The focus of Christian philosophy upon being as existence and hence as active, described in the previous chapter, had profound implications for the understanding of the relation of the human person to God, and first of all for the sense of the divine itself. In Plato’s more passive vision the divine was less than such highest ideas as the One or the Good, which rather were passive objects of contemplation. Taking being in a more active sense allowed Aristotle to appreciate the supreme Being as divine life, that is, as thinking and precisely as thinking on thinking itself, that is, as subsistent thought, openness or lucidity.

Nevertheless, Iqbal makes a key contribution to any appropriate reading of a systematic Christian philosophy by reminding one that the notion of God is not a product of human reasoning. Rather, as seen above through the archeology of human knowledge, the Absolute is there as the center of human life from its earliest totemic beginnings; it flowers as humankind achieves a mythic mode of thought; and it is the very beginning of metaphysics as founded by Parmenides. According to Augustine’s dialectic of love, it is not we who first loved God, but He who first loved us: from him come life and light and love.

In this light, one need not fear that an affirmation of man, whether by personal freedom or technological means, will be detrimental to religion; rather human life becomes the proclamation of God’s wisdom, power, love and providence. On this basis, Thomas proceeds systematically to shed the requirement not only of an external agent intellect, but even of a special divine illumination for each act of reason, as well the notion of seeds of possibility for all new realizations. All of these were ways by which earlier Christian-Platonism had attempted to preserve a role for God in human progress. Instead, humans are seen as the sacrament of God, His sign and symbol, His creative vice-regents and hence as artists in, and of, this world. Therefore, Thomas does not hesitate to affirm of human beings whatever is required in order that, properly according to their own nature and in their own name, they be able to fulfill these roles in this world. This is the proper autonomy of humans in God; it is a way that truly leads home to God.

The existential sense of being and its openness to the infinite has allowed more recently for a renewed appreciation of Thomas’s structure of participation by which human autonomy is an affirmation, rather than a derogation, of God. In any limited being, its essence or nature constitutes by definition a limited and limiting capacity for existence: by this the being is capable of this much existence, but of no more. Such an essence must then be distinct from existence because, of itself, existence bespeaks only affirmation, not negation or limitation.

But a being whose nature or essence is not existence, but only a capacity for existence, could not of itself or by its own nature justify its possession and exercise of existence. The Parmenidean principle of noncontradiction will not countenance existence coming from non-existence, for then being would be reducible to non-being or nothing. Such beings, then, are dependent precisely for their existence, that is, precisely as beings or existents.

This dependence, however, cannot be upon another limited being similarly composed of a distinct essence and existence, for such a being would be equally dependent, in turn. The multiplication of such dependencies, even infinitely, would but multiply, rather than answer, the question of how composite beings with a limiting essence nevertheless have existence. Hence, limited beings composed of existence and essence must depend upon another being for their existence, that is, must participate in another. That "other" must ultimately be radically different, that is, it must be precisely incomposite being whose essence or nature, rather than being distinct from and limiting its existence, is identically existence. This is Being Itself — the total infinite to which Iqbal refers as making possible finite being and thinking.

For his sense of participation some early Church Fathers placed Plato among the prophets. The understanding of participation was clarified and enriched by Aristotle’s sense of being as active, by the work of his great medieval Islamic commentators and by the Christian existential sense of being. The resulting metaphysics provides the systematic clarification needed by Iqbal’s insights regarding religion for the increasingly complex structure of the physical and social environment in which we live. In the face of the dilemma of human hubris vs religious passivity in our days this provides indispensable help in responding to the needs of those devoted in faith. It can aid them to understand better the relation of their increasingly complex life to God and thereby assist them in living their faith in our times. In a word, it is a way to come home, and to be at home, religiously in our times.

He notes five things about the beings which we observe by our intellect as it works with our senses: (1) they undergo change, (2) they cause change, (3) they begin and cease to be, (4) they realize their being or goodness to greater and lesser degrees, and (5) they are oriented to goals beyond themselves. Each of these five factors manifests that these beings are limited and hence that each is a composite of an essence or nature which is a capacity for a corresponding and proportionate existence or act. This internal composition or dynamism shows that they are not self-sufficient, for essence as potential or capacity for existence cannot provide the actual existence itself. Hence, such beings must depend for their existence upon the One which is not composite and which therefore, as noted by Parmenides, is unchanging, unique and unlimited. That is, the many beings we encounter are predicated upon Being Itself (Ipsum Esse) which is simple, and which alone is absolute or self-sufficient. As absolute it is distinct from all else, which in turn can exist only by being related to or participating in that which is absolute or self-sufficient. This is the central structure of the reasoning of the classical "five ways".

But our concern here is not to suppose the existence of God to be unknown. As seen in the above chapters, from the original totemic times God has always been central to human consciousness. What is taking place in this very first step in Thomas’s Summary of Theology (or Summa Theologica), is rather relating all, including humankind, back to God. Here we shall not look at the five ways as answers to an unreal doubt about whether God exists. Thomas was responding to the first scientific question for an Aristotelian science, namely, whether the subject of the science exists. In existential terms this is to ask whether this issue has meaning for life or how it relates to the clarification of the source, the inner character and the goal of human life.

Plato had been able to analyze this only externally in terms of the relation of the many to the one and on the basis of formal causality. Combining Aristotle’s insight regarding internal structures with the Christian understanding of being as existence, Thomas was able to carry out an internal analysis. He was able to identify the internal structure constituted by the existence and essence of multiple beings which in turn manifests them to be participations, that is, effects by active or efficient causality of the unparticipated One.

In these terms the first three are ways in which changing, contingent beings are seen to be from God, to depend upon and to manifest his creative power. First, as caused they emerge into being; second, as causes they reflect in their power the creative force of the creator; third, as contingent they manifest in every facet of their existence the triumph of being over nothingness.

The fourth way points out that each level of these realizations of being, with their proper level of dignity and truth, goodness and beauty, manifests and proclaims the absolute goodness and beauty of the divine. This is the most mystical of the ways because it bespeaks not merely that all is from the divine, but that all beings manifest God, live in the divine — and especially that God lives in them. To perceive the beauty of a sunset is to see thereby something of the beauty of God. With this awareness, to see the face of another, whether in tears or in joy, is through them and indeed in them to see the face of God. This is the deep religious insight of a St. Francis in which all of nature is brother and sister because all bespeak the divine, or of Christ for whom to give a cup of water to the least of one’s brethren is to give it to God.

The fifth way is especially dynamic in its awareness that life does not end in any finite reality, which is to say that there are no dead ends. Rather all things point ahead and relay our attention onward to God. We can love others and life itself fully and without limit, for all share in and lead toward the infinite, subsistant love from which we derive and toward which we are directed in all that we are and do. The life we live from God, in God and toward God is act, meaning and love without limit.

It will be noted that having carried out the a posteriori reasoning from effect to cause in order to relate all things to God enables one in turn to proceed in an a priori manner from cause to effect. Unfortunately, ‘a priori’ has come to suggest arbitrariness, whereas etymologically it means proceeding on the basis of that which comes first and is most basic and hence most established, namely, proceeding from a cause to its effects. The importance of this second, a priori, phase for metaphysics cannot be over-emphasized, for only by understanding being on the basis of that which is Self-sufficient or Absolute and which transcends all else can we gain truly basic insight into being as such and hence into the limited, multiple, participating beings we are and among which we live. This was seen by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, all of whom developed works in metaphysics which proceeded from the absolute to the relative. Indeed they considered this synthetic procedure to be the proper method for metaphysics.

The realist character of Thomas’s thought and his insistence upon the use of a scientific method for metaphysics led him to insist upon beginning this science a posteriori upon finite being as its subject. However, once the cause of that subject -- the Incomposite or Unparticipated Being -- was discovered all could be seen more deeply and more richly through the awareness of that Absolute on which all depends, and of all things precisely as dependent thereupon through the radical totality of the creative act. In this light the five ways open the way to a broad and deep range of a priori reflection and insight.

To begin with, note must be taken of the extent of the dependence of participated beings on unparticipated Being. A preliminary, but not provisional, instance of great importance for our theme is the dependent character of matter — which the Greeks had presupposed to be a given, unquestioned and, hence, unexplained. In this light action consisted in the transformation of matter, that is, in its successive shaping according to different forms. This process ultimately came full cycle and would begin once again. In this perspective, the individual had no further purpose or meaning than to continue the cycle; nothing was radically new, unique or hence personal.

Above, we saw that early Christian thought directed attention to matter and to its origin from God. A priori reflection in the light of this transcendent source and cause of all can provide further understanding. As simple and not composed of a distinct limiting essence and existence, the Absolute Being Itself is unlimited. Hence, no other reality can be equally original with it, for to have two such beings would mean that being would be had only partially by each. In that case, each would in fact be limited and composite; there would be no Absolute. But then, the question concerning the origin of limited or composite beings would have no answer: not in themselves and not in a simple, absolute and transcendent cause. There would remain only Parmenides’s "all impossible way", in which being is non-being, an abyss not of being but of nothingness.

Since nothing can be equally original with the Absolute, for their whole reality all else must participate in the Absolute fullness of perfection. Each, to the full extent of its being, must derive from, and hence image in a partial manner, the One. While different from every other limited being, each one constitutes with the others an ever unfolding manifestation of Being itself.

Though there are more beings, however, there could never and need never be more of being than the One Absolute unlimited plenitude. The checks one writes do not multiply the money one possesses; nor does one lose knowledge in sharing it, but rather multiplies its instances. Thus, no matter how many participate in the One, it remains ever the Plenitude of Being and is in no sense diminished. The simple, incomposite being does not depend upon composite beings; on the contrary, composite beings depend entirely upon the incomposite One. But participations are not competitors, nor do they draw down the capital on which they depend; rather, others are cooperators and together all are able better to manifest the divine in this world. Human society is then not a distraction from God, but a means of His presence.

This participated and caused character of being applies to all limited realities and to the components thereof; hence, it applies also to matter whose proper reality is that of a relation of potency to form as its act, without which it could have neither meaning nor reality. As a constituent principle of the essences of physical beings, matter, too, must share in their reality and to that degree in their creation. Just as there can be no matter existing independently of form, neither can there be matter which, with that form, does not constitute an essence and participate to the full extent of its reality in the Absolute.

In this total sense, then, the creative source transcends the created effect in every facet of its being. Conversely and correlatively, limited beings as participating all their being in the divine are constituted fully, with all their capacities for being and acting according to the full perfection of their nature. God’s power is manifested not in making up for deficiencies in his creatures through causing their effects or supplementing their intellectual abilities as in, e.g., an Occasionalism, but through endowing his creatures with the ability to seek indissociably both their perfection and his glory to the full extent of their nature.

By reflection, then, it is possible to trace back the characteristics of my life to gain some sense of the nature of the giver of that life. First, my life must be not from another individual who is contrary to me as one thing to another, for this could give me not my identity, but only something distinct and alien to me. Hence, this source of my being must be not another being of a limited and contrary nature, but a unique and limitless source able to be the origin of all individuals. Similarly, as I examine my relationships to others, I find that the deepest and most humane among them — friendship and marriage, for example — are not limited and measured, but precisely open beyond place or time, health or economic condition. In contrast to legal agreements, I make promises to friends which are not conditioned by time; the commitment in marriage is specific only in its rejections of all limiting conditions: "for richer or poorer, in sickness or health, till death do us part." This proclaims that the context for life together transcends all particularities of place and time.

Further, as I survey my life I see that it is ever open to new and innovative responses to others in the most concrete and seemingly repetitive circumstances of our daily life. What I eat for breakfast and those with whom I eat it may be identical, but breakfast is never the same. Our life is not lived according to a scientific formula with everlasting sameness, but is endlessly new and unfolding as we explore together the many ways of being concerned and being sorrowful, being amazed and being delighted.

This manifests that human life is lived in terms not of the limitations of concrete things or of abstract formulae and laws, but of an infinity of Being which transcends us in life and enables us truly to be free and creative. Though the person is not God, the phenomenologists point out that the properly human characteristics of conscious life manifest that it is lived in an order which derives from, and is directed toward, the living God.

Reflection on the fourth of Thomas’s five ways to God, but now from an a priori perspective, suggests how this outer transcendent and absolutely perfect reality should be conceived. Were it to stand in opposition to man, were its action to be an intrusion upon human life, were its prerogatives to be at the expense of human perfection, then it would disrupt the Confucian vision of harmony and subvert its philosophy. But is this the case?

A disruptive relationship between outer and inner transcendence, between divine grace and self perfection, might arise also not in human nature but in the process of its development if this were to be conceived as other than a single process of self-realization. But again, that would appear to be a philosophical impossibility, for how could some alien intrusion be called self-development. In the long Catholic tradition — the Christian thesis and synthesis — just as human nature is not corrupted but has its perfection as a manner of participation in divine perfection, so does its development and self-perfection. God acts throughout this process. Just as in creation his action does not substitute for human substance, but makes it to be, so in acting in the process of human perfection He does not substitute for human activity, but capacitates the human work of self-perfection and self-realization.

In brief, God does not subvert human reality as free and self-responsible; indeed, it would be a contradiction if human perfection were not its own self-perfection. Rather, as the unique and unchanging Absolute Being, God stands definitively against non-being and imperfection, creates humans, makes them to be, and enables them to undertake their magnificent process of self-realization. It is life in Him that enables one to be in one’s own human way.

Our difficulties in seeing this come from our tendency to view God as a human being and, hence, to introduce two similar operative agents in our self-realization. It is important that we distinguish the two and let God be God. The causality of his infinite nature is the creative action of making me and my activities simply to be, while I, in my limitation, can shape them according to this or that character and relationship. All is from God as first cause or creator; all is also from humans as second causes or causes of change. The two are not incompatible, much less are they conflictual; neither substitutes for the other. The late President John F. Kennedy said it well in his inaugural address: "In this world, God’s work is man’s own."

In this way, the Christian vision sees only God as absolutely perfect and, hence, self-sufficient. Humans are complete, but are not abandoned in their created nature. Their nature is to seek their self-realization in a process that responds to the power of the divine. By an absolute and self-sufficient power they are made to stand in their own right. Thus, one must not be manipulated to lesser purposes by any person or group. The Transcendent Creator has made humans to be fully human, autonomous and hence equal; their dignity and rights are firmly founded in this divine origin, which, in turn, they reflect. Thereby, all human persons are precious beyond question, and it is the duty of people acting in consort as society to protect that dignity and promote those rights, both individually and socially.

The fifth of Thomas’s five ways to God, when subsequently reflected upon in an a priori manner, opens in a special way to a dialogue among religions by taking up the question of the goal of life and founding the sense of harmony by love. This does not set man as the ultimate goal in relation to which God is merely the source and support; rather God is one’s ultimate end or goal. Aristotle articulated part of this vision in his treatment of human happiness or fulfillment at the beginning and end of his ethics. Happiness, he said, consists in contemplation as the highest realization of the highest human power (intellect) with regard to the highest reality, namely, life divine. This is not the abandonment, but the fulfillment of human life; it is the point at which the human person lives most fully.

In this context, one can see the true character of evil — or let evil be evil. It is not merely an unfortunate flaw in human perfection which a person comes to know and bear, but which is nobody else’s business. If our life is lived in response to God’s love and as a way toward reunion with our transcendent personal Source and Goal, to abandon goodness is to reject the divine gift and to refuse the divine rendezvous. It is a personal rejection whose significance goes beyond oneself to one’s absolute Source and Goal. This is to extend the Confucian universe of the gentlemen, from what is fitting or ugly in relation to one’s fellow humans, to that which is fitting vis a vis God as well. Further, this is not an affair between an individual alone and God for, as all are made in God’s image, to do evil or refuse good to the least of our brothers is to do so to God himself. Hence, as the Chinese tradition always sensed, to disrupt the harmony of the community is to disrupt harmony with heaven.

Here, we find the source of the ultimate seriousness of human life: the depth of evil when committed; the urgency of response to need where we can help; and the sublime, indeed divine, beauty of the simplest life lived in harmony with nature, man and God. As above, this religious vision evolves and carries forward the realm of which Confucius spoke. It unpacks this, surrounds it with contextual principles, and opens it to its ultimate import in a sublime sense of the harmony he so richly valued.

In some ways the religious message extends and intensifies the human vision. For it would speak not only of control, or of obedience of wife and children to husband and father, but would enjoin husbands to love their wives. It envisages these relations not merely as obligatory because they are imposed, but as imposed because they are freely and lovingly entered into. They are then not only obligations of justice, but implications of love. Finally, it does not leave all solely as the effect of the fallible will of a father, but puts this in the context of God as Father whose love and justice the human father is to imitate and to whom one has ultimate allegiance.

Indeed, this could imply even leaving father and mother in order to carry the love they first showed into a broader service of humankind. Such broadening of horizons relocates the issue of filial and unfilial behaviour in a richer and liberating context in which such aberrations as arbitrariness and self-centeredness on the part of parents can be transcended, and the essence of a child’s love for them can more amply be fulfilled in family and in society at large.

This opens the possibility of advancing the humanist Confucian sense of harmony by not restricting it merely to the adhesion of all the individuals in a family or society to the will of their one father or governor, but by grounding this relation within a liberating and expanding relation to the Infinite One. Over time, the former, more restrictively human perspective seems to lend itself to an autocratic style. Historically this seems indeed to have taken place and could have many particular causes. For example, it seems well established that at times, for reasons of political stability, an autocratic sense of harmony was officially promoted — which, of course, at first blush seems an easier way to run a family or nation.

Indeed, some would argue that the original sense of Confucius was rather that of a dynamic cohesion and cooperation of multiple elements within an harmonious whole. This certainly should be revived, but to do so it is important to search for the principles which would found, maintain and protect such an integrative sense of harmony from reductivist tendencies. Here, the sense of participation can be particularly helpful. For, if all were to be conceived simply in terms of human beings without anything transcending the father or governor, it would fall simply to the will power of father or governor to establish order and all would veer toward autocracy. To avoid this and enable all to tend freely toward their perfection, both individually and as a social whole, it is important that they be able to conceive their life in relation to an open and unlimited Transcendent Good as Source and Goal of all. By this all are united, enlivened and cohesive in the exercise of their freedom. This is most significant for the transition to democratic modes of life and enables the sense of harmony to become the dynamic basis for civic responsibility and social cohesion.

In view of this totality of the dependence of participating beings upon the Absolute, it is apparent that any insight concerning the nature of the absolute would contribute a radical elucidation regarding realities which participate therein. In order to make its contribution to this understanding a systematic philosophy must first prepare the language it will employ. In particular, any implication of limitation in human thought or expression must be removed from language concerning the Absolute.

We saw in the previous chapter that being as the subject of the science of metaphysics expressed only differentiated or limited beings. We saw also that differentiated and composite beings were participations in unlimited and incomposite Being. This has crucial implications for extending analogously the notion of being. As the subject of the science of metaphysics, being had analogously but properly been said of the entire range of finite beings. Metaphysics stated the existence of each being according to its limiting or defining essence or nature, i.e., each being is or exists according to (or to the extent of) its own essence or nature. This had the form of a four term analogy of proper proportionality, a proportion of proportions: "the existence of A : the essence of A :: the existence of B : the essence of B." On the basis of the participation of such composite subjects in their incomposite or unlimited cause the analogous range of being can now be extended from finite to infinite being. This adds to the four terms above the proportion ":: the existence of God : the essence of God."

The above concerns the construction of analogy in a metaphysics whose subject is limited being, from which it moves to its infinite cause. Analogy is no less necessary as a metaphysics moves from the Absolute to the finite; otherwise, existence would be taken to mean only the Absolute and the Parmenidean rejection of differentiation would be its last, rather than its opening, word.

In both parts of metaphysics it must be remembered that thought is a human activity and its terminology a human creation. This does not mean that it is only about humans or other limited beings; in fact, it is characteristic of beings which know, as distinct from those which do not, that they can react on the basis of what things are in themselves or as object, rather than simply on the basis of their own subjective conditions. Nevertheless, the classic dictum that "whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver" applies also to knowledge. This is particularly significant when from our perspective as participated and related beings we speak of the Plenitude of Being that is Unparticipated and Absolute. For this reason along with the positive and analogous language mentioned above — the classical via positiva or affirmativa — there is a second or negative way of speaking — the classical via negativa — which denies of the Absolute that mode of expression which reflects the composite nature of humans who speak of God and the limitations of their cognitive capacities to know and to speak. In order to say that the Absolute or the Plenitude of being is good, or even simply that it is, we must use more than one term and unite these in a judgment. As composite, however, this cannot be the nature of that One, which the structure of participation showed to be precisely Incomposite. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to deny that the composite character of our speech applies to the One.

This is not an alternate, but a concomitant, to the positive way; both must be used in every statement of Incomposite Being. About this we must be clear. One cannot deny the existence or goodness of the Unparticipated without rejecting the Absolute. On the contrary, one must follow the positive way and affirm that the Absolute exists, which is to say that existence in its original state is realized absolutely. What is denied in the negative way is simply that the absolute exists according to the composite mode which inevitably characterizes all human expressions of the Absolute. Hence, the negative way does not mean that the Absolute does not exist, or even that it is not non-existent for that could reduce God to the minimal realization of existence. The negative way is not about the Absolute at all, but about the human mode of expressing it.

These reflections upon language provide direction for reflection upon the nature of the Plenitude of Being and Life. Aristotle in his Metaphysics spoke of the categories or divisions of being as basically different ways of being. He distinguished ten categories, of which one was substance, the others accidents or attributes of substance. Each substance differed from every other substance; the same was true of the attributes or accidents which divided being between themselves and in relation to substance. Aristotle’s concern was to codify what Hindu philosophy would call the differentiated world of names and forms, intending thereby to lead the mind to the supreme instance of being, through relation to which, by a pros hen ("to that") analogy, all could be most profoundly unified and comprehended. In this categorical or predicamental sense attributes are by nature limited and differentiated. By their realization in the substance the individual develops or becomes more perfect, that is, participates more of being. There is, of course, no question of such categories being applied to the undifferentiated or Absolute.

There is, however, another sense of attribute, one that is transcendental rather than predicamental or categorical. Such attributes apply to all beings; they are the attributes of being as such. They are not really distinct one from another or from being; they do not add reality to being. Neither are they distinct by what is technically termed a major distinction of the mind as are genera and species, because that would imply some other real composition in being. Rather, each state explicates or "unfolds" the very reality of being, making explicit what was actually but only implicitly stated by the term "being" as that which is. It must be emphasized that they are not additions to being. They are not attributes which are beings, but characteristics of the reality of being as such, stating simply what it means to be. These attributes include unity as stressed by Parmenides and later Plotinus, truth which is found in Aristotle and Augustine, and the good which was central to the main body of Plato’s work. They are reflected in the classic Hindu trilogy: sat, cit, ananda (existence, consciousness, bliss).

To these as modes of being there are two types of approach. These are not the a posteriori and the a priori approaches noted above, by which one proceeds along the way to and from God as transcendent. Rather they relate to God as immanent in creation, especially in the human person as his image. Here the two approaches are rather those of theory and practice. The first looks to the nature of the supreme Being, "the life divine" of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and its attributes of unity, truth and goodness and learns thereby more of the character of finite beings in time. The other looks into the experience of these beings precisely as images of God, that is, as living their freedom in time and thereby constituting history. In this latter, more phenomenological approach one looks into the human consciousness to learn of the wonders of God and his manifestation. The former approach can be neatly structured and clear in its lines of reasoning, though, of course, inexhaustible in meaning. The latter is myriad in the diversity of human experience from which it derives. It calls for aesthetic unification in order to achieve a synthesis or unity, but it speaks immediately to our being and indeed to our personal and social life in time.

What follows will reflect this same order for each transcendental attribute, beginning with the systematic or theoretical approach for reasons of technical clarity and then following with more phenomenological notes in order to bring out the significance of the unity, truth and goodness of God for human life.

In order to develop a systematic list of such attributes, Thomas studied the different types of judgments of existence. If absolute or concerned with being itself a judgment can be affirmative: being is being; or negative: being is not shared with non-being, nor is it partially non-being, which, as Parmenides had noted, simply was not. This indivision of being is its unity or oneness: being as such is one.

As characteristics of being as such, unity, truth, and goodness state or unfold the reality of the incomposite, unparticipated or infinite Being in which they are found absolutely. To make progress in awareness of the absolutely One, True, and Good we may look phenomenologically into our experience of self-identity, knowing, and willing. In doing so, however, we must be sure to remove those elements of composition or potency which mark these spiritual acts as limited in their human realizations.

Moreover, religion is a human virtue, a mode of human action which conceives, unfolds, lives and celebrates the sense of life and meaning. Kant’s thought provides a place for this at the very center of human freedom and, hence, of human life.

But in a religious vision being is primarily and in principle

- not multiple, limited and changing, but One, unlimited and eternal;

- not material and potential, but spirit and fullness of Life;

- not obscure and obdurate, but Light and Truth; and

- not inert and subject to external movers, but creative Goodness, Freedom and Love.

This is the foundational Christian and indeed the general sense of being. The work of reason carried out by philosophy in such a culture would be sensitized to look for this — always by natural reason — in the human experience of being and to read human experience in this light. The human person is not, as in Aristotle, the servant of nature, but the image of God. Human life is understood then primarily not in terms of physical change, but of Divine light and love.

Divine light and love, however, are not distant and unreachable. Christ, like Confucius and others, laid down concrete patterns in which this has been lived and experienced by peoples through the centuries. They are classical instances of the traditions in which we are born and from which we receive our trove of self-under-standing and our sensibility to others, our ability to conceive our world and to communicate with others in love and concern. Thus, our experience of life lived in these terms as persons and com-munities provides insight into these three characteristics or properties of being and of God, which in turn enable us better to shape our lives.

This may add something to the Encyclical Faith and Reason. In n. 46 it spoke of the relation of revelation and reason as a circle. One begins from revelation and ends up in theology as the deeper and more scientific understanding of revelation. Between these two poles, however, there is philosophy, carried out by the light of reason which works out its principles and draws its conclusions, both of which are universal in import. What is said here does not disagree and would want to stress the autonomy of the human person and the work of human reason. But here we would stress also the impact of the culture, and hence of the religious context, upon the work of reason. For philosophy done in a humanist and individualist culture justice is the supreme value and social ethics and personal moral growth are interpreted in its terms. However, where a religious sense is present and the family and community rather than only the self is the focus, the virtue of love comes forward and becomes the form of all the virtues. This is reflected to some degree in the Encyclical’s adversion to the list of essential issues which would not be taken up in philosophy except for its religious context. Chapter X below will attempt to thematize this role of culture in order that it not remain merely contextual to philosophy, but rather contribute importantly to the meaning of philosophy.

If then, philosophy in the Christian context looks not to the material order, but to the divine as its paradigm of reality, in order to unpack the effect of the Christian sense of transcendence upon philosophy we would do well to examine more closely the distinctive characteristics of its divine paradigm. This suggests examining serially the enrichment that the Christian notion of the Trinity brings to the philosophical sense of being, articulated according to its properties of one, true and good. For this the Christian mysteries refer to corresponding divine Persons as source and goal.

Our goal here will not be to define these as properties of being, or a fortiori to develop a theology of the Trinity. It will be rather to sample some of the ways in which the Christian cultural context has made possible an enrichment and deepening of the properly philosophical insight into the properties of being and, hence, into the meaning of being both in itself and as lived by God and man. Further, because this religious vision of the Transcendent has been at the center of a people’s self-understanding as they have faced the problems of living together in society, it relates as well to social life and the modes of living together in freedom.

1. The Nature of Unity. With the mind thus opened for Absolute Being and a method for allowing its life to be explicated through reflection, it is now possible to sample the nature of the insights which serial systematic reflection of this type can contribute to awareness of the Absolute and of our participation therein.

We have seen in totem and myth the unitive implications of this for one’s relation to one’s fellows and to nature. A systematic philosophy of participation develops this understanding by clarifying that the many participated beings are not simply divisions of place in what previously was undifferentiated, for that could mean a simple juxtaposition or contiguity of things. Nor is it merely the type of dependence that obtains between brothers in a family who remain ever related by consanguinity and origin. The formal effect of the participative, creative causality of Being Itself is the constitution of differentiated and participating beings. But this is not merely as individuals in a species, for then the concerns of the species would remain supreme and the individual person could be sacrificed thereto. Rather, the effect of participation as creation is the very being or existence which constitutes the human person indissociably as both unique in oneself and related to all others.

This creative causality continues to be exercised as long as the creatures continue to exist; this is called conservation. Thus, the unity of all participating beings is predicated, not upon a fact of the past, but upon their presently and actually participating in the existence or actuality of the life of the All-perfect. This is ever causally and creatively active in them to the full extent of their being. This is the deeper sense which occasionalism strives to appreciate, but, it would seem, without so adequate a sense of the autonomy of creatures and their proper causality.

2. A Religious Phenomenology of Unity. What was said above about matter being caused means that all reality whatsoever in, or of, being is the dynamic expression of that which in itself is simple. This is the "discretio divina" or divine dispersion of which Thomas speaks. It constitutes a plurality of participated beings related as contraries among themselves such that the being of one is not that of another. Hence, the two beings together express more of being than either one alone.

Nicholas of Cusa would take this as a principle and it is of the greatest import in our times not only of migration and dispersion of humankind, but of communication and immigration. This creates pluralist national and global societies in which diverse peoples must interact closely. Cusa would point out that their participated character does not constitute them as opposed to each other, but rather as mutually complimentary. If all are to be seen in terms of the whole, now referred to as a "global" perspective, then the "other" pertains to my meaning and intelligibility. Nevertheless, the participants do not constitute more of being than the Absolute itself, but only more beings, more instances of being.

Since finite or limited beings do, in fact, exist, their reality must be a participation in the infinite, eternal and unchanging One, the "external" transcendent which they reflect in every facet of their being. It is as sharing in this absolute nature that limited beings are not mere functions of other realities, but subsist in their own right. In making them to be as participations in Himself, the creator makes them to stand in, though not by, themselves, to have a proper identity which is unique and irreducible. This is the foundation of Boethius’s classical definition of the person as a subject of a rational nature. Inasmuch as they reflect the divine, such beings are unique and unable to be assumed by some larger entity — even by the divine. Because they reflect the Absolute and Transcendent, they exist in their own right.

At the same time, because all limited beings are made to be by the same unique Transcendent Being, the very fact of their participated and individual uniqueness, rather than alienating them, relates them one to another. If to be is to exist in myself as a creature of God, it is identically to be related both to Him and to all other manifestations of His being. In the light of the Transcendent, being means to be radically myself and irreducible to nonbeing — whether this reduction be in the form of my own being, of subjection to another, or of merger as a mere member of a group. By the very same participation in the One divine source and goal of all, to be myself is equally and indissociably to be related to others. One is not compromised, but enhanced by the other; I achieve my highest identity in loving service of others in need.

This, in turn, founds the harmony of nature. It is the reason also, why to live in harmony with nature and other persons is to live fully. Within this harmony it implies, as Jefferson wrote in the "Declaration of Independence": "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The task of the social order is not to diminish this or even to grant it, but to recognize, protect and promote it.

1. The Nature of Truth. The second characteristic of being is truth, which in Eastern thought is reflected in the term cit. As a characteristic of being as such and hence of any being, it explicates being as open to consciousness or able to be known by intellect. In positive terms being is intelligible, in negative terms it is unconcealed. This much can be known by reflection upon the ability of the intellect to make Parmenides’s all englobing judgment: being is, non-being is not. Inasmuch as the intellect can make this judgment about being, being as such must be open to intellect or be intelligible. This is not an adjunct to, but formally includes, the unity of being. What is open to intellect or is intelligible cannot be other than or alongside being in its identity or unity, for then what would be known would not be being, but simply nothing. Truth is not another actuality than being in its unity or identity; it is expression and proclamation — the shout, as it were, of the triumph of being over nothingness.

In any case, the Unparticipated as Truth or total lucidity in which all participate for their being is the foundation of the intelligibility of the universe. It is the basis of the conviction that the path of intelligibility is the path of reality and vice versa. In that light the discovery of sense or meaning is not a mere intellectual pastime of solitary minds, but the way to share with others more deeply in the real. If so then the rule of reason, especially in the broad sense of wisdom when enriched but not abrogated by love, is the sole rule that is truly humane both in personal and in public life.

2. A Religious Phenomenology of Truth. Truth unfolds the unity of being. Unfortunately, too often unity has been seen in terms that are static, reductionist and even commercial. Property, for example, has been looked upon as the right to withhold possessions. Rights have been seen as licenses to turn inward along the lines of an all-consuming egoism of freedom as choice and in terms of my exclusive interests. In that light, my being comes to be looked upon as a possession to be acquired and conserved or, worse still, to be bartered for something of equal quantity or quality.

Were the sense of reality essentially material, the paradigm would be that of blind and senseless atoms colliding randomly and chaotically one with another. Then, the laws of conservation of energy and commercial exchange would dictate that we guard what we have, share it only when we can get equal return and exploit others to the degree possible. In this case, Hobbes’s descriptions of man as wolf to man and as short, brutish and mean would not be far from the mark.

In contrast, a culture marked by a sense of outer Transcendence is quite the opposite. The original and originating instance is being as pure knowledge or, better, Truth. As imminently one and simple, there is in us not so much division as unity between our capabilities and their actuation, between our minds and the ideals they generate. All is one: the infinite capacity is fully actual, the infinite power to know is one with its ideas or insights, the infinite knower is identically the known, i.e., infinite being: in a word, subject and object, mental capacity and mental output are identically the one act of being.

Such a Transcendent is then not so much all-knowing as wisdom or knowledge itself, and, to the degree that knowledge implies a process of achievement or a grasp of something other, it would be more appropriate to speak not of infinite knowledge, but of truth that is all-perfect or Truth Itself. Being is Truth in its prime instance, and, hence, also in each of its participations to the degree that they participate in the One, which is to say, to the full extent of their being.

Being and life then are not dark and hidden, mysterious and foreboding; on the contrary, what light is to our eye, being is to our spirit. Being makes sense to the mind, and, where sufficiently in act, it inevitably "sees" or knows. Primarily, it is subsistent knowledge and truth; by extension it is our limited participations thereof.

One cannot overstress the degree which philosophy, done in a religious context, is sensitized to the intelligibility or truth of being. It gives immediate and special resonance to Parmenides’ opening statement upon initiating metaphysics: "Being is; nonbeing is not" and "It is the same thing to think and to be." All being is open, indeed is openness, to intellect; correlatively, what is radically closed to mind simply is not and cannot be.

In the context of the transcendent Truth itself, this resonates vibrantly. Philosophy moves confidently — if not always correctly — to overcome obscurity and fear; science races forward, confident that each step of insight constitutes solid progress in humankind’s exploration of the universe; problems are not destructive dilemmas and permanent contradictions, but challenges to be solved, opportunities for new knowledge. The mind thrives in such a context; the creativity of the human genius is invigorated and moves forward.

Further, truth speaks itself as word; indeed it proclaims itself. To attempt to hide the truth would image Cronus in the ancient Greek myths who attempted to swallow his children rather than allow them to enter into the light. This is contrary to the nature of being and as violent as attempting to stop the ocean tide or to force a river to flow upstream; in the long run eventually it must be unsuccessful. Being is fundamentally truth and, hence, openness, manifestation and communication. This is the nature of reality itself and, hence, the key to the self-realization of both individuals and peoples.

In the image of the Son who as Word expresses all that the Father is, and like Logos as the first principle through whom all is created, being is open, expressive and creative. Just as a musician or poet unfolds the many potential meanings of a single theme, so being as truth unfolds its meaning and communicates itself to others. Here, the human intellect plays an essential role by conceiving new possibilities, planning new structures, and working out new paths for humankind in the pilgrimage of life with others. Justice, too, is implied in the sense of true judgments in the public forum about being. Such judgments must honor and express the sacredness of beings in their unity or self-identities and promote their mutual union one with another. This is the essence of the role of leadership in family, business and society.

It was the dark plot of Goebbels to harness the new 20th century technology of communication to a restrictive and hence false ideology in order to create the modern means for mind control. The philosopher’s dream is rather that these means can be engaged by the free and enquiring mind in its fascination with truth, communication and cooperation. This is the key to the implementation of a modern democratic society.

1. The Nature of the Good. The third characteristic of being is goodness, which in Eastern thought is reflected in the term ananda. This is a still more explicit affirmation of unity and truth, for what is and is able to be known can also be appreciated in its own perfection and as perfective of others. In this sense being relates to will as being desirable, that is, as good. More directly each being, in its unity as undivided with non-being, seeks and holds to its own being or perfection; in this sense being can be said to be love of its own perfection.

In this explicitation of the unparticipated, incomposite Being there is also to be found the intelligibility of the creative or participative character of the Absolute. Note that what is sought is intelligibility, not necessity. From Plotinus through Spinoza to Hegel, philosophers sought for a necessary and hence necessitating understanding of the creative act itself. They succeeded only in generating a vision neither of human freedom nor of Absolute and Unconditioned being. For to attain such a goal they made the effect to be necessary rather than free, and the source to be dependent upon its effects for its perfection rather than self-sufficient. What should be sought is not a necessitating reason for the Absolute’s creativity, but only intelligibility for actively participating or sharing its perfection.

2. A Religious Phenomenology of the Good. Such goodness as the third property of being corresponds in the Christian Trinity to the Holy Spirit as the love of Father and Son. It expresses the conjunction and fulfillment of unity and truth in celebration of the perfection of being or, where imperfect, in the search for that perfection or fulfillment. Holiness is precisely this devoted holding by being to its perfection or goodness where possessed or its search when not yet attained.

Still more dynamically, the originating Transcendent Spirit implies that being is transforming, innovating and creative. Received as gift, our life must in turn be passed on by sharing it with others in love. Even death — whether analogously through suffering in the image of the cross or physically at the end of one’s days — does not overwhelm, but becomes a way to new life. The Apostle Paul expressed well the combination of irreducible confidence and indomitable hope implied by this sense of life lived in the context of the Absolute and Transcendent:

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies (II Cor. 4:7-10).

 

A philosophy of the person as image of this transcendent divine principle, lived in a cultural context sensitized by the dynamic Trinitarian interrelations of persons, transforms the philosophical sense of the person in the world. One remains part of nature, but rather than being subject thereto as a mere producer or consumer, one is a creative and transforming center, responsible for the protection and promotion of nature. Similarly, one is by nature social and a part of society; but rather than being subject thereto as an object, one is its creative center and must be an integral part of all decision making.

The movements of freedom in this half century reflect the emergence of new understanding of human dignity, equality, and participation in the socio-political process. This heightened sense of the dignity of the person and the search for adequate foundations for democracy naturally have generated new interest in religion. There, in the image of the Trinity, the three characteristics of being stand out in human life. First, self-affirmation is no longer simply a choice of one or another type of object or action as a means to an end, but a radical self-affirmation within Existence Itself. Second, self-consciousness is no longer simply self-directed after the manner of Aristotle’s absolute "knowing on knowing"; rather, the Absolute Truth knows all that it creates as being a reflection of its own being, truth and goodness. The participating instances of self-awareness image this by transcending themselves in relation to others. Finally, this new human freedom is an affirmation of existence as sharing in Love Itself, that is, in the creative and ultimately attractive divine life — or in Indian terms, "bliss" (ananda).

This new sense of being and freedom in the context of a culture marked by the Christian mysteries reflects the meaning of the Transcendent for man and of man. This culture is based in Christ’s death and Resurrection to new life; hence, Christian baptism is a death to the slavery of selfishness and a rebirth to a new life of service and celebration with others. Being is a gift or divine grace, but no less a radically free option for life on our part.

Philosophically, this new life of freedom means, of course, combating evil in whatever form: hatred, injustice and prejudice — all are privations of the good that should be. However, the focus of being, seen from our path to the Transcendent is not upon negations, but upon giving birth to the goodness of being and bringing this to a level of human life marked by an enriched harmony of beauty and love.

By way of conclusion to this study of a systematic Christian philosophy as a way to God it may serve to remark briefly upon the reality of the participants, the nature of the cause, and the task for a systematic philosophy.

2. This development of the systematic structure of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas generally has used not the term "God," but the terms "Absolute," "That One," and the like to state the Plenitude of being and perfection in which all participate. This was done in order both to illustrate and to test the conviction that the real content of a so-called "theistic metaphysics" is not incompatible with, but dependent upon and indeed coterminous with, the One that is articulated in terms of the Absolute. The oft supposed opposition between the so-called God of the philosophers and the God of revelation and scripture would appear to be predicated upon an inadequate understanding of either one or both terms.

Conversely, the term ‘absolute’ also has its vicissitudes. In order to protect this from limitation, affirmations of its positive perfection are at times denied, leaving in the final analysis an impersonal essence expressed in double negatives ungrounded in positive affirmation. A systematic metaphysics of participation concludes instead to the Absolute as supreme, indeed, subsistent being, the plenitude of perfection.

We saw the purification of the transcendental characteristics of being by removing from them all elements of limitation such as seeing their constitution as a composite of a limiting essence with their existence. When conjoined with reasoning from participating beings to the Plenitude in which they share, this manifested the Absolute to be Unity, Truth, and Goodness. If being in whatever degree is unique, knowing, and loving, then being which is subsistent Unity, Knowledge, and Love must be personal above all.

It was seen also that unity, truth, or goodness are explications of what is actually but only implicitly stated by being. Hence, they carry no implication of limitation or contrariety. The same must be said of identity, knowledge, or love which are the characteristics of the person. They are as open as is the meaning of existence itself, which each of these affirms in a progressively more explicit manner. Consequently, as such, "person" is not a closed or contrary notion, but is open as is truth and love. The more perfect the person, the more it is open and sharing; the more personal the communication the more it is able to be shared without diminution of its source. Again our paradigm is God, the subsistent Person (which theology would elaborate as triune) who, without loss, is the sharing of love, truth, and being itself.

This is not to say that humans have a comprehensive knowledge of God, or indeed of any existent; nor is it meant to imply that they can grasp the unique way in which God exists — the eminent and proper mode of deity. Neither of these is within human capabilities. But it does question the common assumption that there is an opposition, rather than a necessary identity, between the notion of the Absolute and that of the Personal God. In the systematic philosophy of Thomas they are identical and indispensable one to the other. Today, when our awareness of the meaning of person is subject equally to great threat and to development, this is perhaps the most creative element in the metaphysics of the religious traditions.

3. Taken together the two prior considerations generate a paradox for the human mind and suggest the importance of the work of philosophy. The first conclusion concerned the reality of the participated and differentiated universe, including humanity: both are from God as their origin and toward God as their goal. The second conclusion concerned the absolute character of God as the unparticipated, undifferentiated and incomposite. The conjunction of the two indicates that paradoxically both humans and their universe are directed toward that which definitively transcends them.

This must stand also as a test for every philosopher, drawing one beyond the successes of one’s system and urging one ever forward to more adequate awareness of the infinite correlation of Transcendence and Immanence. This is the eminently worthwhile task; it will ever challenge and elicit the combined efforts of mankind.

Dasgupta summarized the vision of the Upanishads as follows:

Every philosophical system must ask whether it or any other has succeeded in taking full account of, and giving definitive expression to, all the elements in that rich statement of the common patrimony of humankind. If the answer is "yes" then our philosophic work is completed. If not then in this age of science and technology, of rapid development of society and person, the philosophy department should be the most exciting place in the university. For it is there that one can reach most deeply into one’s heritage to retrieve meaning long since forgotten. There also, and in concert with other metaphysical systems in the heritage of mankind, one is invited to evolve the more ample systematic vision of that participation in Plenitude required in our increasingly complex times for the communion of men in God.

1. M. Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, ed. M. Saeed Sheikh (Lahore, Pakistan: Iqbal Academy and Institute of Islamic Culture, 1989).

2. Ibid., p. 32.

3. Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione, secondo S. Tommaso d’Aquino (Torino: Societa Ed. Internazionale, 1950).

4. Ibid.

5. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica (New York: Benziger, 1947), I, q. 2, aa. 2-3; Summa contra Gentiles, trans. by A. Regis (New York: Hanover House, 1955), II, 10-21.

6. See note 3 above.

7. Summa contra Gentiles, II, 16; Summa Theologica, I, qq. 11 and 14; On the Power of God (Westminster Md: Newman Press, 1952), q. 3, a. 1 ad 12; and Truth, trans. by R. W. Mulligan et al. (Chicago: Regnery, 1952-1954), q. 2, a. 5.

8. Maurice Nedoncelle, "Person and/or World as the Source of Religious Insight," in George F. McLean, ed., Traces of God in a Secular Culture (New York: Alba House, 1973), pp. 187-209.

9. Genesis I:31.

10. Gerald Stanley, "Contemplation as Fulfillment of the Human Person," in George F. McLean, ed., Personalist Ethics and Human Subjectivity, vol. II of Ethics at the Crossroads (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1995), appendix.

11. I John 2-3.

12. Mt 5:20-37.

13. George F. McLean, "Symbol and Analogy: Tillich and Thomas," Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa, XXVIII (1958), 193-233, reprinted in Paul Tillich in Catholic Thought, T. O’Meara and D. Weisser, eds. (New York: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 195-240.

14. Summa Theologica, I, q. 13.

15. Truth, qq. I and 21.

16. Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Study in the Greek Background of Mediaeval Thought (Toronto: PINS, 1951).

17. Raimundo Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism: Toward an Ecumenical Christophany (New York: Orbis, 1981).

18. Summa Theologica, 1, qq. 3 and 11.

19. De consolatione philosophiae, trans. by H.R. James (New York: New University Library, 1906), 5, 6.

20. See Parmenides; see also Shankara, Commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, Introduction.

21. Truth, qq. 1-8; Summa Theologica, 1, qq. 14 and 16.

22. Keith, p. 437.

23. Summa Theologica, 1, q. 15.

24. T. Kondoleon, "Exemplarism," New Catholic Encyclopedia, V, 712-15. See also On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 16 ad 5 and Summa Theologica, 1, q. 15, a2.

25. A.A. MacDonell, A Vedic Reader (Oxford: At the Claren-don Press, 1917) p. 210.

26. John 14:1-12.

27. Ibid.

28. John I:9.

29. Truth, q. 21; Summa Theologica, 1, qq. 19 and 20, a.1.

30. John Wright, "Divine Knowledge and Human Freedom: The God Who Dialogues," Theological Studies, XXXVIII (1977), 455.

31. Summa Contra Gentiles, 1, 76.

32. Wright, p. 464.

33. Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958), I, 606.

34. Yves R. Simon, Freedom of Choice, P. Wolff, ed. (New York: Fordham Univ. Press, 1969), p. 106.

35. Radhakrishnan, I, 103.

36. E. Gilson, Elements of Christian Philosophy (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 189-93.

37. Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 45 and III-I, 69.

38. Ibid., III-I, 69, 16 and II, 45, 7-8.

39. Abinash Bose, The Call of the Vedas (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1970), pp. 19-21, 30.

40. Jaeger, pp. 31, 203-206.

41. McLean and Aspell, Readings, p. 40, frs, 2, 6, 7.

43. Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975), I, 51.