We began the last chapter with some passages from Iqbal which I would like to recall here for, as was noted there, the path to which he pointed was not only that taken by al-Ghaz~l§, but that which is opening now at this dawn of the new millenium. For Iqbal making man at home in the world might be a proper task for "metaphysics . . . (as) a logically consistent view of the world with God as part of that view." But he saw another stage in which

metaphysics is displaced by psychology, and religious life develops the ambition to come into direct contact with the ultimate reality. It is here that religion becomes a matter of personal assimilation of life and power; and the individual achieves a free personality, not by releasing himself from the fetters of the law, but by discovering the ultimate source of the law within the depths of his own consciousness.1

 

the aspiration of religion soars higher than that of philosophy. Philosophy is an intellectual view of things; and as such, does not care to go beyond a concept which can reduce all the rich variety of experience to a system. It sees Reality from a distance as it were. Religion seeks a closer contact with Reality. The one is theory; the other is living experiences, association, intimacy. In order to achieve this intimacy thought must rise higher than itself, and find its fulfillment in an attitude of mind which religion describes as prayer — one of the last words on the lips of the Prophet of Islam.2

 

This, of course, is not a new venture. Classically the path had been elaborated by Augustine in a tradition richly elaborated by St. Bonaventure in his Itinerary of the Mind to God (Itinerarium mentis ad Deum). In this St. Anselm3 played a special role.

At the beginning of this century, it had appeared that the rationalist project of stating all in clear and distinct objective terms was close to completion. This was to be achieved in either the empirical terms of the positivist tradition of sense knowledge or in the formal and essentialist terms of the Kantian intellectual tradition.4 Whitehead writes that at the turn of the century, when with Bertrand Russell he went to the First World Congress of Philosophy in Paris, it seemed that, except for some details of application, the work of physics had been essentially completed. To the contrary, however, the very attempt to finalize scientific knowledge with its most evolved concepts made manifest the radical insufficiency of the objectivist approach and led to renewed appreciation of the importance of subjectivity.

Similarly, Wittgenstein began by writing his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus5 on the Lockean supposition that significant knowledge consisted in constructing a mental map corresponding point to point to the external world as perceived by sense experience. In such a project the spiritual element of understanding, i.e., the grasp of the relations between the points on this mental map and the external world was relegated to the margin as simply "unutterable." Later experience in teaching children, however, led Wittgenstein to the conclusion that this empirical mental mapping was simply not what was going on in human knowledge. In his Blue and Brown Books6 and his subsequent Philosophical Investigations7 Wittgenstein shifted human consciousness or intentionality, which previously had been relegated to the periphery, to the very the center of concern. The focus of his philosophy was no longer the positivist replication of the external world, but the human construction of language and of worlds of meaning.8

A similar process was underway in the Kantian camp. There Husserl’s attempt to bracket all elements, in order to isolate pure essences for scientific knowledge, forced attention to the limitations of a pure essentialism and opened the way for his understudy, Martin Heidegger, to rediscover the existential and historical dimensions of reality in his Being and Time.9 The religious implications of this new sensitivity would be articulated by Karl Rahner in his work, Spirit in the World, and by the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution, The Church in the World.10

"Appreciation"11 is a key element in Iqbal’s thought regarding religion. It unites the elements of the previous chapters of this work regarding systematic philosophy, namely, existence, the subsistence of the human person and the causal participation of human life in the divine. It does so, however, not as effective, objective realities to be known, but as subjective realities to be lived and savored in a manner that is itself as religious as prayer and contemplation. This is the intent of a phenomenology in terms of the consciously lived appreciation of our life as gift. It leads one to the total absolute, now however not only as a condition of knowledge, but as the source and hence the goal of love. This can be seen through phenomenologies of "gift", homecoming, the I-thou relation and participation. We shall look at each of these in turn.

This givenness appears also through reflection upon inter-personal relations. One does not properly create these, for they are possible only if one already has received one’s being. Further, to open to others is a dynamism which pertains to one’s very nature and which can be suppressed only at the price of deep psychological disturbance. Relatedness is given with one’s nature; it is received as a promise and a task: it is one’s destiny. One determines only the degree of one’s presence to others.12

This closure is done for good reason, but it leaves open a second — and for our purposes potentially important — sense of ‘given’. This is expressed by the nominative form, ‘donum’ or gift. In contrast to the other meanings, this points back, as it were, behind itself to its source in ways similar to the historians’ use the term ‘fact’. They note that a fact is not simply there; its meaning has been molded or made (facta) within the ongoing process of human life.13 In this sense it points back to its origin and origination; this could be a road home.

In the reductivist humanist horizon facts came to be seen especially as made by humans — conceived either as individuals in the liberal tradition, or as a class in the socialist tradition — to which correspond the ideals of progress and praxis, respectively. Because what was made by man could always be remade by him,14 this turned aside a radical search into the character of life as gift. Attention remained only upon the future, understood simply in terms of the human and especially of what humans could do by their own, either individual or social, praxis.

First, as notes Iqbal, by including only what is "objective" and abstractively clear, these approaches begin by omitting that which can be had only in self-knowledge, namely, one’s self-identity and all that is most distinctive and creative in a people’s heritage. Focusing only upon the objective which is analytically clear and distinct to the mind of any and every individual renders alien the notes of personal identity, freedom and creativity, as well as integrity, wholeness and harmony. These characterize the more synthetic philosophical and religious traditions which are realized by self-knowledge, and evoked in deep interpersonal bonds,15 under the personal guidance of a teacher, spiritual director or guru.16

Finally, were the making implied in the derivation of the term ‘fact’ from ‘facere’ to be wholly reduced to ‘self-making,’ and were the ‘given’ to become only the ‘self-given,’ we would have stumbled finally upon what Parmenides termed "the all impossible way" of deriving what is from what is not.17 Iqbal’s essential insight — shared by the Hindu, Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions — that all is grounded in the Absolute should guard against such self-defeating, stagnating and destructive self-centeredness.

Further, as an absolute point of origin with its distinctive spontaneity and originality, the giving is non-reciprocal. To attempt to repay would be to destroy the gift as such. Indeed, there is no way in which this originating gratuity can be returned; we live in a graced condition. This appears in reflection upon one’s culture. What we received from the authors of the Vedas, a Confucius or a Mohammed can in no way be returned. Nor is this simply a problem of distance in time, for neither is it possible to repay the life we have received from our parents, the health received from a doctor, the wisdom from a teacher, or simply the good example which can come from any quarter at any time. The non-reciprocal character of our life is not merely that of a part to the whole; it is that of a gift received to its source.18

It is privation and not merely negation, for negation simply is not and leads nowhere, whereas the gift is to be, and once given can be seen to be uniquely appropriate. It is absolute privation, however, for the foundation of creation is not at all on the part of the recipient since there is no prior subject to which creation is due. Rather, the basis or foundation of creation is entirely on the part of the source.19

Thus, religion as appreciation entails not withdrawal from the world, but its engagement and transformation. This appears from a continuation of the phenomenology of self or ego as gift, which implies in turn a correspondingly radical openness or generosity. As gift one is not something which is and then receives. It was an essential facet of Plato’s response to the problems he had elaborated in the Parmenides that the multiple can exist only as participants of the good or one. Receiving is not something they do; it is what they are.20 As such at the core of one’s being one reflects the reality of the generosity in which one originates. Hence, understanding oneself as gift entails understanding oneself also as giving of oneself in openness to others.

The nature of the insight which this way to God provides is richly articulated in terms of way, and specifically of journey and homecoming by Martin Heidegger. In these terms he infolds the working of the subjectivity of the poet as that in which the Holy, the Origin or the Ground is received and lived. Vensus George in his excellent work, Authentic Human Destiny,21 describes this with such unique and penetrating insight in his analysis of Heidegger’s work on Holderlin that he should be cited here at considerable length.

It is Being which summons Dasein to his homeland. The summoning takes the form of Being manifesting itself to Dasein in its characteristics. Firstly, Being is Glad-some (das Heitere), which suggests the nuances of brightness of the light, serenity and gentle joy.22 The Glad-some is the source of joy and so it is the most Joyous one (das Freudigste). The Glad-some, by sending rays of joy enlightens the homeland and makes it a welcome place for the homecoming Dasein. This, in turn, lights up the disposition of the home-comer to experience all that is noble in the homeland.23 Secondly, Being presents itself as the Holy (das Heilig). By >the Holy= Heidegger means neither God nor gods. >The Holy= is the ultimate conserving power which guards beings in the integrity of their being. Being, as the Glad-some, is the Holy. The articulation of the Holy constitutes the primordial poem, which is seen as the >thoughts= of Being-as-the-spirit.24 Thirdly, Being shows itself as the Origin (Ursprung). Heidegger says: A. . . what is most proper and most precious in the homeland consists simply in the fact that it is this nearness to the Origin — and nothing besides. . . .@ 25 Being, as the Origin, is best understood in the image of an overflowing and continuous source. It is Being, as source, that attracts the poet-wanderer to its nearness.26 Finally, Being shines forth itself as the Ground (Grund). Though Being is a continuous source, and gives itself out, it retains itself as the source constantly. In other words, Being, while giving itself out, does not empty itself, but rather remains a steadfast and consistent source. It is, in this sense of self-retaining and continuous source, that Being presents itself as the Ground.27

 

Thus, Being summons Dasein to its nearness by manifesting itself as the Glad-some, the most Joyous, the Holy, the Origin and the Ground. In Being=s manifestation of its qualities begins Dasein=s homecoming. Heidegger considers Dasein=s homecoming in terms of poetry, viz., in terms of bringing into poetry the primordial poetic presencing of Being. Being addresses and hails itself as the primordial poem, to which the poet (Dasein) must give expression in words. Dasein=s homeland is to be found in the very source that hails Dasein, viz., Being.28 There are three moments or stages in the poet=s homecoming.

 

The first moment depicts the poet=s early days and his experience of the source. The poet, as a youth grows up in the realm of the source, without ever fully appreciating it. But, as his poetic spirit is >open to the open=, he has some (pre-ontological) awareness of Being. But this awareness is often obscured as the source manifests itself in finite beings. The more he aims at penetrating the mystery of the source that is manifested in beings, he gets lost in things, and Being, as it were, evades him. Because of the withdrawing nature of the source he is not able to hold off the difference between Being and beings.29 In spite of this state of forgetfulness of Being, the poetic spirit (Being) keeps him oriented towards Being. The orientation towards the source evokes in the poet an awakening to go abroad to seek that which brings him closer to the source. Here, Heidegger compares the German poet, who is the master of form (clarity of exposition), but can be fully forgetful of the spirit, viz., fire, which is the characteristic of the Greek poet. The German poet can have fire, only if he has the courage to leave the homeland and make the journey abroad, so that in coming back after the journey he can dwell genuinely >at home= near the source.30 Such a journey abroad is an essential condition for the homecoming and becoming-at-home. Indeed, the journey from its first moment is a returning, as it is that which makes the poet experience what he really is, i.e., his poetic destiny.31

 

The second moment is the actual taking of the journey abroad. To experience the source, the poet must move with the stream, move down to the sea and experience the richness of the source.32 To appreciate the native soil, as the homeland that is near to the source, the poet must make a voyage to the land of Greece,33 and be burned by the fire of Being.34 In the journey, the poet is constantly guided by Being. Every experience abroad reveals more and more of the home. Finally, A. . . the fire has let him experience that it itself must be brought back from abroad into the homeland in order that there this proper endowment, the facility for clear expression, can release its native powers in relation to the fire.@35 It, in turn, will help him to produce a poetry of proper depth.

 

The third moment is the poet=s return to the homeland. It is the return to the homeland enriched by his experience abroad which brings the poet to maturity. It helps the poet to possess the homeland in a new and authentic way.36 For example, the poet=s voyage to Greece and being burned by the fire, which is characteristic of Greek poetry, helps him to understand the disciplined style and clarity of expression of German poetry in a new way, and this, in turn, would make him a mature poet.37 Thus, the poet=s homecoming helps him to understand his homeland in a new way. It is a moving into the nearness38 and a following of the source.39 But, the passage into the source is not such that we can dissolve the mystery dimension of the source or Being. The poet can never get at this fully. So Being, as mystery, has to be faced in reverential awe (Scheu).40 Being, as Joyous, is experienced by the poet with joy (Freude).41 Thus, the poet experiences Being by varying attunements. In the process he comes to the nearness of Being, and finds that therein lies his homeland. Being-at-home in his homeland, i.e., by his dwelling in the neighborhood of Being, the poet is able to sing or give expression, in poetry, to the Being-dimension of beings. It is the genuine homecoming and dwelling.

 

According to Heidegger, the following and drawing near to the source involved in homecoming, is not something accomplished once for all. It is Dasein=s original experience of homecoming which is brought about by the summoning of Being. It is Dasein=s original return to the source, i.e., Being. The process must continue as long as the poet remains a poet. It must be sustained and preserved by a continuous abiding in the nearness to the source, thereby making it a place of dwelling (Wohnen).42 To quote Heidegger: AThe one condition of becoming-at-home in his proper domain, . . . [is that] the journey abroad has been fulfilled. But this fulfillment remains fulfillment only on the condition that what has been experienced . . . is preserved.@43

 

Poetic dwelling consists in the poet=s continuous keeping of what he learned from the journey, viz., his awareness of the beginnings, the turning points and his original return. Besides, it involves a deeper appreciation of the Being=s poetic presencing, as the Glad-some, the Joyous, the Holy, the Source and the Ground, which has in the first place made the original homecoming possible. In other words, poetic dwelling involves a re-collecting poetically upon >what-is-past=. Such a poetic dwelling is not a mere remembering of >what-is-past= as past, but, rather, it, besides effectively bringing to memory >what-is-past=, makes the original homecoming a >still-to-come= experience in the future and a present experience of giving utterance to the original experience in the form of poetry. Thus, poetic dwelling, by which Dasein continues to dwell in the nearness of Being is temporal and it has the dimensions of recalling the past, coming to the future and rendering the present, in relation to the original homecoming. We could elaborate the poetic dwelling in these aspects of temporality, viz., the past, the future and the present.

 

The past, viz., the original homecoming, which was Being=s poetic presencing, is that on which the poet must poetically dwell. The past, in question, is not a mere memory of what has happened once and been forgotten, but it is such that it has an influence on the poet. Thus, the past, still, is a >having been=. The past, as >having been= is real to the poet now, as it was for him when he first experienced.44 The poetic dwelling on the past as >having been= on the part of the poet is a greeting or hailing (Gruessen)45 of Being for its poetic presencing. It involves a certain docility and self-surrender on the part of the hailer (the poet) to the hailed (Being). In doing so, the hailer allows the hailed, by his openness to be hailed, to shine forth in a way that is proper to the hailed. The hailed accepts the hail of the hailer and, in turn, hails the hailer.46 Thus, in the reciprocal haling of Being and the poet (Dasein), the original homecoming is re-lived and thereby preserved. Heidegger remarks on this point as follows: AThe heavenly fire (Being) imposes itself on him (the poet) who hails it . . . as thought and abides near him as that which comes-to-presence in . . . what-is-past (the original experience of homecoming).@47

The Holy or the Hailed is also the poet=s future, because by his poetic destiny, the poet must bring forth in words the original poetic presencing of the Holy.48 The Holy comes to the poet as a primordial poem, before his poetizing. The poet must bring the primordial poem into words. Thus, for the poet to dwell poetically upon >what-is-past=, i.e., upon the primordial poetic presencing of Being (original homecoming), is to dwell upon >what-is-coming= to him in the future, as by his poetic dwelling the poet experiences again and preserves the Holy as given in >what-is-past=. Dwelling upon >what-is-coming= is conversely to dwell upon >what-is-past=. In other words, the poet dwells upon the Holy that is given in the past as >having been= (the past) and as >that-which-is-coming= (the future). Thus, in the Holy, the past and the future are unified.49

 

When the Holy gives itself as the primordial poem and continues to come (future) to the poet, who has been hailed by the Holy itself by its original poetic presencing (past), the task of the poet is to render present (present) the Holy in the words of his poetry. The poet does this, insofar as he poetically dwells, by being at home near the source. The present dimension of the poetic dwelling consists fundamen-tally in that the poet learns to use his native propensity for poetry, viz. the ability for clear expression, and organization of the poetry, with an authentic freedom of the spirit. In the initial stage of poetic presencing the poet, though close to the source, neither knew the source clearly, nor was he aware of his inner propensity for poetry. But the original homecoming liberates him, and lets him know and dwell in the homeland, i.e., nearness to Being, besides letting him know his native ability for poetry in a new way. Thus, now, the poet knowing the source and the homeland, dwells in it poetically, and gives authentic expression to his experience of the source and the homeland, facilitated by his new awareness of his native ability for poetry. It happens only as a result of the poet’s experience of the original homecoming. To quote Heidegger: the poet "exercises (his) native endowment, the clarity of expression, >freely= only then, when what is clear in his utterance is permeated by the open experience of that which is exposed.@50

 

Thus, original poetic presencing of Being, i.e., the original homecoming of the poet is preserved and sustained as an ever-present dwelling in the nearness of being by poetic-dwelling. It involves: a re-calling it as an experience of the hailing of Being in the past; a waiting on it as an experience in which the Holy (Being) continues to come to the poet in the future; and as an experiencing of the Holy in the here and now, to which the poet gives the fullest expression in the present in poetry by using his inner ability for poetic utterance in an authentic freedom of the spirit. From what we have said, it could be concluded that the original presencing of Being in the primordial poem is preserved and sustained in the poetry or in the poetic word of the poet. William J. Richardson speaks of the poetic word of the poet as A. . . a word of >hailing= inasmuch as it greets what is past; at the same time, it is a >prophetic= word, inasmuch as it articulates what is coming; both for the same reason because it seeks to utter past and future in their original correlation, the holy as such. Such a word can be uttered only if the poet has learned to use his native talent with a freedom that is genuine.@51

 

Heidegger, thus, speaks of the attainment of dwelling in the nearness of Being, in terms of poetizing, both on the part of Being and that of Dasein (poet). Dasein is a dweller in the neighborhood of Being when he experiences giving of Being in poetic presencing and preserves it by poetic dwelling, by giving expression to his experience of Being in poetry. By using the image of poetic giving, poetic receiving and poetry, Heidegger drives home the point that Dasein=s dwelling in the nearness of Being is brought about by a reciprocal interaction of Being and Dasein.

 

A modern philosopher supposes that every man believes of necessity either in God or in "idols" which is to say, some finite good such as his nation, his art, power, knowledge, the acquisition of money, the "ever-repeated triumph with women" — some good that has become an absolute value for him, taking its place between him and God; and if only one proves to man the conditionality of the good, thus "smashing" the idol, then the diverted religious act will all by itself return to its proper object.52

 

If one serves a people in a fire kindled by immeasurable fate — if one is willing to devote oneself to it, one means God. But if the nation is for him an idol to which he desires to subjugate everything because in its image he extols his own — do you fancy that you only have to spoil the nation for him and he will then see the truth.53

 

As Buber pointed out, what is important here is not only the object of the concern, even if that be the quality of life what is; what is the truly fundamental is the character of the human subjectivity, of the concern for the quality of life. In this light the work of the playwright-philosopher, Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), is of particular significance to our project.54

Marcel’s attention is directed first to the quality of contemporary life and its effect upon the person’s self-understanding. What he finds is ominous. Economic and political structures interpret the entirety of human meaning and value simply in function of a rationalized system of production. Marcel points out, as Carnap eagerly insisted, that our being as persons is ignored by the modern scientific world-view. This focuses upon the surface; it understands man in terms of operational or functional relations; intentionally, it ignores the person’s interior being or autonomous center.55 Marcel called this attention to the surface, that is, to empirical detail only, primary reflection; it is objective, universal, analytic and verifiable.

Personally, it had always been clear to Marcel that the frag-mentary and partial data of the senses were inadequate. At first, however, he attempted to pass beyond this by means of abstraction to an Hegelian Absolute Knowledge or Bradlean Absolute Experience as self-sufficient, concrete, and more genuine than sense experience. From the beginning and throughout his life Marcel was in profound agreement with Bradley’s affirmation in Appearance and Reality of an original and immediate awareness of the One on the level of feeling.56 In science analytic reason fragments this unity in order to reunify it in a conscious manner. Science, however, can never fully realize this goal, and it remains for metaphysics to recapture unity on the level of thought.

On further reflection, however — similar to Plato’s enrichment of, rather than revolt against, Parmenides — he noted that the Absolutes of Hegel and Bradley allowed no place for the human thinking by which they were recognized and even demanded.57 They were abstractions. By this he did not mean that they were not real, for they were requirements of human thought. He meant rather that they needed to be opened to the reality of the person who is the subject of that thought.

This enabled Marcel not only to understand more deeply the dilemma which modern rationalism has constructed for man, but to derive some orientation for its resolution. On the one hand, when understood by idealism as the supreme principle of meaning and creativity, the self is "transcendentalized" as the universal and unifying principle. As a result, the portrait of the individual self which is dialectically derived therefrom by pure thought is too flattering; it is the human being as it should be, not as it is.58 On the other hand and paradoxically, because the person is seen only as a limitation of the Absolute Essence, one is devalued before this Unity.59 To the incursions of pragmatic functionalism, mentioned above, this adds the totalitarian and no less pragmatic oppressions by the dialectical rationalisms of both of the political right and left.

The threat, however, is not only from without. The gravest danger in philosophy is that if its vision is not sufficiently open, it will result in people devaluing themselves. The idealist position, wrote Marcel, "that each one of us is perfectly alone in life and that isolation is, as it were, the price paid for freedom . . . obstructs communication with other people by preventing him from even imagining them in their concrete reality."60

From all that has been said in the above chapters, one can suspect that so strong a stricture upon idealism from one who remains thoroughly committed to its major concern for a conscious and absolute Unity bespeaks the development of an added level of awareness This is concerned, as he says, "with other people . . . in their concrete reality." It is the essence of the very general contem-porary revolt against the essential as abstract and impersonal, and in favor of the existential as concrete and personal. This is a dimension of meaning with which any contemporary philosophy must grapple, for, like the knowledge of good and evil, it enables what previously had been seen only in its positive meaning to be appreciated in its ambiguity. For example, Marcel even urges that in the context of a Bradlean idealism self-consciousness had seemed to have only unlimited positive meaning. Now, however, far from being an illuminating principle as traditional philosophy has held, this very idealism is seen to shut the human person in upon him- or herself and thus result in opacity rather than enlightenment.61 If man cannot do without that light, however, the question now is how the ambiguity can be clarified and the negative side surmounted so that the light might once again illumine the person’s path or way to God.

To take account of the concrete person, Marcel sees the need for a new type of reflection. Unlike first reflection this does not abstract and universalize; it does not seek information about an object or treat it simply as an instance of a specific type. Rather it is concerned with the full concrete reality of being, with what Marcel calls their ontological weight.62 This is being taken not as a noun but as a verb, with all the act that implies. Whereas first reflection was an attempt to obtain complete and fixed data which will enable anyone to carry out an exhaustive analysis of an object, second reflection concerns this personal reality of the subject in its ontological weight as self-affirmation which is not subject to exhaustive analysis.

Second reflection, as phenomenological method, has a further implication for Marcel. If the one to whom we relate must not be reduced to an object, neither must we ourselves be omitted from the concrete reality of this encounter. On entering personal relations we are not abstract and inert as measuring rods, but concrete and active as selves.63 Here, there can never be the Cartesian ideal of a perfect problem analogous to mathematics.

One of Marcel’s reflections might help to trace the main lines of his thought; it is his reflection upon creative fidelity, elaborated in his book by the same title.64 Step by step its reflection upon personal experience reveals the character both of personal participation and of the Absolute Plenitude which is its precondition. Typically, it is carried out in terms, not merely of two persons in general for that would be an abstraction, but, for example, of Arthur and Agnes. Further, the circumstances also are concrete, as in a play. At no point in the phenomenological reflection on these acts will there be a process of universalization; the reflection will move rather by convergence of the concrete details of what actually occurs. It is in this existential convergence or synderesis that the ontological weight or true meaning of life and its preconditions will be revealed.

For example, Agnes is visited by Arthur when she is teaching in a distant village, and Arthur promises to return in a few days; or in a moment of exaltation Arthur asks Agnes to marry him, promising to love her always. Marcel would note that Arthur’s promises are not the factual statements that he is visiting Agnes or does love her; they state that he will visit her and will love her always. What is important here is that such promises, while concrete, are not conditioned upon the particular circumstances of their time and place. Such conditions in their partial, conflicting, and incoherent nature are treated as negligible. Rather, he promises to love her, as it were, despite them — no matter what!65

The radical totality in this mutual act of freedom by Arthur and Agnes manifests a transcendent Presence, for this totality can be understood only through its direction to being fully, and basically to the fullness of being which is Being Itself. This is the condition of possibility for their life together being not a mere succession of separate and dissociable actions, but a continuous and unified whole. Due to this their fidelity to each other is not static, inert or immobilizing, but active and creative.66 Formal correspondence to abstract laws which are clear, distinct and univocous for all will be necessary, of course, but not sufficient. Rather, their life will constitute an actively developing recognition of a living, personal and transcendent ontological Presence. This can never be grasped; it can even be forgotten or betrayed. Nevertheless, it is continually evoked as that in terms of which each moment of fidelity is lived; it is the living fullness of truth and love of which all that is true and good in person’s lives are participations.

Participation, then, does not imply that one’s life is set and predetermined as a part of the whole. The transcendence of this Presence enables one’s life to be spontaneous and yet in its freedom to be united with others. We are not an assemblage of isolated individuals playing prefixed roles which, in a Bradlean manner, are designed to coincide. We are ever new creations shaping our lives in active communion as in an orchestra, that is, in the act of living with others.67 Other persons are neighbors who stand before one not as objects to be dealt with, but as selves to be greeted. Together persons form a fraternity or community built not upon a deadening equality resentful of difference, but upon a common sonship. This is lived by a diversity of persons, but as children of the one God and hence as brothers one to another. The success of one enriches and ennobles the others; the sufferings and sorrows of each are matters of common concern.

This is more than a mere relation of given individuals, even one that is stable and lasting. More properly it is a communion, for in this each finds his or her being and freedom.68

This tie not only does not fetter him, but frees him from himself. . . . Each one of us tends to become a prisoner of himself not only in his material interests, his passions, or simply his prejudices, but still more essentially in the predisposition which inclines him to be centered on himself and to view everything from his own perspective.69

 

The more intense the recognition and response to others the more one breaks away from this self-centeredness and the greater the intimation of the suprapersonal "real and pleromic unity where we will be all in all."70 From this comes hope, not as a series of particular claims to be achieved by our efforts, but as a relaxation, a humility, and a patience which enables us to see things whole and to respond with total love, dedication and perseverance.

Is the "pleroma," or Plenitude in which all participate personal? If by personal is meant someone related as a contrary to others, then this would not apply; it should be called, not impersonal, but suprapersonal. Thus, in his Metaphysical Journal he refers to God as the "Absolute Thou" which is not an object, a "he".71

Co-operating systems. Regarding the condition of the tools for systematic philosophy, Dasgupta’s History of Indian Philosophy and most other studies of Indian philosophy present philosophical systems in parallel fashion, distinct and almost separate one from another, much as did Madhva in his Sarva-darsana-samgraha in the thirteenth century. Dasgupta notes that "As a system passed on it had to meet unexpected troublesome criticisms for which it was not in the least prepared. Its adherents had therefore to use all their ingenuity and subtlety in support of their own positions, and to discover the defects of the rival schools that attacked them."72 The same has been true in other regions of the world.

First, is there implicit in the contemporary concern for both the physical development of the world’s resources and the preservation of the environment a newly developing awareness of reality? If so, could this enable the attention of a Madhva and a Carnap to the diversity of the world to be seen as complimentary rather than as contradictory to the principles of unity and meaning as found in Shankara and Heidegger.73 Would not some causal participational model help in making it possible to understand and articulate, not only how the universe founds its reality in the One, but how the One proclaims its reality by sharing it with multiple beings as universe?

Second, is there in the contemporary reaffirmation of freedom democratically shared among men an implicit deepening in awareness of personal affirmation which might enable us to draw out the deeper truth of the thought of Ramanuja and Shankara if seen as complementary rather than as mutually exclusive? Ramanuja’s notion of attributes which qualify, and in that sense limit, the divine would need to be corrected in the light of Shankara’s clear proclamation of the Absolute’s unity and Plenitude of perfection: Parmenides will always have said the most important word!74 But in order to take account of the person it is important to trace participation to its source as unfolded through some sequential pattern of unity, truth and goodness. As transcendental each would be open and unlimited in its affirmation of being; hence, they would not qualify or limit the divine which they progressively explicate. This might help, not only to ground persons in the One, but to articulate the life of the Absolute, and to uncover the meaning of that life for social cohesion, justice and progress in our increasingly complex societies.

The real question is whether and how this order of nature actually relates to the area of freedom one has in the divine, and hence to what degree one can exercise a creative freedom in imaging the divine in the technological area. Solving this problem points to the basis of the human understanding of nature. Progress can be made on this problem by reflecting upon the nature of God Himself as absolute and perfect, as being in His simplicity the plenitude of all perfection. This combination of the infinity of perfection with the unity of the Divine is most important for our problem, because it means that there is no perfection, actual or conceivable, which is not included in the simple unity which is the Divine itself. The vast possibilities which open before man in this technological culture, the new usages for matter and new forms of material and social development which are conceivable by the limitless capacity of the mindCall are included within the unity of the infinite simplicity.

Having neither past nor future, the eternal holds all this in perfect possession.75 The term ‘possession’ is, however, capable of still further meaning. The Aristotelian conception of knowledge has always identified knowing with unity, rather than with the dichotomy of subject and object. This is reflected in Thomas Aquinas for whom God as Truth itself is the perfection of divine Unity. As unlimited perfection, he is unlimited intelligibility; further, as unlimited act he is also unlimited knowing. The identification of both intelligibility and knowing constitutes in a most perfect way truth itself.76

This identification of the source of all being with an unlimited simple and absolute truth is the guarantee, the inspiration and the challenge of the person in this technological age. It is the guarantee because it assures that no structure or category which expresses a limited degree of perfection or of being can ever be identified with truth itself or can ever stand as a limit to human striving toward further perfection. Thus, if the forms of nature are increasingly relativized and transcended, it is not a movement towards irrationality or arbitrariness, but rather towards a new, more complete and more profound manifestation of Truth Itself. Striving towards further self realization, humanity is always striving towards a new participation in the infinite perfection of the Divine. In doing this rationally, it is participating in the knowledge had by the ultimate exemplar cause, according to which God understands the ways in which His absolute perfection is imitable in an unlimited number of ways.77 Thus, one can draw a parallel between the Divine Word as containing the intelligible perfection of all creatures and the human artisan who contains in his or her mind the plans for that which he or she will produce.78

22. Cf. HD, p. 18.; EB, p. 247. In this text, >das Heitere= is translated as the >serene=, which is one of the nuances contained in the German term, but William J. Richardson, Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought, translates it as the >Glad-some= (The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1974), p. 444, fn. 8.