nothing but conceptualize this sense. For this reason it is subservient to this sense in all its steps and moments.

Upon what does this religious sense rest? Not on a vague sentimentality; it rests on the living apprehension of the logos that reveals, of revelation. The scientific logos, I was saying, rests on an ostensive logos, and is an unfolding of it; now we see that the ostensive logos in turn is resting on the revealing logos, and is an analogical determination of its sense⁸. Thus, {34} the scientific logos and the ostensive logos are the forms of the logos we have called “theologic”. Therefore, it is the whole theologic logos, which has its fundament and unity in the logos that reveals. We must direct our attention to this logos, then, in order to apprehend the unity of the logos of the theós.

What is this unity? It is a unity essentially concrete. Concrete, above all, by reason of its content: it is the action with which Christ reveals his Father. But, in addition, it is also concrete by the form of its realization. It is not a series of propositions, but a series of live actions through which Christ transmits, from His life to the life of His immediate disciples, the truth of God and of man. The very propositions that Christ enunciated are moments of that live action. Because of that, their content, more or less conceptive, is essentially inscribed in a vital context, and therefore, possesses a live sense, which has to be vitally transferred to the rest. The logos that reveals has, by its own essence, a characteristic that at one and the same time is vital, conceptive, and historical: it is formally and intrinsically real, vital, and historical. These three characteristics are not three vicissitudes of revelation, but its intrinsic moments. And only because of this, in its live transmission, its sense is apprehended in an effort, which is as much vital as conceptive, and historical. And for the same reason the scientific logos is co-essentially vital, hermeneutic, and conceptive (speculative).

Now, Is this unity of the logos that reveals a mere arbitrary chance of God? Not at all. Revelation, in the sense we have explained, is the co-living of Christ with men, and therefore, the structure of man belongs essentially, and formally to revelation, to the logos that reveals. By virtue of this, its unity remits beyond the very logos that reveals to something more radical, which I will call theological logos. Underneath the theologic logos {35} (scientific and ostensive) is the logos that reveals; and underneath the logos that reveals is the theological logos itself.

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¹ Add the hypertrophy of converting Christianity into a social doctrine of the Church rather than into a transformation of society (note by X. Zubiri).
² Irenæus of Lyon, Démonstration de la prédication apostolique, ch. 3, translated from the Armenian with notes by J. Barthoulot, in R. Graffin - F. Nau, Patrologia orientalis, vol. 12, Paris, 1919, p. 758.
³ Irenæus of Lyon, ibid., ch. 3, p. 758.
⁴ “I embark on this certainly immense task by its amplitude and the labor it requires, but incomparably beautiful: to write down the whole of theology. Not that polemical and subtle theology, which born a few centuries ago, is the one that almost exclusively concerns the schools, by which it received the name scholastic, but another more elegant and fruitful, which in the manner of erudite antiquity, i.e., taken out of the dialectical jungle and placed on the open field, is the only one, which has original and native resources required for its use and development” (translation by X. Zubiri); the quotation is from Dogmata theologica Dionysii Petavii (ed. by J.-B. Fournials, Paris, 1865, p. 1).
⁵ Distinguish between exegesis and biblical theology (note by X. Zubiri).
⁶ Something arguable, of course (note by X. Zubiri).
⁷ Historicity as a moment of reality, and as a moment of knowing (note by X. Zubiri).
⁸ We must recognize the place for the kerymatic logos (note by X. Zubiri).